Nigel McFarlane

Words For Publishers

Written by admin on May 19, 2009

I’m a highly published commentator, educator and analyst in the ICT field, with experience in newspapers, magazines, books and Web publishing. I can deliver what you need to make your publication successful. In ICT I’m informed by extensive formal training and extensive practical experience as a software technologist and business person.
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Many of my articles have been very popular, and are likely to raise the audience of your publication. I’m on my way to 100 articles and have written nearly 2000 pages of book material. I can offer:

* Custom material for your purposes
* Unpublished material
* Reprints
* Reprints-with-permission
* Book extracts
* Material original to this Website
* New Books and Book Proposals

For any of the above, or for samples or resume material, contact me. In terms of style I have experience with:

* News items and journalism
* Reviews
* Opinion and Editorial pieces
* Columns
* Moderation of online discussions and other e-community activities
* Tutorials and generally educative pieces
* Fully functional sample code, prototypes and other programming demonstrations
* Presentations and formal training

With very few exceptions I am timely and polished in delivery. Expect smooth sailing to be the rule rather than the exception, once we have agreement on what you need and when.

- Nigel McFarlane

Summary

Written by admin on May 13, 2009

In summary, it is very hard for a rational person to defend use of older, less capable, less standardised, or less future-proof tools. Whatever frights Open Source software delivers to the Microsoft mindset, there is no way that Microsoft advocates can avoid the professional obligation to deliver good tools to users. Tools such as Mozilla, clearly superior to the alternatives, are an excellent case in point.

- Nigel McFarlane

Paralysis Problems

Written by admin on May 13, 2009

The final resort of Microsoft advocates is to claim helplessness. Helplessness is hardly a defensible state for those supposed to be plying their expertise, but let’s leave that aside. Some advocates claim that they are tied to Internet Explorer because existing built infrastructure, such as Websites and Intranets are designed for that browser alone.

This issue is not as large as it might seem. Firstly, all modern browsers, including Mozilla, have a legacy compatibility mode that is used to digest, and display in good order, older Web pages. So there is an immediate “soft upgrade” path available. Secondly, the occasional differences between IE and the standards that Mozilla follows are now well documented. Any Web developer can point to the basic issues at hand. Thirdly, an Intranet is much like an early database. It is inevitable that at some point informal data must be migrated to more standardised formats, so that its future availability is assured. The same is true of Web content: sooner or later it must be upgraded towards the Web standards that will ensure it is available on an ongoing basis. It has been the experience of several large content-oriented companies that the combination of HTML+CSS or XHTML+CSS is an entirely manageable way to renovate old websites.

* Web pages are data. Migrating that data towards standards is an inevitable process.

Why Do You Get Out Of Bed?

Written by admin on May 13, 2009

Against the reality of a superior product, Microsoft advocates are reduced to saying that Internet Explorer is “good enough”. Fancy features are not required for Web access, because most Web work just involves reading other people’s text.

The problem with this argument is that Internet Explorer itself has a hole in it. Because it is barely maintained, its “good enough” status is leaking out like air from an old tyre. The world around it is moving on; standards are more popular now, support for more desktops is becoming popular, new security problems and virusses are found with regularity. If a good enough tool is all that is required, then it should be a tool that values being good enough for the forseeable future. Internet Explorer is ceasing to be good enough, just like a lazy man who doesn’t exercise loses his fitness and his direction.

* Internet Explorer is on a negative value curve.

To stick with an aging tool out of apathy is hardly professional. When in the IT role, professional behaviour is to deliver tools best matched to today and to tomorrow, not just yesterday’s meat carved up some more. It’s the job of the IT role to maintain and increase the value of the computer user’s tools and infrastructure. You are not valuable sitting around on your hands letting everything coast. If you think that, you might as well be in bed at home. You are supposed to bring you talent and energy to bear and make decisions that will have a positive impact.

* Updating software is the positive contribution made by the IT role.

Diagonal Installs Don’t Duplicate

Written by admin on May 13, 2009

If duplicating functions is to be avoided on Windows, then Microsoft Word should never be installed. Windows already includes Notepad and Wordpad. Those tools cover the text editing and word processing functions; Word is just an unnecessary repetition.

This argument holds no water because Word is installed diagonally when Notepad is present. It expands the functionality of Notepad greatly (the “upgrade” or upwards install part). At the same time it gets away from the fundamental problems build into Notepad, such as file size and fixed-width fonts (the “side-grade” or alternate product part). This is self-evident to anyone who has used both Notepad and Word. Word is not just a better Notepad, it is a better Notepad that also gets away from the nasty issues implicit in any Notepad-like solution.

* Escaping an entrapping tool via an alternative is not duplication.

The relationship between Notepad and Word is akin to the relationship between Internet Explorer and Mozilla. By all technical measures, Mozilla is a far superior tool. It has hundreds of standardised or innovative features that are missing from IE. It is the darling of industry reviewers. Its use ensures that numerous IE security problems are avoided. Furthermore, it ensures that Web content visible to Windows users is visible to everyone else as well.

* Mozilla truly is superior technology to Internet Explorer.

Already There Syndrome

Written by admin on May 13, 2009

I hear the same remark from Microsoft advocates about Mozilla on Microsoft Windows over and over again: “Why would I install that? There’s already a Web browser [Internet Explorer - IE] there.” This semi-argument is so weak that few bother even to debate it. Yet it is resorted to so frequently that there is no choice but to examine it seriously.

Firstly, there isn’t a Web browser “already installed”. Someone put it there. Before the browser was “already there”, there was an operating system “already there”. Before the operating system was “there”, hardware was “there”. And before the hardware was the need for a computer by a user. All these items were put there for the needy user by a person in an IT role; that person ticked the boxes or built the master distribution that included IE. If you happen to have IE, then it’s a result of a (perhaps historical) strategy on someone’s part. Assumedly someone is responsible for that past decision. Software and hardware do not grow out of the ground like weeds.

* The starting point for all ICT equipment is a blank slate, a strategy, and a decision.

A slightly clearer way to express this objection is to say: “We do not like to layer extra software on top of a Microsoft Windows install, as it increases complexity”. At face value this may seem likely, but the management effort required to maintain any Microsoft Windows computer is widely reported to be generally high. The number of Service Packs, Hot Fixes, Security Patches, drivers, install options and configuration items is very large. Windows itself is thus a multiply installed and layered system. Any golden rule about layered complexity is well broken just by installing Windows in a functional and professional way. And for many Windows installations, there are the immediately applied further layers such as Microsoft Office (and patches and options) or “must have” tools like Acrobat Reader.

* Layering is an inescapeable overhead when maintaining Windows.

To cry about complexity in IT, however, is to find yourself without a job. Many prefer to avoid the layering interpretation of their objection. Instead, the simple statement is that it is wasteful to duplicate a software function already served by one tool with a further tool. IE, it is said, already does what Mozilla would do.

Words for Microsoft Advocates

Written by admin on May 13, 2009

Get Out Of Bed

The aversion that Microsoft advocates and supporters show for Open Source software in general and for Mozilla in particular remains a constant source of amazement. It’s common sense to put new ideas and products through a period of test and evaluation, and Open Source software is rightly tested that way. In practice though, the wall of reactive resistance held up against Mozilla and other first-rank Open Source tools (like Open Office) is excessive to say the least. There is no rational reason for this behaviour at all.

The problem with Open Source for Microsoft believers is not that it is somehow fundamentally alien. The problem is rather that Open Source software is entirely similar to Microsoft software. Nowhere is this more obvious, or more uncomfortable, than in the apples-to-apples world of Web browsers. That example represents a fine example of the tortuous logic required by Microsoft advocates to preserve their positions.

Computer Whiz and the Way they Make Money Online

Written by admin on May 5, 2009

Computers are updated from time to time. Its software is also in need of regular updates to battle out viruses and phishing activities. This is how computer manufacturers are able to make money out of their already existing and thriving business. While it is not easy to make money online especially if a computer company has a name and reputation to maintain, the process of maintaining its quality performance is always a challenge. So, why not give computer makers a break and try to appreciate what they have contributed in the modern day technology so far.

Summary

Written by admin on May 5, 2009

This essay has argued that as Web enabling software nears maturity, the matter of final standards compliance is not just a question of clean up. Standards ticks are desireable, and there are specific cases where rigid use of standards are enforceable, but there are also specific cases where rigid standards support is most undesireable.

In particular, as Web architecture items such as browsers become mature and well-understood, the need for such software to be tolerant of problematic user input increases rather than decreases. As people bandy about the software with increasing confidence, that software in turn must be resilient, responsive and forgiving. Most obviously in the area of HTML markup, but also across the full spectrum of implemented features, standards-ticks are not the ultimate end goal. There will always be new human entrants to the world of HTML and the Web, and they should not have to climb any further than entrants of years before in order to successfully express themselves.

The best built Web is in fact rather elastic: when accidentally dropped, dented, twisted or mis-stated, it somehow copes and manages to flex back into shape. That applies also to pieces of the Web – their interfaces, processing and general expectations of use. Such is the case for all mature software products, and the Web is no different.

- Nigel McFarlane

The Neurotic Weight of Coping

Written by admin on May 5, 2009

Rough treatment of standards is at odds with the absolutism of software logic. It is simple to create a tiny symbolic system inside whose confines a person can play. A Bookmark Manager is an example. But such a tiny system is not true flexibility, it merely allows a microcosm of restricted choices.

The problem of rule-breaking flexibility can only be pushed one of two ways: either the user carries the neurotic load of staying inflexibly restricted within the software’s built parameters, or the software carries the neurotic load of attempting to survive unexpected treatment that the user might visit on it. The former case may result in beautifully clean software design, but the latter case most certainly will not. Nevertheless, if people’s creativity and expression are to be supported as well as they might, the latter case, which is the status quo for the example of older HTML, is preferable.

This is no doubt a burden for those that must maintain such software, but better a burden on the willing few (or at least on the capable few) than on the unwilling majority.