Monthly Archives: December 2006

IM Gap

By Michael Becker | Published: December 19, 2006
The AP reported Friday that teens and adults are increas­ingly sep­a­rated by the “instant mes­sag­ing gap.” Whereas many teens inter­viewed could not imag­ine life with­out instant mes­sag­ing and cell-phone text mes­sag­ing, just as many adults could care less about its exis­tence. The evi­dence weighs in both for and against IM cul­ture. Either it pro­motes mul­ti­task­ing [...]
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Rise and Fall of Blogging

By Michael Becker | Published: December 15, 2006
The num­ber of blog­gers, com­monly believed to be ever-increasing, will peak in 2007, accord­ing to the Internet con­sult­ing firm Gartner, Inc. A spokesman at Gartner told the Associated Press that the rea­son for the slow­ing growth is com­mon sense. Those who want to start a blog already have, and the ded­i­cated writ­ers will keep theirs [...]
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Web Sites Failing the Disabled

By Michael Becker | Published: December 9, 2006
93% failed to pro­vide ade­quate text descrip­tions for graphics 73% relied on JavaScript for impor­tant functionality 78% used colours with poor con­trast, caus­ing issues for those with colour blindness 98% did not fol­low indus­try web stan­dards for the pro­gram­ming code 97% did not allow peo­ple to alter or resize pages 89% offered poor page navigation 87% [...]
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On a Personal Note

By Michael Becker | Published: December 5, 2006
Yesterday I got word that I passed my com­pre­hen­sive writ­ten exam for my master’s degree. That means all that’s left before me is to actu­ally write the the­sis that’s been bang­ing around in my head and on this site for the past two years...
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Rock Copyrights in Britain Set to Expire

By Michael Becker | Published: December 4, 2006
CNN (via Reuters) reported Friday on Britain’s recent debate over whether to extend copy­right pro­tec­tion on music from 50 to 95 years. According to the arti­cle, the British gov­ern­ment is set to let the 50 year limit stand. What does this mean? It means that the early hits of some still liv­ing musi­cians could become pub­lic [...]
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