Journal tags: adobe

My debit card is due to expire so my bank has sent me a new card to replace it. I’ve spent most of the day updating my billing details on various online services that I pay for with my card.

I’m sure I’ll forget about one or two. There’s the obvious stuff like Netflix and iTunes, but there are also the many services that I use to help keep my websites running smoothly:

• hosting providers like Digital Ocean and Engine Hosting,
• DNS managers like DNSimple,
• email providers like Fastmail,
• transactional email suppliers like Mailchimp and Postmark,
• code repositories like Github,
• and distributed storage providers like Amazon’s S3.

But there’s one company that will not be receiving my new debit card details: Adobe. That’s not because of any high-and-mighty concerns I might have about monopolies on the design software market—their software is, mostly, pretty darn good (‘though I’m not keen on their Mafia-style pricing policy). No, the reason why I won’t give Adobe my financial details is that they have proven that they cannot be trusted:

We also believe the attackers removed from our systems certain information relating to 2.9 million Adobe customers, including customer names, encrypted credit or debit card numbers, expiration dates, and other information relating to customer orders.

The story broke two months ago. Everyone has mostly forgotten about it, like it’s no big deal. It is a big deal. It is a very big deal indeed.

I probably won’t be able to avoid using Adobe products completely; I might have to use some of their software at work. But I’ll be damned if they’re ever getting another penny out of me.

All I can say is, “Wow!” Web Directions North was one superb conference. The speakers were great, the organisation was slick and the social events were out of this world.

Every conference has its own vibe and this was one of excitement and fun. I was reminded of the atmosphere at a rock concert; when there’s energy coming from the stage, the audience responds in kind.

I’ve already described the presentations I was fortunate enough to attend, but I haven’t yet mentioned how well-put together the whole thing was. Maxine and John have plenty of experience under their respective belts while Dave and Derek have the benefit of being seasoned presenters themselves. Together they put a lot of thought into planning and executing a kick-ass conference.

Oh, and if you happen to be in the conference-organising business and you want some of that same success, here’s a tip: hire Cindy Li. She made sure that everything went like clockwork, mananging both the speakers and the attendees like they were play-doh in her hands.

At Web Directions North, I felt like I had the chance to connect with a lot of people; old friends and new. The end of any conference is often a bittersweet and frustrating time. All the people who have gathered together to share inspiration and knowledge scatter back to their respective homes. The size of this event combined with social events such as the infamous Media Temple closing party ensured that missed opportunities were kept to a minimum. Most of all though, I’ve enjoyed the best post-conference wind-down ever.

What better way to follow two days of wonderfully geeky talks than with two days of outdoor activity at Whistler? I rented a snowboard and all the associated paraphernalia. Even if I couldn’t actually do anything much, at least I could look the part. I had fun in the snow with my fellow bunny slopers but snowboarding is clearly not the sport for me. Racing down the mountainside in a rubber tube, on the other hand, is clearly my forté. The appeal of rubber tubing lies in the almost complete lack of skill required—apart from keeping your bum in the air for the bumpy bits.

And what better way to follow a day of outdoor activity than an après-ski extravaganza courtesy of Microsoft? The Redmond giant thinks that we’re so shallow that our affections can be bought with an endless supply of free food and booze for two days straight. Well, they’re right. I have a new-found soft spot in my heart for Microsoft.

Seriously though, It was really great that Adobe and Microsoft weren’t just faceless sponsors; they also had plenty of delegates in attendance. It felt really good to be able to put faces and names to the software that plays such an important part in the life of a Web developer. I enjoyed some very productive conversations with the Adobe gang and I was humbled to meet some of the developers working on IE7. I’m less likely to pour a vitriolic rant into an anonymous textarea now that I know some of the faces and names at the receiving end of the blogosphere’s ire.

Now I’m on my way back to England. While I am of course sad to be leaving Vancouver, I don’t have the usual post-conference ennui. I feel satisfied. I’m looking forward to getting home where I hope I’ll have some time to reflect on some of the things I discussed with the intelligent and passionate people at Web Directions North.

The RSS vine is humming with point and counterpoint this week.

Adobe revealed their new range of icons, based on mashing up a colour wheel with the periodic table of the elements. Lots of people don’t like ‘em: Stan doesn’t; Dave doesn’t. Some people do like ‘em: Veerle does. I can’t say I’m all that keen on them but I honestly can’t muster up much strength of conviction either way.

Let us leave the designers for a moment and cast our gaze upon the hot topic amongst the techy crowd…

Dave Winer looked at JSON and didn’t like what he saw:

Gotta love em, because there’s no way they’re going to stop breaking what works, and fixing what don’t need no fixing.

James Bennet wrote an excellent response:

Of course, this ignores the fact that the Lisp folks have been making the same argument for years, wondering why there was this great pressing need to go out and invent XML when s-expressions were just dandy.

The debate continues over on Scripting.com, where the best comment comes from Douglas Crockford:

The good thing about reinventing the wheel is that you can get a round one.

The discussion continues. Be it icons or data formats, the discourse remains remarkably civil. Perhaps it’s the seasonal spirit of goodwill. Whatever happened to the good ol’ “Mac vs. Windows”-style flame wars?

In contrast, Roger has posted a refreshingly curmudgeonesque list entitled Six things that suck about the Web in 2006. He had me nodding my head in vigourous agreement with point number six:

Over-wide, fixed width layouts. Go wide if you must. Use a fixed width if you don’t know how to make a flexible layout. But don’t do both. Horizontal scrolling, no thanks.

Perhaps I should post my own list of things about the Web that suck, but I fear it would be a never-ending roster. Instead I’ll restrict myself to one single thing, specifically related to blogs:

Ads on blogs. They suck. I find them disrespectful; like going into somebody’s house for a nice cup of tea only to have them try to flog you a nice set of encyclopedias.

Just to be clear: ads on commercial sites (magazines, resources, whatever) I understand. But on a personal site, they bring down the tone far more than any use of typography, colour or layout could ever offset.

I used to wonder why people put those “Digg this” or “Delicious this” links on their blog posts. I couldn’t see the point. But combined with google ads, I guess they make sense. They’re a way of driving traffic, eyeballs, click-through and by extension, filthy lucre. That’s fine… as long as you don’t mind being a whore.

Remember the term “Cam whore?”:

A Cam whore is a term for people who expose themselves on the Internet with webcam software in exchange for goods, usually via enticing viewers to purchase items on their wishlists or add to their online accounts.

I think it’s high time we coined the term “Blog whore” to describe people who slap google ads all over a medium intended for personal expression.

Alas, most of my friends, colleagues and co-workers are Blog whores. Scrivs manages to be Blog whore, Digg whore and pimp all at the same time with his 9 Rules bitches. In his recent round-up of blog designs, he says of Shaun’s site:

In a perfect world there are no ads, but we don’t live in that kind of world yet for the time being we can escape to the land of make believe when visiting Inman’s site.

Well, I see no reason why we can’t all live in that perfect world. In the style of Robert’s ludicrously provocative hyperbole, I hereby declare that a blog with ads isn’t really a blog. So there.

Ah, that’s better. There’s nothing like a good rant to counteract all that civilised discourse.

Happy holidays, Blog whores!