Web application engineer, addicted angler and computer science student

The HP Slate looks as cool as the iPad, has more features like Flash-support or a built-in camera and offers a full operating system (Windows 7).

The iPad lacks support for Flash (No Flash videos, No Flash games like Farm Ville), has no camera (hello, video telephony?) and the worst of all: No full OS.
It’s basically nothing more than a big iPod Touch with all its limits.

I don’t know when exactly in 2010 the Slate will come out, but as long as it’s affordable, I’d probably buy it.

Sorry Apple, as much as I like your (real) computers, the mobile devices you build are a joke.

Sometimes I have troubles finding good web radios, but today I stumbled over a great one from France called BolzRadio.

It was quite hard to find this one on iTunes since it was placed in the “ambient” section. I personally wouldn’t really put it there.
They play quite a lot of relaxed alternative music including some very felicitous covers of well known pop-songs.

The french ad breaks are annoying but acceptable.

I’m listening to it for more than 5 hours now and it’s still great! I’m lovin’ it

I changed my default browser from Safari to Chrome.

Why?

All the downsides I mentioned some weeks ago have been fixed by Google which makes Chrome the best browser out there so far (For me at least).
Privacy issues seem to have gone since Chrome cannot be identified through a unique ID anymore. Further, using my self-written RSS-reader plugin Fruit-RSS, there is nothing left that could force me to stay with Safari.

I absolutely hate programming in Objective C using XCode in order to deliver apps for the iPhone.

The upcoming Flash CS5 seems to make it possible to create Flash applications and export ‘em right into native iPhone apps. It’s really incredible.

I hope, this also works using the FlexBuilder/FlexAPI since I absolutely hate using the Flash Designer application.
Update: Seems like it’s possible but not recommended since Flex was optimized for desktop deployment and not for mobile devices. I really hope, Adobe’s gonna get this to work. Seems like they’re trying to fix this issue with a framework called Slider, which is expected to be released in an early version somewhere in 2010.

Can’t wait to get my hands on it!

… is The Flashblog.

Make sure to check it out for up-to-date Flash-related topics, but also if you’re interested in web-development in general.

I especially love the Adobe deaddrop recaps. Great stuff.

I think, I finally found an answer to the question, why one should use Flash instead of HTML5: Sockets
Update: Nevermind. HTML5 also supports websockets. Darn, is there anything that HTML5 can’t do??

Newer Flash Player versions allow developers to open sockets, which is not possible using pure HTML5/JavaScript in the browser.

Thus, for example, it would not be possible to create a FTP client without Flash or a backend system since such an attempt would require one to open a socket in order to implement the FTP protocol.

The golem.de guys had an interview with Adrian Ludwig, Flash Group Manager at Adobe Systems, and asked him what’s the benefit of the Flash platform compared to HTML5 and if Flash would ever come to the iPhone.

The answers are quite interesting.
After watching the video, I gotta say that Ludwig didn’t really have an answer to the question, what the benefit of Flash is (compared to HTML5). He mumbled something about “content-protection” (whatever he means by that), fast updating cycles (within 12 months?) and features which won’t be available even in newer versions of HTML (.. which would be?).

As much as I like to code using the Flex API, I think that the Flash Player has no future. It’s slow and has some serious security issues which makes it vulnerable for various exploits.

The only thing why Flash could be currently useful would be webcam support, but as far as I know, this feature has already been suggested for further versions of HTML.

So, at the moment I think that I’d more go for GWT instead of the Flash Builder to create Rich Internet Applications of any kind.

I own a Samsung LE40A558 LCD TV which does a strange whistling sound whenever I turn it on.
It doesn’t matter, where the input signal comes from (Scart, HDMI, whatever..), the noise is always there and it’s very penetrant.

The weird thing is that, if I google this issue, a decent number of people seem to have a similar problem (but not the same).
For example: My TV’s noise does not come from the speakers, while most users complain about exactly this problem.

After calling the Samsung support hotline (14 Cent a minute – WHEW!), I finally found the solution: A firmware upgrade.

Just go to samsung.com, download the latest firmware and follow the instructions. That’s it.
For me, this fixed the noise.

For German users: The firmware is not available on the German Samsung website. Go to samsung.at instead and check there.

For German KabelBW-users: Austria’s Samsung website seems to have a problem with the KabelBW network. I always got a timeout when trying to connect to the server. A proxy server (doesn’t really matter which) solved my problem.

Update: It seems like the noise volume only got lower through the firmware upgrade but it’s not completely gone. If I use an external digital DVB-C receiver and connect it via a SCART cable, the strange sound is still noticeable. HDMI and antenna cable seems to be ok.

Update II: Ok, the firmware upgrade didn’t help at all. I called the Samsung support again and they sent me a technician who did a measurement regarding the noise. 34.9db. Samsung only repairs stuff like this if it goes above 35db. Great.