Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated by ants. I remember spending many summer days observing gigantic colonies. I do not know the name of the species that I watched, but they were maybe 1/8″ of an inch and could clearly be seen with the naked eye.
I was very young and I performed questionable experiments that children do before the learn the value of life… even an ant’s life. I hate to admit that I once dropped a red ant into a black ant colony to see what would happen. The results were not good for the single red ant who was quickly overwhelmed. More than a few ants were vaporized with a death beam created from a magnifying glass and the sun’s concentrated rays. These days, I relocate spiders and other critters outside when I find them in our house, so at least I have evolved.
I recently found an ant colony in the midst of a mad dash from their home in a garden pot. I don’t know what triggered their exodus, but they seemed to be setting speed records. The video below shows how fast the individual ants were moving, including the ones that were carrying larvae in their mandibles. All I had was my iphone so I grabbed this quick video.
This made me wonder how fast ants could run if they could be scaled up to human size, and we ignored the physics of a titanic insect? Several web sites I researched made the calculation of about 53 m.p.h. which is faster than a gazelle, but slower than a cheetah. That is something that I would not like to see in person… even if I had a giant bottle of RAID to hide behind!
Just for fun I decided to see if I could make myself look different without any retouching, Photoshop filters or special lenses. I used an iphone and camera angle to alter my appearance. Of course I did scrunch up my face to exaggerate my chin… but the point is that it does not take much to change your face… for better or worse. In this case I made myself look like a salty old sailor.
Flash sites don’t work on mobile devices image from firstain.com
We tell our clients, a lot can happen in a couple of years on the internet. Standards change, new browsers are released, new trends appear. All of these elements can date a web site quickly.
One of the biggest trends going right now is the movement away from Adobe Flash to create web sites. In the past, our clients requested Flash-based animated splash screens or whole web sites created using this technology. The big problem is that Flash sites are not easily indexed by search engines… I call them “stealth sites” because they can often fly under the radar of most search engines.
Some of the Flash sites required more bandwidth and faster processors to play smoothly. This was not usually a problem on desktop computers, but now more consumers are becoming dependent on smart phones to browse the internet. Flash is not currently supported on some popular devices such as iPhones, iPads and a number of other mobile device platforms. When one realizes the millions of mobile devices, the Flash problem is hard to ignore.
What happens when these web sites appear on these non-Flash enabled smart phones depends on how the site is built. In some cases, the user is redirected to an alternate non-flash site that has been optimized for smart phone use. In other cases where the issue has not been addressed, the user sees blank holes in the web site design or nothing at all.
Web designers are embracing non-Flash technology such as HTML5 which plays internet video natively without additional plugins. We are also using clever custom code to restore animation and graphic effects back to web sites. The upside of this is that these technologies will also work on smart phone browsers.
I personally believe that market share wars are being fought on the internet with many competing companies vying for control of our computing devices. Control equals dollars at the end of the day. Just look how far Google has embedded itself into our daily lives. Can you imagine the web without them? Didn’t think so.
Apple has famously drawn the line by not supporting Flash on their iPhones and iPads. Steve Jobs claims that this is because Flash web sites can require extreme band width and processing power which can put a strain on networks and drain phone batteries quickly. These are valid points, but really, it all might come down to control of market share and user experience.
Apple has its own platform for applications that it sells on its “App” Store, iTunes. If a competing technology such as Flash was allowed to run on Apple devices, Apple would lose the money it makes through the sale of Apps because consumers would have an alternate source for Apps. Hundreds of Flash App stores would pop up… guaranteed. Just as important to Apple, they might lose control over the user experience. For example, Apple does not allow pornography or obscene products to be sold in their store. They would not be able to control that with Flash Apps. Also, buggy or unsafe software could cause stability issues.
While I have complained in the past about the lack of Flash support on iPhones, I applaud Apple for following their own path to give their consumers the best possible experience possible on their devices. Web designers and consumers can find creative alternative and life after Flash.
Last summer I went to Seattle and Canada for a vacation with my wife. In the interest of saving space, weight and money, I left the laptop behind… a first! Rarely do I travel without it because it is the hub of my digital life on the road. For me having a computer was almost a necessity… That is until I bought the latest iPhone.
My plan for this trip was to use the iphone as my gps, email reader and local travel guide. The camera and high-def video is good enough to replace the snapshot camera and video camera that I used to carry. They say the best camera is the one you have on you and it that seems to be true. I like the low-tech point and shoot ease and immediacy of the snapshot memories.
This phone’s battery life lasts 7 hours longer than both my old iphone 3 and laptop. This means I listened to music, watched movies, played games and wrote emails the whole 5 hour flight to Seattle and still had jucie left over.
Unlike some people, I had a very easy time pre-ordering and picking up this phone… In and out in 30 minutes. I heard stories of 1000 people waiting in other stores and even arrests when fights broke out. Is a phone worth going to jail? The answer is a qualified “maybe”…
I am glad I bought this little gizmo. There is no turning back now… other phones are just boring.
