One Web designer's holiday wish list

Issue 19 of The Sensible Internet Design Newsletter follows.

As always, you can catch up on back issues in the archive, or subscribe free to get future mailings. Read on for this issue in its entirety ...

One Web designer's holiday wish list

Here's hoping a better Internet world isn't a lost Claus ... or another search of the Knowledge Base.

Dear Santa,

How have you been? I wasn't sure whether to address this letter to the North Pole or one of your customer service centers, though I read about the layoffs of 2,000 elves in your Sunnyvale branch and wage freezes at the Pueblo, Colo., call center. Guess the economy's really on ice up there, huh?

Ha, ha! Hope my polar humor isn't more than you can bear. Polar ... bear ... get it? I slay me! Slay ... sleigh ... oh, never mind!

Um, anyway, I think I've been a good boy this year, as Internet architect types go. I redesigned the Small Initiatives site to be almost all valid XHTML, with bandwidth-friendly markup, thus saving my tens of visitors at least a few milliseconds each. And I started a newsletter so people wouldn't have to remember to come to the site all the time (as if it would ever beat out any of dozens of J.Lo. fan sites on the "Top-Of-Mind" scale anyway). Oh, and I flossed at least every other night.

So I'm hoping you'll see fit to send at least a few gifts my way, from this list of suggestions. In fact, I bet just about every Web designer I know sent you a list that looks a lot like this.

Two front teeth? Got 'em already

So Santa, here's what this Web guy wants:

• A flash upgrade of all serviceable Web browsers in the world, to make them handle the Cascading Style Sheets box model and positioning standards exactly the same way.
• While we're at it, can I get some kind of court order that officially allows me to forget about all separate markup languages for cell phones, e-books, personal digital assistants, Tablet PCs, automatic teller machines, lottery ticket dispensers and toasters? Or can you please just make them all read the parts of HTML they should be able to read, and properly ignore the rest?
• A gift certificate for eight hours of completely private, quiet, uninterrupted development time -- just me, my laptop, headphones, a broadband connection and a cache of snacks and caffeinated beverages -- to spend as I wish.
• A translator tool that will allow me to work efficiently with open-source software using only the vague gibberish that usually passes for its documentation.
• Another translator tool that will allow me to read and understand all customer support documents in the Microsoft Knowledge Base.
• And to be fair, maybe one more translator tool that will allow me to see clearly through all Apple marketing hype.
• A lag reverser. Ever heard of that, Santa? You use it when you're traversing Web sites and you land on a page that has 400 kilobytes worth of graphics or a fancy Flash interface that takes two minutes to load up. Press the button on the lag reverser and whoever designed that site is automatically sucked through the thinnest inbound wire into the nearest TCP/IP router, and forced to endure the wait for you. At 14.4 modem speeds.
• An anti-spam program that combines white-listing, black-listing, literal and conceptual string filters, and an arbitrary interpretation of e-mail contents that simulates my own, all to guarantee that my In box contains only e-mail I'm sure I'll want. In other words, please hire an administrative assistant to screen my messages.
• Dialogue for the next Star Wars movie that doesn't sound as though it was originally written for a 1966 Aquaman comic book.
• An accurate Magic 8-Ball.
• A new laptop that has a 15-inch UXGA screen; 128 megs of video memory; 1 gig of RAM; 120 gigs of disk space; a combo drive that records and plays CDs, DVDs, floppies and, for good measure, old 80mb Bernoulli cartridges; a full-size keyboard with full 1-centimeter key travel; 10 hours of battery life; runs Windows XP, Mandrake Linux and Mac OS X from a tri-boot startup that completes its cycle in less than five seconds; and -- oh, almost forgot -- weighs less than four pounds with AC adapter.

I didn't say everything on this list was realistic. But it's possible Moore's Law is multiplied by Elfin technology, isn't it, Santa?

Either way, say hi to the wife and reindeer for me.

Respectfully,

Jay

Holiday break

The Sensible Internet Design Letter will not be published Dec. 25 or Jan. 1. We'll resume Wednesday editions on Jan. 8. Happy holidays!