IP Convergence: Beyond VoIP, Beyond Cost Savings

Telecom industry blogs are a new thing, so I expected the posting to be a state-of-the-art activity. Interestingly enough, even creating a blog with some links and images still requires a basic understanding of stone-age html text. That’s why I'm writing this test blog: Although this blog appears to be quite organized on my screen right now, we all know that there's a good chance it will end up as a total mess once it is displayed via the web on your screen. Incorrect font, wrong line breaks, and so on. I never could figure out why hitting the Enter button on a web design page creates a new paragraph with a useless extra line space, while doing the same in a text editor simply inserts a line-break. It frustrates me even more that I cannot program my web editor to treat the Enter button as a <br> rather than as a <p>. I'm perfectly able to do <br><br> if I want to have a <p>, thank you.

Html reminds me of the vi/troff text input and formatting that was common practice in the 1980's, before wysiwyg was invented. Even today, experienced web creators often prefer straightforward html coding as it offers them "better control". The same argument is used by people who prefer stick shifts over automatic transmission and by people who prefer ATM over IP. This proves that dead-end streets can still be very lengthy.

Isn't it fascinating that, in this internet era, 99% of business executives rely on PowerPoint or equivalent programs for their presentations rather than building web presentations? Ever tried to create a web page that combines text with moving images, spreadsheet capabilities and inter-document links in a few minutes? We've increased the speed of computers and the internet with a factor of one thousand in the past ten years, but are still struggling to get the human interface in shape. This html legacy is one of the main reasons why many people over forty have difficulty getting themselves organized on the web: The web-gap.

Computer application software developers of the world: Please make sure that html coding soon joins programs like MSDOS and give us wysiwyg everywhere in internet-land!

Now that this warming-up blog looks OK it's time to move forward with my inaugural article on the art of perspective.