Reader Comments on Aardvark Daily 25 June 2002
Note: the comments below are the unabridged
submissions of readers and do
not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher.
From: Christopher Cookson For : The Editor (for publication) Subj: Political Party web sites Hmm.. Bruce did you have audio turned on when you visited the progressive coalition site? I wonder whether they've been good little boys and grrls and paid their royalties for use of the "Mission Impossible" theme as a midi file on their site? Oh, and I did a check of the source code, and the file is actually linked from someone else's site (www.integrityoptions.com) which actually doesn't look like it has much to do with integrity at all. One think to link to someone else's page but another thing to link to their content, so it is directly embedded in your page and they get the traffic, but no credit! Oh, btw, the layout of National's site is broken, or at least very wierd in Opera, also very slow. Even at my 1152x864 resolution, I get mostly a blank blue page, with the content way further down. Do National really want to get across the message "we're a bit blank space"? Aardvark Responds: Well spotted! I guess I should leave the MIDI channel on my PC unmuted eh? It appears very much as if you're right about Jimbo's party stealing content and bandwidth from someone else's website, they've taken that MI theme from this selection. Jim's credibility shot to hell and back again -- so what's new? :) From: Andrew McGhie For : The Editor (for publication) Subj: Ministry Of Education Bruce My company is attempting to give some unused pcs to the local schools. They are PII 233 with 32 or 64 mb and several laptops, mmx 64mb ram. These are about the lower end of machines we are still using for business. All of them have told me that they have the operating system available through the ministry of education. I wasn't listeneing very closely but they were saying that the ministry had paid $80 million for the privelege, but only windows xp and office 2000 were available. Do you know anything about this? It basically means that these machines are no good to them all though I have been offering Linux with installation free of charge (either Red Hat or Mandrake). Did anyone tell the ministry the hardware requirements for them to use this software? Also the disadvantage of being tied into the operating system ie if they want it for training they will not be able to change the hardware? Totally p****d off Very glad you're still around :) From: Bahu For : The Editor (for publication) Subj: re: Ministry of Education It's called the Microsoft Schools Agreement and it is a $65 per PC licence that enables the school to use: MS Windows (All versions) MS Office XP for PC and Mac MS FrontPage MS Publisher and a few other apps. Only available to schools and they have to sign up to it, they don't get it automatically. They still have a choice. From: Stuart Young For : The Editor (for publication) Subj: Wee response from the Greens Thank you once more for your criticism. It would be nice if your criticism was more constructive and less harsh but never mind. Anyway, I just wanted to clear up a couple of points. Firstly the Greens website is produced entirely by overworked volunteers and any failings are due to that reason. Yes, despite our preference for OSS, the main greens site does still use ASP and is hosted using IIS, however it will be ported to PHP and use Apache after the election - when we have time. The new www.votegreen.org.nz does use OSS and this is what the press release referred to. Secondly in reference to your May 20th column on email subscription, yes we are aware that the email newsletter subscription system on the main greens.org.nz site is poor, but please we are only volunteers and there are so many other tasks to work on. This will also be fixed after the election. I hope you have noted that the email subscription form on the new votegreen.org.nz site is a double opt-in system as you recommend. Yours sincerely, Stuart Young, Green Party webmaster From: Bill Keesing For : The Editor (for publication) Subj: Xtras' "help" desk I am not suprised that you have people ringing up about Xtras' helpdesk. I worked in the ISP industry up until Jan last year and I heard a large number of stories about them. The people that I spoke to invariably found they did not get the service they expected to get from Xtra, although it could be argued they got value for money from Xtras' helpdesk. I also had chance on more than one occasion to contact the Xtra helpdesk on behalf of a customer and was less than impressed. One of my even told me that the number 24 in relation to their helpdesk meant that it took 24 hours from the time you start the call to the time the call is answered. But I, of course, cannot comment. :-) From: mEMe For : Right Of Reply (for publication) Subj: Getting it right the first time, but oh... :o( In response to the wee excuses of Stuart Young, Green Party webmaster. My immediate thought was - do right first time the Greens' E-Form to Editors, or just don't do it at all, especially after I said as much to Lynne, the American over here showing how things are done over at "her" place, election wise. Well, last week between Bruce's original editorial on this matter and the E-F2E launch, with Bruce's permission I tabled his opinion piece at a Greens public meeting. My particular concerns, echoing some of Bruce's were - 1. the apparent helter skelter haste to get the mechanism "out" there, regardless of whether safeguards and misuse and abuse monitoring were in place. Often steady as she goes, avoids one being on the leading and bleeding edge. 2. imho E-F2Es smack of haste and insincerity. 3. the Kiwi and American ways are different and let's keep it that way, while I'm not suggesting that one is better than the other. They're simply different for various reasons, historical, etc etc... 4. I stressed to Lynne that my approaching her publically on this issue was part and parcel of the process to get it right first time! Instead we get the goof-up in the drop- down box. It's elementary that the top line should "force" the user to choose from the list below and not automatically default to top of the list, Auckland Magazine... :o( From: mEMe For : Right Of Reply (for publication) Subj: Oops Bruce, you beat me to the punch... ;o) I've just seen the required change to the E-FE drop-down list. Spot on there Bruce with the good free advice! And listen Lynne, slow down a little please, as it can't be too healthy for you? Btw and fwiw I'm a paid up member of the Greens, and I was simply trying to get them to listen AND get it right the first time, thereby avoiding any eggs!Hit Reload For Latest Comments
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