Earlier today I received an email from iStockPhoto stating that I had some credits set to expire in 90 days. Fair enough, they give me warning that this is going to happen, but I came to an interesting thought, why do electronic credits expire? I mean, my emergency $20 in my wallet isn’t void after a certain date and that change in my couch from 5 years ago gets me a candy bar, so why can’t I use my credits when I want to?
I remember the Simon mall franchise doing this same sort of expiration system to their gift cards. Difference is, Massachusetts has a law in place that states gift cards cannot expire. Although you will still find stores attempting to hide this fact unless you mention it.
The expiration just means I will have to buy images soon. It still isn’t right and maybe if enough people complained it would change.. but probably not. Since we all know big business doesn’t listen.
Adobe has just announced a beta (need to be invited) for a service that will place targeted ads within PDF content. The system is set up to deliver relevant ads powered by Yahoo and allows the publisher the ability to block competitors.
This system could be both good and bad.
Good
Allow publishers to make money from content
Offset publishing costs so publications cost less
Start to see full publications being distributed, similar to an e-book.
Bad
More ads in our content
Could be abused
Force the idea that *all* information should be wrapped around an ad model
Overall I think it is an unique direction and it will be interesting to see how/if this model is adopted.
TheCodeTrip is an upcoming Microsoft tour to promote and give developers a chance to learn about Silverlight.
The touring idea may be fresh in your brain from the previous Adobe AIR Tour earlier this year.
At the moment TheCodeTrip.com is looking for ideas, so if you have some, submit them!
http://thecodetrip.com/
I have published a review on FDT 3 for Eclipse. This application is a wonderful ActionScript editor that when paired with the Flash code library makes it very painless to develop Flash applications.
The latest release has support for ActionScript 2 and 3 which is great considering even the latest version of Flash still has an integrated editor that needs help.
Once I get a few moments I will be writing up a few tutorials for FDT.. this of course will be after I have completed my Flash and PHP Bible.
Here is the full review
Update: FDT has linked to this review, pretty cool!
Just noticed the posting over at Mike Chambers blog. Adobe has released a new (and I hope final) version of the AIR logo.
I actually like the concept behind it and it really sits nicely on the desktop. Now all they need is some stickers for my MacBook Pro to show AIR love.
