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Reader Comments on Aardvark Daily 6 August 2002

Note: the comments below are the unabridged submissions of readers and do
not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher.

 

From: Stuff fan
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Sure it looks like some teething problems but...

Are you sure Stuff is guilty of the things you are accusing
them of? I mean you have a dead link in your own article -
throwing stones in glass houses? (Check out the IDG link)

To me, the new Stuff is great, it is so much faster and I
will continue to have it as my homepage - the best news
service in NZ.

It is easy to throw mud but what's your qualification? -
ever done anything big like Air NZ or INL is doing? Even
self appointed experts should appreciate that in IT even
the best laid plans can go awry (if only temporarily). May
the Internet remain at the bleeding edge!

Stuff fan.

Aardvark Responds
The dead link (now fixed) was caused by IDG deleting
the original story to which I was referring -- hardly
my fault ;-)

What is my qualification?  Have I built anything as
large or complex as Stuff?

Well I've performed pre-launch/relaunch surveys of
sites for some of the most well-known names in the
world, as well as many very large local sites.

Clearly the writer isn't a long-time Aardvark
reader or he'd also know that from 1997 to 1999
I built and operated a news website that
attracted a larger audience than CNNfn, the
BBC, The NewYork Post, The Washington Post,
Wired, and even Playboy.com.

I think those are adequate qualifications to
back up my comments in today's column.




From: Gavin
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Hacking....

Its quite funny you mention hacking by URL's, as one of my
internet accounts was suspended a few years back
for "hacking". I was not aware I had been hacking - I had
entered an IP that was given to me by someone which took me
to a page which basically said "You shouldnt be here" - I
thought "how boring" and left the site yet the next day i
couldnt log into my account. I contacted the company and
was told I was under investigation for hacking their
internal system!!!! (The IP turned out to be an "entrance"
for internal NOC use) Now the stupid thing is, I was
actually employed by the ISP at the time and the "hacking"
episode went on my record there and I was not entrusted
with any "secure/sensitive data" for the 3 years of
employment.
All because I viewed a website.
Whats next, are we going to be taken to court for a breach
of copyright because IE has someones copyrighted logo in
the cache  after we browsed their site ?




From: J J
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: INL & IT

Your critcisms of INL are spot on, and probably don't go
far enough. Having taught a few hundred Wellington students
the basics of making websites, I heartily agree
that "server overload" is the least plausible reason for
this week's problems at stuff.co.nz. Poor design,
implementation, and lack of testing are readily apparent.
Unless they somehow manage to fix this amusing debacle
before the morning, their site will make an excellent
example in class tomorrow.

Not that INL has ever managed to impress anyone with their
grasp of IT-related issues, of course. Unlike other major
news websites of the world, they fail to include most of
their printed articles and features on the site, and then
refuse to archive anything for public access. The
subscription-based "archivestuff" service provides access
to the archives, but again omits the full corpus of printed
features.




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