Infinite Web Design

Jesus was a carpenter. He built things out of wood before he got into the whole Son of God / Prophet / Messiah thing. He was known for being relaxed and groovy and exceptionally forgiving and fault tolerant. If the Church is to believed he befriended Mary Magdalene despite her being a whore, if the Da Vinci Code is to be believed he married her. I imagine that when he built a staircase he built it to work even when someone jumped up and down on it, slid down it on a rug, stacked scrolls on it, or used it in some way other than walking up and down the middle of it. He built it to be resilient. I bet that staircase wouldn’t completely collapse even if one of the steps cracked a little. Of course, that’s how it should be.

Tim Berners-Lee and his contemporaries took some lessons from Jesus when they designed the system for the Internet. Like Jesus’ staircase the Internet is forgiving and fault tolerant. It doesn’t shut down when used in new or unexpected ways. Bits of data are regularly lost when sent somewhere yet your email to Grandma arrives complete because the system is designed to be fault tolerant and survive errors. The Internet and World Wide Web are one of the coolest, most world changing technologies ever. Web technologies work and have spread and grown in popularity because they are forgiving and fault tolerant.
Continue reading What Would Jesus Build?

(via Boing Boing)

Valour-IT is a non-profit that is providing wounded U.S. soldiers with laptops loaded with voice recognition software. These laptops help soldiers who are struggling to cope with new disabilities to communicate with family and friends and empowers them by providing a tool they can use even without the use of their hands. This is a great cause and well worth your support if you have even a few dollars to spare. You can donate online or by sending a check through the mail.

This is a great opportunity to bring up again the topic of accessibility and how important it is that the web sites and software we build be made as accessible as possible to help out those who can’t use a keyboard, mouse, and monitor effectively due to disabilities. Accessibility on web sites is often talked about only in terms of working with screen readers for visually impaired people, however there is a wide range of disabilities such as motor impairments as a result of injury that can keep someone from using a web site. While it’s not sexy or even very interesting to most customers, focusing on accessibility is good business because it opens doors to customers, and it is simply good, by helping out those who are already struggling to overcome a disability.

(Cartoon from Cox & Forkum, purveyors of fine political cartoons)

IBM and Montrose Secam have partnered to release an adaptor for a computer mouse that will help users with hand tremors use pointing devices. The devices cost approximately $100 (US) and are available for sale online.

The adaptor plugs into the PS/2 post and the mouse then plugs into the adaptor. If the computer lacks a PS/2 port there is a PS/2 to USB adapator available. The adaptor compensates for the tremors by filtering unintended hand motions, sending only the intentional hand movements on to the computer. It also compensates for difficulties with double clicking. This project was started by an IBM researcher named James Levine.
Continue reading Mouse Adaptor Compensates for Hand Tremors

Veerle brought up the topic of a wishlist for gadgets and gizmos. So I got to thinking about what new things I want the most.

1. A Tablet PC with all the trimmings
I want to get one with the bulletproof glass, the lightning quick processor, piles of ports, the detachable, rotatable keyboard, built in 802.11 and Bluetooth, a clot loading CD-RW / DVD-R drive and a nice big, thin widescreen (not one of those 10″ deals).

2. A Cell Phone/PDA combo
I want a Cell phone with a big screen, a clamshell design that opens two ways, a QWERTY keyboard, 802.11 and Bluetooth (so it plays nice with my new Tablet), easy to use menus, a huge hard drive or memory card and a really good media player, and software to sync up my e-mail anytime and anywhere. Forget the camera phone, those are silly.

3. An enormous HDTV
That doubles as a monitor for my computer. High resolution, thin form factor and big enough that I feel it when Jiri Fisher checks people into the boards.

Actually, I hope to have all of these in the next year or two if prices keep falling and I can save up a bit of money. I suppose that shows where my priorities are, but I figure if I’m going to spend all day using computers and cell phones and PDAs they should be good ones that do exactly what I want them to do.

What’s your wish list?