Shane Eubanks - Internet Marketing Specialist » Web Development http://www.shaneeubanks.com Home of Shane Eubanks - Internet Marketing Specialist - Design, Development, and Marketing of Successful Businesses. Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:19:48 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Apple Will Kill Adobe Flash http://www.shaneeubanks.com/web-development/will-apple-kill-adobe-flash/ http://www.shaneeubanks.com/web-development/will-apple-kill-adobe-flash/#comments Thu, 28 Jan 2010 22:15:18 +0000 shane http://www.shaneeubanks.com/?p=150 What was once just a faint, pondering thought that usually ended with “naaahhhhhh” has grown into much more of an actual possibility.

Will Apple kill Adobe Flash?

Sound crazy? It may have a couple of years ago. But now with the iPhone & iPod Touch with their gazillion users (sorry, too lazy to look up actual numbers, but I think that’s close) and with the recent introduction of the Apple iPad…what trend do you notice? Right…no flash support on any of those devices. Hmmmm. Conspiracy? Reality? Let’s go deeper.


Does Apple use Flash on their website? No. They use a mix of javascript/quicktime/h.264 and are leading the way to html5 support in web browsers with their latest version of Safari.

So…millions of people worldwide with devices that do not support flash but DO support fancy javascript and slick video using the “right” code.

Who’s move is it? Who will budge? Apple? Adobe?

Neither.

So what happens? Websites have been modifying their code to strip out flash and replace it with javascript and h.264 videos to be able to reach more users. And why not? Why wouldn’t websites want to dip into the extra millions of users carrying Apple mobile devices? Quite simply, Apple is controlling the market and the ultimate fate of Adobe Flash. Website developers are finding ways to tweak the snot out of javascript and do many of the things that has made flash so…well…flashy the past however many years. All of this coming from a company that motivated masses to “think different“.

Over the course of the next year, you will find that websites will be giving users less reasons to be upset that Apple mobile products do not support Flash. Website owners will have to. When you add on the impact of the currently weak economy, businesses are clamoring for every customer they can get their hands on. Why in the world would they willingly block their products/services to millions of potential customers? The smart ones won’t. They’ll adapt, push forward, and scoop up all of the customers that their competition remains invisible to. In short…the “visible” have the higher chance of survival.

Look, I like Flash. I love Adobe. Apple is cute too. They’re both pretty. I really wish they could get along. But they don’t.

Adobe is pulling the “I’m pretty too!” card with their latest “turn your Flash apps into iPhone apps” capability, but that’s not much more than desperate conformity at this point. It’s nice and all, but Adobe is playing into Apple’s hand.

With the strength of Apple’s App Store and the implications of providing Flash support on their mobile devices, Apple simply isn’t going to let it happen. They’re winning the fight. People are buying their products. Major websites such as YouTube and Vimeo are switching from Flash to HTML5/h.264 support. The tide is turning. Apple is riding the wave while Flash is getting lost in the ripcurl…ready for the wipeout. Whether we like it or not, Apple is the Big Kahuna now.

Interested in Flash alternatives?

There are plenty of technologies available that can allow you to do many of the things that Flash has been famous for over the years. Definitely get a firm grasp on HTML5, javascript libraries, and encoding video using h.264. Here are some resources to get you pointed in the right direction:

Javascript

HTML5

h.264

What others are saying:

What about you? Are you a website owner that uses Flash? Are you planning on replacing it with something else? Do you think all of this is hogwash? I’d love to hear your opinions!

]]> http://www.shaneeubanks.com/web-development/will-apple-kill-adobe-flash/feed/ 0 See Where Shortened URLs Redirect To http://www.shaneeubanks.com/web-development/see-where-shortened-urls-redirect-to/ http://www.shaneeubanks.com/web-development/see-where-shortened-urls-redirect-to/#comments Thu, 22 Jan 2009 06:16:01 +0000 shane http://www.shaneeubanks.com/?p=100 url snoopI’m sure you’ve seen shortened URLs posted in various places across the internet as it is insanely popular in social media such as twitter where posting a long link is a tweet suicide. Perhaps there has been a time where you weren’t sure about clicking a link because you had no idea where you would end up. Perhaps you work in a corporate environment where not knowing what site you’ll visit could cost you your job. It happens.

I happen to work in a corporation where I don’t want to land on oddball sites that are going to get me canned and since I work in interactive marketing, I am often staying in the loop with news, blogs, social media, etc. I often see links that I’m not sure about clicking and often don’t unless the person describes what it is and where it leads to. Here are just a few that popped up tonight:

  • http://bit.ly/HDrh
  • http://tinyurl.com/7umr6s
  • http://bit.ly/13OS2
  • http://is.gd/gMwH

Obviously, without some clues from the people who posted these links I’d have no idea where they go. I don’t know about you…but I like to know this stuff! I searched for a tool where I could slap a url like the ones above in a form and it would them show me the final url that I would end up at. To make a long story short, I couldn’t find one that did what I wanted. Most had way too many bells and whistles. All I wanted was to preview where a shortened url links to. That’s it.

So what did I do? I whipped one together. I call it “url snoop”. It’s simple to use and could possibly save your butt job one day. So check it out, bookmark it, and let me know what you think!

url snoop – preview shortened urls before you click through

]]> http://www.shaneeubanks.com/web-development/see-where-shortened-urls-redirect-to/feed/ 3 What I Learned at the 2008 Webmaster Jam Session http://www.shaneeubanks.com/web-development/what-i-learned-at-the-2008-webmaster-jam-session/ http://www.shaneeubanks.com/web-development/what-i-learned-at-the-2008-webmaster-jam-session/#comments Sun, 05 Oct 2008 03:10:09 +0000 shane http://www.shaneeubanks.com/?p=60 I just got back from the 2008 Webmaster Jam Session in Atlanta, GA. Good times and brain overload. I took lots of notes and thought I’d share the most important tidbits with others…if you were there you’ll get this…if you didn’t attend, well, make sure you attend next year so you’ll know what all of the following means!!!

Here we go…my top notes from the 2008 WJS.

I know I left out some, so jump in the comments and share what you learned at the 2008 Webmaster Jam Session!

]]> http://www.shaneeubanks.com/web-development/what-i-learned-at-the-2008-webmaster-jam-session/feed/ 2 How Not to Hide Your Website Pages http://www.shaneeubanks.com/web-development/how-not-to-hide-your-website-pages/ http://www.shaneeubanks.com/web-development/how-not-to-hide-your-website-pages/#comments Tue, 09 Sep 2008 03:57:54 +0000 shane http://www.shaneeubanks.com/?p=45 One of the most common mistakes I see many web developers make is trying to hide webpages from search engines while making it incredibly easy for people to discover those pages. Your eyes may start to glaze while reading this, but stay with me…this will save your booty at some point. The first and most common mistake is the use of a robots.txt file. Basically what this file does is tells spiders (search engines) what files and directories to scan. You can usually see if a website has one by simply adding a /robots.txt after their domain name. For example, you could see Google’s by going to http://www.google.com/robots.txt, which reveals numerous directories they don’t want search engines to scan…interesting stuff if you’re into that sort of thing.

So…how can this be a bad thing? Well, take a look at Google’s robots.txt again and notice how they disallow directories, which is the proper way of doing it. The mistake that some websites make is to disallow actual pages. It could say something like:

User-agent: *
Disallow: hiddenpage.html

Now, the “User-agent: *” part means “Hey all search engines…this applies to all of you”. Then the “Disallow: hiddenpage.html” line means exactly what it implies…don’t mess with hiddenpage.html. Now while this is all fine and dandy when it comes to search engines, what happens is that hiddenpage.html is now exposed to the entire world! Even worse, if there are multiple pages like this in the robots.txt, then the website has essentially listed every single secret page in one, organized location for anyone to see. (More info about setting up a robots.txt file)

I can’t tell you how many internet marketers (and many other types of site) I see making this mistake. Their landing page/sales letter/squeeze page or whatever you want to call it has little more than a form to submit your name and email address to get something for free…and some even require payment before receiving a “link” to a “secret download page”. Well…just type in their domain.com/robots.txt and voila…instant access sometimes to the very pages that you will eventually end up at. You’re not “hacking” anything and there’s nothing illegal about this. It’s just a simple misuse on their part of the robots.txt file. Unethical and immoral? Perhaps.

Now what do you do if you’re one of these very people with exposed files in your robots.txt file? The best thing you can do is to move your “secret” pages into a directory and then disallow the directory. It would look something like this if you move them one directory deep to a folder called “secret”.

User-agent: *
Disallow: /secret

Presto…all of your files in that directory will not be spidered by search engines and you’re not revealing actual pages. Go one step further and stick a blank file in that directory named index.html. I won’t go into details why…just do it to be even more secure.

The next mistake I see made is the lack of noindex/nofollow tags on the “secret” pages. I’ll cover that in another post as this is plenty for you to chew on for now.

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