Archive for Internet
July 30, 2007 at 7:30 pm · Filed under Internet
So Apple claims that a growing number of people are using the Mac platform each and every day. If you Google around for “Mac market penetration” (and manage to avoid the inevitable penetration porn) you’ll probably find numbers that vary between 5 and 10%. An anonymous Las Vegas news & entertainment site which had roughly 1.5 million page views so far this month claims 5.3% of its users favor the Mac platform, and I, judging that to be an adequately sized pool from which to draw a conclusion from, will assume that number to be relatively accurate.
So, 5.3% of all web traffic belongs to Mac users. Ideally, that would mean that 5.3% of your sites profit is dependent on Mac users, whether you make money with ads, memberships, sponsorships, or other. But, lest we forget, we are living, in a Windows world, and I am just a Window girl (or boy), so in order to support the Mac platform, I must first purchase a Mac. Now, I’m not here to debate the merits/cost of a PC vs a Mac, I don’t care. Let’s just say that, for argument’s sake that getting a Mac will cost you, at a minimum, $1000 - it’s a nice even number. This would imply that you’re site would need to be generating $20,000 in profit in order to justify supporting a Mac.
Remember though, owning a Mac doesn’t make your site Mac compliant. You must use your system, and test your site on said Mac before you realize any real value. Let’s assume that for every hour spent designing a web application, you have to spend 10 minutes testing, of which 5 will be spent testing for a Mac. That’s 3 hours and 20 minutes of Mac testing per week, or rounding up for simplicity, 2 work days per month. An average salary for a programmer here in Alberta is around $45,000/year, implying that testing for the Mac platform costs a company around $4,500/year per programmer. As you may be able to guess, the larger the application, the more programmers involved, the higher the cost of supporting the Mac platform. So far, our application needs to be profiting $110,000/year in order to justify a lone programmer supporting the Mac platform. (We have three… *sigh)
To be fair, you probably only need to buy a new Mac every five years or so in order to maintain your rigorous testing regiment, so, if you’re the financial forecasting type, you’re spending $14,500 every five years so that 5.3% of your users have a marginally improved web experience, and that assumes you only have one person testing for the platform. To justify this, in that same five year period you’re site will have to profit $275,000, and remember, that’s profit. You’re still on the hook for developer salaries, software, bandwidth, hosting, rent, and let’s not forget, PCs. When you take into account how skinny some sites are running, that $14,500 could really be better spent on sales and marketing to the 94% of users happily running Windows, software upgrades, new PCs, or improved facilities.
Here’s the rub though, all of the sites I build strive to support Macs. Why? I suppose it could be a number of reasons:
- I believe in web accessibility, regardless of platform or handicap.
- I like the Mac platform and fully intend to buy one in the near future.
- Sometimes, honest to God, it just works, and you don’t have to change anything.
I’d have to say though, the number one reason why I support the Mac platform is because Chris Sealy, President and MOB of Statusfirm, runs a Mac, and he gets downright pissy when a site that he’s paying for doesn’t work for him.
July 24, 2007 at 7:33 pm · Filed under Internet
I don’t know when exactly it happened, but some time in the recent past the web community embraced AJAX, and for a while it was good. AJAX stands for Asynchronous JavaScript & XML (while I agree that it’s probably in poor taste to use an acronym as a part of an acronym AJAX sounds a lot cooler than ALAXML, so you’ll just have to let it go). Here’s the thing though, AJAX isn’t a technology, rather, it is a methodology by which a web application can fake a persistent connection to a web host via JavaScript.
What AJAX is not, and this is important, is DHTML (Dynamic Hyper Text Mark-up Language). DHTML, in a nutshell, is using JavaScript to render changes to a static web page. I keep seeing links for AJAX web-kits, and all they do is animation, or tabbed navigation, or fancy pop-ups. What they do not do is use JavaScript to make a remote call to another page which then returns a response in XML.
While I would make the argument that neither of these acronyms are actually necessary - as “using JavaScript” is a perfectly good phrase to describe both methodologies - I would still appreciate it if those stuck on the pretense would at least use it correctly. While I don’t pretend to be an English major by any stretch of the imagination, at least I make an attempt to understand an acronym before I start throwing it around all willy nilly.
June 19, 2007 at 9:09 pm · Filed under Internet
Why is it that everyone with Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and a dot com fancies themselves a web developer? I have to ask this of myself all of the time here in Edmonton where complete, crap, “web developers” are a dime a dozen. I am left baffled as to who is paying these people money to ply their trade when there are plenty of great web developers here in Edmonton. (I am currently wondering what effect my linking to a site with the word “crap” will have on Google’s PageRank).
I know brilliant web developers. I go to work every day with people who I think are smarter than me, and better than me at what they do. I personally am absolutely driven to create the best websites possible. I look to sites like suicide girls (NSFW, and yes I know it’s porn-ish, but I have never seen a site that was built better) or Bnet and tear through their source code to discover what they’re doing that makes their sites so spectacular. I drive myself, and all of the people who work with me, towards achieving that level of polish. Obviously time and budget always have an impact, and other projects always seem to get in the way, but at least I want it. At least I’m willing to try.
Honestly, it’s all of these half-assed, know nothing, under-achievers who sully the title “web developer” and force us to hide our shame behind fancy titles like “application developer” or “technical manager”. I always get the same blank stare from people when they ask “what do you do?” and I reply “I am a web developer.” Always. It’s a looks that says, “ooh, sorry.” My personal favorite are the people who say “my 14 year old nefew can build websites, he just jumps right in there and codes away.” Yeah? Really? Wanna know a secret? Your 14 year old nefew is a loser, the sites he builds are complete crap, and he has no friends at school. He probably only learned half assed HTML so that his WoW clan could have a homepage.
Web professionals need to unite. I get the feeling that many of us do not understand that we are the generation that will define this occupation. It is our responsibility to explain to people the difference between “knowing Frontpage” and knowing how to build a content managed, standards driven, accessible, easy to use, attractive, and most of all effective web site. The very existence of the multitudes of completely useless web design companies out there is a constant insult to everything I dedicate my life to professionally, and they must be stopped.
April 2, 2007 at 10:24 pm · Filed under Internet
Facebook. It’s crazy I know - I don’t see how it happened. I signed up just to see what it was then completely forgot about it. Then out of the blue several months later I get an email “Amanda Hostland wants to be your friend.” Huh. This is fascinating, I haven’t seen her since this one time at a movie theater like 3 years ago and that was kind of awkward. Now all of the sudden we’re friends? What the hell, why not?
Facebook has it’s claws in pretty deep too; I haven’t been this obsessed with a website since last.fm, and I still can’t let that one go. I never understood MySpace and frankly I couldn’t deal with the complete abortion that it their web interface. Facebook is so much tighter, and it’s smart. Smart people programmed that website - it’s clean, intuitive and addictive, everything that MySpace never was to me.
I can’t place my finger on exactly what the draw of it is, it’s likely that simply seeing pictures of my grade three best friend all grown up and married was enough. Or maybe joining the “Bauerism - The Religion for Jack Bauer Lovers” group did it. I can’t really tell. All of my statusfirm friends are signing up too - seemingly Scooter and I inadvertently have create a vacuum into which many otherwise productive work hours will be sucked up and devoured.
Many of the girls I went to high school with are on there and it makes me really happy to chuckle at the ones who “done got chubby.” Take that pretty, popular girls! The greatest day in any nerd’s life is when he (me) realizes that the things he may have thought he wanted in high school were probably never all they were cracked up to be.
Ali’s on there too, and she already has more friends than me. I suppose my inner geek may never die. Is it odd that I’m sometimes too shy to ask people to be my pretend internet friend, that I feel even that level of contact with a stranger is too intimate?
May 8, 2006 at 6:58 pm · Filed under Internet
Sometime last December, my buddy Sean turned me on to a cool little website called last.fm. I thought it was a cool little app that let me listen to free music and altered its playlist to match my personal taste. I listened to it for a few days until my attention began to wain and ultimately I forgot that I ever signed up.
Cut to Keith 3 months later. Here I was minding my own business when Sean said “I haven’t listened to anything other than the Red Hot Chili Peppers this month.” I looked over at his screen and there it was - Valhalla! Statistics tracking songs played, when they were played, which were his favorites listed and ordered by popularity. The stunning conclusion that my musical choices for that last 3 months were available online crashed home with the thunderous roar of all Earth’s petro-chemicals simultaniously igniting.
If you are anything at all like me you will instantly understand how amazing this is. If not: I probably don’t really care as we have very little in common so even social niceties would be awkward; let alone attempts at friendship.
You will now note my new “This weeks most popular” to the right ->.
Dear Last.fm,
I love you.
Sincerely,
Ironkeith
May 20, 2005 at 8:47 am · Filed under Internet
Sometimes when I’m confronted with nothing to write about I just pop open the old window and write whatever comes to my mind. I call this Train of Thought blogging. While it is quite possible that this isn’t the best way to write anything, it’s a great way to kill some time and every now and then funny stuff comes to mind while I’m writing.I’ve found that, since I’ve been regularly updating my blog, my writing skills are sharpening. I’m still a crap writer, but at least some basic grammar conventions are coming back to me. My skill with the written language has suffered since I last had to write a school paper. I blame the MSN Instant Messenger. Where else in the world does “ROLF, LMAO. afk brb” make any sense whatsoever. I have a friend who refuses to use punctuation while chatting, so you get messages like “i went over to see mark today and he got this new iron maiden album that was pretty awesome i figured out a couple of songs so now were playing them.” Sadly, he is one of the more coherent people I chat with.
How often have you seen “r u there”. No question mark, no capitals, no words, just a mess that I’m left to decipher. “So were going to there house laterz”. What? No. What? First of all were and we’re are not the same word. They are in fact completely different, for while were is a verb indicating the past tense of are, we’re is a contraction of the words we are. It’s not that hard people. Might I add, there, their, and they’re are called homonyms. They are completely different words that, unfortunately, sound the same. Still, it’s not overly difficult to tell them apart. You’re average third grade student can most likely tell you the difference if you’ve forgotten. There is a magical word that can be used as an adverb, pronoun, adjective, noun, or interjection depending on context. It cannot be used in the place of the popular contraction of they are, they’re. Their is a possessive adjective. They’re all completely different in their many different uses. There, I’m glad we could clear that up. There.
Also ‘z’ and ’s’ are different letters. While they are close to one another on the keyboard, they cannot be swapped at will. ‘Q’ and ‘w’ are also close to one another, but I don’t think qomorroq would get your point across very effectively. And finally, these are numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0. These are letters: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, q, y, z. Words can use any number of different combinations of letters. When you decide to add a number into a word, you no longer have a word, but math. For example l0s3r is the three variables ‘l’, ’s’, and ‘r’ and their respective numerical coefficients. As an aside, for any value of ‘l’, ’s’, or ‘r’ that is an element of the Real number set, l0s3r will equal 0. Neat hey!
Fin.
May 13, 2005 at 1:56 pm · Filed under Internet
I set out to prove how useless a certain anonymous (Carbon 14) web developer in Edmonton is. Sadly, they removed all of their client links. Thus it took some sleuthing, but here it is:2advanced
www.showlogic.com
carbon14
www.westernelectromarker.com
Behold how useless some companies can be! Then write them mocking emails about their uselessness.
The Carbon14 homepage was also a ripoff, but the site they ripped off has since been updated so I have no proof.
April 20, 2005 at 11:10 am · Filed under Internet
Admittedly I am the last person to try this out, but I highly recommend trying Google Maps if you have a few minutes to kill. It is time well spent.I typed ‘Edmonton to Calgary’ just to see. It said it was 297km and 2hours 45mins. This leads me to believe that Google endorses speeding, as it would require going 108km/h to make it in that timeframe. Of course it’s highway 2, so the actual travel time is something more along the lines of 2hours 15min, but I digress.
Also, the satellite feature is downright eerie. I was able to find the lot that we’re building our house on as viewed from space. You can’t zoom in all that far on the edmonton map yet, so as a test I tried a toronto address. You can get real close like. I’m talking scary close. Like almost ’see people’ close.
This has led me to one final conclusion. I’m going to sell the advertising space on the roof of my house. If you want it, it’s yours. Just send me a cheque and a banner. Once they get all zoomed in it will be clearly legible to anyone looking at my address.
I wonder if this will become commonplace? It feels like a good idea, but I don’t think it’s one that I could easily patent. I should contact Pepsi. They pay out the arse for advertising, and have been known to take on guerilla style marketing in the past.
I would like it if rooftop advertising became incredibly popular, just so that I could refer people to this post and say “I told you so”.
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