New ‘Worst Experience’ Column Coming

• By Keith Ward
• 12/13/2005

Keith Ward here, pinch-hitting this week for our inimitable leader, Doug Barney (although you might say that’s like Mark Belanger pinch-hitting for Boog Powell. Orioles fans of a certain age will get that; all others -- hey, that’s what Google’s for).

Batting leadoff today: We’re starting a new Redmond magazine (both print and online versions) feature and need your help. We’ll be running first-person accounts of something that went really, really wrong on your network or server, how the problem was solved or fixed, what lessons you learned and precautions you took to keep it from happening again.

Did one of your developers upload rotten code to your Web server that brought down your Internet presence? Did a user bring his or her personal laptop into the office, hook into the network, and infect it with a virus you’d diligently prevented? Did the air conditioning in the data center break down (on a Friday night, of course), frying servers like so many Whoppers?

Tell us about your worst experience in 300-800 words, and provide your name and phone number. We’ll post the stories online each month, while the best one will make it into Redmond magazine’s print edition (along with a check for the author).

One other thing I’d like your help with: This new column needs a name. In my favorite flying magazine, these stories go under the heading “Never Again.” Please suggest your own title. The person submitting the winning name will get a $50 Amazon gift certificate.

Send your submissions (and column name suggestions) to me at [email protected]. Please put “Worst Experience” or “New Column Name” as the subject line, so I’ll be sure not to delete your e-mail as spam. And thanks!

Firefox Continues To Gain on IE
I browse almost exclusively in Firefox these days, and I’m glad to see it continuing to cut into IE’s market share, slowly but surely.

You have to think it will continue to creep up, given the unending parade of security holes being discovered in IE. Today, in fact, Microsoft is expected to release a patch for a critical IE vulnerability in its “Patch Tuesday” offering.

In the meantime, I still run across sites, more often than I’d like, that aren’t Firefox (or other alternative browser) compatible. This includes, most aggravatingly, my online banking site. C’mon folks, it’s time to step up to the plate!

The Web Turns 15
It’s been 15 years since the first delicate strands of the Web were spun by Tim Berners-Lee. CNN.com has a short retrospective and also lists what it considers to be the top 10 Web events, including the rise of Skype, the Lewinsky brouhaha and Napster’s temporary demise. It’s a solid list, but in my humble opinion, it’s missing one of the biggest events of all: the October 2004 launch of Redmondmag.com. No list is complete without that monumental happening.

I’ll talk to you tomorrow, and I promise one thing: No more baseball metaphors!