Web Development Advent Calendars for 2013

Ganesha may or may not be stealing chocolate from the advent calendar.

For a few years now web developers around the world have celebrated Saturnalia Christmas with advent calendars covering topics related to the web. Some come and go, but you'll probably recognize a few regulars on this list.

I may have missed some, so please pass them along if you know of any. For those I know are not returning, I have listed them at the end.

1. 24 Ways

24 Ways, the one that most of this think about for web development calendars, is back again. It's been going strong since 2005 and based on its history this year should have some good articles.

2. Perl Advent Calendar

Perl Advent Calendar goes all the way back to 2000 (and back then looked a bit more like a traditional advent calendar, too) and has been dispensing tips for Perl developers ever since.

3. 24 Jours de Web

24 Jours de Web is starting its second year as an advent calendar for web folk. Written in French, it is clearly primarily targeted at French speakers, but a round of Google Translate will open it up to far more readers (like me).

4. UXmas

UXmas is an advent calendar aimed at the user experience community. Coming from Australia, American readers may be thrown just a bit by the schedule. The calendar promises everything from sketches, to articles, to tools, to videos.

5. Webkrauts

Webkrauts has an all German advent calendar, and it also dates back to 2005. It covers general web topics, but being in all-German readers like me will benefit from a Google Translate version of the page.

6. 12 Devs of Xmas

12 Devs of Xmas will also start the day after Christmas and go for 12 days from then. When all the other calendars have wrapped up, you'll still have one to read. The site is silent on its return, but this tweet suggests it's gotten writers and has a plan.

7. Freelancember

Freelancember 2013 is targeted squarely at freelancers. Its daily entries will consist of downloadable gifts in the form of PDF worksheets. Think of this as less about web-tech and more about MadLibs for projects. It has last year's calendar there as well, and so far (as of December 1) I cannot tell the calendar will just be a repeat of last year.

8. Mozilla Developer Network Holidays calendar

Mozilla Developer Network Holidays calendar includes brief links to resources or demos and suggests that you can edit them (if they are MDN resources). It doesn't link to previous years, but you can just hack the URL.

9. SysAdvent

SysAdvent is targeted to systems administrators, but there is a some cross-over to web developers. It has posts dating back to 2008 (and yet I missed it in last year's collection), so there is plenty of good material there if you're too impatient to wait for each day to be revealed.

10. Web Accessibility Advent Calendar 2013

Web Accessibility Advent Calendar 2013 is in Japanese, and thanks to the wonderful powers of Google Translate, I can tell you that it is a calendar to make the talk about Web accessibility (based on this statement: Webアクセシビリティに関する話題でつくるカレンダーです。). If you know Japanese, I welcome any corrections. The site Adventar.org appears to host other advent calendars, some about web technologies, some about ramen.

Not Returning

A handful of calendars aren't returning this year (so far), but in most cases content from previous years is still available. These include Font Deck's Adfont Calendar (which also skipped 2012), the Fronteers advent calendar (in Dutch, and also skipped 2012), Web Advent (it's taking a year off), Performance Calendar, HTML & CSS Advent (this is the 2012 calendar), She Said It (no access to old calendar), 12 Days of Podcasts (or at least there is no indication on its site or Twitter).

Not Web Related

ScienceGeek Advent Calendar Extravaganza is not web-related at all, and frankly it isn't promoted nor is it tagged (although I linked to “special” since that tag had the first day and nothing else). It is, however, probably going to be neat stuff given the first day is a giant image of the Christmas Tree Cluster.

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Thanksgiving, Technology, and Just Picking a Fight

My logs tell me that nobody took this 2011 plea seriously. I blame the typeface.

Last year on Thanksgiving I made the case for ignoring social media for the day. I felt strongly enough that for the new year I even wrote about some social media behavior goals for the coming year that we could all try to follow.

The year before I cautioned you that you might get wrapped up in helping your parents (or elders in general) with tech support issues (like upgrading browsers, surfing tips to save a turkey that has caught fire, and so on).

Those are both a far cry from the prior two years where I wrote about how nifty social media could be for the holidays. Oh the heady days of 2009, with so much opportunity to come from so much interconnectedness.

In the span of four short years I had mostly decided that social media can make for an awkward and unpleasant holiday if not used properly (or, in some cases, if used at all).

Let's Try Something Different

Maybe we should try to have ourselves a completely disconnected, proper face-to-face meal. I know this is difficult, but this time around I'm supplying talking points!

Politics!

The President of the United States of America has decided we should talk about Obamacare. He says that, chances are, folks at the dinner table probably look to you, mostly as a voice of reason, on the subject. And so his team has put together a brand new site just for the holidays: It's time to have the talk.

I should note, this site was most likely not done by the same folks who built HealthCare.gov. I do, however, think they were vying for a front-page spot over at TC;DR (Tab Closed; Didn't Read):

And let's not even get started on the print styles.

It's impossible to make jokes about political subjects without people assuming it's a political statement. On balance, I also offer a link for the other side of the table: Healthcare.gov and the Gulf Between Planning and Reality. The advantage here is that each side will actually be talking about different things. How is that not hilarious?

Science!

Maybe you can pose a question to the table without letting on that you know the answer? Haven't you ever wondered how many batteries it might take to cook a turkey? I haven't. But Wired thinks it's a worthy topic: How Many Batteries Would It Take to Cook a Turkey?

I'll spare you the effort of clicking the link. Just do this quick math for a 10-pound bird starting at room temperature:

Solve for black bar.

Language!

If you have any pedants in your family, perhaps you'd like to quiz them on the history of the word turkey. Dictionary.com has a digestible (and according to the comments, mostly accurate) post that covers it: The Mistake that Gave Turkey (the Bird) the Same Name as Turkey (the Nation)

Or Just Suck It Up and Be Tech Support

If all goes wrong or you just can't get people to bite on any debate, then you can always fall back to the safety net of tech support. Heck, you might even end up like this guy: In Which I Fix My Girlfriend’s Grandparents’ WiFi and Am Hailed as a Conquering Hero.

Now go relax. Read The Oatmeal's comic on Thanksgiving as a Kid vs. as an Adult. Prepare for where you'll sit using College Humor's Thanksgiving Seating Chart (which ties in nicely with The 8 Relatives You'll Talk to at Thanksgiving). Take this Map of Thanksgiving Dinner to plan your assault on Crudités Dam. Maybe you can debate the merits of the turkey that, like an &lquo;elected” prom king or queen, will be the National Thanksgiving Turkey as designated by the White House:

Confused. Is the White House asking us to choose which turkey, by exclusion, dies? http://t.co/aWNmLnLdF2 #TeamCaramel #TeamPopcorn

— Adrian Roselli (@aardrian) November 26, 2013

While they are both pardoned, they'll still die an early death.

In short, disregard your family and stare at your computer/phone all day, just like the moody teen we all truly are.

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On-Demand WayBack URLs

While this may be old news to some of you (just over a week now), I only discovered this weekend that the Internet Archive Wayback Machine can archive a page for you, with its own URL, on demand.

Thanks to a tweet from Jennifer Sutton, I came across the post Instant WayBack URL where Karen Coyle outlines the announcement from the Internet Archive. She outlines two key benefits:

1. putting permalinks in your documents rather that URLs that can break


2. linking to a particular version of a document when citing

These alone are great reasons. For those who must provide citations using an academic standard, such as the Chicago Manual of Style citation format (the standard at Web Standards Sherpa), you should include the date a page was last changed or accessed.

With the Wayback URL, you can link to a version of the page as you saw it on the specific date. You may need to update the citation format to include the source URL and capture date, but now you can at least make the version you saw available.

Screen shot of the on-demand Wayback URL field.

Many documents go through multiple versions, whether it's a blog post or technical document. Some organizations, such as the W3C, have a method for posting versions of each specification at unique URLs for easy reference. In the absence of that process, creating a snapshot of the page makes it a lot easier to cite what you saw on the day you saw it, as opposed to guessing some time in the future what a page might have said.

As someone who has written for other web sites, I would love to have had this feature in the past. I would have captured all of my evolt.org articles before we flipped over to the new old design (that was more than a decade ago now?). When .net Magazine moved its content into the Creative Bloq site, I would have used it then archive what I had written, including the comments (which are now lost).

As I snipe at sites from PrintShame, it may have been more fair of me to link to versions of the sites on the day I captured them, since some of them (ok, only two that I know of) made an effort to update their sites after appearing there. Just as a I have referenced good and bad examples in my talks, it is more useful to attendees to see the versions of the pages I referenced, making the resources from my talk useful for more than a few days.

As I make changes to my site, I can treat this as a poor-man's archive. Before I roll out a major (or even minor) updated, I can capture a page so I can compare how it looked or what content it contained. While it's no substitute for a proper back-up, it can prove handy. Of course, if you use the Wayback URL in this way then you should probably consider donating to the Internet Archive.

If you find yourself in a contentious debate on someone's blog (or a news site, etc), the on-demand ability to archive might be a handy way to track if someone is editing the original content as the fight evolves, making it far easier to call BS that much sooner. It's also a bit harder to dismiss this kind of capture as having been 'Shopped.

Trying It

To demonstrate how absurdly simple it is to make a page in the Wayback archive, I posted this blog entry as a stub with the only following content:

This is a stub for the post that's coming. I am trying to show off the on-demand hotness.

I then generated a custom Wayback URL and then wrote this post. You can see the original stub of this post at: https://web.archive.org/web/20131104184829/http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2013/11/on-demand-wayback-urls.html

Update: November 5, 2013

A comment over at my Google+ share points out that this has value for Wikipedia, where web references are a necessary part of the documentation process, and where those links sometimes die over time.

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WWW Project Turns 20

Twenty years ago, on April 30 1993, CERN announced the World Wide Web project. While the web existed before then, this was the first time that HTML's specification was opened up to the general public, allowing anyone to learn how to mark up documents.

Eight days and twenty years ago, Mosaic 1.0 was released (you might recall I wrote up a little tribute). In the span of about a week, the first generally-available web browser and the first publicly-available HTML specification were both announced, all culminating in this very blog you are reading now (amiright?).

In honor of this, CERN has re-posted its web pages explaining the project.

CERN has created a companion site about the restoration of this first web site, where you can contribute and stay on top of ongoing progress to restore more of those early days of the CERN web environment. There is also an interview with Robert Cailliau as he reflects on the past 20 years. The BBC provides some coverage on its site, including some clips from its 20-year-old coverage. .net Magazine has an interview with Mark Boulton who has helped CERN with getting this site up.

I thought that it might be interesting to see those CERN pages using the web browser released at about the same time. Sadly, due to Mosaic 1.0 not supporting host headers, and due to the CERN site being overloaded today, I was forced to spider the pages and surf from local copies. Other than the address bar, however, these screen captures still load the same HTML.

NOTE: I plan to also show screen captures in a modern browser and a mobile browser, along with links to these pages so you can see them for yourself, but with the CERN site timing out, I'll have to add them later. There is a mirror available, however.

Screen Captures in Mosaic 1.0

You may click/tap/select each image to see a full-size version (800 × 700).

The World Wide Web project.

Technical Details.

HyperText Mark-up Language

Tags used in HTML

Hypertext Markup Language

Future plans for HTML

Screen Captures in Firefox 20

You may click/tap/select each image to see a full-size version (800 × 700).

The World Wide Web project.

Technical Details.

HyperText Mark-up Language

Tags used in HTML

Hypertext Markup Language

Future plans for HTML

Screen Captures in Chrome on a Nexus 7 tablet

You may click/tap/select each image to see a full-size version (800 × 1280).

The World Wide Web project.

Technical Details.

HyperText Mark-up Language

Tags used in HTML

Hypertext Markup Language

Future plans for HTML

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NCSA Mosaic Turns 20

20 years ago today (yesterday), NCSA Mosaic 1.0 was released (read Marc Andreesson's announcement on www-talk). Mosaic was the browser that opened the web to the masses, making the web more interesting for people like me.

As a college student who used Usenet, FTP sites, struggled with WAIS, Archie and Veronica, and had fallen in love with the ease of Gopher, the web was still just out of arm's reach for me. With Mosaic came the ability to see pictures directly in the page content — a whole new world for someone used to accessing the internet via only dumb terminals up to that point.

I had forgotten all about it until I saw this tweet from @mattur:

NCSA Mosaic 1.0 released 20 years ago today: 1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-… #webhistory

— mattur (@mattur) April 21, 2013

With this post, I'm not bringing anything new to the Mosaic story (at least no more than you get from this three-year-old Wired article on Mosaic), but instead I am taking time to remember that while it may seem like an eternity in web years, it still feels like yesterday that I was downloading Mosaic and trying the web seemingly for the first time.

You can also re-live at least part of this experience.

Download a Copy of Mosaic 1.0

Back when I became an ecommerce developer, less than 4 years after the release of Mosaic, I started an archive of browsers so that I could test the applications I was building in more than just the client's favorite browser. As time wore on and my collection grew, I created the evolt.org browser archive so that everyone could have access to any browser.

If you want to run NCSA Mosaic 1.0 and relive the early days of the web (even though few pages will render at all), just grab a copy of Mosaic 1.0 from the archive and fire it up. It turns out you don't need Windows 3.1 to run the Windows version, it will run just fine (mostly) under Windows XP, or in my case a Windows XP virtual machine.

Mosaic Screen Shots

NCSA is kind enough to offer a screen shot of Mosaic 1.0 for Windows so that you can see how awesome it was:

Screen shot of Mosaic 1.0 from the NCSA web site.

Sadly, that page on the NCSA site doesn't exist anymore. Visiting it in Mosaic 1.0 today gives you a funny-looking page. The browser uses the Mosaic icon for missing images and the full text of the Google Analytics tracking code is displayed (so they'll never know I was here):

Screen shot of Mosaic 1.0 today while surfing the NCSA site.

Even spending a few minutes in Mosaic, unable to surf most sites, will give you some insight into the early days of the web. There was no text styling. If you as a site owner wanted to enforce fonts or colored text, you couldn't. However, as a user of Mosaic, it was very easy to specify the font styles for different block-level elements within a font menu.

Eagle-eyed readers might notice a "Header 7" option:

Note the ability to change font settings for block-level elements.

Related

If you find this kind of stuff interesting, the W3C has a Web History Community Group where you can help out with the challenge of archiving an incredibly fluid medium, and preserving a little bit of history in the process.

Yep, somebody made a page that tracks Mosaic logo sightings.

As John Allsopp points out, nobody responded to the original email announcing Mosaic 1.0, perhaps setting the tone for browser discussions for years to come:

@brucel @aardrian @evolt_org @mattur there seems to have been no reply on the thread!

— John Allsopp (@johnallsopp) April 22, 2013

Update: April 30, 2013

Just over a week later (from the launch of Mosaic and from the this post), CERN has re-posted its 20-year-old WWW Project site which helped provide everyone with an understanding of HTML so they could make their own sites. I have a write up, with screen captures in Mosaic 1.0, on my blog.

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Google Maps: Misbehaving with UA Sniffing

Here's the TL;DR: Google Maps sniffs a browser's user agent string. If it finds Internet Explorer on Windows Phone, then it kicks it over to the m.google.com mobile home page.

So let's be clear. It's 2013 and one of the biggest companies on the internet is using a sniffer to redirect users on a browser and platform that it sees as competition.

Google's general claim is that the mobile version of Google Maps is optimized for WebKit browsers (such as Google Chrome) and therefore Google doesn't support non-WebKit browsers. Even though Google Maps works fine on Firefox mobile (which supports panning, but not pinch-to-zoom) and Opera Mobile (which sometimes supports panning, but not pinch-to-zoom), neither of which uses the Webkit engine. It even renders using Opera Mini, although I can't get it do anything. I can't test Internet Explorer on Windows Phone because I don't have it.

I can, however, test Google's browser sniffer by changing the user agent string in my browser to report itself as Windows Phone and watch my request for maps.google.com get redirected to m.google.com, the Google mobile home page. This tells me that Google isn't performing feature detection (such as touch events or multi-touch support), but is instead damning the browser by name alone.

This is the lesson Google is teaching young web developers who don't understand how flawed this approach is (contrary to its own instructions on best practices from less than a month ago). Google Maps happily lets me have a sub-par experience in Opera Mobile or Firefox mobile. It even lets me have a broken experience in Opera Mini. But Internet Explorer on Windows Phone? Google Maps just boots those users.

Reports I have read (and watched) on assorted articles online suggest that Google Maps works reasonably well on IE on Windows Phone (supporting panning and pinch-to-zoom). As such, I don't buy Google's argument that it wants to prevent users from having a poor experience—there is already evidence that a large number of users (more than use Windows Phone) are having a poor experience.

From Google:

The mobile web version of Google Maps is optimized for WebKit browsers such as Chrome and Safari. However, since Internet Explorer is not a WebKit browser, Windows Phone devices are not able to access Google Maps for the mobile web.

…Because we actively block them, should be how that quote ended.

So why is Google really doing this? Is it because it's fun to pick on Microsoft? Is it because Google thought it could get away with it? Is it to make the Windows Phone experience less appealing than Android's? Is it because Google doesn't like Microsoft's touch events specification (and how well it's been received) at the W3C? Is it because of recent court cases between Google and Microsoft?

In this case I don't much care. I care instead about the terrible example Google is setting for web developers.

Background

• Google Maps Has Never Been Accessible On Internet Explorer Mobile Now Blocked on Windows Phone (Updated), January 4, 2013.


• Now Google is blocking Windows Phones from accessing maps.google.com, January 4, 2013.


• Many Windows Phone users report being cut off from Google Maps (update), January 4, 2013.



• Google Maps never supported Internet Explorer on Windows Phone 8, and it likely never will, January 5, 2013.


• Shenanigans: Google Maps redirect issue on Windows Phones is a matter of competition, not compatibility, January 5, 2013.


• This is Why You Can't Access Google Maps on Windows Phone, January 5, 2013.



• Google Admits It Was Deliberately Blocking Windows Phone Users From Google Maps, January 6, 2013.


• Google says Maps redirect on Windows Phone was a product decision, and will be removed, January 6, 2013.


• Windows Phone Doesn't Support Google Maps Because Google Doesn't Want It To, January 6, 2013.



• Google Maps, Windows Phone, and an avoidable mess, January 7, 2013.

My Related Posts

• Let's Treat Old Browser Users Better, July 5, 2012.


• Another Anti-IE Gimmick, June 14, 2012.


• Exclusion Is a Feature Now, May 10, 2012.


• The Return of “Best Viewed in…”, March 4, 2012.


• Detecting Mobile Devices — Don't Bother, October 11, 2011.

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2012 Advent Calendars for Web Devs

Now that the (Western, my favorite) holiday season is upon us, the tradition of advent calendars whose chocolate is replaced with web-related tips and articles is back. This year's crop is missing some from last year, but there's still good stuff to be found.

If you know of any others, please pass them along. For those not returning, I have listed them at the end.

1. 24 Ways

24 Ways, the one that pretty much defines the genre for me, is back again. It's been going strong since 2005 and based on its history this year should have some good articles.

2. Performance Calendar

Performance Calendar dates back to 2009 (and still defaults to 2011 if you go straight to the domain). It focuses on techniques to speed up your site via scripting, CSS, and general mark-up, along with server tweaks and analysis suggestions.

3. Perl Advent Calendar

Perl Advent Calendar goes all the way back to 2000 (and back then looked a bit more like a traditional advent calendar, too) and has been dispensing tips for Perl developers ever since.

4. Webkrauts

Webkrauts has an all German advent calendar, and it also dates back to 2005. It covers general web topics, but being in all-German readers like me will benefit from a Google Translate version of the page. Suggestion via @patrick_h_lauke.

5. 24 Jours de Web

24 Jours de Web has kicked off its first year as an advent calendar for web folk. Written in French it is clearly primarily targeted at French speakers, but a round of Google Translate will open it up to far more readers (like me). Suggestion via @PhilippeVay.

6. Japanese HTML5 Advent Calendar

HTML5 Advent Calendar 2012 is in Japanese, and thanks to the wonderful powers of Google Translate, it was very little confidence that I suggest it is produced by volunteers who have each picked a day and written something about the web (based on this statement: 登録した日に自分のブログなどにエントリーを書いてください。). If you know Japanese, I welcome any corrections. The site Adventar.org appears to host other advent calendars, some about web technologies, some not.

7. Web Advent

Web Advent is back. I had incorrectly listed it as not returning below, under its original address as the PHP advent calendar. With its name and domain change, it appears to be back again this year and keeping its streak from 2007 going strong.

8. HTML & CSS Advent

HTML & CSS Advent uses a rather self-explanatory name. Moving away from last year's advent-calendar-flap layout and to more of a list of articles, you'll find some experimentation with cutting-edge (or nearly so) features that may not make into client work just yet.

9. 12 Devs of Xmas

12 Devs of Xmas was also listed below as not returning (it has articles from last year), but I misunderstood — it will be starting the day after Christmas and going for 12 days from then. When all the other calendars have wrapped up, you'll still have one to read.

10. UXmas

UXmas is an advent calendar aimed at the user experience community. Coming from Australia, American readers may be thrown just a bit by the schedule. The calendar promises everything from sketches, to articles, to tools, to videos. Found this one via .net Magazine.

11. Freelancember

Freelancember 2012 is produced by the makers of Freckle time tracking software and targeted squarely at freelancers. Its daily entries will consist of downloadable gifts in the form of PDF worksheets. Think of this as less about web-tech and more about MadLibs for projects. Found this one via .net Magazine.

12. Mozilla Developer Network Holidays calendar

Mozilla Developer Network Holidays calendar includes brief links to resources or demos and suggests that you can edit them (if they are MDN resources). I had this one listed as non-returning because last year's address was very generic and the site has no navigation on the home page to direct users here. Perhaps that should be tip #1.

13. She Said It

She Said It is an advent calendar dedicated to providing general tips for the web industry in general, with quotes provided by women in the field. I only discovered this on Christmas Eve eve, so I've seen it fully populated by now. This calendar is produced in Sweden, but its contributors hail from everywhere.

14. 12 Days of Podcasts

12 Days of Podcasts, which I discovered on the day after Christmas, runs from December 26 to January 6, 2013. Each day will have a different audio-only interview with assorted web folks. You can stream them off the site or download the MP3 for later listening pleasure (perhaps during that terrible New Year party you're attending).

Not Returning

A handful of calendars aren't returning this year (so far), but content from previous years is still available. These include Font Deck's Adfont Calendar, and the Fronteers advent calendar (in Dutch).

Completely Unrelated

I discovered this one this morning and have no idea what to expect (other than the first day so far), but it might worth a look: Popperfont's Sciencegeek Advent Calendar Extravaganza. With such a compelling name, how can you not look?

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Let's Treat Old Browser Users Better

It's not hard to stumble across diatribes against IE6 (and 7 and 8) users across forums peopled by web developers. As a web developer there is no denying that my desire to play with the new and shiny is hampered by my need to support users on older browsers and systems. But do we have to be such jerks about it?

If you don't think we're jerks, I have examples in some of my posts:

• Another Anti-IE Gimmick, June 14, 2012


• Exclusion Is a Feature Now, May 10, 2012


• Don't Blame Opera, Blame Devs, April 27, 2012


• The Return of “Best Viewed in…” March 4, 2012


• Don't Expect Microsoft's Auto-Update to Kill IE6, December 23, 2011


• Test in Lynx and Print, It's Your Job, December 12, 2011


• Everything Will Be the New IE6, December 8, 2011


• Selection Bias When Reviewing Browser Stats, March 13, 2011


• RIP IE6 (Not Really, But Here's to Hoping), March 4, 2010

How We Misbehave

The posts above are primarily about short-sighted developers (all of us) blaming IE6 (for the most part, but other old browsers as well) for their development woes. We often release that frustration on users — specifically users of those browsers.

We tell those users their browser isn't good enough. We tell them they'll have to pay more to use the site. We tell them the site is much cooler in a modern browser. We intentionally exclude them and then fail to report on their traffic (making it easy to continue to marginalize them). We do all sorts of things to the users of those browsers.

Who Are These Trapped Users?

We need to consider that most users on older browsers aren't there by choice. They are trapped.

Some are trapped because they don't know any better. They are part of the world that uses a computer rarely and the web is a painful necessity for some things they used to be able to do with a phone, a walk, or a piece of mail. These people are not evil. They are our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters (probably not our kids). They may work in a field where they never need to touch a computer. They may hate or fear computers for very valid reasons.

They may be disabled in some fashion and rely on accessibility features or devices that they cannot afford to upgrade or are otherwise not available to them. They may have very old hardware, be using a library computer, or stuck in some internet cafe in a forgotten part of the world.

Some of them may be very smart, very interested in science and technology, very much able to run cognitive circles around all of us, and still use an old browser:

CERN homepage had 13.5k visitors using IE6 yesterday.

— Dan Noyes (@thenoyes) July 5, 2012

(That's out of 206,000 visitors, and only 3,000 of those IE6 users represent China.)

Some users are trapped in a corporate environment where they are not allowed to upgrade. Even with Microsoft's push to start to auto-update IE, corporate IT departments are still allowed to override it. These users may have no sway with IT. IT itself may be playing it safe to avoid lawsuits and compliance issues, some may not have the budget to re-write internal corporate tools. Those employees are users who trapped.

What We Should Do

Let's not treat users of IE6 (and other old browsers) like they are deviants or criminals. Let's instead treat them like people who are trapped and need our help.

Let's not require them to pay more, jump through extra hoops, or fail to see what the rest of us see. Let's not talk down to them, treat them like idiots, or tell them they should just do something they cannot do.

Take a look at your sites in an old browser (today that's IE6, years ago it was Netscape Navigator 4, tomorrow it might be the default Android browser). See if you are being a jerk to your users with poorly-worded messaging, intentional blocks, or imposed "taxes." When you stumble across these transgressions in projects to which you contribute on GitHub and elsewhere, fix them and maybe even explain why.

If nothing more, make the web and its development practices nicer to the future you who may very well be trapped on an old browser someday.

Update: July 10, 2012

There is a nice (both in tone and quality) article at Smashing Magazine today titled Dear Web User: Please Upgrade Your Browser. It assumes a reader is not afraid of computers and has at least some control over his/her environment (so it's useless for, say, my parents) and explains reasons to upgrade/cross-grade while providing links to other browsers.

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Another Anti-IE Gimmick

Internet Explorer has been the whipping boy of the internet for some time now, particularly Internet Explorer 6. Now it seems Internet Explorer 7 may be the new cool target.

Australian electronics seller Kogan has decided to impose a "tax" on users of Internet Explorer 7. The justification from Kogan's blog post:

One of the things stopping [us from keeping prices low] is our web team having to spend a lot of time making our new website look normal on IE7. This is an extremely old browser, so from today, anyone buying from the site who uses IE7 will be lumped with a 6.8% surcharge - that's 0.1% for each month IE7 has been on the market

Kogan proudly displays a screen shot of the message IE7 users will see (click for a full-size image):

The text from the message:

It appears you or your system administrator has been in a coma for over 5 years and you are still using IE7. To help make the Internet a better place, you will be charged a 6.8% tax on your purchase from Kogan.com

This is necessary due to the amount of time our web team has to waste to ensure our site appears correctly in IE7.

Avoid the tax, use a better browser: [images for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera]

Why This Is a Gimmick

The claims made in the blog post and the statement are just not true. I'm not calling them outright lies, but they are at least misrepresentation.

Not a "Tax"

This is not a tax. It is a surcharge, as Kogan says in its blog post. However, in the message to end users it refers to it as a tax four times and even uses a "stamp" to imply it's a tax notice. A savvy user should get it, but this tongue-in-cheek attempt to look official is in contrast to the statement on the blog. This can be a problem from an accessibility perspective when you consider users with cognitive disabilities.

Nothing Informing Users of Tax Hike

The blog post claims the "tax" is assessed based on how many months IE7 has been around. This month it is 6.8%, next month it will 6.9%, in August it will be 7%, and so on. There is nothing to indicate that to users.

No Tax for IE6

There is no "tax" for Internet Explorer version 6. If there was a tax for IE6 using the same calculation as for IE7, then the rate would be 13% (as of this month). A simple argument is that the site is not intended to work well in IE6, and if that's the case then there is no reason to not also display a message to IE6 users saying as much.

Doesn't Work in IE7 Anyway

While visiting the site in IE7 to get the screen shot above, not only did it render poorly (if at all), it hung my virtual machine twice. Kogan claims it is spending effort to make the site look normal on IE7, although it not only doesn't look the same, it doesn't function the same. The 24 separate JavaScript files and 1MB of files (made up of 97 requests from 19 domains) probably doesn't help the page render. I would argue that Kogan is misrepresenting its efforts.

It Doesn't Need to Look the Same in IE7

Again, Kogan claims it spends time making the site look normal on IE7, but not only doesn't define normal, it doesn't acknowledge that it doesn't need to look the same. Kogan's decision to spend time and effort trying to replicate the exact same experience for IE7 is what is costing users, not users' inability to upgrade their browsers.

No Indication of IE7 User Base

Kogan does not state in its blog post how many users of IE7 come to the site. It may very well be only 3 users a year. If that's true, it makes this even more of a gimmick and likely would not have had the splash Kogan wanted. If far more, then Kogan can justify its position by providing an outline of how it will track the success of its campaign — short of proving that IE7 users who cannot upgrade won't be back.

Doesn't Suggest IE8 or IE9

Kogan doesn't tell users in its message to upgrade to a more recent version of Internet Explorer, it tells users to use a better browser and lists Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera. It doesn't even list Internet Explorer 8 or 9.

It's Bullying

I don't much care about rudeness. When I see language like this that talks down to me I typically decide the copywriter/management is/are an idiot and that's it. Not all users will feel that way, particularly users who cannot upgrade their browser. Having witnessed what happens when either non-savvy users or users who are trapped on a platform are told they aren't good enough, I am confident this message will only offend those on IE7. It's just a technical form of bullying. That it draws hoots of support from those who only care about the new shiny only bolsters my point.

How Kogan is Being Dishonest

Kogan claims on its blog that "we all have a responsibility to make the Internet a better place. By taking these measures, we are doing our bit." Given that the site doesn't even support IE7 nor does it help users with useful language, I am suspect. If Kogan's claim is true, then Kogan should donate the "tax" money (it clearly isn't using) to support organizations who cannot upgrade for financial reasons, perhaps starting with not-for-profits in its hometown.

Yes, There Are Users Who Cannot Upgrade

There are users who are trapped in work environments that will not allow an upgrade. There are users who are not technically savvy and don't know how. There are users who cannot afford a new computer with a newer OS. There are users who can only access the web from libraries or internet cafes. There are users who stay on a browser version because it works with their add-ons (such as accessibility software).

Kogan is a private business (I assume based on the site) and may choose which customers to support. It doesn't need to even try to support IE7 (I argue it doesn't anyway). However, its gimmick will be taken up by web developers who only see arguments to support their own bad behaviors and who may very well work for organizations where supporting all users (poor, disabled, technically clueless, trapped) is necessary.

If a web developer cannot come up with valid reasons on his or her own for why someone may not be able to upgrade, then I argue that person is a terrible web developer.

If you still don't understand, I refer you to some of my past posts on this topic, each of which contains some nugget on browser use assumptions:

• Exclusion Is a Feature Now, May 10, 2012



• Don't Blame Opera, Blame Devs, April 27, 2012



• The Return of “Best Viewed in…” March 4, 2012



• Don't Expect Microsoft's Auto-Update to Kill IE6, December 23, 2011



• Test in Lynx and Print, It's Your Job, December 12, 2011



• Everything Will Be the New IE6, December 8, 2011



• Selection Bias When Reviewing Browser Stats, March 13, 2011



• Microsoft Promoting the Death of IE6, March 4, 2011



• Beyond Hash-Bangs: Reliance on JavaScript Is a Bad Idea, February 9, 2011



• Google's Web Book May Not Help Those Who Need It Most, November 29, 2010



• How Many Users Support JavaScript? November 5, 2010



• IE Below 50%, But Not Universally, October 12, 2010



• IE9 Beta Coming, But Microsoft Just Wants You to Dump IE6, September 8, 2010



• RIP IE6 (Not Really, But Here's to Hoping), March 4, 2010



• Microsoft Doesn't Like Chrome Frame, September 25, 2009

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ICANN Announces Requested gTLDs

A week shy of a year ago now ICANN revealed a process to allow organizations to submit applications for new generic top level domain extensions (in addition to the .com, .net, .org and 18 others excluding ccTLDs). You can get more detail in my post Make Your Own TLD? (I want .bacon).

Today ICANN has revealed the list of gTLDs for which random people and businesses have applied. During the January 12 — May 30, 2012 window to submit applications, 1,930 came in.

The process wasn't without some controversy, as when 87 business associations and companies banded together to oppose the process, as outlined in this November 2011 press release: Eighty-Seven Major National and International Business Associations and Companies Join with ANA, Forming the Coalition for Responsible Internet Domain Oversight (CRIDO), to Oppose ICANN's Top-level Domain Expansion Program

Despite that, the ICANN process has been moving along. If, like me, you are curious about the gTLDs for which people are vying, you can get the full list as a CSV file from ICANN, or you can search through the list on the ICANN site.

Of the 1,930 gTLDs, 116 of them are in character sets that the average English-speaking American won't ever see or be able to use (such as Chinese, Cyrillic, and so on). As you go through them, you'll see lots of brand and company names, and even a few slogans in the mix. You'll see some cases where a brand name (such as .youtube) is not registered by the brand owner (Google, in this case), or perhaps ones where the target audience seems a little too targeted (such as .aarp).

Selected Duplicates

Of the remaining (the ones I can read), some of them seem odd, some of them seem too long to type, and some of them are duplicates which means an auction process will kick in to determine who should get rights. Of the over 750 duplicates, here are some of the ones that stood out to me (or just look at my favorites):

String	Applicant	Location	Region
APP	.APP REGISTRY INC.	KY	EUR
APP	Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google)	US	NA
APP	dot App Limited	GI	EUR
APP	Webera Inc.	AE	AP
APP	NU DOT CO LLC	US	NA
APP	Amazon EU S.à r.l.	LU	EUR
APP	Lone Maple, LLC	US	NA
APP	Dot App LLC	US	NA
APP	DotApp Inc.	US	NA
APP	TRI Ventures, Inc.	US	NA
APP	Afilias Limited	IE	EUR
APP	Merchant Law Group LLP	CA	NA
APP	Top Level Domain Holdings Limited	VG	EUR
BLOG	BET Inc.	JP	AP
BLOG	Afilias Domains No. 1 Limited	IE	EUR
BLOG	Top Level Design, LLC	US	NA
BLOG	Corn Shadow, LLC	US	NA
BLOG	Personals TLD Inc.	AE	AP
BLOG	Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google)	US	NA
BLOG	Merchant Law Group LLP	CA	NA
BLOG	PRIMER NIVEL S.A.	PA	LAC
BLOG	Top Level Domain Holdings Limited	VG	EUR
BOOK	R.R. Bowker LLC	US	NA
BOOK	Top Level Domain Holdings Limited	VG	EUR
BOOK	Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google)	US	NA
BOOK	Global Domain Registry Pty Ltd	AU	AP
BOOK	Bronze Registry Limited	GI	EUR
BOOK	NU DOT CO LLC	US	NA
BOOK	Amazon EU S.à r.l.	LU	EUR
BOOK	Double Bloom, LLC	US	NA
BOOK	DotBook, LLC	US	NA
CASINO	dot Casino Limited	GI	EUR
CASINO	Binky Sky, LLC	US	NA
CASINO	Afilias Limited	IE	EUR
CASINO	dotBeauty LLC	US	NA
CLOUD	Symantec Corporation	US	NA
CLOUD	Top Level Domain Holdings Limited	VG	EUR
CLOUD	Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google)	US	NA
CLOUD	Amazon EU S.à r.l.	LU	EUR
CLOUD	Dash Cedar, LLC	US	NA
CLOUD	ARUBA S.p.A.	IT	EUR
CLOUD	CloudNames AS	NO	EUR
DESIGN	STARTING DOT	FR	EUR
DESIGN	BET Inc.	JP	AP
DESIGN	Top Level Domain Holdings Limited	VG	EUR
DESIGN	Top Level Design, LLC	US	NA
DESIGN	NU DOT CO LLC	US	NA
DESIGN	Black Avenue, LLC	US	NA
DESIGN	Design Trend Registry Inc.	CA	NA
DESIGN	Uniregistry, Corp.	KY	EUR
DOCS	Microsoft Corporation	US	NA
DOCS	Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google)	US	NA
FREE	Top Level Domain Holdings Limited	VG	EUR
FREE	Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google)	US	NA
FREE	Amazon EU S.à r.l.	LU	EUR
FREE	Over Keep, LLC	US	NA
FREE	Uniregistry, Corp.	KY	EUR
GAY	Top Level Domain Holdings Limited	VG	EUR
GAY	Top Level Design, LLC	US	NA
GAY	United TLD Holdco Ltd.	KY	EUR
GAY	dotgay llc	US	NA
MAIL	Afilias Domains No. 2 Limited,	IE	EUR
MAIL	Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google)	US	NA
MAIL	1&1 Mail & Media GmbH	DE	EUR
MAIL	Amazon EU S.à r.l.	LU	EUR
MAIL	Victor Dale, LLC	US	NA
MAIL	WhitePages TLD LLC	US	NA
MAIL	GMO Registry, Inc.	JP	AP
MAP	United TLD Holdco Ltd.	KY	EUR
MAP	Amazon EU S.à r.l.	LU	EUR
MAP	Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google)	US	NA
MOBILE	Amazon EU S.à r.l.	LU	EUR
MOBILE	Pixie North, LLC	US	NA
MOBILE	Dish DBS Corporation	US	NA
MOVIE	Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google)	US	NA
MOVIE	dot Movie Limited	GI	EUR
MOVIE	Webdeus Inc.	AE	AP
MOVIE	NU DOT CO LLC	US	NA
MOVIE	Amazon EU S.à r.l.	LU	EUR
MOVIE	New Frostbite, LLC	US	NA
MOVIE	Motion Picture Domain Registry Pty Ltd	AU	AP
MOVIE	Dish DBS Corporation	US	NA
MUSIC	DotMusic Inc.	AE	AP
MUSIC	DotMusic / CGR E-Commerce Ltd	CY	AP
MUSIC	dot Music Limited	GI	EUR
MUSIC	Amazon EU S.à r.l.	LU	EUR
MUSIC	Victor Cross	US	NA
MUSIC	Charleston Road Registry Inc. (Google)	US	NA
MUSIC	.music LLC	US	NA
MUSIC	Entertainment Names Inc.	VG	EUR
NEWS	DotNews Inc.	AE	AP
NEWS	dot News Limited	GI	EUR
NEWS	Amazon EU S.à r.l.	LU	EUR
NEWS	Hidden Bloom, LLC	US	NA
NEWS	Uniregistry, Corp.	KY	EUR
NEWS	Merchant Law Group LLP	CA	NA
NEWS	PRIMER NIVEL S.A.	PA	LAC

Favorites

And now some of my favorites:

• .adult


• .afamilycompany


• .diet (three of these)


• .dot (there were two of these)


• .dotafrica (for the slashdot-literate)


• .family


• .fish


• .foo


• .goo


• .gripe


• .hiphop


• .ieee


• .imdb (by Amazon)


• .ketchup


• .kids


• .law


• .lawyer


• .legal


• .lgbt


• .lol (two of these)


• .men (with no corresponding .women)


• .mormon


• .ninja (for all those self-declared web and social media experts)


• .porn (but no corresponding .pr0n)


• .republican (with no corresponding .democrat or .libertarian)


• .sex (two of these)


• .sexy


• .sucks (three of these)


• .web (seven of these)


• .website (three of these)


• .wtf

So there is a proposal for .ketchup, but nothing for .bacon? Internets, you have let me down.

Related

1. Icann [sic] reveals new internet top-level domain name claims at BBC


2. Here comes .NETFLIX: New Web domain applications revealed at CNN Money


3. ICANN unveils new domain names at net Magazine.


4. Make Your Own TLD? (I want .bacon) by me

Update: 11:41am

I see a lot of traffic coming to this post from people looking for "Charleston Road Registry." A couple minutes in the ICANN application shows that not only does that entity have its address at Google HQ, but the contact is Google's policy analyst. From the application (section 18(a)):

Charleston Road Registry is an American company, wholly owned by Google, which was established to provide registry services to the Internet public. […] As discussed further in the responses to questions 23 and 31, Charleston Road Registry intends to outsource all critical registry functions to Google Registry Services.

I have updated the table above accordingly.

Update: May 8, 2013

The marketing manager for names.co.uk guest-writes a post at .net Magazine ("Google sets precedent for new gTLDs to be open") detailing how Google may be opening up any of the new gTLDs it acquires, instead of restricting their use to just Google brands. The writer hopes others will follow Google's lead.

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Picplz Shutting Down, as Free Services Often Do

Picplz is a photo/image editing and sharing app/service that has been compared to Instagram and long referred to as the Android alternative (Instagram didn't support Android until recently).

At 10:17pm EST on a Friday night (last night), June 1, Picplz sent out the following cryptic tweet:

tmblr.co/ZUq_PyMaUlXD

— picplz (@picplz) June 2, 2012

Even though I hate shortened-URL-only tweets, Picplz doesn't tweet often so I followed it to read this in the brief blog post:

On July 3, 2012, picplz will shut down permanently, and all photos and user data will be deleted. Until then, users may download their own photos by clicking on the download link next to each photo in their photo feed.

And that's it. Just about a month before it's gone. Just over 30 days to manually download each one of my photos.

My take? Oh well. It's a free service that just saw the darling of the photo manipulation and sharing space (Instagram) get bought up for an absurd amount of money. I suspect Picplz just gave up. I knew going into it that at some point I'd have to pull my stuff out (hence my regular requests on the support forum for an RSS feed of my full history).

In December 2010 I wrote about our reliance on and sense of entitlement to free services in You Get What You Pay For. This is the same thing. It's a perfect example of how you need to be prepared from the start that your favorite free service will change or go away. When it does, don't expect great (or even good or maybe any) notice or customer service.

Years ago I started using Brightkite to post images (and track my travels, share them with Twitter and Facebook, live as an online gallery, feed to mapping services, etc.). When Brightkite went away I dabbled in Gowalla and sensed its demise, so tried out Plyce, which also changed direction. I found Picplz and still dabbled in others just in case Picplz went away. Now I just need to choose my next photo posting platform and hope I can get a couple years out of that one, too.

In the meantime, I will be writing a script to wade through my 1,400+ Picplz photos and pull down all my images, descriptions and geo-data. Considering I paid nothing to use the service for over a year and a half, I think this is a fair cost to me.

Related

• You Get What You Pay For


• Brightkite Yields to Foursquare, Gowalla, Etc.


• Brightkite Changes Direction


• Why We Check In: The Reasons People Use Location-Based Social Networks (my Brightkite use is referenced in the article)


• Brightkite Tries Another Angle

Update: Sunday, June 3, 2012

This post got a lot of traffic overnight and didn't realize why at first. It seems I scooped the regular tech news outlets and so for a while this post was the only one out there. Cool. These other posts have popped up since then:

• PicPlz shutting down permanently on July 3rd, all photos to be deleted pre-fireworks at Engadget.


• Photo-sharing service Picplz to shut down on 3 July at TheNextWeb.


• The Instagram Effect? Mobile Photo Sharing App PicPlz To Shut Down Permanently On July 3 at TechCrunch.


• Photo Sharing App Picplz to Shut Down on July 3 at Mashable.


• Photo-sharing app PicPlz calling it quits on July 3 at GigaOM.


• Instagram Competitor picplz Shutting Down July 3rd at Geekosystem.

Interestingly, less than two months ago Lifehacker ran the article Don't Bother with Instagram; Here are Five Better Alternatives for Android. Of those five, Picplz is going away and Lightbox Photos got gobbled up by Facebook.

Update: Sunday, June 3, 2012, 11:20pm

Earlier tonight Picplz tweeted out some hope for those of us with lots of photos who don't really have the time to download each photo individually:

Also, soon we will provide an export solution as a thanks to you, our loyal and devoted users. We already miss you.

— picplz (@picplz) June 3, 2012

Update: June 15, 2012

Picplz notified users (via another cryptic tweet that led to a blog post) on Wednesday that it would make each user's photo archive available as a download. Users would be notified via email when their archives were ready. I received my email late last night and am in the process of downloading my 1.5GB archive now (so I have no idea the formats of anything).

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