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I got wet
There was one thing I was always sure of: of all the disasters and calamities that could befall me, flooding was not one of them. We live and work on both sides of the dividing water line very near the top of a hill. But I was underestimating the ability of nature to fight back against urban encroachment.
What follows is meant to be a light-hearted account of the flooding of my business premises. It is written mostly for my friends and family who might care about the details. More importantly, it is written with the full awareness that I was very lucky, and that on the same day, in the same city, the situation was much more dramatic for thousands of other people. But the most important of all is that I would like to spread awareness about long term solutions, and about ongoing campaigns to promote them.
Strategies for spammers; Understand your ennemy.
Spammers are lazy programmers but one can't deny that they are crafty and cunning.
The spambots they design are often poorly written but it doesn't matter: the spambot is designed to do one very simple task mindlessly, and they do it all across the internet even in places the programmer never intended them to do. But by dint of brute force, they do manage to achieve the desired result in some places.
On the other hand, spammers know perfectly well that we, webmasters are on our guard against spam, and they find ways to put our suspicions to sleep.
Here is a typical example that just happened on one site that I manage.
ACTION: Searching for John McCain
I saw this post at Dailykos:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/29/131437/342/899/524884
Searching for John McCain is a massive, online activism campaign designed to make at least ten million non-partisan, poll-tested, on-message voter contacts that reveal the damning truth about John McCain entirely through mainstream news reports and McCain’s own words. Through mass blogger participation and the use of embedded hyperlinks, Searching for John McCain will connect millions of curious, low-information swing voters to negative, mainstream news articles about John McCain without 99% of those voters even knowing that Searching for John McCain exists.
IBM supports OpenOffice - Microsoft fails in its bid.
see:
http://www.openoffice.org/press/ibm_press_release.html
IBM which used to be the Bad Big Brother of the 80s has changed its image in the 21st century: since 2000, they have been investing a billion dollars in Linux and they have been playing the Free Software card more and more.
This is a good news. I use OpenOffice everytime one of you send me a .doc file. You can download it here: http://www.openoffice.org/ .
In related news, Microsoft has failed in his bid to have their "OOXML" document framework (used for Word, excells, etc.) recognized as an ISO standard.
The 3 aspects of web development
When developing a web site, one must take into account three different aspects:
- Code base: choose the CMS, develop custom modules, improve useability, add features, design the theme of the web site.
- Content: add content that will interest and attract users
- User base: develop the membership of the web site via marketing, etc.
Those three aspects must proceed in parallel.
An example of separation of content and design.
A web site had quotes inserted in different pages, used as an opening to several articles.
Here is one such quote (and how it was presented):
“The remedy for what ails our democracy is not simply better education (as important as that is) or civic education (as important as that can be), but the reestablishment of a genuine democratic discourse in which individuals can participate in a meaningful way – a conversation of democracy in which meritorious ideas and opinions from individuals do, in fact, evoke a meaningful response.”
Al Gore, The Assault on Reason
xhtml validation
I often encourage my partners to use valid html code, and to validate their pages using the validator service at http://validator.w3.org/ .
I will add below some information about why it is useful to validate pages, and how to write valid html.
web design
A collection of pages related to web design.
There is nothing interesting, really. It is only a placeholder for stuff that I happen to repeat often as I work with different people.
A different way to vote
Promoting better polling options
A message board unlike any other on the web
Try the Agora out: it's a message board with an important difference. The polling features have been modified so that you can create polls or cast your vote in ongoing polls using different election methods. It's easy to use and can be fun, too. If you want to try those new features out, you can go to the Testing, Testing... Agora and just test this new tool.
After that, if you wish, you can create your own polls in the Create your own polls... section and invite your friends to cast their ballot.
If there is no poll relevant for your country, just create one, using the names of celebrities, actors, singers or politicians that are better known in your country.
Of course, you can always take part in other ongoing polls in the same Agora.
Pacte Écologique
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