Smackie The Frog: w00t!

27.01.04

w00t!

The title of the post has nothing to do with the actual content. It is simply a shout out. Anyway, on to the substance of this post.

I have two things that I would like to talk about. One is a terrible influence in my life, and the other is a terrible influence in the rest of your lives. I'll talk about myself first, since I'm vastly more interesting, but you'll get your time in the spotlight. Don't worry.

First, the bad influence in my life. Laura. That's right. She is a terrible influence. Today, I found myself with a couple of hour break in the middle of the day. Instead of going home and sleeping, or watching TV or mindlessly surfing the internet, I went up to the CEC and did homework. I completed my first CS306 assignment (25/25!), and started working on my cgi calculator for CS363. Now, I hear you asking yourself, how is this her influence? Well, it is multifaceted. One, I think that there is a certain element of not wanting to be as big of a bum when you have someone else in your life. Sure, I want to do well for myself, but having a girlfriend only makes that desire stronger. Maybe more importantly is the fact that the times that we have that we can spend together are much more rare than the times that I have where I'm sitting alone staring at stuff. As the workload of the semester increases, the amount of homework that I'm going to have is going to increase quite a bit. So by working when I have nothing better to do, then I minimize the chances that homework will get in the way with hanging out time. Make sense? It does to me.

Now, why is that a bad influence? Because it is in my nature to be a slacker. So I'm not sure that I can handle this "working ahead of time" or "working during the day" thing. Or maybe I was being sarcastic.

So that brings me to telling you guys what is wrong with you. Let me start off by saying that you aren't all guilty of all of this, and some of you aren't guilty of any of it. If you are good, then you can redirect all of the cruel things that I'm about to say to all of the other schmucks out there. Anyway...

What you are all doing wrong is using Windows. And Internet Explorer. And any other junk that Microsoft throws at you. What made me realize this was the fact that right now I'm being forced to use the Windows lab in the CEC as opposed to the Linux lab, because the Linux lab is full for a class. If you ever get around to actually using Linux, in a properly set up form, then I think you'll see that it is actually quite good. Especially for programming, although to most of you, that doesn't matter. But, it is completely free, and for almost everything that most of you do, it is just fine. In fact, I'll say that unless you are a hardcore gamer, there is no reason to use Windows. Most of you know that I am a Mac fan, myself. It combines the ease of programming and hacking of Linux with the prettiness that years of working on being pretty have created. I realize that some of you don't want to spend the money for an Apple. (Not like they are actually that much more expensive.) So do yourself a favor. At least TRY Linux. If you want, I'll give you a copy of KNOPPIX, a bootable Linux Distribution that you can run on your current computer without messing up anything that you already have.

Despite my rant, all of you are going to continue using Windows. Fine. But at least do everyone in the world a favor, and switch to something besides IE. I'm going to point you all over to Matt because he wrote a great article about IE and alternatives, and I don't want to steal any of his fire. I agree with everything that he says. In fact, right now, even though I'm on a Windows PC, I'm using Mozilla. Tabbed browsing and automatic pop-up blocking are too amazingly sexy.

Oh, one more thing. If you are going to stay on Windows, move your task bar to the right (or left) side of the screen. It allows you to have many more windows open before things start getting small or being grouped together. It is a great idea, that I personally didn't think of. Leave it to an artist...

Okay, that is enough being crazy for now.

Posted by Nathan at 27.01.04 18:02

Comments

Okay, I read the post you linked to, but I'm not really sure what benefits I get from switching away from IE. How would my use of "[t]abbed browsing and automatic pop-up blocking" be doing "everyone in the world a favor?" Maybe I missed something, but it seems hard to argue with the fact that 90% of web users use IE and therefore most sites will work reasonably well for me if I'm using IE. (Especially commercial sites, which certainly don't want to alienate 90% of their visitors.)

Posted by: david at 27.01.04 19:04

Because if you stop using IE, maybe websites will start adhering to standards.

Posted by: Nathan at 27.01.04 20:29

The problem with Linux is that stuff doesn't work with it. I made my old computer dual-boot to Linux, and the sound didn't work because there was no Linux driver for my sound card. People were working on one, but had been only half done for about 2 years because they were not being compensated for their time. Reason #1a why I don't believe in Open Source. Even if there was a driver, it would have been unnecessarily difficult to install. Most programming tools are easier to use in Linux, but 99.9% of computer users are not programmers. The problem with almost all "switch to Linux" arguments is that the proponents are techies who ignore the needs of the average user.

As for IE, long ago I switched to it from Netscape because it made webpages look nicer than they looked in Netscape. I use Mozilla at work when I use Linux, and whether it's standards compliant or not, the only thing that looks better in Mozilla is fonts. Virtually everything else on every site I visit looks and works better in IE. And IE with the Google toolbar installed will block popups.

Posted by: Chris Hill Festival at 27.01.04 21:44

Guess I should weigh in on this.

I won't touch the Linux stuff, because I know basically nothing about the OS. I will say that I really like the Windows interface better than any other that I've used (including OS X). Sure, it might look a little arcane, but as far as functionality goes I have yet to see anything that matches it.

Now on to the IE stuff, which is of much more interest to me as a web designer. First, Mozilla is NOT Netscape. Netscape is an old version of Mozilla. Netscape should not be even considered in any discussion about Mozilla. Firebird in particular is a completely new product.

I can tell you with 100% confidence that IE is holding back the development of the web. IF it was able to support a standards-compliant design (which it can't), there would be a tremendous number of things that we designers could do with web pages that right now we simple can't. For a classic example, take a look at http://www.mezzoblue.com/ first in Mozilla, then in IE. See how you get the drop down menus in Mozilla? IE won't display them because it incorrectly renders the :float property.

Of course, you could render something similar using javascript, but then I could get into an arugment about how javascript adds ridiculous load times (I've seen many, many professionally done sites with over 200kb of javascript on every page), not to mention numerous browser incompatibilities (I'm just talking different versions of IE here). The fact remains that it is IMPOSSIBLE to design anything but the most rudimentary of sites, and expect it to work perfectly in IE 5 and 6 on PC, and IE 5 on Mac. Even MSN.com doesn't work correctly in IE 5. If that doesn't prove my point, I'm not sure what does.

Here's where it sucks for you the user. Because everyone is still using IE, I can't implement the "cool stuff" I could otherwise put on a site. Instead, I have to stick to the same design tricks that everyone has been using for the last 5 years. So, in the end, you get a more boring, less functional site. Sure, your average badly designed site often times still works better in IE, I won't argue that for a second. But unless the internet user base as a whole starts putting some pressure on MS to make a browser that correctly renders HTML (and updates their old browsers to do the same), you will be looking at that same ugly website for the rest of your life.

It is kind of like having sex with a good-looking girl that is loaded with herpes and crabs. Sure, it is fun right now, but you are screwing your future self. The only difference is that there is an even better looking, very clean girl just begging for the chance to have her way with you, even AFTER you've loaded yourself up with those herpes and crabs from the first girl. OK, I'm taking this [admittedly terrible] analogy way too far. But you get the idea.

Do yourself and the rest of the internet population a favor, and don't use IE. You'll thank yourself for it.

Posted by: Matt at 28.01.04 11:09

But you've missed the whole point, I'm afraid. As long as a majority of sites continue to be designed with IE in mind, IE will remain the best browser to use. I get no benefits from leading the pack away from IE, especially when I'm fairly certain the pack won't follow. Furthermore, I don't see the point of jumping from browser to browser as opinions on the "best" browser wax and wane. I vividly remember a movement from a few years ago where websites would detect the browser you were using and not display any content if you were using an "unacceptable" browser. Except back then, the "unacceptable" browser was Netscape and the recommended browser was IE.

The browser wars are, for all intents and purposes, over. Internet Explorer won and is, perhaps, a bit complacent in victory. Nonetheless, a bigger groundswell than currently exists is needed to unseat it, and I don't see anything resembling the that on the horizon.

Posted by: david at 28.01.04 15:58

You remember a few years ago when all of the big sites were still doing browser detection? They still are. Nearly every commerical site you will visit has, somewhere, javascript browser detection code that does different displays for the different versions of IE.

No, you don't specifically get any benefits of "leading the pack away from IE", except that you are using a better browser. The claims that its rendering engine (or the rendering engine of any other browser -- we aren't just talking about Mozilla) are greatly exaggerated. I have no problems whatsoever using Mozilla as my primary browser. 98% of the sites I visit on a regular basis render with no problems. On the rare occasion that I go to a site that is so sloppily done that it fails to show in Moz, I fire up IE and paste the address in. But, like I said, that happens very rarely. I can only think of two occasions since I reformatted my machine a few months ago that I used IE to view a site that was unreadable in Mozilla.

So, even though many sites design only for IE (though again, which version of IE?), I would contend that Mozilla is STILL the better and more functional browser, due to the ridiculous number of features it offers that IE doesn't. Therefore, in response to your first line, I haven't missed your point. I understand your point fully - until a scant 6 months ago, I agreed with it 100%. Now, after giving Firebird a fair shot, I realize that I couldn't have been more wrong.

But to each his own.

Matt

Posted by: Matt at 28.01.04 16:33

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