Category: Technology

I work in technology sector. And I do round a clock, not only from 9 to 5. It is my bread and butter, it is my hobby, it is the fascination of my life. And with the current rate of change particular in information technology (IT), there is always something new to learn, to try, to talk about. I often post news, thoughts, and reviews. And when I do, this is the category I use.

Web designers are all the same. Almost. Sort of.

I came across an excellent graphical representation of a number of web design and development surveys, such as A List Apart Survey.  The infographic pulls results of several such surveys into a single long image with graphs and stats.  One thing that I was surprised by was how narrow the results profile the average web designer.  There’s almost no distribution of value across the any chart – age, gender, ethnicity, geographic location, education, etc.  It almost looks like that web designers are a product of the single factory.  Have a look and tell me if you don’t agree.

Being surrounded at work by web designers developers for the last few years, I have to say that even though I know a few exceptions to the average, the majority seem to fit the profile just right.  I think we could use more variety, but I have no idea on how we could actually get it.

It’s not 00, it’s a +

I am getting tired complaining and explaining the difference between 00 and a + in the telephone and fax numbers.  It’s quite simple actually and I wonder why the mistake is so frequent.  So, here it goes in written form, so that I won’t have to explain it anymore – just provide a URL.

If you are writing phone number as 0035799513109, you are doing it wrong. It works for some, but not for everyone.  00 in this case is international dialing code.  Many countries are using 00 for international dialing code, but not all of them, by far.  For example, in Russia, the international dialing code is 810.  So the phone number should be 81035799513109, not 0035799513109. See?

So, how are you supposed to know all these codes for each country and how are you supposed to provide your phone number so that anyone in any country can dial it and get where they are supposed to?  The answer is simple: use ‘+’ for the international dialing code, followed up by the country code, and then the rest of the number.  Each telephone company in every country will replace the plus in the beginning of the phone number with the appropriate international dialing code.  Write the phone number as +35799513109. This will always work.  And where it won’t, the person will at least know what to do with the number.

Automattic becomes domain registrar

Matt Mullenweg reports in his blog that Automattic became a domain registrar.

As some folks have noticed already, Automattic is now a “real” domain registrar (ID #1531). This has been a goal of mine for several years now, chiefly because I am a bit of a domain collector myself and I’ve never been completely satisfied with the domain buying or management experience on any of the usual players. Second, custom domains are a popular feature on WordPress.com and should become even more popular with some changes we’re introducing this month and it’ll be good to be able to provide a fully integrated experience for our users there. It’ll be a few months while we build all the tools necessary to begin taking advantage of our registrar status so in the meantime we’ll continue to use Godaddy, who has been an excellent partner.

These are excellent news!  I do agree with Mutt that current domain registration and maintenance experience is a pain in the back.  No matter which registrar you choose, there is always something awkward about it – prices, support, control panel, etc.  I am using GoGaddy for a few years now, and while they provide excellent discounts and DNS hosting uptime, their control panel is horrible.  Yet, it’s still better than most.

Automattic on the other hand, is a company known for it’s humanity in policies and user interfaces.  WordPress being just one of such examples.  Them becoming a domain registrar gives me great hope of having a better domain registration and maintenance experience one day.

Medieval technical support

Yesterday I discovered that the video of medieval tech support might be too old now and that the younger generation of IT guys could have easily missed it.  Here it goes, a piece of classics, for everyone to enjoy.  By the way, you don’t have to work in IT to have a laugh at it.