When the time comes to get down to brass tacks and write a review I usually stick with a good ol' tried and true formula: I'll settle in with a product, give the tires a good kick, try to get some real-world work done with it, and then write about the hijinks and hilarity that usually ensues. With this product, Discreet's unbelievably outstanding combustion 2, I'm going to do something a little different. First, if you read the last sentence, you'll probably notice that I more or less gave away the rating. Well, besides that, I think a product like combustion represents part of the bigger Mac picture, so I'll be focusing not only on the specifics of what combustion actually does, but also why combustion is so important to the Mac platform, as well as why you should try to scrape up the wad of cash needed to purchase combustion as soon as humanly possible.

Of course, I'm going to take all the credit.

It seems that only a mere couple of weeks after my somewhat controlled rant at Macromedia, something got done. The powers-that-be over there finally said, "You know, that Kevin is absolutely correct. Start the port of Flash over to OS X right now!" And here we are, less than one month later, and they're already done. All is forgiven! Praise be!