As a web designer / developer, search engine optimization specialist and website manager and warden for my clients, I registered many of the sites I created using Google Analytics, an incredibly useful tool for monitoring visitors' sources, interests and preferences. Every day, while checking my email, I spend a generous part of my morning analysis of my reports, which include how many visitors viewed each website, how they were directed, what keywords they visited, how pages they visited, how long they spend on each page and which service provider they use, among other things. I check the last item because it often indicates the name of a company, university, government agency, or other specific source, as opposed to a nameless IT provider such as Verizon or Comcast. Often this is critical information about who visits our sites.
Recently, and I admit that I'm late in this issue, I was intrigued by which page on which they “landed”. The reason for my interest is related to the problem of their ability to receive Flash, currently a controversial topic due to Apple Computer’s refusal to incorporate this technology into some of its latest, very popular products that include an iPhone, iPod and iPad.
As a lifelong Mac user and lover, I usually admire and support anything and everything that Apple, based on positive experiences with their fantastic products and supplies. I won from both. However, a few years ago, having bought the Adobe Creative Suite software, I made heavy efforts to teach myself about flash, I’m interested in continuing to use these complex files on many of my main websites, in particular, since my clients paid me for their creation, and they add glamor and pizzazz to any page on which they appear.
But this recent development seems to be nothing more than an unpleasant competitive rivalry between two outstanding technology companies. Regardless of whether it is caused by gluttony for market dominance or lack of compromise or cooperation under the guise of a better user experience, this has affected everyone who has a site that uses Flash in their presentations. Studying what a consensus opinion on this topic was about, I read one report about a professional woman who entertained business guests in the UK. One of the guests proudly showed off his new iPad and asked for a hostess. The URL so that they can admire their site together at this new stage. What happened next caused my concern. When he got to his website, all they saw were big black holes, because her website was mostly dependent on Flash. Her embarrassment was humiliating.
Understanding that the home page of my own company consists of three fairly large flash files along with some required html texts, not to mention the fact that some of my clients & recently opened home pages also exhibited large flash movies to inspire , dazzle and impress, I focused on my recent curiosity about some of the Google Analytics & # 39; reports that I saw that showed 0:00 time spent on the landing page. In the case of my own site, the landing page is almost always the main page. It occurred to me that if visitors came there to look only black, who could blame them for immediate violation? Can these visitors use the latest Apple products? Although Google Analytics does not indicate the brand or type of computer or device used, it accurately identifies the operating system and browser, which in this case will be OS X and Safari.
Changing what happened in the past is fruitless persecution, so my goal is now focused on controlling website visits in the future. Using Adobe's Dreamweaver software to create my Flash files, I knew and already used behavioral controls that put a sensor on the page to determine if the visitor has the Flash software necessary to view the Flash movie. If not, the visitor will automatically be redirected to an alternate page created specifically without Flash to satisfy this particular rare situation. But, like everything we encounter today, the sensor does not work with all browsers (in this case, the old backup culprit: Microsoft Internet Explorer, which historically, in my experience, always included omnipresent obstacles for user convenience), therefore the web Designer remains a dilemma. What to do? Although the intuitive sensor gives you the opportunity to redirect the visitor to a new page or simply to allow him to remain on the original Flash page, if detection is not possible, this will not solve the problem. Everyone knows that Windows and Internet Explorer are the dominant platform for most Internet applications, despite Apple’s increasing popularity in recent years. But it seems that the new Google Chrome browser has just overtaken this honor. This means that it probably makes sense to allow such visitors to remain on the original Flash page, as they are likely to have a Flash reader. After all, it was the Mac user who caused this difficulty, and only a few Macs on it. And, presumably, the sensor will be able to detect the presence of Flash in the Mac operating system. To confirm this assumption, I investigated further and found the following at http://www.mobileblog.mobile-deals-compared.co.uk/2010/industry-news/: “(Adobe). Flash 10.1 is specifically WP7, the new update will be launched for all WP7 devices, this means that the entire Internet will be available in the browser for the latest Microsoft mobile platform. Google’s Android platform first received support for Flash 10.1 on version 2.2 of the Froyo open source mobile platform. According to Adobe, the Flash player will also be adapted to other operating systems, with the exception of Apple. ”
The next obstacle is how to reproduce the sophistication of Flash on an alternate page without Flash? After some investigation through various Google search queries, I found out that Apple is promoting an open source coding language called html5 for such a problem. For me, this is not an option, since I did not upgrade my operating system outside of Mac OS X 10.4.11 to the required level of advancement, 10.5.8. Another possible solution was to use javascript in some kind of slide show. There is another solution, but it is not very effective if you have large original Flash files. If you have a small subtle effect created in Flash, you can convert this file to an animated gif file, which may be larger than the original Flash file, but may still be sufficient to replace in this case.
Although these suggestions may be an acceptable intermediate strategy, I believe that this conflict of interest is the beginning of a change of protection on the Internet, because I notice that more and more sites eliminate Flash from their files and are converted to using html5 or javascript instead. Similarly, RedmondPie.com reports that a new entrepreneurial company sees this situation as a business opportunity with the release of a new product for receiving Flash on the iPhone: “... now you can get an alpha version of Flash (for example, aka Frash) to launch right on your iPhone 4. “How many more innovators will follow this trend soon? I already saw that the mobile phone market quickly turned into a fight with blatant marketing messages about their products. a heartfelt welcome flash! Apple meanwhile clarified its “hostile” status, stating that its decision to limit the inclusion of Adobe Flash readers who can still get Flash was made with the concern that users get the latest version of this software, which they can get for free straight from adobe. Well, that makes sense. But where is Apple going to draw the line? What is the Adobe PDF technology plan? Will they also prohibit it?
Although I was hoping to try to get another year from my current operating system and dependent software, I think I ran into one of the main reasons I need to upgrade quickly, probably before the end of the tax year, in order to benefit from these necessary business. -costs. Unfortunately, for me, this would mean a possible expensive or cumbersome conversion to OS X 10.6.5, as well as the need to re-install Parallels to start Windows at the same time, which allows me to check how each browser and operating system displays my creations on the site. And, as if this is not enough, such an update will certainly be the notorious “opening a can of worms”, because now I will need to update all of my other creative software, the smallest of which will include Quark 8.0 (which now, currently, offers Flash -creativity, a feature that I still cheat), Adobe CS5, Adobe CS5, Adobe CS5, Adobe CS5, and Adobe CS5 Fireworks. From this list I miss my favorite Adobe CS5 Dreamweaver. Without the ability to predict the future, who will prevail in open-source technological wars and patented coding, or will we all ever switch to smaller devices for Internet access, the question remains: for Flash or not for Flash?
