I had intended on posting about all of the features I am excited for in the upcoming iPhone OS 4.0 software update (of which there are many), but Apple did a nice job of spoiling that with ...

• More reminders of their continued belief that the HTML5 markup language is a direct equivalent to and a capable replacement for Flash, Flex and AIR ... where it definitely is not.
• A re-written development agreement that not only restricts Flash Platform developers from creating for the iPhone and iPad platforms, but also C# and [possibly] JavaScript developers.
• Confirmation of their laughable approach to informing the User of non-support for browser plugins (e.g. hiding it from them).

Sure, a lot of these things present an immediate problem just for what Adobe is moving towards with Flash, but they are also restricting the progress of Internet technologies in general (SilverLight and Unity 3D come to mind). I know Apple still considers the iPhone a "breakthrough Internet device" and really, in comparison to the rest of the current phone market, it is. But with so many competitors so hot on on their heels AND providing an open environment for development, their leading position is going to start slipping.

Plus, with the advent of new devices like the iPad which border on desktop-computing replacements, a restricted Internet is not in anyone's best interest. If I am going to "see the web like never before", I'd rather see ALL of it.

I have been working to understand more aspects of the Flash platform and how we are implementing it in our Full Sail curriculum and this XML basics article I just found was really helpful in explaining E4X syntax and how to traverse the XML node tree.

The article does mention implementing the Flash IDE for their code, but Flex Builder is a much nicer environment for building ActionScript projects. Plus, you can install a copy of the XML Buddy Eclipse plugin in FB and it just happens to be one of the few XML editors that auto-completes custom nodes (the only other one I've found is Espresso).

Even though I have no plans of releasing these to the public, I thought you might enjoy seeing this fun little cross-platform project I have been working on. It is really just a fancy list for me to keep handy and remind me of what to work on most days. Not only does it come with a spiffy iPhone version (including a custom iPhone icon, of course), it now has an Adobe AIR version that can be run on a Mac, Windows or Linux system.

The best part? Each deployment pulls from the same HTML source and will a little bit of RegEx magic and JavaScript conditionals, each gets its own look and feel. If you haven't already looked into working with AIR through HTML and JavaScript, it is definitely a lot o' fun. I wasn't really in the mood to set up a site in Dreamweaver or dive into Aptana while working on this, so I took the super nerdy route and did all the AIR debugging and compiling right out of Terminal. Definitely good times.

It has been a few days now since Ars Technica announced Google's Developer Preview for Chrome on the Mac and I have been loving every minute of it. While I do miss the robust plugin architecture of Firefox and the slickness of Safari 4's "Top Sites", Chrome's speed trumps all.

New tabs and windows are quick to respond and page loading is ever so snappy. And though I am not entirely won over by it yet, I now also have a chance to fully test Bing as a search engine alternative ... not just as a second-class citizen, but fully integrated into my normal search workflow.

There are several features I am sure Chrome will add in further releases, hopefully including the full "Develop" menu from Safari's WebKit, a more customizable "New Tab" screen (I want one more row of thumbnails), and AppleScript support (Chrome is not currently compatible with Little Snapper) ... but for being a developer preview, it is a really solid experience and is currently my default browser.

Oh and here is the direct link for the download. Enjoy!

Despite how much I love the new Safari 4 features, I have been experiencing some really poor performance as of late ... specifically, a 3-5 second stall at every new window launch, new tab or trying to scroll through a part of a page I had not been using previously. Though it may be due entirely to the upgrade to Snow Leopard, I don't have anything concrete to back up that theory and am forced to wait for an dot update from Apple.

In the interim, I have switched over to Firefox. Not my favorite by a long shot, but still a decent browser ... especially with the help of its mighty plug-in system. Besides the Chromifox theme, which is just for fun, there are plenty of extensions that make browsing pretty bearable in the Mozilla world.

Here are some of my favorites, though a few still need to be updated to work with 3.5 ...

• 1Password - Everyone's favorite pword manager
• Charles - A nifty, but not free, bandwidth throttling system
• CodeBurner - I haven't found a good workflow for this yet (I prefer my Coda Reference Books), but you might
• Cooliris - A great tool for finding photo references or just getting lost in some Flickr artwork
• Delicious - Direct deli.ico.us bookmark integration ... the only way to fly
• Download Statusbar - Keeping that pesky download window out of your hair
• Fangs - Seeing from the screen-reader's standpoint
• Fast Dial - A poor replacement for Safari's Top Sites, but it will have to do for now
• Firebug - An essential plugin for the HTML, CSS and Javascript developer
• Firefox PDF Plugin - In-browser PDF viewing
• Pronounce - A sweet lil' addition for all you English language and vocabulary lovers out there
• RetailMeNot - Great coupon site ... and a great auto-sensing plugin
• Searchbar Autosizer - Kinda silly that you need it, but so helpful once you have it
• Web Developer Toolbar - I still like Safari's Develop menu for some things, but this is the de facto standard for web development tools.

With the currently progressing update to the Dra Studio and some recent client projects, I have been trying to find a decent WordPress theme or framework that I could start from and build each future project on. After trying out quite a few nice and fully-featured ones, including Thematic, Hybrid, Starkers, The Buffet Framework, and Emptiness, I found myself more encumbered than enabled ... having to match up with their structure and layouts, working within their rigid (or at least overly-complex) CSS style frameworks, etc.

I ended up utilizing the clean and simple 1024px theme as a staring point and building out my own parent theme. I'll probably continue to tweak it as I move forward with projects (e.g. just this weekend I added some baseline CSS typography styles, using insight from the Blueprint framework), but it has already aided me immensely in my WordPress deployments. So has MAMP ... which, if you haven't already switched to locally developing WP installs, you should.

One of my favorite Action Script-ers to follow, Felix Turner of AirTight Interactive, recently posted about all of the applications, plugins and resources he uses for Flash development. It is definitely a list worth checking out (as are many of the lists compiled by the great Smashing Magazine) and if nothing else, it gave me a reason to draw this nerdy guy, marking out all of the languages and frameworks I am either working with or delving into.

I've been incrementally been posting about the tools I use for design and development (especially about my favorite leafy friend), so I won't do that here ... but if you've been missing out, definitely head back and check out some of the older posts.

And as much as this guy pales in comparison, I still thought it was worth mentioning ... in honor of Jake Parker's sweet Inktober project, I drew this straight to ink, using a dull Faber Castell brush pen. Oh and in case you missed it, Bob Flynn is also joining in on Inktober. Love his work, in Flash and out!

There is an easy way have 10.6 load the 32-bit version of Perl, but unfortunately, even after doing so, it looks like Validator is still having some other issues.

There is no contact information on Robert Crews' website, so I went searching for some viable replacements. Apple has a Developer Connection article installing a local W3C HTML Validator and you can download nifty Stand-Alone HTML/XHTML Validator for the Mac (which Veerle made some nice icons for), but neither will validate against a custom DTD.

Enter XMLMate ... the open-source, robust TextMate plugin for "Checking XML and XHTML documents for Well-Formedness and Validity while editing them in TextMate with support for DTD, W3C XML Schema, RELAX NG, Schematron, XInclude, XML Catalog, and XPath 2.0 Visualizer". Yeah. Wow, indeed.

I still don't own a copy of the pricey TextMate (despite how much I like it), but this add-on is nice enough for me to click thru the license screen every launch. Enjoy.

While creating an example AS3 file for our Deployment of Flash Projects class just now in Flex Builder, I almost found myself in an absurd "the-files-are-missing" predicament that we hear about every now and then from our students. Turns out some of it may not be so absurd ...

While Flex Builder allows for multiple Undos in several areas of its interface, it also has a subtle way of not indicating where those Undos are taking place. Example? At the start of my project, I created a new folder to store some assets (FLA, SWC, etc.). While progressing through the project, writing code and undo-ing in a few class files, I happen to accidentally click into the "Flex Navigator" pane. The next time I hit undo, FB undoes the creating of my "assets" folder. I don't notice and continue working and the next time I compile or head to the Flash IDE to update the graphics, I get reference errors because of the missing files. Dandy, ain't it?

This could possibly be a workflow/UX issue that stems from the underlying Eclipse environment, but maybe Adobe will read this and realize they need to work harder to improve their "go to" Flash/Flex development environment.

I happend to be testing one of the current Illustrative projects locally and notice the following PHP error on my date('y') function:

The error wasn't occurring online, since the live server's php.ini file or the server itself was setting a timezone. Turns out that the newest version of PHP (5.1.0) that ships with Snow Leopard now requires that a default timezone be set.

You can read through the quick fix on the Mac OSX Hints site to resolve the issue on your machine.