Want to see some HTML Form stupidity? Go to http://www.toysrus.com.au/site/signUp.htm and you get:

Radio buttons - users know what to expect from them. You can pick only one option. Not these puppies. These happen to be round checkboxes - that you can only turn on. You can’t turn them off! Oh, sure, there’s a “reset” button down the bottom of the form, but can you recall the last time you pressed the “reset” button on a form? I don’t think, in my many many years using the ‘net, I ever have. Not once. I have “reset button blindness”, and I imagine a bunch of others do too.

To top this off, because the site is mainly Flash, figuring out what the address of the page took a while. In the end I had to bookmark it to find it.

I guess that’s what happens when you get schoolchildren to build your website.

What to know what it’s like to use your site over dial-up? Use Sloppy - the slow proxy for dial-up modem speed simulation (slow down).

This guy’s gone to the trouble of finding out how to add “Did you mean?” to your own website’s search.

Kyle Scholz has developed code to represent Force Directed Graphs in Javascript, and you can interact with the nodes. We’re talking mathematical directed graphs here - you might know them as networks.

Basically, there’s a bunch of nodes and they settle themselves into a stable state minimizing tension between them - the graphs balance themselves out, and you can see it happening - it’s animated. And interactive - you can grab a node and move it around. It is ubercool.

Downside is that it sucks huge CPU.

If you’re going to have a custom 404 page, you might as well try and make it fit in with the subject of the web site.

Gmail geekitude — In GMail with US English set, when you delete mail it goes to the “Trash” folder. Set it to UK English, and it’s “Deleted Items”.

TV geekitude — See how the ABC News titles look with no stories and no voiceover.

Google Video geekitude — Lots of snippets of info here, including the fact that Google’s video format is pretty much just a renamed DivX AVI.

Webmail geekitude — My web mail (Horde) puts a little flag against the country of the domain name of the sender. Of course it’s a little misleading when a message from someone using fastmail arrives, as it reckons it’s the Federated States of Micronesia…

Web design geekitude — The best freebie DHTML menus I’ve found so far are here. (Which I’ve implemented here and here. I reckon without too much trouble, WordPress’s categories could drive it automatically. Maybe something to put on the list for Geekrant 2.0.

Look, I know it’s just visual wankery, but it’s pretty and easy to use!

SkeyMedia asks “Is it Time to Abandon 800×600 for our web page designs?”

Yes it is. But not to persue 1024×768, but flexible widths. For the love of God people! Fixed widths screens went out with button-up shoes!

Sitepoint tries to figure out how well the Web2.0 works for blind people.

Basically, no US gov website, and none that loves blind people, will be able to implement a AJAX-only site - a noscript verson will have to be available. And this stems from the fact that it’s too hard to make the various screenreaders act in a standard way in response to changes to the document. Which sounds to me to be a perfect problem for World Wide Web Consortium standardisation.

FogBugz 4½ has been released, so that amazing new ajax features can ship:

In the last year or so a lot of web developers have been working hard on improving their applications using techniques now known as Ajax. These applications use JavaScript code so that when you click on something, you get immediate feedback, rather than waiting for the web server to send you a new page at its own leisurely pace. When they do need more information from the server, they often download the small fragment they need, rather than waiting for the server to build a whole new page. The net result is faster, crisper feedback that makes you feel in control and creates “subjective well-being,” a.k.a. happiness, a feeling that is biochemically NO DIFFERENT THAN EATING LARGE QUANTITIES OF CHOCOLATE.

Who doesn’t like chocolate?

Just out - Google Web Toolkit - Build AJAX apps in the Java language. Hmmm, Java = write once, run anywhere. Should be included in most browsers. But this thing compiles java into javascript….

okay, no, seriously, what? Why are we skipping over the sandbox and into the browser?

Coffee drinkers are easier to persuade.

Fermi’s Paradox is explained by aliens getting adicited to computer gaming.

Strom reckons he knows how to make money with a website: ads! Plus a little other stuff.

An Irishman has a rather good summery of how to negotiate an intial salary.

Cross-platform rounded corners without images, extra markup nor CSS. The holy grail of web-design dweebs.