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New user? Monday, October 30, 2000
Scient - a "one stop" shop ('cause you won't go back)
via Spahr.org: Scient redesigns their "site", it's 100% Flash.
Is this even a "web presence" as James calls it, given there isn't really any HTML?
Problems that immediately come to mind:
- What are the search engines going to index? (Nothing. Think about the % of referrals your corporate site gets from search engines)
- How do you bookmark a "page"? (You can't. cf: Why Frames Suck)
- How do you present the "site" (and I use that term loosely) to people with disabilities? I'm sure it passes the Bobby tests, but only because there's nothing to test.
This seems like a pretty stupid idea to me. Is it really THAT important to have everything pixel perfect? I don't think so.
Maybe this would work for the kind of web application where bookmarkability isn't an issue, but not for a company's web presence.
Every time I go to that site I have to follow the same click path (which might not be the shortest click path either, but the one I have discovered) to get where I was the last time.
It's like playing Myst or Riven (but worse)... to get to that one place you have to move through the world until you get there -- you might not know the best way, it might take you twice as long as other players.
At least in Myst/Riven, you start off where you left off so you don't have to start every game session from the beginning of the game!
I wondered if maybe they were leaving a cookie to tell their Flash app which screen I last saw -- but no, when I go back to the site after restarting my browser I'm taken back to the opening screen of their presentation.
There's a reason why the web was based on HTML and not on HyperCard. Hell, even with HyperCard you could address the screen you were on:
Ficticious HyperCard address:
card id 5232 of stack http://foo/bar.stack
or perhaps as an URL:
Two BIG thumbs down for the Scient site. Bad bad bad.
How appropriate that the current Alertbox is: Flash: 99% Bad. (I haven't even read the article yet, I found it when looking for the Why Frames Suck link)
Sunday, October 29, 2000
SegaWeb.com: Features: PS2: Disappointing Technology
SegaWeb.com: PS2: Disappointing Technology
For me, it's the availability of EA (NHL!) games that makes or breaks the system. Will NHL 2001 / NHL 2002 run on the Dreamcast? If it did, I'd probably get one of those instead.
4 MB of VRAM (PS2) is a joke! What were they thinking? Couldn't they add more, or is it directly on the EE and thus very difficult to change?
I'm glad I held out on the PS2. I might still get one eventually. What I do NOT want to do is end up having to get an XBox because it's the only decent current generation system. I hope the Nintendo Game Cube kicks ass.
Thursday, October 26, 2000
Netscape 4.76 / Mac
Huh. Apparently the new Netscape 4.76 release for Mac is quite significant... a big feature is the ability to use the MRJ for Java, increasing compatibility with applets.
I wonder though, would that be at the expense of the Java/JavaScript bridge?
Netscape was the only browser that supported JavaScript scripting of Java applets on the Mac... a strategic move by Microsoft to slow down Java, I'm sure. I hope it still supports it.
