Saturday 29 August 2009

Inefficiently hard-working Japanese

You'll see a lot of inefficient (but very thoroughly done) things when you visit Japan. Sometimes I find it funny, more often than not I find it frustrating but I'm pretty-much always intrigued by it. I honestly hate inefficiency in the work place and particularly in the public sector but even so, its sometimes difficult to separate inefficient practices and the famously high level of customer service you find here. Once in a while though something absurd happens and makes me remember all the little things that have frustrated you before. Flicking back through my things, here's a few things to look out for if you're in Japan or planning a visit.

Thursday 27 August 2009

Is Adobe holding back Flashplayer features for strategic business reasons?

Acrobat Connect Pro

I originally posted this via the Adobe Bug site and tried to contact Adobe  in May 2009. I got no response but this is still quite relevant.

Being arguably the most requested feature on Adobe's own bug tracking site and already present in an internal fork of Flashplayer, Adobe has so-far dodged all questions regarding this. I'm now mid-development on an alternative browser plugin to make up for these short comings. (More on that in weeks to come.)

Wednesday 26 August 2009

The war is over. I give up.

Those that know me know that when it comes to tech, I'm quite often on the pulse but occasionally VERY slow on the uptake.

MP3 player in your car? I'll have that ready for you in 1998 when the Rio (anyone remember those?) first came out. I'm still wondering if I should buy that iPod though...

Enter August 2009. About a decade after the world started using the term blog, I find myself starting my own. I kind of consider it an admission of defeat! I stood firm for 10 years, holding strongly to my belief that no sane person would publish their life to the world and expect anyone to bother reading it. I did my best to fight valiantly but I have lost the war. :-)

My only solace is that I was at least partially right - no-one wants to read a blog about a person's everyday life.  I intend to use this space to blog about programming, technology, entrepreneurship, life in Japan, etc. I'll keep what I had for lunch under wraps for now.

Anyway, now I've got one of these, does it mean I get to eat my lunch with the cool kids or with the nerds?