Month: March 2001

More news on Sapient: Sapient Corp. To Miss 1Q Rev, Net Views. This includes the information that they are cutting their workforce by 20% (720 people).

Comparing TheStandard.com: Quick and Easy and TheCounter.com: Global Statistics Jan 2001:

On the issue of color depth, TheStandard.com’s figures describe nearly 10% of users as using 256 colors or less, 50% using 16-bit color depths and just over 30% using 24-bit or above. 10% were unknown. TheCounter.com describes 6% of users as using 256 colors or less, 55% as using 16-bit depths and a further 36% using 24-bit or above.

On the issue of screen resolutions, TheStandard.com’s figures describe 9% of users as using 640×480 resolution, as opposed to TheCounter.com’s 7%. TheStandard.com describes the proportion of people using 800×600 resolutions as 50% with those using known higher resolutions coming in at 27%. TheCounter.com’s figures for these are 55% and 35% respectively.

In both sets of figures, TheCounter.com has a lower figure for ‘Unknown’ than TheStandard, which may explain variance. Alternatively divergence could be described by differences in the times of sampling or by a distorted sampling from one of the parties.

Pow! Wham! Permission Denied! – “Surrounded by his ‘nuclear Bat-family,’ the ‘dark, deviant’ vigilante of the early 1940s was transformed into a genial, problem-solving father figure. In support of his argument, York provides a detailed interpretation of four panels that appeared in various Batman comics in the 1950s.” [via linkmachinego]

I haven’t exactly been offered a job at Sapient, but it looks like my decision on whether or not I want to walk their particular dark path has rather greater than normal inpact on whether or not they are prepared to offer it to me. There seems to be a much greater degree of discussion involved than is perhaps warranted. On my side particularly it seems that my decision is inevitably going to be based upon faith (or the lack of it), and hence inevitably bound up with reservations and doubt. There doesn’t seem to be a way around that.

Anyway, I was talking to Matt Haughey about all this via AIM, and he pointed me in the direction of a post he made just over a year ago: A Whole Lotta Nothing: ‘On being rejected by Sapient’. I’m making no comment, because I’m reserving my judgement until after the weekend, but let’s just say, I’m trying hard to work out if I’m living in Working Girl or Wall Street.

God only knows why we’re doing this: plasticbag.org | cam.

READ THIS: This news affects a substantial portion of the creative sites on the web and should be read and digested thoroughly. News from ICANN [via Slashdot]: “There are apparently plans to reinstate the old limits on .org domains – if you aren’t a non-profit corporation, you won’t be permitted to register or keep a .org domain.” This will affect (amongst other creative sites, kottke.org, slashdot.org, haddock.org, fray.org, glassdog.org, interconnected.org and many many more. My personal response to the issue: .org domains prime home for creative sites. More from Metafilter.com.

The web stands united with love of Buffy: Derek, Lance, Prol (and me). If you are a Buffy-loving weblogger, drop me an e-mail. [Inspired by: Plastic | Buffy and Whedon Do It Again]

In which Tom pretends to be a proper weblogger, by linking to actual sites rather than drone on about the misery and angst of human existence:

First things first – I’ve been thinking of training myself to be able to write in more languages than simple mark-up like HTML. I think I’ve finally found a site that’s good enough at teaching to help me do so: W3Schools Online Web Tutorials. The site includes some stunningly useful examples, cut and paste code and intelligent commentary for everything from XHTML to WAP, DTD and SOAP.

Secondly, there’s an article at USAToday.com called ‘Internet needs immune system’, which is on the analogies drawn between computer viruses and biological viral entities and suggests a new approach to anti-virus technology. [via Tomalak’s Realm]

And finally, after tiring of Neilson’s rather earnest approach to web usability, I picked up a copy of Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think while I was in LA. I read it on the plane, and was astonished by how intelligently written and well put together it was. If you’re building any size of site either professionally or semi-professionally then you should read it. There’s more information about it here.

I am, of course, an astonishing dancer. My groin can ‘get jiggy with it’ at such a rate that I have, on occasion, experienced friction burns merely from the contact of my skin against the air. Man was not meant to dance this well, but god is it a beautiful thing to watch.

Some of you may wish to emulate my astonishing prowess in the medium of dance. Well you can’t, I’m afraid. You have to be born with a talent like mine. But if you want to improve your skills, then the place to go is DancingPaul.com. Watch as he reveals the secrets of the modern mambo through the medium of flash, and with the help of some of his less dance-enabled friends…

This is just a recommendation to anyone who is relatively new to running their own weblog – go and register yourself with Weblogs.Com – it’s my first point of call every morning and by far the best way that I know to keep up with the sites you like.