Subj : Freebies
To   : CHARLES ANGELICH
From : Roy J. Tellason
Date : Wed May 04 2005 09:06 pm

CHARLES ANGELICH wrote in a message to ROY J. TELLASON:

WC>> BTW neigther LINKS nor LYNX would open the site :-( 

WC>> Charles got in with a later release of Firefox amd a
WC>> reload. 

RJT> Some sites are just *so* bad. I was talking to somebody
RJT> last night about one, that has the gall to use the word
RJT> "global" in their name -- and which has been a PITA for
RJT> several years now. I heard about it, went to check it out,
RJT> and could only get so far with it, which was a shame,
RJT> because they seemed to offer some certifications and a bit
RJT> of training material. So I wrote them about it, and got
RJT> told that "they only worked with IE and Netscape and I
RJT> should install one of those". To which I responded "This
RJT> is bullshit" and every email from that point onwards
RJT> carried that subject line. :-) 

CA> I'm not saying the website is right or that you are wrong for being
CA> annoyed with them but from their perspective they had IEx 
CA> capability (90% of the browsers in use) and Netscape (at that time
CA> possibly another 5%)? Only a very small percentage of
CA> users (other browsers) were having problems - or so it might seem.

I'm not sure about those percentages.  I read somewhere that since it was 
introduced firefox has snagged about 20%,  though I have no way of knowing how 
accurate those figures are.

RJT> Fast forward a couple of years. Now they have a "browser
RJT> capability test" that you have to get past to use the site. 

CA> "Browser sniffer" - few of these are complete and many are quite 
CA> poorly written.

Indeed.

RJT> Their list of "ok" browsers also includes Mozilla, but my copy of 
RJT> firefox, which is based on Mozilla, wouldn't get past it. 

CA> I'm not familiar enough with FF to know where to change the browser 
CA> ident but there _should_ be a way to have FF ident as 'mozilla'?

There is,  and I don't think I'd have too much trouble finding it,  but should 
that really be necessary?

RJT> It barfed on the browser name, it barfed on the version number 
RJT> (!), and it barfed on such things as me not having flash 
RJT> enabled/installed. Excuse me? WTF to I need that for? 

CA> FLASH is a pain but to be objective the lack of uniformity of the
CA> 'majors' for embedding a player doesn't help web builders write the
CA> proper codes for rm, wmv, or mpg videos.  FLASH OTOH is reputed to
CA> have remained more consistent from version to version and is quite 
CA> compact for both sound and video. I'm only trusting other people's 
CA> opinions on this since I don't use any FLASH on my webpages.
CA> :-)

Well,  I don't use it in my browser,  nor in any of the pages I keep here,  so 
I guess we're even.  :-)

RJT> So I'll find my info elsewhere... 

RJT> You could talk to those guys, and see if they can possibly 
RJT> understand the problem with the site, and if they won't change it, 
RJT> then that speaks volumes toward their attitude in general, and 
RJT> they are probably best avoided anyhow.

CA> Again, it's sloppy web design/code and shouldn't be done that way
CA> but with 95% of the people's browsers accepting the code getting
CA> them to spend more time/money on the website might be like the flea
CA> thinking it owns the dog. ;-) 

Maybe.  Or maybe they'll guess that they're seriously alienating folks and at 
least consider looking into it.  I can't ask for much more than that.

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 * Origin: TANSTAAFL BBS 717-838-8539 (1:270/615)

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