About Me

PBX My name is Paul Bissex, and e-scribe.com is my consulting business. I build web applications using as much open source software as possible. From September to June I teach web design and other important non-photographic professional skills to photographers. In the '90s I wrote technology commentary and reviews for magazines, newspapers, and web publications, including Wired, Salon.com, FamilyPC, the late lamented Web Review, and the Chicago Tribune. Feel free to email me.

Colophon

This runs on Django, served by Apache and mod_python. The database is SQLite. The operating system is FreeBSD, on a VPS hosted at Johncompanies.com. Comment-spam protection by Akismet. Vintage topo imagery from the Maptech archive. The markup engine is Markdown.

The Book

Book cover I'm co-author of "Python Web Development with Django", an excellent guide to my favorite web framework. Published by Addison-Wesley in October 2008, it is available from Amazon and your favorite technical bookstore as well. Click on the book title above to learn more.

Pile o'Tags

Stuff I Use

Akismet, del.icio.us, Django, dpaste.com, Emacs, FreeBSD, Freenode, jQuery, LaunchBar, MacPorts, Markdown, Mercurial, OS X, Postfix, Python, SQLite, Subversion, TextMate, Trac, Ubuntu Linux, wmii

Spam Report

At least 45608 pieces of comment spam killed since January 12th, mostly via Akismet.

Dear Section508.gov webmaster

Dear Webmaster:

When I click on an offsite link from section508.gov, I get a Javascript alert warning me that I'm "leaving" the site and that "We welcome your comments on how we can make this site more useful."

Here's my comment: Ditch the Javascript alerts. It would make the site more useful for me. Really -- if I explore half a dozen offsite links (opened in tabs in the background for later browsing) I have to dismiss half a dozen JS alerts. I can't imagine the situation is any better, or more useful, for somebody using a screenreader.

Anyway, I sent this email on the presumption that the actual webmaster (you) thinks those alerts are stupid but is forced to put them in there because of some PHB who got the implementation idea from his nephew (nephews love Javascript alerts). You can tell your boss that you've been getting a lot of e-mail from influential web professionals who think the alerts reduce the credibility of the section508.gov site.

Man, I sure hope they weren't your idea!

Sincerely,

Paul Bissex

Monday, November 14th, 2005
design + fun
2 comments

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• Comment from Michael Clark , 4 days later

I think there is a law/guideline that says .gov web sites have to notify users that they are leaving the original site. I'll try to find out for sure on Monday. There are many .gov web sites that do this. I'm not saying it's effective, but unfortunately it is fairly common. Mike

• Comment from Ray , 4 days later

You are fighting a losing battle here.

Some bureaucrat, or worse committee of bureaucrats, has established this behaviour as a standard for US government websites. Apparently they think that the American people are too stupid to be able to tell one web site from another and don't want to be blamed for any errors on some site that they link to.

The scary thing to me is that they may be right.

By the way, you have a very nicely designed site.