Jakub Anderwald

OK, I know it might be kind of flimsy, but I just have to post it - for Amiga, for Eric and all the good ol’ days.

I think it’s the time for all software developers to realize that automatic software update is a must. It doesn’t matter if it’s a instant messaging program (thus always connected to the Internet) or a standalone video player.

You can safely assume that user either is always connected to the Internet, or sometime will be. Use that time and just check if there’s a newer version, and if there is - notify the user. Don’t download anything, don’t try to automatically install the update, just notify. That’s enough.

It’s 2008, let’s fully use the potential Internet gives us. You can patch bugs this way or push new features - one way or another, you’ll make majority of your users a bit happier. And they won’t have to do a thing for it to happen. I think the days where you read in a newspaper that there is a new version of some software, and then tried finding it, should be gone.

However, such an auto-update must be trusted by the users. Otherwise they’ll be just “clicking off” your reminders and getting more and more angry at your software.

How to make it user-friendly? Follow the 3 rules:

1/ It can’t be annoying. If your app wants to check for an update, it doesn’t have to tell the user every time it does.

It also doesn’t need an “advanced” button just for checking if you have pushed an update. Come on, let people do their job.

2/ Don’t try to smart-ass the user. Don’t try to make him do something else, “just by the way”. Update notification should mean “hey, there’s something new!” for him, not “they’re trying to make me do something I don’t want, again”. Don’t follow the inglorious way of Apple Software Update.

3/ Make sure it’s easy to disable the auto-update functionality in options.

I’m happy to tell you that a new full-length “Dune” movie was just confirmed. I’m very happy to hear that.

Moreover, they promised it to be a big-budget production, yet still faithful to the original Frank Herbert’s script. Way to go, Paramount.

Remember, Dune was a base for first full-featured RTS game - Dune II. It’s related by many as a life-changing experience. If you haven’t read that one before - now’s the time to do so.

photo credit: grand duck

You can read it on Wired, and you’ll be able to read on more news protals going ahead. A short recap is:

Hackers attacked Epilepsy Foundation forums with a script that created hundreds of posts with blinking animation and javascript code to do more flashing. This, in turn, caused headaches and seizures for a lot of readers. The forums were closed for removing the images and securing.

I think there are two important point to note here:

First, it was the first physical attack done via a computer. It really did hurt someone without any special means, just a computer display. It travelled through Internet.

Rembeber the exploding computers in “Live free or die hard”? It all lookes childish - come on, how can a computer explode? And all those movies about viruses spreading into people’s minds through computer / TV networks. Well… here we go - one way was already found.

Second, epilepsy arguments were often used in web standards discussions, as to why we should not use blinking text and sharp colors in animations. I hope this lesson will be learned and we won’t hear “oh come on, how can a <blink> tag hurt someone?” anymore.

I have just upgraded my blog engine to Wordpress 2.5 Yep, I know it’s a bit early, but all the new features look promising, I’ve already seen some positive reviews of it, and - best of all - the new admin panel interface is very neat.

See the new admin interface yourselves:

And this is how it looked like in the old, 2.4 interface:

The new panel is more clear, colours are less intrusive, it’s much more web2.0-ish. Now we just need rounded corners and “make friend” button ;)

I found just one issue - the new multi-file picutre upload panel doesn’t work in Opera. But I’m getting used to new Javascript features not working in Opera…