Firefly Website

Joss Whedon's new show is only 7 days away and a good fan site is: http://www.fireflyfans.net/

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Picture of the Day: A Very 70s Christmas

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And You Wonder Why I Don't Use .DOC Files Anymore?

Remember a long, long time ago when I wrote about NOT using .doc files?  No?  Well here it is:

http://radio.weblogs.com/0103807/2002/05/09.html#a116

How's this for YAMSH (yet another Microsoft security hole):

A security flaw in Microsoft's flagship word processing software could allow a document to hijack files from any Windows PC on which it's opened, the software giant said Thursday.

A would-be thief would have to take extraordinary care in setting up the scenario, however, including knowing the exact location and name of the desired file as well as persuading the victim to open, modify, save and then return the Word document to the sender.

The scheme works best under Word 97, but Word 2000 and 2002 could also be conscripted into service if the attacker can persuade a victim to print the document first, a Microsoft spokesperson said.

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-957786.html

I liked this line the best:

Microsoft could give no schedule for when a patch may be released.

Here's all I want to know:

Who's going to be the first attorney to organize a class action lawsuit against Microsoft for the amount of labor that this kind of security hole wastes in installing upgrades? 

Will it be a private group of attorneys or will it be the state governments fresh from their anti-tobacco settlements? 

Any attorneys out there looking to test if shrink wrap EULAs really work?

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Ok.  My WebBuilder 2002 Presentation Is in HTML -- 2 + Hours Later

I tell you there are days it doesn't pay to get out of bed.  I blogged a reference to my presentation being available earlier today (or yesterday; the brain it is foggy).  Someone leaves me a comment pointing out how easy it is to convert to html.  So I try.  Here's what I got:

Remember -- this started as MS PowerPoint but was edited with Open Office under Linux.  It opens fine in PowerPoint, saves fine, does a slide show fine but try and save to HTML and poof!!!  This started a 2 hour load of crap session where I found the original PowerPoint, made changes to every slide individually, had Windows crash once losing all my work and then saving as html, uploading, changing my index page to point to it and so on.

So here it is:

http://www.fuzzygroup.net/webbuilder2002/

And, at the end of it, you know what?  It can't even be viewed in Mozilla.  Since the HTML is that IE specific.  Good job Microsoft.  Nice going.

Note: I'm not even going to say who's at fault here.  It could be Open Office or MS Office (they've done dirty file format level tricks before).

 

http://www.fuzzygroup.net/webbuilder2002/

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TNBT Is Often Really, Really Stupid

Computing is all about TNBT or "The Next Big Thing" and it's all too often a big freaking mistake !!!  Here's an example, in this article:

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature/sep02/auto.html

The IEEE talks about "Helping Computers Help Themselves" or how IBM, Microsoft and Sun want computers to become "self healing" and solve their own problems.  This is also called "autonomic" computing.  Great concept, right?  It sounds great but is it?  I'm so damn skeptical these days.  Bear in mind that

• TNBT is also TNET (the next expensive thing)
• It usually is a lot of new software to buy and install and maintain
• This makes programmers happy since it is a LOT of all new code to create and maintain
• Yet more code brings with it yet more bugs

Vendors can make huge improvements to "self healing" just by implementing damn simple heuristics.  They don't need huge new modules -- very simple improvements would go a long way towards improving the lives of users.  Think about these types of heuristics being added to blog software for example:

• check if the link you add to your blog is valid before you publish it
• check if the link you add to your is spelled very similarly to past links before you publish it.  Why?  People make typing mistakes all the time
• check if what you are doing makes sense in most situations.  Example -- if you reinstall some blogging tools on a different machine and start them up, they automatically upload a default page right away -- WIPING OUT your existing blog
• If your database structures need periodic optimization then remind the user -- don't wait for them to figure it out when their database crashes.

I'm sorry people -- these things aren't magic -- they are simply developers taking a less binary, less black and white view of the world. This stuff isn't hard at all.  It's a matter of accepting that your role in things requires some level of judgement and wisdom.  You don't need to take an absolute view either -- just ask the user if they meant to do this (example -- "Did you mean to publish a broken link Y/N?").

And if you are curious as to what checks need to be implemented ?  Just talk to your technical support department.  They can tell you.

Note: I do think there is some good technical stuff going on in the autonomic computing field but I think for most users it is unneeded and these type of simple heuristics could be added to existing software.  Of course then where would the upgrade revenue come from?  Oh that's right -- it wouldn't.  Sigh.  And so it goes. 

Sidebar: A nice part of the Open Source world is that you can graft these things in yourself if you need and you are rarely if ever forced to upgrade.

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Creating Accessible Web Sites -- Resources

I had a meeting yesterday at the Massachusetts Governor's Commission on Disability where I demonstrated a web site that we are building for the Massachusetts chapter of the US Business Leadership Network, www.usbln.com, an organization which promotes helping people with disabilities find work.  (No link; the site isn't up yet).  Anyway here are some of the resources we found on making web sites accessible:

• A quick tip from Zeldman
• Building Accessible Websites (not yet available)
• Constructing Accessible Websites
• Mark Pilgrim's Outstanding and Wonderful 30 Days.  Although this is focused on weblogs, weblogs are special case websites and most of his techniques are just applicable.  Strongly, strongly recommended.

I know that a lot of web designers seemingly either don't care about accessibility or disabled users but talk to just one and you can see that they do have issues -- but they are real people who need the same information as everybody else.  Building an accessible web site really isn't that hard and well worth the additional time.

Tip: This is a service that you can sell to your existing clients -- you can point out to them that new federal regulations make accessibility more important (true) and you can help them comply.

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Marketing 101: How Do I Find Tradeshows to Exhibit At?

We are all increasingly "verticalizing" our businesses -- you aren't a generic web development firm anymore.  Now you are a web development firm that focuses on banking customers.  Or CRM customers.  Or ecommerce sites for toy companies.  Or whatever.  Anyway this always brings up the question of tradeshows and, in particular, finding all the little vertical trade shows.  For example, did you know that there is an trade show of the "Iowa Bankers Association"?  Here's how to find these little vertical shows:  

• Google.  Search for something like "Vertical Market Name" and "Tradeshow" (substitute the name of the vertical or keywords appropriately)
• Competitors.  Here's what I like to do -- I find a competitor and then I look where they are exhibiting.  If I take two or three competitors, I can usually get a good feel for the different shows I might want to attend or exhibit at.  Here's an example: http://www.metavante.com/events/tradeshows.jsp.  That's the events page for www.metavante.com, a "financial technology solutions" company.  All you need to do is go to the competitors website and look for events they are attending, exhibiting at or their press releases. 

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Web Builder 2002 Commentary

It's almost a week ago since I left for WebBuilder 2002 and I thought that I should write up some notes on it.  So here you go:

• My presentation, Outsourced Parts of Your Web Development, was well attended (probably 50 - 60 people i.e. a full hall although I didn't count).  I got lots of questions at the end and only a few people left.  Virtually the entire audience was people managing outsourced work -- there didn't seem to be any web developers in the audience which was strange; I would have wanted to know how someone might be managing me in the future.
• A copy of the presentation is at http://www.fuzzygroup.net/webbuilder2002/.  It is a PowerPoint edited extensively with OpenOffice's presentation tool so it could now be a little hosed.  If so, let me know and I'll fix it.
• The reaction to the presentation was strong enough that The FuzzyGroup is now offering services to help companies manage their outsourced web development.  Details are here: http://www.fuzzygroup.net/services/outsourcing.php
• I ran into an audience member from a very large telco who talked to me about their problems with Vignette and Bealogic on a recent project.  Boy did she have negative things to say about both of them (but mostly about Vignette).  It's funny -- I've never met even one user of Vignette that likes the product.
• Robert Scoble did a fantastic job pulling this conference off.  Kudos, praise and the requisite groveling of appreciation are directed towards him.  It was great to meet Robert in person.  I wish he'd blog more but he clearly has a lot going on in his life right now and I understand.
• Maryam also did a great job on the details and was just as pleasant as punch to deal with.
• The conference was heavily biased towards Flash and I'm not a huge Flash guy so I don't have much to say on a lot of the presentations -- they were good but not my cup of tea.
• Marc Canter did an outstanding job on the keynote although I'm still not sure what exactly www.broadbandmechanics.com is offering.
• Andrew Chak did a great job on his user interface and metrics presentations.  He's a smart guy, no question about that.  He's also presenting in Boston at User Interface 7 East. And his book looks excellent.
• Overall I had a great time and my only regret was that another meeting forced me to leave the conference after the first day.
• Oh and since this was in Vegas, you are probably wondering how much money I lost in the casios ... I think I must be the most boring person to ever visit Vegas -- I didn't even gamble at all.  Not even a nickle in a slot machine. Don't get me wrong -- I actually like Las Vegas a lot but when you are traveling alone, Las Vegas is perhaps the most depressing place in the universe.  Everyone has someone with them.  Everyone.  All my previous trips to Vegas I had people with me and I had never realized this. 
• My cabbie told me one day that the mayor of Vegas is trying to legalize pot and prostitution in the city itself. 
• Belief in the Internet among ordinary people still runs strong -- a different cabbie talked to me about his desire to start an ecommerce business.  And, yes, I gave him a card and information about The FuzzyGroup's services.  As I've always said, sales leads are all around you.

Overall?  I was hugely happy to be asked to speak and I'd work with Robert Scoble again in a heartbeat.  Scoble is a good guy and highly recommended.

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PHPCON Is Having Rackspace Talk!

Very cool.  Rackspace uses PHP a lot and, despite the high price, they are the best hosting company out there.  He's talking about "PHP In The Enterprise: A Case Study At Rackspace".  My favorite hosting company and my favorite scripting language.  This is a presentation I will go to.

http://www.php-con.com/2002/view/speaker.php?s=delemendorf

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