Tiffany B. Brown

a mish-mosh of stuff

Link dump: May 3, 2006

Slides from php|tek
Bits of information from conference presentations. [Via Chris Shiflett]
Cluesheet
Quick-n-dirty PHP development tips. [Also via Shiflett]
IE7 For XP Beta 2: Has Firefox Met Its Match?
IE 7 is a very good browser — if you’ve never used Firefox.
WineCamp
Geek + Grapes = me green with envy. [Via Emily Chang]
The Difference in Web Applications
Differences in how users conceptualize web applications versus static web sites. Related (in fact, you can probably skip the blog post and just read this): Design Considerations for Web-based Applications.
BBC/Reuters/Media Center Poll: Trust in the Media
Americans and Brits trust their government more than they trust the media. [Via paidContent]
Talkin’ bout a media revolution
How big media is adjusting to mass niche media.
Shave Everywhere
Motivation for manscaping.
Get a Mac ads
If computers were people.
  • http://www.rashidmuhammad.com/ Rashid Z. Muhammad

    - IE7 is nice even if you have used Firefox – and I’ve been a Gecko user since Mozilla M7. Their tab preview feature is extremely handy and they use a multi-threaded approach to tabs so that your whole browser doesn’t get locked up if one tab is in a wait state (unlike Firefox). Also, they use some sort of anti-aliasing technology that makes the fonts and images really smooth like an xft Linux distribution. This makes zooming the page really pleasing to the eye. The browser is slick.

    I don’t see myself running to switch, but at least a computer with only IE on it will become respectable again. Last time I looked at it, there were still a few rendering bugs though, words can’t express my disappointment at that.

    - As for standards in web apps, I think it’s like the Newsweek thing where people haven’t mentally made the shift from what they are used to over to the web as a development platform. I have hypothesized that this is why people go so nuts wanting pull-down menus and pixel-perfect layout minutia.

    The writeup is informative and has good ideas, but I disagree with a number of his assertions, particularly regarding plug-ins and rollovers. While users may be used to these things, I’m of the thinking that the power of the web is in the fact that it is a universally accessible medium, and for every plug-in or script that you rely on, you increasingly undermine that core web tenet. He caveats the pull-down menus fine, but should have added the same one for plug-ins.

    Also, the whole idea of expanding the web application to fill up the screen doesn’t fly here either, that sounds like a trip back to the DOS model. Again, he caveats it fine but given the web app usage patterns that I normally see (complimentary to other desktop or web apps) I wonder why make the suggestion in the first place? How many widely-used desktop applications that have click-heavy interfaces actually use a full screen by default these days? That seems like a model for the “workspace” app (e.g. Photoshop, Office, Dreamweaver, etc), a type of app that is the minority of what you see on the web these days – and even in 2001.

    I’ll shut up now.

  • http://www.rashidmuhammad.com Rashid Z. Muhammad

    - IE7 is nice even if you have used Firefox – and I’ve been a Gecko user since Mozilla M7. Their tab preview feature is extremely handy and they use a multi-threaded approach to tabs so that your whole browser doesn’t get locked up if one tab is in a wait state (unlike Firefox). Also, they use some sort of anti-aliasing technology that makes the fonts and images really smooth like an xft Linux distribution. This makes zooming the page really pleasing to the eye. The browser is slick.

    I don’t see myself running to switch, but at least a computer with only IE on it will become respectable again. Last time I looked at it, there were still a few rendering bugs though, words can’t express my disappointment at that.

    - As for standards in web apps, I think it’s like the Newsweek thing where people haven’t mentally made the shift from what they are used to over to the web as a development platform. I have hypothesized that this is why people go so nuts wanting pull-down menus and pixel-perfect layout minutia.

    The writeup is informative and has good ideas, but I disagree with a number of his assertions, particularly regarding plug-ins and rollovers. While users may be used to these things, I’m of the thinking that the power of the web is in the fact that it is a universally accessible medium, and for every plug-in or script that you rely on, you increasingly undermine that core web tenet. He caveats the pull-down menus fine, but should have added the same one for plug-ins.

    Also, the whole idea of expanding the web application to fill up the screen doesn’t fly here either, that sounds like a trip back to the DOS model. Again, he caveats it fine but given the web app usage patterns that I normally see (complimentary to other desktop or web apps) I wonder why make the suggestion in the first place? How many widely-used desktop applications that have click-heavy interfaces actually use a full screen by default these days? That seems like a model for the “workspace” app (e.g. Photoshop, Office, Dreamweaver, etc), a type of app that is the minority of what you see on the web these days – and even in 2001.

    I’ll shut up now.