One of the commonest Web activities involves information discovery and fetching using search engines. It is worthwhile to adopt habits that make that activity a more efficient and productive one. For example, the user can be delivered 100 results per page (in Google at the least). When using GoogleBar, the plug-ins can be configured to get 50 results by default. This is valuable to users on a fast connections.

I am sometimes surprised, on the other hand, by the lacking support for efficient keyboard navigation. Neither Google nor Yahoo use accesskeys in the results page. It always bogs down to having to scroll down (or go to the top of the page) and then aim at the fine numbers to skip to the next page.This is laborious if there are many pages to browse through. Some arrow-shaped buttons exist for that reason in various toolbars, but no keyboard accelerators are bound to them. Moreover, they only accommodate the more basic functions.

I am aware that my request is a ‘power user’ feature, but why not incorporate some keyboard shortcuts (accesskey) to make SERP navigation quicker? It is very simple to implement and it adds just a few bytes to the page. Size-wise, it is affordable even if the large majority of users take no advantage of it.

Related items:

• Universal Accelerators
• Keyboard Accelerators
• Mozilla Firefox Keyboard Navigation

Milestone reached: Firefox to be pre-installed rather than downloaded

ARLIER this week I mentioned Blake Ross; The context: the demise of the Windows brand name. Apart from this thought-inspiring quote from Blake, I now come to discover that Hewlett-Packard began bundling Netscape. More recently it was confirmed that Dell pre-install Firefox in the UK.

Next milstone: OpenOffice bundling with all desktops and laptops. This would enable users to work on documents and spreadsheets ‘out of the box’.

I looked rather different back in 1984

NE major aspects of my life is exercise — weight training in particular. On pretty much this date, precisely 10 years ago, I began to work out. The road has been long and I now reap the benefits. Today is by all means a personal milestone.

Christmas appears to be the time of many resolutions and changes for me. It was around this time (22^nd/23^rd of December) in 2001 that I joined the health club, which I have cherished ever since. It was only yesterday that I decided to take the WordPress forums more seriously as well, especially because of the upcoming release of WordPress 2.0 (probably this Monday).

All in all, this time of the year, only a few days before Christmas, has special magic for these peculiar reason. These days of significance, namely those that go back to December 1995, still are and will always retain a sentimental value. As I have worked out regularly ever since (i.e. no breaks) this also symbolises the time when I got ‘shackled’ for good. Yes, for good, for the better.

The dashboard (back-end) is the
main enhancement offered by WordPress 2.0

O start off, I would like to spend a couple of paragraphs to accommodate a rant. As I previously mentioned, WordPress 2.0 is intended to be out before Christmas. In reality, there are a few difficulties and many reasons to avoid premature releases. I don’t mean to spoil the enthusiasm. Yet, I truly think it would be a misjudged decision to rush the release. Patience is a true virtue here due to the arguments listed below.

There are several bugs, which are sometimes fatal, e.g. browser crashes. Some time ago I raised the concern that AdBlock for Firefox has conflicts with TinyMCE, which make editing impossible to some. A release before Christmas is desirable (if not both compelling and necessary) because of massive holiday season downloads. However, why give WordPress that dreadful “buggy FOSS” reputation? Needn’t LAMP be respresented with its highest dignity? One must stick to the very same traits which earned version 1.5 nearly 1,000,000 downloads.

WordPress began to be adopted by many large companies. Many such companies run extensive public sites and intranets. Among the big names: Apple, Yahoo, MSN and About. Only yesterday it was revealed that Yahoo would liaise with WordPress for their hosting, which is exciting news indeed.

Why is that particularly exciting news? MSN and Yahoo are search giants, yet their range of applications extends far beyond that as time goes by. They handle the task of information management and thus must (or are expected to) provide rich content. And yet, Google is the largest among the three and much like the others it boasts a huge community of bloggers. Google started with search and moved on to Web-based applications, tools pertaining to information and data mining. Yahoo grew from communities, content, tools, and services. MSN grew from an operating system and a browser that points to MSN by default. All taken into account, WordPress can receive a great deal in return (not monetarily of course).

One wonders: where is Google in all of this WordPress hype? Their official blog is very poor in terms of functionality and presentation. Their main ‘courier’ or ‘messenger’ , Matt Cutts ¹, has been on WordPress for months despite Blogger and Blogspot being available. The Code Manger, Chris DiBona, on the contrary, uses Google’s services rather than his old personal domain. So while Google’s Code Manager, among many others, have settled on Blogspot or Blogger, Matt Cutts refused to do so (or put more politely, preferred to abstain) and registered his own domain (running WordPress of course) where he became a sort of a messager — an oracle — of Google search algorithms. The community that is thirsty for SEO tips syndicates his blog using feeds, of which there are plenty. He is used to writing plenty of items about gadgets, film reviews and the like, but due to the versatility of WordPress feeds, his subscribers are able to set aside the ‘noise’ and get Google inside infomation exclusively. The important fact is that Matt Cutts’ blog is far more popular than these “get your blog among splogs in a 30 seconds procedure” spaces. Google could learn a few things from Matt (Cutts/Mullenweg) and given that they are kings of Open Source, it is surprising that it is them who have not adopted WordPress yet.

¹ Cutts leaks information to SEO-savvy or curious audience of Web developers, much like googleguy in Webmaster World.

The latest among Eric Meyer’s CSS tricks: a pure-CSS vertical bars diagram.

A mouthful? In a separate page resides an example, which was derived from site statistics. The idea of rendering figures, charts, and diagrams using just browser functionality is astounding. With CSS3 on the horizon, Web developers will be able to achieve much more with less bandwidth to spare. No graphics! not even vector graphics.

Innocent American children are
being taught about God in biology class

N the latest of many arguments on the issue of intelligent design, a high court judge bans it. As a scientist, I find it rather disturbing that religion penetrates scientific education. It ought to be taught among cultural history or theology perhaps.

 
A court in the US has ruled against the teaching of “intelligent design” alongside Darwin’s theory of evolution.
 

Related items: TV budget takes precedent over science

Recommended site: The Edge

UITE recently I mentioned Google’s negotiations with AOL. There is a $1 billion deal in stake. It turns out the the deal may lead to more graphical (i.e. imagery) ads, which thus far Google have trialled and tested on a mere subset.

Users of Google’s search engine will soon see something they are not used to on the notoriously spare site: advertising with logos and graphics. And the advertisers will not be limited to America Online, whose talks with Google prompted the change in policy, according to two executives close to the companies’ negotiations.

This could break the long-standing tradition of non-obtrusive ads from Google. It will, nonetheless, be avoided by many advertisers who opt for text-only ads. This comes only 7 months after Google ads in feeds were initially introduced. Speaking of unwanted intrusion, feeds are often intended to serve pure content in a minimalist way. Ads are adverse to their true purpose.

My message to Google: “With food comes the appetite? Is the mantra losing its mana?“