QWANtify is excited to announce, effective May 1, 2010, their purchase by Safe Bridge Solutions, Inc. of Madison, WI. Read More »
Today I received an email from MSN telling me they now recommend using IE 8. I was shocked when I read that. IE 8 has been out since March 19, 2009 and MSN is finally recommending IE 8. It only took them about 6 months. That got a friend and I thinking about IE 6 and the many issues companies will have MS finally stops supporting IE 6. What do I mean? Many companies have internal “Web Applications” that work only with IE 6. I say “Web Applications” because they are not really a web application. Sure they use the browser, but most were written in ASP and rely on specific IE 6 “functionality” that does not work with other web browsers. A real web app is cross platform compatible in my opinion.
This is yet another perfect example of someone trying to take standards and add their own propriety extensions so you have to use their product rather than another standards compliant product (Vendor Lock In). The pragmatic in me hopes these companies will learn from their mistakes when they are finally forced to rewrite all of their IE 6 specific application, but the realist in my realizes they won’t. Worse yet Microsoft will cut support for IE 6 and all of their newer OSes will only support newer versions of IE so eventually companies will have to upgrade or move to a different OS. UnlikeCOBOL which IBM and others are perfectly willing to still sell you systems to run your legacy COBOL. So in my opinion IE 6 is not a COBOL-like Legacy situation. It is actually much worse.
-Kevin
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Social Media.
203 million hits in .26 seconds is what you’ll find when you Google Social Media. The first link that shows up is a link to Facebook, which has 250 million current users. Social Media is everywhere! Like it or not, my advice is to absorb it, learn about it and use it.
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I was working on a new Ruby on Rails project and needed some standard JavaScript UI elements like modal windows, tabs, tooltips and such. Until recently I had never found any good library to add on to prototype that handles these. jQuery, EXT JS, YUI and others have these so why doesn’t prototype. Well recently I stumbled across LivePipe. This is exactly what I have been looking for. The documentation is just enough so you can figure things out. There needs to be a better newbie guide. Maybe I’ll start working on one after I have more experience.
So if you are using the Prototype JavaScript then take a look atLivePipe.
-Kevin Runde
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The next time you take a minute to update your Facebook page, be careful! Most users know the difference between public and private information in their profiles, but making sensitive information private is not as safe as some users may think. Canada’s privacy commissioner has been the latest to put a spotlight on the numerous gaping holes in the security surrounding the most popular social-networking websites.
The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that almost a million Facebook developers around the globe have unrestricted access to all of the information in your profile. Regardless of the safeguards you think you’ve placed on your personal information, it is all visible and accessible to these users. Further, Facebook never deletes any of this information, even if you cancel your account. Thus, there is currently no way to eliminate the chance that someone could later dig up a potentially sensitive piece of information deleted by a user. Several other privacy risks are outlined in the article linked-to below.
This situation is a great example of how important and difficult it is to keep personal information personal. I had thought that I was being paranoid for not getting a Facebook account, but it turns out I was more right than I’d ever thought I would be. As a general rule, I recommend refraining from posting anything on the Internet that you wouldn’t want your mother — or your boss — to read.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/08/17/facebook-privacy-settlement.html
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A few years ago, I became involved with the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County by participating in their annual bike ride. Every year hundreds of people who work, live, and play in the Madison area recruit friends, form teams, raise money, and bike 10, 30 or 50 miles in support of the Boys and Girls Club. Not only is this great for each individual rider and the Boys and Girls Club, but it’s also great for the city of Madison and Madison area businesses.
It has been proven that businesses that actively participate and encourage their employees to get involved with corporate philanthropy and charitable giving opportunities in their company have better employee retention, an easier time recruiting new employees, reported growth in their business and have a higher employee work performance. How exciting is this! Read on for more……….
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Recently, I have come across podcasts that are an hour long or longer! Most of the podcasts I subscribe too are 20 minutes or less. That is way to long. Now maybe if I was listening to podcasts for entertainment I would like them being longer, but I listen to podcasts mainly to keep up on developments in the programming world. Also most of those hour long podcasts feels like they are just trying to fill up time so their podcast is an hour long. If you want to see how a podcast should be done check outThe Rails Envy Podcasts. Those guys know what they are doing. Yes, their content can be immature at times, but there podcast packs a lot of good solid information. Unfortunately it sounds like the Rails Envy Podcasts may be coming to an end. I hope the will be continued in a different form. If you are developing screencasts than you should go look at Rails Casts. Yes these are both rails related and in my mind these are part of the reason the Rails community is doing so well.
-Kevin
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What ever happened to program language generations? When I was going to school I always heard about how C and C++ were a Third Generation Programming languages and there were new Fourth Generation Programming Languages like Power Builder coming which would make programming SO much easier. Then Java came out and the focus on programming changed from Client Server or Desktop Applications to Web Apps. When that happened I stopped hearing people talk about programming language generations and instead focused on extending current languages with new APIs, specs and plugins. So what happened? People didn’t stop creating programming languages. In reality several great new languages have come out like Python and Ruby. Both are relatively new and are significantly faster to develop in.
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Each year, as the so-called ‘digital revolution’ picks up speed, greater numbers of markets have been transitioning to Internet based distribution. Music, film, journalism and telecommunications are just a few of the industries that have been strongly influenced by this trend. There have been some consumer complaints, but by far the loudest objections have come from the beneficiaries of aging business models.
While I’m an advocate of using the Internet as a distribution system, I’m not keen on the new standard for buying digital music that iTunes has established. I love having a high quality, tangible copy of the album I just bought, complete with cover art and liner notes. Sure, album artwork can be packaged with a purely digital copy in the form of a PDF or JPEG file, but in my opinion there’s still a certain sense of satisfaction missing from it. Additionally, the audio resolution of iTunes downloads is far lower than that of a CD, not to mention that of vinyl records.
That being said, I’ll admit that the digital distribution music model is remarkably efficient. For one thing, it simply has no packaging materials, construction, storage or shipping costs. Furthermore, there is never any waste to throw into a landfill, and very little energy is required to send a song through a computer network, making digital music a much greener alternative.
A hot topic of late has been whether digital distribution is sustainable in the long term. While it has been becoming an increasingly viable goal, it can only remain so if access to the Internet is extremely reliable. So especially since most consumers have come to expect immediate gratification and portability in media purchases, one thing to keep in mind is that it’s very important that we fortify our existing infrastructure if we continue to increase our reliance on computer networks for the consumption of day to day commodities.
Most large media firms have not adapted to these kinds of expectations, and their revenue has dropped as a result. A quick glance at the news shows that consumers will find ways to meet their own expectations, regardless of what the traditional corporate players have planned. Their market will definitely continue to evolve, but it’s becoming apparent that the power will likely change hands in the process, perhaps more than once.
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