Left, Mike Monteiro. Right, yours sincerely. Captured at SXSW by Scott Beale.

(My SXSW photos. Scott’s SXSW photos.)

Filed under: Design, SXSW, State of the Web, better-know-a-speaker, events

This post has earned 8 responses so far.

In “IE9: Microsoft’s new browser gets no respect at all,” ZDNet’s Ed Bott sees seething contempt where I intended even-handed calm, and asks why my discussion yesterday of the tone of a months-old IE announcement failed to discuss yesterday’s keynote at MIX10, which I didn’t see.

Ed, for the record: I didn’t see the MIX10 keynote, which took place while I was traveling home from SXSW Interactive and after I wrote “IE9 Preview.” I wasn’t responding to the keynote. I was responding to the article I linked to, “An Early Look at IE9 For Developers.”

As a hint, I linked to the article in my lede and referred to it by name.

Hours after I wrote the post, while I was sitting in a jet between Austin and New York, Microsoft unveiled updated information about IE9, with good news on its web standards support, which I’ve since had confirmed by neutral developers—neutral in the sense that their allegiance is to web standards, not to any particular browser or platform.

I look forward to studying up on the latest IE improvements. Contrary to your inference, I respect browser engineers as I respect people generally. Indeed, Chris Wilson, former IE lead, and Tantek Çelik, former IE/Mac lead, are my friends. Heck, a few nights ago, Tantek and I were partying like brothers at SXSW Interactive and I have often written glowingly about his and Chris’s achievements on behalf of web standards and browser UX.

I’m surprised that you built a whole article out of refuting things you inferred but I never said. Slow news day?

Filed under: Acclaim, Browsers, Damned Fine Journalism, editorial

This post has earned 18 responses so far.

One of the things about SXSW Interactive is that you are constantly meeting new people. One day at breakfast, I was introduced to a friend of a friend, who said:

“Your book is dangerous.”

“That’s kind of you to say,” I replied, “but exactly how is Designing With Web Standards dangerous?”

“Oh,” he said. “You didn’t write Rework?”

Filed under: 37signals, Design, SXSW

This post has earned 9 responses so far.

Is it getting hot in here? Or is it just the flames?

In An Early Look At IE9 for Developers, Dean Hachamovitch, General Manager for Internet Explorer, reports on performance progress, web standards progress (border-radius, bits of CSS3, Acid 3 performance), and “bringing the power of PC hardware and Windows to web developers in the browser” (e.g. improved type rendering via Direct2D, a Windows sub-pixel rendering technology that replaces Cleartype).

The reported web standards improvements are encouraging, and better type rendering in IE is a consummation much to be desired. These positive notes notwithstanding, what is most interesting about the post is the political tightrope Microsoft team leaders are still forced to walk.

The world has moved to web standards, and Microsoft knows it must at least try to catch up. Its brilliant browser engineers have been working hard to do so. This web standards support is not optional: having just been spanked hard in Europe for anticompetitive practices, Microsoft knows it is no longer invincible, and cannot continue to use claims of innovation to stifle the overall market or drag its feet on advanced standards compliance.

At the same time, Microsoft’s marketing department wants the public to believe that IE and Windows are profoundly innovative. Thus efforts to catch up to the typographic legibility and beauty of Mac OS X and Webkit browsers are presented, in Dean Hachamovitch’s blog post, as leading-edge innovations. Don’t get me wrong: these improvements are desirable, and Direct2D may be great. I’m not challenging the quality of the hardware and software improvements; I’m pointing out the enforced bragging, which is mandated from on high, and which flies in the face of the humble stance other high-level divisions in Microsoft would like to enforce in the wake of the company’s European drubbing and the dents Apple and Google have made on its monopoly and invulnerability.

In short, the tone of these announcements has not changed, even though the times have.

Hachamovitch does an admirable job of sticking to the facts and pointing out genuine areas of interest. But he is stuck in a corporate box. A slightly more personal, down-to-earth tone would have come across as the beginnings of transparency—Web 1.1, if not Web 2.0—and a more transparent tone might have slightly reduced the percentage of flamebait in the post’s comments. (It could only have slightly reduced that percentage, because, on the internet, there is no such thing as a calm discussion of improvements to a Microsoft browser, but still.)

Although I disagree with the tone of many of the comments—rudeness to engineers is not admirable, kind, or helpful—I agree with the leading thoughts they express, which are:

• Getting IE fully up to speed on web standards is much more important than introducing any proprietary innovations. (Naturally I agree with this, as it is, in a nutshell, what The Web Standards Project told browser companies back in 1998—and it is still true.)
• Switching to Webkit might be a better use of engineering resources than patching IE.

On the other hand, Microsoft’s refusal to switch to Webkit gives Apple and Google a competitive advantage, and that is good because a web in which one browser has a monopoly stifles standards and innovation alike. By torturing the IE rendering engine every couple of years instead of putting it out of its misery, Microsoft contributes to the withering away of its own monopoly. That might not be good for the shareholders, but it is great for everyone else.

Filed under: Browsers, Microsoft, Standards, State of the Web, Web Design, Web Design History, Web Standards, type, webkit

This post has earned 68 responses so far.

SXSW 2010: A photo set on Flickr (in progress). The festival began this afternoon at 2:00 PM Central. Lots more photos will appear over the next few days.

Filed under: Community, Design, SXSW, conferences

This post has earned 4 responses so far.

Book By Its Cover is a glorious new blog devoted to the beauty of books.

Filed under: Design, Publications, Publishing, links

This post has earned 3 responses so far.

Popular Science has partnered with Google to offer its entire 137-year archive for free browsing.

Posted via web from Does This Zeldman Make My Posterous Look Fat?

Filed under: Design

This post has earned 3 responses so far.

It’s that time again. Spring and pheromones are in the air, and 11,000 web geeks are about to descend on beauteous Austin, TX for our industry’s version of the TED Conference plus Spring Break, SXSW Interactive.

Along with nearly all of Happy Cog, I’ll be there. Join us, won’t you?

• Friday, March 12, at 3:30 PM, come to Battledecks 2010 in Room 18ABCD, where I’ll compete against the likes of Avery Edison, Ted Rheingold, Mike Monteiro, and SeoulBrother Number 1 Albert McMurry to see who can create the best impromptu presentation in response to random slides.
• Saturday, March 13, at 5:00 PM, open your mind to New Publishing and Web Content, where I’ll explore the creative, strategic, and marketing challenges of print and web (and hybrid) book and magazine publishing with the brilliant Erin Kissane, Lisa Holton, Mandy Brown, and Paul Ford.
• Also on Saturday, March 13, beginning around 10:00 PM, join the fine folks of Happy Cog and 700 screaming karaoke fans for the best official party of SXSW, Ok! Happy Cog’aoke 2, brought to you by Happy Cog and sponsored by these good folks.
• Don’t miss the book signing on Sunday, March 14! Swing by the South by Bookstore with your copy of Designing With Web Standards; Ethan Marcotte and I will be glad to scribble on it for you.

The rest of the time, depending on what else is going on, I will probably be findable via my personal SXSW schedule. (Create your own with Sched by MailChimp.) You can also find me on SitBy.Us, a scheduling web app for iPhone or any good web-enabled phone, designed by Weightshift—and bless them and HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for it. Sitby.us members, my schedule is posted at http://sitby.us/zeldman/.

If you can’t be with us at SXSW, please watch this space and my Twitter feed for photos, links, etc.

And if you aren’t attending and couldn’t care less about SXSW, you might want to unplug for the next six days, because the internets, they will be filthy with SXSW tweetage, bloggage, Flickrage, retweets, retumbling &c.

Filed under: Appearances, DWWS, SXSW, State of the Web, Travel, conferences, speaking

This post has earned 5 responses so far.

See all the videos on OK! Happy Cog’aoke, and join us in Austin for the best party of SXSW.

Filed under: Happy Cog™, SXSW

This post has earned 6 responses so far.

See all the videos on OK! Happy Cog’aoke, and join us in Austin for the best party of SXSW.

Filed under: Happy Cog™, SXSW

This post has earned one meager response so far.