teh bigbro blog(tm)
Bigbro's foray into the scary world of blogging
06 06 2006

Tue, 06 Jun 2006

I recently passed through Shannon airport and had cause to look up some train times for my destination. Fortunately, I had an Apple iBook with me and the Airport proudly proclaims that free Wireless internet connectivity is available. To cut a long story short, despite three attempts at getting some kind of connection to the net, registering 3 times and wasting a good 20 minutes of my life that I want back, please, I gave up on the whole thing.
I remember using wireless internet at the airport before - and it was good. I could log in, check my mail or open an IRC client and converse with a few friends and let them know that I was about to jump on a plane to some not-so-exotic destination. This was all good. Then someone got ideas abd additional features, I suspect... Features are almost always a bad thing, I've found. People wanting to add features to something that already just works should consider the impact of this very, very carefully. People who only test a wireless connection using Windows and Internet Explorer, with Javascript enabled, and cookies accepted from everywhere - including places that are not the originating site, and assume everyone uses webmail and/or can access their e-mail through port 80 - should be taught a few lessons about how the internet really works, possibly with the aid of a swift introduction to my LART.
For the benefit of anyone else wishing to set up a service that they're hoping people will use briefly, especially with limited time available to them, here's a few tips on how to make it accessible:

• Have a decent introductory webpage (or signs) that explain how to access the service.
• Don't require registration unless you absolutely MUST do so.
• If you do require registration, make it quick, simple, and actually test that it works.
• If you do require registration, make it rely on as few interdependant things working as possible. i.e. Give me the password on the webpage - don't e-mail it to me.
• Note well that in this situation, users are likely to have a limited amount of time at their disposal - so anything that could delay the process of gaining access to the service is a BAD thing. Please read up on greylisting and the affect that has on e-mail.
• If you still insist on e-mailing stuff, have the decency to allow access to the standard POP, POPS, IMAP and IMAPS enabled so that I have some hope of reading the e-mail you send me. I generally do not use webmail interfaces, though if you had any documentation I could have used one without having to attempt to register twice to reverse engineer how your process works, before registering a third time using a webmail account.
• Disabling javascript is a standard security measure - if I want javascript I'll ask for it, thanks. Don't make your stupid registration process rely on it.
• Cookies pose a number of security and information leakage risks - my standard practice is to enable them for the originating site only. Don't make your registration process depend on me accepting cookies, please. And if you must, give me an URL to visit and register at and send the cookies from there.
• Finally, test with a Mac and Firefox, Safari, Camino and possibly Internet Explorer. Get a Linux machine and test with Mozilla and Firefox on that too. It won't take long and there's a chance you might learn something about standards and how to comply with them in some useful way. If your system works with these systems, it's highly likely it will also work under Windows with Internet Explorer and that people like me will be able to use your service.

copyright © 2005-2008, Gareth Eason