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Adobe phones home, and omniture tries to be clever

December 29th, 2007 by retsoced

padlocking your cookiesI was just reading over at Uneasy Silence that the new CS3 studio likes to ping an a service every time you open your CS3 applications, I wouldn't be surprised if it does the same when you close them too - but that is unconfirmed. I will have to take a look at this when I get back to work after my vacation. Anyway.....

Privacy has been a big issue as of late, and Jeff Atwood has some good thoughts on some of the recent events too. I'm not a big fan of tracking cookies, and no, I am not a tin-foil hat kinda guy, but after Facebook got busted with what Beacon was doing and the user base revolted, I started getting a little more vigilant about cookies and what domains I block. I tend to delete all my cookies regularly anyway, but as I looked at them I found more and more that not only do I not know where they came from, but I do not know what they are doing. So I have started a block list on all my browsers that I regularly use - fortunately that's just Firefox and Flock. I still use IE 7, but not on a routine basis; especially since it isn't a Mac app. This only has to do with Adobe in that I don't really need them tracking all of my usage.

Omniture is a large analytics firm bent on world domination.... Okay, no, not really. They are all about delivering trending data to their customers for improving their targeted content delivery systems. Sounds fine right? Sure, but I didn't agree to it and didn't ask for it. It is very much like spam, but at an application level. If I wanted to help Adobe I would have said so, and since I didn't this bothers me. So I added entries to block all the Omniture sites and cookies.They seem to be trying to get clever by making a domain name look like an internal IP as well, so you would see something like http://192.168.111.2o7.net, and possibly not think anything of it. This really seems like a blatant attempt at deception just in case a user has something running to catch it, but doesn't really look to hard and just passes it by. Nice try, I blocked the 2o7.net domain too.

Here is a link to block the beacon ad tracking as well, by using the block site plugin for Firefox and adding http://*facebook.com/beacon/* to my block list and I am off and running.

It's not like any of this is a huge invasion of privacy, it simply boils down to the fact that these ad services and click trackers are getting increasingly invasive, and I have made a decision to be more active in what information I allow sites to track and view. I don't agree with how it could be or is used, then I will simply block it or not use that site. In the case of Facebook, it's really a non issue since that site is nothing special; actually it's a big fat waste of time, so I don't use it for anything really - just wasting time.

Posted in Blatherings, Geeking Out | No Comments »

Merry Christmas!

December 25th, 2007 by retsoced

Merry Christmas from Ding & Dong

Posted in Blatherings, Wee Little Terrors | No Comments »

HTML 5 does the hokey pokey

December 23rd, 2007 by retsoced

HMTLTrends in web design and development are leaning towards the separation of style and content, for anyone embroiled in the industry this isn't a surprise or breaking news - but it has basically become the holy grail of development - for better or worse. Through carefully crafted HTML and CSS designs and developers are able to get a clean, organized structure to the page. The problem with HTML 4 and CSS is that the rules for creating this Utopian melding of code and beauty is that they are as varied as the developers who employ them. HTML 5 works toward changing that.

Semantics is reaching the web at a slow, steady pace with the HTML 5 specs leading the way. Before you get to excited though keep in mind that HTML 5 is a long way from being completed, like half a decade long. With the implementation of new tags that take into consideration standard design elements such as <header>, <nav>, <article> and <footer> (just to name off a few) no longer will we be constrained to adding a div with an ID or Class to specify what these are. This means less code and lighter pages. The best way to illustrate this is to simply use what Lachlan Hunt has written on A List Apart.

<body>
<header></header>
<nav></nav>
<article></article>
<footer></footer>
</body>

If you tried this now, it would work (most likely in all browsers), but you would get validation errors and maybe some layout anomalies in some browsers - never mind that it's the most logical way of going about it. For a more complete listing of the differences between HTML 4 and HTML 5, check out the W3C, as well as listing of the elements thus far.

That's not to say that HTML 5 isn't without its problems and turmoil, just recently under pressure from Apple and Nokia, the working group removed Ogg Vorbis and Theora from the specification. I can't say that this is a huge surprise that these two companies would want to nix some open formats, but it is a shame that the W3C and the working group defining the specs would cave so easily. Being jack-booted thugs isn't working out so well for the RIAA trying to decimate music sharing, and most likely it will blow up in the face of these two giants as well.

I'm looking forward to having the new spec to work with and having more options available for developing. The new specification looks very promising and the media tags are a long needed addition. And if you can't wait that long and just have to jump into the thicket, both Opera and Webkit have experimental builds with some support.

Posted in Development | No Comments »

Usability in everyday devices

December 20th, 2007 by retsoced

Usability: the property of a website, software application, or web application that relates to ease of use. Usability is commonly defined as having three core components: effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction.

With the inception of the World Wide Web by Time Berners-Lee a whole new process of thinking, design, organizing and displaying information came into being. Almost instantly companies began to see the value of the web, but only after a GUI (the first was Mosaic) was created allowing a design to be applied to the information. What we know as the internet is an amazing feat; a conglomeration of individual sites tenuously linked together forming a massive network of cross-referenced information.

Computers and the applications we use every day are equally as magnificent, something that is generally taken for granted and the amount of work, design, testing and engineering that is involved is very rarely considered when one uses it every day. If the program runs and works like you want it to, then you're happy right? But what about all of the failures, glitches, bugs and functional anomalies we tolerate at the same time? Why is it that as a consumer who pays a lot of money for the technological marvels will buy it even though we expect it to fail? I've talked about this before, but I continue to get smacked in the face with it. In fact, as a general rule, I am disappointed with every single electronic device I own with the exception of my iPod.

Spending my Holiday vacation with friends in family out here on the left coast has brought to bare another issue with every device I own and the time shift. I first experienced last month with daylight savings time, and I have to say that it is simply poor programming. My cell phone (Motorola Krzr), PDA (HP Mobile Media Companion 4250), and even iCal on my MacBook Pro has conveniently not adjusted the time of a recurring appointment in the calendar even though the time zone, or time has changed. If I set a reminder to occur ever day until I die at 10am, wouldn't that hold true regardless if I am in Oregon or Pennsylvania? So my cell phone rings at 7 am for my 10 am, and my 4:30 reminds me at 1:30 in iCal. This is a bug, Now if I keep the timezone and change the time, then the times are correct? WTF? So if I change my time the wrong way, then my calendar is right, and vice-versa.

My cell phone is worse though, for this marvel of technology, and the same with my HP iPaq, I have to go in a select the date for it to automatically update. eh? So I go into the calendar on my iPaq, click the time slot and it jumps to the correct time and hit save. I don't have to actually select the time - it knows if jacked, but you still have to do it manually.

This isn't very helpful for someone who has to take medications at  6 different times every day, and if I actually traveled a lot both of these devices would have been tossed a long time ago. The Mac is the most disappointing though, everything else on this machine just works - it's too bad this little bit is all wonky. I'm not ditching it, and it's not a huge deal - but it all adds up.

As a designer I notice this sort of thing all the time, and it drives me crazy. I don't claim to be perfect and I get emails from the wonderful folks who don't like how my websites works from time to time. It just seems like the stuff I find and run across are all no-brainers, and I can't be the only one who finds it to be annoying and inconvenient. Because are computers supposed to make things faster and better?

I know how much work is involved in building computers, applications, and websites - I'm no stranger to the considerations that must be addressed in order to make these projects successful and create a pleasant interface for the user, but it's a simple fact that things could be developed better. Software companies are so tied to the 18 month release cycle that new programs and major updates are buggy and always in need of an immediate patch of some kind or another. Vista is easy to pick on, but the last version of Adobe Dreamweaver is a good example of a program that saw little advancement in the way of feature. They actually removed some, and made changes to how things are managed which make my current development process more tedious and less efficient in regards to the way I like to develop.

Microsoft did the same thing in a way with Expression Web, it doesn't interface with Visual Studio in any appreciable way, so the fact that you have an excellent GUI for layout is kind of pointless and there is no real reason for a switch to it. Visual Studio is lousy for design, and there is no dedicated Microsoft application to interface with it to allow for a tight workflow from design to development. But then it is all about Developers, developers, developers.

For what I pay, I would simply like to be able to expect more of a product then less. I would rather be pleasantly surprised at how well something works than have to be surprised at how well it fails.

Posted in Blatherings, Development, Op/Ed | 2 Comments »

Parallels, Vista and gaming on a Mac

December 16th, 2007 by retsoced

Halo 2I picked up a copy of Parallels a couple of weeks ago at the Apple Store up in Buffalo at Walden Galleria, so that I could play my PC games when I go left for Christmas. I was excited about getting Vista up and running and playing Halo 2 against my bro. The excitement soon faded into pure, unadulterated disappointment.

Parallels was a walk in the park to get running, no problems at all save one - it didn't play nice with ShapeShifter, so I ignored this app and don't skin it. After that, it was running in no time. This didn't really come as a shocker, since ShapeShifter doesn't play nice with other apps; like iTunes for one. Any way, I get Vista installed, updated and churning right along. Halo 2 went onto the machine just as easy and I had no problems during install. The specs wizrds tossed out a couple of warnings, but I forged ahead. This is where the good feelings get gone.

Right off the bat Halo will not run. At all. Nothing. Initially I figured it was a Direct X thing, and checked around and saw some posts saying that Parallels supports only DX 8.x, but that's not true - after running dxdiag, I discover I have version 10 installed. Some additional poking around leads me to the answer in that Parallels doesn't support the 3D video drivers the same way that they are supported natively, and they have their own special video driver. This is what kills me. I can run Quake II Arena, but nothing else so far. I have tried Delta Force Xtreme, and it bombs out saying the video driver is incompatible. So I tried an older version of Delta Force; Black Hawk Down and it won't start either; even though it only requires Direct X 8. So I figure it might be Vista, and since I can't run Halo 2 any way - I ace the Virtual HD for Vista and now I am installing XP Pro. Right now in fact.

Games are always a real pain in the jar - especially when you are using them outside of the normal scope of how they were developed. What's weird though is the Quake II runs perfectly.... So I figure that XP surely can't be any worse, and in fact will certainly run leaner and meaner on my MacBook Pro than Vista. I have heard tell of folks running Halo 2 on XP Pro with Direct X 9 too - so who knows, I may still get there....

Worse comes to worse, I have Halo for Mac - so I can tool my bro in that for a while before it gets old.....

Posted in Blatherings, Gaming, Geeking Out | No Comments »

When to not answer a cell phone….

December 15th, 2007 by retsoced

I was going to write about how the new Google OpenSocial seems pretty cool, or maybe about knol and how folks seem to be turning the corner and seeing Google as possibly the next Microsoft (WTF?). But I can't. I keep running into people; well not really people per say... dudes answering their cell phone in the head. While takin' a leak. Seein' a man about a Wallabee. Takin'a wizz bang. Just stop.

No one is so important that they have to shake with their right and and flip open their Razr with their left. Get over your self. mmmmkaaayy? Having to be on the listening end of someone in the can talking on a cell ranks right up there with someone eating while on the phone, or smacking their gum at you like some adolescent sugar fiend hoped up on pixie sticks. Over the past week, every time I go out into public I run into to some troglodyte talking on the cell phone in the john. Today and two times on Wednesday; just to get started.

Whatever. Just take a minute to release yourself from the electronic leash and at least enjoy the transference of fluids.

Posted in Blatherings | No Comments »

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