Web Pages That Suck - learn good web design by looking at bad web design

Brightcove is launching an entire new product line for making mobile and web apps called Brightcove App Cloud. Developers will be able to use App Cloud to create their apps once and then deploy them to the iPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets, and beyond. It creates HTML5 apps as well as mobile touch websites, and it is not limited to video apps.

It’s on TechCrunch

The section “Standards, Standards, Standards” in Christina Warren’s article Why Designers and Developers Should Care About Internet Explorer 9 is so full of crap that no enema bottle can unplug it.

The web site HTML5Test provides “an indication of how well your browser supports the upcoming HTML5 standard and related specifications. It does not try to test all of the new features offered by HTML5, nor does it try to test the functionality of each feature it does detect.” It gives each browser a score and here are the scores I got on my machines (highest possible score is 300):

217 Google Chrome 6.0.472.59 beta (plus 10 bonus points) – Windows 7 and Vista
207 Safari 5.0.2 (7533.18.5) (plus 7 bonus points) – Windows 7
207 Safari 5.0 (7533.16) (plus 7 bonus points) – Vista
204 Firefox 4.0b5 (and 9 bonus points) – Vista
159 Opera 10.60 (plus 7 bonus points) – Vista
159 Opera 10.62 (plus 7 bonus points – Vista
139 Firefox 3.6.9 (plus 4 bonus points) – Windows 7
139 Firefox 3.68 (plus 4 bonus points) – Vista
106 IE 9 Beta (9.0.7930.16406) (plus 3 bonus points) – Windows 7
037 IE 8 (8.0.6001.18943) (and no bonus points) – Vista
022 IE 7 (7.0.5730.13) and no bonus points – XP

Yes, IE 9 is almost 3X more compliant than IE 8 and almost 5 times more compliant than IE 7, but its score is one-half of Google’s.

Why is everybody sucking up to Microsoft’s not-quite-as-crappy-as-it-used-to-be browser? The Browser War is not the Special Olympics.

The HTML 5 Test is a really cool site that tells you how much HTML 5 support is built into your browser. With Apple screaming “We have the best HTML 5 support” I thought it would be logical to visit The HTML 5 Test and see who’s the real winner.

I went on Monday, June 7, the day Safari 5 was released. I went back on Tuesday and discovered that the test had been revised. The original test had 160 possible points, while the current test (released on Wednesday) has 300. I’ve broken the tests down by New (300 point scale) and Old (160 point scale). The score does not include bonus points

Google can claim they beat Apple and offer better HTML 5 support, but that’s if you’re using the 6.0 developer version, which most of you shouldn’t be using.

Apple can claim they beat Google and offer better HTML 5 support with the current stable releases, which is probably a more accurate claim.

The truth is support is still pretty crappy. Speaking of crap, Microsoft’s IE 7 and 8 are POS when it comes to HTML 5. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know IE 9 is so much better, but nobody in their right mind would test it on their production machine. That’s assuming their production machine isn’t running XP because IE 9 won’t work on XP.

I’m too curious. I installed the IE 9 Platform Preview on my Vista laptop. IE 9 isn’t really a browser, but more of an HTML viewer. For one thing, you can install it alongside another version of IE. That’s really, really difficult to do in the real world.

As you see in the scores above, IE 9′s HTML 5 support is less than IE 8, but greater than IE 7. I’m not impressed. Here’s a screenshot showing the new, still limited support.

My Dreamweaver CS5 trial software only worked for 3 days instead of 30. Thanks for wasting my time.

Dreamweaver CS5′s new features http://bit.ly/bL64VM and version comparison http://bit.ly/9cPTJl aren’t exciting me.

Free Photoshop SpeedUp (Windows) http://bit.ly/rugow – Scroll to bottom of the page. There’s also a free PDF SpeedUp.

Jeez, guys. There are a lot of important extensions that have been updated. Get back to the code mines.

Dust-Me Selectors 2.11 —
Finds unused CSS selectors.

Firefox Accessibility Extension 1.5.5.0
Adds tools for accessible navigation and the development of accessible web content.

YSlow
Make your web pages faster with Yahoo’s page performance tool.

I know, I know I use Javascript. You have to if you want detailed analytics (or any kind of advanced features) but there are lots of reasons not to use JS. Almost every time there’s a security alert about an unpatched Internet Explorer vulnerability — and there’s a big one out now (with a patch due Wednesday) — Microsoft suggests you turn Javascript off.

Here’s a screen shot and I’ve highlighted the applicable parts.

Microsoft isn’t the only browser that has ever had JS problems and it isn’t the only problem with JS. Until recently, JS has been a drag on web site performance. It’s still a drag unless you place your JS correctly on the page or delay its delivery.

Have you ever wondered, “Did Bob read my e-mail that had my quote or is he just ignoring me?” Well, if Bob uses HTML e-mail (and lots of folks do) you can find out if he opened your e-mail.

About.com has an article entitled “Windows Email Return Receipt Tools and Services” and it mentions a good number of services and software. The one I bought and use is from a company called MSGTAG. (While MSGTAG has an affiliate program, I’m not a member.)

There are 3 versions (one if free, but your e-mail has a footer about MSGTAG) I bought the high-end product MSGTAG Status 2 ($59.95) and it’s really amazing. For example, I discovered that my daughter — the person I love more than anyone in the universe — waited 3 weeks and 23 hours to open one of my e-mails.

On the other hand, it only took Seth Godin 2 minutes and 12 seconds to open an e-mail I sent him entitled “Bad Marketing at the American Diabetes Association.” Hmm. I think there’s a point here.

I was really disappointed when a program called RescueTime stopped working. I tried everything suggested and I couldn’t get it back. Well, the great news is IT WORKS AGAIN. The solution was one of the following:

1. There was a new version of the software.
2. I updated Windows and the .NET 2.0 upgrade decided to finally install (third time’s the charm).
3. I created a new user account.

I really like the way it tells me how much time I’m spending on each application on my computer. It’s very cool and the individual version is free (the business version hasn’t been release so I don’t know pricing.) I have no commercial interest in this product. I’m just happy it’s working again.

On the other hand, WebLog Expert has gone down the tubes. Sigh.