[CLUE-Tech] Re: Browser Protest Day

[Jed S. Baer]

On Sun, 28 Apr 2002 14:27:55 -0600
David Snyder <SnyderD-Lists at snydersweb.com> wrote:

> Jed S. Baer wrote:

<lots of snipping>

> The main thing you are ranting about here is simple useability. 
>  Admittedly, people are always messing around with things and I too have
>  been on a site where I couldn't tell the difference between someone's 
> hyperlink and and regular text.  
> 
> CSS, DOM, and JavaScript sites can make for a MUCH better user 
> experience. ... It allows me to design a look and 
> feel that conveys emotion, feelings, and identity.

Well, I've seen a lot of very nicely done websites that didn't rely on
these things.

> This includes providing user feedback when they mouse over items (color
> chances, etc), consistant appearence of page elements such as 
> hyperlinks, and more.  That's good UI design, you establish simple rules
> the user can understand and you do not confuse them by violating those 

A matter of taste, to some extent. I've never needed feedback for a
mouseover. I mean, I can see that the pointer is over the element, 99.9%
of the time. If it's done with something simple, like using CSS to change
the color, then fine. But why spend bandwidth downloading the replacement
images for a rollover image? If it's small, it isn't such a big deal, I
guess.

> For working in "any browser", one thing that hasn't been mentioned was 
> dealing with all the various browser bugs.  The more advanced you make a
> ...
> It takes a lot of trial and error to do cross browser coding.  I say 
> trial and error because the browser's behavior cannot be predicted, it 
> can only be seen.  You do one thing, it makes one browser happy and 
> ticks off the other one, and vice versa.

That actually sounds like an argument in favor of trying to do as much as
possible with HTML. I don't advocate a return to HTML 3.2. I'm certain
doing cross-browser development is daunting. I suppose part of it is a
question of how necessary all these various things are. Is your target
audience the general public, or just your customers? I know there are many
considerations.

> I blame browser inconsistency on the over-abundance of Flash sites these
> days. Flash, while it is an open standard, is controlled by Macromedia. 

Macromedia even uses that as marketing angle. You can't depend upon
Javascript, or consistent HTML rendering, but FLash is always the same.
Yes, very unfortunate.

I actually went up the the Macromedia site and looked around for any
mention of configurability based upon hostname, IP address, anything.
Couldn't find it.

Really, though, one of the main things is that (it appears to me) that
these authors don't even bother to consider providing even minimal content
for the "basic" browser (whether that's the user's configuration choices,
or it's Lynx or whatever). Every book I've read on HTML authoring mentions
the <noscript> tag and the <noframes> tag. Regardless of anything else,
isn't the last thing you want a visitor to see a *blank* page? Is it so
hard to put in a link to a plain-info.html page? I don't think so. And
that's what really ticks me off. It's like they're saying, "Well, if you
don't have both flash and javascript **** you, you don't exist."

> On your popunder ads - Unfortunately online advertizers have been so 
> ...
> 1.  Mozilla, it has a preferences switch that kills pop-unders dead but 
> leaves the rest of JavaScript intact.
> 2.  A "Killer Hosts File", for some odd reason, a lot of advertizing 
> goes "404" on my system... gee, maybe because I direct it to an internal
> webserver instead? :-)  If you do a popunder on me, you get added to my 
> hosts file.

I'm already using Galeon. Same type of options. But, that addresses only a
small fraction of the potential abuses of JavaScript. I'll just leave it
turned off.

> I can send you a copy of my killer hosts file if you wish - not the 
> whole thing, just the section that swats popunders dead.

I use the Junkbuster proxy. Quite effective. But thanks for the offer.

> Web advertising itself has been in transition for quite some time too, 
> but that's a debate beyond the scope of this conversation - a complex & 
> controversial one at that.

> >was hoping to find their TOS/AUP before sending them a spam complaint -
> >and in fact, also discover if they have a published abuse address (not
> >everyone has abuse at domain.tld). Is flash necessary for the presentation
> >of that information? I don't think so.
> >
> As to that, you should try:
> http://www.abuse.net/lookup.phtml
> VERY handy site - Unfortunately you're right as to having 
> abuse at domain.tld not standard.  Some ISP's, Level 3 for example, usees 
> spamtool at level3.net.  Other ISP's have started appending data to their 
> Whois records.

I already do whois lookups at whois.abuse.net. Mostly, I like to look at
the site and get some notion of whom I'm sending my e-mail addy to, and
what their TOS/AUP state. It's nice to see it when they publish their
complaint address. Sometimes, if they have a toll-free number, I even call
them up.

BTW, last I sent one (week or so ago), abuse at level3.net worked.

> I understand exactly what you mean.  It's a real pain in the butt to 
> find a TOS or abuse address at times - a lot of times I wind up spamming
> several addresseswith my abuse report in hopes they will get through, be
> read, and responded to appropriately.  If you're an ISP or web host, you
> should *know* to put your abuse addresses where they can be found!

Heh, postmaster,root,hostmaster,system,admin - hey, one ought to work!

Later,
jed
-- 
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