Web browser usage stats. RPG-themed graphic. Geeks rejoice.

We web designers and developers need to keep track of more browsers than anyone should ever have to think about. (Isn’t one enough? And, even though I usually use Safari, can’t we all just agree on Firefox now and kill the rest?)

I’m just another in the chain of sites posting this graphic (which will probably proliferate exponentially now that it’s been on BuzzFeed): 123… and directly from here although this leaves me wondering who really is the originator. And of course, there’s the data source, cited in the image itself.

Well whoever came up with it, it’s pretty cool. And informative. I had forgotten the misfortune of Netscape 5, dying off two full years before Netscape 3 in the wake of the Mozilla split.

Enjoy…

Browser Wars

Don’t Expect them NOT to Be Incompetent

It is always with mild amusement that I listen to people complain about the incompetence of the sales staff at CompUSA or Best Buy or Radio Shack, or of the technical support people they get on the phone late at night or on weekends.

Think about it for a minute. Even though the economy is down, there are still plenty of well-paying high-tech jobs for people with knowledge and skills. If a person actually knows enough to be competent with computers, they will be able to get a better job than a thankless, $6.50-an-hour sales floor job at CompUSA, or working the graveyard shift doing phone tech support!

Now I am not saying there’s anything wrong with these kinds of jobs. Nor am I saying people seeking these services don’t deserve to be met with intelligence and courtesy. But in a market-driven economy, some things have to give.

If you want to walk into a store and pay under $1000 for a brand-new PC that’s roughly 10,000 times more powerful than those used to guide Apollo 11 to the moon, you’re going to have to accept that the place you’re buying it from can’t afford the overhead to hire people who can tell their heads from their asses (much less their hard drives from their RAM).

And if you’re going to get 1.5 Mbps broadband Internet access in your home for a little more than the cost of dial-up, and a tiny fraction of what businesses used to pay for T1 lines (in the “olden days” — about 3 weeks ago), your ISP also won’t be able to hire people to answer your phone call at 2 AM on a Saturday who have any skills beyond basic literacy so they can step through the phone script they’ve been given.

Accept it. Do the research yourself so you know what you want before you get there, and be glad you live in a world where electronics hardware and demeaning, thankless labor come cheap.