The previous iteration of BBCi Search had the best links offset in a box above the tabbed interface, and we found that they were effectively in a blind spot, which is why they were moved into the run of the results.
Author Archives: David
Electronic Archeology
O’Reilly Network: Electronic Archaeology [Apr. 29, 2003]:
In the real world, most programmers spend most of their time going through code that’s a hundred years old and extremely messy. If it ever was designed, the design document was lost long ago. It has evolved over the years. Hundreds of people have worked on it. And it appears most of them knew very little about programming.
This article is pretty technical but I love the idea of software archeology. A thousand years from now, will some grad student be writing a thesis on scripting languages of the late 20th century?
Trackback for Userland
Trackback in the UserLand environment. Glad they are working on this. Sounds like outbound is no problem but inbound will be challenging. (Via Movableblog.)
Search Engine Relevancy Test Results
Inktomi, Google Win In Recent Relevancy Test:
VeriTest was commissioned by Inktomi to conduct the test. It found that in raw scoring (where URL position wasn’t taken into account), Inktomi came out tops — but just barely. Inktomi earned 1630 points, with Google just behind at 1597. That’s so close that I’d essentially consider the services tied. Behind the leaders came, surprisingly to me, WiseNut at 1277, followed by Teoma at 1275, AltaVista 1222 and AllTheWeb at 1173, another big surprise for coming in last.
Isn’t Inktomi now UltraSeek, which is now owned by Verity?
This piece also has some interesting things to say about bias in commissioned tests.
Horizontal CSS Menu
CSS Workshop: Horizontal Menu.
If everything comes in three’s, I should have another CSS link soon.
Weblog-based Intranet
A Weblog-based Content Architecture for Business. Wow, great ideas on how to integrate weblogs into an Intranet. (Found via Column Two.)
Irritating Search Example
So, I need a few new trellis panels to replace some decrepit wood trellii on our house. The results of my search ‘trellis’ at the Home Depot web site returned this message:
We’re sorry. Due to shipping restrictions, the product you’re searching for is only carried in our stores. We’ve listed some related products and information that you may find helpful. Or, follow this link to find the store nearest you.
The related product category they listed was wallpaper.
So this tells me the following:
- They might have what I want at a store near my house.
- They won’t tell me what it is.
- I have to call or drive to the store in order to find out if they might have what I want.
- Their category recognition is so worthless (on this search at least) they might as well not bother.
How utterly frustrating.
Why not display the stock with a note it is not available for on-line purchase? Better yet, why not provide a search of the stock at the store of my choosing? If they know the product is available locally based on my zip code they should be able to provide specific store inventory search to their customers.
Their current solution smells like the result of political compromise over some issue meaningless to customers rather than focusing on providing excellent service.
The Association Web Job Description
An article I wrote for ASAE‘s Technoscope newsletter just came out: The Association Web Job Description
Starting with a blank page, drafting an association Web job description can be a challenging exercise; few resources exist specifically for this purpose. This article will provide a starting point for association executives designing positions to support an association Web site.
CSS Column Design Tool
Update: Here is the main page for this site that provides lots of possible CSS layouts that work reasonably well in Netscape 4.x browsers (and very well in modern browsers).
CSS Column Design Tool. This page allows you to format a mulit-column CSS layout via a web form. Get it set how you want and then strip out the source code for your own templates. Great tool.
(Spotted at the Shifted Librarian.)
More URI/URL Debate
Chris Dent shared a link with me that discusses unique vs. descriptive identifiers:
Information-Free Identifiers: A Key to Flexible Information Systems
Part I, Part II
Despite the importance of getting it right and the consequences of getting it wrong, identifiers are, in fact, got wrong most of the time. The requirement for uniqueness in identifiers is so basic, and so universally appreciated, that it is usually taken as a sufficient as well as a necessary condition. The general idea seems to be that as long as the basic requirement for uniqueness is satisfied; an identifier is a convenient vehicle for conveying other information about the thing identified. This destabilizes the identifier and gives rise to the problems discussed in this article. Part 1 examines in detail the problems associated with altering the properties of a thing?s identifier and describes the basic principle of identifier stabilization through the use of information-free identifiers. Part 2 focuses on implementation considerations.
C. David Gammel, CAE 