Blogs

111 Posts and Counting

© David H. Enzel, 2022

With this entry, my blog has reached 111 published posts. What began as a simple outlet for notes and photographs has become an archive of travels, reflections, and personal history.

Revisiting and revising older posts reminded me why I write: to capture impressions, preserve memory, and shape a space that feels my own. I also hope that something here may be of help or interest to others who wander through.

Thank you for reading — it means a great deal. With the archive refreshed, I’m looking forward to adding new stories.

Here’s to the next chapter.

Blogroll

The internet used to feel smaller — and more human. People wrote blogs simply to share ideas, stories, and discoveries, not to chase clicks or ad revenue. Those days aren’t gone entirely. Here are some of my favorite blogs that still carry that spirit.

  • Om Malik – Knows Silicon Valley firsthand; a great writer and excellent photographer.
  • The Real Frame – A blog by photojournalists David Butow and David Paul Morris.
  • Pixel Envy by Nick Heer – Well-curated posts on tech and other topics; consistently interesting.
  • Worms and Viruses – A smart, insightful tech blog by Jack Wellborn.
  • The Euro TV Place – Reviews of European TV available in the U.S. It still amazes me how much European programming can now be streamed here.
  • Michael Tsai’s Tech Blog – Carefully chosen nuggets from many sources; a real time-saver, and the site loads lightning-fast.
  • Paris Diary by Laure – An excellent blog about what’s happening in Paris.
  • Thinking About – Focused reflections on authoritarianism.
  • Matt Mullenweg – Founding developer of WordPress and CEO of Automattic.
  • Swissmiss – A popular design journal and more.
  • Annie Mueller – A personal blog whose writing I always enjoy.
  • Kev Quirk – A Welsch information security executive who blogs, about, tech, watches and other stuff.
  • Manton Reece – The founder and operator of Micro.blog, a friendly social network and blogging platform.
  • People and Blogs – A weekly newsletter series where people talk about themselves and their blogs.
  • Philip Greenspun’s Weblog – Philip Greenspun founded photo.net in 1993 and sold it in 2007. It was a great place to learn about photography (an example) and to connect with other photographers. Now Greenspun writes about all sorts of things but rarely about photography. But I still follow him. It’s a tradition.
  • Scripting News – Dave Winer’s long-running daily blog on technology, the open web, and whatever’s on his mind, published continuously since 1994.

The list is in no particular order. I’d love to hear about other blogs worth following — especially those that still carry the spark of the old internet.

I will update this list from time to time.

Last updated: August 14, 2025

Why Creating Links to Open New Browser Windows is Probably Not a Good Practice

I want to thank Sven Dahlstrand for taking the time to explain to me why opening external links in a new tab is probably not a good practice. Sven helpfully referred me to a page written by usability experts  Jakob Nielsen and Anna Kaley explaining:

Since 1999, it’s been a firm web-usability guideline to refrain from opening new browser windows for several reasons. All of these also apply to opening new browser tabs and are still valid today:

  • More windows or tabs increase the clutter of the user’s information space and require more effort to manage.
  • New windows or tabs can cause disorientation, with users often not realizing that a new window or tab has opened. This problem is exacerbated on mobile, where the old window is never visible.
  • Less-technical users struggle to manage multiple windows and tabs, especially on mobile. (On tablets, where users can have both multiple windows and tabs for the browser, it’s even more confusing.)
  • New windows or tabs prevent the use of the Back button for returning to the previous page and force the user to spend effort to find their way back to the previous content.
  • New windows or tabs are not inclusive for blind or low-vision users — especially when they open outside of the area that’s magnified.

I had been opening external links in a new tab in the hope of keeping visitors on my site but I had not thought about the confusion this can cause, especially on mobile:

Designers open new browser windows on the theory that it keeps users on their site. But even disregarding the user-hostile message implied in taking over the user’s machine, the strategy is self-defeating since it disables the _Back _button which is the normal way users return to previous sites. Users often don’t notice that a new window has opened, especially if they are using a small monitor where the windows are maximized to fill the screen. So a user who tries to return to the origin will be confused by a grayed-out _Back _button.

Jakob Nielsen