I feel like I am on Mozilla's bad side after a series of posts about the conflict between Firefox/HTML 5 and Flash/Silverlight. In an effort to bring my open source karma into balance, I am going to talk a little bit about Firefox and some of its many benefits. None of this will be particularly shocking to Firefox fans, but hopefully will convert a few of those IE users who are still wondering what they are missing! After all, my goals are more about the best end user experience versus any organizations' agendas, and Firefox is definitely part of that experience. More...

Continued from Part 1

So there, I said it, any animation or heavily interactive work that I am going to do in the next few years will be done with Flash. Here's why:

Inertia is a Hard Thing to Overcome

I made a point earlier about IE6 still being commonly used, and corporate environments are notorious for being dragged into updates, mostly for security purposes. Legacy systems are hard to abandon, and that is as true for Flash as any technology. More...

I have been following the recent hullabaloo about HTML 5, how it is a "Flash-killer" and will eliminate the need for plugins. I figured that since I am a Flash user, and I also happen to code web sites in HTML and CSS, I have enough experience and hindsight to make a few salient points. The big question is of course if HTML 5 will render Flash, Silverlight, QuickTime, and all other browser plugins useless or impotent. My answer, for the next 3 to 5 years, is a resounding no. More...