Migration Time

This blog formerly existed at waterfallweb.net - but it seemed a bit pointless to keep using that name when everywhere else online I'm "rockyshark".

So here's to the big migration!

You may be noticing the general ugliness of this theme. Believe it or not, it's that way on purpose.

Online mockups coming soon

Very excited/pleased to read this post from Balsamiq relating to their online mockups web app.



I've been a desktop Balsamiq user for some time now and am finding it more and more indispensable with each project. It's been replacing project specification docs to the point where I don't really have to write any other instructions. By linking pages together and viewing it in fullscreen mode, we can see how the home page, section pages, contact pages, and even modal popup windows and AJAX behaviours should work.

I can "knock together" a basic site in a few minutes - and an intranet in a few hours. In each case, the result is much clearer and easier that written briefs or specification docs. Clients can understand them just as easy as programmers and designers!

And when the client approves the mockups, we can refer back to them if there are any additional requests. "That wasn't in the mockups you approved. We can do it, but it will cost an additional $x..."

The webapp will make collaboration that much easier. Really looking forward to its release!

Microsoft should release IE6 as a single-site browser

Internet Explorer 6 is still out there. In large numbers.

Often the reason given is that the corporate sector is tied to it through intranets and other applications that rely on it.

So, why not release IE6 as a single-site browser (SSB), like Mozilla's Prism for example?

1. Corporates can run their intranets via the IE6 SSB


2. The general-use browser can then be updated to the latest version (IE8), which has to make security easier for their IT department


3. Microsoft can then officially drop support for IE6, and only need to support the SSB in its corporate environment


4. The rest of us can breathe a sigh of relief as we watch IE6 usage fall rapidly!

It seems like a simple solution to me, but perhaps it's not that simple. Otherwise Microsoft would have done it already. Yes?

No right answers for IE8

There has been quite a lot said recently about Microsoft's new Internet Explorer 8 (IE8). Should it default to "standards mode"? Or default to "IE7 mode"?

But Joel on Software has put things into perspective: Neither side is right, and neither side is wrong. Because there is really no right answer here.

It's a long read, but worthwhile if you've been following the debate. It also add some understanding as why Vista is so plagued. (And yes, I'm one of those who has gone back to Windows XP)

Before reading Joel's article I didn't really have an opinion on what IE8 should default to. At least now I can say that maybe having no opinion is the right one!

If things stay as they are, we may all have a lot of work to do - going back and fixing old sites. Grrr.

The saving grace in my case might be the use of very specific stylesheets for Internet Explorer. We have used a conditional comment to call a stylesheet for IE6, another one for IE7, so IE8 shouldn't read either of these - and just worry about the main stylesheet designed for Firefox etc.

I hope. I'll have to check...

The Death of Netscape

Announced recently was the end of the production line for Netscape Navigator. I haven't used it in years, but I do remember how much better Netscape 3 was than IE3.

Netscape probably started it's decline when IE4 was released - a far superior browser at the time. Netscape never really recovered, nor reinvented themselves to create a case to change back. And it's probably fair to say that Firefox helped to make Netscape obsolete as well.

Like sands through the hourglass...

The Email Standards Project

Many years ago the Web Standards Project (or WASP) fought the fine fight to pressure browser manufacturers into complying with some sort of standard version of HTML. Prior to that we almost had to build separate sites for Netscape and Internet Explorer - it was horrible.

We have come so far with browsers, but unfortunately most email clients are, well, a long way behind. If you have ever tested an HTML email in a few different clients you'll know the frustration.
Yesterday's launch of the Email Standards Project hopes to remedy this situation. Some people love it, some hate it, but HTML email is here to stay. And if we could have the proper standards support in email clients then it's probably fair to say that a lot of those opposed would change their mind.

We have a long way to go, but at least now we have a vehicle!

A Blatent Grab At A Freebie

Well, day one of Web Directions South 07 is over. And they announced that they would be giving away some prizes to anyone who blogged about it overnight.

I've had a few beers and am not in the right frame of mind to write anything deep and meaningful - I'm just submitting this post on the odd chance I might get a freebie tomorrow!

Well, you never know...

2Clix Lawsuit Dropped

Just a quick follow up to a previous post - the Sydney Morning Herald reports that the lawsuit has been dropped.

I think this is the most important lesson:

"Ironically, the negative word of mouth and worldwide media coverage criticising 2Clix for trying to silence its critics seems to have damaged the firm's reputation far more than the forum threads that were the subject of the lawsuit.

We Just Have to Work With What We Have

Roger Johansson recently posted a bit of a rant about how much he hates HTML email. He also wrote how if anyone thinks otherwise they're weird/wrong/stupid:

"Some people even like receiving HTML email." (I have replaced his italics with my bold.)

Okay, so I'm weird, wrong and stupid.

But the thing that gets me the most is this:

"I still don’t do HTML email though. As long as support for Web Standards in email clients is as crappy and unpredictable as it currently is, well I’m sorry, but I’m not going back to nested layout tables and spacer GIFs just to create an email. Until the situation improves I’m happy to hand over the job of creating HTML email to somebody else."

Well, I'm sorry too, Roger, but in the real world we just have to work with what we have. Were we all evil in the 90s for using tables and spacer GIFs for layout? No, we weren't. We were just doing the best we could with the available technology.

Imagine saying back then, "I'm not developing any websites until browser manufacturers improve their browsers."

Yep, right.

I'm not saying we should be happy with the status quo either, and David Greiner's excellent post on why we need improvement in the area of standard support in email will hopefully shake a few things up.

I'm sure the day will come when we have decent standards support in our mail clients, but in the meantime those of us that flirt with reality have to deal with HTML email. That includes using layout tables and all sorts of other 'evil' measures.

But we just have to do the best with what we have.

Firm sues forum to silence critics

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that software maker 2Clix is suing community site Whirlpool for comments posted on its forum.

This could set a nasty precedent. Does that mean that nobody will be allowed to criticise anything online for fear of getting sued?

Do we have follow America's lead in getting lawyers involved in everything?

Anyway, here's the story.

Simple Live Chat on Your Website

Installed Plugoo last week on our client login area - it allows visitors to your website to contact you via Messenger, without them knowing what your actual messenger signin is.

Actually, they don't even know what IM software you're using!

It's all pretty seamless and appears to work quite well.

The only real gripe is that if you embed the object on the page, once the visitor navigates away from that page the conversation ends. Makes continuity a bit hard. I've overcome this by placing their object in a hard-coded popup window, and made a little 'live help' button instead.

Hat Tip

ACCC Sues Google

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has decided to sue Google over the sponsored links on its site.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald:

"The ACCC also alleges Google engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct by causing the Kloster Ford and Charlestown Toyota links to be published on the website. [In ads placed by used car rival, the Trading Post]

And then:

"Google also failed to adequately distinguish sponsored links from 'organic' search results, the ACCC alleges.

Geeze - don't worry about the price of fuel in regional areas compared to capital cities. Don't worry about Woolworths (supermarket giant here in Australia) squeezing out smaller operators. Don't worry about issues that affect everyday people. Tackle something for cheap publicity instead.

If the ACCC doesn't like ads placed on Google by the Trading Post, shouldn't they be chasing the Trading Post?

Oh, but there are no headlines in that, are there?

Web Directions South: I'm There!

Missed out last year, but the 04 and 05 conferences were both excellent. Inspirational.

So I managed to convince the 'boss' to let me loose again this year.

They have split it into 3 streams this year: Design, Development, and Management & Strategy. A designer I am not (kinda wish I had some 'skilz' there though) but I like some of the stuff in the Development stream and some in the Management & Strategy stream. Hope I can chop and change a bit.

I guess I'll find out in due course.

Internet Explorer Cannot Download / From Help

Funny bug in Windows Vista - apparently caused when Dreamweaver 8 is installed. If you try to get help from within Windows, this happens:



There is a pretty painless fix, found here.

Safari For Windows

Apple have released Safari (their web browser) for Windows.

Why would you want to use Safari instead of Firefox?

I don't know... but now you can.

Getting Nokia PC Suite to Work on a New Toshiba Notebook

Got a new Toshiba A200 notebook on Friday so just spent the weekend setting it all up. All went pretty well until I got to setting up my Nokia 6111 to sync with Outlook - a very handy feature you can do with Nokia's PC Suite.

Except it didn't work.

After much digging I found that Nokia's software won't work with Toshiba's bluetooth stack in Windows Vista. It found the phone, but no amount of persuasion would make it pair with the computer. You need Microsoft's bluetooth stack.

So here's the fix:

1. Go to your Control Panel in Windows and uninstall the existing Bluetooth by Toshiba.


2. Reboot


3. Go to C:\TOSAPINS\Bluetooth-Monitor\BtMon3Inst_v301.exe and install that.

This process has removed the Toshiba bluetooth stack and installed the Microsoft one.

Easy...!

Microhoo?

Microsoft to buy Yahoo? So reports the Sydney Morning Herald:

Yahoo would plug a "strategic hole" at Microsoft that was not filled by the purchase of AQuantive, announced last week, Mr Noto [a Goldman Sachs analyst] wrote in a note to clients.

AQuantive, which creates web ads and measures whether they reach the target audience, does not give Microsoft the roughly half a million advertisers required to compete against Google, Mr Noto said.

Windows Live Search obviously isn't being used for search as Microsoft had hoped. But one has to ask: would this be a good thing or a bad thing for Yahoo? And does Google care?

Do This.

The Big Upgrade: XP to Vista

My little box of goodies arrived from Microsoft yesterday so last night I upgraded my notebook to Vista. So far, so good, mostly.

There was bound to be a few issues, and here are the ones I faced:

1. It takes a long time. I started at about 9pm and gave up waiting at about 12:30. A clean install is supposedly faster (but that means reinstalling all your software) so I elected to go for the upgrade. Put aside half a day. (Or overnight!)


2. Avast Antivirus needs to be uninstalled. On their website they say it works with Vista, and it does, but you have to uninstall it and then reinstall it after Vista has loaded. You can use the same install file though if you still have it.


3. Missing printer driver. The drivers for my Fuji Xerox Document Centre C250 just vanished during the install. I reinstalled the XP drivers (as the Vista ones are still a few months away apparently) and I can do basic printing, but nothing fancy (like double-sided for example)


4. iPod/iTunes. Aaaaaargh! You have to a bit of tap dancing to get this to sort-of behave. And even then iTunes keeps freezing. And I can't play my purchased songs, even after downloading their so-called 'patch'. Don't get me started on that!

Other than those things it seems to be doing pretty well. My notebook is nearly 2 years old and it's coping resonably well - I even get the Windows Aero fancy bits!

One of the coolest things though is the gadget sidebar. It comes with a few basic things you can add, but there are already heaps more you can download.

That's about it after day 1 - we'll see how she behaves over time...

Legal MP3s from EMI?

I recently posted about a few issues I have with online music purchases, and it seems there may be a growing tide of sentiment that things must change. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, EMI is looking at the idea of releasing their entire catalogue in plain old MP3, instead of using the ridiculous copy protection systems in place now.

EMI have a different reason than mine - songs you buy from iTunes are only any good if you have an iPod, and songs you buy from any other online retailer you can't play on an iPod. Obviously, Apple have a bit of a stanglehold on the online music market at the moment.

The other thing is that copy protection does not stop piracy.

If I really wanted to copy something I have bought from iTunes, I can burn it to an audio CD, then re-rip it back to my computer as MP3. All this copy protection nonsense hasn't really stopped anything. It just inconveniences people trying to do the right thing.

Just as an aside, since my initial post on the subject I have bought 3 CDs, and nothing from iTunes Music Store...