That's what I think about the new Slashdot Beta. It's awful. "There's simply nothing I like about [Slashdot Beta]. [It] need[s] to disappear, not get passed on to the next unfortunate recipient." In all the important ways it is unusable. It won't even load comments for me! It just says something silly like nah ah. WTF? So much for professionalism.

Oh, and I have JavaScript enabled for slashdot.org and fsdn.com so that shouldn't be a problem. (Unless they want me to whitelist some random other domains. Well, fuck that. I'd rather just leave.)

And without comments, /. is nothing. The comments are the only reason to bother coming here.

Go to Kobo <http://kobobooks.com>. Search for the title you want to buy. See that it says "Adobe DRM EPUB" or "EPUB (DRM-Free)". Don't pick any title with DRM. Pick the other titles. (For an example of an author with both DRMed and non-DRMed files, see Charles Stross.)

And don't feel bad. It too me a while as well.

Also, I remember reading that Tor USA titles everywhere should be DRM-free. If you get one that isn't, you can email them and they'll send you a copy that is DRM-free (perhaps).

Adobe Digital Editions and Adobe DRM is used by virtually all publishers (that actually use DRM) and device makers except Amazon. I.e. it is everywhere (sort of like how ePub is used by virtually everyone except Amazon). But, you don't have to use it. No device that I know of requires that an ePub file has DRM.

Two publishers in the SF/F field that don't use any DRM at all are Tor and Baen Books. Baen Books is excellent for other reasons, including their Free Library (you can download and read the first book in most of their series'). Tor is just part of one of the Big Six, and so otherwise has nothing to distinguish them from any other publisher.

I don't buy DRMed shit. I do buy titles from Baen Books and Tor, but they aren't infested with digital restrictions management. If I want a title, and I can't find it from a publisher that doesn't use DRM, I just pop over to my favorite torrent website. And normally I'll find what I'm looking for. (If I don't, I'll find it at my second favorite torrent site, easy.)

I.e. DRM doesn't work. Moreover, it has the opposite effect, rather than preventing copying, it encourages more copying!

(I might buy DRM infested titles, if Adobe made their software work on */Linux. But probably not. But considering I don't run anything else, there is no point in my forking over money for something I can't read or use.)

Oh, and ignoring all the above: why should I have to update the firmware or software on my ebook reader? It's an appliance. I don't expect to update the firmware on my TV, microwave or rice cooker. Why should I? It works now.

Progressive enhancement means making sure that the basic stuff (content) works before adding the presentation and other layers (CSS and JavaScript). So, who cares if your fancy CSS doesn't work in MSIE 6? So long as your basic HTML is alright, then it'll be alright. OK, so MSIE 6 doesn't understand certain HTML 5 elements. In which case, you can use some JS to make it understand (a shiv or a shim).

Graceful degradation has almost the same result. First you make the page, and you make it all fancy. Then you make sure it gracefully degrades (and can still be seen in) older browsers.

Basically, in both cases, you don't care if people using older browsers get your fancy shit. Just so long as they get your writing. And you can still use (the as yet unfinished) HTML 5, and the fancy CSS etc.

Yes. Don't trust one website's stats. Always look at your own stats before deciding you can afford to not support a particular browser. Of course, you should always use progressive enhancement, so that even if people do insist on using ancient browsers, they should still be able to get the basic content. (It's a pity more people don't take the view, but considering the web was intended to be a universal, regardless of machine or software, medium, it's the view that is more inline with the intention of the web.)

There is no updated version of CSS. CSS 3 is not actually a thing. Instead, there are what are called modules. CSS 2 is a good starting point, because the basics are all in one place. And it's still all valid.

HTML 5 isn't finalized. Moreover, learning HTML 4.01 (strict) and XHTML 1.1 will (as I pointed out in my post...) teach good habits. (And make a person appreciate the really good parts of HTML 5, like the new form parts.) Oh, and they are still valid...

Unlike with something like PHP 3 and 4, there is no security risk in using the older versions of HTML and CSS. Moreover, unlike older versions of PHP, knowing the older versions of HTML and CSS can directly translate to knowing the newer versions. (A valid HTML 4.01 strict document is also, with a different doctype, basically a valid HTML 5 document.) PHP has deprecated loads of stuff, and has thrown out a lot of the bad ways of doing things in the later versions. Later versions of PHP are much more coherent than older versions. But CSS 2 is still excellent, if that's all you need.

Oh, and I should have mentioned (and others have already), you also should learn at least the basics of the various protocols. You should be able to recognize the various parts of a HTTP message, and know what most of the verbs (e.g. PUT, POST, GET) and codes (e.g. 200, 404, 408) mean. You should know how HTTPS works (and for bonus points, know at least two major flaws with it). And you should know what TCP/IP means (and if you're really good, how they work), what DNS and DHCP are, and so on.

Good luck.