I’m definitely getting tired of the term Web 2.0. I actually have started to cringe every time I hear someone say an idea isn’t 2.0, a site looks very 1.0, or anything similar or derived from those statements. Web 2.0 is a philosophy more than a standard, and unfortunately, the term has been bastardized and marginalized from when it was originally coined. However, I have to support the general movement, and in doing so, provide the following link as a good resource for those looking to spice up their online presence. I do caution that the use of these resources will not make your website 2.0. Simply adding rounded corners or colourful badges will not actually facilitate the Web 2.0 movement or equate to and adherence to Web 2.0 standards. As I mentioned, it is a philosophy, and too difficult to explain well or effectively, especially with so many interpretations and/or preconceived ideas already filtering into the mainstream. Hopefully the link and downstream links help, either directly or through inspiration.

99 Resources for Web 2.0 Design

I have yet to experience the newest Mac OS X release personally, but there have been (almost) nothing but good things said about the release of Leopard. Many of the over 300 new features are probably unnoticed, but what is the key to Mac’s success with these releases? Their attention to - or acceptance of - the most important factor in development: customer experience.

One of the constant battles that I have with true developers revolves around customer experience. Design and ease of use are often forgotten, and without keeping those in mind, it’s difficult to create an interface and experience that is obvious and intuitive, something that average users expect from their products. Complete overhauls that require the user to re-learn products are hit and miss, for example, Windows Vista and Office 2007.

Office 2007 was the type of upgrade that makes power users like myself need. It took a bit to adapt, but the good easily outweighs the bad when it comes to the new menu interface, making the gamble a good one. Vista, on the other hand, has nearly been a complete failure in my eyes. Having opted for the OS on my recent laptop purchase, I’m quickly regretting the decision to have adopted the new release. I’ve almost never had any problems with Windows operating systems, even as far back as 3.1. I experienced 95, 98, a bit of NT, loved XP, and recently was given a throw-away system with ME on it; out of the list, ME gave me the most problems, but none have compared with the constant crashes and frustrations given to me by Vista. I understand the need for increased security - using a phrase I (may or may not have) coined at a Sxip beta test: the average user is still the average user. Fine, we need to prevent them from inadvertantly installing pretty much everything. I can appreciate the need to prevent piracy; it will happen regardless, but hey, making it harder is fine. My gripe is that those force the user experience to take a bit of a backseat.

I like what Microsoft has TRIED to do, my only problem is they haven’t succeeded. Too many bugs, too many crashes, too many headaches. I’m looking at taking everything off my system and throwing on a copy of XP. Why? It works. I can handle the odd blue screen of death now and then, but daily problems with Windows Explorer that cause me to shut down and restart (thankfully I’m not one of those people who loses hours or days of work because of it) are unacceptable.

Have I mentioned how much I love these things? While I spent a few minutes yesterday reading lists like 10 Terrible Comic Book Ads, 7 Most Historic Mighty Morhpin Power Ranger Monsters, and (the one that got me there), 6 Weird Inventions From 2007, none of them compare to Wired Magazine’s Saddest Cubicle Contest. While I have been fairly lucky in my office cubicle experiences, there are those that suffer from a variety of problems. Some cubicles go missing while their owners are in meetings, some cubicles are actually steel containers, and some cubicles are pseudo-cubicles made from filing cabinets.

The best moment was when I clicked on the submission from the cubicle that went missing and the picture didn’t show up until I refreshed. Have to love the irony!

I’m not sure how this has stayed off of my radar, let alone the rest of the Tech sector’s. I was reading an article about Who Needs a Quad Core PC when I noticed a little link at the bottom Is Yahoo Working On A Cell Phone. The title alone came as a complete shock, but when I read the article and found out that Michael Arrington had posted about this on CrunchGear, I was shocked that more of the blogs that I frequent hadn’t at least commented on the topic. While the link in the article for the Northwest Indiana and Illinois Times Newspaper is no longer working, I’ll include this chunk from the InformationWeek post (that was from the NWI Times article):

Yahoo will open the center with 120 employees and has said it plans to add more. Most of the first employees will come from a pool of workers left behind by Motorola Inc. when the cell-phone maker closed a software design center on campus earlier this month.

Yahoo plans to put most of its new hires to work developing better ways to use data the company gathers on its users to refine its search technology and its ability to target users for advertisers, Ojjeh said.

While this used to be a subjective process, it has actually been turned into a science with an easy to follow flowchart of yes/no questions. It’s cute and clever, which always gets bonus points, and it seems as though the site has been around for 10 years, which should give it a lot of cred. Normally I’d enjoy the moment on a post like this, but it’s actually spurred on a second article in this genre of How-to posts - How to tell if a web page sucks Part II: view the exact same link in IE.

While I’m sure Bruce Alderson will lose little or no sleep knowing that IE users like myself are unable to really view the page, let this be a warning to developers to ensure their posts/pages/sites are cross-browser compatible. At Superb, we try and test (religiously) in IE6/7 and Mozilla, with a sprinkling of Safari and IE and Mozilla for Mac.

UPDATE: Of course I go to the page on my home computer and it comes up fine in IE7. Regardless, it’s still a fun thing to go through and the point of ensuring cross-browser compatability stands.