Archive for January, 2006

In these days of modern web design, it shocks me to see professional websites still using design techniques from the 1990s. One notable example is the use of text like “click here” to create a hyperlink. As the title of this post suggests, your site’s users are not complete morons. We all learned about hyperlinks in the 1990s, so the helpful instruction that you are trying to provide your users is simply redundant (we already know where or where not to click).

For example, take this eWeek article on Google’s Big Daddy overhaul. There are two places in the article where the aforementioned error occurs. Both instances, interestingly enough, are the only underlined links in the entire article. This fact points out one area where this “error” as I’ve called it is actually acceptable (although the underlying problem is one that is still frowned upon).

Many websites style their hyperlinks as regular text; that is, the links don’t appear underlined. There are two methods that such sites employ to help users identify these plain text links: either the link is rendered using a different color, or the link is rendered with a bold font weight. Both ways, I would argue, are inaccessible. That argument aside, however, the text “click here” can actually become useful for color blind or low vision users. It provides some sort of clue as to where the user should click to proceed.

I offer you then two suggestions for your own website. First, style your links using something that’s plainly obvious to see (underlines work great). And second, don’t feel the need to use “click here” as the text for a hyperlink. If your links are styled correctly, you shouldn’t need such redundancy.

Can Google be losing it? Not only have they signed a deal with the devil (by buying a stake in AOL), but now their folding under pressure to China. What happened to Do No Evil? Apparently that mantra has been thrown out the window.

Agreeing to censor search results is cowardice; there’s no other way to put it. Excuses like “well, it’s the law in China” or “it’s all about the money we’re making” are weak. You aren’t a Chinese company (hence you don’t need to bow to their laws) and there’s plenty of money to be made in all of the other countries of the world.

I once had a great faith in Google. I was certain that they would be the ones to bring down Microsoft. And they still may. But the course they’re on now appears to be leading towards bad things. Now that Google has fallen, who’s left to look up to?

Not too long ago, I purchased Rick Wakeman’s phenomenal album Journey to the Centre of the Earth. And it has spurred within me an interest to re-read the masterpiece by Jules Verne. It has been quite some time since I read a novel (I believe the seven Chronicles of Narnia books were the last ones I read), and I feel it’s about time to pick up another one. I’ve always been a fan of Jules Verne works, and A Journey to the Center of the Earth is particularly excellent.

I’m slowly making my way through The Mythical Man Month, and so far it has been most excellent. The points that Dr. Brooks makes throughout the book are incredibly insightful. How sad that practically no one makes use of the suggestions he puts forth!

Does anyone have suggestions for books worth reading? Feel free to let me know what you like.

A new, major release of Adblock Plus was made available recently. It appears that development of this extension has changed hands (yet again), and that the extension is undergoing a major rewrite. Version 0.6 is incredibly fast and responsive, and the new user interface is light years better than any previous implementation.

What I dislike is the apparent change of the extension GUID. When I installed 0.6, it did not install on top of my existing version. Instead, it showed up as another extension. However, it conveniently alerted me that an old version of Adblock was installed and, after asking me, automatically removed the old release. Awesome!

Since its inception, the Amazon Prime service has been quite intriguing to me. My disdain for actual store shopping has only grown in recent years: I dislike standing in line to check out of a store, said establishment never has what I want, and if they do have it, the price is far more than it should be. So online shopping provides me a means of escaping these hassles.

While browsing Amazon recently, I noticed that I had been selected for a free 3-month trial of their Prime service (though I suspect that this “selection” process applies to nearly everyone who visits the Amazon website). So I eagerly signed up and purchased a few items that I had my eye on. Wow! Two-day shipping has never been better. I can get what I want, when I want, and have it shipped to me in two days for no charge (no shipping charge that is … they aren’t giving away merchandise). And I can do it from the comfort of my own home. How great is that?

This convenience has prompted me to do more business with Amazon, fulfilling the company’s precise goal (”give them free, two-day shipping for $79 a year, and they’ll do more business with us”). Amazon often has the lowest prices around, and they stock nearly everything. Finding that rare CD I’ve been wanting is now a pleasure, rather than a burden. Too many times I have been disappointed with Best Buy, Target, et al. in regards to their music and movie selections. I guess my tastes aren’t “mainstream” enough. Oh well … I guess it’s too bad for them. My new shopping outlet is Amazon.com; and I couldn’t be happier.

Due to increasing activity at work, I have only just now updated Thunderbird to the latest release, version 1.5. There’s a laundry list of new items in this release, so be sure to update your copy if you happen to use Thunderbird as your mail client. And if you don’t use it, what are you waiting for?

In other software update news, I understand that version 2.0.1 of WordPress is coming along, as I predicted it might. I’ve put off upgrading this blog to version 2.0 for the simple reason that major version changes usually have a number of uncaught bugs. And that’s something I’d rather not deal with at the moment. I do hope to upgrade before too much longer. The changes offered are quite enticing.

My CoLT extension for Firefox just got accepted over at addons.mozzila.org, so perhaps it will get a little more exposure as a result. I’d like to add a few more features to the tool; perhaps I can do that in the near future.

I’m slowly but surely moving towards adding some database driven pieces to Born Geek. Specifically, I’ll be moving my wish list to a MySQL database, which will make it much easier for me to add, remove, and edit items on the fly. It’s also giving me chance to pick up some MySQL experience, something I don’t have a lot of. With any luck, I’ll be able to move similar stuff to a database at a later date.

Speaking of databases, the server that hosts the SQL databases for this blog has been having some problems. If this site goes down every once in a while, just bear with us. Hopefully things will be back to normal shortly.