HY is it that so many user interfaces simply fail to work? It’s because users are permitted to take shortcuts and ignore the instructions. This is in fact the message which is delivered by Jeff Veen, whose opinion was inspired by another’s.

Veen concludes: “They’re not stupid. They’re not lazy. Don’t treat them that way.” Users are efficient. They want to get the job done with the least effort. It just doesn’t bode well as far as the intent of the developer is concerned.

New Yanoff for Palm – an example of
poor UI design

Ever wondered if running a recreational Web site can become a full-time occupation? Ever wondered if bloggers can be paid a wage to blog in favour of a particular company? That it, using the audience as a tool for income? It is a rarity, yet a reality, which more and more people strive to attain.

I pretty much know what ambitious Webmaster are trying to accomplish with advertisements, but if it is income for life, I would warn them in advance. There are very few Webmasters who, at the moment, can actually boast getting a wage out of advertisements (WebMasterWorld is just one example). However, there is a difference between making ends meet and sustaining an income for life. As with all businesses, the terrain changes and one must change and adopt to to this perpetual change. This change is not intervention(time)-free.

The Web, for instance, is changing all the time and all sites need to evolve. Advertising channels and income sources are running dry even for journalists, in part due to online content, bloggers, and Web 2.0 sites, which are far more fascinating (interactive) than ‘old school’ news sites. And by the way, all my sites combined do not generate more than $30 dollars a month. This is not even enough to cover the hosting bills.

To elaborate on the issue of evolving to facilitate trends, 6 years ago I was using nothing but Windows. I thought my skills were well-invested and bound to endure. Nowadays, I never even lay my hands on Windows and, while I consider this change a tremendous improvement, I just know I would never have managed to do the same things as effectively had I stuck with where I was (a monoculture).

I have just learned (through Bruce Schneier) that, in a large German dating site, the password “123456″ works 1.4% of the time and 2.5% of all passwords begin with “1234″. People are simply lazy or unwilling to memorise passwords. This all means that it would only take about 60 attempts to break into a user’s account.

In an era of Web services, remembering many password can be difficult. For this reason, I personally chose the ‘master password’ approach, as I call it, and I also manage everything as such on my PDA. Password choices are a very important matter, which is something you come to realise only when you get hacked/cracked. In the case of unencrypted comminication, they need to be changed very regularly, as well.

A story on Open Source parasites — one which I submitted yesterday (click for full-sized image)

story/link I had submitted to Digg.com has just made it into the front page. Digg is, at present, among the top 100 sites on the Web, which makes this a high achievement. My site was also once referenced in the front page of Slashdot.org, which appears to be losing (some of) its community to Digg. The term ‘Slashdot effect’ was recently substituted by the ‘Digg effect’, at least to some folks.

The front page of Slashdot on April 1^st, 2006

FTER Slashdot’s transition to proper CSS-based layout (it used to be heavily based on tables), a contest is run to select the new, permanent site design. Here are some of the latest design contenders. Some of these designs are included as actual Web pages, whereas others are appended as PNG-formatted screenshots. Shown above is the Slashdot front page as of April 1^st this year.

Links can lose their value and
get rusty, even with Google

was innocently browsing the Internet this morning. By serendipity, I then arrived at a page where Google boast their contributions to Open Source software through funding (Summer of Code). It is only one example among others. But then, upon immediate inspection, merely all links turned out to be rel="nofollow"ed. SearchStatus made it evident by highlighting those links with red shades.

I have always adamantly believed that the purpose of this new class for links was different. I thought it was introduced in order to prevent and deter spam, among other things such as accommodation for microsformats (e.g. XFN). Here is the snag: If Google themselves are using rel="nofollow" to obstruct dynamicity into relevant, on-topic links, why should anyone else be hesitant to do so? rel="nofollow", a concept that was put in place by Google, is confirmed to have become something that can be misused. Its use has gone beyond the so-called ‘link condom’ (for spam) utility. Otherwise, Google demonstrate hypocrisy herein.

NCE again, a timely article that covers zombies (and so-called “bot armies”) — these which are being used to carry distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks — fails to point out an important and crucial fact. It is only Windows computers that get hijacked en masse as part of extortion schemes. Snippet from the article lies below:

A new kind of denial-of-service attack has emerged that delivers a heftier blow to organizations’ systems than previously seen DOS threats, according to VeriSign’s security chief.

Not even once did the author mention the culprit. This is the third such article I come across which neither includes the word “Windows”, nor does it allude to “Microsoft” in any way. Fortunately, CNET give the E-mail address of the author, so I voiced a complaint. I still get hammered by about a thousand Windows zombies a day, which costs bandwidth. As yet, there is no sign of abatement.

I am aware that most CNET readers are using Windows, so might behave defensively and demand respect for the platform. I am also aware that the Windows EULA forbids such criticisms. Nevertheless, I think the article is flawed.

Here’s my response to the author:

I am somewhat appalled that in your article, much like in many similar articles, the main culprit is not even mentioned. All zombies are Windows. I happen to have strong feelings about this because my site has been attacked since September. The BBC are yet the only ones to have mentioned Windows in this context.