Be sure to subscribe to the blog, or at least bookmark it, as we’ve just entered the last month of development and will be releasing lots of interesting tidbits shortly.
The Windows team have revealed that Internet Explorer 8, and Windows Media Player, will be detached from the rest of the Windows OS.
Clearly this is good news for users who want the choice, but what interests me is the way Microsoft have chosen to communicate this feature.
I think, ultimately, it’s smart to use the more natural language of ‘on’ or ‘off’ as opposed to ‘install’ or ‘uninstall’. It’s easier to understand for those who haven’t used a computer for an extended period, for one.
But as someone who has used a computer for a while, it’s almost overly simplistic language. However, what’s more important, in my opinion, is that I can’t be sure if this window will actually do what it claims it will do.
Does ‘turning a feature off’ merely deactivate it, leaving the program dormant and hidden yet still on your hard disk, or does it uninstall the program, requiring the install DVD to be re-inserted if you ever want to turn it back ‘on’?
The middle ground
“A filled box means that only part of the feature is turned on.”
It strikes me that the fact this must be written indicates that the ‘filled box’ user interface element is not obvious enough, and needs re-thinking.
Doing so, of course, is a challenge. Mac OS X uses what looks like a hyphen, which is not entirely an excellent solution… but given the choice between a ‘filled box’ and a box with a hyphen inside, which best represents the state in between ‘all’ and ‘none’?
UCAS, who (three years ago, at least) had the most fucked web app for applying for anything, ever. Only worked properly in IE5. It was as if they had designed it to be an intelligence/perseverance filter, too.
This new home of our Student Finance information which again makes it a new task to find where to get the information from. Not to mention all the different, obscure kinds of passwords and questions they ask you in order to log in. Seriously, you need to know about five passwords, not to mention an all-numeric ‘username’ (perviously known as an ‘ART ID’ for some reason), in order to be able to log in.
Perian is an free, open source tool which allows QuickTime to play back some very popular, but natively unsupported, video formats.
Specifically, it adds support for the DIVX and 3ivx codecs, and as such is an essential tool… and especially useful if you want to play back videos downloaded via BitTorrent on your Mac.
Before Perian, it was a pain in the bum to find the correct downloads for these codecs and install them. Now Perian makes it incredibly easy. Excellent work, team Perian!
The work has been hailed as a major step forward by scientists and welcomed by pro-life organisations, who called on researchers to halt other experiments which use stem cells collected from embryos made at IVF clinics.
When building a Drupal site sometimes you’ll be faced with the following problem: You want a link to send users to different paths based on what kind of user they are.
There are two obvious solutions to this:
First look at the user, and then add the appropriate menu item to the menu, or:
Set up a path which is the same for all users, and when they attempt to access it redirect them to the appropriate path.
Option two is, I think, the simplest and most appropriate solution to this problem, and so that’s what I’m going to show you how to do. Read on »
Usually with Drupal 5 and 6, users who log in will be sent to their /user page, which will show them their account details, etc.
But, if you’re working on a community site (or any site, really), chances are you don’t want your newly-logged-ins to go there. Well, it’s sort of a dead-end as far as content goes, isn’t it?
Download and install the simple Login Desitnation module, which will allow you to specify exactly where users should go.
This module allows you to specify just one path, or allow you to execute some PHP in order to decide where this particular user should go. This is especially useful if you want to forward users based on their role.
Some related words of wisdom:
Where do you disable public registrations?
By default anybody can register a new account. To remove this option, visit /admin/user/settings and look at the ‘Public registrations’ options.
How can I change the ‘Access denied’ page to the ‘login’ page?
The ‘Access denied’ page Drupal shows users who’ve clicked on a link to content which is typically restricted to logged-in users is a bit useless.
To change what’s displayed to the login page, visit /admin/settings/error-reporting and change the (blank by default) ‘Default 403 (access denied) page’ field to ‘user‘.
If you do this, you should be aware that logged in users who are visiting a page they’re not allowed to access (the ‘modules’ page, for example) will be forwarded to their profile page when this occurs, without an error.
However, in most simple Drupal environments this shouldn’t be an issue, as users shouldn’t be presented with links to content/pages beyond their access.
The problem affects all software and systems that store system time as a signed 32-bit integer, and interpret this number as the number of seconds since 00:00:00 January 1, 1970.
The latest time that can be represented this way is 03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, 19 January 2038.
Those damn computers, always trying to take down the world…
Dr Ben Goldacre, who writes the ‘Bad Science’ column for the Guardian, absolutely rinsed a well-animated Dr Aric Sigman’s writing on the effects of Social Networks, on Newsnight last night in the wake of the recent media hype about their potential damage
Goldacre follows up on the appearance on his blog.
The new Safari 4 Beta’s website claims on the “Features” page:
Inline Progress Indicator [NEW]
Safari was the first browser to move the progress indicator into the address field, making it more visible and freeing up space for web content. At a glance, you can see exactly when a site is finished loading.
Unusually, however, this feature is neither new nor present.
Well, it is there, you just have to execute a hack to get it back:
defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4LoadProgressStyle -bool NO
defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeToolbarRedesign -bool NO
Running both of these commands within Terminal will restore the old Address Bar without the permanently attached “Add Bookmark” button, and restore the background loading indicator.
It will, however, break the UI slightly: a spinner with the wrong background colour will appear in the corner of your tab. An acceptable loss, I feel.
(I found this out thanks to a nice guy called Caius Durling’s pastie, where you can find some other useful tips, too.)
I don’t like how they’ve match the iPhone by putting the refresh button inside the Address Bar on the right. It feels wrong.
I don’t like how you can’t get rid of the ‘Add Bookmark’ button, which is embedded into the Address bar on the left.
I don’t like how the widths of all tabs, which are now displayed along the top of the window, is in total 100% the width of window. I’ve got a large monitor and it means I have a hard time negotiating that; by using fixed-width tabs you can easily anticipate where they lie, and so use them quicker.
I don’t like how you can no longer use an entire tab to drag it around, but rather you must look for the ‘handle’ in order to reposition it. It seems like they’re making the target smaller, and so the interface more difficult, for no apparent real reason.
…and some praise (it’s due):
Although I might not use it, I think users will like the ‘Top Sites’ screen.
Cover Flow is kind-of good. I don’t think it’ll be useful much, but it could be useful, especially in the context of looking through your history. Often when looking for an elusive site you’ve visited, you’re in a ‘I’ll know it when I see it’ situation, which this addresses nicely.
I like that they’re giving Windows users their native feel back.
I love full-page zoom. It’s going to help me enjoy reading on the Internet quite a bit more. It works wonders, for example, on the BBC News website.
This release also sports some updated UI graphics, if you look at the Address Bar and search field. They’re looking crisper than their other counterparts, sporting no cut-out shadow. Is this a taste of the ‘marble’ look said to be coming in Snow Leopard?
The Home Office last Friday released a new report aimed at highlighting risks of online social networks towards children and young people, which also attempts to provide advice on how to deal with these risks.
What’s inside
Part 1 of the report gives a very fair and concise overview of social networks and the issues they bring up. It’s surprisingly broad, actually, covering topics such as location data, the Internet with regards to a child’s physiological development, and of course child abuse and bullying.
Part 2 gives recommendations for good practice, and as such is the most relevant to those who produce websites with social networking features. It’s very thorough, and well worth a read through even if only to refresh your memory regarding these sorts of things.
There is a clear, and rather agreeable, emphasis placed on the default options leaning very strongly towards privacy… ‘open profiles’ are the kind of feature which should certainly not be enabled by default.
Part 3 contains advice for parents and carers. While the advice in this part is just as good, I can’t help but read through it and think “yeah right”… parent’s can’t possibly be expected to pull all that off successfully, let alone attempt it all!
There is an important balance between educating children and young people about the risks online, viewing what they are doing and actually trusting them in their use of social networking sites and allowing them a degree of autonomy.
True ‘dat.
Being effective
If anything, it drives home that those who can be most effective in protecting children/young adults is us; we make the websites, we make the rules.
It’s down to us to make the playground safe, because legislators and parents can only do so much in this space.
This is a clear, sound and well-produced document which is certainly worth reading if you work with any sort of ’social’ media. Its just a shame Jacqui ‘that crazy woman in the Home Office’ Smith is the one to give the forward. Well, at least she’s actually taking this one into account.
When building a Drupal site sometimes you’ll be faced with the following problem: You want a link to send users to different paths based on what kind of user they are.
The new Safari 4 Beta’s website claims on the “
The Home Office last Friday released