There are many things to talk about with the long anticipated new delicious design, the one that stands out for me is them finally fixing this egregious usability issue.

Delicious’s own Britta Gustafson describes the issue well:

The shift from del.icio.us to delicious.com is a usability decision the dots are confusing for many people. Far too often, we’ve seen it spelled de.licio.us, del.icio.us.com, delicio.us, etc.

Maybe, Delicious’ competitor Ma.gnolia.com will also see the light. Their problem is probably worse, because they don’t break after the syllable. Web search for Mag.nolia and Mag.nolia.com and it’s clear that this issue with a trivial solution is worth solving.

Filed under too-smart-for-our-own-good.

Update: Video shows changes made in redesign. The domain name change is punctuated both at the beginning and the end:

Of course, most people’s celebration is limited to Happy Birthday WordPress posts. It’s awesome reading them; most posts (subtlety) demonstrate the authors own participation in WordPress. We’re all the developers of WordPress!

Having only used WordPress the last 3 years and only having been really involved the last couple of years, it is humbling to reflect that it has been 5 years. There is a special spot in my heart for those that worked on WordPress before anyone cared, that first year, those participants with the foresight and perseverance to build on a open source foundation to establish the greatest web publishing tool, WordPress!

Sorting back through my tabs, I discovered how I ended up on 2luo.com . I had done a Google search for “youtube floyd wall remix”

Visiting the result which I have underlined in red, I’m now at a site that looks like YouTube and behaves like YouTube in every way, except the URL isn’t YouTube. I have reason to worry about anything I submit to the site.

I can hope that it is a harmless reverse proxy, but the whois for that site isn’t reassuring:

kdkkdk
lg ggg (lgvcd@hotmail.com)
+1.90383920
Fax: +1.90383900
kdkk
dkdkkkk, DJ 47738
US

For some reason, I don’t think that they are really in the USA.

I checked at PhishTank and this site hasn’t been reported yet.

I don’t really know how to further investigate, so I will take my fresh minted passwords and get back to other things.

How did it come about that I made this mistake?

I was absent minded and admit to relying on Google and Firefox’s anti-phishing protection. YouTube is a Google property, so there is some irony.

How much was human error?

Recently, human error has been reconceptualized as resiliency to emphasize the positive aspects that humans bring to the operation of technical systems (see Hollnagel, Woods and Leveson, 2006)

Within the broad domain of industrial safety, the term resilience has come into use to emphasise that safety must be proactive as well as reactive.

So, I take ownership for the mistake, and for quickly minimizing the damage of the mistake. My error was distraction. Like everyone else, I’m not particularly good at staying vigilant. That is why as well as reasonable personal responsibility and consideration of habits, we need better tools.

“Sorry, I can’t hear you”

Skype on Linux on my ThinkPad T42p running Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy) works great for Skype to Skype, but every call to an “ordinary phone” ends when it begins with the person on the other end telling me they can’t hear me.

“Can you hear me know?”

SkypeOut on Windows works well, though I did have to adjust up the microphone and headset volume a little the first time. I dislike being forced to use Microsoft Windows, but there does not currently seem to be a Linux alternative.

There is an unlimited calling offer to Canada and USA special for $15.00 US for the year ending tomorrow which I have just signed up for. Last year it was a free promotion likely triggered by being acquired by Ebay.