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Hmmm, let me get this straight. The author wants a service that allows developers to quickly and programatically convert proprietary format documents (MS Office
by tx 18y ago
Hmmm, let me get this straight. The author wants a service that allows developers to quickly and programatically convert proprietary format documents (MS Office, etc) to standard easily viewable formats (pdf, flash) for FREE to 'die' because he has somehow missed the obvious text-selection tool in iPaper (even same icon as Adobe uses)
No, the author wants a service that converts from open and easily readable formats like HTML, Office and PDF into hard-to-use junk format of Flash, partly because it doesn't do select/copy/paste via browser and re-implements the wheel in process and he wants it to die because it's a fucking pain whenever someone sends you a link to THAT as opposed to a normal HTML page or a more consumable PDF/doc/etc.
They should have written a high-quality converter of "everything-to-HTML". I haven't seen a single Scribd "document" that couldn't benefit from being a normal HTML.
I don't touch Scribd links. Reading text in Flash it's not convenient, it's slow and plain moronic: it's like filming a video of a page and uploading it to youtube (analogy not mine).
Yes, I want them to die too, because I see Flash as a proprietary and badly implemented anchor that's pulling us back, into "platform" days, when instead of developing software for people you had to "target a platform". I want no freaking "platforms" from nobody.
I am happy Apple doesn't put this plague on their phone.
There are startups that change the world, make it better. Then there are those that simply make money without doing anything impressive, just helping people out here and there. But then there are companies that try to profit at someone else's expense, and Scribd is one of them - Scribd is clearly in Adobe's army of flash developers, and they're looking to ruin the web for all of us, because they're imposing "Adobe tax" on everything web-connected: crawlers need to understand that junk, new hardware needs to have a "player" for it, new browsers, new OS'es, etc.
Fuck Scribd.