Last week, there was a symposium at the NERD building in Cambridge titled "Looking at the Next Open Web Platform" where folks from the W3 Consortium and elsewhere talked about SVG, HTML 5, CSS 3, and other future standards. I couldn't make the actual talk, but the slides were made available and I read through them. Bottom line: audio, video and vector graphics are going to be a part of the W3 open standards. I don't see how Flash can survive if browsers will soon be able to support the same functionality natively. So while it's annoying now, maybe Apple is probably figuring that eventually major web sites will stop using Flash and no one will care?

I think it is a very calculated move that Flash is not on the iPad. Apple is making a power play. Basically betting the iPad will sell like crazy and force developers to abandon Flash if they want to work on the hit new device. My guess is that within 18 months the percentage of sites depending on Flash is going to drop significantly.

I was so shocked that youtube did it. I figured that should signal something serious to the Adobe Flash people.

I think it is a very calculated move that Flash is not on the iPad. Apple is making a power play.

Oh, I agree completely. I just wish it didn't have to mean the consumer getting caught in the middle.

I have to flip to another "screen" to get a damned apostrophe

?!? That's... that's obscene.

If I want to watch Hulu on the iPad I feel like I ought to be able to or whatever, man...

Yeah. Hulu is what I was thinking of. There are tv shows in there, and sometimes I want them.

One could easily remote to their other computer, even away from home and browse from there.

Would that really work? The iPad would just be showing you what your computer is doing, right?

My guess is that within 18 months the percentage of sites depending on Flash is going to drop significantly.

I wouldn't mind that at all. All too often a Flash site makes my browser freeze or crash.

I just wish it didn't have to mean the consumer getting caught in the middle.

We're not the middle. We're the battleground.

I have to flip to another "screen" to get a damned apostrophe

?!? That's... that's obscene.

YES! I did find out that there's a workaround...if I hold down the comma for a bit, it'll give me an apostrophe. (it's actually a nice little functionality for special characters like ü and é too.)

Are there any particularly good...and preferably free...converters to turn avi into dvd format?

I've ahemed a couple of things I'd love to copy onto dvd but Burn is not letting me do it.

Whatever shall I do?

you have a pc, right?

Any Photoshop gurus here? I have a picture (link) that has a datestamp on it, which I'd like to remove. Is that possible? I mean, I know I can crop it out, but I am wondering if it's possible to not have to crop? Help please?

(I am finally choosing photos to frame and put up in my place)

If you have Windows 7 you may be able to just use the built-in Windows DVD maker. I'm not sure about the other versions. Vista might have it as well, I'm sure XP doesn't.