I had started a post last night about a recent report that Facebook and Twitter (and probably all social media based on how it’s worded) is generally dumbing people down. Then I watched and read reports of the London riots and saw media outlets in the United States, as well…
Guns don’t kill people, the bullets do that (unless you pistol-whip someone to death, which means you probably ran out of bullets). Similarly HTML5, JavaScript, CSS and even Flash aren’t dangerous on their own, but in the wrong hands and with the wrong motives they can do harm. I wrote…
You may recall from my post in February, WebM, H.264 Debate Still Going, that the H.264 video codec is considered patent-encumbered (which resulted in its dismissal from the HTML5 specification) and Google has argued that its own WebM / VP8 codec is made up of patents it owns, releasing it…
The timing on my post yesterday (More Frivolous Patents) was pretty good. The patent trolling issues have been getting some coverage lately in more mainstream press (not just in legal or industry press) which has the potential to actually get noticed by someone (or someones) who can make a change.Unfortunately,…
The patent trolling continues, which should really be no surprise. Consider that Nortel put its portfolio of 6,000 patents on the auction block, with Google starting bidding at $900 million dollars only to be beat out by a consortium of Apple, Microsoft, Research in Motion, EMC, Ericsson and Sony for…
This photo represents some of the technologies (pint glasses) that HTML5 (t-shirt) is thought to encompass (drink). The horror of that concept is represented by the hands (defensive wounds coming).I had the pleasure of sharing some pints with Bruce Lawson and Chris Mills last week in London. While discussing what…
The local AAF chapter here in Buffalo, Advertising Club of Buffalo, presented a primer on social media in its monthly AdLab event a couple nights ago. At the request of members, QR codes made an appearance on the topic list at the end of the presentation. While I could discuss…
The graphic above shows my Klout score as of today. Not only did my number jump dramatically, I also shifted from being an Explorer to being a Specialist. That corresponds to a two column jump in the Klout 4×4 graph of social influence. I don’t know how that is measured,…
This past week I have encountered people asking about testing for Internet Explorer browser versions in real life, on Twitter, via email, and spray-painted under a bridge (along with the phrase I don’t want the world, I just want your half). I have seen response after response directing web developers…
I spent about a thousand words explaining RSS before I realized that, for the most part, if you are reading this blog I have to guess you have some familiarity with it (at least by just having heard of it). If you need some background, Wikipedia has a pretty good…
A recurring problem I find is when web developers, their support teams and their managers try to evaluate who is using their site(s) by reviewing their web logs (or Google Analytics) in a vacuum. It is far too easy to simply look at statistics reporting what browsers use a site…
Developers are starting to lean on the features of Facebook outside of the walled garden of Facebook itself, and there are implications for us as users that we might not be considering. The current trends of web design include giant footers, social media icons, extensive background images, and the omnipresent…