“A view of that name cannot be found in the specified database”
Well, gosh, thanks. Why not just go the whole way and say “Non-specific badness has occurred”?
Mar 302005
Mar 282005
We are in need of a new word. A word to describe a particular experience.
For there is a particular experience which currently lacks a word to describe it.
I speak, of course, of the experience of clearing one's throat, the action of which dislodges a fragment of hot peri-peri spiced chicken, which subsequently flies up into the nasal passages, opening the mind to entirely new worlds of discomfort.
I believe that I can state with confidence that there is currently no word in existence to describe this experience. I firmly believe that there ought to be one.
Mar 282005
In fact, not all that new, as I've had it for about three weeks now. But it's only really been this weekend that I've had a chance to drive it properly and decide that yes, I really do love it to bits.
And here it is:
Ads. There is a tension in “web land” between the necessity of ads to fund the web sites we enjoy reading, and the tendency of advertisers to annoy the hell out of us by getting in the way of the stuff we're actually trying to read.
In Firefox we have the lovely Adblock extension, an easy-to-use tool to help us deal with this issue. Of course, none of us want our favourite sites to wither and die because all of their ad revenue dries up, and on that basis I have compiled the following set of handy hints for web site owners.
- If your site contains popups or popunders, I will block them. This is surely a no-brainer by now, but it's surprising how many still seem to not get it.
- If your site contains expanding banners, flash overlays, or anything else which obscures the page I'm trying to read, I will block them. What's important to me when reading your site is the content of the site. Anything that gets in the way of the content should be removed, and if you won't do it, I will.
- If your site contains banners which prevent the page content from loading because the ad broker's server is slow, I will block them. Design your pages so that they don't block waiting for ads to load, and see above.
- If your site contains banners which look like dialogue boxes, or exhort me to “click on something to win a prize”, I will block them. I will also block every other ad I can find on your site. Respect your readers and find a less unscrupulous ad broker.
- Interstitials. I will probably leave your site and not return.
Apart from this, as long as there appears to be more content than ads on the page I'm reading, and there are no headache-inducing animations, the rest will probably remain unblocked.
I might even click on one some time.
