Fwd: I'm still alive!

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Lloyd Honomichl <lloyd@honomichl.com>
> Date: Tue Jan 6, 2004  9:44:46  PM Europe/London
> To: Richard Ishida <ishida@w3.org>
> Subject: I'm still alive!
>
> Its been a very busy month or so.  I was at a customer in London for 
> 10 days in
> December, and I soon as I got back they sent me off to Minnesota.  Now 
> I'm back
> in London until the 22nd!  So I haven't been keeping up with the mail 
> and the
> phone calls.
>
> But just to prove that I haven't completely forgotten my obligations 
> to the w3c
> cause...
>
> Two FAQ's that I've had on my queue for a while:
>
> Can we send these out as plain text and worry about the content (I can 
> do some editing)
> before worrying about the formatting?
>
>
> <FAQ1>
> Question: Do display capabilities of computers in other countries 
> vary?  Do I need to worry about
> screen sizes, number of colors, etc.?
>
> Background: In the past (until the 90's) customers outside the United 
> States often had less
> capable computer systems than those in the U.S.  It was common for 
> other countries to lag
> two to three years behind in getting the latest in personal computer 
> technology.  This gap
> has disappeared in recent years.
>
> Similarly, in older text mod operating systems it was common for the 
> number of lines of text
> on the screen varied.  For instance while most U.S. systems allowed 25 
> lines of available
> text on the screen, some Japanese systems had fewer, because the 
> height of Japanese characters
> is greater and some systems reserved one or two lines for a "Front End 
> Processor" (the equivalent
> of today's Input Method Editor.  Variations also existed between 
> various vendors' systems
> in Japan.
>
> Answer:  Today there is no need to make special allowances for 
> hardware limitations in other
> countries - BUT many similar considerations SHOULD be kept in mind for 
> accessibility reasons.
> For instance, the fact that virtually every monitor sold today can 
> support millions of colors
> doesn't make it possible for color blind users to distinguish all 
> colors.  Check out the W3C
> Web Accessibiity Inititive for more details.
> </FAQ1>
>
> <FAQ2>
> Question: To what extent does my commerce web site need to handle 
> foreign currencies?
>
> Answer: Though there are always exceptions most sites don't require 
> any special effort to deal
> with foreign currencies.  Dealing with multiple currencies raises a 
> number of interesting
> problems that may not be worth solving.
>
> Formatting numbers to match the currency formats used in various 
> locales is fairly easy, but
> flucuation in exchange rates causes problems that are not easily 
> solved.  As an extreme example
> imagine an auction site that allows each user to view prices in their 
> own currency.  A user in
> the U.S. lists an item for sale on Monday and asks that the bidding 
> start at $10.00.  Later that
> day a user in the U.K. views the item and is informed that the bidding 
> starts at 5 pounds 62 pence.
> (using that morning's exchange rate of 1.78).  Thinking its a 
> reasonable price, she bids 6 pounds.
> Later that day an user in German see the current high bid is 9.16 
> Euros and raises the bid to
> 10 Euros.  The next day the first user returns and decides the price 
> is too high, so she finds
> another similar item to purchase instead.  Wednesday the Pound surges 
> against the Euro and as the
> auction comes to a close th first bidder gets an email informing her 
> that her bid of 6 pounds
> has won and she should send her payment!
>
> Most web sites are owned by a company and that company generally does 
> business in a single currency.
> Its generally safer to stick to that currency for all transactions.  
> EBay does allow auctions in
> other currencies - but the all bids and prices for that item are in a 
> SINGLE currency.
>
> If you decide to deal with multiple currencies you still need to 
> decide how often to update your exchange rates
> and who to rely on to supply them.  If you've ever walked down the 
> streets of a forign city
> and seen the variation in exchange rates from one vendor to the next 
> you'll realize there is no
> single source for these rates.
>
> So we recommend that you just deal with a single currency.  If you 
> want to display the value in
> the user's currency, then at least display both currecies and make it 
> clear that the price is based
> on the primary currency and that the value in their currency is 
> strictly for informational purposes.
>
> </FAQ2>
>

Received on Wednesday, 7 January 2004 14:52:10 UTC