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Flash, like it or love it, despite all its security holes and the bugs that cause browsers to crash and computers to freeze, it is an almost compulsory browser plugin for most web surfers. Flash lets web developers build highly creative web sites and add multimedia components like embedded videos and Flash galleries with beautifully animated transitions between images. Web surfers whom wish to view those Flash components must have Adobe’s Flash plugin installed in their browser if they want to see more than blacked out regions of sites that rely on Flash for some of their display. So, as much as I personally hate Flash, I was very surprised to recently learn that Adobe have ceased development of their 64-bit Linux Flash plugin.

Last week, Adobe released the following statement:

Every couple of days I receive an email from a company that is my main supplier of business cards, marketing fliers, baseball caps, pens and pretty much all my marketing materials. It is also a company I advertise on many of my websites. If you have used the Net a lot or have visited any of the freebie and coupon sites then you will know who I am talking about: Vistaprint.

I like the offers, don’t get me wrong. I only use Vistaprint to take advantage of their special offers. But I just wish Vistaprint would stop sending me so many special offer emails. Here is an example, in the past two weeks I have been sent emails entitled:

Plus a few more that I might have deleted before writing this article.

I envy Vistaprint’s marketing style. Their mail-shots are a lesson in marketing in themselves. Look at this one to see what I mean: