Entries posted in October, 2005

VB grows up

For experienced VB.NET developers this isn’t really anything new but having spent most of my time in the last five years writing web applications in PHP, I have to admit that I’m a bit of a late starter in this area.  More »

I want to sell things on the internet

What follows is an actual recent conversation between a customer support representative at Net Solutions (our ISP/host) and a prospect. As a matter of good taste, the names have been changed to protect the innocently ignorant: June: I want to sell things on the internet.  More »

Westpac crippled feedback page

Recently, while attempting to use the Westpac website for online banking, I experienced some problems. Not wanting to phone their hotline, I attempted to contact them via email. Like so many other larger organisations, Westpac don’t publish their support email addresses, insisting you use their “online feedback” form instead.  More »

Top design stupidities of 2005

According to Jakob Nielsen’s recent article, things haven’t changed all that much in web design over the years. It seems that selfishness, ignorance and sometimes even downright stupidity still persist and are becoming a common pattern.  More »

As fresh as a Daisy

If you’re running one of the numerous flavours of the Windows operating system, you’ve no doubt experienced the continuous and systematic updates or hotfixes you’re having to apply to your computer just to keep it secure.  More »

Mozilla autocomplete bug

I recently came across an annoying little bug which seems to affect all Mozilla based browsers, including the current version (1.07) of Firefox.  More »

Home pages are becoming redundant

Recent usability testing conducted by Mark Hurst boldly asserts that Google has made home pages virtually irrelevant. The usability test was a little different to what’s typically conducted. Users were not given pre-written tasks. Instead, they were left to their own resources and experience.  More »

Free software

With so much confusion about the free software and open source software models, I think it’s important to reiterate what is meant by those terms, and specifically what is meant by the word “free.  More »