iGoogle is not My Google.

This is not strictly open source related, but it is in the interests of most Internet users, so:

I'm surprised that no one has spraypainted an "i" in front of their logo on their building after what they've done to Google Personalized Home.

The consensus seems to be that everyone tolerated Google Personalized Home because it gave us some good toys to play with, but as soon as they changed the name to iGoogle that was one step too far. Our favorite search engine now looked tacky and obviously is being driven by someone from the traditional side of Internet marketing instead of the normal trendy Google-type folks.

Well, I came up with a hack that will remove iGoogle, sort of. At first, I tried to remove the new iGoogle Logo, but to no avail. I tried everything. I even replaced the header section with a search box module. None of it felt right. Even if I switched out the logo, the best I could do was use past holiday logos, no thanks! Maybe this hack will be for you:

The reason I use iGoogle is to look at the modules on occasion. I want to use "Classic" search, however. So I came up with a URL that will take you to iGoogle *once*, and immediately unset the cookie value that keeps you at iGoogle. So, I made a Bookmark in my Bookmark Toolbar Folder called "iGoogle Once" and pointed it to this URL:

http://www.google.com/ig?sa=p&pref=ig&pval=1&q=/webhp

If you want to give it a whirl, just try it here. You can see your iGoogle page, with all the modules, and you can even search, and then if you go back to Google.com it takes you to Google Classic, instead of "remembering" that you selected iGoogle and throwing you back into it.

There is one caveat: You must click "Classic Home" once before this will work, and if you click "iGoogle" on the top of the home page, it will keep you on iGoogle until you click Classic Home again. In other words, you must only use the "iGoogle Once" bookmark to visit iGoogle lest you become iTrapped.

I hope this was useful!

Using Standard Dates

Working on a project recently, I received feedback from another team member that "all date formats, whether for entry or exhibit, should be in a readable & usable format, i.e. mm/dd/yyyy." Although offense was probably not intended, I was extremely disappointed and even a bit insulted by this request, as I had taken care to represent date formats in a consistent, readable, and usable way throughout the project, or at least to choose tools that did so by default.

While not strictly an "Open Software" issue, I think usability issues and internationalization issues are often in the interests of Open Software advocates, so I thought I'd take a bit of time to discuss the ISO Date Format, why it is important, why and where you should consider using it and teaching other people about it.

For those who have not been officially introduced to it yet, the international standard (iso) date format is:

YYYY-MM-DD

YYYY is the year on the Gregorian calendar, MM is the month from 01 to 12, and DD is the day of the month from 01 to 31.

For example, 2007-01-26 represents the 26th day of January, 2007.

Prior to standardization, common ways to represent this date are numerous, including:

• 1/26/07
• 26/1/07
• 07/1/26
• 26.1.2007
• 26-JAN-2007
• 26-January-2007

Each of these included variants with either slashes, hyphens, or periods. Sometimes the usage of a particular one of these formats focused around a geographic location, such as the M/D/YY which was somewhat prevalent in the United States, and other times they would focus around groups with special interest or profession.

The trouble with nonstandard dates is that they cannot be interpreted in a consistent manner. It becomes especially problematic when the day of the month is less than 12, and the month is rendered numerically, making the month and day field entirely indistinguishable.

[Tip: In addition to being more legible, the ISO format also has the benefit of being able to be sorted chronologically in its raw format by any alphanumeric sorter, such as in a spreadsheet.]

With the advent of the Internet era, we now have instant communication around the globe. The ISO date format is an absolute must in order to achieve effective and expected communication in regards to dates.

There are still some places where it would be appropriate to use other date formats, for example:

• In a localized or personalized formal invitation such as a wedding or graduation announcement where a verbose format such as "Tuesday, the first of January, two thousand eight" would be appropriate.
• In any educational material instructed someone how to interpret legacy date formats, or for use in examples to teach someone how to read ISO date format compared to their historic format.
• In a dynamic environment (such as a preferences page) where the reader (not the publisher) has specifically requested their date to be presented in a non-standard format.
• Interoperation with legacy applications or that are unable to be upgraded at the time. Even in this case, ISO should also be supported so that you do not become the reason the other application is unable to be upgraded, and visible representations outside of these legacy communications should be translated back into the standard format.
  

Anything other than these examples only serves to create confusion as the ISO date format comes into greater use.

When the opportunity presents itself you should not be shy, but be prepared to teach others about using the ISO date format, especially if you or they are in an industry where they transact business or correspondence on the Internet. Only a few moments of explanation can save them much confusion or embarrassment that could result from misinterpreted dates or missed appointments.

For more information on ISO 8601 date format see:

• Quality Web Tips from the W3C - Use international date format.
• Wikipedia Article on ISO 8601
• Article by Peter Meyer
• The International Standard Organization's own article on the subject.

Open Source Religion

Last week, Susie and I provided the topic for the small Quaker meeting we've been attending as visitors (neither of us are officially Quakers). The topic we picked: Open Source.

The results? Spectacular. Almost everyone in the group understood and embraced the philosophy of Open Source. Many went home after the meeting to dabble with Open Source products, or followed up by asking questions. We also provided Ubuntu cookies as refreshments.

While there are some actual Open Source religious movements out there it is impressive to know that the Religious Society of Friends seems to take so well to the idea.