It would be nice if Apple would release an update for Safari that addresses the issue of the broken Web Inspector, that they broke. It used to be, if you had developer tools enabled in Safari, when you right click on something and then click “Inspect Element”, Safari would do basically the same thing that Firebug for Firefox does. It brings up a little inspector at the bottom of the page for you to view an organized outline of all the content on the page and the source code that puts it there.

Safari Web Inspector

Well, Apple released an update for Safari that makes the Web Inspector pop up in a separate window every time you go to inspect an element. This is very annoying behavior and should’ve been fixed by now. The only thing that I could think of, is that this is probably going to be yet another thing that they break in one operating system and don’t release a fix for unless you update to their latest OS. Like they did when they broke the Wikipedia feature of their Dictionary application in Leopard and only released a fix for it in Snow Leopard. I’m speaking of the issue in Dictionary when you look up a word and click the Wikipedia tab in Dictionary, you only see the top of the Wiki page, with no way to scroll down except by clicking and dragging the mouse down the bottom edge of the window. Very annoying behavior that Apple never bothered to fix in Leopard. And no, Wikipedia isn’t to blame for breaking this feature. If they are, how come it works in Snow Leopard but not in Leopard? Even trying to use a tip never did fix the issue for me.

Currently, when using either Google Chrome or Firefox with their Firebug plugin, this isn’t an issue in either one of those browsers. So, a big thank you to those developers for keeping an eye on this and not letting it become an issue. I don’t know if you’ve ever used any of these things before, but for a web developer/designer, having to click the button that says “Dock to main window” every time you want to inspect something on a web page, can be very monotonous.

I find myself using Google Chrome more and more lately, given this handicap feature of Safari Web Inspector, and the fact that there are basically no plugins for Safari that have to do with Google Plus. I guess we can all just sit back and give a big shout out to open source.

Like…I don’t want to hear about how you felt while you were in bed with your significant other last night, emotionally or otherwise.  To me, that’s personal information that should be kept between the two of you.  What happens behind that closed door between a man and a woman at night should be kept between the two of them.  I think of what my brother-in-law said when he wanted the birth of their child to be kept between him and my sister.  I’ll do my best to paraphrase:  ”We were the only two people there when the child was conceived, so, naturally, we should be the only two there (with the exception of a doctor and nurses) when the child is being born.  But, some people on the web, it seems there’s nothing they won’t share with the entire world.

I bring this up because I saw someone share something personal about themselves on Google Plus last night, and I was about to share something with them exclusively, because I could relate to what they were posting, but I found myself hitting the backspace button and pulling out after giving it a second thought.  Some things, I can’t bring myself to share with twenty million people.  And if you share something with someone online, even if you share it in a private conversation with just the two of you, you should be prepared to have it seen by the entire world.  And I wasn’t prepared for that.  And, I’m still not prepared for that, with regard to certain things about myself.

Someone posted a picture on Google+ of their torso and you could see the scars from something that had happened to them.  I have a picture of my own torso with the scars that I have from surgeries and I was going to share it with them.  But, I couldn’t.  I thought of a time when I was in high school.  We were all hanging out outside the school building before it started, and someone, for no apparent reason, lifted up my shirt cause they wanted to be funny.  And everybody saw the scars on my stomach.  And someone asked my girlfriend, who was standing right there, what those scars were from.  She didn’t have an answer because I had never told anyone about that.  Not even my own girlfriend.

Maybe I need a counselor.  There are things that I will share with everybody, things that I share with just my friends, things I share with all my family, things I share with a certain family member here and there, and some things I don’t share with anybody…ever.  The rest is between me and God.  I’m really not even sure what I expect to get out of this post, because asking someone to tell me what they won’t share with the world is like asking a fish to breathe out of water.  All I know is that I better click the “Publish” button before I decide to “Move To Trash.”

Anybody notice that Facebook didn’t even have video chat until after Google+ came out and had “hangouts”? Yeah, then they were rushing to get it done because hey, there’s a new kid on the block with over 20 million members already and they do video conferencing and it’s really cool and we need to step up our game if we’re going to compete with that.

Do you think Youtube would be half as good as it is today if they were the only video hosting game in town? Same goes for anything, really. Google’s search engine still has Yahoo! and Bing to compete with. Mozilla Firefox would be the worst web browser in the world today if it didn’t have Internet Explorer, Apple Safari, and Opera competing with it for market share. As it stands, they’ve got plenty of competition, so they keep making improvements to their web browser almost on a daily basis. They’ve even revamped their updating process to compete in a more fast paced environment.

Why did Netflix screw everybody and raise their prices? Because they like to think they’re the only game in town. What did AT&T do back in the day when they actually were the only game in town? They charged their customers whatever the hell they wanted to. Why? Because there was nothing to stop them. Absolutely no competition in the game and they decided to screw their customers just as hard as they wanted to. Not because they wouldn’t have made any money otherwise. But because they could. So they did. Do you know how many animated GIFs I’ve seen people post on Google Plus with people who have Facebook or G+ logos on their heads? Want to know what that GIF would look like if it were just G+ and no Facebook? I don’t know. Probably like the wicked witch of the West riding her bicycle running over a bunch of community members with no one to stop her. Which is basically what Comcast does when they know they’re the only ISP in a certain designated area. They charge whatever they want and run their business however they like because customers don’t really have a choice.

I guess the conclusion that I’m coming to with this is that companies like to make the consumer think that they actually care about your needs and that they actually give a damn about what you want. In reality, the only thing big businesses care about is their bottom line. You can scream and cry all you like, but once they’ve got you locked in and the competition locked out, they’ll do whatever they want with absolutely no regard for the needs or wants of the user. So, I say keep your Facebook account, you Twitter account, and your Google Plus account and keep actively posting to all of them. Why ditch one for the other when the end result is just going to be less competition, which means less innovation?

When setting up a wordpress blog for a client, do you spend extra money on a premium wordpress theme, which is essentially going to cost them more money, do you set it up with a free wordpress theme, or do you build your own theme, catering to the needs of the client?

Do you take screenshots of what their wordpress blog will look like when it is finally set up and then email them asking for their feedback?

Do you send them an email with multiple screenshots of different themes so that you can get their opinion on which direction you should take?

I was sitting and talking with my mom the other day about the design of her website, while at the same time, reading posts on G+ via the G+ app for the iPhone on my iPod Touch, and came across a post someone wrote with a screenshot of a premium wordpress theme. I showed her the theme and asked her what she thought. She thought it looked really cool and wouldn’t mind having it as her own theme. I went and checked it out on my computer. Apparently, the theme is $70. I know that web designers have to make money and everything, but there are so many open source / freeware alternatives these days. I’m sure I can find her a wordpress theme that will suit her needs just fine without having to shell out an extra $70.

Have you ever bought one of these “premium” WordPress themes? How’d that work out for you? Was it for yourself, or someone else? Was the client pleased? Or were they mad you didn’t go with a freeware solution to save money?

Apparently, I don’t even use them anymore. I posted a link on Google+ a while back just so that I could have a reference for the page later on. Then, a while after that, I thought, “Why didn’t I just add a bookmark in Safari?” Then, I remembered.

I hate bookmarks in Safari. I can hardly believe that after five updated versions of Apple’s web browser, they haven’t added a “New Folder” button when I go to bookmark something. Why do I have to load another window, add my bookmark folder, bookmark the page, and then reload the page? Why can’t I just hit “Command + D” and have a way to manage my bookmark folders from that dialog box?

In every other web browser I use, being Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, they get it. They understand that people like me need a tangible way to manage their bookmarks and their respective folders. Apple? You can make suggestions to them about what you would like to see in their software until you are blue in the face. It all falls on deaf ears. That’s one of the reasons Microsoft’s campaign for Windows 7 was “You suggested it and we listened!” and “I’m Bob Jones and Windows 7 was my idea.” Because Apple doesn’t give a damn about what their customers suggest to them about software and Microsoft is fully aware of that fact.

The other day, I ran a Google search to see what I could come up with. That’s when I found out about the Readability extension for Google Chrome. It has some of the same functionality that Reader in Safari has. It doesn’t darken out the background. It completely reloads the page showing just the text of the article, nothing else. And, like Reader, Readability has a few gadgets to make it more appealing. Like being able to print with one button, enlarge the font with ease, or even share an article via Twitter, Facebook, or E-Mail.

Readability

Safari Reader

There’s a screenshot of both Reader in Safari and Readability in Google Chrome for comparison.

The only thing I don’t like, really, about Readability, is that it’s not as instantaneous as Safari Reader is. It takes a second or two to reload the page. With Safari Reader, there is no waiting, because you’re not reloading the page, or calling on a service from another website. It’s all native and local, and happens on the spot.

This week has actually been quite a long one, what with readability issues, adblock issues, and getting to know an interface that I haven’t really tried in the past. It’s been made a more enjoyable week, however, given the vast amount of extensions there are for Google Chrome that have to do with making Google+ a more engaging and fun experience. Like being able to roll up comments, mute GIFs, and zoom in on photos with just a mouseover. Unfortunately, for me, going over to the Safari extensions page and looking for extensions like the ones mentioned above, is like going to a ghost town searching for some action…when all you get is the lonely tumbleweed drifting by.

Then again, maybe there are other places to get extensions for Safari that I haven’t looked at yet. Maybe there are plugins like these that I just haven’t found. Are there? Where are they?!

Apparently, usability is an important thing for me because I seem to think about it a lot.  For instance, Safari Reader gave me another advantage in being able to read blog posts on web pages that have a black background with white font.  This is something I normally can’t do because it hurts my eyes too much to even bother with it.  But, with Safari Reader, I don’t have to worry about that.  I just click the reader icon in the address bar and the article shows with white background and black font, no matter how the page was originally formatted.

While I’m thinking about it, I might as well mention a structural issue that I don’t like. On nfl.com, their navigation menu on the top is somewhat screwy. When I hover over a link, it brings a menu down underneath, and instead of the links being directly underneath the mouse, they’re all the way over at the left. I just thought it would be better for them to have the links appear directly underneath the mouse for the menus that don’t need to be expanded. It would make it easier for me to view the current standings by division.

Another issue that I wanted to talk about, one that I have no hope of ever being resolved, is the issue of Flash ads in the sidebar. If I’m reading an article, and there are things animating in the side of my eye, this makes it harder to read. I know a lot of people don’t really care about that. Might I say that, in that case, I don’t care to read your website. No. Actually, I’ll keep reading. This is yet another issue that Safari Reader helped to eliminate. I don’t want to jinx it, but this is one example of Apple actually caring about its customers. Then again, maybe the designers and developers themselves noticed that they too were having issues like these, and that’s why they incorporated Reader into Safari. You never can tell.

What issues do you have with some websites? Are any of these hitting the mark? There are a lot of websites out there that have these issues, and I frequently skip over them because of it. Like I said before, apparently, good navigation, usability, and readability are important things to me.

It doesn’t work for me to sit around all the time thinking about what other people want me to write about. Or what other people are expecting out of this blog. I just need to keep thinking about my own personal goals, what I want to get out of this blog, and I’ll be able to write the way I want to.

For instance, what was it that I was going to blog about today? I was going to write about how I was thinking about blogging on someone else’s site. But then, I like to let other people do their own thing. I don’t want to go over to a website that’s got a good thing going, and somehow be responsible for messing it up. I feel like that a lot, though. Anyway, I like the freedom involved in blogging for myself. Without any real guidelines for creating content, I’m pretty much free to do whatever I want. I don’t want to conform to reading the news and giving my opinion of it. I want to write about whatever comes to mind.

Writer’s block is a heck of a thing to get over. And a lot of that has to do with considering the audience. I could take into consideration what other people might want me to blog about, come up with a plan, and then blog about it. That sounds like a lot of fun. Really it does. But, if I do that, then it’s not really my blog anymore. It’s a community blog. Not that that’s a bad thing, but it’s not what I had in mind. At least, not yet anyway. But then, maybe I should at least come up with some sort of a plan before I start scribbling away on the keyboard. This blog post really doesn’t even come close to the five paragraph essay method. Good thing for me, it doesn’t have to. It’s really like learning to run. You start out with walking, then you move on to jogging, and, sooner or later, you realize that you’re running. Well, I’ve started a blog, made a few posts, and maybe some day, I’ll have something going. I’m hoping that, by starting out with just writing stuff down, that it will eventually manifest into something more clear-cut.

I blame my last English teacher for the difficulties I have in coming up with something to write about. He got so hung up on whether or not things were grammatically correct, that there was very little time left for creativity. Then again, it could just be me complaining again. Did I put that comma in the right place? I don’t know. I’ll have to check.

When I first installed Drupal, I had to update user permissions on certain directories before I could even read the directories. Next time, I’ll have a better understanding of what needs to be done before I try to use MAMP on more than one user account. Because, in the beginning, it had me change the user permissions on a certain directory before I could set it up and when I went to read the site in the CMS, I couldn’t even do that.

I don’t know. What I’m going to do, is publish this post with the “Front Page” check box selected in the options, and then go back to the menu to see what happens. Not listening to Kid Rock anymore. I’m listening to Eminem, now. I saw him in concert once. He rocks.

Which one is better? Kid Rock or Eminem? They’re both white. They both come from a trailer park. They both do music that most other white guys don’t do. They’re both pretty tough characters. I’ve never heard of Eminem getting in any fist fights out there in Hollywood, though. I’ve heard of Kid Rock doing that. Hell, he hauled off and punched Tommy Lee right in the face one time. Public watching and everything. He didn’t care. I wonder if he was drunk or not. I hope not. You can get in more trouble that way. He was probably sober. I like to think of him as someone who doesn’t rely on liquid courage to get his work done.