There were also stories about how this pre-fetching behavior led to problems with certain web applications: for example, say a particular web-based email program displays email message controls as simple text links. Suppose one of these links is the "delete message" link. Login and view your email with the accelerator installed and *poof* there goes your email.
Now, the web accelerator didn't "click" on any buttons or anything, or do any posting to the server, and in a perfect world all web applications would perform these substantive actions with either POST requests or JavaScript, but that isn't the case.
When I can click "Ctrl-Apple-D" while hovering over a word?
Oh crap - I swore I'd never become one of those "Look what my OS can do!!11!" Apple fans. Oh well. Take this is as a tip or hint, then, rather than a snark (as it was originally intended).
The blurb didn't make much sense to me, so I thought I'd actually *gasp* RTFA...
His idea about calling RSS feeds "News Feeds" makes sense to me (c'mon Apple, do you really need the blue RSS badge in Safari's bar? I predict this is gone in Safari 2.5/3 - replaced with an aquafied version of the universal newsfeed icon)
Beyond that and what appeared in the summary, there isn't much to the article. How does one "design" for a blogging audience? I can understand his point that bloggers, while influential on the web, are a vast, technical, vocal minority - but what does that mean in terms of design? What does it also mean that, with regards to MySpace, one of the most popular destinations on the web is also one of its most amazingly poorly designed? I mean, it's slapdash - but it's agile, meaning that they've succeeded by throwing a whole bunch of stuff to the wall, and seeing what sticks.
With their iMixes and ratings, and the (albeit ginger) foot forward they've taken with certain television shows, the iTunes Music Store has a chance to be this site - perhaps all that's necessary is to put forward a more community-centric design - using the same content - rather than a multimedia-centric design.
Heh, I always used to love playing Mario Kart 64 in college, especially for the incongruity of the cute cartoon characters racing, while the only thing that came out of our mouths was an unending stream of profanity.
Potentially - but it's walking a tightrope; I doubt they want to piss off other companies licensing their technology, which is exactly what such a move would do.
Definitely not stable - I agree with all the other opinions posted. You constantly have to be on your toes, both from a front-end perspective (understanding HTML/XHTML, JavaScript, CSS, etc...) as well as from the programming perspective (different options like ASP.NET w/C# or any other myriad languages, Java/JSP, PHP, Perl, Ruby, etc...) And as if it didn't get worse, the languages themselves seem to change as frequently as the which ones are in vogue (take PHP, for example.) And then, at a higher level than even the web development languages, you have the various frameworks that they utilize (Struts, Ruby on Rails, and others).
But it can be interesting - if you want interesting more than you want stable, I'd suggest trying to find a startup. Or better yet, work on your own projects in your spare time, and try and spin them off into things that you can do full-time, working for yourself. This is ultimately what I want to do, but it ain't easy. Plus, you need to find an employer who is amenable to this and won't try to claim your off-duty work as their own.
You target the avatar - I mean, how could you even do it otherwise? If I'm playing a fantasy MMORPG, which am I more likely to do, for my character.
Purchase some super elite sword for a couple bucks?
or...
Purchase Pepsi, because I drink Pepsi in real life.
Now, I know this goes into more detail - who am I targetting? When I advertise the virtual items that can be purchased, am I making a commercial that might appeal to me as a person, or my Half-Elf as a character? Or something. I think the obvious answer is that you simply need to communicate the value that the item has, regarding the world in which it exists. If I'm playing a fantasy game, let me know that this is a kickass sword, whether through its abilities or just its appearance. If I'm playing a social game online, let me know that these virtual flowers might just woo the avatar of some woman with whom I'm playing. Communicate the purpose of the items in question, and I think the marketing takes care of itself.
If you took someone new to gaming, and said, "tell me what an RPG is," and gave them Oblivion and and FF7 as examples, I doubt they would really be able to complete the task. Seriously - Japanese RPGs and CPRGs (I guess, for lack of a better term) are so different there really isn't any utility in classifying them in the same way. Don't get me wrong, I like them both (haven't played Oblivion yet - really liked Morrowind, in spite of its weak main story - and I loved FF6) but such a comparison just seems to me like a way to either drum up page hits or start a fanboy war.
"Let's say your Wii is connected to the Internet in a mode that allows activation on a 24-hour basis"
Hey, I like suicidegirls.com as much as the next person, but isn't it a bit excessive for one's wii to be "activated" by the internet for more than 24 hours?!
Oh wait. You were talking about something else entirely. Sorry.
much more like an Apple zealot, which is why I'm as surprised as anyone about what I'm about to write.
But, really, I don't really see anything wrong with this, nor do I see it as all that different from what Apple has done with its various releases of OS X. For example, Tiger introduced all sorts of cool new developer functionality, like Core Data and Core Video (I believe Core Image was already present in some capacity in Panther, but I may be getting my APIs mixed up). These were/are great for developers, but the side effect of them being used means that the resulting apps are Tiger-only.
Isn't it essentially the same with Vista and DirectX? Certainly, it's a pragmatic, business decision - but it's hard for me to fault Microsoft for it.
And furthermore - it's not as though they're disallowing signatures or personal links entirely - just the ability to affect pagerank with them. But why should that concern someone ? I have a link in my Slashdot signature - if they put nofollow in the URL, it wouldn't matter to me, because I'm not trying to coerce web crawlers into giving me a better ranking - I'm trying to get PEOPLE, who may potentially find the sites interesting, to go to them and try them out!
And you know what? If you create compelling content, that draws real people, they will let their friends know. Some of these friends may happen to be bloggers, who may even blog about what they've learned. And you know the result of that? To quote the article: "pagerank, baby!"
Heh, the openoffice devs would normally see your post - but this morning they've been working feverishly on adding some new feature to their word processor...
This article's been on the front page for a couple of minutes, with no comments. Perhaps Web 2.0 is tired?
For me, I really like JavaScript and AJAX when it helps to actually improve the user experience. Dynamic tabs? What's the point? How is it really functionally than just heading to a different page, or using some middleware to control what content is served, after a page reload?
Now, on a website I built, I've used AJAX (shudder) to create a commenting system that doesn't require the user to initially be logged in. The user can visit a page, submit a comment through the form, and if the user isn't logged in, they're presented with the ability to login right then and there, without losing their comment, and without even being shuttled off to a different section of the site, wondering if their comment will post when they're finished. If they don't have an account, they can create one right there. I think those kinds of tricks make remote scripting worthwhile.
Plus, I think adding new widgets to HTML through JavaScript is pretty keen - like the sliders and calendar that Yahoo is making available under the BSD license at their developer area.
My experience, though, is that it isn't the spam catching software that works with typical desktop email applications like Apple's Mail, Entourage, Thunderbird or Outlook that's too strict (sometimes far from it, especially w/regards to Entourage); it's the spam catching software used by Webmail providers like Hotmail and Yahoo's Mail.
I know it's in their best interest to flag as much stuff as Bulk Mail as possible (which can then be filtered into a bulk mailbox, and removed automatically after 30 days), but until I recently switched hosts, everything I was sending to Yahoo or Hotmail was going into the Bulk Folder. Now, I think this may have been due to my hosting provider, but all the tests I ran seemed to indicate that they weren't on any blacklists, or anything like that.
I even took the time to implement SPF records for my domains. This had a noticeable effect in GMail, which actually adds a header to incoming mail stating whether an SPF record was found and followed; it had no effect in Hotmail, however, which is maddening, since it's Microsoft's stupid initiative!
I don't know what the answer is, but we're not there yet.
Slashdot Mirror
There were also stories about how this pre-fetching behavior led to problems with certain web applications: for example, say a particular web-based email program displays email message controls as simple text links. Suppose one of these links is the "delete message" link. Login and view your email with the accelerator installed and *poof* there goes your email.
Now, the web accelerator didn't "click" on any buttons or anything, or do any posting to the server, and in a perfect world all web applications would perform these substantive actions with either POST requests or JavaScript, but that isn't the case.
Reps probably equals "Representatives."
Interesting to see how your mind works, though. Knee-jerk, much?
Damn, I suck. Well, we have RTFA, RTFS (Summary), and now we have RTFPYRT: Read the Fucking Post Your Replying To.
Heh, why? Kottke's prime contribution to the technical Mac community is linking to John Gruber. :-) Oh, and penning this.
+1 Irony
When I can click "Ctrl-Apple-D" while hovering over a word?
Oh crap - I swore I'd never become one of those "Look what my OS can do!!11!" Apple fans. Oh well. Take this is as a tip or hint, then, rather than a snark (as it was originally intended).
The blurb didn't make much sense to me, so I thought I'd actually *gasp* RTFA...
His idea about calling RSS feeds "News Feeds" makes sense to me (c'mon Apple, do you really need the blue RSS badge in Safari's bar? I predict this is gone in Safari 2.5/3 - replaced with an aquafied version of the universal newsfeed icon)
Beyond that and what appeared in the summary, there isn't much to the article. How does one "design" for a blogging audience? I can understand his point that bloggers, while influential on the web, are a vast, technical, vocal minority - but what does that mean in terms of design? What does it also mean that, with regards to MySpace, one of the most popular destinations on the web is also one of its most amazingly poorly designed? I mean, it's slapdash - but it's agile, meaning that they've succeeded by throwing a whole bunch of stuff to the wall, and seeing what sticks.
With their iMixes and ratings, and the (albeit ginger) foot forward they've taken with certain television shows, the iTunes Music Store has a chance to be this site - perhaps all that's necessary is to put forward a more community-centric design - using the same content - rather than a multimedia-centric design.
Heh, I always used to love playing Mario Kart 64 in college, especially for the incongruity of the cute cartoon characters racing, while the only thing that came out of our mouths was an unending stream of profanity.
Potentially - but it's walking a tightrope; I doubt they want to piss off other companies licensing their technology, which is exactly what such a move would do.
Definitely not stable - I agree with all the other opinions posted. You constantly have to be on your toes, both from a front-end perspective (understanding HTML/XHTML, JavaScript, CSS, etc...) as well as from the programming perspective (different options like ASP.NET w/C# or any other myriad languages, Java/JSP, PHP, Perl, Ruby, etc...) And as if it didn't get worse, the languages themselves seem to change as frequently as the which ones are in vogue (take PHP, for example.) And then, at a higher level than even the web development languages, you have the various frameworks that they utilize (Struts, Ruby on Rails, and others).
But it can be interesting - if you want interesting more than you want stable, I'd suggest trying to find a startup. Or better yet, work on your own projects in your spare time, and try and spin them off into things that you can do full-time, working for yourself. This is ultimately what I want to do, but it ain't easy. Plus, you need to find an employer who is amenable to this and won't try to claim your off-duty work as their own.
You target the avatar - I mean, how could you even do it otherwise? If I'm playing a fantasy MMORPG, which am I more likely to do, for my character.
Purchase some super elite sword for a couple bucks?
or...
Purchase Pepsi, because I drink Pepsi in real life.
Now, I know this goes into more detail - who am I targetting? When I advertise the virtual items that can be purchased, am I making a commercial that might appeal to me as a person, or my Half-Elf as a character? Or something. I think the obvious answer is that you simply need to communicate the value that the item has, regarding the world in which it exists. If I'm playing a fantasy game, let me know that this is a kickass sword, whether through its abilities or just its appearance. If I'm playing a social game online, let me know that these virtual flowers might just woo the avatar of some woman with whom I'm playing. Communicate the purpose of the items in question, and I think the marketing takes care of itself.
If you took someone new to gaming, and said, "tell me what an RPG is," and gave them Oblivion and and FF7 as examples, I doubt they would really be able to complete the task. Seriously - Japanese RPGs and CPRGs (I guess, for lack of a better term) are so different there really isn't any utility in classifying them in the same way. Don't get me wrong, I like them both (haven't played Oblivion yet - really liked Morrowind, in spite of its weak main story - and I loved FF6) but such a comparison just seems to me like a way to either drum up page hits or start a fanboy war.
"Let's say your Wii is connected to the Internet in a mode that allows activation on a 24-hour basis"
Hey, I like suicidegirls.com as much as the next person, but isn't it a bit excessive for one's wii to be "activated" by the internet for more than 24 hours?!
Oh wait. You were talking about something else entirely. Sorry.
No freaking kidding. That post was probably the most amazing example of being "damned if you do and damned if you don't" I've ever seen.
much more like an Apple zealot, which is why I'm as surprised as anyone about what I'm about to write.
But, really, I don't really see anything wrong with this, nor do I see it as all that different from what Apple has done with its various releases of OS X. For example, Tiger introduced all sorts of cool new developer functionality, like Core Data and Core Video (I believe Core Image was already present in some capacity in Panther, but I may be getting my APIs mixed up). These were/are great for developers, but the side effect of them being used means that the resulting apps are Tiger-only.
Isn't it essentially the same with Vista and DirectX? Certainly, it's a pragmatic, business decision - but it's hard for me to fault Microsoft for it.
And furthermore - it's not as though they're disallowing signatures or personal links entirely - just the ability to affect pagerank with them. But why should that concern someone ? I have a link in my Slashdot signature - if they put nofollow in the URL, it wouldn't matter to me, because I'm not trying to coerce web crawlers into giving me a better ranking - I'm trying to get PEOPLE, who may potentially find the sites interesting, to go to them and try them out!
And you know what? If you create compelling content, that draws real people, they will let their friends know. Some of these friends may happen to be bloggers, who may even blog about what they've learned. And you know the result of that? To quote the article: "pagerank, baby!"
The semantic web would have to be feasible before it posed some sort of threat, so I wouldn't get too up in arms about this.
Heh, the openoffice devs would normally see your post - but this morning they've been working feverishly on adding some new feature to their word processor...
some of the lesser known games that deserve attention, like a Wii flight simulator,
Who you callin' wee, laddie?!
(Am I crazy to be posting this with my karma bonus?)
This article's been on the front page for a couple of minutes, with no comments. Perhaps Web 2.0 is tired?
For me, I really like JavaScript and AJAX when it helps to actually improve the user experience. Dynamic tabs? What's the point? How is it really functionally than just heading to a different page, or using some middleware to control what content is served, after a page reload?
Now, on a website I built, I've used AJAX (shudder) to create a commenting system that doesn't require the user to initially be logged in. The user can visit a page, submit a comment through the form, and if the user isn't logged in, they're presented with the ability to login right then and there, without losing their comment, and without even being shuttled off to a different section of the site, wondering if their comment will post when they're finished. If they don't have an account, they can create one right there. I think those kinds of tricks make remote scripting worthwhile.
Plus, I think adding new widgets to HTML through JavaScript is pretty keen - like the sliders and calendar that Yahoo is making available under the BSD license at their developer area.
Wow...so there really is an end to the internet.
My experience, though, is that it isn't the spam catching software that works with typical desktop email applications like Apple's Mail, Entourage, Thunderbird or Outlook that's too strict (sometimes far from it, especially w/regards to Entourage); it's the spam catching software used by Webmail providers like Hotmail and Yahoo's Mail.
I know it's in their best interest to flag as much stuff as Bulk Mail as possible (which can then be filtered into a bulk mailbox, and removed automatically after 30 days), but until I recently switched hosts, everything I was sending to Yahoo or Hotmail was going into the Bulk Folder. Now, I think this may have been due to my hosting provider, but all the tests I ran seemed to indicate that they weren't on any blacklists, or anything like that.
I even took the time to implement SPF records for my domains. This had a noticeable effect in GMail, which actually adds a header to incoming mail stating whether an SPF record was found and followed; it had no effect in Hotmail, however, which is maddening, since it's Microsoft's stupid initiative!
I don't know what the answer is, but we're not there yet.
You don't happen to own foo.com, test.com, or asdf.com, do you? If you do..I'm really, really sorry.