The House of Shock is something of a legend in the New Orleans area. It is a haunted attraction that has earned itself a reputation the likes of most haunts can only dream of. If the rumors are true, both the city of New Orleans and neighboring Jefferson Parish have tried repeatedly to shut the haunt down, using every legal trick to do so. Some even think God himself is out to get the haunt, Hurricane Katrina having flooded it (along with most of the city), forcing them to close for the 2005 season. However, they reopened in 2006 and haven’t missed a year since, despite the obstacles, alleged and confirmed.

The HoS is known mostly for two things. First is its elaborate and eyebrow-singing stage show with pyrotechnics, the second is its use of satanic imagery and “shock” value to scare customers.

It too makes repeated appearances in “top ten” lists of U.S. haunts and it has a nation-wide reputation that is known across the country among haunt lovers. But is the notoriety of the haunt deserved? Read on to find out.

The Good

The HoS, much like The 13th Gate, is an event haunt but the HoS has a prominent difference, its stage show.

The show itself has remained largely unchanged since I first saw it in 2003. It chronicles the fight between the devil and a preacher character over the souls of those in the audience. It’s a well-acted, well-scripted show where the real stars are the pyrotechnics, which are huge (VIP ticket holders may wish to check their eyebrows at the gate). The show itself lasts about 10 to 15 minutes though you’ll likely spend much more time waiting in the queue for it to begin (fortunately they have a “freak” show before that to keep you entertained).

Once you get into the haunt, you’ll find that, once again like an event haunt, the HoS has remarkably detailed insides with hundreds of great actors. The place is quite literally crawling with actors, far more than any other haunt I can think of. Where a mid-range haunt might staff a dozen or two people, an event haunt a hundred, the HoS reportedly has some 200 people, with at least a group in every room.

The detail in the haunt is incredible. Though there wasn’t much in the way of Hollywood special effects, it was clear that a ton of work went into getting everything just right, from the first graveyard to the barrel path on the exit. Everything was planned and built with movie-set like quality.

The actors, in addition to being plentiful, were also very talented and energetic. Their costumes were also incredible and very memorable. They put a lot of time into making their characters unique and it shows.

Best of all, the experience feels like a full night, even without the stage show the walk through is over 20 minutes and there is plenty to do around the event itself. It is worth spending some time to just hang around and see what all you can do. This makes the $20 price tag feel like a steal, though I’m not sure how I would feel about the $50 VIP tickets. Nonetheless, it is a haunt that earns its money.

All in all the experience is very memorable. With a lot of well-crafted scenes and, especially toward the end, some good good scares. It is the type of haunted house that you will be talking with your friends about for a very long time afterward and you’ll want to go through repeatedly to see the things that you missed.

The Bad

The HoS, as its name might indicate, is less about scaring and more about shocking people. You’ll see girls pretending to have sex with corpses in a morgue, dozens of actors running around with fake entrails (which is odd because, in Louisiana, that’s just dinner) and lots of Satanic imagery, but not a lot in the way of scares. In fact, going through the entire haunt, I didn’t hear one person near me scream until the very end.

The haunt just isn’t built to scare. Part of it is design, but much of it is also because the HoS has customers go through the haunt conga line style, making it so that you’re always in a very large group. You never feel alone in the haunt and the actors can’t do much to scare you as they are forced to watch the train of people go through their scene with little chance to startle anyone, save maybe the leader.

This is the byproduct of the stage show, which causes hundreds of people to queue up to watch the act and then enter the haunt at once. If you’re not one of the first in, you pretty much always have at least six other people in your line of sight.

The other big gripe I have is that, while the tickets and warning signs say that it is a “no touch” haunt other than accidental brushing, I have never felt so grabbed, pushed and shoved by actors in my life. One actor, wearing a pig mask, used his face to pin me against a wall for several seconds. It wasn’t scary or frightening, more humorous than anything, but it was annoying and not at all what was expected, at least based on the printed materials. However, anyone who has been to the HoS or talked with others who have gone already know that this type of thing is common.

In short, if you don’t like the idea of being grabbed, pushed, slimed, sniffed, grinded against, etc. don’t go. Just ignore what the big sign and your ticket says and move on.

Bottom Line

I have a ton of respect for the House of Shock. They are a haunt that literally started in someone’s backyard here in New Orleans and grew to what it is today. They are great members of the haunt community, locally and nationally, and are all around great guys and they have built a kick ass haunt.

However, it is not a haunt for everyone nor is it a particularly scary one. The goal of the HoS is, as the name implies, to shock. It’s not about scaring or startling, but about testing the depths of evil and using a combination of theater and haunted house to make people uneasy and give them a show. It’s a haunted attraction that doesn’t try to be like other haunted attractions.

This makes recommending or not recommending the HoS very difficult. You probably won’t be that scared going through it, but you will have a lot of fun, so long as you don’t mind the repeated invasion of your personal space or aren’t too easily offended by the satanic themes.

All in all, it is a great haunt that is well worth the price. The flaws can be easily overlooked in return for the full and unique experience that is the HoS.

Rating

8/10

This is a tough one to score. It feels like its better than an 8 but not quite as much as a 9. It you are into this kind of haunt, it definitely is a 9, pushing a 10, the best of its kind you can still find. But for traditional haunt lovers, such as myself, it is still a great time, though I am not ready to call it a 9.

Note: I am loathe to do ratings on reviews in general because it can be impossible sum up a complex series of opinions in a number. This is especially true with haunted attractions as your enjoyment of the haunt will depend almost exclusively on what it is you seek. Your mileage will always vary.

Location

The House of Shock is located at 319 Butterworth St. Jefferson, LA. 70121, right outside of New Orleans.

Whenever you read a top ten list for haunted houses in the U.S., there is approximately a 95% chance that the 13th Gate will be on that list and a better than 50% chance it will be number 1.

It is for a very damn good reason.

The 13th Gate is the quintessential event haunt. It’s the top tier of haunted attractions, a large, expensive production that everyone feels they have to go to at least once. It’s a haunted house known by those who don’t even care about haunted houses and one such people regularly attend. It’s the kind of place that always has a long line out the door and draws people from all over the country, if not the world.

However, this is not an unearned reputation. Midnight Productions, the makers of the 13th Gate, have turned Baton Rouge in the haunt capital of southeast Louisiana, if not the entire country, and it does everything to ensure that it keeps that reputation intact, making it the best haunted attraction possible.

But how good is it? Read on to find out.

The Good

The 13th Gate is an incredibly well-rounded haunt that starts wowing from the moment you buy your ticket. Even as you wait in line for the “Hellevator” there are actors interacting with you, props to look at (including animatronics) and a general atmosphere that is down to every detail.

The Hellevator itself is something of a hallmark of the attraction and is a stroke of genius on two fronts. Somewhat reminiscent of Disney’s “Tower of Terror” ride, the Hellevator confines you and your group members in a tight car as it simulates an insane elevator ride, all narrated by an extremely talented and creepy operator. Though it’s an incredible experience on its own, it has a practical function, breaking the lengthy line into manageable groups and sending them on their way. This increases the feeling of isolation and makes what follows much scarier (especially for the guy behind me who literally latched on to me for half of the walkthrough).

The detail in the haunt itself is amazing. Everything is there, including the sudden chill when you walk into the ice cave and hieroglyphics that light up as you walk past them, which felt like it was straight out of an Indiana Jones movie. Those are just two subtle examples out of hundreds. Throughout the whole of the haunt, you get the feeling that you walked right onto a movie set, or rather, several of them.

Speaking of movie sets, the actors are incredible too. From the ghouls working the line before the Hellevator to the the greeter at the exit, everyone was on their mark. Especially memorable was a girl who played a wench on the pirate ship that was locked up in a cage. What could have been a simple “eye candy” was taken to another level taunting the crowd constantly, all the while using a perfect (perhaps authentic) cockney accent. As we walked away she ended her dialog, a mix of insults and pleads to be released, with the best line I’ve ever heard in a haunted house, “What do I look like? A bloody monkey!”

But what I think the 13th Gate did best was mix the event haunt style with good, high-quality scares. The problem with event haunts is that, while they tend to be detailed and extravegant, usually aren’t that scary, trading in actual scares for shock value and “oooooh” factor. This one manages to be both beautiful and frightening.

Best of all, with a walkthrough of plus 23 minutes from exit of the Hellevator to the end, the haunt feels like a deal. Where a lesser haunt would be a rip off for $20, I could see it charging $25 or $30 and getting away with it. It’s a $20 ($15 if you go on a Thursday) haunt that is well worth the price of admission.

The Bad

Though I want to do nothing but rave and sing the highest praises about The 13th Gate, I did have a few minor quibbles I wanted to address.

First, there is pretty much no consistency to the haunt. You roam from scene to scene, room to room pretty much aimlessly the entire time. Yes, everything is gorgeous, detailed and wonderful, but it feels thrown together. I realize that the “theme” of the haunt is that there are 13 different places within it, but there is nothing within the haunt to tie it all together in any way so all of the transitions feel disjunct.

Second, for reasons not wholly clear to me the haunt takes a lot of its elements directly from the movies including a whole section dedicated to the Saw series (which is a poor decision in and of itself) and another focused on Pirates of the Caribbean (please don’t ask me for an explanation of that one). There was no reason for any of the movies to be included, especially since the Saw room borrowed more from Edgar Allan Poe than it did anything else the pirates section could have easily been just that, a generic pirate themed area.

This haunt has the money and the creativity to be completely original. By including these elements, to me at least, it only cheapened the haunt. It took me completely out of the moment and put a damper on those scenes.

Finally, for those who are going through the haunt, I highly recommend that, at the split, you go to the crematorium and not the “little bit wet” side. The reason being that the foam used to get you a “little” wet not only completely soaks you, but gave me and other members of my party problems. I seem to have had a very minor allergic skin reaction to it and my brother in law, who was leading the group through this part, found it hard to breathe and also complained of ill effects.

There was nothing terrible nor did it detract from the event, I just think the night would have worked out better if we had gone the other way.

Bottom Line

Without a doubt, The 13th Gate is the best haunted attraction that I have ever been to bar none. The detail is incredible, the actors are spot on and, unlike other event haunts that seem to be just content leading you through a detailed set, this one manages to work in some pretty damn good scares.

The only regrets that I have are A) I didn’t go back through it visit the crematorium and B) I couldn’t stay right then to visit the carnival.

However, there is always next year.

Rating

9/10

I think this may be the highest score I ever give a haunted attraction. It’s as close to perfect as you can get reasonably. However, given the fact it does shoot itself in the foot in a few places, it doesn’t seem to quite deserve the 10/10. Maybe next year.

Note: I am loathe to do ratings on reviews in general because it can be impossible sum up a complex series of opinions in a number. This is especially true with haunted attractions as your enjoyment of the haunt will depend almost exclusively on what it is you seek. Your mileage will always vary.

Location

The 13th Gate is located at 832 Saint Philip Street in Baton Rouge, almost directly under the I-10 bridge and right near LSU stadium (as we found out when we arrived on a Saturday after the LSU game let out).

I feel bad for haunted house lovers in central Louisiana. Southern Louisiana is one of the most blessed regions for haunt fans with the 13th Gate, House of Shock and The Mortuary all within about 90 minutes of each other. However, once you go north of Lafayette, things become rather dead until you make it to Shreveport or Monroe (and even then it seems to be dicey).

Louisiana Nightmares was a solid haunt in Alexandria operated by Midnight Productions, the same people who do the 13th Gate, but they closed it down to focus on the larger Baton Rouge attraction. Sadly, nothing has risen to fill its void, though the Buhlow Fun Park (do NOT click that link, may cause cancer of the eyes) seems to have made a play to capture its customers.

For those who don’t know, which I imagine to be most of the people reading this, the Buhlow Fun Park is a basic fun park on Buhlow lake outside of Alexandria, Louisiana. It has go-carts, an arcade, mini golf and a place to get your picture taken with The Simpsons among other attractions. However, every October it also opens up its “Terror in the Park” haunted house, which the signs assure us it is a “A Real Haunted House”.

I visited the Buhlow Fun Park haunt two years ago and came away with a mixed impression. Though it was short and low-budget, I had to respect their creativity and imagination. They did a lot of great work with what they had. My review, if I had written one, would have been a 5 out of 10 with a tag line “A less-than-average haunt displays some above-average ingenuity to become a mediocre attraction that’s still respectable.”

However, in the two years since something has changed. The creativity is gone and what is left is a disappointing haunt experience that no longer redeems itself in any significant way.

The Good

Previously, the haunt was very creative and there were many scares that made me think “I’ve never seen that before”. Fortunately, at least some of that spark is still alive. The haunt makes great use of sound throughout, airhorns and lights are well timed and are effective, if somewhat cheap, startles.

The haunt also does a reasonably good job of disorientation. Though it has limited space it seems to make good use of it with lots of twists and turns. While I’m not fond of the use of mazes, which the haunt has, it’s short and actually helps to confuse more than to lose you as you go through.

The actors in the haunt were also very good and worked their roles very well. From the mourning widow to the Hannibal Lecter character they played their parts the best they could and their effort did show.

However, there is very limited that I can say good about the haunt this year. In prior years, the actors made use of everything from powertools to folding chairs to get scares. This year, they were more limited in what they did and that had a very negative impact on the haunt.The

The Bad

The question here is where to begin.

The walkthrough is incredibly short. From ticket taking to completion was only 4 minutes and 15 seconds for my group. This despite a $10 admission fee. Chamber of Horrors, by contrast, costs the same and has three times the walkthrough. It felt like it should have cost half as much.

The decor in the haunt was nonexistent. All of the walls were, more or less, flat black and most of the props were clearly store bought and, truth be told, looked fairly cheesy. There’s also not much of a facade outside to speak of, just faux stone brick wrapping, the kind that many home haunters use.

The scares themselves were fairly unoriginal and ineffective. This was largely because much of the scaring wasn’t being done by the actors or they were working in rooms that didn’t let them get the desired effect. In short, the rooms were working against the people trying run them.

This made most of the haunt walkthrough fairly dull actually. Yes, there were loud noises, good use of lighting and some talented actors roaming the halls, but there was nothing to look at, no really good opportunities to get scared and it was all over much too quick.

In short, it isn’t worth the trip and certainly not worth the money.

Bottom Line

If the attraction had cost $5 instead of $10, I probably wouldn’t be so jaded. That would put it at a price point on par with various charity haunts I’ve been to and have enjoyed and it would be about the same quality. But with the higher price tag comes greater expectations and tougher competition.

Compare this to the Chamber of Horrors. Both cost $10 but CoH has a 12-minute walkthrough, well-designed sets, custom props and a slew of well-placed scares. Buhlow gives you a third of the walkthrough, a quarter of the design and almost none of the scares but sees fit to charge the same price.

What drives me crazy though is that Alexandria is so haunt-starved that Buhlow is doing brisk business. My group had to wait almost 45 minutes to get through the line. Meanwhile, CoH, on the same weekend, was fairly dead (though things have picked up since).

My advice to anyone in the area is, if possible, to skip this attraction. I could only recommend it as a starter haunt for someone who had never been inside one before. Scary enough to get the rush in places, but gentle enough to coddle even the most faint of heart. The reasonably brave or experienced should pass.

Instead, they should take I-49 south and then either I-10 or 190 east to Baton Rouge and visit the 13th Gate. Here’s a map if you need one.

It is what we did and you will thank me later if you do it, even if it is a long drive.

Rating

3/10

My wife and discussed this rating beforehand. I wanted to give it a 4, she voted a 3. After thinking about it, I have to agree with her.

Note: I am loathe to do ratings on reviews in general because it can be impossible sum up a complex series of opinions in a number. This is especially true with haunted attractions as your enjoyment of the haunt will depend almost exclusively on what it is you seek. Your mileage will always vary.

Location

Buhlow Fun Park is located at 1715 Monroe Highway, Pineville, LA., just outside of Alexandria.

Last year I reviewed the Chamber of Horrors and gave it an 8/10. This is the reason I am usually loathe to give numeric scores. Though it was a great haunt in 2008, I’m realizing in 2009 that it wasn’t quite an 8. I was too excited to find that kind of haunt in the New Orleans area again and didn’t grade fairly. It should have been a strong six, maybe a weak seven.

But where the Chamber of Horrors, last year, was a good haunt with some minor flaws, this year it is just a flat out good haunt without any caveats or precautions. Though it is not an event haunt, like House of Shock or 13th Gate, both of which I am reviewing later (I’m doing them in the order I visited them), it is a solid haunt that fills the niche of a smaller, more casual haunted attraction nicely. It is a perfect example of what a good mid-range haunt should be like and it deserves more recognition than what it gets.

This isn’t to say that the CoH is flawless, every haunt has room to grow, but it is a well-rounded attraction that has addressed its weaknesses and emerged stronger and better for it.

The Good

Last year, the greatest weakness the CoH had was a lack of actors. Less than half a dozen people roamed the halls when we went through then, but that has more than tripled this time around. Now, rather than feeling empty, the haunt almost feels crowded. Several rooms have multiple actors and every major scare is being manned this year. Now, you are never far from a human being.

Located in LaPlace, the CoH is a free-roam-style haunt where you make your way through the haunted house in a small group (usually no more than four) and do so at your own pace. This serves well for getting your money’s worth out of the haunt and ensures that you aren’t rushed more than necessary. This is in stark contrast to other area haunts that seem to rush patrons along either in a conga line or through a constant pressing via the staff.

The haunt itself is largely unchanged from last year. a few minor alterations were made in the layout to improve both clarity about where to go and the effectiveness of some of the scares, but it is still very recognizable for the most part. However, this is not a bad thing, the design and layout were two of the biggest strengths last year and remain so this year. Though it’s not as high-end as House of Shock, it’s overall very good and worth stopping to look at.

However, the best part of the CoH is the deal. I timed my (fairly slow) walkthrough at about 12 minutes and 13 seconds. At ten dollars per ticket, or free admission for donating blood, it’s a great value haunt. Though it isn’t the House of Shock it doesn’t try to be. It takes up less out of your wallet and less of your evening (save perhaps the drive out there) and is still a lot of fun.

In short, it’s got the balance just right for a medium-tier haunted attraction.

The Bad

With the actor problem resolved, I find myself having to dig a bit deeper to find things I didn’t like about the attraction.

The issue with certain areas of the haunt not looking “finished” remains in effect. Gaps and other minor issues break the flow of the haunt in places. Also, there is sometimes confusion as to where to go. While this can be good if intentional, in one case it almost had me walking into an actor’s scene.

I also, as a matter of personal taste, find it a bit frustrating that there isn’t any central theme to the haunt. It can feel random as you go from room to room as everything is different, with nothing to tie it all together. Some people enjoy this, but I prefer a threat of continuity or at least some trademark style.

The biggest problem, however, is the location. It’s a 40-minute drive one way from downtown New Orleans and the location itself is not easily visible nor does my GPS represent it accurately. The result is that, if you’re coming from the city, it can be an almost hour haul. I don’t think many casual haunted house fans are going to make that kind of time investment. Even if the haunt is good and only 10 dollars, getting people from downtown to LaPlace is a challenge.

If there is any reason that the CoH is not “worth it” it would be the drive. Though I hope it wouldn’t discourage people from going, it’s hard to claim that it won’t.

Bottom Line

If I could write last year’s review over, the tagline would be “A solid haunt is hampered by actor issues making it a worthwhile visit, but with caveats.” This year, I would just revise it to say “A solid mid-range haunt with the right mix of scares, scenes and fun, all at a great price.”

CoH is a cheap haunt that manages to avoid being outright cheesy. It’s a solid haunt that manages to both maintain a professional appearance, some good scares and a high amount of imagination and creativity on a smaller budget. You won’t be blown away by the budget or the production, but you will have fun and, considering it is only $10, you will get your money’s worth.

If you’re in LaPlace or passing through it, perhaps on the way to the 13th Gate, you need to check it out. If you’re a big haunting fan in New Orleans, you need to make the drive.

Rating

7/10

If we assume that I redid my previous year’s review as a solid 6, this rating makes more sense. It is a solid 7 and I even debated giving it an eight. However, I think the haunt still has a lot of potential for growth so I want to leave some ceiling for it.

Note: I am loathe to do ratings on reviews in general because it can be impossible sum up a complex series of opinions in a number. This is especially true with haunted attractions as your enjoyment of the haunt will depend almost exclusively on what it is you seek. Your mileage will always vary.

Location

The Chamber of Horrors is located at 702 E Airline Hwy. If you are coming from the city, take 310 and exit Airline heading toward Norco. Drive across the Bonnet Carré Spillway and it will be on the left.

photo credit: Justin Marty

When it comes to where I take my business, I’m a pretty picky customer. I demand a lot of the places I shop, especially the ones I’m going to get into my car and drive to.

First, there are the obvious criteria for where I shop. The store has to be reasonably close, has to have what I need/want, be friendly and has to have reasonable prices. But then there are the less-obvious reasons, reasons that it appears many shop owners and managers forget in their bustle to keep the ship sailing forward.

So, as a public service to those stores I haven’t seen in a while, here are my top five less-common reasons I don’t visit your business.

5. Your Parking Lot Sucks

Most stores seem to focus on making sure they have adequate parking, not whether their lots are any good. In a bid to squeeze every space out of a precious piece of asphalt real estate, so many parking lots have been turned into unintelligible death traps where accidents and near-misses are daily events.

Take a moment to ask yourself a few questions: Can I get into and out of your lot without being killed? Are your spaces actually wide enough for a car to get in, park, open their door and get out comfortably? Are the lanes wide enough for two cars to pass easily? Are one-way aisles clearly marked? Do you know what a stop sign is and are they where they need to be?

There are at least two pharmacies and three big-box retailers I almost never visit because their parking lots are accidents waiting to happen. When I do, I park far away and walk.

4. You Don’t Enforce Your Own Rules

If I go to your store for a few items, am I going to be behind some woman with three buggies in the express line and is she not going to be asked to leave? Are you going to have me sign up for a membership card to get discounts but then have the cashier swipe their card for everyone else?

Every store has rules, most of which are just common sense. But if you don’t enforce your rules you only punish those who actually follow them. I won’t tolerate that. If your staff isn’t going to stand up to customers who break your policies, I’ll find a place that will. It’s that simple.

3. Your Store is a Dump

I’m not a neat freak by any stretch of the imagination (ever seen my office?) but if a store has headache-inducing lighting, cramped aisles and/or always looks like a tornado hit it, I’m only going to visit under the threat of bodily harm.

I’ve often hypothesized that this is one of the key reasons for the fall of KMart because every one I have visited looks like a scene from a space science fiction movie after the aliens attack the ship.

If I don’t want to be there I’m not going to want to spend any money there. I can overlook messes due to customers and stocking, but a mess caused by lack of a chain or an owner not caring about their store is not acceptable.

2. You Screw Up Your Prices

When it comes to pricing, I don’t like surprises. I like to know exactly how much an item is when I pick it up and I expect that price to not change when I get to the register.

I don’t really care if the surprise at the register is my fault or the store’s. Pricing should be clear and accurate so there is no room for these mistakes. If you routinely don’t have pricing or your items or the prices printed seem to change when I get to the front, I’m not going to stop by often, if at all.

I likely won’t argue over or even mention a few dollars difference to a cashier, but if the problems form a pattern, I stop coming altogether.

1. The Clientele

Who shops at your store? Are they the type of people I’d invite to my home, take out for a drink or otherwise want to spend time with? If not, why would I go there to spend money?

I understand that a public business can’t control who walks in their door, but if it seems that your store is populated with rude, inconsiderate people, I’m not going to look forward to paying a visit. I’m sure there’s a market in advertising to the moron crowd, but you’ll have to compete with Wal-Mart and they seem to have a good lock on that group.

This makes sense, I’m going to go to places where people are nice, but most people in a store aren’t employees (if it’s going to stay in business long), but are other customers. You can train your employees to be nice, but you can’t train your customers. You can only enforce your rules (see above).

Bottom Line

I’m the first to admit that my business probably isn’t worth a lot, even to some of the smaller shops I visit. That being said, I’m more than willing to stick to my principles and only go to shops that, I feel, treat me well.

I’m not saying that these are absolute rules. I occasionally do go to stores with bad parking lots, rude customers, etc. but I avoid them whenever possible. This isn’t a boycott, but me trying to get the best shopping experience I can.

The strange thing is, if I seem a bit picky, is that I have little trouble actually finding places to go. There are plenty of stores and even if only a small percent meet my criteria in any way, that’s still a lot of choices.

The problem is that you have to go through a lot of bad experiences to find the places you don’t want to be. If you can get past that, you have some happy times ahead.

photo credit: √oхέƒx™

Even on a blog about inelegant solutions, Daylight Savings Time (DST) has a special place. Not only is it an inelegant solution, but it is a bad means to a solution that doesn’t solve its designated problem. It’s a bad answer to a very stupid question.

The idea is simple, in a bid to save energy, make people happier or whatever the logic is this year, we all, save those of us who don’t live in a DST zone, set our clocks back one hour in the fall and then set them ahead that same hour in the Spring. The idea is that, during the months where DST is in effect, we get more sunlight in the evening.

The problem is three-fold. A) For it to work it requires every county in every state in every nation to agree to go along with it, then requiring every person in those countries to successfully set every clock to the right time. B) It doesn’t do the job its advertised to do and may actually make things worse. C) Even if it DID work, there would be far more efficient ways to achieve the same effect.

So let’s take a moment to stop and think about DST for a bit and marvel at its stupidity. If you think it’s a good thing, give me a second and hear me out, you might like my competing solution better.

After all, the true marvel of DST isn’t that it doesn’t work, but that it’s such a horrible way to get to something that doesn’t work.

Does DST Work?

On the surface, even I have to admit that the theory of DST sounds pretty darn good. By giving people more daylight in the evening, they’ll use less lights, less heat and save energy. Seems like a dead ringer.

But in practice it’s not so simple. Does it save energy? Depends on who you ask. According to the Department of Energy, DST reduces only about .02% of our total national energy costs. Sadly, that’s the positive spin. A study in Indiana, which focused on individual household usage, found that DST actually increased energy use by about 1%.

So the best case scenario is that it reduces our energy use by barely enough to move the needle, on the other end, it actually increases it by a full percent. The problem is two fold. First, as the authors of the Indiana study pointed out, “Benjamin Franklin was right about candles… but he did not consider air-conditioners,” meaning that DST does reduce our use of lighting, but increases our use of climate control and other creature comforts.

However, the more obvious problem is that DST doesn’t actually change anything. Moving the clocks doesn’t give us more hours of sunlight, it just moves them from morning to night. Where once you might have woken up in sunshine and came home in darkness, with DST you do the reverse. While this might have been a gain in the age of candles, in the era of light switches, air conditioners and automobiles, there is little, if anything, gained.

But that isn’t the dumbest part about DST. Sure, it has failed in its stated goal of energy reduction, but it failed even more gloriously by being a worse answer to a bad question.

A Different Scenario

Lets slide into an alternate universe. In this one, the government has decided to do something about how much people drive by putting a per mile tax in a bid to reduce oil consumption, lessen CO2, etc. The tax is straightforward, you pay X cents per mile you drive, it’s a flat rate that’s reasonable but still discourages unneeded trips.

However, a few years after implementation, the government finds yet another problem. Despite the tax, people are still driving too much in the summer months. Winter is fine for the most part, but those summer road trips eat up too many miles. The government decides to raise the tax during six months of the year.

They can do this two ways:

1. Simply raise the tax during the summer months so that every mile now costs Y cents
2. Change the definition of a mile, making it shorter so that people will drive more miles at the same rate.

The second way is just plain stupid. It would require everyone to reconfigure their car’s odometer for summer travel, not to mention that it would require road signs and other markers to be altered for the summer months. Insane? Yes. But that’s what happens you start messing around with a unit of measure.

Granted, odometers and signs are harder to change than clocks, but the point remains. There are two solutions, one requires almost no work to implement and can be implemented piecemeal (not every state would need to pass such laws) while the other requires a concerted effort by everyone just to make it work. Why screw around with a unit of measure when there are ways to fix the problem within the current paradigm?

So what’s the solution for DST? It’s rather simple. If you want more daylight in the evenings, if you feel that is better for whatever reason, don’t reset your clocks, reset your schedule. Businesses can change their hours, people can wake up earlier and they can do those things without touching the clock on the wall.

It’s essentially what we’re doing now, the only difference is that we’re pretending it doesn’t exist by changing the clocks to match the change we think we want to see. The problem is that most people don’t want it, it isn’t implemented consistently, even across this country (go to Arizona or any of our islands), and it doesn’t achieve its stated goals.

It is a failure on every front and we are insane for keeping it up.

The Expanding DST

One thing that has changed over the past two years is that DST has grown. Where once standard time and DST enjoyed a roughly 6 month span apiece, now DST covers 8 of the four months, expanded beginning 2008.

This has created two major problems:

1. It sabotages the tools that we used to keep ourselves on top of the time changes. Long story short, we invent our system of time, we invent and implement time changes, many of us get confused by said time changes, we invent devices to automatically update clocks, we then changes times changes to ruin those devices. If there is life on other planets, no wonder they don’t want to come here.
2. It’s made it so that 2/3 the year is in DST, meaning that DST is now the clearly preferred time. If DST is so wonderful that we should have it for 8 out of every 12 months, why not just not bother setting the clocks back one fall and make it 12 for 12?

The simple truth is that we invented our system of time and it is our right to change it as we see fit. However, since it is a unit of measure, we shouldn’t be screwing with it for no reason. If DST is so much better, then it makes sense to set the clocks to it and walk away, rather than going back every few months to the old system. The more you screw with time, and screw with the way you’re screwing with time, the greater the probability for error.

We joke about being late for work after making a time change but the truth is that time is very important and and every time we change our clocks there are some mistakes. Most are trivial, but bigger mistakes can happen and are likely inevitable. Sure, it’s funny and fitting when would-be terrorists get hurt by their own bomb thanks to DST, but what about when something else goes wrong and good people, not bad guys, get hurt? Might be a different story.

Bottom Line

Just to recap. DST is a bad way to arrive at a solution that doesn’t even fix the problem at hand. Even if we assume that there are reasons to want more daylight in the evening, there are better ways to get it. The only time you need to adjust is your morning alarm.

The simple truth is that DST doesn’t work and, if it did, we could reach the same goal without having to play the “spring forward, fall back” game.

This is why I hope that one fall we can just not set the clocks back and finally be done with our long DST nightmare. It probably won’t happen soon, but I can dream.

In the meantime, I, along with most of the industrialized world, will be playing the DST game twice per year, once as we change to it, once as we move away.

However, I’m going to be swearing under my breath the whole time I do it.

As I was writing my column yesterday for Blogging Tips, something dawned on me. That as much as I love Gmail, there aren’t many alternatives out there.

I wondered aloud on Twitter why there were no viable competitors for Gmail and got a slew of good responses. One of the best came from user @lance_ who said that “It takes a lot of market clout or money to get past spam filters. There isn’t a huge market for b2b & consumers already got an address.” (fixed quote for tweet-speak).

Others seemed to feel that the market was saturated while others still were quick to remind me about Microsoft Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, neither of which really hold much of a candle to Gmail in terms of features. When you consider that Gmail, for free, offers nearly unlimited space, free IMAP access, threading, powerful search, good spam filtering and more, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail look like weaklings.

Gmail is pretty much the undisputed champion right now, at least in terms of features and power, and, sadly, there is no real competition on the horizon. Yahoo! and Microsoft seem to have rolled over and other companies, like Zenbe, would rather build off of Gmail than create something truly new.

The result is that Gmail has stagnated. What was revolutionary when it was first created has slowed to a crawl. Most of the “Labs” features are either mistakes that should never have been in Gmail, such as Signature Tweaks, Title Tweaks, etc. or outright catchup with other systems, such as Canned Responses.

Gmail, which is still in beta, hasn’t blossomed and though it seems to announce new features regularly, most seem outright trivial. So where’s the competition to keep the fire hot? Where is the upstart company with a bold new vision and a competing ideal? It isn’t there.

It’s time for some competition. Time for an upstart group of rebels to really attack this issue and see what they can do. Will it be easy? No. Is it impossible? Maybe. But the future of email may depend on it.

Love for Gmail

The main reason that no one seems to have taken on this issue is because most people seem to really love their Gmail. And why not? It’s fast, its search is great, the threaded conversation feature works really well, its spam filtering is top-notch and you even get free IMAP access if you prefer to use Outlook or Thunderbird.

Gmail is, for all intents and purposes, warm buttery email goodness. I use it, my friends use it, most people I talk to use it. Everyone loves their Gmail and with good reason.

But this undying devotion to Gmail is dangerous. Sure, Gmail is great today, but is having only only one serious email provider really a good thing? Sure, Yahoo! and Hotmail both have more subscribers, but among those that take email serious, Gmail is the undisputed king and the devotion, no matter how deserved, is rabid.

To be honest and fair, Gmail got where it did by revolutionizing the way we did email back in 2004/2005. In a time where storage in Webmail services was measured in MB and deleting mail a common problem, Gmail came on the scene with GBs of storage, threaded conversations and a slick new interface. It took our current Webmail services and made them look puny and dated, even before most of us had access to Gmail.

But after its initial innovations it really hasn’t done that much. Most of the changes have been tweaks, fixes and minor improvements. Gmail became famous for its broad strokes but has, in the past four years or so, done nothing but fix some of the details.

The only broad stroke was to enable IMAP access for all accounts, a great feature, but one that has nothing to do with the Web interface. In fact, it was more of an escape for those who didn’t like what Gmail was bringing.

The kick to the stomach there though is that there hasn’t been much good done with email clients in the last five years either. Even Thunderbird has had its development stagnate, especially when compared to Firefox.

As great as Gmail is, if you find yourself dissatisfied for any reason, you’re pretty much out of luck. There are no viable replacements right now and Google is coding like they know it.

The Internet Explorer Problem

Though it is hard to imagine, there was a time when using Internet Explorer was actually cool. When it was first introduced, it was free, powerful and way ahead of Netscape, its main rival. It took market share away, inch by inch, and eventually became a de facto monopoly.

But that was when things got ugly. IE, for the most part, didn’t bother doing anything. It reached the top of the mountain and, since it wasn’t making Microsoft any money, it got treated like an unwanted stepchild.

The result was bad for the Web in every way. Though having a free and powerful browser was, at first, a good thing, it became a nightmare as Microsoft flouted Internet standards, ignored browser innovations (IE: tabbed browsing) and generally made life Hell for developers and users alike.

It wasn’t until a serious challenger, namely Firefox, came along that they began to wake up and release new versions. It’s no coincidence that a two-year release cycle stretched into 5 beginning with the release of IE 6 in 2001, roughly when IE reached the pinnacle of its market share, and that IE7 would be the one to introduce tabbed browsing, years after it had been in other browsers.

The end result was that, by introducing competition, Firefox improved the Web for everyone, including IE users.

Though I’m not saying Google is going to be as flagrant in ignoring Gmail as Microsoft was with IE, but its a simple fact that any company interested in the bottom line isn’t going to spend as much money developing something they already have a solid lead in. If there are no good threats, there’s no motivation to innovate.

In short, Gmail may be so good, that it’s bad for email.

So Where Are the Startups?

So where are these companies that can light a fire under Google? Well, I think the market may be to blame.

The problem is five-fold:

1. Market Saturation: Virtually everyone that wants an email address has one and most of us have several. Any new email system would first have to convince people to move their data over to their service, thus opening up a whole new series of headaches.
2. Startup Capital: There’s a good reason the biggest webmail systems are provided by large companies, it’s because it takes a lot of money to run one. Server costs, personnel, support, spam filtering, etc. It takes a lot more than a good front end to make a good Webmail provider and that makes it costly to run.
3. Poor Monetization: The only way to earn revenue from webmail is to either charge for pro accounts or sell ads. Gmail killed the first business model and, well, good luck with the second, in this economy especially.
4. Email Isn’t Cool: Email may be necessary, but it is so last decade. Developers and startups today want to do rich media, microblogging, social networking, instant messaging and anything with an API. As important as email is, it doesn’t get many people excited anymore.
5. Trust Factor: How is a new startup going to get users to trust them enough with all of their data AND a business-critical application? I have no idea. Any solution will have to come from an established, reputable company.

In the end, it may be that the door has been shut on email-based startups. Though some, like Postbox, are building products and services to work with Gmail, no one seems to be ready to go against it.

It’s a love fest with Gmail and it’s only a matter of time until the big “G” gets bored with the relationship.

Bottom Line

I hope that we don’t have to wait for Gmail to bottom out the way IE did before we see some competition. It would be sad to see that the move to create an alternative would be motivated more out of anger rather than a simple desire for choice.

Gmail is great, but it may be too awesome for its own good. We all need a little conflict to stay on our game and companies need it even more.

Someone out there has to have a great idea for making email faster/easier/better, so I say we hear it. If someone doesn’t try, we may be waltzing right into an email dark age.

Update: See comments below for a response from Omni Group The OmniWeb Web browser is, for the most part, no more. Though the announcement last week highlighted the fact that it was now available for free, the buried lead is that they are stopping active development on the browser. Though they aren’t ruling out future updates, they aren’t promising any either and they didn’t open source the browser. With the browser wars the way they are, that’s as good as a death sentence.

However, most people that used OmniWeb seemed to like the browser. I tried it several times over the past few years, never quite getting to the point where I was willing to pay for it after the trial ended. Sadly though, the browser couldn’t build any real traction. Many Mac users were unaware it was available and, those that did, seemed to always go back to free browsers.

It was, and still is, a fairly innovative browser and one that works fairly well. Based on Webkit, it’s a fast browser with an intersting “tabs on the side” system that uses thumbnails of pages rather than a traditional tab bar. It also has a slew of built-in features, such as ad-blocking, workspaces and individual site preferences.

Yet, the browser is clearly being put into retirement. Where did it go wrong and how can other “deep in the pack” browsers, such as Flock and Opera, avoid a similar fate?

The Business Model

When it comes to determining why OmniWeb is sliding out the exit, many are going to instantly point to the business model for the browser. It was, until the announcement, a paid browser in a field of freebies. Though the price was low, fifteen dollars, it was definitely a barrier to entry.

That being said, I don’t think it’s that simple. In fact, if there has ever been a time for a paid browser to succeed, this is it.

Think about it. The browser is now more integral to our lives than ever. Where five years ago it was a fancy box to look at Web pages, now it’s a mail client, an office suite, a publishing platform and more. Where once a browser was just a commodity, now it is an integral part of our work experience. Where once we could “make do” with any browser, now a good one is a necessity.

The problem with selling a browser is that there are so many good ones out there for free. Between IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Flock and so forth, there is a wide selection of good (or in the case of IE, ‘meh’) browsers that can do what most users need and either come installed with the OS or can be freely downloaded. Furthermore, if you want to sell a browser, you aren’t just competing with Firefox, IE, etc. but all of the add-ons and plugins created for them.

That’s a tough sell to say the least but it can be done. If you can bring something new, powerful and compelling to the table, you can probably sell it. If you can make the browser more useful and more powerful for how people use the Web today, there may be a market for selling copies.

In the meantime though, it seems that the “free browser, split search revenue” model for the browser is going to remain the focus. It’s made the non-profit Mozilla Organization a ton of cash and seems to be keeping Flock afloat, even with barely six million users.

Though the business model may have contributed to OmniWeb’s problems, I don’t it was the sole cause of the browser’s lack of traction. I think the browser had, and continues to have, bigger problems.

The Bigger Missteps

In my experience using OmniWeb, I noticed that I would use the browser almost exclusively for the whole 30-day trial but, when it expired, I could never quite bring myself to turning over my credit card. It wasn’t the price itself that bothered me, just a difficulty justifying the purchase. Thinking back, I see why I had the problems I did.

1. Not Innovative Enough: Though Omniweb did try to bring something new to the browser, its most obvious feature, the tab sidebar, could be easily replicated using a single extension for Firefox. It’s hard to convince me to pay for something that is available for free so trivially.
2. Stability: The Omni Group does a great job building software that doesn’t leak memory or slow down computers. Omniweb is no different. However, it does seem to crash at semi-regular intervals for me. It’s not an “all the time” problem that was a deal breaker, but a few times a week it would go down completely, even Safari 4 beta seems to be more stable.
3. Poor Feature Parity: Though the Firefox extension system is something of an inelegant solution when it comes to adding needed features, some of the extensions do add very compelling elements. Though OmniWeb attempted to add some of the more popular features back in, they were poor substitutes. Ad blocking in OmniWeb, for example, was a poor substitute for AdBlockPlus.

In short, OmniWeb, as a paid browser, did not offer anything that was compelling enough to get me to pay for it. In fact, even with it being free, its unlikely that I’ll use it as my main browser.

How to Sell a Browser

As I said above, it isn’t that I think one can’t offer a browser for sale and make money, it’s that Omni Group didn’t do it well enough. This is largely likely caused by the fact that, by their own admission, they are a small company and didn’t have the resources to really build the browser they needed to. They are right to shift their focus to other, more lucrative, apps.

So how would one build a browser for sale? Here’s my suggestions:

1. Come Packing: If your browser comes with a price tag, it needs to come with some kick-ass features. It needs to be so unique and so powerful that other browsers struggle, through hacks and extensions to get something resembling it. It needs to offer unique, compelling features and be the fastest, most stable browser available. Difficult? Yes. But not impossible.
2. Target Power Users: This may seem obvious, since power users are the ones most likely to pay for a browser, but OmniWeb screwed this one up. Most of the features of OmniWeb were targeted at the ease-of-use crowd and not the “need to write four blog posts and check my Gmail” crowd.
3. Rethink the Browser: As I’ve noted before, the Web browser has not changed much in the past ten years or so. The earliest browsers look and function much like the current ones. If you’re going to charge for your browser, it needs to shake things up and not just follow the leader. Being genuinely better will mean doing something radically different that not everyone will like. However, those who do like it will like it enough to pay you money.

The bottom line is that, if you’re going to charge for a browser, it isn’t enough that it be a solid one, which OmniWeb is, it has to be clearly superior, at least to a certain group, and one that other browsers strive to be like.

Bottom Line

The question isn’t whether anyone can sell a browser and make a profit, it is whether someone will invest the time, resources and energy into making it work. It’s going to take more than what Omni Group was able to muster for its browser. Other companies that used to charge for their browser, such as Opera, have also switched to other business models for much the same reason.

But these failures are not due to a market that won’t pay, they are due to the fact that OmniWeb, like Opera, was never able to distinguish itself clearly enough from free alternatives to justify any price tag. Though many feel OmniWeb was the superior browser on Mac, very few felt it was superior enough to justify opening their wallet.

Anyone who wants to sell a browser has a tall mountain to climb and there’s no shame in failing, Opera has done great things with the free model, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be climbed and, as the browser becomes more and more the hub of all our computer activities, that opportunity will only grow.

Of course, as the free alternatives improve, the challenge of getting consumers to open their wallets will only become greater over the years.

In short, if someone’s going to do it, it is now or never…

photo credit: Jayel Aheram

I’m not a beer drinker. When it comes to my very limited alcohol consumption I’m definitely more of a wine/daiquiri/mixed drink kind of guy. A good bottle of red wine or a jack and coke is more up my alley than pretty much any beer.

However, economic times are tough. We don’t have the income we did a year ago so we’re looking to cut back on our expenses. One of the easiest for us is drinking. Though we love our daiquiris, $20 for two larges (with tip) makes little sense when a six pack of even high-end foreign beer is less than half the price.

So we set out to find a beer that we could enjoy. We had the good fortune to do some overseas traveling in the past year and learned that we liked some foreign beers but the ones we truly enjoyed, such as Duvel beer, were not widely available in the U.S. The goal was to find a beer we could locate easily and enjoy on a whim.

World Market came to our rescue. Their “Make your own six pack” feature let us literally build a six pack of beer from six different countries at an affordable price. So we decided to try and then do a review of it. Here are the results.

The Competitors

There were six beers in the original six pack and we added one at the request of a friend. The beers and their countries are as follow: Beck’s (Germany), Foster’s (Australia), Asahi (Japan), Newcastle Brown Ale (UK), Moosehead (Canada), Pilsner Urquell (Czech Republic) and Heineken Dark Lager (Netherlands).

There are three caveats with this list. First, though all of the beers are from the countries listed, not all of the beers are actual imports. Some are brewed in the U.S., Canada or other countries. In some cases import/export laws seem to make getting the import difficult so I had to work with what I had.

Second, there is a mix of beers, lagers and ales in the list. I know that isn’t a perfect apples-to-apples comparison because there are real differences but since they all sit on the same shelf of most stores, they go head to head in this competition.

Finally, this list is based almost completely on availability and whether they were new to us, not recommendations. Only Beck’s is on the list due to a recommendation and it is still the most widely available beer from Germany locally. So it still seemed worthy of inclusion.

As for the competition itself, the rules were simple. We, my wife and I, tried each beer. Whoever took the first sip though had to finish the bottle, no matter how bad. We jotted down some notes and waited a while before trying the next. Every beer had roughly the same refrigeration time and was consumed in roughly the same way.

With that being said, here are our thoughts, in order of how we rated them:

1. Asahi

Asahi was the surprise of the contest for me. Asahi was very smooth and easy to drink, even from the first sip. There was never a hint of bitterness or skunkiness. It was a very easy beer to swallow. I could see myself having one with dinner and continuing to sip on Asahis through the evening. It is a surprisingly strong beer in terms of alcohol content, well over 5%, but you’d never know it by taste.

This is truly a great beer for people that don’t like the taste of most beers or just want something they can sip without any problems.

2. Heineken Dark Lager

Regular Heineken is one of the cruelest jokes in all of beerdom. Crystal and I spent a week in the Netherlands and tried a glass of Heineken on tap. It was easily the best beer experience we had ever had. We came back to the states, thrilled with our discovery, picked up a six pack of bottles and could not believe how terrible it was. My Dutch friends think my optimism was hilarious and openly joke about the garbage they send to the U.S. This, despite the fact it is a truly imported beer.

The dark lager, however, was much better. It was very robust and thick, like a lager should be, but it didn’t have any of the acidic taste that most beers seem to have. The alcohol taste came through a bit more than with Asahi, but it was still a very pleasant experience over all. I could easily see drinking it if I were in the mood for something with a stronger flavor than Asahi and only wanted a few beers in a night.

3. Beck’s

Beck’s says right on the six pack that it is the most popular imported beer from Germany in the U.S. This makes me instantly question U.S. taste in beer. It’s not that Beck’s is bad, but that there are so many great German beers this one seems kind of ho-hum.

The beer isn’t as acidic or as skunky as other beers but didn’t have a lot of flavor either. It really seemed to run a fine line between repulsing me and making making me want more. It was the only beer in the test that we bought a full six pack of (the rest was in the mixed pack) and I was able to finish off the six pack over about a week’s time without suffering or complaining. Still, there are other beers I would much rather drink.

4. Pilsner Urquell

I really didn’t know what to expect with a Czech beer. It’s not exactly a country that is well-known for its beer and its not a country we had sampled from previously. Pilsner Urquell, however, a beer that beer-lovers seem to really enjoy, getting high reviews on Beer Advocate. For me though, the beer didn’t work nearly as well.

It wasn’t that it was a bad beer, though its initials quite humorously spell PU, it tasted like a much stronger beer than it was and seemed to have a stronger skunk flavor than the above beers and was more difficult to drink. The bottle was difficult to get down and, though it started off being “not too bad” it ended up being quite difficult toward the end. Where most beers on the list became more tolerable toward end of the bottle, this one somehow grew more stale and less drinkable. By the end, it was a real effort to finish the bottle.

5. Moosehead

When it came to Canadian beers, I choose poorly. Moosehead may be “proudly independent” but that’s likely only because no one wants to buy it. This was one of the few countries where I had multiple beers to choose from and it is my greatest regret.

Moosehead was a very skunky beer. It didn’t have much flavor either but somehow managed to pull down a strong aftertaste after every sip. It was a bottle that got somewhat better toward the bottom, but I mostly kept drinking to keep washing the aftertaste out of my mouth. The bottle was not enjoyable at all and the greatest accomplishment of this beer was not making either of us outright gag.

6. Newcastle Brown Ale

In June of last year I went to Newcastle, Uk, the home Newcastle Brown Ale. I spent a week there and never once did I see a local drink this ale. Not once. Myself, the locals and other conference goers stuck to other European bears, Stella Artois being the favorite at the hotel bar.

A quick fact about Newcastle Brown Ale is that the bridge depicted on the can/bottle is a bridge over the River Tyne in the city itself. What is less known, but became apparent after drinking the bottle, is that the ale tastes exactly like the bridge itself.

Newcastle Ale was a very dark, heavy and think beer with a very strong skunk flavor and a very bold, albeit disgusting, beer taste to it. It may be a fine ale for people that REALLY love beer, but for those that never developed a taste for it and just want a casual drink, it is anything but. For those that love beer, this is a fifth degree difficulty drink, for those that don’t love beer, it’s the fifth circle of Hell.

7. Foster’s

A friend of mine once quipped that Foster’s is Australian for Kangaroo Pee. If that’s the case, then I feel bad for the kanagroos as I have to wonder what horrible items they’ve been eating to make their pee taste that bad.

It isn’t just that Foster’s is bad. It’s the kind of bad that you compare unsuccessfully to other horrible events in your life. For example, I could see myself saying “Gee, having pancreatitis sucks, but it’s not nearly as bad as that bottle of Foster’s I was forced to drink thinks to a stupid idea for a column on my personal blog.”

Foster’s is like an acid wash going down your throat. It is overloaded with skunk flavor mixed with a bitter taste and an aftertaste that makes you want to wash your mouth out with rusty nails. Worse still, it’s a beer that gets worse with every sip down.

My hope is that Foster’s is a bit like Heineken, really good in Australia but disgusting in the U.S. Either that or, once again, the poor U.S. taste in beer has shown through and there are better beers to be found in the land down under. I would hate to think that this is the best the Aussies have to offer us.

This beer actually made me miss trying American beer.

Bottom Line

I’m in a real pickle right now. I like Asahi and, to a lesser degree, the Heineken Dark Lager, but neither are exactly beers that I would want to make my default. They’re both great special occasion beers, drinks that fit certain occasions.

We’ve continued the search for the time being with some mixed success. We’re going off of friend and family suggestions while also just taking a few stabs in the dark.

We’ll keep the hunt going and, in the meantime, I’ll probably enjoy an occasional bottle of Asahi…

Though the Web browser has grown in importance and changed drastically in function since the first version of Netscape Navigator ruled a fledgling Web, its interface has not changed that drastically.

Though tabbed browsing introduced an important new element, most browsers sport forward and back buttons along with stop/reload buttons, an address bar and, more recently, a search box. Most browsers today look enough like Netscape Navigator 0.91 that few would be lost if they traveled back in time.

But lately there has been an attempt to shake that up some. First came Google Chrome, introducing the idea of tabs on top, and now comes the new beta of Safari 4, which adds even more new interface changes.

Though I’m always a fan of innovation, there’s a lot about these interface changes that bug me and not just the new “bug report” button. I’m admittedly no interface designer, but there are a lot of things that I would definitely do differently…

Just to be Clear

I want to make it clear that I really do like most of what I see in Safari 4. It’s a solid browser over all, especially for Mac users. I like how fast JavaScript moves on it, I like the new “Top Sites” feature and the way it is presented, I like the use of coverflow and I like the overall stability and speed. For doing the things that a browser does, it’s great.

The problems I have are isolated with the interface and some of the changes they’ve made since version 3 and even apart from the latest Webkit nightlies. They seem to have taken a serious departure from the standards of browser interface design and, though I have to admire their daring, it seems they’ve made a few missteps.

Specifically, there are two problems that have me unnerved.

Tabs on Top… Way on Top

When Google Chrome introduced the idea of moving the tab bar to top of the browser, it was a controversial move. I, personally, don’t like tabs on top because it is an ineffeciency for me. Look at this example.

As you can see, if I want to get my cursor from where it is locate to click on a tab, I have to go over not just where the tab bar should have been (the red box) but over the bookmark toolbar and address toolbar. This not only doubles the mouse distance for this very short move, but puts my most common mouse action farther away from where my mouse usually is. Most uses, for me, of the address and/or search boxes are through a command+t to open a new tab and then using the tab key to access the needed box.

However, I can’t begrudge Safari that as Chrome did indeed start it and it does have the benefit of giving one more room in the browser pane. Where Safari went wrong was having the tab bar also double as the title bar of the Window in both Windows and OSX. This is taking a weak idea and making it downright stupid.

The title bar is a crucial part of the Window. It’s how you interact with that particular window on your desktop, including minimizing, shading, closing and moving it. Now it also has to play the role of tab bar? This means you have to be able to open, close and reorder tabs tool. That puts no fewer than 7 major functions in one very narrow strip of screen real estate.

To make this work, Safari added a new convention. In Firefox or Safari 3, if you wanted to drag a tab, you just clicked anywhere on the tab and dragged it, easy. With Safari 4, click and dragging a tab blindly grabs the whole window. Instead, you have to grab the three diagonal lines on the right hand side of the tab to move it around. It’s another convention to learn and adapt to.

Is it minor? Perhaps. It isn’t the worst thing I’ve seen (anyone tried using the latest version of Microsoft Office?), but I don’t see any reason to crowd the title bar with tab functions when it hardly saves any screen real estate at all and seems to open the door to a lot of mistakes.

The Reload Button

Real fast. On the screenshot above, find the reload button. Trick question. It isn’t in that screenshot.

The reload button is actually IN the address bar, the same way the RSS icon usually is.

it was bad enough when IE7 moved the reload button to the other side of the address bar, now Safari has to find a whole new place that no one will think to look for it. I grant that it is not a button that is commonly used and I agree with combining it with the “stop” button, if you need one you definitely don’t need the other, but it is it so rarely used that we need to play hide and seek with it?

The reload button is an important part of the browser for many people. I use it refresh statistics of keep on top of Twitter if I’m not in my Tweetdeck or to keep my email fresh if Gmail is acting funny. I don’t use it often but when I need it I don’t want to go hunting for it.

This is another classic case of change just for change’s sake. The nagivation bar has never been particularly crowded or cluttered and moving the reload button to the end of the address bar just necessitates that the address bar be longer and adds more buttons to the end of it, not actually cleaning anything up. Worse still, any gain is lost with the addition of the bug report button at the far right.

Because, you know, there’s a button I’m going to use a dozen times a day. At least I can remove it with “Customize Toolbar”.

Things that Still Suck

With that in mind, there are still a few issues I have with Safari that have been around since version 3 and beyond that I was hoping they’d fix with version 4 but, so far, no luck.

1. One Window Mode: Why is it that I am constantly closing windows when I supposedly have pop ups blocked? Gmail links open in new windows as do any links have that designation. The problem is that, with Firefox, new window secretly means new tab, as it should be. With tab browsing there is NO REASON to have two windows.
2. Tab Overflow: Tab overflow still sucks. You now get a “…” and you can click on that to get the full tab list but you have to close enough tabs to fit in your window before you can rearrange latter tabs. Firefox overflow management isn’t perfect, but a lot better.
3. Favicons: Seriously? No favicons in tabs? You have to be kidding me. It is almost impossible to tell, at a glance, what is in which tab and, when you combine that with the ways tabs get compressed it is a real mess. You don’t even have to sacrifice screen real estate, just make them double as the close buttons on hover.

These are just a few of the UI decisions with Safari that I have a beef with that haven’t been fixed. Though the new version 4 is an improvement in almost every way, it takes the existing UI problems and magnifies them all many times over.

Say Something Nice

Real fast, since my mother would not be happy that I haven’t said anything nice about the new UI, I do have a few words of praise.

Here are a few new things that I actually do appreciate:

li>Tab Highlighting: One of the problems with Safari 3 was that it was almost impossible to see what tab you’re in. All of them looked about the same. With 4 that problem is gone. The tab you’re in has a noticeably different tint to it and the tab itself is wider. A pretty slick way of handling the problem.
1. Top Site Interface: This is a bit of cheat since it is only new because the feature is new, but managing the top site feature is very slick. I ended up making mine all pushpins since my browsing history is too thin to be of much help to it (I switch browsers too often). You can ban sites from appearing, drag and drop entries and doing so automatically makes them “stickies”. Very intuitive.
2. The “Wonder Bar”: The new address bar functionality is simply superb. If you type in a domain it defaults to taking you to the root, not to some random URL on it. However, if you want said random URL, you can always arrow down. It also is smart enough to pull from both your history and your favorites. Though not quite as smart as Google Chrome’s one bar, it is pretty slick and is a huge leap forward.

Though it seems that most of the interface decisions put this new version of Safari back a ways in usability, there are at least some people on the team who aren’t asleep.

Bottom Line

Me, I like Safari. It’s not a perfect browser and the extension junkies are going to always harp on how you can turn Firefox into everything from a Web development client to a blender. I have nothing against Firefox, but it seems to me that Safari, especially 4, just moves that little bit faster, looks a little cleaner and is a little more gentle on my system. There are a few Firefox extensions I love, but, for most things, Safari gets the job done fine and a bit faster.

However, even as I use Safari 4 to type this, I feel like I’m tolerating the interface. Where once it was one of the draws to the browser, now it is a drawback. If it weren’t for the souped up page loading and JavaScript, I probably would just ignore it and go back to Firefox.

For right now though, I plan on using it. I may switch back in a few days but so far I am pretty happy. I just wish they could get these UI bugs fixed. It might make it a little more bearable to use.

Final Note: Share some of these gripes? Fix them using the commands in this video. (Note: The Reload button is NOT in my Customize Toolbar for some reason. I’ve checked repeatedly).