Month: August 2006

Categories
Technology

SxSW Panels

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

SxSW has posted a list of panels, and you can vote on which ones to be presented*. danah boyd is participating in one and I’m happy to pass along her request.

Though I’m not going, if I were, I’d want to see the following panels myself:

Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web: The Impact on Scientific Publishing

New publishing technologies challenge the traditional structure of peer-reviewed scientific journals. For hundreds of years the “article” has been the primary vehicle for conveying scientific information – but semantic markup, tagging, and wiki are reconstructing scientific publications into a flexible and evolving concept. This panel will look at the social and legal implications of “Web 2.0″ and “Semantic Web” as they impact science and scientific knowledge.

John Willbanks

Spam of all Kinds: Dealing with Online Abuse

Spam, spim, spit, comment spam, referrer spam, splogs, software exploits, viruses, worms, phishing, dictionary attacks, cross-site scripting, social engineering: does everything new we do online have its own categories of abuse we have to protect ourselves and our users against? Can anything be done to stop it, or at least to defend ourselves against it? Listen to the experts as they discuss the solutions, for better or for worse.

The above is by Steven Champeon, one of the reviewers for Learning JavaScript, so I have a bias.

A Decade of Style

It’s been just over ten years since CSS1 was finalized, and almost 11 since the first CSS-supporting browser was shipped. A small group of grizzled veterans reflects on a decade of successes, triumphs, failures, disappointments, reversals of fortune, and just plain fun in the world of CSS and web design. Warning: may include surprising historical information, residual kvetching about past mistakes, and context for interpreting the next ten years.

Eric Meyer, who really knows CSS

Dueling Ajax Toolkits: Don’t Reinvent the Window

The number of Ajax Toolkits on the market seems to be outpacing the number of solid Ajax developers. Join us as the developers of the leading Ajax Toolkits square off to show you why you should choose their toolkit instead of creating yet another Ajax toolkit.

Dylan Schiemann

There are also three 3D talks that sound interesting, though I’m not into gaming; several on accessibility, which would make the conference worthwhile for any web page developer; how XSLT is sexy; one on the browser wars, which should be interesting, and on an on. Some really good sounding panels. I’d even think of going, but I’d be as welcome there as a wart on a wedding ring finger, just before saying the “I do’s”.

Anyway, if you are going, pick your panels.

*Note to O’Reilly, something to think on for the next ETech–let the audience be the conference jury.

Categories
Technology Web

Bad IE. Bad IE?

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Very interesting post and comments regarding IE7’s support of CSS. The post author writes about how IE7 fails the WaSP’s Acid2 test. As was noted in comments, this test isn’t necessarily the be all end all that it’s made out to be. For instance, according to Ziff-Davis UK Firefox also doesn’t pass the test, and Opera 9 barely passes it.

What do I think? I think a good web page designer can create a site that uses standard CSS, XHTML, and JavaScript and have it work with IE7, Firefox, Opera, Safari, and even other more esoteric browsers. I think the NewsCloud site is overdeveloped and too busy. I’m not a designer, but as a web page reader for 15 years, it gives me a headache. It also gives the W3C XHTML validator a headache with 307 errors! I’m surprised the page developer’s Firefox isn’t lying down and whimpering with that count.

As for browser-specific extensions and non-standard uses of technology, we don’t have to look any further than Firefox’s support for JavaScript 1.7 in Firefox 2.0b to see rather significant examples of both. There is no ECMAScript standard to support these. How is it, then, that this innovation is considered good while Microsoft’s innovation (which, I want to remind the more histrionic among you, helped bring about today’s implementation of Ajax) is considered bad?

IE is not my favorite browser. I do have to do extra work to ensure my pages work with it. However, it’s a vast improvement over IE 6, and as long as the changes continue in the positive direction, I will be encouraged. Guardedly encouraged, but encouraged nonetheless.

I think putting up a banner screaming at your customers to change their browser is a case of ‘been there, done that’ back from the old Netscape/IE flag days. Anyone can code a page to work with Firefox–it takes skill to make the page work with all the browsers and still validate.

I also think that if someone wants to put up banners and force people into one browser or another, more power to them, and more jobs for me. I may not be a designer, but at least I know how to create sites that validate.

Update

The author of the post quotes a year old column by Paul Thurrott, noted Microsoft writer. What he fails to quote, is Thurrott’s follow up post.

Categories
Stuff

Someone pop it…please

Is this a joke?

Today there’s a funding bubble but there’s not as much of a liquidity bubble.

The only reason I didn’t throw my laptop across the room is the speaker of this brilliant quip had a nice smile when he said it. I had to assume he said this tongue-in-cheek. Kind of, “Let’s pull Arrington’s leg.”

On a related note regarding this comedy and the earlier Digg is worth millions Business Week story: lack of diversity, especially as regards women. It’s enough to make you cry. Even if it’s all smoke and mirrors, it’s smoke and mirrors that doesn’t even know that 51+% of the world exists.

The words make you laugh. The reality makes you cry.

Categories
Technology Web

Is Firefox the next IE?

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I just posted a story at ScriptTeaser about a weblog post whereby the writer rants and rails (not the Ruby kind) against IE7. I find myself in the rather unusual position of responding in defense of this much maligned browser.

For all that there are rants against IE and Microsoft’s use of non-standard technology, that non-standard technology gave us the roots of Ajax, as well as the basic architecture of today’s DOM (Document Object Model). I remember very well when IE was the hot browser, while Netscape’s Navigator pretty much sat there, doing little.

In addition, it was Mozilla/Firefox 2.0b that gave us JavaScript 1.7–a non-standard extension to the JavaScript programming language. So, the team behind IE is not the only browser team that ‘innovates’.

In fact, about the only browser that attempts to keep up with all the standards is Opera, and it only has about a 2% customer share.

You have to make pages that work, and they have to work in all of the popular browsers, and should work equally well with or without JavaScript (or Flash). If you can’t, someone else will. That’s the law of this jungle.

Categories
Weblogging

AOL Screws the pooch

I have to agree with the Herd on this one: AOL screwed the pooch by releasing its actual search results. Even if the data is ‘anonymized’ (is that a new Web 2.0 word?), it shows a betrayal of confidentiality that’s going to end up costing the company big time. AOL is trying to paint itself as a newer, hipper company with its recent weblogger hirings, as well as monetizing (another new Web 2.0 word?) of linkers. This at a time when its customer service will eventually become a verb in modern dictionaries: to AOL a customer (i.e. argue with a customer, abuse the customer, not let them make legitimate changes in their account, and now, betray the customer’s confidentiality.)

There are ways to provide search term data that doesn’t rely on exposing actual search terms, many of which include names, phone numbers, and addresses (and other associated information in unrelated searches that could prove embarrassing). This is pure hype; attention grabbing stuff. Bad juju, may your CDs burn in hell, AOL behavior.

This site is where I first read the story (via Seth), and this is the site that seems to have broken the story. I wanted to give credit where it’s due, since certain A listing sites seem to think this is unnecessary.

(I’m pointing to Search Engine Watch’s post on the topic because of the last sentence in the post, related to a person’s reaction to the news: Want more wow. Though I don’t think we’re discussing the same thing, I want more wow, too.)

update

AOL has officially apologized.

Image of little boy, looking guilty as hell, one hand in grubby jeans, the other hand’s thumb tucked into the urchin’s mouth. He kicks his foot in the dirt, looks, down, cheeks turned red and mumbles, “I’m sowwy”. He then holds his arms up, wanting to be picked up and held, and told, “That’s OK, we still love you. Just don’t set fire to the cat again.”