Categories
Web

More on Zeldman rant

There’s been confusion about why I reacted so strongly to Zeldman’s posting, earlier in the day. Copied from an email I just to a friend:

Zeldman sees only wrong within the Internet. The industry is stupid. Content created without web writers is bad. He seems incapable of seeing the wonder that surrounds him, and that touches him in his everyday interaction.

Case in point – metadata has nothing to do with websites being visited or not. Not really. It’s all about how to generate buzz. We know this from weblogging; it’s all a game. None of us uses meta-data to connect via weblogging. In fact, we’re seeing the beginning instances of a truly semantic web through the human element contained in weblogging — and all Zeldman “sees” is that too many sites aren’t accessible.

I agree with him that web writers aren’t valued as highly as they should; I disagree with the assumption that only web writers can create good content.

It’s elitism and I’ve been fighting this on the internet since day 1. Zeldman is an elitist. If he’s talking about hiring firms, I’m not seeing this from his post. Perhaps the viewpoint is based on our different perspectives of Zeldman.

Categories
Technology

Red Hat and AOL

At first I thought the reports of Red Hat and AOL in discussions were a joke. However, I found out otherwise.

I like my friend Andy’s view of the possibility at O’Reilly – chances are this is going to be a mix that won’t favor either open source or technical innovation. AOL may be business savvy (and known to be rather ruthless in this respect), but the company is also a technology killer.

John Robb thinks that AOL should package and distribute Radio as an alternative to .NET. John, apples and oranges. Radio ain’t .NET. And remember what I said about AOL being a technology killer. Radio is Userland’s baby – you sure you want to hand it over to the really, really big BigCo Suits? What’s the price of success?

Two monopolies are not better than one. A world with AOL and Microsoft sharing dominion is no better than Microsoft having dominion alone.

Categories
Web

Zeldman rant

Zeldman’s on a rant…again

You know according to Zeldman’s estimation of the web, you aren’t here. You’re not reading this. This isn’t usable. None of the web except the infamous Zeldman orange is usable. The web is going to hell – quickly. Better cancel your DSL or cable modem right now. Tell Google it’s failing.

(Found reference at Scripting News)

Categories
Technology

Boy was I wrong about AOL

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

At first I thought the reports of Red Hat and AOL in discussions were a joke. However, I found out otherwise.

I like my friend Andy’s view of the possibility at O’Reilly – chances are this is going to be a mix that won’t favor either open source or technical innovation. AOL may be business savvy (and known to be rather ruthless in this respect), but the company is also a technology killer.

John Robb thinks that AOL should package and distribute Radio as an alternative to .NET. John, apples and oranges. Radio ain’t .NET. And remember what I said about AOL being a technology killer. Radio is Userland’s baby – you sure you want to hand it over to the really, really big BigCo Suits? What’s the price of success?

Two monopolies are not better than one. A world with AOL and Microsoft sharing dominion is no better than Microsoft having dominion alone.

Categories
Weblogging

S**t or get off the pot

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Okay, enough is enough. Jonathon Delacour has been flirting with the idea of getting a Mac, teasing us, coyly, with this will he or won’t he like a 16 year old on a hot date.

Time for this man to buy a Mac.

As I lay here on my bed, lightweight PowerBook on my lap, I decided to start a list of reasons why Jonathon should either s**t or get off the pot and buy that PBook.

  • Weight: Carrying around a PowerBook doesn’t feel that much different than carrying around my purse or a notepad. Actually, it weighs much less than my purse. My Dell laptop — the infamous mobile desktop — weights 19 pounds. My TiBook weights, what? Five pounds? Six? What would you rather lug around on a trip? A load of bricks or a load of feathers?
  • Ease of Use: I have an older TiBook, which is a 15 inch and plenty big enough for me. The keyboard is very comfortable and the touchpad is very responsive. I like the wide wrist supports.
  • Monitor: My TiBook is great for watching DVD movies in bed.
  • Neat Apple stuff: There isn’t fun stuff for Windows. That’s what I found out when I finally gave in and bought the TiBook, my first Mac. And the great thing with all this stuff is that people don’t assume Mac users are mega-geeks, and the software actually installs without tweaking. Amazing.
  • OS Support: In my OS 10.2 machine, I have the traditional Mac, the Darwin BSD Unix that forms the kernel of the OS, and I have Virtual PC installed running Windows 2000. I can literally have three operating systems running at once. Better — I can run X Windows on top of the Aqua interface and access all that cool X Windows software, including OpenOffice.All the power in the universe in an itty bitty titanium shell.
  • Portability: With my wireless router and my Airport, and a battery with a decent lifespan, I can carry my Mac everywhere — to bed, downstairs, in my office, the deck, the bathroom. Well, maybe not the bathroom. But you can take it to the kitchen.Just think, Jonathon — there’s you at the sink, washing your dishes with your Dismatique, your Mac quietly humming on the counter, playing music, or maybe a movie. Or soccer clips.
  • Cats: Cats prefer PowerBooks 2 to 1 over comparable PC-based laptops. No, really.
  • Compatibility: How can someone like Jonathon not have a Mac? Here’s a man who is very careful with his web site design; yet he’s not able to test it against the OS and machines that many of his readers use. What Jonathon has to do, then, is ask his Mac users questions, such as does this font look okay?Next time Jonathon asks me to check out a page, I’m going to tell him, “Oh God, Jonathon. What did you do to your site!?! It looks awful. I mean, it really looks scary. Are you not feeling well or something?”
  • Coolness: No matter how powerful a PC laptop, you won’t have the coolness factor of carrying around a PowerBook, particulary a TiBook. It used to be geeks wouldn’t be caught dead with a Mac, but that was before Darwin. Now, geeks flock around that glowing Apple symbol, like moths to a flame.
  • sex: TiBooks are still the sexiest computers in the world. I mean, my Dell looks like something that should be taken out into a field and detonated. Or like something I would take to Havard law school. Functional.Tell me, which would you rather be? Sexy? Or functional?

And the final and best reason of all — PowerBooks are the official laptop of Alpha Males.