Nikoport

Today i have helped solving some CSS problems for some intra & extranet sites for some big company. I was impressed by the quality of the code. Tables & Tables, no divs the most of the styles are still attributes with likes of style=”color: blue;”. Faaantastic … A person making this sites were impressed by the use of the !important rule, and in my turn i am impressed by the knowledge of the html, css & web standards. I mean even right know here nobody is giving a damn about the browsers, other then IE. Oh, it does not work in Gecko-based browsers ? Ok, but who does not have an Explorer installed on their computer ? ( hello to all the linux users ). Some of the city halls of Portugal have the “privilege” of using the sites created by the company where i am working (hello to all the users of this sites). I am thinking in organizing a small presentation of how the work should be done, maybe somebody will start moving into the direction of the standards, at least a person who i am helping allready suggested that i should do this.
As much as i dislike the Microsoft politics, the most people around me, and especially the responsable for the strategic decisions here are looking forward to each and every Microsoft product, ignoring any open source alternative decisions. Anyway i am having projects with .NET and even though i would prefer any alternative project there are none of them available in the nearest future.

I was looking at the forums of one european software company which produces digital signature software and i am deeply impressed by the fact, that as it should provide the best security for the users, the first and only available platform is windows. I hope that in the future there will be more solutions, and i think that each and everyone should do their best to offer alternatives.

A few days ago i have had a very interesting conversation with a person, who does not reboot her computer, because of the trial version of the Microsoft Office installed there. I was a kind of “frightened” by the reasons that drove her of ignoring alternative solutions. When asked her about an Open Office she said - “Oh no ! Not that thing, i have allready tried it once and it didnt felt like Microsoft Office, so i dont liked it. And what about Outlook, can i have it there ? No its not good”. I have thought “ok, lets give it one more try” =O) So when i tried to tell her that there programs like Thunderbird to replace the Outlook, which have good usability and even at the company where i am working some people are using it - she didnt wanted to listen at all. She said “At home my husband has installed this things”. When i tried to ask her to tell me the names of any of this “things”, the conversation has been stopped by “oh forget it ..”.

Are you still reading ? Let me tell you that this person is a “web designer”, and a lot of sites has passed through her hands in the recent years, and because our company has a good success on the market, even more sites in the neares future are going to have this magic touch… =O( Ofcourse for her the best and the only good browser is an Internet Explorer, so people with other “things” should be aware that there are “webmasters” which are “caring” about them…

That has happend in a software company … I mean i am scared and flattered. If i a person who is spending the most time of the day in front of the computer has this ideas, how many of “them” should be out there in the open ?