IE7 – what’s important?

I’ve been thinking – and procrastinating. I had a comment to a post in Scobleizer’s blog, about the Acid2 test and Opera’s challenge to Microsoft:

What is left now is for MS to ace the Acid2 test with IE7, and make it secure to counter the reputation in that field, and optionally add features so that it will be an attractive browser to use.

And Robert Scobleizer answered thus:

Yup, although I’m still not sure just how many Web standards we’ll be able to support in the next version. Supporting Web standards are important, but not the most important thing on the list. By far security is more important. So we’re continuing to work on that first and make sure we nail that. Just wanna let you know that figuring out software development priorities are tough.

Believe it or not, but the IE team does not have unlimited numbers of really smart developers.

Now, I do know that expecting that IE7 will completely support CSS1 and CSS2.1 right away is not realistic, but I started thinking: What is the most important thing? This does depend on your point of view, I guess, but there is one thing that gives us a hint, I believe: Why did MS change their mind and decide to release IE7 for Windows XP after all, and not wait for Longhorn as previously stated? Personally, I’ve got no doubt the popularity of FireFox is at least partly to blame.

Security is of course important – very important – and when there are warnings from many against using IE due to security risks, it’s especially important to eliminate threats. There will be many scrutinising eyes at the release of the new version, and I don’t think MS can take any chances not getting that right.

But security isn’t all, is it? Security isn’t the only reason people have downloaded FireFox and Opera – what more is there? There are some who are enticed by the tabbed browsing alone, and have said they would switch back to IE if it got tabbed browsing too. More are enjoying other features, either built in or via extensibility (plug ins) – and then there are those who like the fact that the alternatives support standards much better than IE.

I have no idea how many of the FireFox users and Opera users care about standards support or even know what the standards are about. How many have just heard about FireFox and/or Opera and that it is so much better than IE, or got it recommended, and just decided to try it and see without knowing much more than the names and that they support tabbed browsing? But when it comes to web designers and developers, standard support is very important, and some are getting very impatient with MS. From time to time, and from many different sources, I’m hearing the equivalent of “Screw Microsoft, IE can get served a less advanced web page. I’ll support the standards.” The voices uttering these opinions are not getting fewer.

This is also an aspect Microsoft have to consider: When users visit such pages with standards compliant browsers, and then see a usable, but less advances/pretty/whatever result in IE, which browser will they use? How will they react? While many users don’t care or know about the standards the web pages are built on, their experience with the browsers that support standards (or not) will be an influence. So while security is a necessity, standards support shouldn’t lag too far behind. And maybe have a look into which browser features are popular – when standard support is in place, that’s where the browsers are going to win and lose users. All in my humble opinion, of course.

In any case, it will be intereting to see the result of MS’ work on IE7, at least.

Opera included in Adobe Creative Suite 2

In an interview in March, HÃ¥konWium Lie, CTO of Opera said there would be some big news in April. And here it is: Today they announced that Opera will be integrated in the Adobe Creative Suite 2, which include products like Photoshop CS2 and GoLive CS2.

This is great news. With this integration, not only will web designers automatically be encouraged to develop for and test in a standards compliant browser – with Operas technology it will also be possible to see how their designs will appear on small screens, such as PDAs and mobile phones.

The end of the music industry. Or not.

Right from the beginning, when Napster made sharing music easy, the music industry claimed that it hurt the sales, and robbed the artists from their money. For just as long, those who downloaded music for free said they bought more music, since they discovered new (for them) artists this way. After all, why not try something new when it doesn’t cost you anything?

Alan Wexelblat writes in his article The revenge of Sapir-Whorf that all studies have shown no negative effect on the music sales due to P2P-sharing, and studies that have shown an effect, have shown that it has been a positive effect. Not quite what the music industry want you to hear, eh?

So – what is the problem then? Well – from the consumers’ side it is that we haven’t been able to buy what we’re willing to pay for, simply because record companies wouldn’t sell it to us. Instead, they want to sell us what we don’t want instead: Music we can’t use as we want and play where we want on the equipment we want. Music with lots of restrictions. What’s the reason for this? Is it just the fear of not getting money for everything, or is it more? Do they want complete control over how we can listen to our music, making us pay several times for the same music if we want to play it several places?

Well – if the music sales finally go down, it may just as likely (or more) be because people stop buying music due to such restrictions, which just makes it cumbersome for us.

Persian music download

I like music. I like popular music of the kind you hear on the radio all the time, but I also like music from countries we rarely hear music from. At least here in Norway. For me, the internet is great that way – there’s so much unknown but exciting music and artists to be found, from countries all over the world. Of course, not all of the music I find can be shared with the blessing of the artists or maybe the record companies in particular, with them calling it an illegal activity – but that’s not the main problem, as I see it. The fact that I can’t find a place to buy the music by the artists I find is. At least not for sensible prices.

But that’s not what I wanted to write about this time. I wanted to write about a page I found today, with a collection of Persian music (provided by bia2.com) in mp3 format. Something for many tastes in music there – I like what I’ve heard so far.

Wonder if I find some place that sell what I like…

Gravatars added

While this blog isn’t really swamped with comments – at least not genuine ones – it may be hard to notice the new addition to this blog, as it is a plugin concerning comments: Anyone who will spend their time to comment any post now, will have their comment graced with their gravatar (if they have one.)

Do you wonder what a gravatar is? It is a Globally Recognised Avatar – an image you use to represent yourself and may be recognised by when you post where this is implemented. My gravatar is the image to the left here.

Is it useful or just neat? Well – a bit of both, I guess, and more to boot. An image may be easier to remember than a name, but it also spruce up the pages with some images.

Can RSS feeds replace email?

With all the spam being sent by email, users are trying many things to avoid getting it. This includes spam filters, blacklisting and whitelisting, and more. Those who are concerned about this, are serious marketeers who have problems with their newsletters not arriving at their customers – even if they have subscribed to the newsletters; there are so many hindrances in the way.

With this in mind, some are wondering if RSS/Atom is an alternative way for distribution. However, there are a few questions many ask themselves:

  1. How many users know what RSS is?
  2. How useful is it? That is, can it really replace email?
  3. How easy is it to make?
  4. What about spam?
  5. And not to forget: What is RSS, really?

I don’t know how many use RSS – I do remember that the percentage isn’t high – but I know that the number isn’t declining. So the question people should ask themselves is: If RSS is the future, wether it replaces email or not, is it wise to ignore it? If IE follows suit to Opera and Firefox and includes an RSS reader in the browser when it’s rewamped (as I’ve heard speculations about,) there will be many who try it out to see what it is.

How useful RSS is and if it can replace email – it depends. First of all, let’s look a bit at what RSS is, without any technical stuff to complicate and confuse.

On your website, you make an xml-file which contains the information you want to publish. This is the file that RSS readers access when they check if there’s new information. There’s no standard for how often it should be checked – it can be once a week, once a day, once an hour… That’s basically it.

How useful RSS is then, basically depends on the content. This can, of course, take many forms, from a full article, an excerpt of the article with a link to the full article on the web site, or just plainly a link. Most RSS readers will show the content of the XML-file, quite like email, but there are those who just show the title so that you have to visit the site to read.

As a user, how does reading RSS feeds differ from reading email? With the RSS readers I have tried: Very little. Just as I can get all kinds of newsletters via email; full text, an exerpt, or a link saying it’s now online – I can get the same as RSS feeds. The interface is very similar or identical to the familiar email interface, and personally I think it’s just as easy to use, too. Using Opera for both browsing and RSS, it takes often only a single click to subscribe to a feed, but it wasn’t really more complicated when I used a separate reader – it just took an extra click for me. Unsubscribing from a feed only takes a couple of clicks, too.

What about spam? After all, spammers seems to be pretty ingenious in thwarting everything to get their spam out, right? Not so here. You’re in full control over the RSS feed, which is that XML-file on your site. Anyone interested in your feed will read that file directly – a spammer can’t get in there, short of hacking into your site. The only way someone can get spam in their RSS reader, is if they subscribe to a spam feed – in which case it only takes a couple of clicks to unsubscribe again, remember? The user has complete control over which feeds to receive.

True, if you use a blog where people can comment on your posts, and where it’s possible to subscribe to feeds made from those comments, spammers can get through. But that is a different feed than your normal newsletter feed. Though, it is of course possible to turn off comments in blogging software and use it to make newsletters.

So, how easy is it to make RSS feeds? I make one by hand for the updates to my site – not difficult, but not a method to recomment for often updated feeds, as it is a bit labour. Also, software to help you makes it all much easier, and removes chances of making silly mistakes. 😉

Which software exists to help you? Not having had the need to know myself, I haven’t really tried to find out, but one commercial program I know of is FeedForAll. I know however that there are many more programs, including free ones – and I wouldn’t mind learning which ones those are.

allofMP3 off the hook legally?

I’ve written about allofmp3.com before, of how it is a source of cheap music, and seemed to be legal. And then continued a bit later with a post about how it might not be as legal as they claimed anyway.

Well – according to BBC News, they may be legally OK due to Russian copyright laws which only covers physical media, such as CDs. However, tha last word is not said, as the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries (IFPI) will take the case further, if this decision is correct.

In the meantime, we’ll just have to wait and see. And maybe shop a bit music.