Categories
Mozilla

Confusing Cross Browser UI Design

Most have heard by now that Internet Explorer is adopting the Firefox RSS icon to standardize and help users who hate having to remember what equivalent icons are. Of course this is great for users. Though I wish they were a bit more consistent with their practices. UI design cross browsers is important simply for security purposes (as I will demonstrate). IE has apparently made some great strides in combating Phishing. What I disagree with, is how they implemented the UI. I think it’s confusing, and could easily be fixed, should they decide to do so.

Their scheme essentially works by coloring the URL bar based on how suspicious the website is. Known scammers get red, suspected get yellow, and a potential good site would be green. This is obviously modeled after a traffic light.

What I dislike is how that can be confusing to the end user. Right now, the colored URL bar technique is used by Firefox and Opera to distinguish a secure website (since it’s more obvious than the little lock). Take a look at the little demo I have here:

Good Site Opera 9

Opera 7

Good Site Firefox 1.5

Firefox 1.5

Bad Site Internet Explorer 7

Internet Explorer 7

Screenshot from IE Blog.

For an end user, who doesn’t follow browser changes, and perhaps first encounters IE 7 at work, or in a public terminal. Seeing the yellow bar is familiar. We know that as being safe. I think many wouldn’t even notice the “Suspicious Website” text on the right side. The shield even looks a bit like the Lock icon in Firefox. Very confusing.

My suggestion is to use another color, in particular, one that I call “orange”. I release the color “orange” under a Public Domain License. Anyone may use it, however they may wish, no need to credit me 😉 (though I’d appreciate it).

Bad Site Internet Explorer 7 + My Solution

Internet Explorer 7

This would distinguish the site as a possible fraudulent website, but still avoid using Yellow, which many users now view as “secure” aka “safe”. This solution solves the problem of conflicting UI design between browsers.

Categories
Funny Programming

Holiday SQL

You’ve got to be somewhat nerdy for this, but if your reading this, you automatically qualify. Perhaps I’ll add to this list when I’m bored. If I have the time. If someone is so inclined, feel free to do so below.

Santa’s Present List

SELECT fName, lName, street, city, state, zip, country
FROM people
WHERE STATUS = ‘nice’
AND age < 18
ORDER BY country DESC;

Santa’s Coal List

SELECT fName, lName, street, city, state, zip, country
FROM people
WHERE STATUS = ‘naughty’
AND age < 18
ORDER BY country DESC;

Santa’s Personal Wish List

SELECT fName, lName, street, city, state, zip, country
FROM people
WHERE STATUS = ‘naughty’
AND age BETWEEN 18 AND 25
AND height BETWEEN 67 AND 72
AND cupSize > ‘C’
AND sex = ‘female’
ORDER BY age ASC;

Paris Hilton’s Personal Wish List

SELECT fName, lName, street, city, state, zip, country
FROM people
WHERE age BETWEEN 18 AND 30;

Feel free to give it a try if your geeky enough to do so. I’ll update them to color syntax.

Categories
Personal

Finals Nearly Complete

School Diagram
I’ve got 1 more final tomorrow evening, and I’m pretty much done (one assignment left, but that’s no big deal). Sorry for recycling old images, but that one really seems pretty accurate.

I think it’s bed time, so I can get up early and enjoy some more studying.

Categories
Software

My PDA Doesn’t Stay Up Past Midnight

Recently my Sony Clie has been giving me the following error when I try to HotSync:

— Date Book
– Your device does not support events spanning midnight. The end time
was set to 11:55 on both the Palm Desktop and the device for this event:
[event description

I finally found the problem.

You need to right click on the HotSync icon in the system tray (or open the HotSync Application) and go to “Custom…”. Then find “Datebook”, and set it to “Do Nothing” and check to make it default. Then make sure “Calendar” is set to Sync. Press “OK”, then do your sync.

That fixes one of the most annoying problems I’ve seen in a long time. Apparently there are two versions of the Palm Desktop Calendar HotSync API’s, each with their own conduit. Even if your event goes from 9:25 AM – 10:30 AM, you can get this annoying error if your using the wrong conduit. By making this change, your computer and PDA can communicate in the same language.

Perhaps someone else will be able to make use of this little tip I figured out. As for me, it might be about time to start thinking of a replacement for this PDA.

Categories
Apple Mozilla Programming

iPod Sync Private Testing

Before I do a more general release, I want to get a few more technical people to give it a try, so I can get any big issues resolved.

Please email me (using the form) the following info if you wish to participate:

Name
Email
OS
iPod Version
Experience

You will need to be using Thunderbird 1.5. This is rather untested stuff, so I do put an emphasis on only technical users with experience testing and doing QA with Mozilla products.

If you don’t think you qualify, just wait a little longer until this round is over. I do plan on a 0.1 release by the end of the year.

Update [12-26-2005]: It’s out, and available here.

Categories
Mozilla

American Express: Fixed

I blogged a while back about American Express being a real problem for Firefox users. This issue (bug 294201) is now fixed! Thanks to everyone who participated on that bug, and of course whomever at American Express actually fixed it.

American Express was by far our most reported website in Firefox 1.5 thus far. So this is a giant win.

While were on the financial sector, eTrade has some issues. It would be awesome if someone went through those reports, and filed bugs (and possibly contact eTrade). Any eTrade users would obviously be encouraged to help as they seem to block their email contact to users only.

I think they would be a good company to try and work with, as financial sites are often the benchmark when companies consider adopting a web browser (like Firefox). Don’t underestimate how important American Express is to this sector. eTrade is another big benchmark.

For those wondering, we don’t delete reports in reporter. When a site fixes the problem, they won’t get any more reports against their hostname, and eventually drop off the list. The historical data can be useful (see where we are in a year and compare). For each release, we update the Top 25 link to only include that particular release, so when Firefox/2.0 ships, there’s a clean slate in that list.

Categories
Around The Web

Wikipedia Surfing

Wilson WilsonHas anyone else noticed you can visit Wikipedia, view an article, and pretty much end up surfing on Wikipedia for hours? I’ve done this several times now. Just reading and “oh, that looks interesting [open in new tab]”, and by the time I read an article, 2+ new tabs are open. After a while I have a dozen things I want to read. It just goes on and on. A million +1 topics, a semi-coherent pattern, though still pretty random.

If I keep going at this rate, I’ll eventually be like Wilson (pictured right) from Home Improvement, rather than continue to have Tim Taylor like wisdom. Maybe that’s a good thing? I’m pretty sure it can’t hurt to read about various topics, at a minimum it’s mundane conversation ;-).

Did you know that France once awarded the Croix de Guerre to a Homing Pigeon? Before you laugh, keep in mind “he delivered 12 important messages, once despite being shot”.

Categories
Mozilla Personal

It’s the most annoying time of the year

While some will be at the Firefox Summit, or enjoying the snow expected this week around here, I’m getting ready for some finals. Needless to say, my availability will be limited at some times during the next few weeks. So if you don’t get a reply from me, don’t think I’m ignoring you, your just in my backlog of stuff to get to. People who have write access to my transcript have a higher priority right now ;-).

I’ve got a ton of stuff in ‘the lab’ right now, so hopefully I can let some stuff out into the wild soon. If only these finals didn’t get in the way.

Categories
Hardware

New Keyboard

I said the other day, I asked IBM support for a new keyboard because I felt the one that shipped was of lower quality (to which many Thinkpad users agree). Yesterday, a 14″ keyboard arrived. I called them, they acknowledged the error, and sent me a 15″ keyboard (my laptop has a 15″ display, so the frame of the computer is a bit different). Today it arrived.

The difference may be subtle to some, but it outright obvious to me. This keyboard feels “smoother” than the old one, just like others have said. The right side has absolutely no flex anymore, and the keys are very quiet. I could type on this, and someone just a few feet away would not know I’m typing. The squeak sometimes apparent in the trackpoint scroll button is not there (another annoyance).

This keyboard lives up to the IBM Thinkpad reputation. No question about it. This is like comparing a McDonald’s to a 5 Star restaurant. Sure McDonald’s isn’t so bad you can’t eat it, most enjoy it every so often. But when you want quality food, you don’t even think McDonald’s.

Perhaps in the future IBM/Lenovo will stop using these lower quality keyboards.

I’m one happy customer at this point. My laptop feels just like my old A31 did (the A31 is apparently one of the last actually manufactured by IBM), but with a little better performance, and a thinner profile.

Thanks to IBM for taking care of this problem. This keyboard is exactly how a laptop keyboard should feel. Quiet, no squeaks, no flex. Just solid typing. I can finally type full speed without tripping over keys that almost feel loose.

Categories
Software

Kerio Personal Firewall Saved

Sunbelt Software bought Kerio Personal Firewall, saving it from being killed by Kerio (who is discontinuing the product at the end of the year). I’ve been using it for a few months, after using Sygate Personal Firewall for ages (which is also discontinued now that it’s owned by Symantec). I must say Kerio is much better, if not simply for performance, Sygate was much more resource intensive from what I can see.

On their blog (one of the few good corporate blogs I might add), they discuss their plans ever so briefly, of note is:

  • Upon the close of the deal, Sunbelt will also announce new reduced pricing for the full version of the product and a variety of special offers for both Kerio and Sunbelt customers.
  • Additionally, Sunbelt will continue Kerio’s tradition of providing a basic free version for home users.

Also really great to hear. Hopefully they will improve the basic version as well. Lowering the price is a good move considering it’s a rather high $45.

It’s good to see there are some alternative firewalls out there. Having a laptop (and not always the benefit of being behind a real hardware based firewall) the extra protection is welcome.

[Hat tip: dslreports.com]