14 Oct 2004
Edge Strain is the “cutting-room floor” of development house, Abstract Edge. Graphically brilliant, purely inaccessible (correct me if this is stated in error!), clean, smooth, polished, high bandwidth.
Some days I wish for that, others, it makes me cry. Worth a look, either way.
Later: I’d like to retract comments about accessibility, if only in part. The website (not concept site — all further comments apply to the website of Abstract Edge, not their “cutting-room floor” display) of Abstract Edge features textual content, hidden by CSS, for non-visual
UA. This isn’t true accessibility, so far as I’m concerned, because there are many, many users who would benefit from accessible design who fall outside the “non-sighted” umbrella.
For example, those on dialup. This website is LOCKED into displaying Flash content only (at least without fiddling with a few things most users wouldn’t know about, or bother to), unless you’re using a web browser which doesn’t support CSS. This presents a problem in terms of bandwidth, if nothing else.
Motor disabilities? You may have the Flash player installed, but that doesn’t mean it’d be your first choice. If you can’t click links because of crazy flying menus inside Flash applications, a text version is certainly preferable. Not only that, even most pure Flash websites don’t include a scaling facility (despite this being an inherent capability of Flash, as a vector-based platform), which obviously means those with visual disabilities (not blindness, just short-sightedness) can’t scale content — something which is possible in most UA these days with pretty much all text content.
Perhaps it doesn’t suit their target, but I don’t know. The “You can’t enter our website unless you have Flash Player 7″ grated at my nerves a little, as I couldn’t see anything about the site/animation which I didn’t know could be achieved without much difficulty in Flash 5, even. That, and the half-baked attempt at “being accessible”, seemingly more out of token effort than actual well-founded motivation… well.
At least it looks pretty.
13 Oct 2004
Walking away from Town Hall end of the city today, there was strewn along the ground the remnants of the parade celebrating the return of Australia’s paralympians, in sweltering heat. It carried as far as Hyde Park, and not even the music could deafen the sound it made, now ignored and crushed into the ground as people continued, unknowing or uncaring where it’d been before, or even why.
I’d wished I had my camera with me, to capture the limp, insignificant and crushed green and gold paper. I’m not being cynical, it was just striking, that’s all.
Congratulations to Matt Levy and the rest of the Australian team.
11 Oct 2004
No, WHOIS aren’t an organisation… it was a joke. Sort of. Leave me alone.
I got a letter in my physical mailbox today, from an organisation called the “Domain Registry of America“, about a domain I’m the administrative contact on (well, I’m also the technical and billing contact, but what the heck). I’d never had anything to do with them before, so I assume they pulled my details from the DNS record on the domain of a client.
I’m pretty impressed. They sent me physical mail, and it wasn’t even a scam. This, from a dot com company. R.E.S.P.E.C.T. I honestly don’t mind real world spam. It’s reassuring to know there’s a tangible cost to the people sending it, even if it means trees are getting lopped down from old growth forests. I can pretend it’s recycled if I want, anyway.
It was letting me know the domain expires in March next year (talk about forward notice, hey?!), and was offering me renewal with them, instead of my current registrar for that domain. Yeah, it’s just a domain transfer form, which they mailed out. The suggestion is that if I switch to them I’ll be paying less than I am with my current registrar, which is blatantly untrue — their rates listed here are $AU38 per year ($US25), whilst I get domains with my current registrar for $US12 each ($AU16). Still, there was an envelope enclosed, and a form I could fill out to change domain providers, as well as purchase the .org and .biz namespace of the same name.
They have a Melbourne office, and the whole thing looks quite legitimate… I’m tempted to send them a polite reply informing them that my current registrar is cheaper, and they’re most welcome to try and match pricing and ancillary services if they wish. Maybe.
It’s moments like these when I’m glad clients aren’t the administrative/billing contacts for their own domains. This thing, although it says “This notice is not a bill” in the 3rd paragraph, reads awfully like a renewal form (the header reads “Domain Name Expiration Notice”) — I can quite easily see someone who doesn’t know or remember who their registrar is simply processing payment for it and etting on with their life: not a problem in itself, but for the fact that there’d be an upset client a few months later, when their DNS services are suddenly borked and they don’t know why… neither would I, and logging into the registrar’s panel wouldn’t help, as the domain would no longer be with them!
Aside from that slightly scary aspect, I haven’t got any real problem with this kind of attempted poaching… I am, however, somewhat curious as to whether anyone else has experienced this kind of mail before. If you’ve got a domain name and have or haven’t received this type of mail before, post a comment or something.
11 Oct 2004
Just to make me feel better about content balance on this website before I go to sleep.
How cool are dogs? I finally met Tuffy “The Man” Holloway today, Sam’s little dog, and one of the few I know which has a website dedicated to it. He is such an attention seeker! Very cute, though… also very fluffy. My dog, Dumbledore, currently has a short haircut, which I think I prefer… he stays clean, and doesn’t smell as bad!
The other cool thing about dogs is that even when they do bite you playfully, it doesn’t hurt… and, if it does, then at least they realise you’re in pain! Tori’s cat isn’t too good like that… aptly named “Psycho”, she (? I think it’s a she…) was hanging off my leg the other day, in between attempting to consume my hand. You can tell they’re related to tigers, which, incidentally, eat an average of 18 kilograms of meat a night… how insane is THAT?