We have all see it, spam messages in your email, spam on your phone, spam in your blog, forum, social media portal and chat windows. A quick search will show that unsolicited email accounts for 80-90% of the email we receive. This seems high, but a quick glace at my Gmail inbox currently shows a spam box with 3438 emails and Gmail deletes spam that is older than 30 days. By the way, Gmail has an incredible spam filter.
Browser specific websites used to be the norm in the early days of the web. Back in the days when a site would tell you what resolution you should be using and what browser works best. This should be a thing of the past, but every now and then I still see “This site best viewed in such and such a resolution” and sometimes a splash saying “This site is only supported in Internet Explorer”.
Okay, I seriously don’t understand what people have against the browser back button; especially large corporate sites, what did the back button ever do to you? Today I was looking at wireless plans. There was a huge list of plans so I started clicking on them to find out more, I click back, see the page for a split second only to be forwarded back to the page I have already finished reading. I look around the page and oh, there’s the tiny button that will take me back to the list of plans. Why would you invent new functionality that already exists and is very familiar to the user? Okay, maybe it’s for users who don’t know what the big backwards facing arrow at the top of their browser is for, but the vast majority of us do know how to use the back button and it is much faster than looking for a web graphic back button which could be anywhere on your page.
This is an extremely basic good usability practice. The best part about this one is you don’t even have to do anything to have this functionality. In fact you actually have to go out of your way to annoy your users. There are some instances where a form may need to break back functionality, but I see it in places where it isn’t necessary at all.
So maybe all the protesting over at Ruined iPhone and other places on the web have paid off. The whole iPhone outrage even hit mainstream news media. Basically Rogers and Fido (which are the same company) will allow you to take a phone plan and add a $30 6 GB plan to it. This is a temporary “deal” you can buy into with a 3 year contract before Aug 31st. It is a much better deal, but a lot of people are asking why it’s only temporary?
The web is on fire with angry Canadians and even sympathetic support from other countries on the Rogers iPhone pricing. One website that’s getting a lot of buzz is the ruinediphone.com petition. It had a much more colourful domain name earlier, but I’m assuming they realized it would gain more support with a less explicit name.
It really is amazing how a popular video, cool website or even an online movement can go viral and spread throughout the Internet like wild fire. As I was searching around tonight, I found something that really stirred my interest. Something that could have far more impact than the Ruined iPhone petition, because the issues on price gouging and misleading advertising go far deeper than the iPhone. It’s Bill C-555 which was actually proposed a few weeks ago.
Today Rogers announced no unlimited data plan and a ridiculous 3 year lock in for Apple’s highly anticipated iPhone. Rogers announces iPhone 3G plans, unlimited data isn’t one of them on Engadget has all the details. The official Rogers iPhone voice data packages are online too.
This is pretty disappointing, you have this really cool phone, but if you actually use it much you will pay through the teeth. No YouTube for you! I hope some day Rogers has some real competition, and I hope everyone remembers their monopoly and horrible prices. The rumours appear to be wrong, nothing is going to change up here in the north.
Now the question is do I give in and get one anyway? I’m not sure yet, but I’m leaning towards no.
I think I’m usually a pretty nice guy, but the other night I got snappy with a sales person. I’ve been doing laptop research for the past few weeks and I finally picked the HP Artists Edition Laptop which was on sale at Future Shop. I know, everything is always on sale there and if it’s not, you’re probably paying too much for it. That said, I was picking it up for someone else and we had pretty much settled on which one we wanted.
I have a great Wordpress plugin called CyStats. This allows me to see in real time who is visiting or crawling my blog. I recently started posting my blog entries to Twitter and noticed two web crawlers called HTTP://TWITTURLS.COM and TWITTURLY/V0.5. Later a friend sent me a link to Twitturly and that led to finding Twitturls. These sites were the source of the crawlers.
I’ve followed this followed this game from the start. I was a hardcore Street Fighter fan back in the days when there were lines-ups around the Street Fighter II arcade machines, and I have owned various version of this game on earlier consoles like the Super Nintendo. Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (Wow that’s a mouthful) will be released in beta if you buy Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3 on Xbox Live arcade for the 360. I have tried Commando 3 and it’s really not my kind of game, but I think I may have to bite the bullet and buy it just so I can play the Beta of Street Fighter, I’m that much of a Street Fighter geek.
Every single frame of animation has been redone in this game, and it aims to tweak game play and add a few new moves while still staying true to the original. The game will even run in wide screen. Capcom has also mentioned the possibility of expansions in the future. The original Xbox live file size restrictions have also been overcome.
Now for the bad news, the controllers. For some horribly bizarre and sadistic reason you cannot use a high end controller on the 360. If you have a 500 dollar DDR mat or a 200 dollar arcade joystick, it’s pretty much useless on the 360 unless you want to do some serious modding that will require an extra 360 pad. This really sucks, and it’s always been a huge beef of players on the 360, why do they even use a USB plug? Last time I checked the U stood for Universal.
Anyway, enough of my rant, I will still give in and buy this game because I can taste it. Check our the screenshots on IGN and there are a few game play videos on Gametrailers.
Check out my last article on Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
Okay, lately more and more I’ve been noticing that my middle click doesn’t work. Why do so many website developers and designers insist on breaking basic usability? Why on earth would you ever want to annoy your users and take away an expected browser behaviour?
Welcome to the blog of Ian Hoar. I talk about current web trends, technology, toys, games, gadgets, design, usability and everything in between. It’s all about geeking out and an occasional rant. More about me
