Hrm, still more time to kill (and trolls to debunk), so...
I don't think there's anything wrong with saying that the site could be losing a decent hunk of users because of their browser detection algorithm. Anyone who has a browser which identifies itself differently than the way they're expecting it to is going to find themselves unable to read the article. Hence, it is "likely" that they're losing a "decent hunk" of viewers, simply because there are known cases where the page will fail to load on browsers that can definitely display the content.
Bah, I don't usually respond to trolls, but I have an hour to kill, so...
To the lame, uncompatable browser using, whiner from slashdot,
We'll skip the "lame," since that's pretty objective, but as for "uncompatable (sic)," OmniWeb appears to actually render the page well if the browser identification is faked or if the page is loaded from the browser's cache.
Hi, and thank you for your feedback. It has been filed appropriately in the circular file bin for reference by the night cleaning staff. Your comments are noted and dismissed out of hand since our server log shows you to be using a browser with a less than 1% browser share worldwide, and on a system that has less than.5% of all users connected to the internet.
And, of course, this is true, because the minority never matters, even if they're arguing for correctness.
In other words, you wouldn't be playing games we talk about or review (that's pretty much any software written today for 99% of all game playing individuals), so we don't bother to lower our design standards to accomidate your outdated computer and browser.
Oddly enough, I was interested in the article linked to by Slashdot (which is, after all, why I attempted to read it), even though I'm running this "outdated" iBook 2001 with the similarly "outdated" OmniWeb (see below).
Good day, and please come back when you are using a browser written in the past five years,
That's odd; my browser was released on Feburary 22, 2002, which certainly seems to be within the last five years. I must be getting old...
Seeing as my using OmniWeb to view arena.net resulted in a quick glance at the requested page (which looked fine) and then a bounce to ArenaNet Error: Unsupported Browser, I thought I'd respond in kind (note: I didn't actually send HTML email; I had to replace some of the hyphen characters with just bolding the topics so that I wouldn't get blocked by the lameness filter):
To: webmaster@arena.net
Subject: ArenaNet Error: Unsupported Webmaster
Why am I getting this instead of a friendly, congratulatory email?
You are here because the webmaster you are using is apparently too lazy to create pages that work in most browsers, regardless of their support for the full HTML 4.0 specification, including Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
Most likely, you're losing a decent hunk of viewers because of this.
Why does that matter?
In the pursuit of giving web surfers the kind of experience that you want them to have, as opposed to simply letting them control the experience for themselves (as would tend to be suggested by the HTML and CSS standards), you tried to use the best technology available, which I heartily commend. HTML 4.0 and CSS are examples of some of the best and most widespread standards-based technology available for presenting interactive media to the world. However, you have decided that, rather than simply using these technologies and letting the user decide if and how to implement them on the client-side, your webserver will detect browsers that you haven't tested with and will send the user of said browser to a completely useless page rather than actually delivering the content that the user requested.
What should I do?
If your webmaster can't figure out how to get pages to display at all in browsers other than those created by Netscape and Microsoft, you might want to hire a better one.
If you are running a smart webmaster who has simply gone astray from the vision of the web, you will want to either ask them to change their policies or follow the advice above.
Okay, but let's say I have an OmniWeb window focused and at the bottom of my screen and a BBEdit window above the OmniWeb window (but in the background). If I want to go up to any of the menus for OmniWeb with focus-follows-mouse enabled, I'd have to make sure I avoided letting the mouse focus over the BBEdit window, or else the entire menubar would change to reflect the new top application (BBEdit).
If you want to see how annoying this is in practice and you have access to a relatively recent release of KDE, set the application menus to appear at the top of the screen (Mac OS-style) and also set the focus behavior to focus-follows-mouse. I tried it once, expecting the best of both worlds, and instead ended up with an unusable bastard child nightmare.
TiVos have always seemed really useful to me, for a lot of the reasons mentioned on this thread. However, I've always been held back from buying one by my lack of knowledge regarding how TiVo operates in a family.
Does it assume that only one person is using it, and get really confused because I like Space Ghost and South Park, my brother likes the Golden Girls, my sister goes for the Disney Channel "original" movies, and my mom likes the nighttime dramas?
In other words, I can't sell my dad on a TiVo unless I can tell him how it would work in a family setting. Help me, Slashdot -- you're my only hope!
Bah, I did it the true Mac geek way and used the Summarize service from OmniWeb:
With a quantum increase in processing power, an ultraefficient new system architecture, next-generation 3D graphics, the revolutionary DVD-R/CD-RW-burning SuperDrive and Mac OS X, the dual 1GHz Power Mac G4 is designed to put your workflow into fast forward.
The dual 1GHz PowerPC G4 processors -- with a combined performance of 15 billion floating point operations per second, or 15 gigaflops -- put this fearsomely fast Power Mac G4 squarely in the lead as the ultimate high-end graphics workstation.
...In the 933MHz and dual 1GHz Power Mac G4 models, faster-than-light processor speed gets an additional boost with an advanced cache memory architecture that provides ultrafast, dedicated memory with massively enhanced throughput. Accessing data from main memory is significantly faster than accessing data from the hard drive, and in these two models the system architecture takes this concept one step further with an even faster level of memory called L3 cache.
...You also get the benefit of built-in Gigabit Ethernet for shooting large files across your LAN at previously unheard of speeds, 56K modem, AirPort Card slot, two 400Mbps FireWire ports and four USB ports (two on the computer, two on the keyboard). Incidentally, FireWire, PCI expansion (four full-length 64-bit, 33MHz PCI slots with 215MB per second throughput) and Gigabit Ethernet are integrated directly into the main system controller, reducing latencies and providing superior I/O performance.
The Power Mac G4 comes with 40GB (800MHz model), 60GB (933Hz model) and 80GB (dual 1GHz model) 7200-rpm Ultra ATA hard disk drives and three 3.5-inch hard disk drive expansion bays--with support for up to two internal ATA drives, three internal SCSI drives, or a combination of two ATA and one SCSI drives for a total of 232GB of internal storage. And since the SuperDrive-equipped Power Mac G4 models come with iDVD 2, you can burn data CDs and DVDs--with point-and-click ease--to archive your work minutes after you take your new system out of its box.
...The 108-key Apple Pro Keyboard features full-size cursor keys for those times when you want zip up, down and sideways to race through image retouching tasks, change direction in games, or jump from place to place in a document.
Services just kick ass. Anyone need anything Defined in OmniDictonary or Searched for in Google?
Re:Wine Mainstream..If you can't beat it...beat it
on
Wired Talks Wine
·
· Score: 1
also, "The Curse of *NIX", which i have been dealing in my work since before the widespread release of SRV, continues to haunt us....especially in the area of idiot proof desktop setup and functionality
"The Curse of *NIX?" Sounds like you've never heard of a *NIX system that has an idiot-proof desktop setup and oodles of functionality.
Be has better multimedia support (important to Joe Average).
I think the sort of multimedia support that BeOS is typically praised for is more along the lines of "can render in realtime four hundred simultaneous simulations of Britney Spears in a tube top whilst playing every known Beatles album backwards without breaking a sweat" than "can stream a Windows Media video of Britney Spears whilst playing the newest hit N*BackstreetTown song."
Which isn't to say that BeOS couldn't handle the latter, given the right software, but it would be like executing a tactical nuclear strike on 14-year-old Jimmy Jones for stealing candy from the local Sugar Hut.
Or something like that, preferably involving overkill.
The thing is that power isn't always the overriding factor in a computer purchase. Does my mom really want a G4 Tower and Monitor sitting on top of the counter in the kitchen? I think the new iMac would suit the space much better. Since she can get her work done on either of the machines equally well, maybe the extra cost of the iMac (assuming it is higher prices, as this new version seems to be pretty well priced, at $1800 for a G4 with a SuperDrive and 15" LCD monitor) is worth the extra $x.
After all, most people would be willing to pay a certain premium for items that are both visually and functionally pleasing. Why should computers be any different?
Yes, I trust your assessment, because clearly you've had time to extensively poll the hardcore Macintosh community in the 45 minutes since this story "broke."
Don't forget that the design of this iMac is as different from most other things out there as the original was when it was introduced. And I've seen the original iMac everywhere from schools to homes to coffee shops in Key West, Florida.
My mom is looking for a computer to call her own, and I've been trying to steer her toward a Macintosh. Why?
First of all, her needs are simple. She needs to check her email, surf the web, and use a word processor. With Mail.app, Internet Explorer/OmniWeb, and AppleWorks, her needs are fulfilled.
Additionally, Macs really are easier to use than the alternatives. How did I install Office v.X on my iBook? I dragged the folder that had "Drag this to your hard disk" written next to it to... my hard disk! Uninstallation? Drag the folder from my hard disk to the Trash!
I can definitely see one of these new iMacs sitting in our kitchen where the Audrey (shudder) is now, and I can see my mom writing email, surfing the web, writing letters, editing movies from our HandyCam, and burning DVDs on it, all without much intervention from me beyond teaching her the basics.
To M$' credit though, they did design Windows to be run by computer idiots, so I'm not surprised that the OS has a lot of tradeoffs that make it unstable so it's easier to use...
* evand begins typing a reply in agreement * evand looks up from textfield, sees OS X's Apple logo in upper-left-hand corner of his iBook's LCD screen * evand smiles and writes this post instead
No person is allowed to donate money to both candidates in any election.
Which, of course, disregards the notion that there may be more than two candidates in any election (gasp!). Not to mention that I may want to support, say, a few third-party candidates simply for putting time and effort into a campaign or because I simply am having a hard time deciding who to vote for.
How intuitive is it that if you push the key marked 'k', a 'k' will appear on the screen?
I'd say it's fairly intuitive. "Hrm, I want to get the letter 'k' to appear in this word processor. Perhaps I should press the button that has the 'k' on it!"
Perhaps you're just trying to make a point about defining "intuitive", but you didn't do a very good job with this example. Typing has three things going for it that make it about as "intuitive" as an action can be:
It is fairly analogous to other well-known behaviors. That is, if you are attempting to write on a typewriter or computer, chances are you already know how to write with a pen and paper (or at least know what the letters in your alphabet look like and how to use them to form coherent words, sentences, or phrases). If you know how to write without a keyboard, it's not a tremendous leap to learn how to write with a keyboard, because
most of the buttons on said keyboard have easily identifiable letters or numbers on them, and
past experience in all likelihood has taught that certain things work on a stimulus/response paradigm: hit the key which has the letter on it, get the same letter on the screen.
Typing is a (for the most part) nondestructive activity; once I have the concept of a "word processor" down, I can pretty much experiment with typing until I realize what's going on. Clearly, most people will realize within seconds that hitting a key with a letter on it will produce that letter on screen.
Typing requires very little specialized knowledge. The only "odd" keys on a keyboard which may need to be explained to someone unfamiliar with one would be such things as "tab", "caps lock", "shift", and "return". But because these keys generally do the same thing in all instances in which typing is used (and these actions are easily, nondestructively verifiable), it is not hard to quickly put them to use.
Additionally, of course, we can assume that most people have seen keyboards in action and therefore have some prior knowledge of how to use one, but this detracts somewhat from my point (which is not really about keyboards): good UI design makes it as easy as possible for the user to use the application. Keyboards are an instructive example of good design in this vein.
I think the major problem with webrings is that they weren't useful. I very rarely used them for navigation; even if I was interested in Topic X, who says that the Next Site on Topic X's webring would be any good?
In general, if I was interested enough in the genre of site to be on a site regarding it long enough to see the "Member of Topic X Webring" navigation item, I probably knew most of the good sites anyway.
as JD pointed out there is nothing in the least bit "natural" about clicking once to move the focus and clicking twice to launch the program.
No, there may not be anything "natural" about it, but, then again, it works well. If I may presume your "natural" to mean something akin to "familiar and intuitive to a contemporary human," I'd like to point out the example of the automobile.
When the car was invented, a "natural" interface for its users might have been reigns; one would pull them left to turn left, right to turn right, back to slow down or stop, and would whip them vigorously up and down in order to go faster. This would have been "familiar and intuitive" to the contemporary man in the days of the advent of the horseless carriage.
Fortunately, a more sensible interface had to be invented. It consists of the steering wheel, gas pedal, and brake pedal.
The Apple "click once to move the focus, click two to launch the program" interface concept wasn't necessarily familiar to users, but it makes sense to me, having used it on MacOS, Windows of various flavors, KDE, GNOME, and a few other operating systems that I'm sure I'm leaving out. Clearly, it has been adopted as somewhat of a standard and seems to work just about as well as any other competing concept would be expected to, just like the steering wheel and pedal combination.
additionally, anyone who thinks that it's "intuitive" to eject a f/d by dropping it on the trashcan is smoking some dynamite stuff
I think that most of what you're talking about is dead-on with a large segment of the future of computing, but I have one (minor) quibble. You write, "...and push the send button (which would look like a stamp since that's what she'd do with a piece of paper)." I think you'd need to do some user testing before making this postage stamp part of your product.
The major caveat I can think of is that people will click on the postage stamp to "pay" for their email. Generally speaking, using real-world objects as icons gateways to action in an interface is a good idea, but you have to consider all the implications of the metaphors you are using.
In this case, I would suggest a button that said "Send" with a picture of a mail truck. The text makes the meaning clear, and the truck provides an appropriate icon (mail trucks deliver letters like the one you want to send) that is easy to recognize.
1. I think the IBM thinkpad looks the best. I don't know why, but I prefer it to the iBook 'wax fruit' case.
I hope my new iBook doesn't come with a "wax fruit" case! Supposedly, they look more like this, which, in my opinion, is a lot better looking than the "clamshell" versions of yester[year month day].
Hey, now: don't be too hasty! Some scientists argue that cancer can be caused by virii, which means that you could have your GPL virus and get cancer, too.
Slashdot Mirror
Hrm, still more time to kill (and trolls to debunk), so...
I don't think there's anything wrong with saying that the site could be losing a decent hunk of users because of their browser detection algorithm. Anyone who has a browser which identifies itself differently than the way they're expecting it to is going to find themselves unable to read the article. Hence, it is "likely" that they're losing a "decent hunk" of viewers, simply because there are known cases where the page will fail to load on browsers that can definitely display the content.
Looks like they've fixed it, anyway :-)
Bah, I don't usually respond to trolls, but I have an hour to kill, so...
We'll skip the "lame," since that's pretty objective, but as for "uncompatable (sic)," OmniWeb appears to actually render the page well if the browser identification is faked or if the page is loaded from the browser's cache.
And, of course, this is true, because the minority never matters, even if they're arguing for correctness.
Oddly enough, I was interested in the article linked to by Slashdot (which is, after all, why I attempted to read it), even though I'm running this "outdated" iBook 2001 with the similarly "outdated" OmniWeb (see below).
That's odd; my browser was released on Feburary 22, 2002, which certainly seems to be within the last five years. I must be getting old...
Seeing as my using OmniWeb to view arena.net resulted in a quick glance at the requested page (which looked fine) and then a bounce to ArenaNet Error: Unsupported Browser, I thought I'd respond in kind (note: I didn't actually send HTML email; I had to replace some of the hyphen characters with just bolding the topics so that I wouldn't get blocked by the lameness filter):
To: webmaster@arena.net
Subject: ArenaNet Error: Unsupported Webmaster
Why am I getting this instead of a friendly, congratulatory email?
You are here because the webmaster you are using is apparently too lazy to create pages that work in most browsers, regardless of their support for the full HTML 4.0 specification, including Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
Most likely, you're losing a decent hunk of viewers because of this.
Why does that matter?
In the pursuit of giving web surfers the kind of experience that you want them to have, as opposed to simply letting them control the experience for themselves (as would tend to be suggested by the HTML and CSS standards), you tried to use the best technology available, which I heartily commend. HTML 4.0 and CSS are examples of some of the best and most widespread standards-based technology available for presenting interactive media to the world. However, you have decided that, rather than simply using these technologies and letting the user decide if and how to implement them on the client-side, your webserver will detect browsers that you haven't tested with and will send the user of said browser to a completely useless page rather than actually delivering the content that the user requested.
What should I do?
If your webmaster can't figure out how to get pages to display at all in browsers other than those created by Netscape and Microsoft, you might want to hire a better one.
If you are running a smart webmaster who has simply gone astray from the vision of the web, you will want to either ask them to change their policies or follow the advice above.
Okay, but let's say I have an OmniWeb window focused and at the bottom of my screen and a BBEdit window above the OmniWeb window (but in the background). If I want to go up to any of the menus for OmniWeb with focus-follows-mouse enabled, I'd have to make sure I avoided letting the mouse focus over the BBEdit window, or else the entire menubar would change to reflect the new top application (BBEdit).
If you want to see how annoying this is in practice and you have access to a relatively recent release of KDE, set the application menus to appear at the top of the screen (Mac OS-style) and also set the focus behavior to focus-follows-mouse. I tried it once, expecting the best of both worlds, and instead ended up with an unusable bastard child nightmare.
Two words: Microsoft BobQuake.
TiVos have always seemed really useful to me, for a lot of the reasons mentioned on this thread. However, I've always been held back from buying one by my lack of knowledge regarding how TiVo operates in a family.
Does it assume that only one person is using it, and get really confused because I like Space Ghost and South Park, my brother likes the Golden Girls, my sister goes for the Disney Channel "original" movies, and my mom likes the nighttime dramas?
In other words, I can't sell my dad on a TiVo unless I can tell him how it would work in a family setting. Help me, Slashdot -- you're my only hope!
Bah, I did it the true Mac geek way and used the Summarize service from OmniWeb:
Services just kick ass. Anyone need anything Defined in OmniDictonary or Searched for in Google?
"The Curse of *NIX?" Sounds like you've never heard of a *NIX system that has an idiot-proof desktop setup and oodles of functionality.
I think the sort of multimedia support that BeOS is typically praised for is more along the lines of "can render in realtime four hundred simultaneous simulations of Britney Spears in a tube top whilst playing every known Beatles album backwards without breaking a sweat" than "can stream a Windows Media video of Britney Spears whilst playing the newest hit N*BackstreetTown song."
Which isn't to say that BeOS couldn't handle the latter, given the right software, but it would be like executing a tactical nuclear strike on 14-year-old Jimmy Jones for stealing candy from the local Sugar Hut.
Or something like that, preferably involving overkill.
The thing is that power isn't always the overriding factor in a computer purchase. Does my mom really want a G4 Tower and Monitor sitting on top of the counter in the kitchen? I think the new iMac would suit the space much better. Since she can get her work done on either of the machines equally well, maybe the extra cost of the iMac (assuming it is higher prices, as this new version seems to be pretty well priced, at $1800 for a G4 with a SuperDrive and 15" LCD monitor) is worth the extra $x.
After all, most people would be willing to pay a certain premium for items that are both visually and functionally pleasing. Why should computers be any different?
Which would have been, of course, about when MacOS actually was ported to the x86 platform.
Yes, I trust your assessment, because clearly you've had time to extensively poll the hardcore Macintosh community in the 45 minutes since this story "broke."
Don't forget that the design of this iMac is as different from most other things out there as the original was when it was introduced. And I've seen the original iMac everywhere from schools to homes to coffee shops in Key West, Florida.
My mom is looking for a computer to call her own, and I've been trying to steer her toward a Macintosh. Why?
First of all, her needs are simple. She needs to check her email, surf the web, and use a word processor. With Mail.app, Internet Explorer/OmniWeb, and AppleWorks, her needs are fulfilled.
Additionally, Macs really are easier to use than the alternatives. How did I install Office v.X on my iBook? I dragged the folder that had "Drag this to your hard disk" written next to it to... my hard disk! Uninstallation? Drag the folder from my hard disk to the Trash!
I can definitely see one of these new iMacs sitting in our kitchen where the Audrey (shudder) is now, and I can see my mom writing email, surfing the web, writing letters, editing movies from our HandyCam, and burning DVDs on it, all without much intervention from me beyond teaching her the basics.
That's truly a beautiful thing.
::coughs:: Which isn't to say that I'm a "computer idiot." Er... um...
Look! A giant petrified... eh... something-er-other!
Well, okay, but it's not like Microsoft had much room here for being overly honest. I can see it now:
[1] Yes, I realize that Windows, even in its 95-ME incarnations, is more than a "fancy DOS shell." Although it doesn't escape the title by much.
* evand begins typing a reply in agreement
* evand looks up from textfield, sees OS X's Apple logo in upper-left-hand corner of his iBook's LCD screen
* evand smiles and writes this post instead
Which, of course, disregards the notion that there may be more than two candidates in any election (gasp!). Not to mention that I may want to support, say, a few third-party candidates simply for putting time and effort into a campaign or because I simply am having a hard time deciding who to vote for.
I'd say it's fairly intuitive. "Hrm, I want to get the letter 'k' to appear in this word processor. Perhaps I should press the button that has the 'k' on it!"
Perhaps you're just trying to make a point about defining "intuitive", but you didn't do a very good job with this example. Typing has three things going for it that make it about as "intuitive" as an action can be:
Additionally, of course, we can assume that most people have seen keyboards in action and therefore have some prior knowledge of how to use one, but this detracts somewhat from my point (which is not really about keyboards): good UI design makes it as easy as possible for the user to use the application. Keyboards are an instructive example of good design in this vein.
I think the major problem with webrings is that they weren't useful. I very rarely used them for navigation; even if I was interested in Topic X, who says that the Next Site on Topic X's webring would be any good?
In general, if I was interested enough in the genre of site to be on a site regarding it long enough to see the "Member of Topic X Webring" navigation item, I probably knew most of the good sites anyway.
No, there may not be anything "natural" about it, but, then again, it works well. If I may presume your "natural" to mean something akin to "familiar and intuitive to a contemporary human," I'd like to point out the example of the automobile.
When the car was invented, a "natural" interface for its users might have been reigns; one would pull them left to turn left, right to turn right, back to slow down or stop, and would whip them vigorously up and down in order to go faster. This would have been "familiar and intuitive" to the contemporary man in the days of the advent of the horseless carriage.
Fortunately, a more sensible interface had to be invented. It consists of the steering wheel, gas pedal, and brake pedal.
The Apple "click once to move the focus, click two to launch the program" interface concept wasn't necessarily familiar to users, but it makes sense to me, having used it on MacOS, Windows of various flavors, KDE, GNOME, and a few other operating systems that I'm sure I'm leaving out. Clearly, it has been adopted as somewhat of a standard and seems to work just about as well as any other competing concept would be expected to, just like the steering wheel and pedal combination.
On this we definitely agree :-)
I think that most of what you're talking about is dead-on with a large segment of the future of computing, but I have one (minor) quibble. You write, "...and push the send button (which would look like a stamp since that's what she'd do with a piece of paper)." I think you'd need to do some user testing before making this postage stamp part of your product.
The major caveat I can think of is that people will click on the postage stamp to "pay" for their email. Generally speaking, using real-world objects as icons gateways to action in an interface is a good idea, but you have to consider all the implications of the metaphors you are using.
In this case, I would suggest a button that said "Send" with a picture of a mail truck. The text makes the meaning clear, and the truck provides an appropriate icon (mail trucks deliver letters like the one you want to send) that is easy to recognize.
I hope my new iBook doesn't come with a "wax fruit" case! Supposedly, they look more like this, which, in my opinion, is a lot better looking than the "clamshell" versions of yester[year month day].
Of course, it's also a book, and I found the the movie tended to hit most of the meaningful parts of the book rather well.
And perhaps the fact that the film was a blockbuster points more to its meaning for people than you realize.
Ah, yes, what an amazing and convincing argument you have here. So, according to your logic:
Glad to see you find your world so easy to generalize.
Hey, now: don't be too hasty! Some scientists argue that cancer can be caused by virii, which means that you could have your GPL virus and get cancer, too.