Jullian’s Musings

I finally decided to migrate to wordpress from the one that was built totally from the ground. I don’t have enough time to deal with my own personal website on a full time basis, and wordpress is a powerful enough framework to do it in. I hope you enjoy this change and I’ll check back on your comments later.

I assume some of the readers here are also involved in some aspects of web development and / or being in the decision-making process of approving a web development.

I recently visited the website of my bank (Bank Permata - http://www.permatabank.com) and tried out their web. The look is quite OK, but it was extremely annoying to experience the usability of the site. It is practically unusable lest you use M$IE. I think this is a very fatal mistake that I know many other sites are committing. Some mistakes that they (and many other sites) makes:

1. Links that only works with JavaScript
   This is an unbelievably stupid blunder. Why do they need to make it so, although there are many other ways of doing it easier, simpler, and better? Other than that, these types of links are not spiderable by many search engines. Plus, get this…. they have a contact us link that, I’m not kidding, doesn’t lead anywhere.
2. Links that uses form elements (such as button)
   Also almost impossible to spider properly, and extremely unaccesible for screen reader, PDAs, and others. This also is a signal that the web designer never considers the structure of the document whatsoever.
3. Links that is totally with pictures (no alternate text)
   What if somebody deactivate image display? Any considerations also for the visually impaired?
4. Table-based design.
   Well, I’m not going to discuss this here. Just go to Google and look for why you shouldn’t use table as document structure, or you can browse here: http://www.hotdesign.com/seybold/everything.html
5. Never been tested other than with M$IE
   Some designers forget (or lazy) that they never test their sites on browsers other than IE. Never mind that IE almost always renders the wrong version of a website compared on how it should look like. Never mind that they can just download other browsers easily such as Firefox, Mozilla Suite, Opera, etc. I guess they are just extremely lazy, no other reason. These developers does not care that many users cannot use the site at all, remember, Linux users don’t have IE on their computers, but Windows users can install many browsers. So why not download these other browsers, develop on them because they are more standards based, and also check on IE whether it can be used there? It is much more productive and less time consuming to develop on Gecko-based browsers and fix for IE than vice-versa.

Well, why is it important anyway? There are a couple reason for this.

First of all, M$IE is a notoriously buggy and unsafe browser. Just by not using IE, users of Windows can cover many holes that are built in the operating system. Again, IE is notorious for that. By creating sites that forces people to use IE to function, people that have switched for IE are forced either to open IE again, making their computers vulnerable again, or not use the site at all. In my opinion, this is counter productive to say the least.

Secondly, M$IE does not support many technologies that potentially can make browsing a much better experience, such as:

• Proper CSS (cascading style sheet) rendering. Websites that are beautiful are many times screwed by IE. Look here to test your browser: http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/
• Proper support for Transparent PNG http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngapbr.html. The horrible .gif that we all loathe are not needed anymore, but IE does not support it, because it does not easily support PNG’s alpha-transparency.
• IE still can not do tabbed browsing. What the hell? Why use many windows while you can use many tabs within one window? All Geckos support this, and even Opera. Why not IE?
• IE only works on Windows and Mac. Many other browsers works anywhere, such as Windows, Mac, Linux, Unix, Solaris, Handheld, etc.
• And many more reasons why IE sucks.

However, nothing illustrates why good design is so important better than what I’m going to say next: Bad design refletcts poorly on the owner of the website. What my bank is portraying through its site is that they are a bank that only support some of its customers, but not all. They only care of customers that they think exists, not those they they think aren’t. This is extremely fatal.

Some of you who knows me knows that I am a hard-core Micro$oft hater. Some of you who knows me better than that also knows that I am sometimes inconsistent. On that note, here I will give some arguments on why you should not use Windows as your operating system and use Linux instead.

• Linux is much more secure. Because of the inherent permissions built into Linux, regular users will not be able to screw the operating system as much as in Windows. Most Windows users use the administrative privilege everyday and doesn’t know better. They are able to install and uninstall programs anytime, but does not understand that many times this allows unauthorized programs to also install themselves and wreak havoc on their computer. That won’t happen in Linux.
• Linux is Open Source. The operating system that shapes Linux is Open source. It is mostly done non-profit, and regular people, hobbyists, are who makes this OS, not a major corporation. Why is this good, then? Because if you have problems, you just need to go to the internet and asks the millions of developers working on Linux for help. Contrast that to calling Microsoft to help with your problems.
• Your copy of Linux is legal. It can be safely assumed that most people in Indonesia uses pirated version of Windows. Even though most people do it and feel that there’s nothing wrong with it, it is still stealing. Linux is available free of charge if you are willing to wait for the downloads of the CD images. It is legal, halal, kosher, ok.
• It promotes good computing practices. The privilege system in Linux promotes good computing practice. Most people should not be able to install and uninstall, because it creates vulnerabilities on the system. Only people who knows what they’re doing should install and uninstall and make system-wide changes.
• Linux has become very user-friendly. Most people wouldn’t even notice that a coworker is using Linux as an OS if they didn’t look very carefully. Most people also would not have a lot of adjustment period in using Linux, especially if they use their computer for browsing, emailing and using office suites. There’s simply not many things that are different in terms of user interface.
• Linux is really multi-user. More than one user can use one computer at the same time and access their personal files and settings. I am talking of real multi-user capabilities. Not logging off and logging on again or the so-called switch user. Linux user just need to go to any computer that is connected to the network, log in remotely, and have their desktop and files right there. That is the power of X-desktop that will never be matched by Windows in the near future.
• Linux uses lower computing requirements. Users can continue to use their pre-Pentium computers comfortably. I know of some people who still uses 486s, load them with Linux, and uses these machines as file and internet gateway servers. It is good for the pocket and good for the environtment.
• Do your part in screwing a major corporation daily. By using Linux regularly, we are doing our part of giving a middle finger to a major US corporation. How else can you do that regularly?

Of course, these are just some reasons why you should use Linux. Other reasons are available, but I can’t go over them because it might get pretty technical. I invite you to post your comments on these. Oh yeah, I don’t deny that there are some good reasons on staying with Windows, such as that you are tied with some programs, such as Photoshop, CorelDraw, Final Draft, etc. But you know, you can always double boot, and ask yourself, is it really worthed to deal with all the hassles, and stealing at the same time?

PS: to know more about the security consquences of using Windows, read here and weep.