Categories
Just Shelley

Many Moving Parts

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I don’t get the web on my cell phone. Personally I don’t like to take calls on my cell phone when I’m out and about. I carry it with me more for telling me what time it is (I don’t wear a watch) and emergencies, as in:

“Help, I’m trapped in my car and there’s a bear outside who thinks I’m a big marshmallow.”

I know this is going to be traumatic and I’ll try to break the news as gently as possible, but when I’m out and about I don’t want to keep up with what you’re all doing. I’m sorry, I know that you feel cut adrift by this.

I know, though, that there are those of you who check my site 30 times a day on your Blackberries, waiting for the next gem of wit and wisdom. Who am I to stand in the way of your need for such treasures?

I added a mobile stylesheet to all my sites. The page just contains the following:

* {
position: static !important;
float: none !important;
background-image: none !important;
}

img { display: none }

#sidebar, #header, #footer { display: none }

What this does is remove absolute positioning and floats, the background and other page images, and removes the sidebar, header, and footer from display. What you get is posts, links, and comments. That’s it. I picked up part of this from this older article. I’m not up on mobile phone styling and haven’t downloaded any emulators, so if it tanks in your handheld device, consider it a perk.

Amyloo was blown off in this discussion but her question, and Paul Montgomery’s followup was a good one: what is wrong with providing a handheld stylesheet?

Stylesheets too big? If mobile stylesheets such as the one I just demonstrated are ‘too big’ to download, all of the web is too big to download to a screen that’s typically 2 by 3 inches in size.

Not all handheld devices support a specific handheld stylesheet? In this case I also provide full content feeds. Most mobile browsers can read syndication feeds.

What I won’t do is provide separate content pages just for mobile devices. I also won’t support yet another kludged extension to an already kludgy RSS 2.0 specification. Over-engineering. Can we say, over-engineering?

Put it away. Look at the birds.

Categories
Diversity

Irony

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Oh god, please, won’t someone notice the irony of this post, and the accolades heaped on this white boy?

I can’t be the only human being on this planet who sees this as absolute proof of everything we’ve been saying for years about the invisibility of women.

I am silenced. I have nothing more to say.

Categories
Diversity

Focusing

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Interesting. The Ajax Experience no longer has the dubious distinction of have no women in its speaker list. It now has Molly Holzschlag.

Since I know absolutely squat about JavaScript and XMLHttpRequest other than what they do, it’s rather humorous I’d get picked up for such a seriously geeky conference as The Ajax Experience.

Categories
Web

Web 1.0 must die

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I think Web 2.0 is killing Web 1.0. I think there’s a ‘young eating their parent’ thing going on.

Amazon has been using its resources to put out S3 and the new video service at the same time that the company’s bread & butter online store seems to be taking a hit. Maybe it’s just me and my machines and my internet access, but the site is slow, the redirecting is broken, and the pages are excessively cluttered now.

Google’s another. I really like Google maps, and gmail was OK, but much of the new functionality the company is putting out seems to only appeal to a small group of geeks. The office style products are, to put it delicately, uninspiring. In the meantime, I’ve noticed more and more that searches return links to stores or businesses, rather than useful information. The SEOs are winning, while Google is focused on profitable good works.

Yahoo, on the other hand, bought its way into Web 2.0–perhaps as a strategy to keep from being eaten by the young ‘uns.

eBay bought Skype and Paypal, and we know why it bought Paypal, but I think we’re all collectively scratching our heads on the Skype. Meanwhile, it flounders around now trying to find new revenue streams, while it’s core functionality is being phished to death.

Even the venerable conferences of yore are giving way to SillyValley “Meet Mike” or “Stick it to Tim” shmooze and booze sessions where any pretense of actually discussing technology has given way to breathless panting about startups: hot or not. Isn’t it nice to know that the long tail is being wagged by a puppy?

Categories
Web

And the young eats itself

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Liz Gannes at GigaOM writes a story on Evan Williams and Odeo, and Williams confession at the recent Web Apps of the Future yak fest. Williams talks about how he royally screwed up with his startup, Odeo, burning through it sounds like millions, hiring a staff of 14, all to build a product for an audience the company hadn’t even defined yet. So now that Ev has recognized his mistake, is he going to do better?

So what’s he doing to fix these mistakes? Not refunding the VCs their investment, that’s for sure. And not even trying to earn revenue; Williams freely admitted Odeo hasn’t yet settled on a business model.

I expected Williams to get at least a verbal slap for such, but oh no.

All in all, we can’t say we came out of the presentations convinced Odeo is set to conquer the universe, but Williams’ honesty and humility are admirable. The best part is, his advice has a chance of making an impact while it’s still relevant to today’s startups.

Speechless. I’m speechless.