There was a post here that tried to point out, whilst stressing there was no blame attached, things happen to the best of us with regard a slight 9rules domain mishap.

Then… Oh, I don’t know. People picked up on it, the humour in the situation WASN’T appreciated, comments started getting a bit snotty, then Spam Karma went into overdrive and threatened to nuke my entire comments database (uh, I think I won’t let that happen)…

All in all, the post deserved to die. (And as an aside, I’m back to just Akismet. I know how to work that!)

I would like to stress, ONCE AGAIN because I don’t think it got noticed before, I fully support the 9rules chaps and chappette. They have brought much greatness and supreme quantities of joy to the Web. It doesn’t have to be anybody’s fault – things happen. I actually find it quite reassuring to have this little reminder that no one is perfect and safe from the flying fickle finger of fate.

So yes, send your love, respect and good luck to the 9rules team, and lay off the snarky comments. They deserve the former and really don’t deserve the latter.

So I’m enrolled to do my English A-level this year – the full English Lit/Lang course, only in one year instead of two. 10 hours a week of course squeezed into 3 hours a week. And those 3 hours in the evening after a hard days work.

Yes, I am a glutton for punishment, but so very very excitied. The tutor was telling me what was on the course and my brain started fizzing with excitment! Yay for the eternal student!

Blame technorati for this one. If it hadn’t popped up in the ‘linking to you’ section I would never have known about it. But it did pop up, and I do know about it, and I rarely back down from a challenge…

Jack tagged me.

1. Are you craving anything and if so, what?
   Yoghurt covered pretzels. That’s the one draw back with no longer dating the CC – I no longer have a supplier. If anyone’s feeling generous enough can you hook me up? *flutters eyelashes* (I’m pretty certain Sugar Mountain does them).
2. What is the weather outside, and do you wish it would change?
   Changeable – sunny one minute, gloomy/rainy the next. No, I don’t wish it would change. I like the weather in all it’s forms. I may grumble about it (I’m British so moaning about the weather is kind of compulsory) but I still like it. You never know what’s going to happen next 😀
3. What two web sites do you think you will go to next after you are finished here?
   I think I will actually go read a book. I’ve done most of my browsing for the day, my wrist is killing me, and Vienna will tell me of anything interesting through RSS.
4. Do you wish you were somewhere else and if so, where?
   I’m actually quite attached to where I am now. Though I’d love to live in New Zealand (if we’re talking long term). A holiday in Scotland would be nice (Edinburgh and Stirlingshire). Or just a week or so to kick back and relax back in Somerset.
5. Do you wish you were someone else, and if so, who?
   Hell! I have a hard enough time being me! I can honestly say I don’t want to be anybody else. There are bits of me I wouldn’t mind changing slightly, but I still want to be me. And dating Johnny Depp, but that wasn’t the question you asked, was it? 😉

I tag – whoever wants to do this. And Tammie, Jay and Rich because I’m curious…

Because I got told off for not finding a happier ‘on this day’ story yesterday,

On this day in 1951 designers prepare to dazzle Venice.

I’m still typing one fingered but getting quicker at it, and in a bit less pain than yesterday, so by tomorrow I should be able to do a whole Roast for you 🙂

Apologies for the lack of posting in the last couple of days – my right wrist is having a little strop and is causing me ten kinds of pain.

Something to make you think – on this day in history, Germany invaded Poland.

I have to do a lot of my browsing at work now and, when I do, I am forced to use IE. It’s not my choice but there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. What has prompted today’s little grump is the increased incidence of the following:

I am starting to see a few sites out there with little pop-ups and javascript doodads that say things like “We see you are using Internet Explorer! You dumb f***! Download Firefox now, it’s so much better!”

I can see where these are coming from. You want to spread the word of Firefox – good for you – but this way just… Bugs me. One person had it set up so that I couldn’t even view his blog using IE – the “switch to FF” message never went away. The reason for this was because there was a javascript call involved in making it go away – and javascript is disabled on my work computer. It’s since been changed to a large header that disfigures the blog in question when viewed using IE but even that, well, disfigures the blog.

I agree that Firefox is a vastly superior browser to IE for a lot of reasons. I aplaud the attempts to spread the word. But I don’t think pissing off your readers is the best way to go about it. If I could switch to FF at work, I would (I made them instal FF on all our lab computers last summer *devil*) but alas I don’t have the luxury of working in a small university lab any more. We’re locked into IE and that’s all there is to say about it. Telling me that I am doing something wrong when there is NOTHING to be done about it bugs me. Simple as that. I’m less likely to read your excellent (and I know it’s excellent because I read it at home – using Safari by the way. I tried Firefox and switched back) content and more likely to spread my disatisfaction in blog posts. Like this one.

On top of that what about the people out there like my poor mum? She wouldn’t know a browser if it got up and introduced itself, let alone be able to make an informed decision as to whether FF is better than IE (we’re talking hypothetically here. My Mum uses Safari). If she comes to a site and is greeted with a “click here” message she’s likely to click here (her browsing is still at the more luck than judgement stage – she hasn’t yet developed the ‘ad blindness’ long-term surfers develop as a survival tactic). As far as she’s concerned if it’s on your webpage, it’s a legitimate link. Which in this case is fine I am sure, because you’re not going to be evil and try to take over my mother’s computer with an evil virus? Are you?

My point – my wonderful Mum doesn’t need to know what a browser is to look at webpages. All she needs for now is to know to click on the blue compass to open up the program she needs. If she ever wants to know the finer details between browsers, well, I will be more than happy to explain but somehow I think that day is a long way off. She’s just going to get confused, baffled, and upset if your site is constantly telling her to change how she does things. That leads to a phone call to me, which in turn leads to a long involved conversation that ends up with me battering my head against the desk and cursing the day you decided to code a webpage.

So there you have it – Cas’ plea to the Firefox Evangelists. Stop telling me the way I do things is wrong. It’s rude, annoys me, and has the potential to make my Mum upset. Trust me, you don’t want to be the one who made my Mum upset.

*WARNING* The following is a MySpace rant. Hardly original I know, but it had to be done.

I just had an experimental foray into MySpace – it turns out I know two people (and we’re talking ‘know’ in the sense that I’ve actually been down the pub with them) who have MySpace pages. Still fighting the need to sit down and write that damn blog club entry, I decided to have a look and see what all the fuss was about.

Oh. Dear. God.

I found A’s page quite easily. I couldn’t find the Divine M’s page on a cursory examination but apparently she’s in the process of starting up a new page anyway, so that’s ok. (As an aside, it’s interesting how digital property has become something to be fought over when friendships go sour – it used to be you had to divide the mutual friends. Now you end up arguing over who gets the MySpace page.)

I can only give you first impressions because, well, I didn’t hang around long enough to have second or third impressions. In fact, it took me longer to shut down the few MySpace pages I had browsed through than it did to look at them in the first place. One more reason to dislike MySpace – it locked my computer for a good five minutes!

A’s page wasn’t that badly designed as these things go. At least there were no flashing lights, it was readable, and I could more or less guess what the frell was going on. A few of the other pages I skipped through had me going “my eyes, my eyes” and lunging for the x button. One page I tried to view was totally green, both text and background. I know the appalling designs are one of the things MySpace is famous for, but really – what kind of fool creates a page that is unreadable and thinks that is a good thing?

One thing that struck me was a message that was at the top of A’s page saying “Anna is in your extended network“. Hang on a minute here – how can I have a MySpace network, extended or otherwise, if I’m not (and never intend to be) a member of MySpace? I understand that pretty much the only reason to have a MySpace page is to connect to other people (hell, that’s one of the main reasons I have Bright Meadow) and that networks are the driving force behind pretty much all social sites. But if I’m just browsing through a site, without even signing in, how can something be classed as being “in” my extended network? What defines an extended network? Perhaps that message appears on all MySpace pages you haven’t rated as “friends” (and don’t get me started on the idiotic use of that word – a friend is a person whom one knows and with whom one has a mutual bond. How can you be a “friend” of a band’s webpage? Friend requires reciprocity. You could be a fan, on the other hand…). Yes, Flickr does a similar thing with “contacts”, but you can further define that relationship into “friend” or “family”. A Flickr contact is just someone who’s pictures you like and want to see more of.

Perhaps you can define levels of ‘friend’ granularity in MySpace. I’d be interested to know more how it works if someone wants to tell me – I’m not signing up myself. Bright Meadow is blog enough for me thanks – that, and the popularity contest aspect of MySpace chills me. Listing the number of “friends” you have and the number of times your profile has been viewed just seems like a recipe for disaster. My own innate competitiveness would be bound to kick in and I’d get all depressed I wasn’t more “popular” than I was.

I’ve strayed somewhat off the point, and my question was this – what the frell is ‘an extended network’? All the pages I looked at had that little banner on them, so I would be forced to guess that my extended network at this point includes all the tens of millions of pages on MySpace. Hell, I’m one popular girl if that’s the case. Perhaps this MySpace isn’t so bad after all…

I had held off from looking at MySpace because my gut reaction was that I wouldn’t like it. I was right – I loathe it with a fiery, fiery passion. The usability sucks (I’ll take pity here and not add to the canon of work that exists already on how badly designed MySpace is from a usability standpoint) and the concept disturbs me at the most visceral level. The blatant sex-ploitation of the women (and men) on MySpace is one big bugbear for me. All the profiles saying “I’m 20, female, single/taken/dating/looking…” I suggest going and reading Leila’s thoughts on the whole MySpace subject as well. She’s a little more coherent and well written than me.

At the same time, I can see the good in MySpace. I point you in the direction of danah and her work on social networks, especially how how teens use online spaces because they don’t have access to safe public spaces. Ironically enough, she even has a MySpace, with an example of another of my pet MySpace peeves (auto-play music – even if it is a good track), but I think I’ve used up all my grump for the day so we’ll leave it at that.

I’m led to understand that you aren’t ON MySpace, you HAVE a MySpace. Regardless of syntax, I won’t be on/have a MySpace any time soon. So perhaps “fiery, fiery passion” is a bit strong – we’re talking more of a distaste and a “it’s not for me” feeling here – but, no. No MySpace for Cas. Now I’ve just got to formulate the answer for people who go “Oh, you have a blog? That’s like a MySpace right?” Unfortunately, slapping them down isn’t a good enough answer.