No.

My concerns are twofold; firstly, the simple clumsiness of it. You either spend half the conversation staring at your screen waiting for words to come up (which, sometimes, never do), or you’re forever switching in and out of the conversation – making for very poor conversation. I guess if the words came up in real-time, without people having to commit each sentence, that might be less dysfunctional.

But my real deep hatred of it comes from the dehumanising divorce of sufficient physical interaction to feel any kind of social connection. It’s common for people to type lol without their mouth so much as twitching. That’s a PhD right there. I’ve had some quite serious, quite personal conversations on IM, and the ultimate result was emptiness set in 10-point Arial.

Having said that, I do have Skype at work. Handy for sending URLs around.

But I’m going, baby!

The T-shirt should be a highlight.

Internet Explorer 7 was released on October 18. How the last five years have flown by. So, let’s begin with the good news:

• Numerous rendering bugfixes/improvements. Yay!
• Improved security. (Probably most notably, ActiveX will no longer install stuff from websites without asking. Because I bet we were all surprised at how badly that turned out.)
• New UI.
• Pushed out by automatic update, so we should see a rapid decline in IE6 usage.

Alas, the bad news:

• The rendering improvements were only tweaks, as opposed to the Trident rendering engine being booted out the door, kicked in the guts a few times, then having petrol poured all over it and being set on fire as web developers had hoped.
• They closed some of the worst security holes, but fundamentally it’s still the same IE. And fundamentally it is still the same Microsoft, with a security track record that is, shall we say, unparalleled.
• New UI. Now, okay, this is a subjective thing, so don’t just take my word for it. No menu bar, though? Refresh button hidden inside the Go button? And best of all, it’s not customisable! So you’re stuck with their bizarre design decisions.
• Oh yeah, doesn’t work on Win 2K. Which kindof a lot of people use, so IE6 is going to hang around for ages. Dammit.

Here’s an Internet Explorer 7 Review by CNET. While it’s generally positive, basically every paragraph ends with ” … but Firefox does it better.” Is there any reason to use IE7 apart from ignorance? Well… the toolbars are very shiny.

I feel very sorry for the IE team really. They were on a hiding to nothing. There wasn’t the time to really fix it, so they were tasked with taking what is quite possibly the most widely despised piece of software ever built and somehow patching it up to be as good as browsers like Firefox, Opera and Safari, all of which are rocketing along the cutting edge at the moment. It was an impossible task, and they were going to be abused just for trying. You only need to read the comment thread on any of the IEBlog postings to get an idea of it – sometimes dozens, often hundreds of comments, the majority just outright dissing them, their product or Microsoft. It’s not cool.

Mind you, you get that when you peddle the corporate line on your blog. For example, we constantly asked for a way to run IE6 and 7 side-by-side on our PC – you know, so we could support their browser – and constantly got told to either buy another computer or get Virtual PC. Now, again, this was all they could do, so I’m not holding it against them. But what they consistently failed to do was finish it with ” … yes, this is shit, it’s the best we can do right now, we’ll try to do better in the future.” If they had just said that, people wouldn’t need to keep screaming at them about it all the time. The internet is full of angry, nasty people, but you know, if you don’t treat us like shit, we can actually be pretty cool once you get to know us. (By the way, you can get unofficial standalone IE builds.) So it was pleasing to see this, finally, in the latest chat transcript:

Q: Any word on supporting developers who need to run IE6 and 7 concurrently? I’m currently running the IE7 RC1 standalone hack.
Tony Chor [MS]: As we’ve mentioned before, we suggest users who need to run multiple versions of IE use virtualization technology like Microsoft Virtual PC (available for free download now!) or multiple machines. We know this is a pain point for everyone (including us!) and will focus on providing a good solution in a future versions.

From the same chat, this was my favourite bit. Sometimes, you only need one word:

Q: Will IE7 work with Windows 98?
Tony Chor [MS]: Sorry.

So yeah, if you want to get IE7, I guess you can download it from here or something.

I recently posted my simple backup script. To complete your Rambleschmack Multimedia Experience™, I’ve made a video of the backup script running and posted it on my other site. Insane, huh? Insanely good or insanely bad, though, no one’s quite sure yet.

Incidentally, you can watch the whole Apple WWDC ‘06 Keynote if you wish. Like many things Apple, it’s really awesome – as long as you can put up with the arrogant wankers. Your call. If you want the highlights package, I suggest you make sure you catch the Time Machine demo, about half way through, and the iChat demo, just before the end.

Incidentally, if you are not familiar with OS X, hit YouTube or something and have a look at Fast User Switching and Exposé. The first time I saw fast user switching, I was just stunned aye. As one who dabbles in the programming, I could really appreciate just how frikkin’ hard it would be to abstract it so well. As one who dabbles in UI design, I could appreciate what a well-conceived and executed abstraction it was. It is just brilliant. It is what technology should be – making things easier, simpler, better. Loosely related, I also found The Graphing Calculator Story to be a good read, one of an apparently endless number of fascinating Apple stories. (Hit up folklore.org to catch them all.)

And, uh, stop press: just saw this classic video of Steve Jobs on Microsoft.

Hardly a rarity, but I have here for you varied tales of incompetence. They hurt us so, and all we can do is laugh.

Anil Dash, blogging on Vox, provides the story of installing The GIMP, appropriately titled It’s hopeless. He is so right. Particularly, mirrors. It’s hard to describe the stare I give my computer screen when I get asked to choose a mirror. You’re a computer. You’re supposed to do this lame shit for me. How hard is it to get that? And then a screenshot of truly stunning UI design. The entire dialog is completely absurd, but the level of absurdity, how far they take it, it’s an absolute slam dunk. Linux never fails to impress me – just in the opposite way to, you know, the good way.

Have you seen the NYT’s sexy new website? Join me there now for a review of Motorola’s Q: Lovely Phone; Ugly Software. I hate to spoil it, but basically he admires the hardware and disses the Hell out of the software. Guess who made that software? It’s one of those things I find incredible. “Well, our last Microsoft software was pretty expensive, and completely sucked shit, so… I think we’ll go with them again. Yeap.” You munters.

It’s important to express yourself as a nation. So, when a new mall opens, it is only appropriate that Auckland shoppers cause motorway chaos. Regular readers may remember last year’s iBook stampede (much more impressive, as us Kiwis don’t do consumerism nearly as well as the US or UK). On this occasion, the Auckland motorway network was gridlocked because there were Bargains. I saw the coverage on the news, shots of people just carrying boxed TVs around. It was like watching ants, or as the commentator called it, “sheeple.” And it was horrible.

Did you hear al-Zarqawi got the Bomb? Bush says Zarqawi death may ‘turn the tide’ towards “… a more peaceful world for our children and grandchildren.” I hate to be an apologist for al-Zarqawi, I’m reasonably sure I would not like him much if I had met him, but I just find it so distasteful when people rejoice in killing. Yay! The world is now a better place! 18 Wheels of Justice, motherfucker!

And good news, all: Petrol price relief on horizon. That’s news to me, I thought – where’s it coming from? Sources in the oil industry? Major players in the Middle East? Well, no – it’s even better than that: turns out our Reserve Bank governer is omniscient.

Motorists can expect some relief from high petrol prices, with the Reserve Bank predicting a drop of 13 cents a litre by early next year.
…
The bank’s policy statement said “petrol prices are assumed to have reached a peak and are projected to fall to around $1.58 a litre by early 2007″.
…
Asked why he forecast oil prices would fall, Dr Bollard said it was because they were so high and “what goes up comes down”.

Seriously, that was the whole paragraph. Maybe we should also ask Paris Hilton for her input?

I’m currently pondering whether to watch the opening match of the Soccer World Cup, which kicks off in a couple hours at 4am NZST. I expect the temperature then will be about fucking freezing degrees Celsius. And I mean, 4am. But it seems it’ll be one of the few played live, instead of in easily-consumed and utterly meaningless highlights packages. Check out ONE Sport’s World Cup TV Schedule. On their incredibly shitty website. (Here is the alternative.) Seriously. How freakin’ hard?

Good design is not fragile. You can change your screen resolution without it falling apart. You can even view it in a completely different way and good design will still be beautiful. Some genius has come up with a test for this: Websites as Graphs. Be sure to check out the screenshots – especially Boingboing, Apple and Google.

I’ve done a few of my own. See if you can guess which site they are before reading the caption. (Note: this is more of an exercise in psychology than HTML. For example, the first site I did had to be…)

…the incomparable db.rambleschmack.net. (The front page – basically a few lists of links.)

The spartan code underlying rambleschmack.net.

My associate at The Eschaton.

Flashback: it’s table city at the Nocents.org blog. All those tables to create our cutting-edge post borders seemed like a good idea at the time.

Ok, kids: make your own!

Except they can’t even find the spacebar, let alone spell. What are they trying to be, Linux? If you’re going to copy, you have to copy the idea, not the end product, otherwise more likely than not your seams will be showing. (This is actually a fascinating topic – see this post on Cargo Cults, for example.)

Yes, I would like some ducting.

I should say, though, that I have heard only good things about the screen itself. Affordable, too. So that’s all good. If only they knew their limits.

I always wondered what those funny quote things meant. Nothing, I guess.

Since we are talking about screens, you should check out this screen-related post, if only for the wicked music. Oh yeah, and another video in the cruel humour series. (After man falls off bike, etc.) When I post links on my blog there is often a particular reader who I think it will really appeal to. On this occasion, I thought of Dave.

While I’m here, let me relate another wonderful story of Auckland driving. So I’m coming up to an intersection. The lights are green, and have been for some time, and I’m not talking about some green arrow shit here, we’re talking full green circle. It’s raining. Auckland probably does rain better than any city in the world. It’s cold, it’s wet, it’s dark, it’s windy, and every time it begins to ease – just enough that you turn down your wipers, and think yay, it’s over – it picks up again. As I approach the intersection I see someone from the transverse street doing likewise. I slow down a bit. Shouldn’t they be stopping? Maybe they’re turning left or something.

Ok, so they’re not turning left. They’re going freakin’ straight ahead. In a manner that will place their passenger door in the same time and place as my engine very soon. It is at this point that the guy sitting in their passenger seat starts looking at me. I try to brake, but also try not to spin out of control in the wet weather. And I’m thinking surely, they’re going to stop. They’re not going to stop. I brake again. They swerve a bit and keep charging ahead, quickly enough that they get past before I reach them. The guy in the passenger seat is still staring at me, presumably too terrified to move. It’s good times being the passenger in crazy car.

As the driver goes past he angrily toots his horn at me. All of this time, my light has been green. Great people, Aucklanders.

The Commonwealth games are on at the moment. (I quite liked the “Stolenwealth” take on it. Cough, cough. We don’t like to talk about that bit.) I was introduced to a new sport yesterday: Synchronised Swimming Solo. Let’s all ponder that for a moment. I feel it’s a sport I could do well at. A couple of further observations:

1. Judging by the swimsuits, they were going for the camel toe vote. It would be interesting to know how many of the judges are men.
2. It’s one of those things where you feel, I’m sure they train hard and everything, but is it really a sport? Still, I’m sure there are much more unlikely examples. Meanwhile, let us pray Twenty20 never makes it in.

Have you heard about Desert Bus? Awesome. I know there are those of you out there who, after playing Pend, declared they would never play another game again, as it would only be a disappointment. Well, now you can.

Microsoft continue to stun us with their interface design. Apparently this is the result of actual usability studies. As The Pretender would say, how many users have died because of what I thought up? When I saw the title of this, I thought they were joking: Fix My Settings. They were not. One of the comments summed it up nicely: if you can break it, it’s already broken. In the case of IE, true and true.

But – and I hear this is what makes America great – there will always be someone worse to make them look (relatively) good. That’s right, I’m talking about Fox News. They recently ran a poll. Will Hillary Clinton win the primary (ie. will the Democrats vote her as their presidential candidate) and lose the election? A reasonable question. The voiceover added “that’s as opposed to losing the primary and losing the election.” I was about to say, hey, I think you might be missing an option there, but I guess not. No one watching Fox would have voted for that one anyway.

If I may make a general observation, the future will be both sarcastic and a lot like The Matrix.

Anyway, here’s what’s coming up: Minuit “The Guards Themselves” Tour. Saturday 25 March, 10pm at Rising Sun, K’Road. Apparently DJ FunknSlocuts will also be there. Now, what did you get the first time you read that word? I got fucken sluts. I think that was only half of the intended. At any rate, you should come. It’s probably going to be cheaper than a good CD on trademe.

Javascript is an interesting little language. In terms of people who have used it at least once, it is probably amongst the world’s most popular languages. And yet very few people have anything more than a bare minimum understanding of it. Generally you get pretty good at HTML, CSS and maybe PHP etc, but Javascript tends to only come up when the client says something awesome like “I want it to pop up in a little window!” or “dropdown menus would really make my site better!”. In fact before the proliferation of CSS it seemed that Javascript was a language that existed purely for the purpose of constructing image rollovers. Because you could never raise a million dollars in venture capital without image rollovers on your site. You can’t sell usability.

In fact a lot of people don’t even realise that Javascript is not Java. Simple mistake, but a pretty big one. Java is the one that occasionally throws errors and will take down your entire browser, and possibly your operating system, with it. Javascript, on the other hand, throws errors constantly and you wouldn’t even know. Seriously, have a look in the Javascript console now and chances are better than 50/50 that at least one of the pages you have visited will have thrown a JS error. That’s how critical Javascript is to your browsing experience. I generally use it about 5 lines at a time for clever little usability improvements. I pity those poor bastards who have to develop entire applications in it.

The other thing about Javascript is that even people who use it know almost nothing about how to. Sometimes I have to do a separate Google search for every line I create. And always I thought, is there, like, an API? A hitchhiker’s guide? Anything?

Not as far as I know. But here, have a look at Javascript in Ten Minutes. It is a great little primer on the basics. The first half is anyway. The second half, I got a bit lost, but once again I pitied the poor bastards who develop entire applications in it. All the complexity of OO, with all the ugly of procedural! I love you PHP.

No offense to Perl. This was the only PHP image I had.

Who the fuck are you, and what are you doing in my inbox?

This isn’t nearly as annoying as the takes-ten-seconds-nearly-crashes-your system load time of Gmail. It’s practically the new Java.