Reader Comments on Aardvark Daily 26 August 2002
Note: the comments below are the unabridged
submissions of readers and do
not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher.
From: Jonathan For : The Editor (for publication) Subj: The Thing That Really Amuses Me! With the Xtra page you pointed to is that, even though they've corrected the date issues, they still have at least one typo; "introduced toprotect customers " Even ignoring your comments about Press Releases you'd think they'd triple-check a known problem page the second time around. whoops. From: HT For : The Editor (for publication) Subj: Xtra Yea man they have like a whole army of people working for them these errors shouldnt get through. From: Jonathan Dodd For : The Editor (for publication) Subj: I like spam?? Just a thought... Last week I received a spam email from an American outfit... offering a product which is highly relevant to my work, with apparently good quality and very good prices. My subsequent discussions with the firm in question have been enjoyable and productive and I'm very very likely to buy soon. I (and my company) wins, and the spammer wins too (i.e. a good business exchange). Yet by transacting, I'm implicitly approving of spam....? This is perhaps a clear indication that spam per se may not be bad - don't out down the channel or the mechanism, just it's misuse. Hmm, this is the same argument given by all we pro-internet people when defending the net against those who see it all as being about porn and bomb-making. Perhaps we should show better judgement against spam in future? A little more leeway perhaps? (just some rambling Monday morning thoughts) From: Chris Beaven For : The Editor (for publication) Subj: HTML validity... I totally agree that the Xtra errors are unacceptable and I acknowledge that you aren't exactly running on the same budget ;) but I find it hard to swallow when people start complaining about other people's sites when they still use the <font> tag... Enter the HTML 4.01 Specification Recommendation by W3C on 24 December 1999. Tags like <font> and <center> are now depreciated. How come Aardvark hasn't moved with the times and started CSSing his pages? PS: Take a look at Aardvark's current page validated by the W3C Validation Service. Aardvark Responds I continue to use the FONT tag in preference to style sheets because it ensures that older browsers are supported. Is this backwards compatibility essential? Maybe not, but I note that the site is still getting hit by Netscape 4.x browsers, and even a few version 3.x users. Would style sheets provide me (and readers) with any functionality that is indespensible? Hell no. The loading of a .css file also requires another socket to be opened -- and this can slow page loading since most browsers default to having no more than 4 sockets open at a time. As for the W3C compliance -- I know this site produces many warnings -- but so do most sites and, more important than W3C conformance, I check that it renders correctly when using as many browser types as possible. For proof of this assertion, check out the validator's reports for the following sites: www.microsoft.com www.google.com www.yahoo.com All of these fail to even include the document type declaration! Since Aardvark is hand-coded and the basic code is hacked and chopped thousands of times in the period of a year, I tend to "tidy it up" ever few months but always check that it renders correctly on the most commonly used browsers. That's more than Xtra seem to have done ;-) From: Phil For : The Editor (for publication) Subj: Spam... A previous correspondent says, "I (and my company) wins, and the spammer wins too[...]". And it's exactly that sort of selfish attitude that means spam won't be going away any time soon. It comes down to a matter of principle, and reality. Is that deal really so good that it justifies all the *other* spam your company receives, in terms of bandwidth and staff time? It may well be worth it for you, but it sure isn't worth it for me and the millions of other people who have to suffer just because individuals and companies like yours legitimise spam as a marketing technique when it means you get a good deal. Besides, what's your company need a good deal on fake degrees for anyway?Hit Reload For Latest Comments
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