site
Server moving
The site will be going down for a bit this evening as we move the server. Should be back up some time after dinner time, CST. UPDATE, 7:30 PM CST: And we're back... Thanks for the quick move, Jim. This was just a physical move for the current server, as prep for our move to a new box in the near future.
Microsoft comes full circle with IE
Marc Marshall brings up the excellent point that Microsoft has come full circle with regard to Internet Explorer. His is the last post in Macintouch's Browser Future report for today:
The bottom line in this situation is this: For the past several years, Microsoft gave away a free browser to kill the competition, and succeeded. Now, they have stopped development of their standalone product, and are giving people exactly three choices to get their "standard" product: 1) Buy Windows. 2) Use MSN for Internet access. 3) Pay them $10/month or $80 per year. No free options, no free upgrades.
The price is higher than Opera or Omni's paid competition, and you don't have a free option, and you have an ongoing fee. In fact, if MS starts charging annual licensing for Windows, there will be no lifetime-licence-purchasable version of IE. This sounds like exactly the sort of consumer hostile situation that monopolies create, and governments are supposed to protect us from. Now that they've pretty much saturated the market, Microsoft has been scrambling on how to consistently generate revenue. They have long discussed subscription software licensing, and this situation with IE appears to be the first shot across the bow. Unfortunately, I do not forsee the mass sheep of Windows and IE/Mac users torpedoing the Microsoft Bismarck any time soon.
IE6 gives me hives
Ok, not really, but it's really ticking me off. Why is it that my site validates as XHTML 1.0 Trans, validates as CSS2, looks perfectly fine in Safari, Camino, even IE5/Mac, yet looks like complete dung in IE6? I know, I know, IE6 doesn't fully support the CSS2 spec, yet, so I'm sure that's playing a huge role. I suppose I could drop it to CSS1, but I'd rather be posting than fiddling with making the site look exactly the same in Microsloth's stupid Windows browser. In Microsucks' defense, there are some font issues with the site in Firebird, but at least pages scroll properly in that browser. I haven't tried Opera for Windows yet.
Good riddance, IE, part III
Speaking of the dress-code-aware genius that is Dan Benjamin (is that enough, Dan?), he offers up some delectable food for thought on the discontinuation of standalone IE development for the Mac. I say standalone, because it seems that IE will continue on in MSN for Mac OS X. Zeldman sums it all up rather well.
From here, as it has for several weeks now, it looks like a period of technological stasis and dormancy yawns ahead. Undoubtedly the less popular browsers will continue to improve. They may even gain in market share. But few of us will be able to take advantage of their sophisticated standards support if most of the market continues to use an unchanged year 2000 browser.
But enough, and enough, and enough. We are glad of the latest versions of Opera, Mozilla, Konqueror, Safari, and Omniweb. But on this grey and rainy day, this news of a kind of death brings no warmth. To Tantek and Jimmy and their colleagues on the IE/Mac team: for what you achieved on behalf of web standards and usability, much respect. When it arrived, IE5/Mac was the standard for web browsers. It shamed Netscape. Complacency and stagnant development, however, have left it behind technologically. Zeldman mentions reasons people switched from IE to Camino or Safari; I switched for all the reasons he discusses, including that it's one less Microsoft application on my system. There are choices people, and they're better than the "standard."
DNS Primer
If you've ever been interested in how your email gets from your computer to someone else's, or how your browser knows how to load up a web site, you need to read Dan Benjamin's excellent DNS primer at MacDevCenter. It's geared toward Mac OS X users, but anyone can learn the basics of DNS, IP addresses, routing, and all that other techie stuff that makes the Internet work, boiled down in to simply terms by Mr. Benjamin (of Hivelogic/Hiveware fame). Oh, and hire this dress-code-aware guy, if you have the need. Too much talent to not be getting paid well by someone, somewhere.
Latest look for retrophisch.com
As I mentioned previously, I've been working on a site redesign. I decided today to take it live. (You can ignore the links in the archived post; they're flip-flopped now.) The entire site does not, at this time, reflect what you see here on the main page. I had planned to wait until it did to switch over, but at this rate, if I continued to wait, it would be a long one. So here it is, hope you like. If you hate it and just have to see the site the way it was (and updated just like the main page), click on the Retrolook tab above and enjoy. Not that those of you who stop by regularly really care; I know you're reading with NetNewsWire anyway. :)
More blogging coverage
Business Week Online has a good article on the growing pervasiveness of weblogs, and what they mean to mass media and consumers. I like Nick Denton's term of "open-source media."
Death of PNG?
Ric notes a News.com story about the impending expiration of the patent that controls the GIF file format, and what that may mean for the PNG graphics format. See, LZW compression forms the basis for the GIF format, and Unisys owns the LZW patent. A few years ago, Unisys began to flex its muscles in enforcing the LZW patent, and this basically meant the death of free and cheap shareware GIF creation/manipulation software. To compensate, the PNG graphic format was created, and a movement to rid sites of all GIFs was born. Well, Unisys's patent expires in the U.S. later this month; in the rest of the world, next year. The PNG format, despite many advances over GIF, has not caught on heavily outside the geek community. And it doesn't do animation, which GIF does. Personally, I like the PNG format, and use it when possible over GIF. (Unless I'm using someone else's graphic, though I have converted them in the past.) Most modern browsers support it, though perhaps not fully (viz: IE). So after the patents expire, are we going to see an explosion of activity in the GIF creation/manipulation software market? If so, you may see the PNG format remain a second-class graphic file citizen, or worse.
Change of address
DNS address, that is. In preparation for the move to our "new" server, we're changing out our DNS name servers some time late this afternoon/evening/weekend. So if you can't get to the site later tonight or over the weekend, it's just because the DNS is repopulating, and that kind of takes a while.
Microsoft targets Google
Is there anyone that Microsoft doesn't see as a competitor? bq. "We do view Google more and more as a competitor. We believe that we can provide consumers with a better product and a better user experience. That's something that we're actively looking at doing," said Bob Visse, director of marketing for Microsoft's MSN Internet services division. What's wrong with the Google user experience? I think it's great. I love the simple, minimalist interface on the main page. If you need more advanced features, they're a click away. If I want a bloated, crufty, way-too-much-happening-at-once search engine, I know where to go already, thank you very much. But I'm sure Microsoft is doing some sort of "innovating" in the search engine sector.
Redesign underway
I am working on a redesign of the site's layout and navigation, a preview of which can be found here. That page also automatically updates, just as the main page does, so if you already prefer the new look, you can temporarily bookmark the new-look page. Comments and criticisms are welcome, especially from those of you whom I did not previously email on the subject.
PNG petition
IE/Win doesn't fully support the PNG graphics format, and Zeldman points to an online petition that is now just shy of 7,000 signatures. (Yours truly is #6977.) Every modern web browser with the exception of IE/Win has full PNG support built in, including beta browsers Safari and Camino. Please sign the petition and let's hope Microsoft will listen; they've only been promising this since IE 4.
Photos, Colophon
So I had put off two minor projects for the site for a while: a colophon, and moving all my photos from my .Mac account over to this domain. As of now, those two projects have been finished. More photos will be forthcoming, as I will likely move the photo albums from my old domain over to this one, so that everything is in one place. Permanent links to both are in the new Navigate tabbed menu at the top sub-menu to the right. Enjoy!
Displaying Apache logs in NNW
Brent links to a novel proof-of-concept usage of his flagship application, showing how versatile NetNewsWire can be.
MT 2.63 and recent-update keys
At the same time I decided to upgrade my MovableType engine to 2.63, I donated some funds to Ben and Mena. By doing so, I received a couple of keys to plug in, so when I post something new, the site would show up in the MovableType site's "Recently Updated" section. I began receiving an odd error message when saving posts, after I had done all of this. I reinstalled the upgrade package. Then I removed the recent-update key; problem solved. I tried the 2d recent-update key; problem returns. I take out the 2d key; problem solved. So now I know, and I've let the Trotts know, so we'll see what happens. UPDATE, 5/19: Turns our your doofus host doesn't have a certain Perl module installed. Obviously, I thought some time back, why would I ever use that? Thanks, Ben!
TypePad
Ben and Mena's latest venture sounds intriguing, especially if the basic service is something that runs only $7 a month. I'd be interested in something more advanced, as I like putting up photo albums, which is an advanced feature/option. No firm pricing information just yet, and no other details, like how much space you get, how many email addys, etc. Ben Hammersly got a sneak peek: bq. The features are remarkable: there is a very powerful, but extremely simple, template builder. Users can redesign their weblogs and create fully compliant XHTML pages, with out knowing what that last phrase means. There is a built-in photo album, built-in server stats, so you can see who is coming to visit you and from where, built-in blogrolling (listing the sites you like to read), and built-in listing for your music, books and friends, producing a complete friend-of-a-friend file for every user. Final judgment pending until full details are disclosed, but it sounds promising.
More minor site work
I don't know what it is, but sometimes I get this minimalist bug. So yesterday I decided to kill the parchment background (thanks again, Lee!) and just go with white. Helps save on the bandwidth for dial-up users as well. Also, I added in a dotted separation line for the banner title and description at the top. I really like the way the site looks in IE 5/Mac. I just wish it looked as good in Camino and Safari. I'm soliciting feedback on this new addition, so leave a comment!
Soapbox
If I wasn't so happy with Movable Type, I would definitely be looking at Hiveware's Soapbox. You can learn more here.