Archive for August 2004

Microsoft reports on the updates to its Internet Explorer functionality that comes with MS Windows XP Service Pack 2. Highlights include a pop-up blocker, add-on install prompt, information bar, and MIME handling enforcement. ZDNet has an article on the changes.

What do you think? Too little too late? Unlikely to resolve the security issues it has? Personally, I wouldn’t trust it until it has been out there for at least six months.

Get the lowdown on the Mozilla security update from my other blog at InformIT.

BTW, there are lots of great comments in Browser Switching Reports from the Field. I want to emphasize those of you having problems with FireFox — it may be a matter of needing to create a new profile as this usually corrects a lot of the problems. The default profile tends to go whacko.

Previously, I’ve covered the Laptop Desk Version 2.0, a lightweight tray about 21 inches long and 11 inches wide for holding the laptop or a handheld device and keyboard. Lapworks has released a lighter version of this called the Laptop Desk UltraLite for items weighing five pounds or less.

The UltraLite is 14.6 ounces in comparison to version 2.0′s 1 pound and 6 ounces. It’s half the thickness at 5/16 of an inch and longer by 1.5 inches to provide a larger area for the mouse. Underneath are rubber pads to prevent slippin’ and slidin’ when using a smooth surface.

The lite version is for lightening the load of the person always on the go or frequent traveler who carries a laptop, other gadgets, or both everywhere. Like its predecessor, it folds in half for easy storage in a laptop case and the additional weight is not noticeable.

When attending a conference, I have a hard time typing on the handheld keyboard since it slightly collapses. This isn’t a problem with the Laptop Desk UltraLite, which rests comfortably in my lap. There are five incline positions for finding your comfortable typing zone.

The thinner and lighter desk prevents the laptop from burning your legs, but you can still feel the warmth. The disadvantage is that it’s not as sturdy as version 2.0 as it lightly shakes during typing. It’s more comfortable to use in your lap compared to having nothing.

As for which to buy, it’s based on your needs. If your laptop is at or over five pounds, go for Laptop Desk version 2.0. For those with lighter equipment, it’s dependent on the importance of sturdiness and the weight difference. Both are great accessories.

The UltraLite retails for $29.95, the same as the version 2.0, but it’s initially available for $19.95 after a $10 instant rebate when purchased from LapWorks.

Tired of the laptop burning your leg or hurting your hands when you type? The Laptop Desk Ensemble is the solution to a more ergonomic and comfortable setting.

The Laptop Desk version 2.0 is a lightweight tray that’s roughly 21 inches long and 11 inches wide for holding the laptop or even handheld device keyboard. It doesn’t buckle when you put the tray on your lap and the laptop on top of it. Some handheld device keyboards don’t stay flat when in your lap and this tray takes care of the problem.

Fold the tray in half for storage or creating an ergonomic angle for typing on the keyboard. It has five typing and viewing angles as it has ridges underneath for increasing or decreasing the angle with a holder.

The tray has ridges that act as ventilation for the laptop. In between the ridges are non-skid contact pads to add an extra grip onto the laptop or keyboard.

The ensemble also includes the SwivlPad and MouzPad. In this household, we have one laptop and constantly share it. Sometimes we slide the laptop around to show the other person something on the laptop screen. This means lifting and turning around, which is not a healthy thing to do when you’re leaning over and putting stress on the lower back. The SwivlPad goes right under the tray NOT underneath the laptop to make it possible to rotate the laptop.

It works some of the time depending on the surface. The bed is not the best surface on which to use it and that’s one place we frequent share it. However, if you try swiveling the tray, it’s more difficult. The SwivlPad, similar to the size of a burrito tortilla, weighs six ounces and stores in the tray when folded, but the tray doesn’t stay closed. Jiggling the disc, it isn’t possible to get it to fix perfectly in the folded tray where the tray stays flat. It’ll stay close if you put the folded tray holding the disc into a side pocket of the laptop carrying case.

The MouzPad is the third piece of the ensemble, which like its name is for using the mouse. While you can use the mouse on the tray, there may not be enough room or the right amount of traction for effective use. It adds about three inches to the length of the tray.

The MouzPad add-on snaps right onto the tray on either side, so lefties can use it on the left side. It also has notches and holes for holding cables in place. When using a mouse with a cable, slide the cable through a hole to prevent it from falling when jiggling the laptop. It tests well with a wireless mouse.

If for whatever reason I need to work away from the desktop, I can take the wireless keyboard and mouse and put them on the tray to use it on my lap or the floor. In fact, I am typing this paragraph using the tray.

The lightweight ensemble includes the tray, SwivlPad, and MouzPad sells for $49.95. The tray alone sells for $29.95. Visit the Laptop Desk web site.

Ilise Benun, author of Designing Websites for Every Audience, has been talking about “What does the silence mean?” in her Quick Online Marketing Tips newsletter. This is an issue I have grappled with many times especially since I rely on email as a primary means of communication rather than the phone because of my hearing loss.

You email a client, follow up, and whatnot. Paul has been dealing with this for over a year, only instead of clients, he waits to hear from recruiters and managers about a job. When is it OK to follow up again? Is it even OK especially for those related to finding a job? There is no clear etiquette.

When you don’t hear back within a certain amount of time, what happens? I’m like Ilise and start jumping to conclusions. “Too expensive?” “Doesn’t like me?” (this is more of a female response than a male response) “Did I not say it right?”

We’ve come to expect email response within a short period of time, but I don’t start convincing myself with reasons why I haven’t heard back that quick. The answer could be a simple as the person is too busy to respond. It could also mean, “No,” although I think a person deserve to hear (read) it rather than get a silence.

Ilise reports the silence is rarely about you. Let’s try to remember that. I believe this is accurate because I went through a very busy period where I didn’t respond to friends’ emails within the 24 hours typical of me. I had become my friends, who rarely reply to my emails within two or three days. But I always respond to work-related emails within 24 hours, usually much less.

If I don’t have time to give a full reply, then I drop a short note to the tune of, “Busy, will reply later.” Save a standard “busy reply” as a file, template, or shortcut to copy and paste. That is better than silence and it’s better than getting multiple follow ups from the person wondering if you ever received the email. How about we turn “quick acknowledgments” into a new etiquette? Maybe we’ll save emails and stress in the long run.

Seth Godin – Are blogs backwards? He makes the following statements:

a. a lot more blogs should be posted in chronological order, like books. If you’re trying to chronicle something, it makes a lot of sense to start at the beginning, as long as you provide regular readers an easy way to just read the current stuff (That’s what RSS is for, right?). No, this isn’t right for gizmodo. But it makes a lot of sense for someone, say, chronicling her experience in a 12 step program.

b. we need Movable Type or someone to create a simple way to create “greatest hits” pages. Not an archive, but a simple way for a new reader to read the ten posts we want them to start with, in the order we want them read, before they dive in.

“Greatest Hits” is easily doable by creating a new category for it. Thanks to Ben for the reminder.

He makes a good point as I had this problem with my Bionic Ear Blog when I was reporting on my progress. To work around it, I posted a link to the first entry. But it’s a lot of work to read the blog backwards.

Most blogging tools do offer the user the option to go from old to new or new to old. It’s really dependent on the reader. Could this be a future feature? I don’t think reverse chronology should go away, but rather new readers have the ability to click a link to reverse the entries from old to new. Let the reader choose the option he wants.

When I regularly read a blog, I don’t want to dig through it to find the more recent entries. As for RSS, when you’re a reader checking out a four-year-old blog for the first time… RSS isn’t going to download all thousands of entries (thank goodness). So how about it?

Many people have written about their experiences with Mozilla and FireFox (FF). It sounds like about half of them have had no problems with FF while the other half experienced problems like I did. My household reflects the statistic since two of our four computers run FF without issues while the other two constantly fight fires with it. Read on for the good, the bad, the so-so, and the uncategorizable…

The good…

Ted Marsden says he has cut spam about 60 percent by switching to Mozilla, FF, and Netscape. Leigh Klotz has been using Mozilla for a long time and never uses IE unless a Web site doesn’t work with Mozilla. Izzie has been using FF for several months and has had no problems.

Jean Jacque Duguay loves FF. He has tried Netscape v7.0, but it was too big and too slow. He has tested Mozilla, which he believes is a better version of Netscape. He is hooked to tabbed browsing. Slim Browser is another he has looked at, but he later learned it uses the IE engine, which means it carries the IE security issues. After trying FF, he believes he is finally free of IE.

Jerome Miller writes he has been non-IE browsers for many years; Netscape, Mozilla, FF, and Opera. FF is the pick of the lot. For Jim Harkins, the switch to FF was seamless.

Dwight Romanovicz has been using Netscape as his primary browser since version 2. Through all those years he has never been bothered by an e-mail virus or a home page hijacker. In the past couple of years webmasters have become too slack to test their pages with Netscape so the visual may have problems but far more important is that some file types are corrupted upon download.

Michael B. Johnson switched to FF for the following reasons:

1. Security – For example, Mozilla won’t run Active-X controls without his permission. I’m using Win2K (not XP), so the shell exploit doesn’t affect him.

2. Ease of use – Mozilla’s tabbed browsing and background loading. Also the “just type and I’ll find it” feature. And the Ctrl+Grey Plus key zoom-in/zoom out feature. And the Adblock plugin.

3. Open Source – He supports the movement.

Jo Ann Weaver made the switch and use FF as the default browser with Avant as backup. Jo Ann hasn’t used IE in almost a year.

DeVaux McLean loves FF. Steve Hydrick has switched to FF and Thunderbird (email client) and has no complaints. Though it does take a PC-savvy person to explore its options for extensions etc, but he likes that option! And, it is somewhat faster than IE6 so that’s a good thing too. Ad-Aware doesn’t detect any spyware since he switched.

Wayne Tuttle has been using Mozilla for years and has replaced the suite with FF since I only used the browser. FF safely transferred all of his bookmarks and, more importantly, his banking certificate like a regular upgrade of Mozilla, and after a day, he removed Mozilla.

Geoff Loats has been using Firefox for about six weeks and finds it leaves IE for dead. The only problem he has with it is that a page must completely load before you can activate one of the links on that page. It beats having pop ups galore making surfing a nightmare.

Myrl changed to FireFox and was astounded when running anti-spyware and found not one new occurrence since the switch. Myrl has only one disappointment, the ability to send only plain text emails from the Yahoo account, no hyperlinks, no color, nothing unless I use an attachment.

The bad…

Dick Bellin understands the reasons for switching and has no arguments. He has tried Mozilla and FF more than once, and each time after frustrations and failure to get the programs to work as promised, he gave up and went back to IE. He uses Avant Browser, however, Avant uses the IE engine and inherits all of IE’s security problems.

Cliff Walker removed FF within 15 minutes of installing it because it presupposes that the designers already know how you want the browser configured. They assume that you want all these commercial links on your toolbar, leaving about one-third of it for custom links and no way to get rid of these commercial links that we’ll never use and, actually, would prefer not being reminded they exist. No, there’s no way to free up this space and there’s no way to add to what little space they leave you with.

Cliff says, “Conspicuous by its absence was ANY control over animated ads: there’s no way to disable these flashing, flickering, looping distractions (and leave them off). In an application that I would have hoped would be advanced enough to have actually figured out a way to turn off Flash at will, we end up having to try to scroll the lowly GIF off the screen in our attempts to read what’s on the page.”

The so-so…

Sid Huff reports a few problems at his office, a New Zealand University, as a few systems don’t work with FF, but work fine with Internet Explorer (IE). He says when he clicks on a link, he gets a ‘save file’ dialog box. I have had this happen before and fix it by closing / re-opening FF. For him, FF takes longer to load. But others report it’s speedier. Sid says, “All in all, while I appreciate the theoretical advantages, I am not impressed with the practical on-the-ground results.”

Ben Trotter switched browser because of the warnings with IE. He chose Netscape and says it is acceptable, but not as convenient as the IE engine.

Ed Norris used FF occasionally and liked it. Somehow it became contaminated and every time he opened the program, it would also open all my favorites in IE, forcing me to close all the tabs individually. He uninstalled FF and downloaded it again, same problem.

Virginia Scofield changed to Firefox and it was working like a charm. Then she did an update on it and installed the security patch. She used it the next morning and it took about two minutes to load – then was almost impossible to use due to the slow reaction of the mouse with the menus. Since then, I have uninstalled, reinstalled, tried all the little tips, etc., etc. – and still cannot use it due to the jerky slow movements of the mouse/menu. It doesn’t get her vote.

Sally Davenport lost out on a good deal on eBay because of FF. She used FF to access eBay to complete a transaction. She ended in a loop between “Buy It” and the Legal Agreement page and couldn’t proceed with the purchase and missed out on a good deal. She contacted eBay and its prompt answer was that Mozilla/Netscape wasn’t compatible with its software. She likes the program in general, but not its method to add sites.

The uncategorizable…

Allan Erdman suggests using Deepnet Explorer, but the program shares IE’s engine and therefore, inherits its problems. Here is a quote from the Deepnet Explorer forums, “As Deepnet Explorer shares the HTML rendering engine with IE, it is exposed some security vulnerabilities from IE. However, these are confined to only vulnerabilities in the HTML engine. There are many other security enhancements in DE that makes it much more secure than IE. Please see this for more info.”

Disappointing. Handango has been an online business from the start, selling mobile device software. So I am surprised the company didn’t follow Web standards when redesigning its site and using CSS for layouts. The company doesn’t ask for feedback on its site. I wonder if it involved the user in its redesign. However, the company did later email a survey to those on their mailing list asking for feedback and I gave it to ‘em.

I give the company credit, it’s less overwhelming when entering the site. The previous design had too much and the user probably had trouble deciding where to go unless he had visited the site many time as I had. But I am not sure this is what the users want to see when they go to the site. Any comments, users?

I am finding few of its images have alt tags. Why is it companies are still overlooking this simple accessibility item? It also doesn’t use DOCTYPE declaration, a big oversight. So don’t bother trying to validate its site since the validators will error as soon as they see no DOCTYPE.

That guy is hot! That guy is cool! Hot and cool are opposites, yet they mean the same thing when talking about that guy. My Polish grandmother is going to polish her silverware. Amazing what a difference a capital P makes. The knight rides at night in the rain and gets pneumonia. Here we go again with weird English usage. Kn, n, and pn are pronounced the same.

English has many rules not found in other languages. For instance, most languages use articles with every noun. A, an, and the aren’t always chaperoning the nouns, which is a challenge for non-native English speakers to learn.

English speakers are no help when they get their own language wrong. For example, many use anxious and eager interchangeably. When you’re excited and can’t wait to do something, you’re eager. Anxious means feeling nervous where there is anxiety. If a child says, “I’m anxious about going to school,” is she looking forward to it or is she uneasy about it? It’s the latter.

Woe Is I covers this and other problems in the “Verbal Abuse” chapter. The infamous lie and lay; who and whom; farther and further; and bad and badly are covered. Did you know hopefully is used incorrectly? I’ve been guilty of it and it’s hard changing the habit because it fits at the beginning of a sentence or acts like an introductory word. While we can start sentences with actually, thoughtfully, and happily; hopefully doesn’t belong with the introductory clique. It’s an adverb. O’Conner writes, “…introductory words that we use not to describe a word, which is what adverbs usually do, but to describe our own attitude to the statement that follows.”

Would you believe that saying, “I’m nauseous” is incorrect? Well, if it’s true, it means you make other people nauseated. Nauseous is the something that makes you sick. Those suffering from morning sickness say, “I’m nauseated from the nauseous pregnancy (or coffee smell, perfume, or whatever causes it).”

O’Conner does a fine job of clarifying the problems and explaining the correct usage. In a few places, the explanation isn’t suitable and the reader might not understand how to do it right after reading it.

With chapter titles like “Therapy for Pronoun Anxiety,” “Comma Sutra,” and “The Possessives and the Possessed,” it’s easy to infer the book adds a dash of humor. Having written a few articles on grammar with humor to make it fun and easier to remember, I’ve learned how hard it is to do it. Don’t expect to fall down laughing, but look forward to a smile here and there.

The talk of grammar books for this year is Eats, Shoots & Leaves. If having both books is not an option, which to choose? Easy. Pick Woe Is I. Eats is for those who have a shelf full of grammar books and have a love of grammar. It’s not a good book for lessons on improving grammar although there are tips. There are more rhetoric and stories than how tos. Woe Is I offers advice on how to write right throughout the book.

Final lesson: If the word is singular, add ‘s regardless of its ending including proper names like Alex’s and Alexis’. Yet, a few pages later, the book indicates it’s customary to drop the final s when using possessives in ancient classical names like Hercules’ and Achilles’. Don’t you love the English language?

VITAL STATISTICS:
TITLE: Woe Is I
AUTHOR: Patricia T. O’Conner
PUBLISHER: Riverhead Books
PUBLICATION DATE: 1996
ISBN: 1573226254
FORMAT: Paperback
PAGES: 227
PRICE: USD: 12.00
CDN: 18.00
UK: 9.48

The next issue of eNewsletter Journal will cover direct marketing as in those long sales letters with yellow highlights, bolded text, P.S.S. to death. What do you think of such marketing tactics? Share your thoughts and they might be considered for publication.