Nigel Hardman, a 40-year-old “illusionist” from England was recently charged with eleven counts of cheating the benefits system (aka collecting unemployment, for those in the States) after his “act” brought him to the attention of authorities.

Performing – and I use that term very loosely – under the name Prince Razaq, he is said to have presented “death-defying” stunts such as sword swallowing, fire eating, walking on broken glass, escapes from straitjackets and standing on a bed of nails. Investigators apparently became curious regarding his claims of “too ill to work” – for which he was collecting benefits – after seeing him perform on the television show The Big Breakfast, clearly demonstrating that he was, well, not too ill to work!

I could care less about his cheating of the benefits system – that’s something that the authorities are now on top of. What really gets my goat is that this fraud is a fraud in so many ways, and a complete hack in terms of performing, yet he nevertheless grabs the attention of society! The papers – and granted we are talking about the Daily Mail here – genuinely used the term “death-defying” in describing his “feats” and claim that he swallows swords. I haven’t seen any video or pictures of him with a sword in his mouth (if you have some, send them this way!) so I can’t say for certain, but given that the straitjacket he uses is a gimmicked jacket and not a genuine one (industry insiders will be able to tell very quickly at a mere glance), and the fact that he is such a ridiculously laughable performer – wearing a turban, curled toe shoes and a cheesy vest nonetheless – I can’t help but suspect that his sword swallowing too is fake. As a full-time professional sword swallower myself I’m proud to know just about every other sword swallower out there, and though I can’t keep tabs on every single one, this bloke has never crossed my radar. He’s cheesy, not entertaining and not genuine – yet he still gets air time. He’s still described as death-defying. It boggles my mind. But then, look at the state of television in general, I suppose…

Actually, perhaps he can cite his performance fraud to wiggle out of the benefits fraud charges! After all, it was Warren Spencer, the prosecuting attorney, who said:

Despite this [collecting benefits for being too ill to work] he did death-defying feats such as sword swallowing, lying on beds of nails and bathing in broken glass.

I’d be happy to testify that this guy is a fraudulent entertainer and that his performance contains absolutely nothing life threatening! It might help to remove the stain that he’s left for other performing artists!

Link to Daily Mail article here.

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[tags]Benefits System, Daredevils, Fraud, Nigel Hardman, Prince Razaq, Sideshow, Sword Swallowers, Sword Swallowing[/tags]

How to view your website in 53+ browsers on 3 major platforms in mere minutes with zero effort.

Though current statistics indicate that almost 62% of web users are surfing the web with some version of Internet Explorer (reaffirming that I always find myself in a minority) with Firefox coming in a distant second at around 28%, web designers need to be aware that users will be viewing their websites in a huge variety of web browsers each running on a wide cross-section of platforms. Safari and Opera are the only other browsers to regularly make the top stats lists, but there are literally dozens of browsers and platforms available.

As a business I keep close tabs on my usage statistics and sure enough, most users are visiting with some version of Internet Explorer or Firefox. Because getting my product into the marketplace is so crucial, however, I can’t afford to alienate the minority of users hitting my server with less-than-popular browsers. I need to assure that everyone receives roughly the same experience with only minor variation – if any. Some businesses by their nature may attract the minority browser – and everyone should know what the usage patterns for their websites are – and a designer can never assume that visitors are receiving the same experience that they are.

Short of running multiple systems with multiple boot options each running different OS’s and browser versions, or setting up complex and tedious virtual systems and emulators, how can a designer be certain that their website looks as intended in a cross-platform environment? My own personal approach is to first make certain that the variety of processing occurs server-side and that I deliver a minimum of code that needs to be interpreted client-side. Then, I visit browsershots.org.

What is Browsershots?

In the creator’s own words:

“Browsershots makes screenshots of your web design in different browsers. It is a free open-source online service created by Johann C. Rocholl. When you submit your web address, it will be added to the job queue. A number of distributed computers will open your website in their browser. Then they will make screenshots and upload them to the central server here.“

Simply visit the website, submit the URL that you’d like to test and select from any or all of the platforms and browsers available. Platforms include Linux, Windows and Mac OS, naturally, while the over 53 browsers include multiple versions of not only the major players but the more minor ones as well, and some decidedly obscure browsers are among the mix.

No need to test them individually, as you can submit your request for all of them at once and the results will be compiled and displayed directly on the Browsershots page in thumbnail format. Roll over each thumbnail for a slightly larger peek at how your URL appears in each given browser, or click them for a higher resolution image complete with all of the details regarding platform, browser and version. For safe keeping, you can download the whole lot of results as one zip file, including all of the high res screen shots. The site isn’t graphically pretty, but it’s extremely functional.

It should be noted that Browsershots provides only screenshots, it is impossible to test functionality. I myself discovered with one of my own sites that as a result of some transparent png’s and the way in which I made them backward compatible with older browsers, everything looked fine from IE version to IE version, but in actual fact my scrollbars were inoperative in older versions of IE – something that I could never tell from the Browsershots service.

Nonetheless, for checking visual layout it’s second to none. There are fee-based services that are available to provide the same functionality and more (see end of article for links), but for a quick, powerful and dead simple way to assure that your website appears as intended – a way which avoids the tedious setup of emulators and separate systems – Browsershots is the way to go. It also operates on the principles of distributed computing and community support, something in which I strongly believe.

Fee-Based Cross-Browser Testing Tools

-Browsercam
-Litmus
-NetMechanic

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[tags]Browsershots, Compatibility, Firefox, Graphic Design, IE, Internet Explorer, Web Browsers, Web Design, Websites[/tags]

A bit old according to ‘net standards – being from October, 2007 and all – but just picked this up from Casey’s blog and it got me to thinking…

TwitterWhere is an application that allows you to view Twitter Tweets by location via RSS or XML. Along with other Twitter-based apps (such as TwitterVision and TwitterMap, mentioned even on the TwitterWhere page) it’s a cool little extension of Twitter that gets geeks excited simply by being a neat remix of data.

My first thought upon seeing this was “cool, I can watch and anticipate flash mobs and the like by location!” which made me stop and consider – “Hey, anyone can watch and anticipate flash mobs by location!”

Undoubtedly some savvy government type entrenched in an office somewhere – Homeland Security, local police, et. al. – also had this “duh” moment, and maybe even wrote their own app eons ago.

Curious how the march of technology can so thoroughly enable certain activities – spontaneous congregation – and also by virtue of the community principles involved in the technology (Web 2.0 mentality, social networking, open api’s, etc…) so thoroughly short circuit it.

I don’t think that uses of Twitter for flash mobbing will go away, or that they’ll be necessarily ineffective in the future, but anyone seriously considering exploiting these tools for truly nefarious purposes has undoubtedly moved on to more promising methods.

Link to TwitterWhere

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[tags]Flash Mobs, Smart Mobs, Twitter, TwitterWhere[/tags]