Author: Chris Minnick

Chris Minnick is an author, trainer, web developer and co-founder of WatzThis? (www.watzthis.com).

He has authored and co-authored books and articles on a wide range of Internet-related topics. His published books include: JavaScript All-in-One For Dummies, Coding All-in-One For Dummies, Mastodon For Dummies, Beginning ReactJS Foundations, Adventures in Coding, JavaScript For Kids For Dummies, Coding with JavaScript For Dummies, Beginning HTML5 and CSS3 For Dummies, Webkit For Dummies, CIW eCommerce Certification Bible, and XHTML.

In addition to his role with WatzThis?, Chris is a winemaker, painter, novelist, swimmer, cook, and musician.

The Minnick Test for the Future

Happy New Year. As I’ve done every year since 2000 I hereby declare that I am hopeful that the future is officially started. I would also like to announce a new test for whether it is actually true. I’ve humbly named this test the Minnick Test of the Future. The test is quite simple: when an article about speech recognition software that aims to be funny or make a point about how speech recognition software doesn’t work correctly yet isn’t funny then the future has officially begun. The idea is that if the raiders attempt to score some shuttles distorted by O. well the software works then the technology for talking directly with their computers rather than using keyboards is here and the future along with the.

With the release of windows vista upon us and it’s integrated speech recognition capabilities I was hopeful that this might just be the year for that start of the future that I was looking forward to as the child.

As the future rather? I suppose that. I mean that I suppose knocked. Both Reagan. I’m going to try one more time. The future has not yet arrived. Of the understood that Simpson’s just five.

I’m using Microsoft’s speech recognition software and I suspect that it would work much better if I didn’t write or call so smoothly and was frequently in middle of sentences.

One of the problems with replacing keyboards with speech recognition software is the many writers are notoriously careful and will cause for several minutes in the middle of sentences while they are dictating. Computers have no way of knowing this and speech recognition software often uses context two were improved accuracy. This results in some sentences that were spoken quickly being perfectly readable but other sentence is that may have taken longer to construct being completely garbage.

Another problem the speech recognition is that other people are listening and is not so easy to just dictate something stupid as to see if it works. Speech recognition seems to be in direct conflict with the latest thinking about open offices and may actually stifle creativity.

However speech recognition may also result in more polite comments on blocks and fewer flame wars. In the same way that the anonymity of the Internet makes people feel comfortable with saying things that they normally wouldn’t say, the public nature of speech recognition could have the effect of artists is talk to Peter Davidson, like like the proposition as it is the topic is writing down everything and people are wrong you’re listening and every call for her for whatever gets written down right now it’s even writing down to write down everything them saying his home and the eighties microphone by two. Also, I tend to mumble.

Despite his perfect this 5/8 product got damages but he’s really talking perfect. Certain frequently used words in blog comments don’t seem to show up very well and speech recognition text for instance: that should or you got him of the Fokker.

So what does it take for us to achieve this glorious future of reduced carpal tunnel syndrome and improved human computer interfaces? Apparently, the cost of a keyboard less computing environment is a new computer capable of running windows vista high quality microphone a private office and membership in your local toastmasters.

Long Live The King

A good place to start looking for clues into what the future of the Web will look like is in the historical record and memories of the time before Web 2.0.

I call anything pre-97 the “Long Public Beta” phase of the Web. This stretches back to Tim Berners-Lee’s first demo version in 1990. Berners-Lee’s original vision for the World Wide Web was as a Semantic Web, in which all of the content on the Web was descriptively tagged and computer-processable. We’ve come a long way since then—both towards and away from the Semantic Web. It was during this phase that HTML, HTML extensions, CGI, JavaScript, and most of the Web-specific technologies still in use today were created. (note that I’m excluding Internet protocols such as TCP/IP and so forth, which were invented long before 1990).

I personally define Web 1.0 as the time between 1997 and late 2000. These were the years during which I had all of my stereotypical “dot-com” experiences (except without the stock options, IPO, and insane wealth). My wife and I were running our small Web development and programming firm in the San Francisco Bay Area and later Austin, TX, and we did a lot of work for a lot of soon-to-be failed start-ups. Here’s an actual email I received in early 2000 (it was a joke, but it’s an important artifact nonetheless):

I am working to integrate a B2B strategy that moves away from “bricks-n-clicks” and towards a homogenization of broadband interconnectivity. The site design is in beta stages and I need to redo the look and feel – I want to present allot of low lying fruit and allow people to drill deep for content. As a member of the new economy, the digital economy, generation E, etc…I am sure that you will agree with me – Content IS King.

During the period between 2000 and 2003, interesting things were happening, but unfortunately for that period, the only catchy marketing term being used to describe the Web at the time was a negative one–“dot-com bust”.

The term “Web 2.0” was coined by Tim O’Reilly in 2003 or so. Today, it’s not uncommon to hear people talk about how great Web 2.0 is, and the great things that are now possible with Web 2.0.

If you’ve been working with this stuff since the mid-90s, you know that the exact same protocols and languages are being used now as were being used during the dot-com era. The most significant recent events leading up to what we now call Web 2.0 actually had nothing to do with Google. They were JavaScript (1995), XML (1998), and the gradually increasing familiarity of Web developers with these and several other technologies. However, if you write a long manifesto packed with jargon and you have enough clout, suddenly the world is speaking your language.

Besides the core technologies, the single thing that’s remained the same throughout my entire Web experience is this: the marketing people always win. This is frustrating for fundamentally technical people like myself, because we so rarely understand what all the fuss is about.

This is my problem with Web 2.0. I have nothing against rich user-interfaces, community-created content, syndication, or large databases. I do have a problem with buzzwords being used as substitutes for substance and comprehension.

When someone asks me if it’s possible for me to build them a Wiki, a podcast, and a Blog, it takes me back to the low-lying fruit and information superhighway days of yore and I tell them “of course”, but I follow it with a reminder that creativity, passion, knowledge, and dedication to doing quality work haven’t been superseded in this version of the Web–and content is still king.

My New Column: Web 8.0

I’m pleased to announce that I now have motivation to write something coherent on a regular basis. As of last week, I’m writing an approximately weekly column titled “Web 8.0” for Waterside Syndication. Here’s the marketing blurb about it:

Chris Minnick discusses the future of the Internet with his unique brand of humor and insight. See his predictions for Web 2.0, 3.0 and beyond.

I’m excited about the possibilities for this column and I’m thrilled that I’ve managed to turn what was originally a joke (Web 8.0) into something “legitimate”. I’ll be reprinting my columns here, but you can also read them on the Waterside site, and hopefully in many other places soon.

Web 3.0 Baloney

This site here (sorry, I can’t figure out who the author is) recently posted some nonsense about how Web 3.0 is going to be about using AI to create farms of people who think they’re playing games but are actually doing the bidding of corporations for no pay. This is absolutely sick nonsense. Go read the article if you don’t believe me.

My first issue with this idea is that it’s slavery. Game development companies are very good at creating very addictive games. Embedding puzzles or whatever into the game that solve problems for third-party companies will turn gamers into unpaid laborers, or at the very best, underpaid and unskilled laborers. Ya, that’s a pretty glamorous new technology you got there.

My other problem with this article is my usual thing about people wanting to both have and eat their cake.

The author is careful to put in caveats about how he doesn’t like Web “versions” and how this exciting new world of slave-gamers will only happen if we work really hard and don’t get too excited. Tim O’Reilly was saying the same thing last year at the Web 2.0 conference. I find it funny that each time someone invents some idea they want people to get excited about related to the Web, they say that THIS time we’re not going to go overboard with excitement, and that we’re going to be very serious and very professional about it all.

It’s as if people who run Internet companies want people to take them seriously (“we’re a mature industry now and this isn’t just a bubble!”), but they still want people to get wildly excited about their “new paradigm” (to use a phrase no one would dare use to describe their new web version today). What will happen, of course, is that people will get wildly excited and continue to think of the Web as a magic place full of good-looking, super-smart, and super-rich people who just keep on cranking out these great new versions! This isn’t really the truth at all….oh, except the part about us being good looking and super-smart.

Possible Gangster Fun Reunion?

For those of you who know what I’m talking about…there’s talk about a Gangster Fun reunion show happening at Detroit’s Magestic Theatre on December 29.

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about…I was in a ska band in the late 80s to early 90s in Detroit. Sometimes called the “Godfathers of Midwestern Ska”, Gangster Fun was a strange mash-up of really good musicians and really entertaining people playing ska mixed with classic rock. During the period I was in the band, we inspired a boat-load of other ska bands, some of whom are still playing and apparently doing quite well.

Despite a crazed bunch of fans, 4 or 5 albums, and a couple tours, Gangster Fun never did well enough to be a full time job for anyone. After several old-time members left, it very slowly morphed into a much different band and then broke apart during the 2nd half of the 90s.

The reunion show, if it happens, will be largely an early-90s Gangster Fun show, which will be exciting to a bunch of people in their mid-30s in Detroit, and maybe to a bunch of younger people who have only heard about G-Fun.

If you’re curious, you can view some videos of the band, and of me playing sax, on Google Video. Here’s a direct link.

Picking up the sax again

For a reason that deserves its own post, I’m playing sax again after a 10 or 12 year hiatus. The hiatus started when I sold my last tenor sax to get some money to help pay for moving to California. I don’t regret that. It was a crummy sax, and I figured I’d get a new one in no time.

But I never did get a new one. I totally regret that. About 2 weeks ago, however, I just did it. I bought a Yamaha YTS-61 off eBay. It arrived yesterday, and I’m in love with it.

I still remember how to play, but I now pretty much suck at sax and I really need lessons and LOTS of practice.

While searching around for free internet lessons and sax teachers, I found the most incredible site ever: https://www.saxlessons.com/. My original plan was to start taking lessons with a real teacher as quickly as possible, but I think that this site can delay me needing to start incuring that expense for several months. I hope this guy (Alastair Ingram) is doing well with his site, and I highly recommend it to anyone who has any interest whatsoever in playing saxophone.

Wednesday is Suit Day

Strange things are afoot at Minnick Web Services.

I came to the office slightly better dressed than normal today to try to cover up my hangover from Sunday night’s festivities. Basically, instead of wearing jeans and a dress shirt, I threw on a sportscoat and went for the whole “tech company executive” look. At our monday morning meeting (MMM), I got a couple compliments and questions about the jacket. Next thing I knew, someone suggested that we have a “suit day”, and I blurted out that it should be Wednesday. And so it is.

If you’ve ever been to our office, you’ll understand how strange “suit day” will be. I’m actually excited about it, and it seems like everyone else is too. Could it be that everyone is burned out on new economy office “fun” ideas like loud music, strange lighting, sleepover-casual dress code and free moutain dew? This has got me thinking about what other “outdated” business standards might present the next kick for our post-dot-com office….suggestions?