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November 30, 2003
Through the eyes of a Mac
This is a very handu web service: enter a URL and get a screenshot of what it looks like in a Mac web browser.
Seriously cool. This will be used a lot at work. The only Mac we have to test sites on is an iMac with OS9 and various browsers. But to test for OSX and Safari I have to go over to a friendly advertising agency and do final testing.
November 29, 2003
Send back your MP3s!
Sharing MP3s of copyrighted music is illegal. Do the right thing. Send them back!
This is so funny:
That was when we looked at each other and said: "No more! It's time to make it right by giving back what we stole!" And that's just what we did! We sent back all the files we'd illegally downloaded. Every single one of them!
I prefer the Malcolm McLaren take on the whole thing though. Keep downloading until the music industry collapses (or realises it has to change to survive), that way we can take the music back and get rid of the fabricated 15-minutes-artists they produce today.
November 23, 2003
Internet censorship, this is what it looks like
SmartMobs is apparently censored in UAE. All you see is a text stating that you can't reach the site. Update: Visit from UAE?
I have never seen a screenshot of this. Interesting how it looks like a road sign. "None shall pass..."
Smart Mobs - Censored in United Arab Emirates
Update: Funny. Today (2003-11-25) I found this in my log files:
25 Nov, Tue, 04:20:29 ac0.emirates.net.ae MSIE 6 Windows XP
Good morning UAE? So I guess my site isn't censored... ;) Phew.
Dvorak still not getting it, Gillmor answers
This is pretty interesting, if nothing else perhaps we will finally get an answer to what blogging is good for. ;)
John Dvorak has (again) decided to speak out on the hopelessness of blogging, which he sees as a dying fad.
Steve Gillmor takes a stand and answers back. Notice the interesting breadcrumb at top of the eWeek article page...
Dvorak:
Blogs, or Web logs, are all the rage in some quarters. We're told that blogs will evolve into a unique source of information and are sure to become the future of journalism. Well, hardly. Two things are happening to prevent such a future: The first is wholesale abandonment of blog sites, and the second is the casual co-opting of the blog universe by Big Media.
Gillmor:
The dirty little secret Mr. Dvorak is ignoring is that blogs (and more profoundly, RSS) have changed the dynamics of professional journalism, not by replacing it, but informing it with the authentic voices of the creators of the technology while it's being created. This can be uncomfortable for the embedded media -- witness John Markoff's reluctance to handicap blogging's survival long-term in a recent story for the New York Times.
This quote from Gillmor in my opinion says it all:
"It's no coincidence that the most-read blogs are created by professional writers," Dvorak warns. And this: "So much for the independent thinking and reporting that are supposed to earmark blog journalism." Here's a test you can try at home: take the word blog out of the last quote.
PCMag.com, Dvorak: Co-opting the Future
Scobleizer: Interesting feature thoughs for blog tools
Scobleizer has gathered a few interesting thoughts on what make blogs successful tools and some features he would like to see.
For instance, I have a vision of a day when every single Microsoft employee will have a weblog. Now, what happens when you have 55,000 people weblogging inside of a corporation? Well, for one, I want to see weblogs in different ways? Why shouldn't it be possible to see results from a search engine in order of where you are on the org chart, for instance? So, how can you match RSS data up with your domain data that's stored in Exchange and/or other corporate data stores?
The Scobleizer Weblog: Five pillars of conversational software.
The Scobleizer Weblog: So, what would you like to see in RSS?
November 22, 2003
Is that an African swallow?
Wonderful stuff. This definitely deserves Yet Another Link. Estimating the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow.
Have you ever seen Monthy Pyton you immediately know what this is about. Beautiful answer to the age old question.
Bonus answer: the capital of Assyria.
For those looking for additional answers, the four capitals of Assyria were Ashur (or Qalat Sherqat), Calah (or Nimrud), the short-lived Dur Sharrukin (or Khorsabad), and Nineveh. The ruins of all four ancient cities fall within the modern state of Iraq.
style.org > Estimating the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow
Style.org is created by these guys: 13pt. There is some truly great looking web designs to browse through on their site.
Wireless micro radio stations
If this becomes reality, I definitely flesh out those 6000 SEK required to purchase an iPod. Immediately.
Jack sharing. What a weird expression. Rings of drug addiction ritiuals and habits.
I really like the thought of people walking in a park, stopping now and then to exchange iPod jacks for a brief momentt and then keep walking. No words, no worries, just a few seconds of mutual listening to the other's music and then walking away perhaps having had a new music experience.
Imagine if iPods could broadcast what they currently are playing, and you wirelessly could tune in to that iPod-station... Neat. I like the one-on-one "manual" jack sharing even more though.
November 18, 2003
A must for every moblogger
This is a wonderful toy. Even better would be if it just projected a keyboard on any flat surface.
Definitely useful for when moving about, snapping pictures of this and that or sitting down and summarize your impressions of something over a cup of coffee.
Connects using infrared to your device, as long as it runs Symbian OS.
November 15, 2003
Paul Ford chops Shirky just above the soles of his feet
...as we say in Swedish. I need to get back to this later.
Loads of interesting links and topics to explore further. But now I need to start cooking for dinner, having guests and Cristina is getting annoyed with me being glued to the computer.
Too much interesting to read today!
A Response to Clay Shirky's The Semantic Web, Syllogism, and Worldview
November 14, 2003
We need to make Accessibility Guidelines more... ...accessible?
It may sound weird, but I definitely think this article's author has a point.
The article is awfully long. I haven't read it in its entirety myself yet. But I will, during the weekend.
As is now quite widely known among indie developers and virtually unknown everywhere else, websites are properly created in accordance with published accessibility standards. The chief source for those standards is the set of “recommendations” by the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Accessibility Initiative. These Web Content Accessibility Guidelines were last officially updated in 1999.
WCAG 1.0 was terribly hard to understand and learn, and we need to make sure the guidelines develop in such a way that they will be easier to understand and use. Then perhaps finally they will be.
A new revision of the guidelines, 2.0, is being written. The development process is going slowly and is in danger of recapitulating many of the errors of 1.0 - unrealistic guidelines divorced from real-world web development that are at once too vague and too specific.
This is an interesting and important topic. Hopefully I will have time and opportunity to take part in this. We already make WAI an integral part of our work at Infogate (as much as we can and understand anyway) even though it is not (yet...) demanded by law in Sweden.
If you choose to make standards-compliant websites, inevitably you will have to follow the guidelines. It’s foreseeable that you could be legally required to follow WCAG 2.0. You could opt into following the guidelines or they could be foisted upon you. You thus have an enlightened self-interest in ensuring the new guidelines actually make sense. Moreover, we simply need more contributors.
I am going to read the full article during the weekend and see if we in any way can contribute to this during the coming year.
It's my birthday!
No, not today, but the 9th of May which apparently is supposed to become official "celebration day" in the European Union.
Bengt O Karlsson reports on how the press sometimes (most of the time?) do a really lousy fact checking job.
He also mentions that the 9th of May is slated to become "celebration day" for the EU. Excellent. :) More cake for me?
November 13, 2003
And the winner is... Google!
Excellent short story about Google. Definite vibe of FWLS. The future is bright. And full of weird acronyms.
Covering several aspects of the semantic web and inventing some new ones Paul Ford has published this glimpse into the near future of the web.
It was easy to publish the stuff. But the problem was that there was no good way to bring it all together. And it was hard to create RDF files, even for some programmers - so we're back to that steep learning curve. That all changed - suprisingly slowly - in late 2004, when with little fanfare, Google introduced three services, Google Marketplace Search, Google Personal Agent, and Google Verification Manager, and a software product, Google Marketplace Manager.
There are several more short stories linked from this one, have to come back to this later. I wish I had a reminder function in MT, allowing me to check a box "Remind me tonight about this link".
August 2009: How Google beat Amazon and Ebay to the Semantic Web (Ftrain.com)
November 12, 2003
Multiple IE on Windows - it works!
Today I followed the instructions from Insert Title Web Design in order to install multiple IE on my PC. Success!
Works great. Like a shrimp-toast, as we would say in Sweden (or at least I would...). See longer description on what to do in Swedish.
In the image you see five different versions of IE running parallell on the same Windows PC. Kudos to Joe Maddalone and the rest of the team at Insert Title Web Design for figuring this out.
I even got IE4 to work. Basically. It behaves a bit odd, you can't enter a URL in the adress-field for instance. What you have to do is use the dialog "File > Open" to enter addresses to web sites or local files.
MindManager with Tablet PC, killer app!
Here is a combination where the end result is greater than the sum of the parts.
I use MindManager a lot for planning and barinstorming acitivities. It suits the way I think and work great.
Add a Tablet PC with hand writing recognition software to he mix and you get a wonderful tool.
This story describes how i is used at an American company, IBC-IndustrialSupplyPlus.
Making money from app development
Sound advice if you plan on developing an application of some sort and offer it to the public.
This should apply to all types of software applications and servces, not only OSX-apps.
Found the link through The Scobleizer Weblog. Idon't understand how he is able to blog so much. :)
November 11, 2003
Spam Comment Manifesto
The spammers may have picked a fight with the wrong kids in the schoolyard.
Harvesting email-addresses off of web pages was bad enough IMNSHO, to me it is a clear violation of my private space to steal my published email address and send unsolicited commercial messages to it.
Posting comments on weblogs and discussion groups peddling crappy products is even more so. Maybe the spammers finally crossed the wrong line.
Spammers are hereby put on notice. Your comments are not welcome. If the purpose behind your comment is to advertise yourself, your Web site, or a product that you are affiliated with, that comment is spam and will not be tolerated. Bloggers will track you down and notify your hosting providers about your activities. We will tell your Ineternet Service Providers what you are using their connections for. We will let the makers of the products you are advertising know of your despicable sales methods. We will hit you where it hurts by attacking your source of income. You can move to a new host, find a new Internet Service Provider, or sign up for a different affiliate plan. The end result will be the same. Each time you rise out of the muck we will strike you down and send you back to the hole you crawled out of.
Bold words. I certainly like it. In a tech controlled world, the tech savviest clique will win.
Just picked this up in SmartMobs. I think this article is spreading like fire across the blogosphere right now.
November 10, 2003
Joi Ito about becoming a cranky old man
This is a feeling I recognise. It is hard not to get emotional on subjects you have spent a lot of time on getting nowhere.
Interesting point by Joi:
Many of the old men I know are cranky. They are often cranky because they've been fighting long battles. Battles about technology, battles about politics, battles about education, all kind of battles. Most old men have their hot buttons that trigger a rush of memories of these battles. When most old men talk to each other, they sense these hot buttons and generally avoid each other's hot buttons.
Diplomacy in a nutshell. ;)
Hiding in ivory towers, discussing sensitive subjects only with those you deem worthy is not a solution though. It worsens the problem. What the world needs is more moderators. People that can referee discussions and negotiations, slapping red cards in the faces of those crossing the fine line where a debate becomes a fight.
To my experience, the situations Joi describes mostly occur when there is too much ground between the parts of the discussion. Their views are too disparate, and they lack understanding of the other parties situation and goals. Page slapping for a while could perhaps be a way of reaching a more common ground. ;)
Update: When I read Joi's post I remembered a classic situation often mentioned in litterature about negotiations and conflict solving: negotiating the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. During neogiations no ground was gained due to the fact that both parties wanted control of Sinai. Analysis of the conflict showed that to Egypt, controlling Sinai was a matter of tradition and self esteem. To Israel it was a matter of security, they didn't want Egypt troops near their border. Since the two parties had different goals in the conflict it was resolved using classic win-win: Egypt got jurisdiction of Sinai but it was declared a de-militarized zone. In that way Egypt could keep face but Israel could sleep well at night.
So what does this teach us? Focusing on the underlying goals and interests of the parties involved can make a conflict easier to resolve.
Of course the litterature of conflict resolution presents us with some basic rules of thumb (what else would conflict resolving consultants rely on when presenting themselves):
- Focus on the underlying interests and goals instead of stand points and positions.
- Make sure you separate the person and the problem. Don't let your view of the problem to resolve be colored by your opinion of the person acting as your counterpart. Call a "time out" and talk about something completely different (or nothing at all...) if you are starting to mix the two. It is still important to try and see the problem from the other parties perspective though. Place yourself in their situation and walk that famous mile in their shoes (in that way, when they get pissed you already are a mile ahead and they have no shoes ;).
- If possible, try to do mutual work to reformulate the problem as a problem you have in common. If the different viewpoints can be replaced with a mutual viewpoint and efforts can be made to solve a mutual problem the discussion can become less heated and more focused on the issue at hand.
- If the negotiation is making progress and solutions are discussed, make sure you formulate solutions in such a way that it is possible for the counterpart to agree with them without losing face.
To learn more about this, search for articles by Marta Cullberg Weston.
Update: Aesop once said this suitable quote:
The shaft of the arrow had been feathered with one of the eagle's own plumes. We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction.
Next time you are about to lose your mind in a debate, think of Aesop.
Update: I never really tried manual ping. Found a trackback-link on Joi's site to this article (btw, great new design, I love it!) and am going to try pasting it in MT's "URLs to Ping"-field and see what happens. Wonder if I have styled the resulting information at all?
November 09, 2003
Better half-right than all wrong
This article on the design philosophy of "worse is better" is very interesting. But what the hell does this mean: "the MIT guy then muttered that sometimes it takes a tough man to make a tender chicken"?
Working with approximations, and getting the important parts as good as possible, has always been the way for me. Always getting every detail perfectly right or creating the perfect design / plan / theory covering all aspects and eventualities that may occur is just not realistic.
Sure, we all want to do "the right thing" but I have never found myself in a position where it is possible due to time and / or budget constraints.
First, the right thing needs to be designed. Then its implementation needs to be designed. Finally it is implemented. Because it is the right thing, it has nearly 100% of desired functionality, and implementation simplicity was never a concern so it takes a long time to implement. It is large and complex. It requires complex tools to use properly. The last 20% takes 80% of the effort, and so the right thing takes a long time to get out, and it only runs satisfactorily on the most sophisticated hardware.
This article describes an interesting view on the subject.
The lesson to be learned from this is that it is often undesirable to go for the right thing first. It is better to get half of the right thing available so that it spreads like a virus. Once people are hooked on it, take the time to improve it to 90% of the right thing.
I found it linked in Clay Shirky's latest NEC installment which was a very interesting read also.
Using RSS to keep up with current affairs
This is a nice non-tech explanation of what RSS is and what it is good for.
I like the way the author describes the benefits of RSS without getting all complicated:
Trying to find what's new, however, used to be a tedious process, which involved visiting dozens of Web sites and trying to remember which stories I'd read and when. Then RSS news syndication and aggregation entered my life. This complicated set of words describing an Internet publishing method boils down to a simple concept: Web sites publish the latest updates to a formatted file on their Web site, and you use software that automatically checks that file, notifying you of any changes.
The Seattle Times: Personal Technology: Reeling in what you want from the Web
November 08, 2003
Don't hack the CSS parsers
Peter-Paul Koch explains why CSS hacks are A Bad Idea.
I really like this article. I have been reading a lot about CSS lately, with the goal to start moving to mote xHTML/CSS-based layouts in order to keep markup more structured and focused, and everywhere I turn I find clever descriptions on how to fool browsers not parsing CSS correctly.
Especially during the first half of this year, otherwise sensible Web developers wasted enormous amounts of time in finding and improving countless CSS hacks. In my opinion these hacks are a danger to Web development, both from a psychological and from a technical point of view.
My first thought was "Great! Finally web designers are taking control, if the browser is broken, hack it!" Then I realised that all thos special tricks and gadgets rely on defects to create a visual effect. How good is that? Not at all.
Peter-Paul Koch:
Complicated CSS hacks are the modern equivalents of the frames and tables we used in wholesale lots back in the nineties. Their use serves to give the Web author a feeling of mastery, a false sense of security in the face of the countless things that can go wrong in browsers.
I agree totally. Again we are finding and devising workarounds as if we have learned nothing.
CSS hacks lull Web developers into a false sense of security and into pride at the complexity of their solutions, while the underlying theory predicts long-term disaster. Don’t fall for these aberrations. Keep CSS simple.
Koch mentions one case where hacks are ok: if they are aimed at a browser no longer in development. This feels like an important article on the subject of web design using CSS.
Great stuff on CSS gathered by Zeldman
A smörgåsbord of CSS-magic, to study and learn from.
I particularly like the vertical mini-tabs (must use for subnavigation somewhere), the three column layouts that work virtually everywhere and the CSS-based "mouseover"-functions.
That orange thing must be broken...
Good point about the horrifying tech mumbo jumbo still surrounding RSS feeds, and a glimpse of a possible future solution.
XML- and RSS-feeds look scary to people who don't know what they are or what they can use them for. Clicking one of the more and more available little orange XML-icons leads to a page that looks broken. No explanation, no help offered. Either you already know what it is or you get really confused.
One way of making raw RSS-feeds more user friendly would be to offer up an XSL-stylesheet for the browser to apply to the feed when viewed. That stylesheet can give a basic look and feel similar to the rest of the site and also explain what is all about, perhaps provide links to aggregators and such.
An example is provided over at moezzoblue.com:
By styling and providing a reason for this page’s existence, hopefully users will be provided an answer before the question is asked.
Dave, the author, states that it probably only works in Gecko-based browsers, since the rendering of the page has to be done by the browser. It works in Mozilla as well as IE6. If I remember, I will make more tests to see where it breaks exactly.
In the comment-section are more interesting ideas on how to make the RSS-feeds less intimidating when viewed in a browser.
Multiple IE on the same Windows PC
This is excellent stuff, provided it works. Finally we perhaps can dedicate a Windows PC at work where all interesting versions of IE are installed for testing web sites.
Since IE removes itself before installing an upgraded version you previously had to either run VMWare tto emulate several windows installations on a sinigle PC or have several PCs (or partitions on a PC) where you didn't upgrade IE.
This we have to try at work.
★★★★Chicago Web Design - Insert Title Web Designs
Update: Dave over att mezzoblue also writes about this:
Put a parental lock on your credit card
This is indeed useful. Put individual restrictions on your smart card carrying credit card, allowing use exactly the way you want it.
Great thing for parents, shop-a-holics, companies where people share the same card and so on.
The system will allow Junior's credit card to be programmed with any restriction the parents choose to impose -- mom can, for example, restrict the card to weekday use at designated stores, limit purchases to books and cap spending at $20 per purchase.
I guess rules could even be created limiting spending during weekdays and allowing for more expenditures on weekends. I would need that. ;)
Reality emulates fanta^D^D The Simpsons
Ever heard of a tomacco-plant? Homer Simpson invented it and got rich, due to the fact that it was highly addictive. Guess what? Now you can get it too...
Rob Baur, an operations analyst for a municipal waste water-treatment plant, actually succeeded in grafting a tomato plant onto tobacco roots and create a live tomacco-plant. Similar to Homer's plant it bore fruit, but it's not addictive like Homer's, it is more likely to get you killed.
Baur said he believes it's poisonous because it likely contains a lethal amount of nicotine. "I've got this one plant growing, and it's blooming again," Baur said. "I accidentally left the tomacco on the kitchen table, and my wife yelled at me, 'Get that thing out of the kitchen, you knucklehead!' Because it looks like a regular tomato."
Maybe we should try feeding it to some of the Big Tobacco company executives. Looks like a tomato, smells like a tomato, feels like a tomato... ...tastes like... Oops, bad tomatoes.
Except for the looking like a tomato part it sounds a lot like what cigarettes slowly do to you.
