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When in Rome, Do as Fanboys Do

computer icon So the web is full of fanboy talk after the long circle-jerk orchestrated by Jobs today. One of the biggest things Mac fanboys are heralding is Safari on Windows. Well, here’s my thoughts. So what? I downloaded the browser to see what all the hype (which is 90% of what Apple products are) was about. The browser, on Windows, sucks. It’s said to be the best browser in the world. Yeah right. The browser is supposed to render websites faster than Firefox, IE, and Opera, but I noticed no difference. It was clunky, had very few options as far as customization goes and has no plugin support. So why is this the best browser ever? I also think that the claim of being faster is bogus. Going to several websites, it seemed to go slower than other browsers, except IE7. They put Opera as the slowest browser, but Opera has always gone faster out of the box than IE7 on the two machines I run it on. Safari is clunky, ugly, and pretty much just a general POS. (This is where I’d get flamed by fanboys who say it’s because it’s on Windows…. but you know what, that’s what this was made for, Windows, and it still is shitty). Do yourself a favor and stick with Opera or Firefox. IE7 sucks as well, so don’t use that one either, but hey, at least IE7 has more options and plugin support.

Being a blogger, I had to post about a Mac announcement at least once. There it was. Continue on with your regularly scheduled program. And read this if you have a chance.

Update: The “best browser in the world” keeps getting better. Security holes found within hours of it’s release.

On Ringtones

Listen up! Yes, I’m talking to you, the person sitting near me in a restaurant with the extremely annoying ringtone. Knock that shit off! We don’t care that you think you’re super cool because Avril Lavigne is telling you one of your lame ass friends wants to get in touch with you. We don’t think you’re cool because your new ringtone is the new crappy song by Fall Out Boy or another just as shitty band. The music you listen to sucks, your phone sucks, and your ringtone most definitely sucks. If you HAVE to use an annoying song for a ringtone, which you don’t, at least have the courtesy to put it on a lower setting when you’re in public. Why do you need it at the highest possible fucking volume? You don’t, especially since you want to show the whole world how cool you are and have your phone out and are playing with it every two seconds. Is your hearing that bad that you can’t hear your phone even on the highest possible setting when it’s in your hand? For fucks sake, knock that shit off. Oh, and emo kids, talking to the “fellas” here, quit shopping in the women’s section of the Gap.

That is all.

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DVDs and CDs Should be Obsolete

Well, CDs are pretty much obsolete now with the success of the MP3 player, but we should do away with them, and DVDs all together. Think about it. These have to be one of the worst media formats ever. I was watching a DVD today, the great indie movie The Salton Sea, and it kept skipping. I’ve only watched the movie 1 other time and I take care of my DVDs. So because of a minute scratch on the DVD it is pretty much useless. What we need is some kind of memory card format for movies. The size it takes for massive amounts of storage space is increasingly smaller and smaller every few months. How awesome would it be to buy a movie on a card, get all the features of a DVD, superb picture and sound, bonus features, and more, and all you do is just slide the card into a reader on the TV. This is what we need. Get rid of discs that are prone to scratches and lenses that are susceptible to dust, fingerprints, misalignment, etc. When will the movie, music, and tech companies finally realize this is the way to go? If not some kind of memory card, surely they can come up with something better than discs.

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Flash… Go Away Already

flash logoThis is directed to all the people and companies that still incorporate way too much flash into their websites. Come on people, what is this, 1998? I’m thankful that the majority of you have stopped creating websites entirely in flash, but the ads and banners need to go too. In the age of broadband loading times don’t really mean anything any more. They do to me. No, not because I’m on dial-up, I’m not, but because I often connect to my home computer via remote desktop. This is where I do most of my blogging, my reading of feeds, etc. So, when you place flash ads that constantly move and require the screen to refresh it freezes the screen while RD tries to catch up and send the data to me. That’s not the only reason flash bothers me. It’s used too often when it really doesn’t need to be (kind of like what is happening with AJAX now). Just because you use flash in your ad does not mean I’m going to purchase your product. Oooh.. One of your programmers knows how to make flash which might have been cool 9-10 years ago but is now plain annoying. Let me buy your product. No thanks. In fact, I’m more likely not going to buy from you because of your flash ad. So, webmasters, bloggers, people with half a brain. Get rid of flash already! (Flash video/audio players not included. Those actually are useful).

New Rules of Blogging

Reading a certain person’s blog I can’t help but wonder how they were accepted to the 9 Rules Network. The only conclusion I can come up with is that some of the rules have been rewritten. I will try and explain these new rules to you.

In order to have a wildly popular blog, you must use one of the more well-known blogging software packages such as WordPress or Typepad. Bonus points if you use WordPress.com and pay to have it styled your way. Double bonus points if you use Habari.

The next step to having a wildly popular blog is content. Now, it used to be you had to have great content in order to have a great blog. Not anymore. All you need to do is post a quick blurb of your own thoughts then blockquote some other article and link to it. Usually, the other article is from a more popular site than your own. Send out a trackback or a pingback to the more popular article. If you do this, you get visitors without having to do much thinking of your own.

If your site covers specific topics and your goal is to have people read your blog, then one would assume you have a target audience. Do you know who your target audience is? Target audience at 9 Rules

That leads me to the next one.

Along with linking to posts on other websites you should link to posts on your own blog. While writing a new post is a surefire way to get people to your site, linking to older posts on your site helps ensure that they stick around a bit longer to browse other pages of your site. Not only does this practice allow visitors to find out more about you, but it builds your ego because it looks like people are genuinely interested in what you have to say. After all, you are a genius because you are blogging on the particular topic, and might have blogged about this topic before.


Did I forget to mention ads? ^

Creating what I call Captain Obvious posts is another way to generate more traffic. An example of this kind of post is one that talks about something that is very obvious, such as saying that a WordPress plugin is still doing what it is designed to do. How bout that?!?! This plugin that was written to perform this specific task is still performing this task, even months after it’s release. Amazing! Of course, these posts can cover any topic with any headline such as United States located between Canada and Mexico or Chicago won the football game because they scored more points.

The next rule to make sure you have a popular blog is having a really annoying signature at the bottom of each post. This ensures that the post was, in fact, written by you and not some impostor. This could be anything from typing your name or a tag line, parting words of wisdom or a quote to an actual digital signature. This will make the reader think, “Oh wow, they must be important!” ensuring that this reader will come back time and time again to see how important you are. After all, you must be. You tell us as much as possible.

Now, if you follow these rules, and then constantly hound people to Digg your post, you will be on your way to blog stardom.

Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday. – George Carlin