I actually had this post written right before my vacation this summer (the reason for not posting here for 6 weeks!), but somehow managed to lose it. But oh well, the topic is just as hot as ever, as witnessed by several blogposts recently from the likes of the BBC and YouTube. My favorite quote from the YouTube article is “Today, Adobe Flash provides the best platform for YouTube’s video distribution requirements, which is why our primary video player is built with it.” I think that basically sums it up.

For all the excitement surrounding HTML5, it seems that the idea of “replacing Flash” for video delivery is the one that gets everyone going. But, as is pointed out in those two articles (and numerous others), it’s just not that simple – especially as long as there is a hefty majority of users on Internet Explorer 8 and below. If history is any indication, it will be many, many years before those browsers will disappear. (more…)

You might have noticed that the blog has been quiet this summer. The reason? I finally took some time off – a lot of time, as a matter of fact. But it’s back to work time now, both on the blog front and on the live events front.

In about two weeks, I will be headed back to one of my favorite places in the whole world, South Africa, where I will be joined by my colleagues Terry White and Jason Levine. We’ll be loaded up with enough Creative Suite 5 tips and tricks to fill an entire day – literally! So, if you’re in Johannesburg on the 26th of August, be sure to join us. My colleagues in South Africa have the agenda and registration info posted, and they’ve even created an AIR application to keep you up-to-date with all things creative in South Africa – check it out.

Then it’s September – and of course, anyone who knows me knows that that means only one thing – Oktoberfest! Um, I mean, a Creative Suite Masters Tour in Germany! Jason and I have the lederhosen out and we’re ready to take a tour through my “alte Heimat” with stops in Munich, Düsseldorf, Vienna, Hamburg (or Berlin) and Switzerland. We’re going to see if we can get Terry to put on the suspenders with us as we dive deep into Creative Suite goodness this year. More details and registration information will be available shortly. Wenn Sie noch nicht CS5 gesehen haben, oder vielleicht immer noch nicht überzeugt sind, machen Sie mit! (Der Vortrag wird teilweise auf Englisch und teilweise auf Deutsch ausgeführt.)

As always, you can keep an eye on the list of events in the right hand column of this page to find out where I will be speaking. Travel safe, and hope to see you soon!

While I truly am excited by the new semantic elements in HTML5, as well as the possibilities that things like local storage will do for expanding the capabilities of websites, I have to admit that I’m really much more excited by the shiny new toys in CSS3. And, of course, with the recently released HTML5 pack for Dreamweaver CS5, I no longer have to “try” to remember the new CSS3 properties – I get them all with lovely code-hinting and code-completion right within Dreamweaver CS5.

In the following video, I show you how to use some of the really popular new properties – like using border-radius to add rounded corners, transform to rotate elements and transitions to create the illusion of an animated rollover.

There is a definite caveat that I want to make sure to mention – since CSS3 (and HTML5, of course) is still being developed, not all of the CSS3 properties are available in Dreamweaver CS5 (and in Live View some properties do not render). But even with that caveat, Dreamweaver CS5 now really rocks with CSS3. And again, if you’ve not looked at Dreamweaver lately, you can always download a 30-day trial.