With apologies to Al Gore, the Web’s bona fide inventor, Sir Tim Berners-Lee believes that the Internet has barely found its proverbial feet. As he explained to BBC News:

“The experience of the development of the web by so many people collaborating across the globe has just been a fantastic experience,” he said.

“The experience of international collaboration continues. Also the spirit that really we have only started to explore the possibilities of [the web], that continues.”

Sir Tim predicted that the web’s ability to engender collaboration could one day see the web being used to help manage the planet.

From collaborative opportunity to planetary management — that kind of power begs participation.

I’m pretty much a beanpole, so I don’t have room to complain, but nobody likes to pop a button off their pants the day they turn a year older. I did that today; kind of demoralizing. Getting older is not my favorite thing, but at least we humans have an opportunity to up our worth each year.

The software we use can’t share that hope. A ridiculous comparison, but I couldn’t help make it after the timing of two events: Only mere minutes after the demoralizing button pop I found myself reading yet another Federal Government RFP including yet another requirement for Windows 98 compatibility. Me, I can shed a pound or two. Windows 98 couldn’t be more obsolete. Buried next to it is Netscape Navigator.

Here’s the skinny on Windows 98:

The most recent edition of Windows 98 was released in mid-1999, so it’s coming up on being nine years old. To put that in perspective, Windows 98 is older than the birth of SCORM and Flash-based video.

Stats released in January of this year tout Windows 98 as holding a whopping .4 percent of the browser market. Even Linux claims 4.4 percent! We don’t have to cater to that bugger! Windows 98 was officially dropped from Microsoft support in summer of 2006, and finally, Windows 98 can’t run either the latest Microsoft browser or the media player. All that means it can be challenging to create cutting-edge web-based products when they MUST function on the Windows 98 dinosaur.

Sure, we can chalk up this archaic requirement to an RFP template being reused for the last 9 years. But let’s not forget that RFPs beget contracts. And contracts beget lawyers. Let’s do a favor to the developers and in turn to our audiences.

Dear RFP authors, please update the specs!

Governmental spending transparency is catching on at the state level. Alaska is the latest of ten states to effectively throw its books wide open to anyone with Internet access. The state calls it Checkbook Online, and describes it as such:

The State of Alaska is publishing information from the statewide accounting system on the web. This is part of a national trend for governments to develop websites that allow constituents to view financial information in searchable formats. Such websites are widely considered to improve transparency into the financial operations of government.

Residents of “The Last Frontier” doubtless enjoy being able to see what elected officials are doing with their tax dollars. The rest of us should have it so good.

On February 12, Microsoft will be pushing an automatic update to PCs far and wide that will transform Internet Explorer version 6 into version 7. The blogosphere is abuzz about how to avoid the update if you want to and is asking how Microsoft can tuck a software update into what should be security updates. That’s neither here nor there to me. Why folks would purposely avoid the update is outside my lane. I leave that to IT units at individual offices and agencies. I’m actually kind of psyched to see it; perhaps less cross-browser testing is on the horizon!

See, browsers are not like televisions. Different brands don’t all work the same. Imagine being a video producer and delivering your product to a broadcaster, then stopping by Circuit City for the big debut. Wouldn’t that be a surprise if one TV shifted the picture out of frame while another resized the image to bizarro dimensions, and a third finally displayed the video correctly. Well, you could just produce three versions of your show, right? One for each kind of TV. That’d be a hoot. We may not have to generate completely separate products, but web developers do wrestle with a similar scenario.

Despite the best efforts of organizations like the WC3, browsers just don’t all work the same way. They don’t display content the same way. Pieces move or resize or disappear completely. Depending on the goals of your organization, those differences can have large impact.

The latest stats show Internet Explorer 7 holding 21 percent of the market. IE6 holds 33 percent, Firefox 36 percent, and then a steep drop down to Safari, Mozilla, and Opera. Notice the name Netscape isn’t even tracked anymore! Depending on your goals and audience, you may need to test your websites/applications on all of those browsers (not to mention platforms like Mac or PC) to make sure everyone is seeing the same thing and enjoying the same experience.

So how do you decide how much time and effort to put into cross-browser and platform testing? That depends on what you’re doing. If you’re facing a closed audience with predictable systems, you may be able to cut down on testing. For example, a DoD agency targeting an internal audience can feel pretty good about things as long as they’re targeting Internet Explorer 6 (until Feb 12?) and Windows XP. Meanwhile, that same agency may have a public-facing website, one offering critical information or training, one that could reflect on their image and mission. In that case, how accommodating should it be? Is it OK to serve up content that may look wacky on a Mac because it holds such a small share of the market? I’m happy to say that’s not my call. But I could help you think through it. And would you believe it comes down to time and money? I know you’ve never heard that before.

I will say this: There are standards out there, and if we stick to those when building, our chances for success are good from square one. Further that, simply having the experience and awareness of cross-browser/platform issues is another big advantage. Finally, it’s about paying attention your audience and making educated decisions. My decision would be to dump IE6. One version of that browser is enough for all of us.

We all know about “the war.”  The DVD replacement has yet to be decided—will it be Sony’s Blu-Ray technology or Toshiba’s HD-DVD technology?

This week, the war came to the forefront again. With what Toshiba must surely view as “impeccable” timing (read: sarcasm), Warner Brothers announced their intent to drop HD-DVD from their future plans just days before the Consumer Electronics Show. It caused enough rumbles in the HD-DVD camp that they canceled their press conference for CES. As of later this spring, Warner will go exclusively with Blu-Ray. This isn’t small news. Warner was the only major studio that hadn’t picked a format—they were going with both. Their decision to go Blu-Ray leaves Paramount as the lone major content holder still going with HD-DVD.

MacWorld starts next week. One of the rumors (and it is just that—a rumor) is that Apple is going to announce support for Blu-Ray. Apple has been a member of the Blu-Ray coalition for quite some time, but they have, for all intents and purposes, sat on the sidelines while the battle raged.

Is the writing on the wall for HD-DVD? While it may still be premature to make the call (Microsoft is still in the HD-DVD camp…and we can all agree they are not a mom-and-pop operation), I will make the call.

Blu-Ray wins!

Actually, Blu-Ray should have won a long time ago. The storage capacity alone makes it a no-brainer. Currently, HD-DVD has 15GB/30GB discs. Blu-Ray has 25GB/50GB. HD-DVD has approved a standard for 51GB discs (I guess that single gig makes it the format to go with). Blu-Ray has the capability of putting 200GB on a disc.

What is HD-DVD’s advantage? Online content. Your HD-DVD player can connect to the Internet. Now, I may be long out of my teen years, but I hardly find that a compelling reason to go with HD-DVD. Regular DVDs often have bonus material—including the ability to get you to online content. Of all the DVDs I own that have “bonus” online content, have I ever accessed it?  Not even once.

Who is the real loser in all this? The conventional wisdom says it is the consumer. I disagree. Except for the early adopters, the consumer has sat and waited. To me, that is actually pretty impressive. The early adoption phase has simply lasted longer. The real losers are both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Neither has gained a foothold, and there is the real possibility that they’ll both get passed over for online content. That’s a lot of development money to be throwing down the drain.

Have we learned our lessons yet, Toshiba? Of course not. They are still fighting the battle. They will for some time.

Now let’s remember this a year from now and see if I was right or if I will be eating crow.

Actually, it’s 500 pounds (UK) but I don’t know how to type one of those little curly L symbols. Regardless, Brit TV personality Jeremy Clarkson, trying to be technologically cavalier, dismissed concerns that a recent database theft would compromise the personal information of more than 25 million people.

To demonstrate his ambivalence, he published his personal financial information in the Sun newspaper. His belief? With that info, at worst, a nefarious type could only deposit money into his account. An illegal withdrawl would be impossible.

Turns out Clarkson learned the hard way that hackers love a challenge.

“I opened my bank statement this morning to find out that someone has set up a direct debit which automatically takes £500 from my account,” he said.

“The bank cannot find out who did this because of the Data Protection Act and they cannot stop it from happening again.

“I was wrong and I have been punished for my mistake.”

Considering the funds were drawn as a charitable donation to Diabetes UK, looks like Clarkson got off easy. The lesson? We should all absolutely be paying attention to that man behind the curtain.

Last month Avid Technology issued a press release stating that they will not be exhibiting at NAB 2008.

My initial reaction was, Oh no! What? No Avid display at NAB? That’s crazy!

I figured they must be in trouble. I mean, after all, Avid has been a big NAB exhibitor for years, setting up a huge display and occupying a very nice piece of the showroom floor real estate. It’s really quite impressive. And expensive, I’m sure.

All of my doubts come from many other factors, which include the layoffs, CEO changeover, and lack of new upgrades, updates, and tools. Also, I felt like Apple kicked Avid’s butt last year at NAB with introduction of Final Cut Pro’s ability to mix frame rates on a single timeline.

So what’s really going on? Is Avid in trouble? Have they stopped caring?

The press release indicates that the decision is strategic, not financial. They say they are listening to their customers and need to connect with them in new ways.

After taking some time to digest this news, I have come to the conclusion that it might actually be good news. Maybe they do have a plan and will actually benefit from removing themselves from the Expo.

Even though I’ve been angry with Avid lately, I have much more faith in Avid systems than any other NLE out there, despite all these issues going on with them right now, the biggest issue being the unknown future of the company.

Avid has said that they are going to reveal some kind of strategy plan to the public in February. I really hope they are working on getting their act together and will have something impressive to report come February and put Avid users minds at ease.

They’ve managed to create quite a buzz with the decision to not attend NAB; now let’s see if they have anything substantial to tell us. Overall I’m hoping to hear some kind of reassurance as to the future of the company. However, some of the more specific things I’m hoping for include an upgrade to allow mixed frame rates on a single timeline for all DNA systems, Nitris support for native DVCPRO-HD—which is currently very buggy—and finally, HD-SDI Output option for Media Composer’s software version. Honestly, I have no idea what to expect, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

In 2000, someone at a party told me that very soon books would be obsolete. The Rocket eBook had been around for less than a year, billed itself as the “first usable, mass-marketed electronic book,” and could hold a whopping 10 novels. Other competitors were also generating a lot of press—these included the Gemstar, the Everybook, the SoftBook, and the confidently named Librius Millenium Reader (I can’t help hearing here the theme to Conan O’Brien’s “In the Year 2000″ skits). The “death-of-the-book” meme—as old as the computer—had once again been revived.

Today we know that reports of the death of books had—yet again—been greatly exaggerated. In fact, the e-book bubble quickly burst, and the digital text utopia did not arrive. People were buying neither e-books nor e-book readers. While the analog book had been evolved to gratify human sensibilities over millenia, e-book readers still had significant problems to overcome in the area of user interface. A 1999 article in the New York Times on whether such devices meant “the end of the story for books” offered some good reasons for skepticism—or at least cautious optimism:

Robert Darnton, a professor of history at Princeton University who has championed electronic publishing for scholarly dissertations, said, ”I think it’s only a matter of time before we can have mechanical devices that will make possible a satisfactory but new experience of reading.”

But he conceded: ”One thing that seems to be missing is paper, the feel of a book when you hold it, its grain, its texture, its elasticity, its whiteness. The sensation of paper is bound up in the experience of reading. We have a long-term kinetic memory of paper. How will we substitute a new medium for it or improve on it?”

Designers of e-book readers were well aware of the need for them to be book-like. The Rocket eBook was the size of a paperback. Other devices were weighted to the heft of an actual book. One device, by Everybook, tried to get closer to the feel of traditional books by using facing LCD screens. But these were not innovations that readers wanted to curl up with. The problem seemed to be the screen itself.

User reticence about digital reading was already a well-known fact. Electronic texts weren’t themselves new: The Gutenberg Project had been digitizing texts since 1971. Yet computer-based reading hadn’t taken off, even on the Palm Pilot, which had been around since 1996. Usability guru Jakob Nielsen was prescient at least in part:

“It’s a pure matter of technology: The screen resolution is too bad. We know from human-factor studies that reading speed is 25 percent lower on the screen than on the printed page.”

Nielsen thought that 300-dpi screens might solve the problem by providing the same clarity as that of print.

But as resolution improved, it became clear that it wasn’t the only problem. The fact that electronic screens are back-lit makes it both un-book-like and unpleasant for long-term reading. What was required was “digital ink” on a screen (or even paper-like medium) that reflected light in the same way as a real book. Xerox and MIT had been diligently working on this problem while the first wave of e-book reader hype came and went.

Eight years later, the fruits of work on “digital ink” (and “electronic paper”) are only just making themselves known. Today we have the iLiad (2006), the Sony Reader (2007), the soon-to-be iRiver eBook Reader, and the just-released Amazon Kindle.

With the Kindle, Amazon has one-upped other available readers by offering a wireless connection (via Sprint’s EV-DO network) that allows access to Web content and does away with the problem of synchronization to a computer. Unfortunately, the device costs $399, books at least $10 apiece, newspapers $15 a month, and blog subscriptions $2 a month. A $399 price point for the device is a problem, and history has not been kind to paid subscription models when it comes to Web content. And as Jay points out, we can’t yet be confident that we can get the books we want in electronic format. Further, PDFs will need to be converted to the Kindle’s proprietary format to be read on the device. So despite digital ink and wireless access, there are still some significant barriers to entry for users interested in e-books.

But beyond cost, content, and format, there is still the question of user interface. Do we yet have a device that gives readers enough of the full experience of reading a regular book to be a real breakthrough (as Robert Darnton puts it, “the feel of a book when you hold it, its grain, its texture, its elasticity, its whiteness”)? Perhaps we’ll need something that is much more book-like in look and feel—including multiple (digitally inked) pages that bend—before reading on an electronic device doesn’t seem, at a primal level, sterile and less gratifying than the real thing.

Today’s gadget story: Amazon released the Kindle, which will let folks browse online e-book offerings and download titles in about a minute. The target niche and Amazon’s attempt to capitalize therein is tidily encapsulated in Saul Hansell’s NYT blog:

Amazon is trying to do for books what Apple has done for music. It has linked its device tightly to its own online bookstore, just as the iTunes music store is tied into the iPod. Amazon has 90,000 titles for sale at launch, including books from all major publishers.

Of what else is Kindle kapable?

It apparently can also wirelessly access newspapers, magazines, and blogs. The screen technology is breakthrough-cool; that’s real ink, suspended with some kind of crazy contemporary Etch-a-Sketch mojo!

Still, here’s a reality the Kindle will have to overcome: According to the US Census Bureau, Americans buy something like 2.4 billion books every year. Great stuff! But when I browse the stacks at B&N or Borders, I see a heck of a lot of big-picture folios of cats in trees, WWII fighter planes, and the history of Harley Davidson. Those novelty titles have to be gumming up the works, to say nothing of all the self-help schlock and celebrity-cookbooks-of-the-instant in the mix as well.

Jeff, here’s the deal: I read about three or four books a month, and to sound unashamedly snobbish, they’re real doggone books. Right now I’m re-reading No Country for Old Men (in preparation for the film) and working through Heat by Bill Buford, All the King’s Men (because it just keeps getting better), and a book of essays by British philosopher A.C. Grayling. I clock an even 50 blogs using Google Reader and subscribe to the daily and Sunday Washington Post, the New Yorker, and National Geographic. I also pick up the Sunday New York Times most weekends, and am prone to snag The Atlantic, Harper’s, The New Criterion, and Ultimate Grappling (props always to Royce Gracie).

My point? Bez, I’m a reader. And not no Little Book of Moving Cheese and Making Chicken Soup or whatever. I’m talking stuff that doesn’t belong anywhere near the back of a toilet tank. Now, you turn me loose on this gizmo, and if I dig it, why, then you’ve done something truly wonderful.

What worries me is that while plenty of people buy books, not too many of those books seem to get read. And the ones that do often have somebody like Jeff Foxworthy on the cover. I just hope you know what you’re doing. I’m rooting for you.

The trouble with passwords is that they’re either tough to remember or all-to-easily divulged:

The folks across the pond must know how hard it is for me to remember the 345 passwords I have created for my ever-expanding list of online bank accounts, music accounts, podcast memberships, e-zine of the week, Amayahgoogle portals, etc.

I say this because Newcastle University has created a software using Draw a Secret (DAS) technology that allows you to draw your password instead of typing text. This has proven easier for test users to remember and in the long run harder for hackers to steal.

The technology is first being tried with handheld devices. It provides the user with a background to choose from, say stars, for example. You draw a flying saucer each time in the same to similar method or contact motion and voila! Open sesame.

Because it annihilates text generations, the device also has great benefits for those with dyslexia, not just brain-cluttered clods like me.

Well done, lads!

Cheers! Have a Smithwick’s on me.*

*Does not constitute true offer to purchase Smithwick’s, or any other Guinness beverage and/or product, much as I’d like to. If, however, you find yourself stateside, look us up and we’ll work it out.