Avianto's Journal

Since I started blogging again a couple of days ago, this blog was under spam attack very heavily. I tried many setting of the default spam protection and somehow it wasn’t stopping the incoming flood of spam. Sometime I set things wrong and then some of you were complaining that you were not able to leave any comments. Sorry for that, it was totally my sloppy mistake.

First

Thomas advised me to use Akismet plugin. It worked quite good but it was not eliminating all the spam and for me one spam was too many. And somehow in MT4, there are no indication whatsoever about how this spam filter actually work. It said, Akismet works transparently but actually, I don’t want too much transparency since it make me feels uncontrollable. But somehow this plugin worked beautifully to reduce my daily spam and hopefully this plugin was not eating the real comment since I don’t know where I could find the page that shows all the captured spam comments. Somebody help me with this? Thanks.

Final

I am not really fond of CAPTCHA since it reduce accessibility and usability especially for those who are using text browser or any non-graphic enabled browser. But it seems like the fast and quick solution for my spam problem now. So starting today, I put CAPTCHA feature in the comment form and it work beautifully. Hopefully in the future, once I’ve got a better way to handle spam I will remove it.

Rest

So hopefully, I solve the comment spam problem for now. I am still looking for a more efficient, effective, accessible and usable way to do this. If only I could make some free time – it’s been quite busy lately with Real Life™. In the mean time, sorry for the inconvenience lately and if you are still unable to comment here, please send email to avianto@gmail.com and I will try to solve this problem right away.

Thanks for all of the support lately (33 comments for my first entry after two years were just wow, thanks people).

This year I become one of the honorary judge for Bubu Awards v.04. Again. Remember 2003?

Two years has been passing and to no one surprise, nothing actually change or improve with most of the participants. I know that two years in this digital era is just a blink of an eye but c’mon, where is the improvement?

Let’s go back in history…

Why 2000?

I’ve been involved in web development area since 1995 (10 years? Wow…). I’ve seen the rise and the fall and the survival of dotcom. I’ve been in this environment too long for not noticing the failure of \”state of the art\” technology, user frustration, information overload and how World Wide Web become World Wild West.

In 2000, Jeffrey Veen released his book The Art and Science of Web Design. This book blew my mind and became one of my main references. Even though at that time I was already supporting the Web Standards Projects, I was still not so sure about the whole situation. It was 2000. Mr. Veen’s book changed my perspective and I started evangelizing user oriented website.

It’s not easy back then. When \’blink\’ was more valued than experience. Lots of resistances, cynical comments, marketing jargons and all of that. Slowly I found people that have the same concern and together we learned, exchanged information, shared tips and tricks.

But it was 2000.

Now, 2005

Not much change, really. At least in the Indonesian web development community. Still the same old song. It is still the year 2000. The web is still as polluted as ever with confusing navigation, difficult to find information and frustrating user experience.

The statement above answered Mr. Veen’s question “How much progress have we made in five years time? Is either the art or the science of web design any better now?” on his entry about releasing his great book in digital form (PDF), for free. You can read the entry and get the book here. Go get it, read it (the entry and the book) and get enlightened. And please, stop polluting the web.

And while you read the book, let me feel the chilling everytime a Bubu Awards contestant website slowly appear in my browser…