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Friday, October 26, 2007
As the California wildfire devastation becomes clearer, we’re again witnessing a major news event that’s being chronicled in new, inventive ways online. Much like the Minnesota I-35 bridge collapse in August, the wildfires have received heavy coverage from traditional media supplemented by a variety of user-generated and social media efforts.
The worst kind of bug is one that was developed into a software application by design. To better illustrate what I am talking about, take this example from worsethanfailure.com:
As the recent father of twin babies, Philip B. was relieved to learn that his employer’s benefit provider, Sun Life Canada, made the insurance process really simple. Adding the little ones on the plan required no more than a phone call to provide birth dates, names, and that sort of thing. All seemed so easy, until the customer service rep realized what Philip was trying to do: “I’m sorry sir, but we need a different birth date for each of your kids.”
“Uhh, er,” Philip stuttered, rather puzzled, “they’re twins? They were both born on the seventh of May, so they actually do have the same birth date.”
“Oh yes, I understand,” she said, “but our system cannot handle two people with the same last name born in the same month of the same year on the same plan.”
Thursday, October 25, 2007
If you’re a fan of the British music group Radiohead, you probably know they recently released their 7th CD In Rainbows earlier this month. What you might not know is that the CD isn’t available in stores or on iTunes, but can be purchased exclusively on the band’s website. What’s the going rate for the new disc? Whatever you want it to be.
As Web 2.0 applications become more popular, the issue of performance inevitably rears its ugly head. Ajax-driven sites, by their very nature, tend to be more efficient by loading content asynchronously and updating only portions of a page. However, if the server does not respond quickly enough, even Ajax won’t help your Web app’s speed.
Monday, October 22, 2007
The continuing growth of high-speed broadband connections to the Internet is integral to the growth of Web 2.0 according to a new report at Pew Internet & American Life Project (Broadband: What’s All The Fuss About?). Broadband users are accessing more information than ever, and they are also more likely to post content online (messages, blogs, photos, videos, etc.) than non-broadband users.