I was wrong about Windows, too
For the longest time, I’ve avoided learning about Flash. When Flash was becoming popular for animations on web sites, it was mis-used and usually annoying. And all of the Flash-based ads are usually still annoying.
And major sites, e.g.,WSJ.com, sometimes still put up broken Flash ads that are more than annoying. One such ad, and a bungled response from customer support, was enough to make me abandon my paid subscription to WSJ.com. I don’t miss the paid content as much as I thought I might, and have never seriously considered reinstating paid status, but I do hope that Murdoch decides to eliminate the WSJ “paywall”. I’ve shed no tears over the NY Times abandoning Select.
So now I’m trying to be a good student of Flash, starting at the beginning. My goal is still facility with Flash video, but general competence with Flash is probably a good thing.
I remember thinking in 1989 that X-Windows was going to be the dominant windowing environment on PCs. I said about as much in “Unix – The Force Behind Personal Computing?” Unix Technology Advisor 2, 2 (February 1990). When Michael Dell read what I had written, he gently suggested I take a closer look at Windows 3.0. History shows Michael was right and I was wrong.