Google and Adobe has been working together in order to improve Flash indexation. While this seem like a really good news, there are some important points to consider.

Googlebot does not execute some types of JavaScript. So if your web page loads a Flash file via JavaScript, Google may not be aware of that Flash file, in which case it will not be indexed.

Does this mean we’ll have to go back to the old way of embedding flash in webpages and drop SWFobject ?

We currently do not attach content from external resources that are loaded by your Flash files. If your Flash file loads an HTML file, an XML file, another SWF file, etc., Google will separately index that resource, but it will not yet be considered to be part of the content in your Flash file.

That’s a big stopper. Most rich flash websites load either external SWF or XML files, the website should be considered as a whole and not as separate entities. I guess it’s a technical challenge for Google/Adobe to work this out.

I’m also wondering how Google will rank the content in the web pages. We know that in HTML the title tag is the most important after that comes the headings, etc, etc. As far as I know that content in flash is most of the time not formatted this way, even if it’s possible.

So overall this is very good news, but there’s still some work to do.

In a previous blog post I talked about the release of processing.js and how it could change how we see/use Flash. Upon experimentation and research, I looked at the canvas element and all the possibilities it offers. And…it’s sick!

First of all the canvas element is a part of the HTML5 specification and it allows for dynamic scriptable rendering of bitmap images. I won’t go much into details as of how to use it, since all I did with it is a lame paint clone. Instead i’ll provide links to example so you can see how you can use it.

Please note that all those demos work best with Firefox 3 or the latest version of Safari, since their JavaScript processing is much, much faster than what it used to be.

So here are the examples:

• 3d Counter Strike like game
• Hairy div
• Interactive 3d models
• 3d racing “game”
• My lame paint clone

It’s really worth it to take a look at that element and follow closely what will happen in the future as more and more browsers will support it.

P.S: I told you my paint clone was lame…

Today is the day! Download your copy of the new Firefox 3.0 and help Mozilla break the record of the most download in one day.

This page gives you the current number of downloads. It’s quite impressive when you see that it gets downloaded more than 13 000 times a minute.

The Firefox team did a great job, not only  with the browser, but also with all the buzz they created around the launch of FF3. I can’t wait to see the next browser usage statistics, I’m pretty sure this move will help them.

So go ahead, download your copy and break the record!

About 2 weeks ago John Resig, the maker of jQuery, released processing.js, an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. Porting it to javascript made it available to a wider audience. I saw the processing project about 2 years ago but didn’t see much use at the time since it was open source but required a software to code it.

In the near future it might not change much things, but as it becomes better known and people start working/improving it i’m pretty sure we have a strong Flash/Silverlight killer here. First of all you don’t need to install any 3rd party application, it’s straight javascript. Secondly, developers won’t need to buy expensive licenses to work with it. And third, the javascript community is already pretty big, once people starts jumping on the wagon, the train will be hard to stop.

The main problem right now is that you have Silverlight that tries to steal market from Flash, but Flash penetation is so big that it’s nearly impossible to overcome. Developers simply won’t start developing Silverlight applications because no one asks for it. This is where processing.js come in play, the penetration is even stronger than flash, and you don’t need any kind of license to develop it.

In my opinion, at the moment, the only real use for Flash on the web is for video/audio players. And it’s something that might change in the near future since HTML 5 already has a video and audio element planned what will be the use of flash?

The agency I’m working at has just launched it’s new website. It’s a full flash website with a full HTML equivalent for people without flash and to help SEO.

It’s our first attempt at making a flash website fully SEO friendly, which is pretty cool.

Since I don’t do any flash I wasn’t implied in the main site development, I have been in charge of the HTML version development.

To view the new site just go to: http://www.cloudraker.com
To view the new HTML version of the site go to: http://www.cloudraker.com?noflash=true

My new jQuery plugin is on it’s way, it’s done, tested, I just need to make it ready for wide usage. That means, clean up the code, optimize the css, dynamize the images, basic stuff like that. Nothing like the hell I went through the past couple of days to make it work in IE…

Basically it’s a lightbox clone for jQuery (yes, another one!). The reason is simple, the clones already available either don’t reproduce lightbox close enough, or were not flexible enough for my needs. So I went ahead and created one of my own!

Release is expected to be around mid-week next week. I really do hope to get the same feedback as the ones I got for my Pretty Comments script.

When you first launch your IE6 machine to debug and it’s nearly perfect.

It’s the first time it happens to me and god was I happy. I guess I just had a glimpse of the day IE will be better.

Let me say first off, that I’m am more than happy with the response I had for my pretty comments jQuery plugin. More than 1500 people visited my blog last month and more are coming just for that bit of code. Really, I am impressed, never tought I’d get such response.

I have been on vacation for 2 weeks, I’ll be back at work and in fully working shape next week. That means I should get more active. I’m currently working on another jQuery plugin that takes the standard browser drop downs (we all know they can’t really be styled with css) and give you the ability to customize them. The script is started, pretty advanced, I only have some issues with accessibility and needs to test it some more to make sure it doesn’t break anything in the forms when you use it. The name? Pretty dropdown You can see I am very inspired
Thanks again for all the positive feedback!

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It has been a little while now since I started thinking about where I was a year ago and where I am now in term of productivity. I made various improvements and think I can still improve.

Over the next weeks, I’ll try to post my various tricks and tips as of how you can boost your productivity in making good use of the slice tool, how to indent your CSS properly, how to optimize you class names in your CSS and more if they come to my mind. You are all welcome to share your own productivity tips, always help to work a bit faster and more efficiently!

I’ll even start with the Tip #1!

Make good use of your development software. I personally use textmate, this program is full of keyboard shortcuts, snippets, macros to help you boost your productivity. As every software if you only knows it surface, you won’t be able to fully use the built-in functions. I won’t go into much details as of how you can make textmate work better for you, simply because there are already a bunch of useful tutorials just for it. But one thing for sure, the more I learn about that software, the more I love it and the faster I get.

Tip #1 done! Number 2 will come, how to properly indent your CSS.

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You heard right, internet explorer will be updated to remove the “functionality” where you needed to click on activeX object before being able to use them.

If you don’t recall, in April 2006, we made a change to how Internet Explorer handled embedded controls used on some webpages. Some sites required users to “click to activate” before they could interact with the control. Microsoft has now licensed the technologies from Eolas Technologies inc, removing the “click to activate” requirement in Internet Explorer.

Even if it was easy to work around it. It is still cool for the end user, because not all the sites had the fix applied.

To bad this update fixes only a minor issue…and not the major issue the browser is.

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