[net_liff] Google Chrome, Now With Built-In Tab Synching

2816.The new Google Chrome, Chrome 19, is in the stable channel, and what got my attention was that they have apparently brought tab synching to the browser. This is supposed to mean that no matter where you are, on what computer, whenever you use Chrome you have the same tabs on any session on any computer you use. Your browser follows you everywhere.

This'll probably have two reactions depending on how you see Google; for those who aren't down with the seemingly-ever-increasing amount of information Google collects on you to make your online experience as unified as possible, there will be a search on how to turn that off; to those who don't mind or don't care … and judging by how well Google still seems to be perceived or how popular Chrome seems to be, that's an ass-ton of us … it'll be a boon.

And here's TechCrunch's article: http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/15/chrome-19-launches-now-features-built-in-tab-syncing/

[web_design] Jim Greenfield For Congress, Now Lorem Ipsum Free!

2691.For a few posts I poked fun at Oregon 1st Congressional District Republican contender Jim Greenfield for apparently posting a website that consisted of a template and significant contributions from a Mr. Lorem Ipsum … that is, remarkable areas of placeholder text.

In fairness I am happy point out now that he has a proper campaign website with not a trace of placeholder text thereon, and its address is actually http://jimgreenfieldforcongress.com. H/T to his campaign manager, Richard P. Burke for pointing this out.

[web_design] The Sort Of Website You'd Expect From The Country That Gave Us Existentialism

2687.When I was a kid, there was this toy. It was in the form of a sort of crank, which was attached to a wooden block with two channels in a cross. Two sliders were in each of the cross-channels, and the handle of the crank was attached to both, and the leverage was such that, as you rotated the crank handle, one slider would be pulled in its channel, then, as the limit of that would be reached, the other one would be pulled through its channel … over and over and over … never quite touching but coming very close, and if you did it long enough it would make you this sort of crazy, that you'd vary the cadence of the thing, trying to make the two sliders meet, which was, of course, impossible.

Sort of my introduction to existentialism, I guess.

Anyway, somehow I stumbled on this German site, Nirgendwo is irgendwo, http://www.nirgendwo.de/. Go ahead and go there, and come right back. I'll wait.

Back? Good. Did you see what they did there?

First you see a black screen with the words as such:

This, if you'd not yet figured it out, means nowhere is somewhere. Mousing around the screen you find no links except for over the words, and when you click it, you get this:

Or, somewhere is nowhere. And when you click on that, you just go back to the other one. And that's all there is, there is nothing more. Has the online experience been better encompassed ever? It's like this bizarre German version of the taijitu. 

But that isn't all. If you missed it before, go back now and click the links, but this time look at the address bar.

Did you see it this time?

Not satisfied with just this sere experience, the designer didn't stop at making this one site with two pages, no sir. He/She actually put the two statements on two seperate webpages. The second phrase is at a site called http://irgendwo.de. This is truly awesome. 

Web design is complete with this website. Screw Web 2.0, or even 3.0, this transcends that. We can close up the internet and all go home now.

[web_design] Presumably He Has A Significant Greeking Constituency*

2680.Jim Greenfield, hopeful Oregon 1st Congressional District Republican candidate to succeed David Wu, still, at this date, has significant lorem ipsum (or, placeholder text) issues with his significantly-uninspired website, http://greenfieldforcongress.com. 


I've detailed his problems here. They still exist as enumerated thereon. I suppose it's possible that the candidate's site is a prank. If it isn't, I'm asking myself - as a voter, now, and this speaks to branding as I've said before - does he really care all that much?

If you want a look at a site about someone who actually cares about getting elected, check out Brad Avakian's. Not a ton of song'n'dance, no fireworks, just effective layout and sensible design and communication. And no placeholder text.

Just sayin'.

* "Greeking" is also designer-speak for random placeholder text, as in the old saw it's all Greek to me, and awkwardly-written designer-political jokes.

[web_design] Jim Greenfield, OR-1 Candidate, Is Very Proud of His Lorem Ipsum

2671.Via T.A.Barnhart on Google+, I find this bit of silliness courtesy of a member of one of the silliest groups of people in Oregon … Republican Congressional also-rans. In this case, it's one of the flock of candidates vying for the seat that was vacated by 8-term Congressman David Wu.

As of today, at this time, this is Mr Greenfield's website (http://www.greenfieldforcongress.com/)

It's really kind of template-y, nothing bad but nothing especially good or creative. The antique phone is a good touch. We're using different phones now, but it's an artistic point, I suppose, though I expected a little more from a candidate who's running "an active special primary race". It's got to be more active than his website is right now. But - what! Lower left and lower right there … there's some interesting text down there.

We all want to know what any candidate of any stripe has done, and Mr Greenfield has done us a solid by telling us. Looking at the third item on that list really impressed me. I'm not disposed to vote Republiclan, but anyone who successfully esqesed dolorliquam congue fermenumn impresses me. That's no mean achievement! But that next-to-last one is a deal-breaker for me … I don't think it's good for America to promote adipsicing allquetulla. That, to me, is a lifestyle choice, and people shouldn't be discouraged from making it, but don't think my taxes should support it!

Of course, you can say whatever your experience is, your achievements can be the proof in the pudding. In this case, Mr. Greenfield's greatest achievements were using three paragraphs of lorem ipsum text and a stock filler photo of two attractive women. As a trained graphic designer, I myself am a great advocate of lorem ipsum text, so at least, even if Greenfield is a Republican, there's one thing we all can agree with.

Although I will say this about me: I've used more at one go than he did, so in that case, I'm moar qualified to be a US Congressman than he is. I also know more dialects of lorem ipsum than he does, so if you want a man who speaks the true gibberish of the people, then I am that man.

Seriously, however,  I'm sure than Jim Greenfield is more serious about his run than this website suggests it is. At least I hope he is. This speaks not only to effective web design (the template-y design of the site and the failure to do something about something so fundamental as filler text in the template suggests a design process that's at best, sloppy, and probably non-existent in reality) but speaks to branding.

Everytime a candidate speaks they're expanding their brand, what they stand for. And, aside from some standard old-wine-in-new-skin (and the skin ain't even that new, actually) about free markets and the national budget, there isn't much of anything compelling to recommend him over, say, someone who has an actual chance of winning the special election.

Although it would have been more impressive if he'd just put up a simple "coming soon" page with a donation link. Or, failing that, not letting this bowser go live at all. Or maybe not letting his web designer knock off early and go home.

The screenshots above were current as of the writing of this missive. It may have changed by the time you look at it. At least I damn skippy hope it did.

The West Wide Web

2127.I am now using Firefox 3.5, and I'm well pleased. This is a good update. And, judging by the popularity, me and over eight millions worldwide rather agree.

Firefox never debuts without a little flash and style, and they've provided one in the form of the live download monitor at the location http://downloadstats.mozilla.com. The thing, which is really quite nifty, provides a graphical view (via a world map) and tabular view (below the map) which you can reconfigure on the fly as you like.

Two days ago, with I originally downloaded FF, I checked in on that. At the height of the download frenzy, here's three screenshots of that map. See if you can discern the story it seems to be telling:

That was the graphical state of the Firefox download world at approximately 1357 PDT on 30 June 2009. What is more remarkable than where Firefox is getting downloaded is where it isn't. I watched the little candles flicker in and own for several minutes, and I expected a big demand from the USA and Western Europe, but Asia (except for the occiasional flicker in Japan and the Phillippines), Oceania (save for the occaisional pip on the lower right margin of Australia) and Africa? Hardly anything. The European interest dropped off like a wall when the eye crossed the boundary into the heart of the old Warsaw Pact, it seems.

The most active continent behind NorthAm and Europe was South America, but it seemed, visually to be a rather feeble third-place. I just checked back on it at the time of this writing, and it looks much the same (though the rates have slowed down somewhat), and the countries at the top of the list have remained the USA, Germany, France, and Japan (the USA has the most FF downloads by far, with over 2 Millions).

Country-by-country downloads of FF as of 1305 PDT 2 July 2009.
The five top countries: USA, Germany, Japan, France, the UK.
Download frequency seems to drop precpitiously as you move down this list.
Screencaptured from http://downloadstats.mozilla.com.

I will say right up front here, as I do a little drilling-down, that I don't know if this says anything particular. Actually it probably says many cogent things, for instance, it seems to suggest that the world economy (if you take a preponderance of personal computers and users with time to download internet porn Firefox as congruent to wealth and prosperity, which doesn't seem an unreasonable thing to do) is still largely based in and driven by what we used to call the "First World"; you could see here the digital divide writ large amongst the nations of the world, you could see this as a diagram of what has and what doesn't have (and, certainly, great swaths of territory are empty because they are inclement to human life; still, there are areas that are comparativiely thick with humanity (central Africa, the eastern margin of South America, and notable, China and India) that one would think would be ablaze. But they aren't). I'm also not trying to ring anyone up for being unfair. We all not only generate but are subject to stresses that we sometimes don't understand. We are what we are and the world is what it is.

The point that I've kind of wound my way to is this: Even in this world where we can grab a webcam and virtually travel anywhere, we still live in a limited world, and the lens with which we view it seems to be skewed toward the developed West. This can be a good thing (if we understand that our view is, despite being what it is, is limited, and we work to keep this in mind) or a bad thing (if we use our view of the world being what we see over the WWW to be a confirmation of our bias that our Western society is necessarily (I cannot note strongly enough that operative term) is the acme of civilized development on this planet

Though the WWW and increasingly less expensive technology (software as well as hardware) we have a great lens that lets us see the world as our forebears not only couldn't, but couldn't imagine. But, paradoxically, it seems to hide at the same time it seems to reveal. What do you really know about the center of Asia, or the center of Africa, or southeast Asia? What you read on the Web, of course, which is largely found in the industrialized West.

It's a beautiful lens onto the world, the WWW is. I don't know how I got alon with out it. But, just like any advanced instrument, it must be used with care. We must be smart enough to know what it tells us, as well as what it doesnt.

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