JavaScript has always been the predominant client-side scripting language of the Internet. However, content should never be restricted by JavaScript as many users will be accessing your content via browsers without JavaScript (whether the JavaScript is disabled or not available). The graph below shows the percentage of users accessing the Internet without JavaScript over the last five years.

While it is now becoming commonplace to see extensive client-side programming users without JavaScript should not be overlooked. The W3C WAI Guidelines states:

“Ensure that pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported.
If this is not possible, provide equivalent information on an alternative accessible page.”

Personally, I am not in favour of ever creating two versions of the same page as keeping the two in sync often becomes a task in itself, and a rather unnecessary one at that. What I believe the W3C to be advocating is that the page content be delivered such a way that it can be viewed with or without JavaScript, i.e. delivered in non-JavaScript friendly format which is then acted upon by client-side JavaScript. If this approach is used both camps will be kept happy and the website will be accessible by all.

Take a look at the image below. The tiny white dot that can just about be made out is the Earth as seen from Voyager I, some 4 billion miles away. The late Carl Sagan had the following to say on the image.

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

– Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

A very interesting video detailing a the history of the web from digital text and HTML all the way through to Web 2.0.

Quotiki is a new social quotes site that lets you quickly find and enjoy quotes. You can tag submit rate and collect quotes.

Does for quotes what Digg, Technorati, Delicious does for blogs.

The following video is from the BBC’s Click programme and it goes a long way in pointing out the need for accessibility.

Nokia’s idea of the future of mobile GUI: Compare with that of nVidia - who is thinking of usabilty, time to learn the systems? Are they intuitive or simply gimmicky adverts?

Mobile GUI will catch up with that of console and web very quickly. Take a look at nVidia’s vision of the future of the mobile interface. Pay attention to the graphics on the game!

If you’re looking for a new wallpaper for your desktop then this is the site for you. Social Wallpapering puts a web 2.0 spin on the usual wallpaper sites allowing users to upload wallpaper and vote for their favourites. In itself this is not that amazing but the content they have on this site is great and well worth a look. Check it out by visiting the site by clicking on the pic below.

The Google Pack is collection of free software applications recommended by Google. This article will take a look at the recommendations and, where applicable, recommend alternatives.

There was quite a lot of speculation about Googles motives in promoting this pack when it came out, with one critic calling it a ‘ragtag package‘. Whilst I appreciate that many users are already well aware of all of the software listed here (and some better alternatives) it is still a very helpful offerring for the great many PC users that aren’t advanced enough to know what they can get for free on the web. When a company of Google’s prominence makes such recommendations they reach many people. These recommendations go a long way to helping new (and older) users of the Internet save money that would otherwise be taken by the Microsoft, Dell and PC Worlds out there and for that reason we will help promote it by discussing further here.

Google Desktop

Google Desktop is a multifunctional sidebar addition to your desktop that lets you search your home computer in the same way you would the web. Search all documents, images and emails and receive the results in the usual Google format. This is a very customisable and useful addition but it can impair the performance of your system. Definitely worth a try as it may speed up your productivity but if you find your system sluggish because of it I would recommend remoiving it and improving your filing instead!

Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer

If you must use Internet Explorer and I don’t recommend it, this is the only toolbar that you will need even though you may have thousands!

Picasa

An image viewing tool, not a bad one, but I am suspicious of anything that sits in your systray waiting to take resources. Try it, if you don’t use it more than three times in the first month, remove it.

Google Photos Screensaver

Not really worth having as Windows has this as a built in feature.

Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbar

If you don’t have this already, you should. It’s by far the best browser and is almost limitlessly extensible due to the huge number of easily installed add pons you can get for it. An absolute must.

Adobe Acrobat Reader

Essential yes, interesting, no.

Norton Security Scan

You will detect that your system is now running very slow. Forget this and get AVG Free instead.

Spyware Doctor Starter Edition

Spyware detectors are essential but there is no need for this one. You can use Adaware and Spybot which are much better for free.

RealPlayer

A great looking media player but one that wants to take over your whole computer. This was once one of the best media players out there, now it spends all your resources and bandwidth talking to ‘Real Network’. A ‘Real’ shame if you ask me. As intrusive as iTunes without the kudos. Stick with Windows Media Player or go for the perennial favourite Winamp.

Skype

If you need a Voice Over IP (VOIP) phone then shop around, Skype is the most well-known but may not suit you best.

GalleryPlayer HD Images

There are ten free HD images with this but you can find free HD images on the web if you want them so please leave this out of your Google Pack.

This is an interesting site for anyone who likes to have their own customised homepage. Your Minis offers a glossy user interface that allows you to customise a page with many different widgets that you can then set as your own personalised home page. The advantages of this are that you will see all that you want (news feeds, world times, wallpapers) as soon as you log on to the internet rather than having to navigate to each individually.

It’s fun to set up and will ipmpress your friends (if they are in their teens). Not so useful if you have Windows Vista and the new sidebar…