thingoid

Right upfront let me say that I’m a regular Firefox user and have been since before version 1.0. Like any software it’s not perfect but it suits my purposes.

I’m not a big fan of evangelism or hyperbole, so when a page called “Firefox Myths” entered my radar recently, I was very interested.

Then sadly disappointed. Rather than a balanced analysis of some of the folklore surrounding Firefox, it is merely a stream of weak arguments against imaginary “myths” supported by misquoting or deliberate misreading of sources.

I’m not even going to reference the page. If you really want to find it, I’m sure you can. It’s by someone called Andrew K on a site that seems to have a lot of other stuff about Windows 2000 and XP.

Happily in doing some reading for this response I found a balanced view (which is what I was looking for), so instead I suggest you look at the Firefox Myths written by David Hammond (more…)

Here’s my Markdown/PHP Markdown cheat sheet or syntax summary. (more…)

Ah, the New England Journal of Medicine.

I always found it a thumping good read, in the sense that the bound copies in the medical library made a very pleasing thump when dropped from a height onto a reading desk.

Anyway, how about this little item? Apparently a doctor - a fellow in allergy and immunology, no less - used Google to diagnose a difficult case.

And the search engine got it right:

“How did you make that diagnosis?” asked the professor. Came the reply, “Well, I had the skin-biopsy report, and I had a chart of the immunologic tests. So I entered the salient features into Google, and it popped right up.”

Personally I’d like to think that there was still some professional input and judgement used by the doctor here. Even so, as the correspondent rightly observed, William Osler must be turning over in his grave.

(And yes, I did use Google to find that link on Osler…)

VicRoads has got some “On-line interactive bicycle maps of Victoria“.

Their web page says:

This mapping system provides up to date information on the location of completed bicycle routes throughout the state. The maps include details of the off-road path network and the on-road lane network in Melbourne and in regional Victoria as well as the Rail Trail network in regional Victoria. (more…)

When I print off a web page I like to have the URL printed with it, and the date of printing is often handy also. Well it must be the New Year or the summer heat or being away from work for mumble-mumble months but for the life of me I just couldn’t make it work in Firefox or Safari this morning.

It turns out that the solution was right there in front of me all the time. (more…)

Practical suggestions for making useful tags

The value of tags is enhanced by using them consistently and extensively. Here’s three rules of thumb I use for tags on del.icio.us (more…)

Short reviews of social bookmark services

Maybe del.icio.us is a bit plain for your palate, maybe you want a bit of variety — there are several alternatives (more…)

Do your favourites play favourite with only one browser? Maybe it’s time you made your bookmarks more social.

Social bookmarking, sometimes called link blogging, is a relatively new online idea that allows you to store your bookmarks online. So you can use the same set of bookmarks in any browser, on any computer, wherever there is an Internet connection. (more…)

Advice on handling email chain letters and hoaxes

I recently received an email from a very reliable contact that said simply “Some good tips!” with a file attached called PoliceTips.doc. The document was a list of eight “tips” for keeping yourself safe in public places, and the strong suggestion is that they were issued by the police.

Before I finished reading the document, I had diagnosed it as a hoax and a chain letter. Here’s how I did it. (more…)

Of course the web has never had an index and everyone knows that the only way to find interesting stuff on the ‘net is to search at a search engine.

But in practice there have always been other options. In the early days of the web, sites offering a “random link” were pretty common - a click on the link would land you anywhere on the known web, which was a pretty good way of finding interesting sites. But as both the web and its inhabitants mulitiplied so did the range of subjects hosted online and the untargetted random link lost its attraction - the chances of landing somewhere interesting to you was limited. (more…)

Do you have a web page or part of a web site that you’d like to keep hidden from Google (and other prying web crawlers and robots)? (more…)

Is it inevitable that everyone who writes about computers must eventually do a bit about Google? Well, why fight it? Here goes… (more…)

This book provides an excellent broad review of the history of information and communications technology, starting with the spoken and written word through to computers, computer networks, and the world-wide web.

Unfortunately, the title of this book gives the impression that there will be an examination of the current state of information architecture with some looking forward to the future of the “emerging profession”. Relatively little of the book is given to discussing IA as a profession, with much more weight going to the historical context. In fairness, the intention of the book is “to introduce the reader to key innovations in the history of communications systems and technologies leading to the information age”. While it is important to know where the profession is emerging from, it is just as important to look at where it is likely to emerge to. (more…)