I try to avoid being negative on my blog but I realise that its been sliding that why over the last few articles. I promise I be more positive in the future...

I have been noticing more and more pro-Microsoft sites (the ones that bang on about the latest laptops and Internet Explorer patches in the same way Apple-worshippers go on about Safari updates and the MacBook Air as if it was a gift from God) have started asking me to install 'Sliverlight'... Absolutely not! There is no chance I am going anywhere near this rival to Flash. Why do Microsoft have to keep inviting themselves to other people party's? They must have taken one look at the latest Flash Player statistics, saw the figure: '99% Penetration' and just couldn't resist a piece of that action. They have done this before.

Look at Internet Explorer. Back in the 'good old days' most users I knew used to install Netscape Navigator rather than use Microsoft’s IE. It was by far the superior browser, came with all sorts of other groovy web apps such as an email client, and was free (unlike Outlook). Microsoft soon cottoned on to the fact that if they could control the browser they could essentially control the internet. The used all sorts of dirty tactics to gain superiority over their better rivals and even had legal action taken against them so users could still be given the illusion of browser choice. Now, what PC users are left with is an operating system with the web browser integrated into almost everything. This is one of the reasons Windows has so many security risks. Most users now can’t be bothered to install anything else and you even come across websites where developers haven’t bothered testing on anything other than IE. And even this wouldn't be a problem if Microsoft hadn'yt seen fit to bastardise CSS. Somethig there were only able to do after they'd won the War of the Browsers.

I'm hoping that people shy away from Silverlight and don’t give Microsoft the chance to get a foothold on interactive and streaming content (because we all know that’s what they are after.) Yes, Silverlight seems to have a good technical spec but Adobe Flash is extremely good, has been number one for years and is the web standard. We don’t need yet another pluggin to install on our browsers.

Another reason to stick with Flash is because of the existing knowledge-base. The design industry has been using Flash for years and Flash content is of a very high quality. It seems to me that currently the only people authoring in Flash are Microsoft-sycophantic techies. Whilst these people are no doubt highly skilled at coding they don’t seem to have the design flair that makes Flash content of such a high standard.

So Microsoft - if it ain't broke, don't fix it! (Your time would be better spent fixing all your products that ARE broke!)

Cuil (pronounced 'cool' or probably more like 'kewl') is a new search engine, just launched by some ex-Google employees who think they can do a better job than Google. They claim that it will be better than Google because is has a index of sites three times bigger (120Billion to Google's 40Billion).

I've just tried it and, to be honest, I think they have a long way to go.

It looks nice. But I think style has been put above substance. The landing page is all black with a logo and search box positioned stylishly off-centre. Once you search you are taken to a white page with a black header displaying the results in three columns! I don't get this yet. What is the order of importance? Up and down or left to right? Typing the same thing in a few times seemed to throw back different results and for soe searches I get a 'Explore by Catgory' box top-right which seems to disrupt the flow of results further. This layout seems to be very difficult to get my head around after the traditional search result layout we are all used to.

It doesn;t seem to accept the same syntax as Google either. When I searched for James +Marett it literally searched for "james +marett" and, of course, returned no results.

But the main reason I don't like it is because when I type in 'Oast One' I get nothing to do with Oast One. Not a sausage. It's number one on Google!

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it'll become the leading search engine, doing all the things Google does wrong right, but as yet I'm not convinced.

J

Six of the UK's leading ISP's are today announced Plans to send 'warning letters' to people illegally sharing music on the web.

"The deal, negotiated by the government, will see hundreds of thousands of letters sent to net users suspected of illegally sharing music." - BBC News, 24 July 2008

Is it me or is this just a case of greed on behalf of the music industry? Yes, distributing/sharing music is illegal but there are many applications of the sharing technology that could be legitimate. For example: If I own a Rolling Stones album I am within my rights to back it up to tape, CD-R or other medium. I am also able to import it into iTunes for my own personal use. So surely - if I am unable to get to my copy of a CD if I need to rip it or own an album on an unrippable format such as cassette - could I not download a version instead? After all, I have already paid for the music. In some case I have bought the same album on various formats over the years (Cassette, LP, CD) meaning I have already paid for the music 3 times over. Do the record companies really want us to have to pay for it again in mp3 format?

Are people no longer able to mediate their own activities? I'm sure everyone made a 'mix tape' for a friend in the days of the cassette. Strictly speaking that was illegal distribution of music but I didn't see HMV handing out warning letters to everyone buying a pack of blank tapes!

The fact that the music industry seems to have enough clout to get the government to negotiate the sending out of letters on their behalf highlights the fact that they have enough money already. Music, especially live music, has never been more popular - there are more festivals that ever before in the UK this year. The revenue from them alone must be enormous. Let alone the merchandising, radio play, interviews, endorsements and even those people like me who still like to actually buy a CD and have something tangible in my hand rather than the risk of my computer crashing and taking all my music. Is it possible that the music industry is just getting greedy?

Why is the government not cracking down on spammers in the same way? Maybe its because the sharers are an easier target and the music industry have more money to throw at the 'problem'.

I personally think that stopping illegal downloading won't really affect the profits made by the music industry. I mean: would the people who think illegally downloading music is OK actually go out and buy it if they weren't able to get it for free?

After a smart overhaul, simplifiying and updating the design of the original site, Oast One has put Good Stuff's new site live. I'm very pleased with the simplicity and clarity of the layout, hopefully Good Stuff are too :o)

I was involved in a discussion earlier today about the dotted boxes / borders that appear around links in FireFox once clicked. The initial question was how to remove them which simply involves adding a line of code to your CSS similar to this one:

a:focus {outline: none}

However - the topic soon turned to why they were there and should we be removing them. The argument was that they provide accessibilty for user that need it and should not be tampered with. In my eyes removing them is no worse that setting the size of text to a small font - it shouldn't be done but many, many sites do it regardless. Designers should be mindful of usability of their sites as well as the look. 

Just remembered this - a site allowing you to generate random Lipsum (Latin) for use when laying out where text is going to go.

www.lipsum.com

Scroll down a little and look to the right to see the generation tool. 

This is a little online tool by Adobe that I've recently sarted using. Its pretty useful for picking out sets of complimentary colours and generating swatches:

kuler.adobe.com

You can also see sets created by other designers.

After an enjoyable few weeks of Flash coding the MSDC Flash website I have been working on has gone live.

MSDC had a strong idea about the design of the site which left me free to concentrate on making it work nicely. I am pleased with the motion and little features such as the step by step loading of the images in the Work section and the zooming on the map in the Contact section.

My crazy-haired friend, Jen, asked me if I knew a way to open locked DXR files for Director. Before I could tell her my usual method - to write a script to open the DXR at runtime and then copy all the cast members into an external Cast (CST) file - she had sent me a follow-up email saying she had found an old exe she used to use. I remembered it myself once she had mentioned it though I must admit I have never used it.

Its called dirOpener and apparenty it can open DXR files. I have uploaded the three versions I can find (for versions of Director 7.02, 8.0 and 8.5) in case anyone finds them useful. However - I can't seem to find versions for the newer versions of Director. Possibly the 8.5 version works as not much was changed in the more recent builds though if it doesn't I can probably cobble together one that does for anyone that needs it. Let me know...

• dirOpener300-850-1-PC.zip (1.74 mb)
• dirOpener300-800-1-PC.zip (1.65 mb)
• dirOpener300-702-1-PC.zip (1.46 mb)

Jim out!

I have been running Windows Vista on my Apple MacBook for a while now. Installing it with Bootcamp was a breeze. Well done Apple - Microsoft could learn a lot from you in terms of making things simple and user-friendly. 

Oddly Vista works better on my Mac than it does on my newer Dell that was 'built for Vista'. (I could rant about my Dell all day but I'll spare you the rage - this time at least.) The only problem I've been having with Vista on the MacBook is that occasionally Vista stops detecting the battery. The 'phantom' battery still works as I can power the MacBook using just the battery but the taskbar icon in Vista tells me its not there. Not very useful if you are out and about and need to see how much battery you have remaining...

To start with I thought the problem was intermittent and I could remedy it by removing and putting back the battery... This is not actually the case. Once it happens it stays happened... until you reboot in Mac OS! Once you've run Mac OS and reboot into Windows Vista again the battery is back!

So in short - to fix the problem - boot the Mac OS then next time you boot Windows the battery detection works again.

Sorted! Now I just needs to figure out what makes the battery 'disapear' in the first place!

J