I attended the workshop of "Edge: The Product Family" at Ballantine Hall Room 117 on Thursday, February 28th, at 1:00PM-3:00PM. This time, not a staff of IUB library but a guest from Adobe, Tim Plumer Jr., provided the workshop.
Don't worry even if you don't know what Edge is. You are not alone! Edge is a quite new product series of Adobe. That is why the company sent out somebody to tell us about the products. The good news is that most of the products are, for now, free!!! You can download them from here: http://html.adobe.com/edge/
I really began to love the Edge series. I especially love Edge Animation. I will explain why it is so attractive for me and would be attractive for many other people.
Before talking about the main point, let me talk little bit about my background. I know how to code. I created this website, http://mypage.iu.edu/~ktomita/, without using Adobe Dreamweaver. I can create websites just with a simple text editor such as Notepad. Oh, and I used Photoshop to change the size of the picture :)
I actually use HTML for this blog too!
However, if you ask me to create an animation, I need to use Adobe Flash to create a flash animation. Or I can use another software to create a gif animation. My point is, I don't know how to code flash.
For some reasons, I really don't love Adobe Flash. Actually, I don't like flash itself very much. It is ugly technology in some respects. Probably that's why Steve Jobs decided not to show flash in iPhone or iPad. Adobe and Apple were in a bad relationship because of his decision!
However, now Adobe began to shift from flash. The beginning of the new story is Edge. The technology is amazing. Edge Animation creates animation without flash. Only with HTML and Javascript!!! How did they do that!!!
I was about to update my knowledge of Adobe Flash by watching Linda.com videos as I'm not confident with the current version. Especially if the software is in English! Yet, I decided not to learn Adobe Flash anymore. It will be waste of time. I now decided to learn Adobe Edge Animation.
No one have to install flash player to play Edge animations. You do not feel stressed by the loading time! In the future, no one would use flash. It will disappear from any environment just like iPhone or iPad does not show it. Steve Jobs predicted the future? Or he might be the inventor of the future.
The series of story reminds me of my favorite quote from Alan Kay. "Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do… The best way to predict the future is to invent it. Really smart people with reasonable funding can do just about anything that doesn't violate too many of Newton's Laws!" (Kay, 1971).
I love the quote not just because his family name sounds like my first name :)
Hi Kei,
ReplyDeleteI'm amazed at how many trainings and workshops you have attended or completed just in the last month! Good for you, that's great that you are taking advantage of what's available here at the university. I don't know a lot about Flash or Edge - I should really be attending the workshops as well. But, I'm curious, do you really think that Edge will eventually replace Flash. This is surprising to me because I've heard some good things about Flash before - I know you're not a fan.
Nice job with your website! That's impressive that you did it without a web design program. I am currently working on my portfolio using Wix, which is website that has templates to allow a complete novice to design a webpage and STILL its kicking my ass! So I can really appreciate your skills. Also, I like that quote from Alan Kay - I never read that before.
Do you think you will use Edge in your project for 541 - do you see a need for it?
Thanks,
John