“The current browser is either too old or too modern”

So, the calendar can’t be used because the javascript that’s supposed to handle it was made for the Netscape Navigator browser which I imagine no one thought would ever ever go away. Unfortunately it went away in March 2008, after years of almost nil market share. Someone must have thought that people actually bothered to install the gazillions CDs that AOL polluted the world with for about a decade.

Unfortunately that was not the case and hardly anyone has used Navigator since 2002, and so what could have been seen as a bold move by the developers betting their all on the success of one single browser now survives solely as a curious error message that I think could also be a haiku.

On the other hand it could be that the error message should be “The developers of this site are either too stupid or too lazy.”

So, kids, let this be a lesson to you: don’t develop for a single browser, make sure your code degrades gracefully and, if you are the website owner, check your websites more often than once every five years, preferably with what people would most likely be using to see it.

Turns out that it actually is a Kill Switch. The bad news is that it’s not something useful, for example it won’t allow you to kill the people in front of you in a line, like that lady who is paying her weekly grocery shopping with pennies, but what it actually does is stop the iPhone from running whatever software Apple doesn’t want it to run. Steve Jobs says that it would be irresponsible not to have one, the reason why is easy to see, after all only those developers who have paid for the privilege to develop for the iPhone are able to upload their wares to the iTunes store, which is the only place from where you can get software for the iPhone, and it’s not like the Apple people spend weeks reviewing the submitted software before posting it on the site. Oh! wait, they actually spend weeks reviewing the submitted software.

Apparently this is not enough and Steve needs more control over your iPhone, making sure you are only running safe and preapproved software; after all, you were naïve enough to buy an iPhone, God only knows what dangerous crap you can be suckered into downloading by giving it a bit of a shine and putting a vowel in front of its name. It also gives Jobs the option to outsource the software review process to underpaid 10-year olds in Vietnam in the future and if one of those kids misses something crucial, maybe he didn’t have breakfast that day… or month, then it’s no problem because Apple can still deactivate it remotely after firing the kid.

You see, by getting an iPhone you have also become part of a very exclusive community, one that is kept isolated from the outside world, one in which not anyone can make changes or improvements without prior approval, where there are people making sure you stay within the predetermined limits for your protection, and where you can be reasonably sure that all the other neighbours will be of a similar stature and position in life. Of course, you have plenty of freedom, you can change the colour of the screen and have different ringtones, so your iPhone will be completely unique… but not too much, otherwise it’d be just weird.

Oh, did I mention that thanks to the GPS the iPhone now knows where you are?

After the morning sessions we had a very good lunch at Gibraltar’s Point Centre for the Arts, a walk on the beach and then back for the last of the updates, a bit of strategic thinking and a scavengers hunt!

Today is TRIEC away day at the Toronto Islands where we talked about the relationship of Maytree with TRIEC, future Maytree projects that involve TRIEC in some way and an update on the TRIEC programs. It was a bit sad for me because this is the last away day I enjoy with the TRIEC team before moving 100% to the Maytree site.

The Employable Web Designer should be required reading for anyone who is thinking about developing web sites professionally, whether they are graphic designers or not. However I would go as far as to say that much of the reason why graphic designers are not being well prepared as web designers is because both are different disciplines, just as graphic design is different from interior design or industrial design. Specially for those technological areas that Andy points to as omissions in the graphic designer curriculum, the ones about html, css, affordance, usability, etc. are what makes web design differ enough from graphic design to be considered as a discipline of its own and not a subset or specialization.

As technology develops and the variety of uses for a website becomes greater these differences will be more and more evident. RSS feeds, mobile devices, APIs, microformats, readers for the sight-impaired, etc. already demand a unique set of qualifications and knowledge from a web designer, in many ways different from the one required as a graphic designer.

Although the principles of graphic design apply to parts of a website (namely the interface) there are many other things to consider when creating a website that go beyond the interface and into concepts of information architecture, knowledge management, usability and others. The faster the web designer recognizes these fundamental differences, the more marketable she or he will become.

Like Andy Rutledge says, people will read through text when it’s presented in a way that makes finding the relevant information easy, the act of reading restful and, of course, that the text is relevant, engaging and clear. No one will read through boring and confusing pieces of text, long or short.

clipped from www.andyrutledge.com Volume Doesn’t Matter May 6, 2007 Despite what you’ve read, the volume of text on your page in and of itself has no impact on the success of your site. Statisticians will tell you otherwise, because they observe specific behaviors and perceive patterns and think that their perceptions easily translate into concrete conclusions. They’re usually wrong on this score. The fact is it doesn’t matter what volume of copy you have if the copy is well designed.

I developed the Wordpress template from a design provided to us. Version 2.5 of Wordpress makes things much easier than I thought they would be and I was able to find some very cool plugins to do things such as the sitemap and navigation menus. It’s not perfect, I’ll try to improve it as I get the time, but the end result is pretty solid, good, semantic html markup and nice css (although that could use a clean-up as well.

By the way, you better like it!

When developing a new site, we must truly make an effort to make it usable even by those who don’t have the equipment or experience that we consider “standard”. Not everybody has broadband, not everybody has a fast computer with tons of memory. Just like ramps on sidewalks and braille elevator buttons, we must ensure that there is a way for people who can’t afford the latest to use our site, sure without the frills, but still usable.

Anyway, read the piece and maybe leave a comment: Poverty as an Accessibility Barrier : StevenClark.com.au

Suddenly the light starts turning blue and moments later all is back to normal. But the people of the Moon remember and fear the next time the Sun will disappear. That’s right, people of the Moon! Tremble before the majestic power of Earth!