I always feel bad when a new company tries to make a big splash on the internet, and then has a hard time of it. I know how it is trying to do ambitious things with a small team and little funding.
In this case, it's a scrappy little startup called “Google,” and its product is called “Google Analytics.” As you can see, the web site is a disaster. Hopefully it gets some money and people to work things out.
This Microsoft Azure web page promoting Redmondʼs acumen tells me two things:
At one of the entrances to Cruise Port Falmouth there is a series of signs telling the history of Falmouth. I donʼt think anyone ever reads them. The small fraction of people who leave port on their own and find their way back through this gate are too tired, hungry, and sunburned to care much about history.
I took photographs of some of them, and I leave these here in the name of posterity so that maybe someday someone will read on the internet what they didnʼt read in real life.
Sadly, the URLs printed on the big signs donʼt work. This is a good example of why you never print web addresses on anything thatʼs expected to last longer than a leaflet.
FROM BRITISH COLONY TO INDEPENDENCE
JAMAICAʼS QUEST FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT BEGAN IN EARNEST WITH NORMAN W. MANLEY ESTABLISHING THE PEOPLEʼS NATIONAL PARTY IN 1938 AND ALEXANDER BUSTAMENTE FOUNDING THE JAMAICA LABOUR PARTY IN 1943. A NEW CONSTITUTION IN 1944 ESTABLISHED A HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, POPULARLY ELECTED, TO SHARE POWER WITH THE GOVERNOR. IN 1957. JAMAICA BECAME FULLY SELFGOVERNED. ALL INTERNAL AFFAIRS HANDLED BY AN EXECUTIVE COUNCIL, AND LED BY A PREMIER. THE FOLLOWING YEAR, 1958, JAMAICA JOINED THE WEST INDIES FEDERATION, WHICH INCLUDED ALL OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS IN THE CARIBBEAN, WHICH DID NOT LAST LONG. DISBANDING IN MAY 1962. JAMAICA REQUESTED, AND WAS GRANTED, INDEPENDENCE FROM ENGLAND, EFFECTIVE AUGUST 6, 1962.
JAMAICAN MAROONS
JAMAICAʼS MOUNTAINOUS CENTER HAS ALWAYS BEEN A DIFFICULT REGION TO TRAVEL THROUGH, CONTROL, OR REGULATE. SINCE THE ENGLISH CONQUEST OF 1655, THE MOUNTAINS OFFERED REFUGE TO RUNAWAY SLAVES OR MAROONS, WHO WERE ABLE TO ESTABLISH STABLE COMMUNITIES IN REGIONS THE ENGLISH CONSIDERED IMPENETRABLE. THE MAROONS ENGAGED THE ENGLISH MILITIA IN OPEN WARFARE ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY; THE FIRST IN THE 1730S, WHICH SAW MAROON COMMUNITIES SHIFT FROM THE EASTERN MOUNTAINS TO THE COCKPIT COUNTRY IN THE WEST. THE ENGLISH OFFERED THE MAROONS A TREATY IN 1739 THAT GAVE LIBERTY AND QUALIFIED AUTONOMY IN THEIR REGION. SKIRMISHES BETWEEN THE ENGLISH MILITIA AND MAROON COMMUNITIES IN TRELAWNY REIGNITED IN THE 1790S, RESULTING IN A MASS DEPORTATION OF MAROONS TO NOVA SCOTIA.
HISTORIC PRESERVATION
THE HISTORY OF FALMOUTH IS WELL PRESERVED THROUGH THE HIGH DENSITY OF HISTORIC BUILDINGS THAT REMAIN IN TOWN. FROM LARGE MERCHANT STORE/HOUSES TO SMALL, BOARD HOUSES, CHURCHES, SHOPS. THE COURTHOUSE, AND FORT BALCARRES. RESIDENTS OF FALMOUTH CONTINUE TO LIVE, WORK, WORSHIP, AND SOCIALIZE IN HISTORIC BUILDINGS. FALMOUTH HERITAGE RENEWAL (FHR) HAS AN APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM THAT TRAINS JAMAICANS IN HISTORIC MASONRY AND CARPENTRY SKILLS: THEIR WORK CAN BE IDENTIFIED ALL OVER TOWN. THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA (UVA) RUNS A PROGRAM IN FALMOUTH TRAINING STUDENTS TO MEASURE AND MAKE ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS OF HISTORIC BUILDINGS. FALMOUTH EXEMPLIFIES THE BEST OF HISTORIC PRESERVATION BY OFFERING OPPORTUNITIES FOR EDUCATION IN A DYNAMIC ENVIRONMENT. TO MAKE A DONATION TO FHR, PLEASE VISIT WWW.FALMOUTHJAMAICA.ORG/. TO GET INFORMATION ABOUT UVAʼS FALMOUTH FIELD SCHOOL IN HISTORIC PRESERVATION PLEASE VISIT - WWW.ARCH.VIRGINIA.EDU/FALMOUTH/SITE/HOME.HTML
JOHN THARP
AN EXTREMELY WEALTHY PLANTER, JOHN THARPE CONSTRUCTED A PRIVATE WHARF IN FALMOUTH HARBOUR TO MANAGE SUGAR EXPORTS AND MATERIAL AND SLAVE IMPORTS FOR HIS PLANTATION EMPIRE AT GOOD HOPE, A FEW MILES SOUTH OF FALMOUTH ON THE MARTHA BRAE RIVER. LIKE MANY WEALTHY SUGAR PLANTERS IN THE LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. THARP TRIED TO MANAGE HIS PROPERTIES WHILE LIVING IN ENGLAND; UNLIKE MOST, THARP RETURNED TO JAMAICA PERMANENTLY IN THE 1790S TO MANAGE HIS PROPERTIES IN PERSON. AFTER HIS RETURN, THARP WAS ACTIVE IN LOCAL AND PARISH POLITICS AND WAS A SIGNIFICANT BENEFACTOR TO ST. PETERʼS ANGLICAN CHURCH.
HISTORY OF FALMOUTH
ORIGINALLY FOUNDED IN 1769. FALMOUTH GREW THROUGH THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY TO BE THE MAJOR PORT AND THE SEAT FOR THE PARISH OF TRELAWNY, ONE OF THE MOST PRODUCTIVE SUGAR PARISHES IN JAMAICA. HISTORICALLY DOMINATED BY MERCHANTS AND TRADERS, FALMOUTH WAS IMPORTANT IN JAMAICAN SLAVESʼ STRUGGLE FOR EMANCIPATION. FALMOUTH HAS REMAINED A COMMERCIAL CENTER IN THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES, THE SITE OF A WEEKLY MARKET THAT DRAWS SHOPPERS AND VENDORS FROM SURROUNDING AREAS. THE REMARKABLE DENSITY OF HISTORIC BUILDINGS REMAINING IN FALMOUTH, MANY OF WHICH LOCAL RESIDENTS HAVE LIVED IN AND MAINTAINED, IS A TESTIMONY TO THE TOWNʼS RICH HERITAGE.
HISTORY OF JAMAICA
ORIGINALLY INHABITED BY THE TAINOS, THE SPANISH WERE THE FIRST EUROPEANS TO SETTLE IN JAMAICA, UNTIL THEY WERE SUPPLANTED BY THE ENGLISH IN 1655. BY THE START OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, SUGAR CULTIVATION HAD BECAME JAMAICAʼS PRIMARY INDUSTRY AND EXPORT, RESULTING IN THE IMPORTATION OF MANY THOUSANDS OF AFRICANS TO WORK IN THE SUGAR PLANTATIONS. JAMAICAʼS SLAVES WON EMANCIPATION IN 1834, ALTHOUGH PEOPLE WERE NOT FULLY FREE UNTIL THE END OF THE APPRENTICESHIP PERIOD IN 1838. A COLONY OF BRITAIN UNTIL 1962, JAMAICA HAS SINCE OPERATED AS AN INDEPENDENT NATION, ITS GOVERNMENT CENTERED IN KINGSTON ON THE SOUTH COAST.
ARRIVAL OF COLUMBUSʼ FIRST SHIP
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS FIRST LANDED ON THE ISLAND OF JAMAICA DURING HIS SECOND VOYAGE, ON MAY 5, 1494. AS HE SAILED INTO THE HARBOUR OF ST. ANNʼS BAY, ON THE NORTHERN COAST, A FLEET OF ABOUT SEVENTY CANOES, FILLED WITH TAINOS, CAME OUT TO MEET HIM. IN JULY 1494, AFTER EXPLORING PRESENT-DAY CUBA, COLUMBUS SAILED AROUND JAMAICAʼS SOUTHERN COAST. COLUMBUS RETURNED TO JAMAICA DURING HIS FOURTH VOYAGE IN 1503, WHERE HE SPENT ALMOST A YEAR WAITING ON SHIP REPAIRS FROM SPANIARDS IN HISPANIOLA. STRANDED NEAR WHAT WOULD BECOME THE SETTLEMENT OF NEW SEVILLE IN ST. ANNʼS PARISH, COLUMBUS AND HIS CREW RELIED ON THE TAINOS FOR PROVISIONS.
Well, hereʼs something you almost never see: an error message from the B&H web site.
B&H takes its web presence very seriously, and is among the planetʼs biggest targets for criminals. But somehow the boffins on 9th Avenue manage to keep the fraudsters at bay, while maintaining a web site that is fast, complex, and fairly easy to use.
This error message didnʼt last long. Only a few seconds. Perhaps today is a good day to buy a lottery ticket.
It seems strange to me that when filling in your personal information on the Fortnum and Mason web site that the default telephone country code is +229. Thatʼs Benin, all the way in Africa.
It would make sense for the default country code to be +44, since itʼs a British department store. Or maybe the country codes could be sorted numerically, so itʼs easier to find the one youʼre looking for. Or perhaps use the country code of the customers who generate the most revenue for the store, whatever number that may be.
But I doubt that the people of Benin buy more F&M stuff than any other country.
WordPress gets a lot of flack from snobby devs who like to see their names in pixels on the internet. And while Iʼm not a huge fan of the planetʼs most popular content management system, it has earned my respect.
Due to some unfortunate circumstances, I recently had to temporarily transplant a WordPress installation from one server to another server to another server, along the way performing a number of upgrades to both the WordPress installation, the servers, and the content. And you know what? It all worked.
Yes, WordPress complained occasionally, but far less than I thought it would. And it dutifully updated and upgraded the content database at each step, while retaining all of the goodies therein.
So, itʼs not the best CMS in the world. There is no best CMS. But the code sure as heck is durable. Outside of mainframes and the scientific community, you donʼt see that kind of resiliency in coding very often these days.
While I appreciate the Potter Country Store being creative with its web site, I donʼt think a laundry basket is quite the right icon for a virtual shopping cart.
Unless they use laundry baskets to do their shopping in Schulenburg, Texas. You never know. People in Pennsylvania call shopping carts “buggies.”
I know that Iʼm not perfect. I know that while I think my web sites work on every device, thereʼs probably a configuration out there on which they fall over. But the University of Houston/Downtown really has no excuse for this.
How is it possible for an organization to put out a public web site in 2022 that doesnʼt work on mobile phones? Itʼs bad enough that this page from UH/D is cut off on the right side, but there is no way to even scroll to the right to see whatʼs missing! And this is on a recent iPhone, not some obscure open source homebrew kit.
I preview every single web page I build for desktop, tablet, and two mobile phones. Every one. Sometimes dozens each week.
The University of Houston/Downtown brags that itʼs the second-largest university in Americaʼs fourth-largest city. Surely, someone on campus must have a smart phone to test with.
Houston Methodist Hospital has eighty-brazillion dollars and ninty-brazillion employees. If it canʼt keep its webview from breaking a leg, what am I supposed to do?
Also, someone should fix that grammar. It's probably Epicʼs default, but that doesnʼt make it right.
Ordinary human being: “What's the longest day of the year?”
Webdev: “In which font?”
The National Weather Service has a budget of $1.2 billion. If it canʼt keep a web site from drowning, what chance do I have?
Iʼm supposed to have super-duper awesome benefits with United Airlines because I have a Chase credit card. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to see what those benefits are. Naturally, the link on the Chase web site was broken. It just looped though a login screen over and over.
Since Iʼm a paying customer, I moaned about it to Chaseʼs customer service.
I ended up booking my ticket on another airline, and forgot all about it until I got this in the the mail today. I guess someone at Chase figured it would be faster to mail me a book about the benefits than to fix the link.
I guess this ends up being a story about good customer service, because not only do I have the book, but I just checked, and the link is fixed, too.
Today I learned that Chick-fil-a is not interested in serving the 50 million Americans, including the elderly, the poor, and some disabled people, who do not have or cannot use a mobile phone.
Also, anyone whoʼs phone has run out of battery, or anyone has dropped their phone, or pays for data, or is from another country.
Citibank is the third-largest bank in the United States. It has almost two trillion dollars. Itʼs been around for 210 years.
And yet, it still canʼt make a web site that works. So what chance do I have?
Also, with two trillion dollars, youʼd think it could hire people who can write complete sentences.
I think that the word “unexpected” is pretty high on the list of words you donʼt want to hear from your bank. It ranks right up there with “insolvent.”
Fortunately, Citibank is only the third-largest bank in America. Itʼs not like its web site is used for anything important.
If Citibank canʼt keep its web site from going all pear-shaped, what chance do I have?
Thereʼs a big backup at the floating bridge toll booth, so there are no Amazon.com employees available to take my order right now.
If Amazon.com canʼt keep its web site running, what chance do I have?
I think I have found the worst government web site on the planet: New Jersey Family Care.
Its many technical faults aside, it looks like something a kid whipped up in Geocities in the 1990ʼs, not something dealing with healthcare. And certainly not something that taxpayer dollars paid for.
In spite of all their fancy JavaScript, and invasive telemetry, I donʼt think online stores really have any idea how much money they lose every day by making their shopping process so complicated that the web site breaks.
Simplifying the stack would save development costs, management costs, and increase sales.
But nobody in tech gets promoted for making things less complicated.
Somewhere, a Walmart web developer and his database manager are learning about UTF-8 and utfmb8.
Sure wish I could order Dairy Queen through DoorDash, like the web site says I can.
But DoorDashʼs web site insists that I pick a size for a box of Buster Bars, which only come in one size.
I wonder how many other sales Dairy Queen has lost because of DoorDash.
Ever have one of those days when you think, “Wow, my web sites are really fast today!” and then you realize you spent the last hour tinkering on localhost?
If you spend 20 solid minutes trying to figure out the proper sequence for _']}');";, you might develop in a LAMP stack.
