Author: Steven Garrity

aov complies with the w3c

by Steven Garrity

Warning: what follows may be considered boring by some readers – especially non-geeks (if there are any).

Valid HTML 4.01!
Valid CSS!

Ladies and gentlemen, actsofvolition.com is now compliant with the The World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) HTML 4.01 Transitional recommendation*.

The Web Standards ProjectThe good people at The Web Standards Project can explain why adhering to standards matters.

Those who work in web development will know that adhering to these standards is not always easy since some popular browsers don’t interpret them correctly. Netscape 4.x, for example, will have problems rendering a perfectly standards compliant page. Web developers must choose between breaking the standards or having glitches for Netscape 4.x users.

New browsers are much better at interpreting the standards. Internet Explorer 4, 5, 5.5, and 6 all do a decent job and have gotten better and better with each new version (although there are still problems. The new Mozilla browser (aka Netscape 6.x) does an excellent job as do most other alternative browsers such as Opera, iCab, and Konqueror.

The trouble is that loads of people still use Netscape 4.x. While global stats put it’s usage at below 10% of web users, this site and others I help produce have up to 30% of users running Netscape 4.x.

Here on aov, I can (and have) decide to screw Netscape 4.x users in favour of the standards. There are better browsers that are easy to get. However, as a professional web developer (which I am, apparently) I can not make that decision on behalf of my clients. Company XYZ is interested in selling their widget, not ensuring web accessibility and cross-platform-interoperability. Ignoring users is not good business. That said, it is possible to make sites that adhere to the standards (for the most part) and still work relatively well in NS4.x.

Exciting, isn’t it?

* If you actually run our site through the W3C’s Validator, you’ll notice that it doesn’t actually validate, but that’s only because it’s a little confused about some of our URLs and some non-standard characters, which I’m working on.
 

XP is a frog

by Steven Garrity

Windows XP flag logo
According to a story at the Microsofty news site ActiveWin, frog design (don’t you hate companies who’s names are all lower-case?) was involved in the design of Microsoft’s new Windows Media Player look and the new Windows XP flag logo.

I also discovered recently that icon design gurus IconFactory designed the new Windows XP icons. ambiguous AND diverse They are very pretty (although, as I’ve said before, simply maaaaan). This crew also made a nice transition from the pixel-perfect to the new big-ass smooth Mac OS X icons for Audion (also see their gallery of other OS X icons – some of the nicest I’ve seen – be sure and check out all of the ‘client samples’).

frog has long been a not-so secret weapon of Steve Jobs, having worked on a slew of early Apple and Macintosh products as well as the infamous NeXT (more company capitalization) machines.

I remember years ago walking in to a local computer store with my good friend Dan and the cheque from our small business loan in hand. We needed two high-end desktops – which at the time meant Pentium 200’s with MMX with 32MB of RAM. As soon as we saw them, we knew which ones we had to have. this is the desktop version - being power users, we bought the tower version A beautiful sleek black minitower with matching mouse, keyboard, and monitor. They were Acer Aspires, but we later found out they were one of the PC world’s earliest non-beige boxes and they were designed by frog. I still have the matching phone at my appartment.

I also remember being amazed and confused by the wonderful inclusion of the Buddy Holly video by Weezer on the Window 95 CDROM.

 

XP is a frog

by Steven Garrity

Windows XP flag logo
According to a story at the Microsofty news site ActiveWin, frog design (don’t you hate companies who’s names are all lower-case?) was involved in the design of Microsoft’s new Windows Media Player look and the new Windows XP flag logo.

I also discovered recently that icon design gurus IconFactory designed the new Windows XP icons. They are very pretty (although, as I’ve said before, simply maaaaan). This crew also made a nice transition from the pixel-perfect to the new big-ass smooth Mac OS X icons for Audion (also see their gallery of other OS X icons – some of the nicest I’ve seen – be sure and check out all of the ‘client samples’).

frog has long been a not-so secret weapon of Steve Jobs, having worked on a slew of early Apple and Macintosh products as well as the infamous NeXT (more company capitalization) machines.

I remember years ago walking in to a local computer store with my good friend Dan and the cheque from our small business loan in hand. We needed two high-end desktops – which at the time that meant Pentium 200’s with MMX with 32MB of RAM. As soon as we saw them, we knew which ones we had to have. this is the desktop version - being power users, we bought the tower version A (then) beautiful sleek black minitower with matching mouse, keyboard, and monitor. They were Acer Aspires, but we later found out they were one of the PC worlds earliest non-beige boxes and they were designed by frog. I still have the matching phone at my appartment.

I also remember being amazed and confused by the wonderful inclusion of the Buddy Holly video by Weezer on the Window 95 CDROM.

 

every PC today is really a macintosh

by Steven Garrity

When asked if he felt miffed about being left out of the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the PC, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak replied that fundamentally, every PC today is a Macintosh. True enough.

When asked how he would improve the Mac today, he says he would:

…come up with a set of user interface guidelines that’s shorter than the book that Apple used to make […] and come up with a very strict set and go back and make every program that Apple is associated with everywhere possible consistent with those and to write higher level APIs that pretty much lead any application to that same type of consistency.

Listen to this great audio interview with Steve Wozniak (link via Slashdot. The interview is about an hour long and starts 55 minutes into the audio stream.

Woz strikes me as a simple, good person, who was bulldozed by fame, wealth, and success. But I’m sure its uneducated presumtions like this one that make life difficult for someone like Woz.

 

pervasive connectivity

by Steven Garrity

My cell phone can handle voice and data (web/email). The voice works are you’d expect – quite well for a cell phone. The data works as you’d expect – like shit. It’s ridiculous. Typing on the numeric keys is so slow it’s embarrassing and the three line screen is just too small.

The Danger Device
There is hope for those of us who have some type of phobia of disconnection. Danger is a company about to release a handheld device that is about the same size as my cell phone works are a traditional cell phone, and has data features that look as though they may actually be usable.

The device is mostly screen and slides open to reveal a full thumb-keyboard. It can handle all of the web/email data features of my current phone, as well as always-connected data features such as instant messaging (not sure what protocol).

Handspring's TreoHandspring has a similar device coming out with more advanced PDA functionality, but will not be ‘always-on’ connection ready until next year. It is available with either thumb keyboard or graffiti and was designed by the bad-ass geniuses at IDEO.

Is any of this necessary? We threw out necessity as a factor years ago. I wonder if our language will eventually discard the word ‘necessary’ the way equatorial languages have no word for snow.

 

squautomobiles

by Steven Garrity

Cars are evil. However, I am and will probably continue to be unwilling to sacrifice the convenience of owning one. Now that I have out of the way, let’s talk about cars.

The Dodge Colt and some snappy dressing shortstopsThe form factor of the old Dodge Colt / Mitsubishi Expo 3-door (one sliding door) hatchback always made sense to me. According to some, they were not particularly reliable and parts were expensive and hard to find. It was a short (in length) and tall (in height) car. It was small on the outside and enormous inside. The driver and front passenger sit upright with a commanding view much like in a minivan. It may not have been a great car, but it was a great form factor.

Until recently, this form factor was only available in the 10-year old Dodge. It looks like some of the major auto companies are revisiting the form.

The following models are all new or about to be released (the Audi, which I have previously praised, is only available in Europe). Their various stylings are sure to appeal to some and offend others, but they are at least distinctive.

All feature four doors, a hatchback, loads of interior room, a relatively small exterior, versatile seating. They are all around 170″ long and between 57″ and 63″ tall (except for the Audi which is smaller). To put that in perspective, they are all small than a Neon. These (pictured below) are smart designs: Audi A2, Mazda Protegé5, Toyota Matrix, Chrysler PT Cruiser.

some smart cars

There are a many more cars of this form factor in the works for release in the next few years as well (see a few Chrysler concepts: Java, Pronto). Regardless, I still drive that big old sedan.

 

sarcasm that works on the internet

by Steven Garrity

www.theregister.co.uk
I’ve commented before on the quality writing at indy tech news site, The Register but it’s worth revisiting. Compared to News.com/Zdnet.com, who seem to automatically parse corporate press releases into front-page news, the writers at The Register shine. There is a tone of smart sarcasm (not whiny sarcasm, ala slashdot forums) that actually lends credibility to their content.

For example, one of today’s impressive headlines is representative of the usual quality:

Scumbag virus writers try to whip up ‘Anthrax outbreak’ – Fail due to super-lame coding

I do have two grievances with The Register though. First, their hosting is poor – their site is often slow or inaccessible. Second, their front-page is poorly laid out and it is difficult to tell which stories are newer than others.