Rant

Facebook - Why I left and won't be going back!

Every time any of my friends or groups did anything you can bet your life I'd get a notification about it. I don't care if you've just bought 5 more sheep or got a full house, I'm not interested!!

You can turn most of the email about these off, but every time you log back in you'll get dozens of them in your face with each application wanting you to join up....

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HTML 5 - State of Play

We all know HTML 5 is on it's way, we all know how useful it will be. However, some people seem to think that by using the HTML 5 doctype, they are using HTML 5. This winds me up no end!

If you are planning on using on using <footer>, <article>, <section>, type='date' or any of the other new parts of HTML 5, then yes, you are using HTML 5.However, your site won't be working too well in many browsers and you have better things to be doing than reading this blog post... like hacking at it with ropey javascript.

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Far Too Normal

Recently I seem to keep stumbling across articles about the wonders of data normalisation; and they all suck. Yes thats right, I think the authors of most of these articles are idiots.

They keep preaching about avoiding data repetition and storing things once. These 5th normal form lovers have clearly only read text books and never worked on any kind of application that has to be fast. Yes, 5th normal form means you only store the data once, but to get to it you have to go through numerous joins, from 3 upwards. Being a practical kind of person lets use the typical example of a customer and order in both 3rd and 5th normal form to show my point.

If you can stand my moaning, head on in to the full article.

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Nutters

I only wish I’d managed to get a photo. While walking home from the new office last night I saw a group of people congregating around a van at the back end of Albert Street car park. Considering all the recent protests about Gaza et al it wasn’t anything special. However, when I got closer I started to hear someone preaching at the crowd; another bunch of overly zealous deity lovers that I’d have to politely turn down their literature, just what I needed on a cold, wet night

I was wrong, no sign of omnipotent beings at all, just a big banner which said something like “A touch from The King will cure all addictions!”… Yes, thats right, Elvis worshipers! Even worse than bible bashers!

I quietly sniggered to myself, kept my distance and thought to myself ’Don’t Be Cruel’ as ’You’ll Never Walk Alone’ ‘In the Ghetto’ and I didn’t want to get attacked by that ‘Hard Headed Woman’ with the megaphone nevermind the ‘Big Boss Man’ as I value my ‘Life’.

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WAA - Where Web Agencies go to Die..

The WAA vultures have been circling again. In a recent press release they announced new staff members; former employees of the recently insolvent Twist Communications.

Having never heard of them and just going by the cached version of their website it looks like a small time flash company from the middle of nowhere (at least according to the phone area code).

This spell of buying companies for specific clients seems to suggest WAA are trying bulk out their client list again after several clients leaving them. After a bout of redundancies and now speculative purchases, maybe the future isn’t so bright in Sutton Coldfield.

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WAA Buys Crap Web Company...

Now I left WAA a while ago, but I still like to see their web people doing good work and do tend to moan at them when they don't! Regardless of what minor layout issue, semantic faux pas or just something I think is wrong (I moan a lot).

I mildly berated them in a previous post regarding the appalling flash site they launched that replaced a nicely marked up (if somewhat overly pink) site. Since the relaunch of www.waa.co.uk their google site index has dropped from over 5000 pages to just over 600! All of the old content they had (mostly articles by Chris Tomlinson) has been removed, nothing new has been added. At least the people they had in web were smart enough to be using open source tech and support the open source community. Looks like that's about to end.

I know I tend to complain, especially about WAA, but give the full post a read if can handle the moaning.

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Advertising Accuracy.. or Lack of..

Now I don't mind a bit of artistic license when it comes to advertising, but I have my limits. Recently more TV adverts have glaringly inaccurate parts to them and are still broadcast as if they are truths. The big offenders to get my goat so far this year are the PC World sale advert and the Change4Life campaign about healthy eating.....

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BBC iPlayer vs UK ISPs - Network Contention

This story really wound me up. ISPs attitude to its responsibilities has been a sore point for some time with me; ever since my online gaming days of Earth and Beyond, CS and the like network contention has been a sticky issue.

First lets go over what an ISP should do. When it sells you a 4mb line, you get a 4mb connection to the internet almost all the time; I can accept network outages and local hub upgrades etc. Their advertising should reflect the reality of the situation, so when it says £20 per month gets you a 4mb line then thats what you should get. This is not what happens...

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Bulldog Broadband

Having endured many months of problems getting things connected and accounts activated (take a look at my earlier rant about utilities) I had become accustomed to pathetic customer services. However, Bulldog beat them all.

Somewhere along the line the 'big wigs' at Bulldog would of had to formulate a strategy for resolving customer queries. It looks like this meeting was a very short one. Their answer to everything; out source to India! Yes, thats right, another company jumping on that band wagon....

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Public Transport - The Future?

Living in my new flat I am in the precarious position of being near to many forms of public transport. With bus stops as far as the eye can see and just beyond that is the train station.

During my university days I used public transport almost exclusively to get back and forth. Most of the time it was the train, which meant using New Street...

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Powered by Useless Utilities

You'd think that in this modern age of computers, the internet,inter-connectivity and nationalised databases that finding information about a property would be merely a few mouse clicks away.

How wrong could I have been!...

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