This debate started earlier this year when Apple released its iPad. The Apple iPad has no support for Flash, following in the iPhone footsteps. Flash is the current standard for moving graphics on the web but it is a resource hog on your system. In devices that rely on battery power for their usefulness, this can quickly become an issue. A war started between Adobe (the makers of Flash) and Apple. Here is a recent quote from Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, “Different pieces of technology kind of go in cycles,” Jobs said. “Flash looks like a technology that had its day, but is waning, and HTML5 looks like the technology that’s really on the ascendancy right now.” Is Steve Jobs right? See what the public thinks.

HTML5 will do most everything that Flash currently does. The problem with HTML5 is that the web is ruled by designers not developers. Designers typically don’t program. HTML5 requires programming to produce the effects that designers can do themselves in Flash. There are many aspects to this debate and they are all just starting. It will be interesting to see how it shakes out.

The way in which people connect to the Internet greatly affects how we design for it. In the old days we used to have to make all the web files as small as humanly possible to increase the load times. Pages that would load slowly would frustrate users. Today, load times are not that big of a concern with the majority of people connecting online with a high speed connection. “Dial-Up Internet Going the Way of Rotary Phones” from less than 5 years ago when the general public was just transitioning from dial-up to broadband. How things have changed. Here is an April 2010 poll from CNET:

Cable modem	58.1%
DSL, man, DSL	27.5%
Fiber	9.2%
Other (explain in the comments section)	2.0%
WiMax	1.4%
Tethering from my phone	1.1%
Dial-up	0.7%

s+j has the fortune of having our own Girl Scout in residence. Heather’s niece drops by our offices every winter so we can all order our Girl Scout Cookies. And while we still prefer having Ava stop by the office to make her pitch, here’s an interesting article about the Scouts taking their tactics online. Girl Scouts Venture Online To Market Their Cookies.

Ever wondered who is looking at your Facebook profile in the middle of the night? It could be an ex girlfriend, former business partner or current/future employer. Should we care that our employers are looking us up on social sites? There are two schools of thought. Most experts will tell you to hide or filter your social media profile while you are looking for a job. In this competitive job market you cannot risk losing an opportunity over a picture of yourself drinking beer with your pants halfway down. Conversely, if you are applying for a job at a company that is actively into social media, they are probably looking for an employee that is also very active on social sites such as Facebook. Regardless of the type of company you are applying with, it is probably a good idea to clean up your social profiles. Here are three easy steps. Or, if you are comfortable with your social well being and just looking for some of the crazy things woman do on Facebook, have fun and good luck.

Conflicted on whether to splurge on that new Flip? Read an online review and make your decision. This seems to be the trend in consumer behavior – certainly in my own. Nielsen’s survey of 25,000 Internet consumers reported that 90% of consumers poled trust recommendations/referrals from friends and acquaintances while 70% trust online consumer reviews making user generated content one of today’s most trusted forms of advertising. What are your customers saying about your product online?