Below is a letter I have written and sent to several relevant government departments.  It expresses a recent situation I had with my iPhone that has left me quite livid.

–

Dear xxxx

I am writing to request that you investigate Apple Computer for fraudulent behavior and theft.

Let me explain the situation. I own an iPhone. I have purchased applications from the Apple Online Store. This is the only method of putting applications on your phone that is sanctioned and does not void the warranty.

Apple is engaging in monopolistic behavior. Restricting applications that might compete with it’s own applications (ie: Adobe Flash, Media Player, and even smaller utilities and features which they plan to add to the iPhone at a later date.)

But Apple has gone a step further. You see, I bought a little application called “iStat” made by a company called Bjango. The application had a “free memory” tool. This allowed me to free up available memory (for the non-computer saavy, think of it as emptying the garbage can when it’s full). It worked great. Many of the performance issues (sluggishness, crashes, freezes) I was having with my iPhone were resolved thanks to this tool.

Apple forced Bjango to remove this feature from their application. This has led to my iPhone suffering many crashes and freezes. Furthermore, I contacted Apple at 5pm today, expressing my dissatisfaction and requesting a refund. They refused my refund. So wait a minute, I bought an application, Apple forces the developer to remove the feature that I bought the application for, and then refuses to give me a refund when they have invalidated the value of the software for me.

Essentially, they reached into my phone. A device I OWN, not Apple. And took away a feature. Not from their software, but from software of another company.obs arse.

Sincerely,
Jason

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Yes, I know I didn’t have to update. Yes, I am sure some pretentious person will say I should have read what was in the update. But let’s be realistic. Numerous iPhone apps are updated every couple weeks.  No one has the time to go through and read what dozens of apps state as the updates on a given basis. Nor should someone expect key significant features of an application to be removed in an update.

And hence, the entire problem with the iTunes store.

Adobe is offering for a limited time a personal license for Flex Builder for those that have fallen on hard times (ie: unemployed).  The license is intended to be for learning only, and no production, but I am fine with that.  When the time for production arrives, the $$$ for a license should shortly follow.

https://freeriatools.adobe.com/learnflex/

First off, I have to say a heartfelt thank you to Adobe. Adobe you rawk!

Being one who is currently unemployed, and wanting to further my skills. I found myself getting concerned with the upcoming expiration of my trial edition of Flex Builder.  This just eliminated one significant area of stress.

Many Americans have lost their jobs, including many within the IT community.   In a time when America is struggling financially, when many companies have found themselves in difficulty and government intervention is on the rise – trust is key.   Americans are struggling with trusting both their government and the big corporations.  The management and actions of both often of questionable judgment.

So when Americans see  a company with as deep pockets as  Microsoft

Microsoft is building a bridge across the interstate in order to connect their two campuses.  In fact, from looking at the picture in the article at CNN, it’s quite a nice bridge.  But when nearly half the funds are coming from taxpayers at a cost of tens of millions of dollars.  Americans are left with a lot of questions.

1) Why are we paying for a bridge to Microsoft.

2) If the funds are not there, why are they designing a designer bridge? Would not a simple ordinary bridge be suitable?

3) Isn’t this the time for those corporations with deep pockets to be contributing to the community, not taking away. 

The claim is  that there will be additional traffic from people other than Microsoft employees.  According to a study which purports that only 40% of the traffic will be Microsoft employees.  Such studies often have questionable track records. Who funded the study? Were there counter-studies done? 

With Microsoft struggling with a bad image since Vista. And hoping for a significant turn-a-round come Windows 7.  It seems to me this bridge has the potential to turn into really bad publicity. Americans are getting a bit tired of our tax money being handed out like political candy, especially in a time when so many of us are struggling, facing unemployment or worse.  Bailing out a company with billions in the bank just seems wrong. 

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/31/bridge.microsoft/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

UPDATED: Microsoft’s response here…

We will be having our first meeting of the Susquehanna Flash/Flex User Group (SVFUG) next Tuesday, January 27th @ 6:15pm.

SVFUG is a community group for sharing knowledge regarding Adobe Flash based products and auxiliary tools catering to the York/Lancaster area.  Each meeting will usually have 1-2 sessions at varying educational levels and differing topics.  We will also be providing pizza/soda during a break.

I know a number of individuals have already expressed interest in furthering their knowledge of Flash and/or programming. I wanted to give everyone an opportunity to attend.  This is a great opportunity to learn, and potentially, to network with others in our community.

If you are interested (and live in the area), I suggest you click here, create an account at groups.adobe.com, and join SVFUG at the following link

http://groups.adobe.com/groups/f8d9c4add8/summary

I have a number of old photo galleries generated from Photoshop CS2. A few of them are Flash based gallery.  Recently, I discovered that these were no longer loading and giving me a Flash Player not detected error.  The galleries in fact DO work, and if you click on the pass thru link you will arrive at a working photo gallery. But let’s be honest – what user is going to click that link?

So I started tracing the code and located the problem inside the FlashObject.js file. It’s quite comical really. The Flash Player detection code grabs a plugin description (ie: Flash Player 9.34) and then checks for the version by finding the period and selecting the character to the left. Woot!!! We have the version #.

Here was the code:

flashversion = y.charAt(y.indexOf(‘.’)-1);

Except, while that worked for versions 1-9, we now are at 10. And the above code returns a version number of zero.  So I modified the code below. It’s not the tightest code but it’s more readable.

var tmp10 = y.charAt(y.indexOf(‘.’)-2);
var tmp1 = y.charAt(y.indexOf(‘.’)-1);
if(isNaN(tmp10) == false)
{
flashversion = tmp10 + ” + tmp1;
}
else
{
flashversion = y.charAt(y.indexOf(‘.’)-1);
}

The result…Flash Player 10 is now detected. As will be other double-digit versions. And frankly, if my photo galleries are still around by Flash Player 100 – I will probably not be!

***
I am posting the revised version of this file for download for those who are not programming literate. Simply download and unzip this file and replace the old FlashObject.js from your Photoshop CS2 generated photo gallery.

Download Revised flashobject.js File

As of today you’ll notice a new iPhone icon in the right side panel.  This will bring you to an iPhone edition of the S.A.S.S.I.E. Blog – it’s not fancy. It’s a reduced media version. But it’s formatted nicely for the iPhone and quite speedy – courtesy of Intersquash.

Click!

There is another alternative if you can use WordPress plug-ins called WPTouch, but not sure if I can do that with the hosted version of WordPress.

PS – If anyone figures out how to implement the “WPTouch” version on a hosted wordpress.com blog. Please let me know – thanks!

http://gizmodo.com/5078124/vader-toaster-is-most-awesome-bread+branding-device-yet

***

Be sure to check out John Wilker’s Booth @ Adobe’s MAX

Oh and here is a photo from 360FlexCamp I have been meaning to post up:

A while back I did a series of posts addressing hyperlinking with a target of “_blank”; and how it was being blocked by various browsers.

Adobe had their Flex 3 Cookbook Cook-Off, and I submitted the above work-a-round.

Well, apparently I won the “Community Choice Award”:

“Community choice award: $350 (US) in O’Reilly Media books (this is the top-rated recipe during contest time period) “

Woo-hoo!!!

I’ll have plenty of reading material for a while, that’s for sure…

Best practices are simply what we will call bad practices in ten years.

Shout out to everyone here with me @ 360FlexCamp!

Click here to see….