Author: John

TechCrunch is a Blog – Let’s Treat it like one

I read TechCrunch almost every day, doing so is one of the best ways to keep tabs on what companies are starting, (and stopping), and general trends in the tech industry.

I don’t always read the comments on TechCrunch, there are a lot of articles every day and I have to work sometime, however, in the comments that I have read recently I’ve noticed a theme emerging. Roughly, the theme is to say something like “This isn’t what your blog is about, so you shouldn’t have written this post” or they say something like “I don’t want to hear about this company.”

For example, last week, Mike Arrington posted Handshaking is so Medieval. Let’s end it. Mike doesn’t like shaking hands. He feels that it spreads germs and feels that we no longer need to show the people that we meet that we are not carrying a weapon. He followed it up yesterday by posting A Revolution Begins: OpenCandy has a Board Meeting and Nobody Shakes Hands, the title pretty much says it all.

After a healthy discussion got going on the original post there started to be some comments like “Geyt over it you stupid queer.” The comments on the follow-up post include things like this:

So the author was thinking “Hmm, slow news day. What should I write about? I know! I’ll write about myself.”

I’ve unsubscribed from your RSS feed. (source)

The editors at TechCrunch also post very frequently about Twitter. This should be no surprise as Twitter is one of the fastest growing companies out there right now, (By the way, you can follow me at @johnbeales on Twitter). With 17 million visitors from the US alone in April, if Twitter does something it’s worth reporting. Again, I find the comment section filled with comments such as:

This just in…TC is still all over Twitters nuts…(source)

ANOTHER twitter story? are you kidding me? What a joke… (source)

And again, we don’t care… (source)

My mother told me on several occasions that if I didn’t have anything nice to say, then I shouldn’t say anything at all, and I am going to paraphrase that for blog discussions: If you don’t have anything constructive to say, don’t say anything at all.

TechCrunch is Mike’s blog, so he can post what he wants, and if he, (or his editors), feels that Twitter is worth posting about, then so be it. He has found a place reporting tech news, but please remember that TechCrunch is a blog, not the technology section of a newspaper, and if Mike wants to have fun once in a while with a handshake revolution, or anything else, it’s his blog. For what it’s worth, I think we all need a little fun & distraction every once in a while.

Announcing MyMap Explorer for Google Maps

Today I am announcing the release of MyMap Explorer for Google Maps. This small javascript allows you to embed a map created using Gooogle Maps’ My Maps feature into any web page with more information and flexibility than Google’s iFrame embed code.

Back in November, Heri asked for a relatively simple way to integrate his Technology Map of Montreal into Montréal Tech Watch, and MyMap Explorer is the result, (see it live on the Technology Map of Montréal), It takes the KML description of a map from Google Maps and adds it to a map created using the Google Maps API. It also provides an alphabetized, clickable list of the points on the map so that your users don’t have to click on each marker to find the location that they are looking for.

The KML is loaded live from Google Maps so if you make a change to your map on Google Maps it will be shown in all embedded versions of your map as well. This script has no dependencies, other than Javascript and a Google Maps API key. Just insert it into a web page where you want to see your map and it appears!

I have some features that I still plan on adding, but want to get the basic script out there and into use. I’ve released the code on Google Code under an MIT license so you are all free to use MyMap Explorer, and contribute if you feel up to it.

The demo is here.

An Open Letter to the CRTC

Re: CRTC 2008-19 (Review of the Internet traffic management practices of Internet service providers)

Dear Commissioners:

As a Canadian who depends on the Internet for my livelihood, I would like to share with you the consequences of your impending review of the Internet traffic management practices of ISPs.

My business, and most of the businesses I service, rely on the internet to provide content to end-users. In many cases this content takes the form of a written website, but in other cases it is video or downloadable files.

If you permit ISPs to use traffic management practices such as Deep Packet Inspection, or allow ISPs to give priority to traffic that is coming from or going to certain destinations, (for example, Google, or the Government of Canada), then you are allowing ISPs to unfairly discriminate against the traffic, (and by proxy, the end users of that traffic), that does not receive this priority treatment. If this priority is established by paying a fee, you are creating a potentially huge financial barrier to competition that small businesses like mine, and those of my clients will likely not be able to overcome. For me to compete against CanWest, BCE, and other major media companies, when my content is transmitted to end-users would be a near impossibility in a priority-based internet. If ISPs in Canada are permitted to decide whose data is transferred first, and whose data is throttled, Canada will not be an attractive place for any company that relies on the Internet to invest, or for an entrepreneur such as I to start a new Internet-based company.

Suppose the priority system is turned around, and it is the end-users that pay a premium for priority on the internet. In these tough times, should a laid-off autoworker be penalized for doing Google searches for jobs, or for visiting a job site such as Monster or Montréal-based StandoutJobs? I’m sure that I don’t have to answer that for you.

Yes, there has been a huge growth in traffic on the Internet, and it will continue to grow as more and more services move online, but the solution is not for ISPs to slow down the traffic on the internet or to limit how much information end-users can access, after all, they are in the business of selling internet access. To throttle internet traffic would be like a busy gas station only allowing you to depress the handle halfway when you are filling your car! The way to deal with more traffic on the internet is to build more capacity. According to the Public Notice that I am writing this letter in response to, 6% more households were high-speed internet subscribers in 2007 than in 2006. Would it not be reasonable to expect that with a 6% growth in subscribers, ISPs would add 6% more capacity to their network? It is quite apparent that as we reach 70% or 80% broadband penetration, ISPs’ existing networks will not be able to handle all of the new traffic, but this is exactly what it seems that ISPs want to have happen.

I am not suggesting that ISPs should bankrupt themselves building new networks, but if ISPs were able to make money in the early days of broadband without traffic management then, with today’s advances in networking technology and lower prices of computer and networking equipment, it should be even easier for them to make money today, still without traffic management.

Sincerely,

John Beales

Note: Today is the last day to comment on the CRTC’s net-neutrality hearings. You can Read the full text of the CRTC notice and comment on the issue by going to this page, finding the button that says “pt2008-19-2” (at the bottom, or do a ctrl/cmf-f and search on that text), then clicking the button and using the form provided.

Using CSS attribute selectors to simulate legacy HTML layout

Have you ever created new clean XHTML template, applied it to a CMS with years of back content, and discovered that the years of legacy HTML looks terrible?  Because you’re using a new XHTML doctype many, if not all, of the presentational attributes in the old HTML no longer work, however, CSS can be used to fix this.

You may say that the whole point of building a new template with XHTML & CSS is so that we won’t have any of the old <p align="right"> in our code, and you are right, but in situations when there can be thousands of pages of content it is often not practical to re-code them all using CSS, that’s where the attribute selectors come in.

Here is a very basic stylesheet that will help get you started:

img[align="right"], table[align="right"] {float:right;}
img[align="left"], table[align="left"] {float:left;}
img[align="center"], table[align="center"] {display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}

p[align="center"] {text-align:center;}
p[align="left"] {text-align:left;}
p[align="right"] {text-align:right;}

table[border="2"], table[border="2"] td {border:1px solid #000;}
table[border="1"], table[border="1"] td {border:1px solid #000;}
table[border="0"], table[border="0"] td {border:0;}

Although it would be nice to have one master stylesheet that we could drop in to a document and automatically have the old HTML look great, I believe that stylesheet would have to be extremely large, so I recommend using a base set of styles, (like the one above), and adding any extra styles to it that may be needed, (for example, img[border="5"] {border:5px solid #000} would not be needed every time).

What about browser compatibility? I’ve tested in FireFox 3, Safari 3, Internet Explorer 7, and Internet Explorer 6, and, if I remember correctly, Opera 9.  The only browser that didn’t render the styles as I would have liked to see them was IE6, which is no surprise, but also has a rapidly diminishing market share.

If you are looking for a way to keep your legacy HTML from looking terrible that doesn’t involve recoding it all, this may be the way for you to go.

Looking for FlashLite 3.1 devices

I’m trying to assemble a list of devices that run FlashLite 3.1.  If there’s anyone out there who knows of, (or owns), a device running, or capable of running FlashLite 3.1 please let me know in the comments.

Once a list is compiled, (if there even are any such devices yet), I will publish it.