Art Changes the World

I saw an ad on TV for some educational program that stated “Technology Changes the World”.  Wrong.

Technology complicates the world, for sure.  It is intended to simplify life, but in fact we have to learn how to use new tools.  But the more that technology advances, the more the world stays the same.  We always will rely on technology.  In fact, we count on and anticipate its advances.  The law is often up-ended in its failure to keep-up with the swift advance of technology, but the main thing is that right is still right and wrong is still wrong.  Leveraging a computer to cheat still has to be programmed in by a human.  Cheating is still wrong, that has never changed.

Part of the problem is that lawyers and lobbyists step in and muck-up the mucky-muck law to take advantage of us.  The rich and corporate entities that can influence the law do so in order to take advantage of it for their own gain at our expense.  Hence, you have slave labor when corporations take advantage of us by paying minimum wage with no real benefits, no significant recognition or care of its employees, while it builds millions, even billions on their backs.

It is a shame that we, as a people are so dismissed by corporate society, when we are its very core.  But technology won’t change that, only art will.  Corporations leverage technology to their advantage, but it doesn’t change their attitude or outlook, only encourages their abuse of power.

Not all rich people or large corporations are like this.  The few 1%-ers and corporations that are acting responsibly usually do well by doing right by its people, treating them as family.  Employees are flocking their posted career opportunities and a culture is created that is nurturing and interested in each individual’s lives.  But this humanity does not arrive from technology, it arrives from humans making correct decisions and doing the right thing.

So where do we pick-up these inclinations to do right by others?  You can look to religion, but perhaps a more important concept is the art of parenting.  It certainly doesn’t come from technology, as technology doesn’t teach us what to do, it only enables and enhances our opportunities to either do right or do wrong.

Technology has never changed the world.  It advances civilization, and the one constant in this world is change.  Technology simply allows faster and further change with a broader reach.  But change, real change that tugs at our soul comes from education.  The teachings of which, are art.  The art of writing, the art of communication, the art of understanding, the art of compassion, even our own morality and ethics are formed in an art of our perception of the world.

If you are like me, it is the art of Michelangelo, da Vinci, Raphael, van Gogh, Monet, Cézanne, Goya that inspires us to not just do our best, but appreciate other’s work, even when it is not their best.  the lessons we have to learn of morality and ethics are echoed through-out literature not just in education and leadership classes, but in the art of parenting (which by no means is a science).

Technology, on the other hand, gives art a new voice, and we see this in television and digital, where concious decisions are openly made to deceive the public not only in advertising, but even through the art of journalism by deep pockets that want to use art to twist the reality of politics, news, human rights and pacify the public with how well we should be doing, how great our slave nation has become.

Don’t think that the slaves weren’t paid.  True, very little, but in better houses they were paid a bit to maintain their lives so that they were presentable and clean.  And that seems to be all the growing working class poor can afford in this country, enough to keep their nose clean, but not enough to meet any life crisis or even afford their own healthcare.

And yet, there will be those that will try to convince you that it is better to have poor, because otherwise their own profits are robbed.

No, it is not technology that changes the world, but the artists that control and mold its impressions on us, and how we allow the arts, even fashion, to grab us and take a hold of us.  How art moves us, in books, education, parenting, what we see in the beauty of art, in the humanity of others and how we feel about the art that they reveal through their lives…

Art Changes the World!

Ads, Ads, Ads…

So much spam. I abandoned this droll blogging platform when WordPress suddenly decided to add advertisements to the blog. I was so upset that I cancelled my paid domain name mapping (where http://domainating.com was the actual address of the site). You can still get here via the http://domainating.com address, but now you are redirected to this web address (https://domainating.wordpress.com/).

So, I will lose all credibilty with my domain name in Google, as Google very hypocritically and absolutely very definitely hates redirects used on any server other than its own, even though they use this method of directing traffic all the time (check out chrome.com , android.com or picasa.com, as examples).

So I started blogging on Tumblr and wouldn’t you know it, after their sale to Yahoo the very first post to every one of my blogs is now a very spammy advertisement. Sometimes these ads even contain malware!  Hence, I will not even list my 7 tumblr blog addresses here.  In fact, if you visit any blog on Tumblr, make sure you have a good malware client.  An anti-virus program is not enough!  In fact, an anti-virus program does very little to protect you from spyware and malware.  I use a good one, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Pro, and I recommend it, highly.  You wouldn’t believe how much stuff it has already caught and protected me from.

So now, I feel betrayed once again.  Why can’t a guy write on a blog without seeming like a spammer or scammer anymore?  I don’t have $100.00 a year for that, even full-function web hosting is cheaper, and you have more control.  It used to be that everyone who liked to blog could find a safe haven.  But now everyone is just using us to build their own scraper site.

What is a scraper site?  A site that uses ads to scrape a few cents away from the advertiser to reflect the lead, or link, giving him traffic to his site.  Now, I am not at all against advertising, when it is done right and responsibly.  But peppering the advertisements with lies, mistruths, misleading info, outright deceit, viruses, trojans, malware and spyware has always been against the law.  Plus, advertisers such as WordPress, Yahoo, even Google and Tumblr lose control of the ads and the quality of the ads because truth in advertising is never enforced in digital media anymore.

I guess I’m going back to Google’s Blogger platform, now.  At least I don’t have to display ads with Blogger (so far).  I guess all we can do is pray that corporate America sees the light and revolts against all this privacy intrusion…

Jesus Christ, please forgive the stupid people behind these corporations that are taking advantage of us bloggers and our readers with crap advertising, spam, viruses, trojans and malware, but please get some smart people into these corporations that can take charge, look after their brands, not mar us and ours up, and make it pretty darn quick! This is just plain idiocy. Amen.

Business Apps: Password Safe

Although I have already reviewed Kuff’s Password safe on my android apps & widgets blog called Widget Droid, most readers here probably don’t realize that Kuff’s Password Safe is also the very best Password Safe/Vault application on Windows machines, as well.

So here is a link to my article on the very best Password organizer and encrypted safety app on the market…

What’s the Very Best Password Safe?

Just remember the master password that gets you into the program.  😉

Welcome to BApps, for Business Applications of All Kinds, on Any Platform

Note:
Originally this post was the first one posted at my BApps blog for business application reviews (blog.bapps.com).  There was a lowball offer for the domain of $200.00, and I need the money, so I went ahead and put it up for auction.  BApps.com will be sold at auction to the highest bidder, as the reserve price has already been met.    The auction for BApps.com will conclude on May/05/11 @ 05:51 AM Eastern Standard Time.  You can access the BApps.com domain name auction at Sedo. This blog entry was imported with the rest of them.  I will continue blogging about software here in this blog unless and until I find a better alternative home.

Posted:
I have been playing with my DroidX for a couple of months now and notice that there are lots of apps (I’ve downloaded so many android apps that I can’t believe I’m not swimming around in digital media), but there aren’t many resources for application reviews and such.  Since I am a businessman that is particularly interested in the best applications for his business, I’ve decided to start this blog site in an effort to fill that need.

I already have done this before for the android platform, at http://blog.widgetdroid.com/, but that blog is specific to the droid market.  In my home business, I have 2 Windows based desktops that I try to use as private servers (1 is XP, the other is Windows 7), another 3 desktop computers all running different OSes (Mac, Linux & Amiga) for compatibility reasons, my work laptop, an EeePC I use for email, an older laptop for Linux experimentation, and then there’s a basic Trakfone LG camera phone, and my wife and I each have a DroidX smartphone.  Maria has a computer for her business as well.  Plus, there is even an iPad in the house, if we need it.  All these things run apps and connect to the internet.

In fact, we recently had a strange dilemma where she was having all kinds of trouble with the Windows 7 “Live Mail” program, which is apparently a huge piece of crap.  And as she had previously loved Outlook, I went out to get her a copy of Outlook which became a whole new problem.  In fact, this story will probably be my very next entry in the blog.  😉

But as you know, home business or not, we can’t screw-around with applications trying to learn them or just to get them to work according to our expectations, business requires working people and when you are self-employed you cannot rely on anyone else.

Which is the reason I’ve decided to start this blog.   Although I will have fun reviewing the apps I use on the android platform, even our familiar computer software distributions and packaged bundles are changing so fast and radically to keep up with the fast pace of technology that there just isn’t enough good reliable information out there.

Hopefully I can not only review some of the apps I use on the computer as well as on our smartphones and iPad, but also offer some tips on how to use them better, easier or smarter.  It certainly does become a struggle when an application you have used and counted on for years suddenly changes its entire format to incorporate a new technology such as social media and everything about it suddenly looks like Greek when you install the new update.

That’s what this blog is all about, I hope you will find it useful.

Thanks…
-Doug

Can PSD files be Viewable Thumbnails in Windows Explorer?

I am having a heck of a time locating graphics and organizing images.  I tend to take too many photos because my family almost will never pose for a shot.  Plus, it’s always better to see them with a real actual smile as I catch them laugh at someone else’s joke.  But timing these moments is difficult, everything has to be right and no one can be flinging their head back or rolling on the floor (which my son does for affect).

I also love to take photos of nature and although I do make the attempt, wildlife doesn’t like to cooperate much.  I have never had a pheasant stop for a pose, those birds are actually quite stealthy.  And when the deer do stop out of curiosity, they have already made cover.  Mother nature just doesn’t like to cooperate.

To make matters worse, I am a graphic/web designer by trade.  I design all sorts of web logos for my domains, websites logos and advertisements for others, and I almost exclusively work in the Photoshop Document (*.psd) or Adobe Illustrator (*.ai) file formats until I am ready to publish something.  The  trouble with this is that once saved, I never see a thumbnail when I am browsing the file structure in Windows Explorer.  Instead, I see a worthless advertisement of the logo for whatever the default program is that I use to load for the image even if I am trying to view the thumbnails.

I can see the *.psd thumbnails in Photoshop when I am looking for them, but then I am trying to open them up or save them.  Plus, this is an extremely limited browser.  Adobe does offer Bridge with my Master Creative Suite, but Bridge suffers from the same drawbacks as Photoshop, it has a high memory requirement and it is an extremely poor replacement for the OS’s file/directory structure explorer (AKA: “Explorer” or “Windows Explorer”).

Bridge is a good gallery program, but when I am trying to find something somewhere on my hard drive and I need a visual cue, it sucks because it is so proprietary, lacks decent search features, drains the memory from other programs, and since I use a lot of other programs (except when in Photoshop), this thereby makes my system unstable.

In order to accomplish what I need to do, I need to be able to see .psd files in the OS while I am searching through my archives normally, anyway.

Shortly after I got this computer (which is a 64-bit Vista based machine), I installed the Photoshop CS3 Master collection and I thought for a little while that I could actually see my PSD files.  I was so happy.  Since then, I have installed all sorts of other graphics tools, utilities and picture viewers.  I kind of have to, Adobe no longer supports every new format in the world, especially since my Photoshop is a couple versions old, now.  And not everything new asks for permission before taking over the default file loading stations upon installation.

Installers and updaters are also notorious for leaving icons on my desktop, which is another pet peeve of mine.  But even if I haven’t given explicit instructions to any program not to install shortcuts or not to change my file extension default loading applications because it hasn’t asked, it should always default to “No” unless it asks.  They don’t.  And these companies will continue to piss me off (Microsoft, Apple, Google, Broadcom, DivX) by littering my desktop with crap without permission on every single update.  So, since the big guys don’t follow the common sense rules of file installation and updating, all these little guys think that they have to get their brand out there are well, and the way they do it is by not asking for permission to change your default application settings, and doing it anyway.

Why aren’t Adobe format files showing a preview thumbnail when I am saving a preview thumbnail with each and every save?  I can’t say that they are making everyone buy another product just to see PSD and AI thumbnails since I am actually sure that I used to see such thumbnails.  But how to I get things back to that state?

It is just plain impossible to reorganize my photos and images without being able to view them because when I need to do it is when I come across them and see they are out of place through my normal day as I am using the OS.  When I try to do it on purpose, I am systematically going through folders and never run into anything out of place.

Let’s face it, if Adobe is offering anything less than what Microsoft is designed to be (to say, sell another product), they would actually be corrupting the OS.  Even though everyone else does it, Adobe usually takes the high road in this case.  So, I don’t think they are the culprit.

Argh.

How do I take my OS back?

Customize your FireFox browser experience with a Persona!

These days we all like to customize our stuff so that it reflects our own personality.  New industries have sprung out of the desire for custom vinyl car, phone and laptop wraps.  And of course we can do the same thing with our FireFox browser now, using Personas, which act like little FireFox browser themes.

We all have to think about how we want to promote our businesses online.  SEO doesn’t work unless there is some sort of promotion program in place.  The more creative ideas always seem to win out over just submitting your website to the directories.

People who make good videos tend to get lots of viewers.  I keep wanting to make my own tutorials but the screen recording and presentation software has always been out of my budget (let me know if you have something free/share-ware that works).

But I finally decided to take a look at how I can get my work out there.  Because I have so many domains, I have been making lots of logos for my minisites & blogs.  But I have always been trying to find a way to share my graphic design skills.

I had been so busy that I hadn’t noticed it.  But every time FireFox updated to a new version it was always inviting me to try out the new personas.  To tell you the truth, I don’t like a lot going on in my browser.  I don’t want it to clash with other websites or be too busy.  I’ve even stopped using the Google Toolbar because it refused to share the same line with any other toolbar and pushed the content down and closed my visible window on the cyberworld.

But as a graphic designer my curiosity has finally gotten the better of me and I was quite amazed what I found there.  Many were just plain awesome because they invoke loyalty to a brand such as the Vikings, the Twins or the Yankees… I even have a couple Superman themes for FireFox, now.

But later I made a few of my own.  The first few have finally been approved at:

http://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/gallery/Designer/SymbioticDesign

Some of these are actually quite busy for a texture pattern, but I’m learning and they still seem to work well for some people with less going on than I have.  Some could actually be modified further if someone wanted to.  And I usually added credit for my business or a website in somewhere (usually on the bottom footer image) with a blatant plug for my website.

I’m still experimenting with stuff and a whole bunch of others are pending, but it’s just a good idea I thought I might share.  It might go somewhere, it might not, but the idea of having a technically sophisticated user (I think most FireFox users are well up on things) that might see my creativity and check out my websites (I am promoting quite a few of them in different patterns), sounded like a good idea and a real win-win if my graphic eye is attracting them to my services.

Thought you might like the idea.

I know there are some “Personas” that I made that maybe I shouldn’t have uploaded, but everyone likes something different and as indicated, I have  just started toying around with this.  I think I have a few better ones that I expect to be approved soon and I am even going to be tapping other parts of my hard drive (some of my folders seem to be growing spiderwebs but have images I know would work well).

Here are some examples of FireFox Personas that I thought worked well:

Brushed Recessed Metal

Brushed Recessed Metal Persona by Symbiotic Design (Preview Image)

Space Craft Panels Persona

Space Craft Panels Persona by Symbiotic Design (Preview Image)

Knurled Persona

Knurled FireFox Persona by Symbiotic Design (Previe Image)

Alien Ribs

Alien Ribs Persona by Symbiotic Design (Preview Image)

Blue Angels 1 through 6

Blue Angels 1 through 6 Persona by Symbiotic Design (Preview Image)

Wavy Grill

Wavy Grill Persona by Symbiotic Design

It’s easy enough to use another designer’s Persona or with very little work you can make your own.  Although it is free, it helps get the word out about your sites and stuff, if you decide to try to make your own to promote yourself or your business.

I’m sure there are other such avenues, if you do something similar, post it here (or in a new thread).

As another designer pointed out, we do have to be careful about what images we use.  I made all my designs, or used photography that I had taken.  Be sure that you have the rights to use anything that you might come up with in your own Personas.  If it’s Copyright at all, make sure it’s your Copyright!  😉

Why Rip-off an Artist?

I am so tired of the current state of society.  Humans no longer matter and we take a corporate attitude of greed and protect-your-own-ass because no one else will.

Actually, there are real people who will stand-up and fight together and stick-up for each other.  But that’s not the point.  The point is that it should have never gotten this bad.

I see this all the time.  I designed a website that not only exceeded the needs and specs of the client, but it does so well beyond any parameters, including my own.  As I am just a freelance artist, it’ll never win any awards (I can’t afford to enter the webbies, etc… I am not surviving on what I get paid now) and only the client’s customers will ever really see it.

Ever hear the phrase “Charge a Corporation Twice or more what you would anyone else for the same work.”?  It is so very true.  Although lulled into thinking I could work with these people, they broke the original contract.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have a contract in writing.  So *I* kept every promise and delivered an extremely search engine optimized, user friendly, interactive website  based on the MODx content management system/framework.  This is the most extreme I had ever gone with CSS, Sprites, Fly-out menus, minimal graphics, reduced graphic sizes, etc…

But in the long run I screwed myself because I didn’t have a written contract.  And it would have protected me, because these people were absolute abusers.

Now, let me tell you that I did bid low to get this job because I thought I would enjoy it, but I had no idea that anyone could be so rude, condescending, back-stabbing or ruthless.  Instead of treating me like a business partner with a humongous stake in  their online success, I was belittled and chastised as if a lowly underling employee.  I had never been treated with such disdain by a client, before.  The terms of the original contract agreement was breached on several occasions and the deceit I experienced was unconscionable.  It’s a surprise that I was able to complete the project at all.  And I had no recourse because the agreement was verbal and I trusted them.

But the project was finished, despite themselves.  Not only was it finished, it was done right (despite themselves): the way I wanted it done (which was well beyond what they had asked for).

But now I know why to charge 2 or 3 or more times the price for a corporate gig.  Either you are working for a committee, or you are working as a mere employee with absolutely no rights or benefits (like a slave).

The extra money covers the extra hassle of writing the contract, and in dealing with a committee or being treated like a peon.  And the contract protects you from getting the shaft, spiteful delays for meetings, etc…  Now I know.

I told them I would not work for a committee, that I would work with just 1 person in delivering them a site beyond what they expected. I did.  But not without giving in to allowing a second person in to the mix who berated me and crucified me to “corporate”, her bosses.

These employees have “corporate” on the brain because they are so scared of losing their jobs.  The girl they added to the communication chain was apparently the company bulldog.  And she thought she was right, no matter what the facts are.  In the end she twisted everything into lies, was dismissive and disruptive just to “show me” a thing or two, and delayed the whole design & development process, incredibly.

Today I was on the phone with her to reach the other party, the guy I actually get along with, in order to make the site live.  He’s gone for the day.  As I am talking to her, she grunts her displeasure with me and dismisses me by hanging up the phone without so much as a “Goodbye.”

Previously, I had always worked with the business owner and entrepreneurs such as myself where we were smart enough to understand and communicate with each other.  If only the masses could communicate, they could educate themselves.

Then, I run into this article on “Smart Planet” how artist’s should watch their own asses because it really is OK to steal someone else’s artwork!:  How a thief defends theft: http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/thinking-tech/how-to-protect-your-copyrighted-images-on-the-web/3684/

I am so angry this guy works there, at “Smart Planet”.  He’s telling us to watermark our artwork if we dare to put it online?  And all we are doing is trying to give our best work.  He says we could disable the right-mouse on a web page?  That makes our visitors angry because that right mouse button does a whole helluva lot more than save images, it is a vital tool for any web user.  He says to make a robots.txt file to steer the search engine bots away from our images… I did that once.  Not only did my images no longer show-up in Google Images, but my graphic design rank plummeted, and some search engines (such as the wayback machine) showed my web pages with all the images blocked out with a gray window over them.  Heck, I said stay away from crawling there, not to not show them on my pages!

There were plenty of lame excuses he gave, but they were all just excuses.  But it was interesting to see the criminal mind at work, how he could so effortlessly come up with any excuse and act as if it was actually a convincing argument.  Hey, fella, the reason Murdock gets away with it is because he owns Fox, not because it’s right, true or factual.

Listen, you self-centered “dogs” out there who don’t give a crap about anyone but yourself, it isn’t me or another artist that is “going to get you and bring you down”, it’s your own criminal activity and stupidity!

We artists are trying to give you are very damn best as a matter of pride in ourselves and our work.  And you treat us like we aren’t worth the same as you, that we are under you, your class, your level of achievement?  You rip us off for no good reason and excuse it as if we could do anything about it?

Where has morality gone?  What has happened to our ethics, and why do we dismiss them in order to make a point on TV or in a blog?  We used to be civil to each other.  Corporate America is NOT a good thing.  It seems to embrace ignorance.  But no one is fooled by Sarah Palin.  Being dumb is just plain dumb, no matter the excuse.

Sick & Tired of Facebook SPAM

I am really starting to get tired of all the spam… “So-and-so” posted “something” on your wall, but when you look at it, you are sent to an application that is supposed to quiz you and has nothing to do with anyone, writing on my wall, a photo of me that someone commented on, a picture of me within a photo, a nquestion about me, or anything.  Spam is what made me walk away from Yahoo, they did not take my privacy seriously.  Google has, and although I don’t like their monopolistic corporate greed attitude, I am still there because they are seemingly serious about protecting my account.

This is the same reason that people left MySpace and strolled over to Facebook.  We were sick of all the spam.  But if Facebook is just going to become another damn haven for spammers, you can count me out.

Facebook, get your head out of your butt right now.  Or I will be gone.

Internet Explorer Support Now Costs Double

Can you believe this:? Microsoft Internet Explorer refuses to run on my XP desktop or XP notebook machines, or even my Vista based laptop! I can’t get IE running on anything, not even on my son’s XP desktop.

Thanks so much for nothing, MS!

It isn’t that I want to use it, it’s just that I need to support the IE browser for my web design clients.  And yet it won’t even run on my Windows based machines.  I am so tired of supporting IE.  They fail to develop the browser at all so that it will keep up with ancient web standards such as CS3, XHTML and XML and don’t even plan on supporting HTML5.  Ideally, the browser is considered crappy.

Why the hell should I support this peice of junk browser?  Oh yeah, my client’s clients/customers.  Well, I am now doubling my rates to support anything other than the last version of Internet Explorer, FireFox, Safari, Chrome and Opera.  Why? because IE is so poorly undeveloped that it should not even be considered a true modern browser.

So from this moment on, if you want support for IE7, you will have to pay double for it.  Because IE really *is* that crappy and really is much of a pain in the butt.  Everyone else supports the current and emerging web standards, just not IE.

HTML 5 Stuff

Over in the Web Design and Development (WD&D) group (at Google Groups), I started a thread/topic/post for discussing HTML 5 Stuff. One of the members left a link to his own take on the upcoming HTML 5 standard and I responded to it right there in his blog.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware that his blog system would not automagically convert less than (“<“) and greater than (“>“) symbols over to html codes, and so every time I talked about these tags, they completely disappeared from the post reply as if they were actual HTML code (whether they were simply disallowed or are actually showing up as code, they simply are not showing up in the text of my reply at all).

So, in an effort to correct how his blog is displaying my reply to his post, I have decided to try to correct and clarify my response to his original post concerning HTML 5 on his blog here:

My Corrected Response on the HTML 5 Topic:

(As indicated, I will also try to edit this post and make it clearer…)

HTML 5 represents web design coming out of the dark ages.  It isn’t just a significant and noteworthy advancement, it represents an understanding in creativity, art, media and the flow of the production process.  And it also offers coders much better and clearer semantics.

More needs to be done, though.  Browser wars continue to over dramatically impede progress as they look to promote their own brand’s and codec as the default solution.  There is no true web authority to lay down the law on these characters who fight like dysfunctional in-laws.  Here too, the world’s governments fail to step in and help resolve issues because it doesn’t even understand this technology.  And no one understands that the lack any real authority continues to impede the process of stanardization support, as well as its progress and further advancement.  Therefore, this demonstrable lack of control over the web (and the internet as a whole) is helping to promote the stagnation of our global economy.

HTML 5 is the answer.  Not in its present form, but as it evolves and support for it finally surfaces across all platforms.  Which is the trouble, because as browser companies squabble about minor issues in order to promote their own brand, their self-serving brand oriented corporate muscling and protectionist attitude holds up progress for the entire rest of the world.  Of course, they obviously think that they are more important than everyone else, or the greater good.  And this is where the lack of any kind of corporate morality is constantly stabbing progress  in the spine of the back, repeatedly, like some sort of remorseless mad axe murder.

I honestly think that HTML 5 will change the world, eventually. But support is key. Why Microsoft Internet Explorer continues to hold-up the show should be considered criminal. I cannot understand why it insists on being seen as the bad guy in the technology development sector when it comes to the web. Of course, Microsoft never has seemed to “get the internet”. But they are not alone in blame for the wishy-washy support for the HTML 5 standard support, either. All browser entities are guilty because they are still promoting their own interests in a standardized codec for the <audio> and <video> tags.  This kind of idiocy continues to overshadow the technology and hold-up progress.

Should they have placed the development of the HTML 5 standard into the hands of a capable independent organization of web designers and developers?  They did.  And yet many of these issues we looked to the W3C and WHATWG for guidance on were ignored.

Yet, the corporate dance is still required.  I mean, I can start a group to develop HTMLX as an independent group, but no one is going to support it if they are not on-board.  And no one is going to want to help develop it as a standard unless it has a good chance of becoming a real standard which is supported by the corporate community.

In the meantime I know that I would have a whole lot more web design work if the HTML 5 standard were a reliable and competitive standard that we could rely on once it is ratified and officially released.  But we can’t because of corporate bickering and the ensuing lack of agreement or support to actually handle the <video> and <audio> tags.

In a time when we need work and to promote progress in order revitalize the global economy, the w3 (the worldwide web) needs massive attention so that we can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

I am just one of many web designers experimenting with the HTML 5 standard.  I came across a link to this blog post on the subject of HTML 5 Stuff in the Web Design and Development group at Google Groups (http://groups.google.com/group/sitedesign).  But I do want better support, and I am calling for the browser industry to get on board (finally).  Because for us web designers, we will have to get on board with HTML 5 or we will simply die in the coming years.  This standard is just too good and helps untie the knots of code which flow and creativity tends to stumble over.

Thanks for your post, I love bringing awareness to HTML 5 and thank you for your effort.  I long to learn more about how to use the <canvas> tag. That tag should be lots of fun in the future. 😉

Reference:
Jame’s Parker’s (from Cyber Designz) HTML 5 and How It Works Blog Entry
The W3C
The WHATWG
The following links require membership in the WD&D group:
http://groups.google.com/group/sitedesign
http://groups.google.com/group/sitedesign/browse_thread/thread/faf4070ed871499d