An article located at http://etech.eweek.com/content/web_technology/top_web_developer_mistakes.html makes really good reading. It's a slide show, but below is a condensed list of what the article says!
My additional comments are in dark blue, you got any?
1) Click, Click, Click - This is great, someone is at your site and they're ready to make a purchase. Here they go; one click, two clicks, three clicks, just one more! And.... they're gone. Maybe if they could get to where they wanted to go right away you would have made a sale. (I disagree slightly in that as long as the navigation is logical and correct then it should not matter to the user how many clicks...)
2) Just Click on the Magic Compass - It's great that new web technologies make it possible to add lots of cool new navigation and interaction techniques. But don't put access to important features and content behind a strange graphic or icon. People know how links work on web pages. Some icons might as well be in elvish.
3) Don't be too Graphic - The Following Web Content Contains Massive Image Files and Graphics That May not Be Suitable For Visitors With Anything But the Fastest Possible Internet Connections. Toning Down the Giant Graphics Files Is Advised For Site Developers. (This is becoming an increasing problem given that mobile internet is really taking off!)
4) Registry of Lost Web Sites - The legend of the Invisible Web Site. Unseen by search engines, web users or anyone who might actually use the services of the website. It uses the magic of enforced site registration to keep its valuable content hidden from all who might want to use it, especially those who want to give the owners of the site some business.
5) Sticking to the Script - Scripting languages are so useful. They make it possible to do lots of cool things in web design. Click this link for an example. Mmm, getting a script error. If only there was some other way to link to content, you know like an HTML link. Don't use scripting where HTML will work just fine.
6) Too Rich - Animation is great, when it comes to Saturday morning cartoons. On the web too many animations, Flashy graphics, spinning graphs and windows popping in your face is sort of like a sign saying, "Stay away". (100% agree)
7) Welcome To Our Site "image placeholder" - Here's a great idea for the budding web site and application developer. There's this technology that makes it possible to display information to visitors and users. It's called Text! And unlike images and animations used where text would work just as well, text will always show up.
8) What's Your Color Scheme? - Whoa, trippy man. I love the way the orange text looks on that purple background. Dude, that financial firm is just going to love this site design. Or probably not. Unless you're designing for a jam band or some other client that likes wild colors, stick to color matchings that are pleasing to everyone. (Obviously they didn't see the custom colours that I used on the TtG Brokers site  )
9) Directionless Navigation - Wow, this site looks like it has lots of great content and products. But where is everything? Can't find related content? Where's that thing I saw the other day? I'm lost! Users of your web site shouldn't need a trail guide. Make navigation clean, simple and easy to find. (All computer users are very aware of hierarchical navigation [Windows Explorer] and also an address bar 'bread crumb', so play to their strengths!)
10) Can We Table This For Now? - Aren't tables great! They provide so much flexibility when laying out web content. And it looks so nice, at one specific resolution on one specific browser. At other resolutions, yuck! When using tables make good use of percentages and make sure the design looks good on all users screens.
11) Sloppy with Text - Wilcom too my grate neww web apliccatiun. Im a perfessinal web dervelper! The greatest coding skills won't help if your web content is full of misspellings and poor grammar. (Being dyslexic, I have no cammant!)
12) Click Here for Click Here - This is such a nice web application that you've built. It will really help our business deploy content to the web. And look it automatically creates links that say things like "Click Here", "More" and "Continue Reading." Now how do we change those to something more descriptive? We can't? Don't call us, we'll call you. (Use your Tool Tip and Alt tags!!!)
13) Putting up a Velvet Rope - This is such as cool web site, can I come in? Oh, you only let in people from the IE click? Us Safari geeks aren't welcome? And I was going to spend so much money. Don't you know that browser-specific web sites and applications are like so five years ago?
14) This is a Web Site, Right? - Now this is what I call a content rich site. Look at the useful information here. Let me click here, wait, this is a PDF document, and this is a Word document. I thought this was a web site, you know, something I could view in a web browser. (What is the point of providing a content managed Web site when half the content the user wants to view is hidden away in PDF and Word files? I bet 90% or more of content in Word and PDF that are available on the internet would be easy to provide on a Web page and if it was users would read it more!)
15) Over-crowding - You know, when people say that something is like finding a needle in a haystack, they don't mean that in a good way. On the web, too many links and other components can make it hard for a visitor to find the content that they want.
I have finally relented. I have had my old 60Gb iPod for over 4 years now and whilst in the whole it is perfectly adequate, it is starting to show it's age. The reasons I have justified the purchase to my self are:
- I managed to scratch the screen in practically the first week of having it (oops).
- The battery isn't lasting as long as it used to, and I use the thing virtually all day every day.
- My vast collection of music and audio books is now topping out the 60Gb.
- All of which unlike most people, I own the original CD's.
- Import quality is set at 56Kb and in the very small AAC+ format (therefore 3^3 smaller than a normal MP3).
- My current iPOD is the iPOD colour, and does not have the video capabilities.
- I'm going on vacation shortly to Las Vegas so need the entertainment for the long flights. (I could buy it in the USA but need to fill it up before going!)
- I can afford it!
So, I finally bought one from Amazon. Got the black 80Gb version for £185 with a coupon discount and express delivery. Should receive it in the mail tomorrow!
Can't wait. http://www.apple.com/ipod/ipod.html
I came across this blog posting today, and just had to share it. It's a blog posting from Scott Berkun about software development methodologies. It is such a great read, and I recommend that anyone who has ever been involved in the software development industry have a read.
I also like this Wiki entry for Management Anti-patterns.
Just how many of these development methodologies and management patterns have you/are you experiencing?
I do a lot of development on my laptop, both at work and ay home. Both machines are running Windows XP Professional, and have IIS installed. I often get the error HTTP 403.9 - Access Forbidden: Too many users are connected". I have done some digging around this, and found that by default IIS 5.1 on Microsoft Windows XP Professional allows only ten concurrent users connected at any one time.
To get around this, you first need to change your default windows script host to cscript.exe:
cscript //h:cscript
Then you can increase the connection limit to 40. it can't be increased beyond 40 as this is a hard coded windows limitation:
c:\inetpub\adminscripts\adsutil set w3svc/MaxConnections 40
I would then re-set your default windows script host back to it's default of WScript.exe, by:
cscript //h:wsscript
Being in the IT Development industry specialising in Web development, I am always interested in the 'next big trend'. That is, the next piece of development technology that I am going to have to learn and what it's going to be used for. On that note, I came across an article on The News & Observer entitled "3 Internet trends to watch".
The article goes on to describe what in the authors view is the next three themes that will shape the development of the Internet over the next few years. The first trend is as he calls it "the Internet as desktop". This has been bandied about for some time now, but I too feel that this trend is about to take off. He bases a lot of this theme on the introduction of Silverlight , which I too agree about. I think that this theme will permeate the Web rather rapidly, especially by those darned advertisers (which I always block from my browser through a number of means!).
The second theme is about "mashup" where the user is given the ability to take only partial elements from web sites and mash them together with other parts and produce a new piece of content for their consumption. Now, I'm a little worried about this one. Whilst I really can see the benefit for a consumer, but where is the benefit for the Web site owner/publisher who put all their effort into the site? I can see this trend being short lived as the Web site owners start to prevent their site from being mashed so as to protect their intellectual property and profitability.
The third theme I disagree with. Not because of the idea which is fine, but the fact that it will happen in the next few years. This theme is the implementation of search engines that flesh out information with database structure to find relationships between the key word elements of a search. I think that most search engines already try to do this, it is just that there is so much poorly crafted data out there on the Web that it's simply a difficult task to find what you want, because its hard to describe in the same way as everyone else. Everyone has their own way of describing things, and when your descriptions does not match theirs how do you know if there is a match?
Anyway. You head on over and have a read and let me know what you think.
I currently work for a company that uses Lotus Notes for email. I simply can not stand using Notes for Email, it feels and is, in my opinion very old, antiquated and counter-productive. I therefore break from the company policy and use Outlook 2003, with the Lotus Notes connector for Outlook.
I occasionally experience problems with the Lotus Notes connector for Outlook hanging on the message "Please wait while outlook shuts down".
Do others have access to your calendar or free/busy information (almost certainly!)? If yes then this is a known issue.
This issue can be resolved in two ways as detailed below. First you need to kill the Outlook process, by using the task manager. I have personally found option 2 to work best, as I do try to make sure that I am fully patched!
- Make sure that Office, including Outlook is fully patched.
- Start Outlook with the /cleanfreebusy command line switch.
I've been a developer for a very long time now. I've written in many different programming languages over this time, some more successful than others. I get a lot of people who have never done any development in their life asking me "how easy is it to develop", or saying "it can't be that hard to develop".
Today I came across the Microsoft beginer developer learning centre, and I think I'll point these people on over to this resource in future. The beginner developer learning centre is a centralised learning environment specifically targeted to novices and beginners to programming. It provides a rich array of learning content that starts with the basics, and guides the programmer step-by-step to becoming a developer. It has provision for Web and Windows development, so it should suit all those budding programmers.
I thought that I'd bring to your attention a couple of great Internet Explorer toolbars/extensions that I use.
Just released is the official release of the Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar (IEDevToolbar). It has just come out of beta, and available for download here. If you do any development on Internet Explorer or want to 'dissect' Web sites then this is the tool for you. I really love the ability to change the client code (HTML, CSS, etc.) dynamically!
The second tool that I use for Internet Explorer is the IE7Pro toolbar. I've blogged about it before here, and it has been vastly updated and improved since then. Despite it's name, this also works on IE6, so if you are still on the old browser, give it a go. You can download the updated toolbar here.
I have long been interested in getting a big, wide screen TV. After all, I do watch a lot of it, and a lot of movies. So, today when I came across this article on the Pioneer Web site that says "The World's best flat screen TV", I was obviously going to be interested.
These "world's best" are Pioneers 8th generation plasma displays, and from the pictures on the site I cant really disagree. However the proof will be actually seeing these in the showroom next to other TVs. The apparent secret for the screens being the best is that the black levels are 80% deeper than what was previously possible to produce, and they have an amazing contrast ration of 20,000:1. They also support full HD resolution (1080p), and not the cheap 720i that most current screens have (article on the difference between i and p here).
If I was to buy such a TV, I would really have to move apartment, otherwise it would be completely wasted in the hole that I currently live in!
I've been keenly following the developments of SilverLight as you can see here, and talking about it a fair bit within the office to my colleagues. As such, one of my colleagues today sent me a link to and article on Scott Hanselman's blog. His article is a good little collection of links to various samples on Silverlight that are currently out there.
As Scott says, "since Silverlight is all text...there's a whole world of copy/pasting out there just waiting for us...". As everyone knows us developers don't actually write anything original, we simply copy everyone else...Only kidding  src="http://blog.internetwideworld.com/smilies/happy.gif">
Virtually all development that I undertake is destined for the Web and HTML. The trouble with the Web and HTML is that to get a great Graphical User Interface (GUI), it takes a lot of design and development effort. This is also coupled by the usual user download requirements being very high. That is, unless you use something like Flash. However, for me, using Flash is really a designers tool and not a developers tool. It is also restricted in that it's only really available from the desktop. Thus it is not usable if you are on a Mobile browser or other 'limited' browsing platform.
As such, I have been following with some interest what people are calling Web 2.0. It is perceived as the second generation Web. Whilst this is true in some respects it really only means that there is a change in the way that developers are utilising the Web platform. The main way that I feel this going is in the field of GUI design.
To make a real difference to the user experience of the GUI, we need to radically rework how this Web and HTML thing works together with other technologies. I was really excited then when I read about the release of SilverLight.
"Microsoft® Silverlight™ is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, VB, C#, Python, and Ruby, and integrates with existing Web applications. Silverlight supports fast, cost-effective delivery of high-quality video to all major browsers running on the Mac OS or Windows."
For me if SilverLight takes off, I think that this will deliver what is expected from Web 2.0. No longer would the Web GUI be limited to large blocs of text, interspersed with some static images, but it will take on a whole new organic life. The reason I believe this is simply in the implementation of the graphics. The way that Web 1.0 currently works is that a graphics is in either GIF/JPG/PNG format, and is of a fixed size and resolution. These graphics do not scale well. To provide a GUI in Web 1.0 to a different scale, almost certainly is there a need to provide a unique set of graphics per size and resolution. This is expensive not only for development and maintenance, but also for the end download user. However, the interesting thing about the way that SilverLight can implement graphics, is that it can be done through the use of Raster graphics. These graphics are dynamically scalable on different devices and resolutions. Have a look at some of the video lessons on the subject here, or have a look at "Building rich Web experience with SilverLight".
I honestly can't wait until I can get involved with a project that will allow me to utilise SilverLight. I already have a personal project in mind, but that is a couple months away before I can really start working on it. Keep tuned, as I intend to blog my experiences on this development (hopefully with SilverLight).
Way back in the mists of time, when I first had access to the internet, I remember the excitement I had at installing Netscape 0.9. A lot has changed in the worlds of the Internet browser since then. I used to be an avid Netscape fan, but they soon shrivelled up and more or less died away to be replaced by Microsoft's Internet Explorer. I must admit that I never really used Internet Explorer until version 5, and since then I have always used Internet Explorer as my main browser of choice. I have never really got into FireFox much, other than for accessibility and cross browser testing that I do a lot of. I just want a browser that displays web pages!
Only since FireFox has taken a chunk out of Microsoft's dominance of the browser market has the giant Microsoft finally got off their backsides and made some improvements. The market is once again competitive, and I feel that this can only be a good thing. We saw that when IE vanquished Netscape to the great browserhalla, that browser progress and innovation slowed and died away. Microsoft were basically 'begging' to have someone come into the market and challenge them. Better that than an 'anti-competition lawsuit'!
As such I've not joined the browser 'wars', but I really, really do hate these 'browser bashers' who rubbish one browser over the other. Oh grow up! Each to their own. The only reason why FireFox has made inroads to the browser market is in the home, where as in the business is is very solidly IE. This is the environment I live and work in, so I'll stick with Internet Explorer thank you.
Enough ranting for now...
I was interested to read today that at the Mix'07 conference in Las Vegas (Microsoft's annual event for Web Developers and Designers), that there was some 'hint's as to what to expect from Internet Explorer 8 (IE8). These hints can be found on the Internet Explorer Blog. The hints touted that the main improvements were to be for RSS, CSS and AJAX support.
I have really started to get into my RSS feeds, and you can subscribe to mine here. As far as I am concerned the only improvements I'd like to see is improvements in speed, everything else I am happy with.
I do a lot of development around CSS, and I really do hope that Microsoft implement strict compliance to the latest standards for CSS. The current non-compliance by Internet Explorer is a real nightmare for developers, and I can say that from experience that you have to really work at and 'bash' your CSS to get it to look the same just in two different versions of Internet Explorer! That just isn't playing ball.
I'm only just starting to get into AJAX really, so I cant really comment about any improvements that are needed here.
It is also speculated that IE8 will also have support for what is known as microformats. These microformats are small embedded tags in HTML that can be interpreted in various ways by software, such as calendar events or contact information. Microformats are scheduled to be added to the next version of FireFox, so it is likely that IE8 will also have these, just to keep up.
The last thing that is hinted at being done in IE8, is more provisioning for user interface customisation. As I have previously stated, I want a browser that does what it says on the tin...it serves me Web pages! So, to me customisation is not something that I want, nor need. How about putting the extra effort into improving the speed, reliability and what about reducing the size of the install (bloat ware).
I'm a user of a Windows powered mobile phone, which has Pocket Internet Explorer installed, which I use to surf the web with, whilst on the move. I find this functionality invaluable, and it has made a dramatic impact/change to my life over the last couple of years. Anyway, what I want to see for IE8 is a Windows Mobile version that properly supports everything that it's big brother desktop version provides. I would dearly love to have full RSS, CSS, and AJAX support in the pocket version, along with Flash, JavaScript, iFrames, etc.
What do you think?
In my job I create a lot of Content Management driven Web sites. As part of this process you need to mock-up what various page templates and styles look like. This can be a real pain to put in some valid content. Historically I always wondered how the designers that I have worked with managed to put in lorem ipsum to the design to make it more realistic. Well, a while ago I found the lorem ipsum Web site.
I now use this site all the time to generate some dummy test for inclusion in my mock-ups.
Some details about Lorem Ipsum
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'Content here, content here', making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for 'lorem ipsum' will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).
I read an article today on the BBC Web site, about how BT are developing a motion-sensitive laptop, or more accuratley a device to attatch to the laptop. The device, which is very much like the Nintendo Wii controler, I think is an idea but not a very good one.
The reason for the controller is apparently to help people with dissabilities or the elderly. I don't see that as it's primary use. Why? Because it wopuld be like using etch-a-sketch for these people. How often have the able dodied 'just missed' that menu option, when using the mouse and clicked on something else? What about those users who do not have full motor control? Why not give them the same controls as an etch-a-sketch, the knob to move up and down, and the other knob to move left and right? Would be much easier and simpler!
I see the primary is in the games industry just like the Wii controller. But why bother? When you can already buy such devices that are already much better?
Call me a cynic, but I personally think that it's the usual self promotion. It appeases the share holders as BT are in the news, and it justifies them spending money on this department. It also makes them look like they are trying to help the disabled and elderly. If you have a look at the photos. The laptop that the device is being used on is tiny. Surely the laptop is too small for these disabled people to be able to see the screen clearly. There is no way you would be tilting a normal laptop, they are simply too big. Besides, who can afford such a small laptop, have you checked the prices of those things? It's almost certinally to expensive for the disabled and elderly to justify.
To me, it's a good try, but too late and completley impractical at this level and target audience.
I posted a few days ago about Solid State Drives (SSD) and how I believe that they are going to change things in the world of Hard Disks (HD). I was therefore very interested to read this article from Information Week. It basically states that Samsung have begun the production of a 16 Gb flash memory chip. These chips are expected to be used in digital music players, music phones and digital cameras. I really want one of those!
The article goes on to say that in March the company introduced a 64 Gb solid state flash drive for ultra-portable notebooks. Now, I really want one of those!
I am a big music fan (and am really into audio books), and always have been. So much so, that I have had three iPods since they first came out (various stories attached, but not here), and I currently have a 60Gb with color display (not the video version). My current iPod is suffering a fair bit now from a number of ailments. Such as it's near full, there are loads of scratches on the screen, the battery is not as good as it was, and it occasionally just stops in the middle of playing (I think the phone jack is buggered as it's extremely loose with all earphones!).
As such I have been watching news about the iPod for a while now, and there has been very little news about the iPod for a while. Especially in the news about a new bigger/better version. The current version is the Fifth generation iPod (also known as iPod with video) That was until today. I came across an article that 'hints' that there may be a new version in the works. The article (viewed here) is a little sparse on actual concrete news, but does follow the patter that Apple seem to follow when a new product/version is due.
Obviously I'll wait for the next version to be out in the wild before making any decision. Especially as the current iPod is still in operation and should be for a while (fingers crossed). I wouldn't mind getting some video content on there either!
A friend of mine recently got one of those digital photo frames, and I must admit it looks really cool. Well, in a similar style, I found this:
Leather wallet features a removable digital photo viewer. Don't carry a wrinkled paper photo of your kids in your wallet. Our new handsome leather wallet includes a removable digital photo viewer that stores 55 color images. Easy USB photo transfer from your PC. 1.4" screen. Better still, the viewer is rechargeable—no batteries to buy! Classic men's bi-fold wallet is soft black Nappa leather.
At $50 is must be worth a punt.
To keep up to date with the tools that a developer needs is a tricky thing. It's made even harder when the core tools that they use are in the rpocess of being upgraded/improved/replaced.
The main development tool that I use is Microsoft's Visual Studio 2005. There is a new version of this tool being developed by Microsoft, which is code named 'Orcas'.
I have known that there is a beta version of the application available for download for some time now. The trouble with downloading and installing the beta is that it interferes with your current version resulting in you not being able to do your real work properly.
Thankfully Microsoft have provided an interesting solution. The Visual Studio team have made Beta 1 of the next release of Visual Studio (codenamed 'Orcas') available as a virtual machine. Its a 500Mb+ download but it does provide for a relatively easy way to assess the beta version without causing problems for your existing development environment.
For a long time now, the humble computer hard disk has been left behind in the development stakes. Processors, RAM, graphics cards, screens, Front-side bus, etc have all been getting faster and better. However, the hard disk hasn't really kept pace. Yes, OK it has increased in size and decreased in cost, but it has not really gotten any faster.
How often have you nowadays been waiting for your application to start up, only to watch the HD light just constantly flash, and you can hear the drive churning.
Well, it looks like there is a bright light on the way. Solid State Disk (SDD). From Wikipedia, SSD is defined as:
"A solid state drive is primarily a data storage device, for use in computing applications that traditionally use a hard disk drive. A solid state drive is based on either non-volatile memory or volatile memory instead of the spinning platter and mechanical-magnetic head found in a conventional hard disk drive. With no moving parts, a solid state drive eliminates seek time, latency and other electro-mechanical delays and failures associated with a conventional hard disk drive."
To me, I describe it as a solid state drive is basically a lot of RAM put together that doesn't loose the data when not powered.
I have then found an article on http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/ that gives some details on the size and pricing of some of the early manufactured drives. The article goes on to say "No word on pricing yet for the 32GB, but the 16GB weighs in at a hefty $250.00. With a range of SSD cards from 8GB – 32GB". I can't wait until we get as common place these drives in every day electronics, such as laptops, iPODs, Mobile Phones, etc.
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