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[anathema]

Originally posted by frogboy4
...and the new Flash embedded ads that cover up content when searching Yahoo and other sites just bugs the heck out of me.

Now do you see why I don't like Flash! :-P I agree that there's a place for all these technologies, but the sheer amount of abuse means that the hassle often outweighs the benefits :-(

I'm not aware of Flash being a 'standard' part of any OS installation, and IE certainly doesn't come with it built in. But it's quite likely that OEM-installed PCs are getting it put on at the factory. Nonetheless, it's still not a good idea to just assume that it will be there... ;-)

 

[frogboy4]

Originally posted by anathema
Now... the sheer amount of abuse means that the hassle often outweighs the benefits...

I wouldn't go to that extreme, but I certainly understand your frustration. The U.S. government it already starting to tax the Internet. If that comes to pass, they should legislate rules on pop up ads. It's harassment that shouldn't occur. In the city I live in, if you ask a telemarketer to take you off their list, they can be fined $2,000 if they call again. I don't see why users have to alter their lives to avoid these annoying ads. It shouldn't be on us. Unfortunately it is. <--mean Piggy. LOL!

 

[anathema]

Originally posted by frogboy4
I wouldn't go to that extreme, but I certainly understand your frustration. The U.S. government it already starting to tax the Internet. If that comes to pass, they should legislate rules on pop up ads. It's harassment that shouldn't occur. In the city I live in, if you ask a telemarketer to take you off their list, they can be fined $2,000 if they call again. I don't see why users have to alter their lives to avoid these annoying ads. It shouldn't be on us. Unfortunately it is. <--mean Piggy. LOL!

Thanks! :-P

I run WebWasher to filter out the worst of the advertising and other rubbish. Sadly, it can't tell the difference between an automatic popup and a user-triggered one either :-( It also doesn't filter Flash, and some advertisers are now using that. And trying to legislate this kind of thing is almost as impossible as trying to legislate against spam... I actually have an email addy that's never had a single piece of spam in its life, but that's 'cos I never use it for anything but private email. My public address gets around 6-10 pieces a day, which isn't too bad. I can always tell when America wakes up, as the amount of spam suddenly rises :-P

I don't know if this one works in the US, but over here market researchers aren't allowed to canvas each other for surveys, so on the occasions when I get such a call, I explain to them that I too work in market research. If they are genuinely researching, they will know this, and end the call. If they continue, they're trying to sell you something... Unfortunately, I got so many telesales calls that I ended up having to change my phone number :-(

 

[Wembley]

You see, the original idea of the web was to create a way to pass information - without regards to the appearance on the end-user's system The original spec for HTML contained (and still does contain) tags such as <STRONG>, <EM>, <H1> thru <H6> etc - and the idea was that the end user's browser would worry about how to display text marked <H1> - it would look one way in Lynx, one way in Netscape, one way in MSIE, etc.

Unfortunately, people now instead of worrying about the information being presented, now people are worrying about the appearance on the end user's system.

My design goal is simple. I use "proper" HTML - no flash etc, I let the browser deal with how it will reppresent my emphasis, etc. And, I always use ALT tags for my images. For anything that I am worried about the appearance (such as a form, a document etc), I use PDF.

Maybe I'm a stickler for the "good ol' days" - I dunno. Maybe it's because I'm a technical person and not an artist.

-Rick "Wembley" Miller
..."You can NOT leave the magic!"

 

[anathema]

Absolutely. The site designer has no idea what system their pages are going to be displayed on, and I do not believe it is their job to try and a) second-guess the user's preferences, or b) foist their preferences on the user. I dislike sites which attempt to fix the size of their displayed content to what the designer likes (the Disney Channel website, for example, was fixed to 640x480 the last time I looked, and was entirely unusable on my system because all the fonts were hardcoded to a small size). HTML is supposed to be a markup language, not a DTP/paint system!