In this particular case, it was the simple fact that the user was viewing my website at less than 1024x768 resolution on his monitor. LunarStudio isn’t designed currently for viewing anything less than 1280x960. Some might call this a mistake or a bad judgment, but I can ensure you that it is intentional.

There used to be a point in time around 2000–2002 when I designed all of my websites to fit the 800x600 website standard which was the most frequently used resolution. It was general and safe practice for any web designer to do so. I also made sure that most of my images tried to conform to a 256-color palette. This was because most people were just becoming accustomed to using computers for home use, they were running on much slower connections, used older browsers, older operating systems, older (and much more expensive) monitors, their computing power was limited, and they were running slow graphics processors (if any at all.) Quite frankly, designing for those standards was very limiting as well as a royal pain in the ass.

Now that it’s 10 years later, computing technology has come a long ways — people are running on faster connections as well as faster computers. They generally have much larger and less expensive LCDs. Most of us have the latest browsers and operating systems.

With the current version of LunarStudio, I redesigned it with forward-thinking in mind versus a legacy mentality. I don’t have the time to think of the worst-case or even average viewing scenario and frankly really can’t be driven to care unless I’m getting paid to do so. The way I figure it is that if a person is having problems viewing my website, then there’s a chance that they are somewhat computer illiterate, and this might make a working situation tenuous at best — they’re simply trying to jump from an era of driving a horse and buggy to driving the latest Ferrari. I hope that this isn’t taken as being rude or condescending — I’m just merely stating that a user needs to get with the times or risk becoming a thing of the past.

That being said, here are some statistics which may be of interest:

Screen Resolution and Colors:

As of 2011, 85% of all users view websites at a resolution greater than 1024x768 and the rate keeps climbing.

As of 2011,  97% of all users have a color-depth of over 16 million colors.

Browsers:

Internet Explorer: 22.9% total. IE9: 4.8%. IE8: 12.4%. IE7: 3.9%. IE6: 1.8%.

Firefox: 39.7% total. FF7: 1.5%. FF6: 22.2%. FF5: 3.1%. FF4: 2.2%. FF3: 9%.

Chrome: 30.5% total. C15: 0.7%. C14: 11.2%. C13: 16%. C12: 1.1%.

Safari: 4.0% total. S5: 3.8%. S4: 0.2%.

Opera: 2.2% total. O11: 1.7%. O10: 0.1%.

Other browsers: 0.7% total.

Operating Systems:

Windows 7: 42.2%.

Windows Vista: 5.6%.

Windows 2003: 0.8%.

Windows XP: 36.2%.

Linux: 5.1%.

Mac: 8.6%.

Mobile: 0.9%.

Sources:

Display Statistics: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp

Browser Statistics: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

Operating Systems: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

My Website Captures:

I used a handy tool called browsercam.com when it comes to capturing how my website should look across browsers, resolutions, and operating systems.

Here are some links to how the LunarStudio website looks across various setups:

800x600 and 1024x768 resolutions (144 variations.)

This doesn’t include every variation. This just gives me a general idea as to how my website looks to that 15% of the population that I don’t really target.

Summary:

I think the most frightening thing about the statics listed above is that 36% of the population is still running on Windows XP followed by a 5.6% on Vista which just blows my mind. The majority use browsers generally dated one version back — seeing that browsers are routinely updated, I shouldn’t have to worry so much about people using older browsers to view my content. Beyond that, the clear majority run high enough resolutions and color-depths to support the current LunarStudio website.

Designing for the lowest common denominator when it comes to websites is a risk any designer or company takes. Frankly, I think if you’re planning on designing a website and you want it to be modern, it may not be worth maximizing revenue based solely on a target market that is outdated. If website design was my full-time job, I might consider that 15%, but for now, it’s not something I’m going to concern myself with.

Just to recap the purpose of MightyFunk, it’s a website that functions as a RSS feed with an interface which contains brief excerpts or snippets of design-related news. It’s not meant as a permanent replacement for the original author’s articles and websites, but merely a brief synopsis in case a topic or article looks interesting. I mainly designed it for my own information, inspiration, and curiosity, but thought others might find the sites I frequent useful.

The problem with my previous MightyFunk system and design is that it was eating up my server’s resources and was becoming increasingly slow over time. My host and I could never figure out what was causing these performance issues and I was getting hit with a nasty hosting bill because of it every month.  MightyFunk stood paused for a little over a year’s time, but now it’s up and running again and better than ever. Only time will tell if the site gets bloated again.

Currently, it stands at over 35,349 posts. That’s an awful lot of posts… If you have a moment, please check it out!

Catalysts and Causes

1. Oil price spikes in 2008. With prices surging over $100 US/barrel, this sent US consumers and businesses into a state of shock. People almost doubled their expenses at the pump — filling up a SUV that would have normally cost around $40, suddenly pushed $80. While $40 may not seem like much to some people, for others that added up to an extra $160/month which would cut into their groceries, mortgages, savings, and other expenditures. To add to this, the price of transporting goods and resources increased which further impacted consumers. Many politicians argue that the wars in the Middle East as well as some of their governments were to blame for the sharp rise in oil prices, however I firmly believe that the issue had mostly to do with the commodities market spinning out of control and unregulated. At the time, I was actively involved in day-trading ETF commodities and witnessed the effects first-hand during my trading sessions. In my opinion, this is the catalyst which started the current downward spiral.
2. Intentional loop-hole in midsize vehicle purchases (tax write-offs) under the Bush administration which caused a rush of business owners to purchase large vehicles, which they in turn ended up paying at the pump during the oil price spikes of 2008. “Ironically”, both President Bush and Vice President Cheney (CEO & Chairman of Halliburton) both had significant ties to the oil industry.
3. Faulty underwriting/predatory lending of major mortgage lenders. Simply explained, the large lenders and banks in the United States let smaller lenders partially take over mortgages on homeowners that were not credit worthy. When the homeowners couldn’t make payments, smaller lenders got into financial trouble. Some of the major lenders weathered the storm, but a lot of the smaller companies went under.
4. Faulty credit leading to a worsening situation. Part of the above issue, homeowners that did not have a solid track-record of credit were sold homes, then quite often found themselves unable to pay their mortgages.
5. Home value depreciation. People’s homes are worth less now as a result of the above. People can’t refinance as a result, and hence they are spending less money in the market.
6. Bank lending practices. I work with a lot of major real estate developers in my main line of business. One of the most common complaints is that the banks will not lend out money unless a significant amount of cash is put down. They simply don’t want to take risks in this economy. As a result, these developers are not developing new properties which in turn affects people in the construction industry, retailers, etc.
7. The cost of two separate wars. I’m not here to argue the reasons for going to war or to debate their necessity, but I’m simply pointing out the trillions of dollars spent which have affected taxpayers and other avenues of government spending.
8. The cost of Homeland Security, something which even Congress is still debating (somehow.)
9. Large corporate tax breaks. The theory behind this is that if business owners are given significant tax breaks, that this would lead to employment gains. Employment simply didn’t gain during the Bush administration, and a lot of major companies continued to off-shore their work and manufacturing processes where labor is cheaper.
10. Wealthiest American tax breaks. Some people argue that the wealthiest percentage of Americans pay proportionately smaller amounts of income towards taxes and that it’s unfair.
11. Outsourcing work and accountability. It’s very simple math — it’s cheaper for companies to send their work overseas. Compared to 10 years ago, the Internet has now enabled us to do so more readily and easily. A lot of the money that is being sent overseas feeds other countries economies, but does little to help our own. The money that is sent overseas is spent overseas and doesn’t return. We may in-turn receive cheaper goods, but since there’s less people employed in our own country, very few people are left here that are capable to buy the goods that are imported. Outsourcing has affected numerous areas of customer service and manufacturing and has lead to significant job losses in high-tech fields. The flow of work and money overseas is largely unaccounted for.

Solutions

Moonshine from alexis wanneroy on Vimeo.

DreamWorks first personal art publication, Moonshine, was conceived as an opportunity to highlight the breath of artistic development talent at Dreamworks. This short documentary gives you a sneak peek into the personal works from the artists.

That’s when things started to go funny. This site visually broke as well as some of my other blogs. I wasn’t sure if it was an issue of caching, DNS propagation, mirroring, plugins, or the theme itself. I thought maybe it had mostly to do with the plugins as I was using CDN Linker Light on this blog, and W3TotalCache on some of my others. It turns out that none of those were the case, but I eventually found out on my own that WP Minify was causing missing CSS and JavaScript errors.

While MediaTemple didn’t resolve my problem directly, they were there to give me some good pointers. You never feel rushed when talking to their support, and quite often they go above and beyond to help you out. For example, they shouldn’t have to be dealing with people’s WordPress installations such as mine since it’s technically out of their scope, but quite often they’re willing to give it a shot. Their service has been worth every penny so far, and I hope that they never change.

Thanks guys.

100 milliseconds of waiting doesn’t sound like a lot, but there’s been a lot of studies and statistics surrounding people’s browsing habits. Some studies have claimed that a 100 millisecond wait translates into a 2% visitor loss, and the number increases exponentially as people have to wait longer. From a business perspective, 2% is a pretty big loss. If you can reduce that wait as CloudFlare claims to do (and I’m sure it works), this means people will stick around longer.

Secondly, Google announced last year that they were going to start factoring in website page load times into their ranking algorithm. So the faster your page loads, then that should help your website obtain more traffic in return. It only makes sense that this is one factor in determining a website’s quality. So if you implement a CDN, you will probably see a greater return in traffic as a result.

My blogs are running on MediaTemple and I’m using MaxCDN as my CDN. I pay an annual rate for this extra performance service, but now that the CloudFlare basic plan is free, I’m considering canceling my paid service.

The installation for CloudFlare on MediaTemple is pretty quick and takes less than 5 minutes. I’s just a simple matter of registering, clicking a few “next” buttons, then waiting 12–24 hours for everything to populate. I set it up this morning, and by this time tomorrow it should be working. It will be interesting to see how well it works.

From a recent article concerning the FCC’s standpoint at 247wallst.com:

The FCC maintains that access to high-speed internet is not merely a convenience, but essential to provide a fair chance at a job and an education, as well as to run a successful business. In a report released last year, the FCC maintained, “approximately 26 million Americans, mostly in rural communities located in every region of the country, are denied access to the jobs and economic opportunity made possible by broadband.” In mid-August, the USDA announced the provision of $103 million in federal funds in 16 states to help develop broadband networks in rural communities. This is the latest in a series of efforts by the government to provide installation and discounts for families, schools and small businesses. -http://247wallst.com/2011/09/19/ten-states-that-cant-get-online/

This basically summarizes my views as to the usefulness of the Internet, and how not having it impacts the general welfare of our society. I don’t think many people would disagree that it’s an important resource tool — much like the US public library system but better — more convenient and less costly to maintain. It’s an essential part of business and education at this point, and one we cannot choose to ignore. The main question we face is whether or not the Internet should become a “right” — that is for everyone in this country to have some level of “free” access to it. I would also go one step further and say that it’s not just the people in rural communities that suffer from a lack of access, it’s also a portion of the population within major cities as well.

Here are some of the obstacles our country faces in rolling out a nation-wide Internet system run by the government:

People-based Obstacles

Ultimately, laying Internet cable requires manpower. There’s simply no getting around this fact. However, in this economy, I don’t there’s any shortage of people looking for work. I would have to say that the problem has more to do with bureaucracy — politicians and government officials often take their time when it comes to issues. The main problem here is that there’s a certain amount of trepidation and laziness involved in trying to get things accomplished, and dealing with stubborn people like that only tends to compound this issue.

Geographical Obstacles

Most of the areas that lack easy access to the Internet are largely inaccessible due to geographical boundaries. You might have a home or a town in the middle of farm country or surrounded by mountains. Laying cable through these areas is going to be costly. Sending wireless signals via towers presents its own technical hurdles. It also brings up the question as to whether or not the expenditures are worth serving just a few people in some remote area.

The other issue involved is one of geographical comparison. It’s not fair for us to compare other countries which have nation-wide access when they are the size of one or two US States. It’s definitely going to be easier for them to implement and maintain a nation-wide program since their areas of coverage are often smaller.

At the very least, it could be argued that people within major metropolitan areas should have basic coverage.

Technological Obstacles

We have the technology to accomplish connecting remote communities, but the quality may not be the greatest. When it comes to wireless, it’s just like a cellphone signal — you’re going to have areas that are inaccessible or the quality is weak. If the technologies related to signals or satellite information were to improve, this could improve accessibility and also lower costs. However, in order to make this spoke of the wheel turn, companies and the government need to continually invest in research and development.

As for cable, I’ve heard plenty of stories where a cable company doesn’t want to stretch a line down a mile of driveway for free. They often tell the homeowner that they need to pay for the costs, or get the community to chip-in. There’s still other options such as the old dialup modems, satellite, and DSL. All of these technologies have to be an option for a nation-wide system to work.

Educational Obstacles

If someone doesn’t use the Internet, then there’s a good chance they don’t understand what they are missing out on. Even if someone does use it, there’s a good chance that they don’t fully understand the capabilities and possibilities. I would say that latter encompasses the majority of all politicians within the US. I hate to play the age-card, but the older a person is (and most politicians are middle-aged or older), often the less in touch they are with newer technological trends — it’s a combination of accessibility, priorities, health, and education that factors into it. Politicians are often too busy trying to get elected or passing laws, that they hardly hop on the Internet other than to check Facebook statuses, emails, and to buy the occasional pair of new shoes. To me, that’s not understanding the Internet, but using one very narrow portion to get a few things done — this is about as accomplished as walking into a store or turning on a television and nothing beyond that.

There’s also a human cost — do we allow people easier access to educational and financial resources? Higher education often translates into lower crime rates. In a global economy, a higher level of education helps build the communities around us so that we are stronger and more prepared in case of emergencies. I think the financial and business impact is self-explanatory, so I won’t go into further detail here.

Financial Obstacles

Costs are going to be high — there’s no getting around it. But the way to look at it is that it’s an initial outlay of costs and each subsequent repair or upgrade to the system should progressively inexpensive as time goes on. The system should also be a lot easier to maintain than our nation’s bridges and highway system.

People are always going to complain as to how something of this nature impacts their taxes. They’re often more focused on their short-term gain, versus something which could negatively impact themselves and their children several years later. It’s a very narrow-minded approach — similar to putting a bandage on a large open wound versus getting appropriate medical care.

In order to solve part of this issue, I think the Internet speeds need to be metered. If people want to, they can pay extra for higher speeds and larger downloads, but at the very least, everyone should have basic access to it. Whether or not that’s provided through government or corporations, that’s something they can work out together.

Government-Sanctioned Monopolies

When Cable Internet first came to my area, I talked with a few technicians who were working on my street. I asked a couple of them, “what took so long?” They explained to me that the cable lines are run by the companies, but the space is rented out by the town for a period of years. The various cable companies bid to have access to this space and in turn promise to maintain it. Even if two companies are providing Cable Internet service, only one company can get into an area due to this allocation of space and time, so it essentially forms a government sanctioned monopoly.

Due to this long drawn-out process, cable companies are afraid to make some technological advances in the area unless there’s some sort of guarantee that they will have it for a long period of time. Even then, the selected company might think their service is “adequate enough”, so they may not have any drive to improve upon their services even if a competitor has a better offering but is prevented from operating. This can lead to much higher prices and profiteering, and in the end, the user has no choice but to use them because there’s no alternative. It’s something that all of us experience, but most often don’t understand. We often think that these cable companies are being capitalistic, but in essence they are operating much like a monopoly.

It’s true that other companies have developed and offered alternative services such as DSL and satellite, but most of them have had to because they don’t have any choice when it comes to the way towns operate.

The system is very similar to the way land-line phone carriers operate — generally you could only get one telephone carrier in an area. Same with cable television, gas, and electric. When higher-speed Internet came about, it followed the same rules which in many ways is ineffective.

If these cable providers are to continue to operate, there needs to be a tiered approach. First there needs to be basic government access to all. The government will probably have to compensate them for some of their infrastructure maintenance and enhancements, or the government needs to create a new organization within Public Works that handles these issues. The basic connection doesn’t have to be fast, but it needs to be available. Secondly, the cable companies could provide a better offering that costs consumers. Either way, I believe there needs to be some basic level of access for everyone and there also needs to be competition in order to promote technological advancement.

Political Obstacles

I’ve mentioned politics in several areas above, mostly because all of the above are intertwined issues. Voters tend to drive decision-making processes through their elected officials, however voters are not necessarily always the sharpest tools in the shed. The average user understands the basics, and is often slow to adapt to newer technological trends. They don’t always understand the intricacies of an issue, nor the potential impact a decision might have. Most people are concerned with the immediate problem of putting food on the table, and not what’s going to happen five years from now. I’m not trying to put anyone down, but this is just the way society and human nature generally tends to work.

Just like all politics, politicians generally try to cater to what the people want. The politicians themselves might not even be well-informed. Instead of doing what would be considered unpopular and right, they’ll do something popular and short-sighted so that they don’t look bad.  As a result, or laws and society is slow to adapt and change, even if it’s a positive change for our own well-being and survival.

If a politician even dares mention this, there’s a good chance they will be attacked and labeled for it. I’m positive people will call it a form of socialism. The ironic thing is that I don’t think anyone within the US thinks that countries such as South Korea and Japan are socialists. It’s just a method of name calling — a scare tactic.

This whole argument goes back to education. The only way we can move forward is by discussing issues such as this, and weighing the potential positives and negatives.

In Summary

If you read this article, I think you could easily guess where I stand. I’m very much in favor of having a system in place in which everyone can have some level of basic access to the Internet. Internet access should become a basic right that ties in with education — much like water and electricity should be for the general well-being of our society. The only way to get this accomplished is to take out the component of greed in this equation and letting the government work on this system — much like how our nation’s system of “socialist” highways was rolled out over 50 years ago (which ironically, no one complains about.) I think I’ve described the problem with the current system and how capitalism isn’t effective in certain situations (see the Government Sanctioned Monopolies section above.)

Of course, I always enjoy hearing other people’s opinions on the matter. There’s always a possibility that I could be swayed into thinking differently.

Here’s a few interesting pieces on the future of lighting (regarding LED, Compact Fluorescent, and Incandescent technologies) that I’ve come across recently that’s worth a listen and a read:

http://www.wbur.org/media-player/?url=http://onpoint.wbur.org/2011/09/15/light-bulbs&title=The+Light+Bulb+2.0&pubdate=2011–09-15&segment=1&source=onpoint (46 minute listening program with Tom Ashbrook.)

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2011/09/15/light-bulbs (Tom Ashbrook’s Interview on NPR.)

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/08/ff_lightbulbs