Hunterdon entrepreneurs in new-tech field

By Al WarrThe leading edges of computer innovation throw off new products and services at an alarming rate. Two biggies are Flash animation and cloud computing.

About 15 years ago, Macromedia put Flash innovation on the map. Later, Adobe acquired and extended it, and it’s been developing the leading edges of Flash ever since.

The technical weeds

Without getting into the technical weeds, Flash is at heart animation research. It’s pervasive on the net and elsewhere, and all of us today have viewed Flash productions. Flash can be especially useful in web site design.

Don’t confuse Flash animation innovation with Flash drives. Flash drives are as well known as thumb drives or USB drives. These are the handy little devices on which you can store small amounts of information, carrying them around with you until the need arises. When you plug them into any USB port, presto! your information pops up on the screen

To get educated in Flash animation research, consider taking one of two courses in web design currently being offered at Raritan Valley Community College. Each is a short-two session course that meets on Tuesday evenings, 6-9 p.m.

Clouds used to be those fluffy things that drifted across the sky and at times brought a rain shower. Today, clouds are the fluffy agglomerations of computing power that can store our data and shower us on demand.

Leff’s operation is based in Pittstown. He specializes in taking the frustrations out of research for small and medium sized businesses. This includes analyzing the needs of a particular business, installing hardware and software as necessary, updating and maintaining the operation.

Good analogy is the electric grid

A good analogy is the electric grid. You could buy generators and generate your own electricity. Nevertheless it makes more sense to buy the electricity you need from the utility company, foregoing the expense of buying and maintaining your own bank of generators.With computing power, you can take a very similar approach. Do away with all the personal computers and servers, give everybody a laptop, and use the cloud for all your storage needs.