inside aebrahim’s head

Working on community projects can be one of the most rewarding types of volunteer work out there. This is for a couple of reasons, the most important of which is that these type of projects bring like-minded people together and from them build a vibrant community. Watching the community they create thrive is the greatest reward for the project contributors.

Another important reward is that contributors benefit from the exchange of ideas. Many heads are (usually) better than one, and decisions taken after group consultation are often the most well grounded in reason and are most likely to result in the best possible outcome for the community. Also, one learns a lot by following discussions amongst people who are experts in their own field. As long as the project is driven by active people who share similar goals and ideas, these projects always remain in good health.

The most severe challenges that these community projects face usually come months or years after their inception. Sometimes previously active members slowly become inactive, and often the ideas of the active members may evolve — sometimes in divergent directions.

Many people (particularly those involved in OSS development) believe labour is ‘replaceable’. As long as a process is documented, if a community contributor leaves the project, his shoes can be filled by anyone with the required technical expertise. I think this is a dangerous assumption to make. Finding a replacement who is willing and able to work on a volunteer basis, groks the group’s thinking and is technically capable is often harder than one might imagine. It’s easy to find people who meet two of these three criteria, but much harder to find the perfect match.

I think the second problem — divergent ideas — is the more severe of the two (and greatly exacerbates the first). As projects evolve (as they all do with time), contributors may develop different priorities or sometimes even different goals. A sufficiently motivated contributor often puts in extra hours for the benefit of the project to make up for the inaction of others. But divergence of goals or ideas at the most basic level can destroy this motivation.

I’m not sure what the best way is to solve these problems, I don’t see that there is a one-size-fits-all solution. Each project has to find its own unique way in the end.

I was motivated to write about this today because one of my friends, Yusuf, is facing similar issues with one of the projects that he’s involved in. His perspective on this issue is worth reading.

The Netcraft Toolbar has been released for Firefox. I just got the following email from Netcraft:

We are pleased to announce the release of the Netcraft Toolbar for Firefox. You can download it from:

http://toolbar.netcraft.com/install/

Note that you will be presented with a warning on the first attempt to download the software. You may have to click the “Edit Options…” button that appears at the top of the page and add the site “toolbar.netcraft.com” to the list of allowed sites before you can install the toolbar.

We welcome your feedback and comments.

I’ve only had the toolbar installed for a couple of minutes, but I’ve already found a major problem — it doesn’t work with tabbed browsing at all. The toolbar always only shows information for the last page rendered in an active tab (but not pages rendered in the background in other inactive tabs). It doesn’t update when you switch tabs. Sometimes if tabs are loading in the background, it won’t load information for that tab at all, even when you switch to it. I’ve passed on these comments to Netcraft’s feedback address as well.

UPDATE: After playing around with this more, I’ve found that it actually breaks tabbed browsing in Firefox. When this toolbar is installed and you change tabs, the URI in the location bar does not update to that of the now active tab. It remains as whatever it was before the tab was changed. For now, this extension is definitely going on my not recommended list.

UPDATE 2: There is some conflicting information about whether or not this extension works correctly in Firefox 1.0.4. One of the commenters notes that it works for him, whereas another 1.0.4 user on Slashdot says that he seems the same behaviour as me.

UPDATE 3: Another commenter mentioned that it’s working for him in Firefox 1.0.4. I haven’t had a chance to test it myself, I’ve been swamped over the last couple of days, but I should probably give Netcraft the benefit of the doubt on this until (and if) more people chime in that it’s not working.

UPDATE 4: I had some time today, so I installed Firefox 1.0.4 and Netcraft Toolbar 1.0.1, the combination of which works perfectly fine. As far as I’m concerned, I think this is a great extension, and I highly recommend it to others who are considering using it. At the time of this update (2005-05-27 21:38 GMT +0800), it still has problems with latest-trunk Firefox builds, as I described in my original posting. I’m sure Netcraft will update their extension to be compatible with Firefox 1.1 prior to its release.

Saw two things while reading about Netscape on the web today. The first gem is from CNET:

Netscape lets the user customize his settings for individual pages–telling the browser, for example, to remember that he trusts a particular site. The user can also select Firefox or Internet Explorer as a backup browser, in case the site doesn’t render properly in Netscape.

It looks like CNET is a tad confused about how many rendering engines Netscape supports, and how Netscape uses them only as rendering engines, rather than full browsers. More interesting is the screenshot that they show, which gives users the option to render the page in “Firefox”, and also uses Firefox’s trademarked icon. Furthermore, Netscape’s release notes say:

The Netscape Browser

Version 8.0 - based on Firefox

The Mozilla Foundation’s trademark policy has this to say about the usage of its trademarks:

Those taking full advantage of the open-source nature of Mozilla’s products and making significant functional changes may not redistribute the fruits of their labor under any Mozilla trademark. For example, it would be inappropriate for them to say “based on Mozilla Firefox”.

It would seem that unless the Mozilla Foundation has granted express permission to Netscape for using the Firefox trademark in its software, Netscape is in violation of Mozilla’s trademark policy.

The above screenshot is what I saw when I visited www.netscape.com in Firefox today.

Amongst their claims is that “Netscape Browser 8.0 provides more security choices than any other browser.” Even if this is true, it does not make Netscape any more secure. It simply means that users are presented with more ways in which they can make their web browsing more insecure. Chief amongst these is the ability to use Internet Explorer as the rendering engine.

Whatever the case may be, I certainly find it disingenuous that Netscape is branding my copy of Firefox outdated. But then again it’s Netscape. Did we really expect anything else?

Abstract

Dan Cederholm’s Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook is a must read for those who are relatively new to web authoring and also for those who have been doing it for years, but are still authoring web sites using table-based layouts without or using minimal CSS.

Without invoking the argument that standards compliance is theologically better, Cederholm shows not only why standards compliant layouts are more practical, but also how practical standards compliant code can be authored.

He shows designers that standards compliance is not an end in and of itself, but is a tool that can and should be used in order to make website maintainence both painless and forwards-compatible through the separation of content (XHTML) and presentation (CSS).

Who should read this book?

This book is not for everyone. If you’ve never seen (X)HTML and/or CSS before, don’t expect to understand much of this book. The text assumes that the user has a basic understanding of both XHTML and CSS, and aims to show through examples why one implementation is better than another, but does not usually introduce the XHTML tags being used. In other words, this book will not teach you XHTML/CSS.

If you’ve been using (X)HTML and CSS for a couple of weeks, you’ll feel right at home.

What will I get out of reading this?

The format of the book is rather simple. The book is split into two parts. The first (and larger) part is dedicated to understanding how to write semantically-rich XHTML markup. The second part introduces the application of CSS for styling the XHTML. It doesn’t dwell on aesthetic considerations, but rather focuses on practical aspects of CSS-based design.

Most of the chapters follow the same format, which is based on Cederholm’s SimpleQuiz series. He first introduces a usage case, and then provides three or four different methods of coding that particular usage case. He then discusses the pros and cons of each method and summarises them neatly at the end of each chapter. Following the summary, most chapters have an “Extra Credit” section where further ways to extend the best method are discussed. In the first part of the book about XHTML markup, these sections typically include methods for using CSS to bring the plain XHTML markup to life.

The first part of the book discusses the following topics: Lists, Headings, Tables, Quotations, Forms, Anchors, Phrase Elements (such as <b>, <strong>, <i>, <em>, etc.) and finally how to minimise semantic markup by reducing unnecessary classes and <div>s.

The second part of the book discusses the following topics: the best methods for applying CSS to a document, stylesheets for different media, multi-columnar CSS layouts, image replacement of text, styling text, and styling the <body> tag.

Some of the more interesting things I learned from the book were:

• How to create images that appear to change colour when you change the colour of your site using CSS.
• How to style the <body> tag to show different layouts (for example, two-column versus three-column) while using the same CSS file.
• How to serve different CSS files to different browsers.
• How IE5 on Windows incorrectly parses its box model, and how to work around its incorrect parsing.

There are of course other things I learned as well, but I’m not going to repeat the contents of the entire book here.

Conclusion

If you’re new to web authoring but already have a basic grasp of HTML and CSS, or if you’re an experienced web designer but haven’t yet learned the ways of separating content from presentation, this book is for you.

If you’re interested in learning how to create sites that are easy to maintain and will be forwards-compatible with tomorrow’s software, then you should consider the methods that Cederholm describes.

Certainly, much of the information in this book can be had by scouring the web. But there are some things discussed that I hadn’t seen elsewhere, and it’s always useful to have information compiled in a logical and understandable manner, which is exactly what Cederholm does.

For more information about the book, head over to the book’s website where you can read the table of contents and a sample chapter. If you’re located in North America, use this link to buy the book.

Next on my reading list is Dave Shea and Molly Holzschlag’s book, The Zen of CSS Design.

I just spoke to a friend of mine from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business who’s the CEO of PrepMe, a startup firm that runs an online SAT prep course. He mentions that they’ve hired a new web designer to make their website “Mozilla-compliant” (his words, not mine) because about 12% of their visitors are using Firefox!

Given the likely demographics of their users (I think there’s a pretty decent chance that most visitors are kids in high school), it looks like Firefox is scoring big points amongst teenagers. I know it’s not big news — we’ve known this for a while but it’s always great hearing from content creators that Firefox adoption is growing and they’re having to adapt or be left behind.

It’s often hard to gauge the impact of Firefox based on raw percentages alone, but when someone tells you that they’ve had to make business decisions based on an increase in Firefox usage, that’s something concrete you can’t ignore.

Another friend of mine who helps to run some of the IT infrastructure for one of the largest Model United Nations conferences for high schoolers in the United States has also provided me with a day’s worth of their web server logs. I haven’t yet parsed it, but I hope to do so within a couple of days. The results should be interesting.

UPDATE (2005-09-27): PrepMe’s new standards-compliant website has gone live! Check it out!

After reading CNET’s review of Windows XP x64, it looks like this might be the case, if only temporarily. CNET notes that although Windows XP x64 defaults to the 64-bit version of IE, Microsoft’s does not yet have a 64-bit version of Windows Update for IE, so one has to run the 32-bit version of IE (both 32-bit and 64-bit IE are included) to get Windows Update functionality.

I’m not familiar with the internals of IE, but based on my understanding of the above, it looks like if someone was running the 64-bit version of Internet Explorer, a 32-bit BHO would probably not be able to execute, thereby thwarting the current crop of [ad|spy|mal]ware targeted at IE users.

Certainly as people begin to write malicious software targeted at 64-bit systems this “advantage” will disappear, but early adopters of Windows XP x64 might get a bit of a free ride, at least with respect to IE’s security.

Now that Windows XP x64 has been released, we should decide when we will begin supporting it by providing official 64-bit builds of Firefox/Thunderbird. Plugins will probably be an issue, but since extensions are not compiled, they should have no problems running. Work has started on this front and is being tracked in bug 237202. Third party Windows x64 Firefox builds are already available.

After reading Blake’s entry about Foxfire, I did a little bit of Googling and found the following two articles from respected (no longer) publications:

Infoworld: Foxfire gets patches

eWeek: Mozilla is Dead; Long Live Mozilla, which contains the following gem:

Given the group’s resources, I think that was probably the right move. And, back in November, Baker made it clear that Foxfire and Thunderbird would be on the front burner, but sudden shifts like this one make me wonder about Mozilla’s long-term planning and management.

Can you say dyslexic? Personally, I think the name is fine. If there are people around who can’t remember a simple name, chances are that they won’t be able to figure out tabbed browsing either.

Computer World Hong Kong (CWHK) recently ran an article about alternatives to the Microsoft platform, focusing on Linux and Firefox.

The article mentions the browser wars and quotes the WebSideStory statistics that we’ve all read so many times. When discussing the adoption of other open source software, it points out that the Singapore Ministry of Defence (MinDef) has already installed OpenOffice on 5,000 desktop machines (20,000 by March 2006), running alongside Office 97. MinDef had this to say about it:

“With our limited budget, we are always exploring opportunities to maximize the value for every dollar spent…We also intend to experiment with Linux desktops, but there are no concrete plans to replace the Microsoft Windows OS on the desktops at this point in time.”

Linux vendors are thrilled at the prospect, and MandrakeSoft’s Francois Bancilhon believes that as soon as customers start using OpenOffice and Mozilla, a switch to Linux is a no-brainer. Microsoft naturally maintains that Windows plus Internet Explorer is more compatible [me: okay, I can give them that], more secure, has a lower TCO, and that Internet Explorer remains the choice [me: emphasis mine] of customers and businesses worldwide.

CWHK examines Linux adoption amongst Hong Kong companies, and talks to Yusuf Goolamabbas of Outblaze, who also happens to be an avid Firefox advocate:

“We started our business in 1998,” said Yusuf Goolamabbas, managing architect for Hong Kong-based outsource-messaging provider Outblaze. “And we’ve been using Linux since Day One.” Goolamabbas noted that at that time, Windows 98 wasn’t suitable for his firm’s needs.

At work, Goolamabbas said that his firm’s engineers use Linux exclusively, while the marketing department uses Windows machines to stay in step with the firm’s 35 million users.

But Goolamabbas uses Red Hat Linux on his desktop machine at home. “My five-year-old daughter uses it without any problems,” said the Outblaze IT architect. Goolamabbas remains wary of IE’s reputation for Swiss-cheese-security and bemoaned the productivity lost as users spend time “killing viruses, squashing worms and keeping out Trojan horses.” He also declared that the HKSAR government could do more to promote usage of open-source software among its Netizenry. “The Hong Kong government says, ‘oh, everyone uses IE, but it’s not the case.”

The article is very detailed and covers a lot more topics as well. It’s well worth a read for anyone who is interested in learning about both the challenges of adopting open source software in Asia and the extent of its deployment there.

CNet reports that Google Desktop Search is coming out of beta today with new features including the ability to search Firefox history and Thunderbird mail. This is great news for Mozilla, though other desktop search engines such as Copernic have supported Firefox and Thunderbird for months already.

Better late than never, eh?