source: xkcd.com

Many web-sites do this because they think the user should resize it to feel the interface, but very often that isn’t the case. Most of them (clearly) only resize just to annoy.

I know I’m being hard with them, but the window resize should be banned… JavaScript shouldn’t have that control over a browser window. Of course you should be able to create windows of a certain size, but resize an existing window, that, should be banned.

Now, the solution.

If you are using Firefox, and I hope you do, you can disable the “Move or resize existing windows” in the menu: Tools -> Options -> Content tab -> Advanced (in the right of “Enable JavaScript” option). This will prevent future resizing.

I’m not sure about the Safari, but the Opera users can also customize JavaScript. For the Internet Explorer user, I don’t seem to find another solution than installing third party software(maybe some add-ons on IE7+).

I have recently found something about this here:

The Portuguese parliament voted last week to change its national language to reflect the more popular Brazilian Portuguese, the language used by about 80 percent of the world’s 230 million Portuguese speakers. In the next six years, European Portuguese will be phasing in three new consonants – k, w and y – and dropping confusing hyphens and silent consonants. So from now on, when you are IM-ing a Portuguese beauty, the correct style is otimo, not optimo, when she suggests meeting for a drink.

I’m not sure if this is what is passing from this change, but I really think this will confuse people.

How can Brazil, as a Portuguese colony, change Portugal Portuguese to Brazilian Portuguese?

It isn’t, but reading the article that is the idea you get from it, And it’s wrong.

The new orthographic agreement was build accordingly to the 8 countries that use Portuguese. Only Portugal is hesitating on implement this, but I don’t see it as a bad choice, and the government hopefully will be leading the right way on this.

Jim Marggraff, CEO of Livescribe, shows off the 2GB, Java-capable Pulse Smartpen at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco. The pen records audio as the user takes handwritten notes, then synchs up the sound with the writing. Audio can then be played back when someone taps the pen on paper. The device also converts languages instantly, playing translations out loud through the embedded speaker or displaying the word on its LED screen.

source: news.zdnet.com

I hate entering a site and start listening to some song, or radio, that the site owner like to have playing soon as the page loads.

Imagine you are visiting one blog, and soon as you open the page you start hearing a song, it isn’t a bad song, but you are listening to your favorite CD’s, or simply listening to nothing, and then you got HIT! by the song the site is playing. You searched, you searched, and then you found the player in the only place you wouldn’t search at first.

Is it me, or this is really annoying? Again, the music doesn’t need to be bad, it just feels out of place, and if you are entertained with something else it will just become annoyer, and you will eventually loose interest on what you were trying to reach(by entering that site).

I’m not saying music should be banned from sites, I’m just trying to share the idea of having everything in the right place. Of course there are sites where you expect to have music (from your experience) but are about those annoying others I’m talking about.

In the Google Health you can create a profile for your condition and even for the procedures on taking care of it. You can also save tests results, and have a list of your allergies.

At start I was thinking this was a very odd service to offer, but thinking about it, this is really helpful. You can even find detailed information of your sickness/condition, or medical terms.

Just remains to know what is the Google plan by creating this variety of services.

The book is called The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques, and has been released free for a limited time, so go and grab you copy, while you can.

This happened two years ago… I was the owner of some blogs, under Portuguese language, and was participating on several others, posting and commenting.

I didn’t stop immediately blogging, I really stop posting new content, but I still leave my comments on some blogs(with less frequency).

Nowadays I don’t have a routine for “the blogging”, I even tried to maintain this blog, but I have lost many respect for it. The lack of available time was really an excuse for posting(now I see that)

If I had the right respect for it, I would be posting regularly information. It doesn’t have to be LARGE posts. It could be some tiny paragraph, or several quotations, showing my interest on some topic.

I’m doing this post to tell you should have respect, not only with your blog, but with others blogs. If you do, you will for sure collect some fruits for your actions. You’re now thinking I’m “selling my fish”, but you really should.

These are some of my ideas of respectable blogging:

• Start your posts with a little summary. Many readers, like myself, often scan the post headers looking for something to read. A summary will tell the “scanner” to keep reading the post.
• Show your visitors you really want to know their opinion. Appeal them to contribute, by leaving their opinion.
• Always be civilized. If you won’t nobody will take you seriously.
• Link to your sources. They will thank you for it.
• Don’t be afraid to leave your opinion on other blogs. In fact, you might be helping the author improving the following posts.

I wasn’t doing some of my interiorized ideas. I didn’t gave the right respect to this blog. I really thing every blog should be respected, like in real life, you respect everyone thoughts, even if you don’t like them, you should respect them, and argue accordingly.

I know my past mistakes, and I decided that from now on I will start a new approach in this blog. I will definitely try to post more, and more personally than I used to do before. Without a blogging routine I lost some articulation, and as English isn’t my native language, I will apologize for future punches in grammar.

What about you? Do you think blogs, and bloggers, should follow some respect conduct? You can start by leaving your opinion.

Well, RSS is an Abbreviation for Real Simple Syndication [you probably searched for this already], but what you don’t know is what is it used for, and how can you use it.

The RSS as we know was first invented by Netscape to distribute information(news, stories, etc.) but they dropped the idea too soon, until some group started building some interpretation of what should be RSS with the name of Rich Site Summary. Time passed and they decided to let Harvard Law school be responsible to manage the RSS specification.

Actually the RSS is commonly known as RSS 2.0, or simply “Feed”, and still fits the same purpose as the original. It is specified using XML(a specification for creation of data formats) and can be read using specific software, often called “RSS Readers”, “Feed Readers” and even “aggregators”.

Why is RSS good for you?

(This is another question you already asked.)

If you go to a site very often to read the last news, or to that photographic gallery watch the recent photos, or whatever you do very often in web, RSS is good for you. Even those newsletter subscriptions you have probably can be tracked by RSS. You can, for example, use Google reader to track the updates on those sites, if they provide an RSS Feed. This saves you a lot of time, by not having to visit every site you want to know news. And you even save those visits you do to a site that doesn’t have any update. Not to mention that you have everything you’re interested in one single place.

Think about it and let me know what you think about RSS.

You can get more info at:

• http://www.whatisrss.com/
• http://www.rss-specifications.com/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS
• http://mashable.com/2007/06/11/rss-toolbox/ (if you’re curious about RSS applications)
• http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english (if you want an explanation video)

The objective of this day is to incentivate blogger’s to post an article about RSS, and that way expose more people to the existence of RSS and it’s benefits.

Like others I will post something about RSS. I will explain what it is and will do a little summary of its history.

So don’t forget on May 1st come here to read what I want to say about RSS.

More about the day on http://www.dailyblogtips.com/.

UPDATE: The official RSS day page is located at rssday.org, and you can get more info here.

Do you ever heard of RSS? What do you think it is?