First of all, allow us to clarify. We love openID. Maintaining a million different identities is a big pain and we’re glad people are trying to fix it. So OpenID is the greatest thing since sliced bread. But what happens if someone steals your password? Now, I’m not saying security by obscurity is a better option (I know that should be on a shirt), but it is amusing to think that a compromised openID account could be very damaging. We think that fact is T-Shirt worthy.

Its interesting to note the traction that OpenID is gaining the industry. 37 signals recently added the option to use OpenID to access some of their online hosted applications. applications using openID. They also have a good explentation page of the details of OpenID to get you started. Also, Phil Windley, a former CTO for the State of Utah, often talks about identity issues and openID in particular if you’re interested in reading more on the subject.

So, build your new websites to be openID aware, and in the meantime wear our OpenID Advantage t-shirt to encourage other smart people to mitigate or eliminate this problem.

This Week’s Featured Design

The OpenID Advantage

OpenID is great. You have one username and one password for everything. Which means They only need to steal your password once to hack your life. Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid. Buy It Now

This Week’s Featured Designs

No Enterprisey allowed

We all know it when we see it. The needless meeting, the wasteful form or arcane procedure. Let people know that they can take there entepriseyness elsewhere. Help stamp out this cancer for the betterment of the world. Buy It Now

I Will Not Break The Build

Well, they have done it again and the build is broken. Try to help them be more careful next time with some good old fashioned lines. They worked in gradeschool - maybe they can work for grown programmers.Buy It Now

DRY: Don’t Repeat Yourself

Don’t Repeat Yourself. If you aren’t DRY you are all wet. As a programmer, take the time to make sure that you don’t repeat yourself. Remember to refactor, script, and resuse.Buy It Now

This Week’s Featured Designs

My Dad Codes Better Than Your Dad

You’re a hero to your kids. Why not let ‘em share your coding heroics with the neighbors? Just think of the conversation starter it will be at your next company picnic. Guess you’d better live up to it, huh? Buy It Now for your Kids

[Skip Intro]

Don’t you wish everyone had this option? Wear this subtle message and your day is sure to go faster. Buy It Now

He Broke The Build

Sometimes builds break, and when they do people often look for a scapegoat. Make sure you provide them with one - whoever happens to be standing next to you. Buy It Now

I can’t believe its finally here. We’ve waited a long time for RailsConf. We will have a limited selection available with us so if you want a shirt - come find us. We’ll be hanging out in the common areas of the conference. The cool part is that the shipping is FREE! (Normally it’s around 5 bucks)

We fired our users. Better yet, we fired our potential users. Fired them before the first click. Yes, it was a massive preemptive strike against all those poor souls who use Internet Explorer.

Why Fire Internet Explorer Users

It’s not that we are unable to make the site available in Internet Explorer - it’s the principle of the matter. (keep reading — it’s continued down below)

In our carpool debate on this topic, we realized that banning IE-ers was something we had to do. It matched our message: Educate your coworkers, be a billboard for change, put your smack on. It’s what our customers believe in. It’s what we believe in. It is THE codesmack thing to do.

The Implementation

We had thought of doing a shirt making fun of Internet Explorer users for a while, but finalized it on the ride home that day. Then we spent a couple of hours finalizing the text on the page that would greet and disappoint unsuspecting IE-ers. We did a fine job except for one thing. People don’t read text on webpages. Looking at the heat map we saw these poor IE users trying to click all sorts of things to navigate away from the page. One IE user commented - “you only have one design?” So we put the message in a big yellow box - “IE Not Allowed”, added some headings and tried to get the point across. Here is the latest version of no IE Users allowed .

The Outcome

The results were definitely mixed as expected. Some users in the printfection.com forum were not impressed with our idea.

Seriously, you really want to cut off 68% of your potential market?

(Source: Last Month’s webstats for another site I run.
Totals: IE 68%, FF 23%, Other 9% - 44,973 visits)

They might be targeting a niche that has a propensity fro Firefox, but that same niche may just have parents / partners/ whatever that are looking for gifts for a programmer that might like IE because it is there.

It would be like opening a children’s clothing store and only having a 3 foot high door because the kids are our target market.

It seemed strange to me too, but I guess they’re catering to a specific niche market.

Personally, I think making your site work on anyone’s browser is one of the things that differentiate good designers from the ‘hacks’. Users should be able to use whatever they like to view your site, rather than being told to use or not to use something.

It’d be like a car maker telling everyone to buy a certain make of car so they don’t have to bother making anything else, or a supermarket that only has one brand of each product because they don’t see the point in carrying a range, etc.

Choice. Personal Preference. If you don’t provide it to the customer, they’ll just go elsewhere. No sweat.

Craziness. Absurd. What a waste of capitalism to throw away sales. There were also patronizing reminders that dealing with IE features wasn’t a difficult thing to do. Some told us they would not buy a shirt. The funny thing about this they probably would not have purchased a shirt anyway. In fact, I would be surprised if someone using IE bought a shirt. Our shirts are for the early adopters, the cutting edge. Programmers with foresight and a gut feel on things that need to change. Testing, Ruby, Rails, agile practices. These are things that good programmers we know believe in.

On the other hand, we have been embraced by those who espouse our cause. They laugh, chuckle, and admire the audacity. In the end it was an easy call to make. The call fits our target audience. It alienates a few in exchange for supporting the position held by our true potential customers. It helps promote our core concepts — the ones we believe in. It was the right thing to do. We Put Our Smack On. Do you?

1. We will design new shirts and release them on Tuesdays
2. We will sometimes feature existing t-shirt designs
3. We will discount the t-shirts featured on Tuesday until the next Tuesday
4. You put your smack on (buy some t-shirts)
5. You spread the good word (tell your friends)

This Week’s Featured Designs

Seriously!?! - You’re still using IE?

Some people still haven’t seen the light. Maybe this will help them quit their bad browsing habits and move to nicer web standards and CSS support. Buy It Now

I am user-centric

While writing an application do you think about the users? Is the application designed to make their life easier? Do you solicit their feedback? Do you convert the words “training issue” to “usability issue”? Be User-Centric. Buy It Now

Ready Fire Aim

Some enterprisey processes are heavy on the aiming. The problem is that they spend so much time aiming, they never hit the target. Agile practices let you fire and then adjust your aim so you can quickly fire again. You can hit your target. Buy It Now

I can’t believe what I’m seeing! It’s like they can read my mind, feel my pain, and broadcast it to the world in a way that makes me leap out and say YES!!

– Ficticious Phil

So what prompted CodeSmack? How do a couple of programmers end up starting a t-shirt business? It comes down to needing an outlet. Strange stuff happens every day - and you can either laugh and learn from it or go crazy. Carpooling also played an important role. Sitting in traffic and reflecting on your day can lead to some funny ideas. One day we thought that some of these ideas could make really funny t-shirts and we liked the concept of having more clothing options on casual Friday. Writing our ideas down provided the final catalyst to make this project a reality.

Our shirts try to promote solid programming practices, display coding confidence, and make you laugh. The shirts have an added benefit, namely that mere mortals (as opposed to the programming kind) aren’t equipped to understand them. So welcome to the exclusive club of CodeSmack. A band of brothers bonded by bits.