There must have been more words “published” in the past 10 years than at any other 10 year period in history. By publish, I mean made available for the general public.

The World Wide Web (internet) has made publishing available to the average person. Blogs, message boards, personal web sites, and social web sites have made it both easy and interesting to make your voice heard. Many people are now writing opinions, talking about subjects that interest them, or just sending inane tweets to the world. The written word has found many new methods of publication.

Books can now be published by the individual author. Barnes and Noble is putting together the means for an author to self-publish and have that book available to the people who own the nook reader (a Barnes and Noble device). It appears that the Amazon Kindle is preparing something very similar. So this explosion of the written word will not only continue, it may well be just starting.

Blogs (web logs) have been around for a few years. The people that write those blogs tend to fluctuate on how often they publish. And the information content of a blog will vary quite a bit. But all it takes to publish a blog is access to a web server with the right software.

Yet, this abundance of information begs the question of content. Is there anything useful in this plethora of writing? Does anyone have anything useful to say?

I know that it may be difficult to believe (sarcasm intended), but there may be a dilution of information within this flood of writing!

For some people, this point is simply ridiculous. They are happy to be reading what their friends write, no matter how unimportant it may seem to the rest of us. And still others are glad to be outside of the tight control that publishers have over what gets printed. They are very happy to have access to the information provided by these new forms of communication.

But to others, the question makes a lot of sense. We may well be drowning ourselves in a sea of relatively useless writing. An undiscerning reader will find more than enough information on the internet to pass the time. But we may end up at the end of the session with a sinking feeling that we have not used our time wisely.

So, going back to the original question: How does a person find words that are worth reading?

Maybe the question should be worded this way: Are we looking for content that justifies our time when we browse the internet? I think we should be.

The state of the written word is great! It is very robust. However, the quality of that writing may not be up to snuff.

Be a discerning reader!

Darrel

I have children. I was once a child. The two do not seem to be related. Nor do I seem to have retained any useful information from my childhood that allows me to be a better parent. This is a frustrating situation.

You would think that all parents would have a built-in advantage since every one of us started life as a child. However, this does not appear to be the case. Perhaps we forget all the things we felt as children. Perhaps things are so different now than when were kids that the experience does not translate. Perhaps we parents are just stupid.

In any event, I would submit that adults certainly try to do a good job of being parents. It just seems that there is no way to be a good parent without having to do all of those things that we didn’t like about our parents. I mean, we know what we hated as kids. Yet, we must make sure that our children have good parenting.

Example: My parents would always remind me to do things. I hated that. However, as a parent, I know that my children forget to do things that they have to do. I remind them that they must take care of these items. I know they don’t like it, but I would rather remind them than not.

Another example: My parents did not want me staying out all night long. I told them I was not bothering anyone but myself. As a parent, I have given my children curfews and rules about how late they may be out. I know that nothing good usually happens if you are out after 1:00 AM.

So I just don’t get it. I was a kid once. I thought I would be the world’s best parent since I was going to keep in mind all of those things that I thought and felt as a child. Why is it that I cannot force myself to follow through? Why do I keep following in the footsteps of parents before me? This must be one of the great mysteries of life.

Darrel

I recently discovered a new reason to question whether I love or hate standards. The incident also reminded me that the World Wide Web has grown faster than the standards which support it.

I have been trying to incorporate Ajax functionality into my web pages. I want all of my pages to be fast and responsive. I use my web site more than anyone else. I don’t want to have to wait around for the server to get me information. Therefore, I have bought into the theory that small updates to a page should be served incrementally instead of loading the whole page again. This just makes good engineering sense.

However, until recently, some of these concepts have been well beyond the reach of the casual web programmer. But as my own skill has grown, I have attempted to make judicious use of Ajax concepts. Using iGoogle will make anyone want to provide user-friendly web pages.

One advantage at our disposal is that the tools are getting better. I have begun to use the Protoype Javascript framework as a method of making my life easier for web design. So the bottom line is that web design should be moving toward the ideal of a fast, responsive user interface. And then reality sets in.

I had the need to upload graphic images to my server and have them converted to thumbnail images. As I usually do, I created a small, stand-alone page to test the concepts. Then I began to incorporate the idea into my existing web pages. I don’t want to have to leave a data entry page to get graphics to the server. So I created a pop-up layer for the page to upload the graphics.

Now, flexibility in design says that the image may be uploaded from my computer or from a web URL. The web URL is no problem. However, the method of getting data from a cient computer to the server is to use form input tags with type attribute set to “file”. Then, when the form is submitted to the server, the file is sent along with the form and stored in a temporary area for processing by the server software. Here is where it gets sticky. Ajax concepts say that I don’t want to actually submit a form and go to another web page. I want to send the form data “in place” and get the results sent back to the current web page.

This doesn’t work!

After an extensive search I was left with two solutions:
1) Accept the fact that I am going to have to move to another web page and get on with it.
2) Create an iframe (inline frame) that will receive the submitted form. This frame can be invisible and contained within the current page. Therefore, the user will never be aware of the frame. Better yet, the client web browser will not have to go through the overhead of loading a new page.

The engineer in me says, “Option 2 is the only option.” However, we have yet another problem.

Inline frames are not allowed in strict XHTML.

I suppose the standards board is trying to move us toward using CSS for presentation features. Therefore, your markups should only provide content information and not presentation information. That makes sense from a broad perspective. However, in this case, I am stuck between having to live with the limitations of form submission implementation and wanting to move to a more standards based strict XHTML design.

I note that transitional XTML still allows iframe tags.

I bet you can guess what I decided to do. I want functionality more than I want the ideal of strict standards compliance. So I now have a few pages on my web sites that are Transitional XHTML instead of Strict XHTML. I think I will still be able to sleep at night.

So, I still try to work with the standards. I love the fact that we are able to create information that so many people can read and interact with from so many different computers and browsers. I hate the fact that the fast growth of the internet has caused these incompatibilities. Yet, I understand the reason that the problem exists.

I think that this equates to raising children. They grow up very quickly. We want to teach them well. We want to provide them with all the tools that they need to handle all that life throws them. Yet, in the end, they pretty much have to figure it out as they go.

The World Wide Web has grown up fast. Many times, we are left with the legacy of doing things the “best way the web pioneers could figure out”. So be it. We live in the real world. I will use standards as much as possible. In the end, it is the functionality that matters most.

Darrel

The beginning of a new football season is a lot of fun. I enjoy pro football (National Football League [NFL]). I have been a Dallas Cowboys fan since I was a teenager. But I enjoy watching pro football in general. Many games each week are immensely entertaining.

Part of my enjoyment of the NFL is how competitive most teams are against each other. There is rarely a sure thing when it comes to which team will win any given game. The prime example of this concept is last year’s Super Bowl. The New England Patriots had won all 16 regular season games and their two playoff games. The New York Giants had sustained an early losing streak and had come into the playoffs as a Wild Card team. The Patriots were heavily favored to win the game. Yet the Giants managed to win the game on an incredible last minute drive. Nothing is sure in the NFL.

The Giant’s victory is all the proof that most fans need to feel like their team can win the Super Bowl. And this time of year is the best time for them to have that belief. All the teams are tied for first place in their conference with a perfect 0-0 record! Anything can happen.

So each person sees what they want to see. And most fans want to believe that their team can “win the big one this year”. You can disagree with those fans until you are blue in the face, but nothing will convince them that their team is not ready to win it all.

As the season progresses, the good teams begin to separate themselves for the bad. Right now, a number of sports writers are claiming that the Minnesota Vikings are ready to make a big improvement and be a very good team. See what I mean?! Anything can happen. That includes people making ridiculous predictions with no basis in hard facts.

(I cannot see the Vikings being that much improved. In the NFL, your team success is often predicated on how good your quarterback performs. From what I have seen, I don’t believe that Tarvaris Jackson is ready to lead the Vikings to the promised land. This, obviously, is one man’s opinion.)

So, as entertaining as the NFL is the rest of the year, this time of year is really exciting. We get to stop guessing which teams are good, and get to see some results. In a couple of months, some teams will be out of contention. But for now, every team has a chance. And the fans of those teams feel like they are in for a better year than last.

So, here we go. I am ready for a great ride.

Oh, and by the way: Those sports writers who predict that the Dallas Cowboys may win it all this year are not deluded. They happen to be seeing things very clearly!

Darrel

It seems that when I try to solve a technical problem, it usually snowballs into an ever-increasing set of problems! Let me explain.

I usually approach a problem in a very simple, direct fashion. I look at the results that I am getting that are different than what I expected. I try to determine why the results are different. I analyze the problem to see if I am at fault, or my expectations are erroneous. This works, but I am usually amazed when I look back at the path I took to an eventual problem solution and see that the path was not straight at all, but wound around many unsuspected side-trips. An example is order.

Take my recent experience in web site development. I tried to convert some of my code from one way of doing things to another. Most of the pages in the “Books” and “PC Games” section were written by a web design tool that allowed me to concentrate on the look of the site and not worry about implementation details. However, I have been gradually reclaiming my pages by writing the HTML, CSS, Javascript and PHP to make sure that I have a very good understanding of how my pages work.

The sections I just mentioned are based on MySQL databases that use a PHP front-end to generate the HTML that is eventually sent to your web browser. I thought that the original system worked fine, but was a bit slow. This was because each new page load sent data back to the server which, in turn, sent a new page back to your browser. I thought that this could be made better by using some AJAX concepts.

Therefore, I rolled up my sleeves and began to code. I thought that each page was essentially being created by extracting information from the database. This could be handled more neatly if I loaded a table template into the HTML and then populated it by sending requests to separate PHP pages for the major components of the table. Well, a simple concept sure did begin to snowball on me!

First I had to learn the ins and outs of passing GET and POST parameters to a web site page. Then I had to figure out how PHP handles these parameters. Then I had to learn how to transfer parameters back and forth between Javascript and PHP. You see, each step leads to more questions than answers.

After I had figured out how to handle parameters, I found that there are a number of different ways that the various browser differ in handling the basic XMLHttpRequest object. So I had to make my code work for all browsers as best I could.

As I began to get my data requests back to the original HTML page, I found that I was not always getting the new images I was supposed to be loading. So now I had to learn about caching by the browser and the server and how to avoid problems associated with files that change frequently. But wait, there is more!

As I decided that some type of progress indicator was needed to keep the user happy, I found that there are differences in the way that the various browsers handle graphics. Internet Explorer (at least older versions) do not work well with PNG images that use transparencies. However, GIF images do not offer all of the nice features of PNG files, including a reduced color space.

So I am getting closer to a finished product that is quicker and easier to use, and what do I run into? The fact that the “Enter” key is no longer doing what I want it to on the forms. It turns out that there is a default behavior associated with forms that does not work for me if I want to use AJAX methodologies. However, it is very difficult to avoid that behavior. In essence the “enter” key causes the form to be submitted before I am ready for that to happen.

Now I get to learn about how to trap keyboard entries on web pages and how to bend those entries to my own desires. However, once again this becomes more difficult as I find that the various browsers handle keyboard entry differently. However, I eventually create a solution that seems to work for all the browsers.

So, what started as a relatively simple change in technology snowballs into a major task that has me learning a number of different things that are only peripherally related to my original task. I come out of this process smarter, but reminded again how most tasks are not as easy as they first appear.

I would have to say that this experience is mirrored in almost all of the technical work that I perform. I find myself spending enormous amounts of time learning how to work with problems that I didn’t originally anticipate having to solve. So schedules get blown. Extra effort is required. Hair gets pulled. I think that in the long run I will just have to get used to the fact that most technical projects are going to be subject to this snowball effect.

In fact, why don’t I just go ahead and coin a term: The Snowball Effect. If I become famous for this term, you will have read about it first here.

Feeling the early goosebumps of fame,
Darrel

I have never been an artist. I leave that to my brother. I am, however, an engineer and a programmer. When it comes to web page design or the user interface to software, the engineer comes face-to-face with the artist.

This fact comes to the forefront immediately when browsing through various web sites. Some have obvious input from someone with a flair for graphics. Others make it apparent that the designer does not have a lot of artistic talent. I tend to fall somewhere in the spectrum closer to the second extreme.

So how does a person bring together the technical skill necessary to design good web sites with the artistic skill necessary to make those sites look good? One method is to hire a big team that contains both types of individuals. Then you make sure that they meet early and often. The result is not guaranteed, but the results should be good.

However, when a web site is the product of one person, usually one of two things happens:

1. The “eye candy” suffers in favor of content. (The designer is more of a technical person.)
2. The site looks good, but doesn’t navigate well. Things are difficult to find/use. (The designer is more of an artist.)

I have been working on web sites for more about 9 years now. I am slowly getting better and better with the site technical design. As far as the aesthetics go, I always feel like I have good looking sites. The rest of the world may or may not agree! One way that I am learning to make this work better is to separate the content from the appearance. Yes, I am talking about using style sheets (CSS) to give the site it’s final look.

These have long been touted as the proper way to do web site design. However, it takes a long time to muster the energy to change from what you are doing to the new techniques. This site is now based on the concept of using style sheets for appearance. I think that the site looks good. If I change my mind, a new site design is one style sheet away from reality!

Last but not least, this blog page used to look nothing like the rest of the web site. The power of CSS has changed that! Starting today, the WordPress theme used on these pages will be based on the same CSS as the rest of the site. This old dog learned a new trick.

Always learning,
Darrel

One of the major draws of online games is the fact that you play with other people. You are not playing against the computer. At least you are not playing against the computer alone. The main point of online games is the interaction between the players.

When we play online and we don’t know anyone else, we tend to look for groups (guilds) that allow us to interact with others on a regular basis. In fact many game makers realize this dynamic and encourage creation of these groups. For many people, it is this game dynamic that keeps them coming back day after day.

The second level of this interactivity is the spoken word. Voice chat server/clients like Ventrilo allow the players to talk to each other while they play the game. In fact, it allows them to talk whether they play or not. There are times that the chat facility is the main reason for getting online. It allows connection to a community that is constant, though the individuals may come and go.

I have been friends with some fellow game players since Junior High. We have embraced online gaming as a continuation of our fellowship, competitive nature, and general camaraderie that we have shared over the years. The voice chat facilities have made the communication that much richer. It is a wonderful result of current technology that we are able to remove the constraints that distance would normally place on our friendship!

Really, the online gaming is all about getting personal. We enjoy the experience of gaming much more intensely when we connect to the people with which we play. Voice chat makes the connection that much more convenient.

Here is to modern technology!
Darrel

I have always felt a little guilty about what I should do when people forward me an e-mail. You know the type of e-mail I am talking about. The ones that have some important idea brought home by a story, poem or pictures. I don’t want to receive these e-mails, yet I do not know how to politely ask others to stop sending them!

Part of the problem is that I don’t want to hurt their feelings. I appreciate the fact that they were thinking of me. I appreciate some of the sentiments forwarded in the e-mail. Yet I have always harbored some poorly defined feelings of being put upon. I finally figured out what was bothering me.

To better define my feelings I am going to relate this to a past computer phenomenon: Push publishing. A definition of terms in in order here:

Push publishing: Information is set to a subscriber according to the wishes of the publisher. The subscriber may remove themselves from a publication list, but if they are subscribed, they will get all of the information sent by the publisher to that list.

Pull publishing: Information is set to a subscriber according to the wishes of the subscriber. The subscriber will only retrieve information deemed to be of interest by the subscriber themselves. The publisher simply makes the information available to whichever subscribers are interested in the content.

This type of publishing concept has been around for a long time. One of the first times I was aware of such a process was with the introduction of Windows 98. The “new” desktop, Active Desktop, could be configured to allow publishers to push content to your desktop via the internet. Interestingly enough, most people did not want that type of publishing. They preferred to decide for themselves what information was downloaded to their computer.

This can be broadened to a general rule: People usually prefer pull publishing.

This brings me back to my conclusion about “feel good” e-mails. They represent push publishing of the worst kind! It comes from friends or relatives. Therefore, it is difficult to delete the e-mail without reading it. I really want to escape the flood of “feel good” e-mails, but I don’t want to hurt the feelings of my friends.

I guess that I am going to have to try a different tactic. Orson Scott Card did a recent essay on why we need to be careful with internet content. It could well be copyrighted material. Perhaps sending a warning based on his essay would break people of the habit of continually forwarding these missives. It is certainly worth a shot. I think I will give it a try.

By the way, I liken the overall effect of receiving these e-mails to that of a friend or relative trying to get me involved in Amway sales. I don’t want to sell stuff. But it sure is difficult to tell a loved one “No”.

Here is to better e-mail communications,
Darrel

Writing is a difficult process to perform in a noisy environment. I write best when it is very quiet.

My children have always argued with me that they can do their homework with music blasting away in the background. I disagree.

I can work with music playing, but only if the music is without words and played at a quiet level. If someone is singing in my ear, I am going to start typing their words. Or, worse yet, be unable to type anything at all.

I also write better when I am not too tired. Nor too hungry. Nor distracted by other things going on in my life. There is nothing like a crisis going on to keep me from being able to concentrate on what I am trying to put into words.

So let’s see where I am so far:
1) Must be quiet
2) Must not be too early or too late
3) Must have eaten recently
4) Must be at a calm moment in my life

I believe that, with just the previous constraints, I am down to about 4 or 5 hours a month that I will be able to compose prose in an ideal environment.

Hmmmm. I guess I will have to write in a less than ideal environment.

Darrel

The biggest problem with web logs (blogs), in general, is that they don’t have much to say.

This may be more a function of the writing style than it is a a criticism of the how people use blogs. But, then again, maybe not!

If we consider a blog to be a diary that is available for the whole world to read, then I can see why so much content is merely a recitation of mostly boring events. After all, it takes a pretty talented writer to make every day into a scintillating story.

However, I tend to think of blogs as a way of expressing opinions about subjects of interest. With that definition, I don’t write unless I have something to say. That almost ensures that I don’t write every day. If everyone adopted my style, then they might not have people interested in their blogs, since there would only be occasional updates.

The middle ground on this topic may be fairly simple: Find a fresh subject each day and write your opinion on that subject! I would still vote for not writing anything if you don’t have anything interesting to say. But if all blog writers would use my rule, there would probably be better content in the blogs.

That said, I doubt my opinion will persuade most authors. They write because they can. And publication is cheap. And countless other reasons. As for my reading habits, I don’t read many blogs because, in general, they don’t have much to say.

Darrel