The great IE6 switchover

OK, this subject has been done to death, but Internet Explorer 6 needs to die. It's old, it's dated, it's insecure, it's not standards compliant, it requires web designers and developers to spend countless hours adjusting perfectly standards-compliant websites to render correctly in IE6 when they could be adding cool new features. You know the drill by now!

So, how do we get people to dump IE6? I think Microsoft have probably done everything reasonable to get people to move to IE7 or IE8, but a hard core of users just won't budge. By and large these users fall into the following groups:

1. Corporate users - that is, people using IE6 on their desktops at work. It's well known that IE6 usage drops substantially at weekends so this probably represents a lot of people. Where I work we're still on Internet Explorer 6, but the reason for that is that we use a lot of custom web applications which were designed specifically for IE6, and if they changed browsers they'd have to convert these web apps to be standards-compliant. One day they'll have to update them, but there's no sign of that happening anytime soon. It's not the user's fault (there are many, many posts on the intranet forums at work bemoaning the fact we're still stuck with IE6) and most of them would rather use a better browser at work since there are a number of very useful web applications which IE6 works terribly with (Google Maps is a good example).
2. People who don't know any better and don't see the need to upgrade - this might include the elderly or other non-computer savvy people who've disabled Windows updates for some reason (maybe because they find it makes things slower).

But why are we letting these groups hold the whole future of the web back? By bending over backwards to support these people, we're prolonging IE6's shelf life, and making it easy for people to continue IE6 when we really don't want them to! It's simple to upgrade your browser or switch to a new one, so why are we propping up a minority who can't be bothered?

I'm beginning to think that we ought to draw a parallel with digital television. In many countries, the digital and analogue signals have been coexisting for some time, and now we've begun switching off the analogue signal. We aren't bending over backwards to support people who haven't got a digital television or Freeview box yet - if you haven't got one when they switch off the signal, you're going to be watching a blank screen. With web browsers, we don't expect people to make any financial outlay - we just want them to click on a link, so I think it's much more reasonable to cut them off from our content unless they switch browsers.

Ultimately, it's the decision of the person who wants to make a website whether or not to support IE6, but I think we need to be a little harsher than we have in the past. Google are beginning to drop IE6 support, and I'm sure more people will follow. By catering for the remaining IE6 users, we may well be prolonging its usage, and perhaps we need a big stick to encourage users to switch to a newer browser. Of course it's a difficult decision to make if you're hoping to attract customers to a commercial website since if website A and website B both sell the same product but the customer's browser doesn't work on website A, he's going to go to website B instead.

Pownce is closing - a call for the code to be open sourced!

I was very sorry to learn today that Pownce is closing. It's a good service, and I will be sad to see it go. Although it was never as popular as Twitter, it did offer far more powerful features.
I went and logged in and people were discussing alternatives (I like Rejaw as a Pownce alternative), and someone mentioned open source microblogging software such as Laconi.ca, or perhaps a Drupal module. This gave me an idea.
Pownce was apparently created using Django (for the uninitiated, it's a web development framework similar to Ruby on Rails, but based on Python instead of Ruby). It runs on a standard LAMP stack (although with Python instead of PHP, as stated above), which is entirely open source.
Now, bearing in mind that both Python and Django are open source, and from what I read of the acquisition, it was mainly to get the people, could Pownce be open sourced?
If this was possible, it would be a great way for interested parties to set up their own version of Pownce. So far as I can see, there's no proprietary software involved that they might need to hang on to.
I'm therefore going to post this on Digg, as that would be a good way to get some feedback on what people think, and attract more attention.
So, Kevin Rose, how about it? Any chance you could open-source Pownce?

Google Chrome - I add my voice to the chorus!

Like pretty much everyone else who's a serious Internet user, I was eager to try Google Chrome. For once I was glad I still have a Windows install! So I downloaded it to my Vista partition, and gave it a spin.
Holy crap, it's fast! Chrome on Windows not only beats Firefox 3 in Windows, it beats Firefox 3 in the Ubuntu partition on the same computer! You REALLY notice the difference on a JavaScript-heavy site such as Digg. And it's really easy to use, because it just gets out of your way.
It's pretty clear to me why Google have created this: Google want people to use the Internet more and more, because this strengthens them. The more efficient your browser, the more useful web apps such as Google Docs and GMail are. By raising the bar, Google are not only creating a great product, they're forcing other browsers to compete with them, even Internet Explorer. If IE doesn't step up to the challenge, they risk losing market share. If they do, then they're facilitating Microsoft's loss of market share for applications such as Word, Excel etc to web-based alternatives.
It's a hell of a strategy, and a classic Google one at that - Google don't compete, they change the rules of the game. They need browsers to get faster and more efficient to make them a match for Microsoft, so they've created Chrome to give them a platform for this. The fact that it's open source means that Apple, Mozilla, whoever, can pick out bits from Chrome to improve their own products, but also gives them a motivation to better it. Each browser that improves its performance like this means Google can compete more effectively with Microsoft.
Put it this way - I've heard that the reason IE spent so long without a new version being released (2001-2006) was because Microsoft were worried about the threat to their business model from the Internet. Now Google are aggressively pushing a new, faster browser that will change the game. I'm inclined to think Microsoft should be very worried.

BT OpenZone

Fed up with having nothing much to do in the evenings without broadband and having had little success with mobile broadband, I've just signed up for BT OpenZone. Now at least I can get online in a cafe, just means I'm no doubt going to spend a fortune on cups of tea!
For £10 a month, it's not too bad to get wi-fi on the go, but it's limited to 500 minutes per month. Not really enough for me, but I'm not planning to do a huge amount of browsing on it, just read a few feeds.

BBC News website

Has anyone else noticed that the BBC News website has dumped Windows Media Player and Real Player, and started using Flash instead?

This is great news as I struggled for ages to get to play videos in Linux. I finally found a way using a Firefox extension and VLC, but now I don't need to do that, I just need to add flashplugin-nonfree and I'm away!

Songbird

Recently I've discovered the excellent Songbird music player. This has only just reached version 0.5, but is already showing a truly staggering amount of promise. Once it reaches version 1.0, it may even replace Amarok in my affections. I'm already using it instead of iTunes on my Vista laptop for playing music (I haven't tried it with my iPod yet). I would use it in Kubuntu, but the only package I can find for it (via Getdeb) is a bit cranky.

For the uninitiated, Songbird is to iTunes what Firefox is to Internet Explorer. It's an open source music player that supports extensions, similar to Firefox. It's written by the people that created WinAmp and is built around XULRunner, the Mozilla framework, which is what allows it to support the extensions, similar to Firefox. It can work with just about any online store that wants to cooperate with them.

To put it another way, imagine you took iTunes, ripped out the iTunes store and replaced it with Firefox, so you could browse music sites and listen to music you find, all within the same application.

It already has a staggering number of extensions, including ones that allow you to scrobble to Last.fm, which makes me think it will almost certainly be a success. You can skin it as well (these skins are known as "Feathers"). And even though it's a fair bit weightier than the likes of Amarok, it's still a lot smaller and faster than iTunes.

If you haven't tried it, download it and give it a go. It will change the way you think about enjoying music on the Internet.

Google Browser Sync

I've just discovered Google Browser Sync. This excellent Firefox extension enables you to synchronise browser settings such as bookmarks, persistent cookies and (most importantly of all) saved passwords between instances of Firefox on different machines.
For me, this really is a boon because I like to keep updating to the most recent version of Kubuntu as soon as it comes out, and I have in the past always done a fresh install each time, as I find that is the best way to upgrade. It is a real pain having to update all the passwords for all the sites I use every time.
But I think next time I install Kubuntu I'm going to set up my home directory on a separate partition so this shouldn't arise again anyway! Still, I've used Google Bookmarks for ages now and I find it really useful to be able to synchronise my bookmarks between different machines, so I imagine Google Browser Sync will be similarly useful.

Why I like del.icio.us

I only started using del.icio.us a few months ago, but I'm already finding it to be an indispensable service. I've long used Google Bookmarks as I have more than one computer so I like to be able to access the same set of bookmarks from all of them, and this serves me very well for this purpose. I don't have any plans to abandon it entirely (at least not for the foreseeable future).

But del.icio.us, at least for me, serves a slightly different purpose. Google Bookmarks is what I use to bookmark sites I will want to return to in the near future, and may visit regularly. By comparison, del.icio.us is what I use to bookmark sites I am unlikely to use regularly, but may want to visit under certain circumstances - things like handy tutorials or bits of code I can see myself wanting to use in future. It's great for keeping an archive of things like that.

By comparison, Google Bookmarks is great for keeping track of the websites I'm likely to visit fairly often (and there is a LOT of them) where I wouldn't want to dig through the huge numbers of sites I've bookmarked on del.icio.us.

Also, del.icio.us is a handy search tool. You can search through all the bookmarked sites in the same manner as any other search engine. This is handy because everything in there is something that has been submitted because they may want to refer back to it in future, so you're less likely to come across something that isn't useful or relevant. The tagging system means your search relies on other people's tags, which should mostly be relevant.

So, give it a try. There's a Firefox extension or Flock has built-in support. And many other browsers no doubt have the facilities to support it. It's one of those tools that makes browsing easier and more fun.

Social.im: The Instant Messaging Service For Facebook

In my opinion, integrated instant messaging has the potential to be a killer app for social networks - think how easy it makes it, your friends are already there! So I was very pleased to hear about this IM service for Facebook. Although it's currently for Windows only, they are planning to build an XMPP/Jabber interface, allowing Linux and Mac users to connect to it via multi-protocol clients like iChat and Pidgin.

read more | digg story

Layout

Never one to sit still, I've made a few more changes to the layout. You'll no doubt notice I've added a new blogroll. This lists a selection of my favourite RSS feeds. Check some of them out if you have the time.
I've also joined Flickr. There's now a link to my profile in the My Profiles section to the right. I've posted a couple of photos I've taken, and I've set it up so I can use it to post to here. I want to get my mobile phone set up so I can post direct, but I need to set up Vodafone Mail to do so, and they seem to have other ideas. Every time I log in with Firefox, it gives an error message about "Insecure Entrance to the site" (Oh, and it would be sooo much more secure if I were to use Internet Explorer!).
That's about it. Heading back to work tomorrow, as I'm sure many of you are.

Lime Juice

Re my previous post, I just had to share this link. Lime Juice is a very interesting sounding new startup in the US - essentially it's a mobile-based social network.
Now, if someone can get this kind of thing working, that REALLY will drive the mobile Internet. By allowing the real world and the Internet to interact in the same place, it'll change the whole nature of the Internet. It'll go through a huge paradigm shift, ridding it of the Web 1.0 stereotype of the antisocial loner surfing the Internet in his mother's basement and the (unfair in my opinion) stereotype of friendships on MySpace or Facebook as being people just trying to show off how popular they are. The Web will be integrated completely into our social lives, as it should be.
After all, if you can meet someone, and become friends with them on a social network there and then, how cool would that be? Plus, you can easily find out if someone's single there and then. It'll be absolutely revolutionary when (NOT if, when!) it happens.