Situation: After Installation of software for a customer of mine whose client has a full time IT staff on payroll, my customer call to say they have hosed the machine and need the software..AARRGH

Fine.. I am not driving all the way to the boonies for another install, I RaR up the disks, n send them over email along with Setup name and password.

FFWD 24 hrs later….

Cellphone rings….

Nester-san : hello
n00b: Yeah I got the file, but I don’t undestand how to install it, I ran setup. (btw gentle readers..the unrared archive contains ONE FREAKIN FILE, called SETUP.EXE)
Nester-san: ok..so what is the problem ?
n00b: Well, it gives me 3 choices and I dont know what to pick…
Nester-san: ?? WTF ?? (To Himself)
n00b: It says choose how this program will connect to the internet:
a: Network Connection : (requires special network jack)
b: Network connection using proxy server (advanced)
c: Dial-up connection (using telephone-line and modem)

(Please note, this is an IT Manager who is one the fucking phone, pulling in mad cash, and Nester-san is frequently broke)

Nester-san through clenched teeth: Are you using a dial-up ?
@$%@#$% Noob: No
Nester-san through clenched teeth: Are you using a proxy ?
%@#$%@$%%$@#$ Noob: No
Nester-san through clenched teeth: Then you are connected via network cable riiiight ?
^#^#%@#%@@$#%@#$%#$% Noob: err…yes.
Nester-san through clenched teeth: Well, there you go…option A:
@#$%#$%#$% n00b: ohhhhh!, ok thanks….
Nester-san through clenched teeth: Glad to help….motherfucker..

I am happy to be able to blog this today.. This will go down as the biggest rant against the ‘internet explorer’ web browser that ever made its way on the internet.

A long long time ago, by men far far away the ingenious concept of the world wide web was developed and eventually made into reality. These men had single handedly started a movement that would change the world in every aspect, communication, business transaction and it continues to change the world every single day, as new usage for the internet surfaces.
To traverse this newly constructed web of information a medium was needed. Thus began the life of the internet browser. The first Widely used internet browser was the ‘NCSA Mosaic’.

* que fast forward to future ripple effect*

Then came the ‘Spy Glass Mosaic’ which made its way unto the scene via a Microsoft incensing which placed he software on the windows operating platform. It was not a dominating browser as it is today as it only was able to procure approximately 0.16 of the internet browser market share percentile from internet explorer versions 1 through 4. The browser gradually rose its market share percentage as it added functionality and support for newly developed concepts and scripting such as JavaScript and cascade style sheets..

*que fast forward ripple effects yet again*

We have no arrived to present day time line 2007 and I sit here wondering why hasn’t internet explorer Retired from the browser wars, or why don’t they just conform. conform to what you ask? To the mighty gecko engine standards. The same engine that made Netscape the force it was back in the day where web browsing was concerned the browser that made Firefox come out of no where to being the king of the internet as far as most are concerned. The gecko engine in my eyes have made the internet browsing experience what it is today its effects span across to a few of the features we see in internet explorer today.
Microsoft’s internet explorer had peaked in its functionality and support from version 6.0 or so they thought. In came Firefox with tabbed browsing and then it began, the massive transition and transformation of web browsing capabilities. I quickly scampered to the Firefox side of the internet. The fox was ripping away at the big blue’s user base. . A vicious animal against a big blue ‘E’ you be the judge of who’s gonna die eventually. It was here Tabbed browsing, the wonderful possibilities of extending the browser application. With user created plugins. To this day i do not know how i survived or functioned before Firefox as a web developer. I cannot think of operating without the web developer extension, or measure it, or colorzilla or cssviewer or and one that every user must have tab mix plus. I could go on for ever. Internet explorer had made a frail attempt to give its users the tabbed browsing functionality with a Plugin but it had a pull ratio of black holes with the degree of “suck” that it reeked. However they now have included the functionality in internet explorer version 7.
No that the playing field is fairly even (Firefox is still better :p) you would think that all would be well, but nay i say.. there brew problems still, but from a different stand point. the variant forms of rendering rules’ which the browsers adhere to.

The biggest pain off all I’ve encountered is css variants.

“I had a dream that one day a designer or developer could create a website or web application with one css file for handling the styling. Where there would be no nee for browser hacks and style switching. When the 0’s and 1’s translated to pad div inward and float left on all the browsers where png support and java script support was universal”

Will we ever attain this feat. will one browser yield to the other for unity on the internet. For the creation of a universal standard. Let me even go this far. Will internet explorer cut it out and use the gecko engine and stop building on i.e. In all honestly I’m looking out for Microsoft in this situation. There are many developers and designers that have altogether stop scripting for internet explorer the produce applications and websites which all proudly sport “rendered flawlessly in Firefox”and all wave a banner high saying “download Mozilla Firefox here”. Given enough time internet explorer will have nothing to render, so either get fixed or get bent

I honestly don’t like the direction which facebook is going. The concept i loved.. An internet school social website. where colleges and universities world wide may communicate at one central location. Genius i thought. simply genius. I guess they thought “my space is making money, hi5 is making money.. i think we could too lets open it up” and Pandora’s box was open and this may mark their down fall. I hope they can co-exist the concept.. because the two concepts do not mix well. It cannot be a school social website and an open to the public social website as well. I think they should have forked the project and continue from there giving the new derivative of facebook the same features as the original had.. but make that one for the public and of course they already have all the college students email address and information from their facebook accounts they send out a newsletter informing them of the new project “xfacebook derivative” send them an auto registration link which on clicking would create and activate their account bring over their info from the facebook db to the “xfacebook project” database..

I’ve been thinking about this alot which is why the post is so long sorry if its a bore. but I really just don’t think the idea was the smartest. In my humble opinion.

A few side thoughts that i have had on the matter.

did facebook originally intend to become an open social engineering website but kept it as a closed circle system so that it became coveted by others. Thus when it is opened to the general public they would recieve a massive influx of registration Making them more of a prime medium for advertisments and such?

Were The college and university students ‘face book’s community’ consulted before the project was made open to the general public, Did they have a say in the matter.

And finally just to re-iterate. Will this move be beneficial to facebook in the end. Moving from a semi controlled environment to the general public must become strenous eventually.. people are extremly mischievious my space has countless headaches and with its users. Only Time will tell

Currently I am annoyed of the whole facebook project my email inbox is filled with message “xpersonx has added you to facebook” how do you add me to facebook if i’m not even on the system. Isn’t that invasion of privacy, To access a users address book and send invites to all contacts. If by law it isn’t I sure as hell think it is and I’ld really love it if they cut it out.