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New user? Tuesday, February 8, 2000
(Update: Don't believe it, I found an earlier one on my hard drive... I think I used Corel Xara 2 to do it.)
have browser, will travel
Meanwhile...
I'm not alone! People are upset about CNN's crappy redesign over at inessential.com too...
This is what I'm talking about
I filled out their (tiny) feedback form yesterday. I hated that too, the TEXTAREA was about 17x6, way too small to type in! Here's their response:
Thank you for contacting CNN Interactive and for providing us your input.
If you're having problems viewing our web site due to the font size, you may try adjusting the text size in your browser.
To change text size through Microsoft's Internet Explorer:
Click on View, and then Text Size.
Select Medium instead of Smaller or Smallest .
To change text size through Netscape's Navigator:
Click on View, and then Increase font until the text is a comfortable size.
CNN Interactive offers a variety of message boards (http://cnn.com/discussion) on topics ranging from the latest news issues, to special interest topics such as Entertainment, Books, and Travel. We also offer daily news chats (http://cnn.com/chat) as well as Chat Events with Special Guests.
Thanks again for your interest and keep your browser pointed to http://cnn.com.
Sincerely,
The CNN.com Community Staff
have browser, will travel
My reply, with a free idea:
Then all the other sites would be too large! *Every* other site I visit is at a comfortable size right now.
I'm not about to do that... would you do that in my situation? No, I didn't think so.
Why not allow users to store font-size preferences in their cookies?
If present, you include a style-sheet in the page that sets the default text size to the desired height.
I'm a web application developer, so I know this is easy. Maybe not as easy on CNN.com's scale, but still easy enough.
>Thanks again for your interest and keep your browser pointed to http://cnn.com.
I *am* interested, your site provides great content, but I'm already visiting less often. I wish that weren't the case. Please let me know if the size is restored to the previous setting, or if you implement user-controllable preferences.
Monday, February 7, 2000
have browser, will travel
In response to my little piece about freed software, John "St. Nick" Nicholas shares his experience with a proprietary software company.
have browser, will travel
I received this e-mail from FreeMac today: (this is just a snippet)
Unfortunately, Apple Computer had a change of heart and decided not to allow us to purchase Apple iMacs from them at wholesale prices.
Frankly, we were surprised by Apple's decision, but we were not discouraged. We advised them that we would still be willing to acquire iMacs by paying FULL RETAIL PRICE! And Apple Computer still said no. They did more than say no. They prohibited their major retail accounts from selling us iMacs -- even at regular retail prices! And so we've reached a point where we have to deliver what I know is some very disappointing news to many of you. We simply aren't being allowed to purchase the iMac computers to distribute to you. Apple Computer has left us no choice here.
I'm not an economist, I'm not even good with money. Could somebody PLEASE EXPLAIN to me why Apple wouldn't want to sell a million iMacs to this company?
have browser, will travel
In case you haven't seen it, here's the silly security advisory from CERT.
This has been an issue since the beginning of web time - it's amusing that it's coming to the front now.
Dvorak believes CERT is now Microsoft's mouthpiece to help them revive the old proprietary MSN. I was a subscriber on MSN in '95 when Win95 came out. I actually liked that service. (ducking)
When I first read the CERT advisory, the first thing I thought was, "That's funny, WebObjects apps are immune to this problem!"
WebObjects' "WOString" element, which is used to output a string to a web page, has a property called "escapeHTML". It's set to YES (true) by default. To make a WO app vulnerable to "Cross-site scripting" holes, you'd have to set that property (manually) to NO (false).
Of course, there are times (not many, depending on your app) you need to set escapeHTML to NO, but when you do that, you need to be smart.
New Apple TechInfo Library Article: WebObjects and Dynamic Content. (Found at Stepwise)
Saturday, February 5, 2000
have browser, will travel
Late night opinion: Why I like freed software -- this article might be good for anyone who considers themself an "open source fence-sitter".
have browser, will travel
My thought for the day: I'm really really thankful to be a young webhead right now. Really thankful.
More personal reflection.... I collected comic books as a teenager. I had a LOT of comics. Like, over 2600 of them. I loved them, and at the time (the week before graduating from high-school), it killed me to sell my collection.
But, in hindsight, it was the smartest significant thing I had done up to that point! With the money, I bought my first "real" computer, a Mac LCII.
With that computer, I became re-obsessed with BBSs (my first obsession was on a C=64 with a 300bps modem card), and learned about and became obsessed with the Internet.
That led to the sysop of my favourite BBS convincing me to apply for the Computer Science co-op program at UVic instead of Civil Engineering at Camosun College. Which led to the career I have today, and my being very thankful for being a young webhead in 2000.
