We just welcomed our second son this morning (of course, he looks so much like our first son that you’ll just have to take my word that this is a picture of number #2.

Mom’s fine.

After two weeks of downtime, BeyondSecond.com is back up!

What happened?

Roughly two weeks ago, Beyond Second’s hosting provider migrated to new servers. The hosting provider resells RackSpace (one of the biggest and most reliable hosts in the business), so the hardware wasn’t the issue, however, our hosting provider apparently didn’t prepare for the DNS changes associated with such a move. In the end, what this meant was that the site went down, and we couldn’t even access the site files to download and move them.

So what did you do?

We were finally able to access the site files after four days–even though the site was still not displaying at the Web address. Ultimately, this oversight by our host, compiled with the fact that we were exceeding our hosting limit (and would have had to pay extra for more space), made us decide to change hosting providers. We settled on Bluehost, one of the largest shared hosting companies out there. Besides their reliability, they offer unlimited hosting space, so B2 won’t be running out of space in the near future (if ever!).

But what took so long?

There were a variety of issues, starting with establishing old account info with Bluehost (B2 actually had an account on Bluehost back in ’06), to permissions issues (1600 photos were stubbornly not backing up). Trust me, this couldn’t have occurred at a worse time, as work has been really busy and my wife’s technically due with our next child as I write this.

It was really cool hearing from those of you who immediately noticed the site was down, and I apologize for the delays. Once things settle down a bit here, I’m hoping we can add some new features to the site to further support the community. In the meanwhile, happy posting, and if you notice any issues please ping me!

With the last manager leaving the area, I offered and recently became co-manager of the Central PA Flash User Group (CPFUG). Frankly, based on the last few meetings, CPFUG was dying, but I hope it’s something I can help reverse. I’m not much for managerial positions (especially with my time about to be soaked up by a new baby next month), but my time attending FlashCodersNY meetings made me appreciate the wealth of a dedicated user group community.

I have a few ideas that I hope can help spurn interest, but I also hope to reach out to the local Flash/Flex community and determine what it is that would make the meetings more valuable.

To start, we’re moving our meeting location–and considering a revolving meeting place. In the past, meetings have been held at JPL and PSECU. I don’t know about you, but by the end of the day, I’m not interested in sitting in another meeting room, and I think a casual setting’s just the right place.

Our next meeting is scheduled for 6-8pm today at Appalachian Brewing Company in Harrisburg (upstairs). We’re going to start a series of meetings covering “Actionscript 3.0 Animation: Making Things Move!” by Keith Peters. Attendance is free, though you’re encouraged to bring a copy of the book and a laptop with Flash installed (if you have either).

Also, feel free to bring Flash-related questions or suggestions you may have for group. Hope to see you there!

Designing my own portfolio has always been one of the most time-consuming projects because I, like any other designer, become my own harshest critic.

While I still intend to redo my company’s site in Flash, I decided in the meantime to redo my portfolio in an iPhone-friendly format by using only HTML, CSS, and Javascript (For those that might have come across my guest post on Fathom’s blog, I’m sure this must come off as an about-face). I didn’t really use HTML 5-specific tags like <header>, <footer>, etc., since my site needed to remain accessible, and I relied heavily on JQuery for the animation. Up until this point, I’ve read the complaints for and against both Flash and HTML 5, but this gave me the opportunity to guinea pig my own site and experience the issues firsthand.

Development Environment Differences

The first big difference I noticed was the work environment. JavaScript wasn’t really intended as an object-oriented language, and the work process felt much messier than building the site in classes (ala ActionScript). Furthermore, since many of the divs were hidden on page load, I felt that I wasn’t able to quickly preview elements during development. I ended up relying heavily on the Firefox Firebug plugin and going back-and-forth between the browser and the code.

Search Engine Accessibility

From a search engine standpoint, the differences between the two technologies feels somewhat of a wash. Both sites would have a page title and meta tags, so there’s no big advantage for either here. On the plus side for HTML, absolutely everything can be interpreted by all major search engines. Had I done the site in Flash, only Google would have been able to partially parse the SWF file. On the other hand, I couldn’t take advantage of separate URL paths or page titles like I could with Flash (with the addition of the SWFAddress). the only way I could have done this would be to force a page refresh–an interruption in the experience I really didn’t want to occur. Actually, Asual has the JQuery Address plug-in, which does the same thing as SWFAddress. Thanks @kweerious.

Font Options

The decision of HTML over Flash heavily impacted my font choices as well, since HTML pages are reliant upon client machines having the font installed. Flash, on the other hand, can simply embed the font. Granted, there’s alternatives, like SiFR and Cufón, however, I didn’t want to use Flash replacement text and don’t like the fact that Cufón doesn’t allow for text selection (neither of these options, by the way, seem to be intended for extensive font use).

Another option is to use the @font-face call with the Web Open Font Format (WOFF). This format places font files on the server for the HTML page to reference, and is currently the frontrunner for inclusion in the HTML 5 spec. WOFF is certainly the most elegant (see the recently-designed splash page I completed for metalledwith for example), however, because the font files are available on the server, the file can easily be downloaded illegally. Not wanting to infringe upon the license I have for Futura and not wanting to make all of the text into images, i simply used a safe system font (Trebuchet).

Browser Inconsistencies

A good front end designer ensures that their Website renders consistently across a variety of browsers. In the case of Flash, there’s really no need to test, as the plug-in ensures consistency across browsers and platforms. In my case, Internet Explorer protested to using transparent PNG files, so it required additional code. Furthermore, while the code I used to generate an image reflection is proven to work in IE7, it didn’t want to work with how I built the reflection into the JQuery Cycle plug-in. I’m sure there would have been a way to make it work, but frankly, I didn’t feel it was worth the time–besides, IE users should already be accustomed to limitations.

Performance

Performance-wise, I was a little surprised to see that the animations were sluggish on the iPad and iPhone in comparison to their desktop counterparts. Granted, JQuery isn’t the fastest JavaScript framework on the market, but I was expecting at least slightly better performance compared to how Flash performs on Android devices. Overall, I suppose it only reinforced my agreement with Apple that intense animations in Flash would yield poor performance on their mobile devices.

My biggest issue with the end product, though, is how the site downloads. I’ve seen it before–JavaScript-based sites can’t preload animations or elements well, and therefore animations start playing before all of the elements have downloaded. The reason for this is because the HTML page attempts to download all of the elements contained in it–even if they are set not to display.

I’m a firm believer that you don’t tax the user with downloading content they haven’t requested, so I tried implementing the LazyLoader plug-in to ease the site download. I honestly don’t have complete faith in this plugin, but fortunately, the site is relatively small. Regardless, Flash currently blows HTML out of the water with its programmatic ability to queue and download content without requiring a page refresh.

Conclusion

I’m sure that the development tools will continue to evolve and I’m not claiming that my implementation of the all the various plug-ins was constructed in perfect harmony (anyone out there, please correct me if there’s a better approach). In the end, this endeavor opened my eyes to some of the things JavaScript can replace Flash for, but HTML 5′s inability to create a length presentation (without a page refresh or complete asset download) makes me believe that Flash isn’t going anywhere for a long time.

It’s inevitable; every designer does it at some point in their career.

They create something. They efficiently solve their design problem. Then, they later realize it looks almost exactly like something someone else hsd already done. Such was the case when I came up with the logo for my company in 2006. Yes, it was just different enough to serve its purpose, though a few industry friends always made it a point to never let me forget that I’m not in the high-end furniture industry.

Four years and several dead ends later, I’m proud to have a more unique nameplate, I was a little sad to push the Trebuchet font out the door for the far more common Futura, but overall, i think the new logo is a big improvement over the original.

Now, I just have to find out what to do with all those outdated business cards . . .

I’ll be hosting a discussion on using Photoshop to improve one’s pictures (I like the word discussion since class is out for the semester). What’s probably bigger incentive for everyone is that there will be a raffle for a copy of Photoshop CS5.

Event details here.

http://dknite.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/firefox-sync-1-3-is-coming/

The name’s not as cool, but it definitely is more concise. Weave’s something I’ve been watching since the Nokia N900 came out, and I’m hoping it finds its way into the Webkit/iPhone OS world.

UPDATE: Looks like I’m getting my wish.

. . . in roughly 10 years (first from my iPad). I’m a bit rusty

I recently had a client inquire about the feasibility of replacing some of their Flash content with HTML 5 (they’re a very large organization and require supporting a variety of browsers). Of course, the inquiry spawned from the iPad. Here’s an excerpt of my response–I thought it’d be valuable to share.

1. Universal browser support is not here yet.
   You’ll notice that Internet Explorer versions 6,7, and 8 support nearly nothing of HTML 5. You’ll also notice that these tests don’t account for older versions of Firefox or Safari, neither of which are likely to provide as much support as their current editions.

   http://www.deepbluesky.com/blog/-/browser-support-for-css3-and-html5_72/
   http://findmebyip.com/litmus/#target-selector
   http://html5test.com/

2. HTML 5 Tools don’t yet exist, and the community is still young.
   HTML editing software hasn’t been updated/created to accurately write and validate HTML 5. Granted, HTML 5 can be written by hand, but the workaround to unilaterally support modern browsers has not been fully discovered or documented.
3. HTML 5 will not be finalized until 2022. See comments below.
   I have no doubt that browsers will continually progress with supporting the market’s ongoing “definition” of HTML5, however, since the W3C’s (the governing organization behind the Web) current roadmap doesn’t finalize the spec until 2022, much can change in that time. Based on past history, HTML 5 could drastically change–or even be completely abandoned.

   http://www.webmonkey.com/2008/09/html_5_won_t_be_ready_until_2022dot_yes__2022dot/
   http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/programming-and-development/?p=718

Personally, I own an iPad, and am excited by the potential of HTML 5, and while I do a significant amount of Flash development, I look forward to HTML 5 replacing certain tasks that Flash Player had to fill. That said, HTML 5 is not yet a valid solution for mainstream Websites, especially when Flash Player runs on ~99% of Web browsers (including mobile devices besides Apple’s). Also, while I agree with many of the points on Steve Jobs’ open letter, Apple’s financial incentives of eliminating Flash and Java games to emphasize the iTunes store are hard to overlook.

The Senators have had their first few series at the new ballpark, and I made it a point to catch the opener, as well as the Harrisburg debut of the Nationals first-round draft pick.

Name aside, the new Metro Bank Park is an immense improvement over the old park–it somehow makes the game feel more professional. It definitely has me second-guessing my decision to buy that Orioles ticket package (sadly, the worst team in the majors as of this writing, though I think I saw more Orioles fans on City Island than in Baltimore).

Metro Bank Park’s seating is still affordable and remains nice and close to the action. It’s nice to see an official team store, though I think those Strasburg jerseys are going to be outdated any day now.

I’m a sucker for ballpark promotions, but to me, this year’s promotions are a little sparse. It would have been nice to have someone sponsor a statuette of the new ballpark (to accompany the one I received last season), but alas, it looks like the money was spent on flatscreen TV giveways (the affiliation to baseball I’m still struggling to understand). I also question the $2 drafts on the boardwalk . . . Why make them exclusive to the boardwalk and force people in seats to make the trek?

Strasburg’s Harrisburg debut was impressive, both for his performance as well as the turnout. my only complaint? The Senators’ Twitter feed didn’t provide first pitch updates. Through two rain delays and a power outage, it’s the least they could do for their fans. Regardless, I’ll be back, so long as I can find people to go with.