Sunday, December 14, 1997
I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy NSD. With so little time, and so many Web sites,NSD helps me get some good laughs and good information without having to stay up all night. Thanks.
Barbara Iverson
Yeah, that's our mission in a nutshell. - LN
Nice job this week (NSD 3.36)! Thanks for providing a good service.
Dave Morrison
I just received my NSD 3.36, and once again I'm blown away by the quality of the reviews and links. Keep up the great work!
Richard Schwartfeger
I guess I should be honored that y'all decided to review my site ("Folksy Smart-ass Gets Own Page", NSD 3.36). But I wonder... is it gonna help me get laid? Will I get any checks cause of it? Will I even get one of them little lame-ass icons to let everyone know that I have finally achieved some type of status in geekdom? Probably not. All I have gotten so far is two e-mails telling me that a couple of the links are bad and I need to go fix 'em. So instead of being in bed with my hateful, mean, evil but good-looking wife who is trying to kill me in my sleep with subliminal Barry Manilow recordings so she can collect the insurance money and finance a Bay City Rollers reunion tour, here I am updating my home page and drinking a big glass of ice tea. I ain't decided yet whether to thank ye, or come down there and open a can of whupass. I gotta think about this one for a while.
Folksy? Smart-ass, I don't mind. But folksy?
Jeff Wall
I just want to say that your site is one of the best on the Web. Your items always have class and are never mentioned at other locations. Keep it up!
Doug Fagg - Tampa, Florida
I just wanted to say thanks for the great review on your page ("These Guys Can Really Carry a 'Toon", NSD 3.37). I've already encountered increased traffic and presume your prestigious site was responsible for it. Keep watching! We've only just begun.
Andre Noel
Great job. Keep it up. I love this magazine. Thanks.
George Ullrich
Of all the online subscriptions that I have signed up for, NSD is the best. I can't think of any that have been as interesting and useful. I share it with friends and family. Thank you for showing that the Internet can be something more than one big commercial.
Jim Lippincott - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
This is just a note to tell you that I think NSD is way cool. I don't know what your business model is or how you stay in business, but I enjoy every issue. I don't always get to follow the links, but the format is great.
Keep up the good work. (But PLEEASE don't give my address to the spammers!)
John Harris - Atlanta, Georgia
"Hi, Sanford? I've got another for ya...." - LN
Recently, I had to change my e-mail address for subscription and I was absolutlely blown away by how easy it was to do. Great work! It's certainly a lot easier than unsubscribing and resubscribing. Thanks!
I enjoy NSD very much. It's nice to be able to catch up on things Webwise at the end of a hard day! Keep up the good work!
Edward Rogers
Now just a gol-dang minute here! What's going on with the Microsoft versus Compaq/Netscape/something-the-cat-drug-in? Isn't MS trying to claim that the browser is an integrated part/piece of the OS and in NSD 3.36 ("Want to Pirate Some Fonts? Fire up IE 4.0 ") they say just the opposite? Or am I missing something?
Richard Gardner
Couldn't help noticing that: "Microsoft acknowledges the problem, but contends the onus of protection lies with font designers, and if the fonts can be deciphered, it's the fault of the operating system and not the browser. A Microsoft flack offered this: 'As it's fixed down the road, it'll get fixed in the Windows code, not in the browser code.'"
Wasn't it Billy Bob's position re: the Justice Department suit that IE 4.0 is integral to the OS? Just a thought.... ;)
Richard Eisenman
Seems like you both have it straight. - LN
Your magazine is somewhat interesting, and I've read it since it first came out. But it is just too annoying to be pelted by your anti-Microsoft editorializing. You think companies are "good guys" and "bad guys" I guess. Get a clue.
Don Mitchell
I wonder how many of your readers have "frame challenged" browsers? After trying different browsers I keep coming back to Netscape 1.1.
An increasing number of Web sites, however, can only be viewed with a browser that supports frames (some don't even tell you that you need frames, they just refuse to download). Why should I need to change my browser to view a Web site when I'm quite happy with the one I've got? If someone wants me to visit their Web site they should design it so that I can access it with what I've got. Until I've actually visited a Web site I only have the word of your reviewers that it is worth visiting, and while I value their judgement I have to make the final choice of sites to visit is something I have to do for myself. If other readers are in a similar position, it would help if you could include some indication of which sites require frames so we would know what to avoid.
I would still enjoy reading NSD even if I never actually visited any of the sites you review.
Mike Coulson - East Maitland, New South Wales
Here's a suggestion for NSD - include a notation of some kind when the page linked to contains frames. There are quite a few of us out here who have significant problems viewing framed pages. I get frame-induced crashes often enough that I will immediately back out of any framed page I hit.
Just a thought. Keep up the good work!
Glenn Rice
Considering that we only devote 10 lines or so to a site, I have to make the decision whether it's worth using five or 10% of that space to let the readers know whether it has frames or not. I don't think the trade-off is worth it. - LN
I was wondering if you had considered isolating a section of your virtual travel feature and archive for VRML related sites. As VRML allows an immersive experience, it's a perfect candidate for virtual travel.
Todd Shafer
Considering that a significant number of readers still complain when we use sites that contain frames, I don't think I'd like to alienate them by devoting a whole section to VRML of various flavours. Not to say that I avoid VRML, or QTVR, or any other 3-d format, but I think having a whole section if it might be a bit too much. - LN
I have been a very happy subscriber to your list for over a year. I look forward to receiving it each week. Thanks for a great service. With a distribution of your size, what do you use to send the e-mail? I want to start a newsletter of my own and would appreciate any information you could provide. I do not miss receiving your message each week and I have never had any trouble opening or reading it. Obviously, you know what you are doing.
Kevin Seale
We developed our own specialized set of e-mail programs. If you don't want to do that you can look at a couple of popular list management packages called majordomo and listserv. - AB
I would appreciate knowing what program you use to place the banner ads on your page and how you get the white background. Yours is the only one I've seen that consistently works correctly.
Marlin Greene - Seattle, Washington
That sounds like two questions really. We use Flycast to place our advertising. You can see the HTML we use just by looking at the source either in your e-mail (save it into a file and look at it with a text editor) or on the Web (View Page Source or some such menu item in your browser). - AB
I've read the FAQ, and I don't have a prob with HTML. But why cookies?
David Dye
The cookies are from our ads, I think. We ourselves don't use cookies. - LN
Yep, they are. Unfortunately cookies are the only way to accurately measure the number of people who visit a site, as opposed to raw hits. So in our case they're used by our ad management company for the most boring of reasons, accounting. Sure, they could be used for neferious purposes, but I assure you, we're not evil. But then, that's what the devil would say, isn't it :).
Naaah, we'd be out of business in two seconds flat if we messed with our readers privacy - you can't hide on the net, not if you want to be around for any length of time. - AB
I am a management graduate with a MBA from the University of Glasgow. I am at present in Bombay, India and have a keen interest in the Internet. I have also been following NSD for a while and I would like to be associated with it. If there is anything that i can do from here please let me know. I can contribute articles, etc. or if there is a possibility of me being associated in any other capacity. please let me know.
Vivek Thakur
We don't use freelancers, but once in a while we do solicit applications for staff writers. Your best bet is to wait and watch for such an announcement. - LN
My company's Web site was listed in NSD on June 30, 1997. We are currently adding icons and information indicating awards the site has received. We were wondering if there was an icon or other mention we could use at the bottom of our home page to indicate our listing with you.
Lisa Middlebrook
We have an icon at http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/redist. html. Feel free to use it. - LN
I consider myself to have a great curiousity in many areas. One of the things I don't really care for is the amount of American content that is constantly coming my way.
Are there not other Web sites that offer news services from other countries than the US? I would really enjoy a site that offers information about other countries via their newspapers. Of course, I understand the input would have to be in English so I can read it, but can you find something like that? Anyway, you do good work and keep it up.
Linda Darwent
For what it's worth, I'm not American, so I'm sensitive to this. On the other hand, something like 3/4 of all Web sites are American, so you take what you can get.
I try to include worthy sites no matter where they come from. if most Web sites are American, most good ones will be too. There is an international news site in the pipe for issue 3.41, if you can wait that long. - LN
My condolences over the server glitch in NSD 3.36. Having worked in the software industry for the last several years, It never ceases to amaze me that we make ourselves dependent upon technology that can turn on us for reasons that are sometimes comepletely unfathomable. As a fairly technical person, I am constantly running into "normal users" who are running into problems and have no idea where to even start to solve their problem. The level of complexity in these machines and the breakneck speed of development for hardware, software, and the linkages between them makes me wonder if we will ever escape the spiral.
I used to think that product cycles would start to lengthen once we moved beyond the "tornado phase" of the operating systems and everyday tools - how many people really need a word processor more powerful than MS Write or Wordpad? The cycles are getting shorter, unfortunately, and companies are forced into thinking that they must pre-release software in order to show that they are moving forward. If you are not on a dead run, you are stopped. This leads to software of incredible complexity and a lower level of quality given the shortage of truly gifted people in the industry.
At some point, people stop buying to upgrade because it does not make business sense. We saw a minor backlash when Win95 was released and people were slow to adopt the new standard. What happens when the next step is taken? If it does not support the old products 100%, it will be a forced upgrade as others buy new machines. Planned obsolescence? It is a testament to the industry that this growth has sustained itself this long. I wonder how the key players plan on cracking the masses and getting a PC in every home. I cannot see it happening until they become so cheap as to be a throwaway commodity, or someone releases a product that they promise to keep compatible for five years. The perception of one-year obsolescence is going to haunt this industry and keep it from capturing the market that it wants the most.
The ghost of Geoffrey Moore's "Inside the Tornado" haunts every manager in every small or medium sized high-tech company. The faster new releases can be shipped, the better. It creates the illusion of growing public acceptance of the product and will hopefully spawn the momentum necessary to snowball. All these managers are teased by the idea that it is achievable to manage an organization in order to reach the potential tornado. I don't argue that the tornado is possible, but it is like winning the lottery; you can't win if you don't play. I have been on the inside during a tornado and what happens is remarkable. The problem is that it is completely outside of the control of the players. Instead of managing for sustainable growth, it becomes managing for the big score. It is no wonder that quality is the first thing that suffers.
Having said that, I don't think that there are any quick fixes to this and, to be honest, I like the excitement that it forces into our industry. It's just a little disheartening sometimes that our computers are expected to go down now and then. And, of course, it is when we need them the most.
Brian Wolfe - Osgoode, Ontario
>From NSD 3.33, "Just How Fast Is a MHz? It Depends on the Box": "One nifty side effect of all these boxes attempting the same process is an accurate comparison of true processor speeds."
I'd like to add a bit of a caveat to this: RC5 statistics represent an accurate comparison of processor speeds at performing a specific mathematical task.
A glance at the stats will tell you that one of the slowest CPU types is the MIPS, used in Silicon Graphics workstations. My Pentium 150 outperforms most of the MIPS processors, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a faster processor for general work. An AMD K5 is one of the fastest x86 processors for processing RC5 keys - but I wouldn't choose it over the much faster AMD K6 or a Pentium for doing any real tasks.
Specific CPU characteristics - particularly integer math instructions - contribute to key rate but may not be an accurate rating of the usefulness or general speed of a processor.
Your article is a great example of the fallacy of taking benchmarks too seriously. I was also a bit disappointed that you didn't encourage users to join the effort - you spent 4 inches on benchmarks and almost none on the main points of the RC5 effort: the coolness of very highly distributed computing, and the need for strong encryption.
Joshua O'Keefe
As the co-publisher of an advertiser-supported content site, I am always looking for a measurement service that really defines the way the Web delivers for its advertisers. Yesterday, I spoke with a new Web rating service that is hoping to put the Web in the same box with TV and Radio as measured media. They offer a service that compares and ranks the reach of Web sites.
Here we go again.... Publishing on and advertising on the Web is nothing like the other electronic media. Web sites are highly targeted and totally specific in content and should be designed to provide a co-branding opportunity for the advertiser who understands the impact that the integration of their brand within highly relevant editorial content delivers. Site sponsors' exposure can be guaranteed by the inclusion of the sponsors ID or message on every content page. Wouldn't a smart advertiser jump at the chance to have this identification on every page of a relevant magazine or have their logo always displayed at the bottom of a TV networks programs?
Rating services, the agencies, and unfortunately most advertisers forget that the other part of effective advertising is frequency. Advertisers should use the mass media for reach and the Web for saturation frequency against target audiences. Smart online content publishers will offer the opportunity to saturate their site to relevant advertisers.
In the "old days", advertising professionals understood this concept and bought Newspaper double trucks for impact and big reach with smaller ads throughout the rest of the paper for frequency. Radio offered vertical saturation packages that would give an advertiser a spot every 15 minutes to take advantage of effective reach and saturation frequency. It seems that saturation frequency is now lost in the advertising world, not because it is ineffective but because most of the media buyers, planners, and client ad management are too young to remember when you could afford to buy reach and saturation frequency on electronic media.
But saturation advertising works and advertisers should buy the Web this way. Don't waste ad money on big reach sites if you don't buy all the reach. In fact, the bigger the reach on a site, the less opportunity an advertiser has to economically make an impact on the visitor. If the criteria of an ad buy on a site is the total monthly unique visitors and the buy is made for only for a fixed number of impressions, what the heck does the total reach mean? An impression stands on its own and has nothing to do with how many other impressions that site delivers. Duh!
Bob Gordon - Louisville, Kentucky
>From NSD 3.39: "All the Fun of an Artist Colony without the Berets"
Hey, the berets ARE the fun part! Now if you had written "All the Fun of a Nudist Colony"....
Millinerily,
Jim Ward
I was surprised to see members of my community fighting angrily over an issue whose existence I hadn't even been aware of. I'm not an NSD e-mail subscriber. Before my recent computer upgrade, I read the NSD page with Lynx. I thought that I was reading text, because (unlike some other Web sites) NSD is easy to read with Lynx. I didn't know that you had two different versions for e-mail.
I would like to suggest that you produce one more text issue of NSD. It should be a special issue, devoted to making the Web accessible to the handicapped. Some good places to start would be W3C Accessibility Developments and the Blind Web Ring.
The issue could review sites and tools that help the handicapped or include tips about how we can all design our Web sites so that they do not present unnecessary obstacles to the handicapped.
Keep up the great work.
Eric Schechter
You guys should get a copy of Eudora 3 and see how NSD looks in it. Guess what? I don't need to look at NSD in a browser, so I don't see that silly ad. Eudora has clickable links so I don't need to open the file with my Web browser in order to go to any of the Web sites.
Your advertising scheme doesn't work (at least for all Eudora users). Maybe you should rethink the text version.
Erich Eyler
I grimaced at being required to receive NSD in HTML but, joy!. Eudora 3.0 takes it well. Now I'm wondering where are the ads that this changeover was supposed to bring. Not a complaint, of course, but to the extent the lack of ads means you aren't selling any I've got to wonder if NSD will be around much longer. Losing NSD would be a darn shame.
Art Steinmetz
We are selling ads, but Eudora doesn't display them. Isn't Eudora wonderful? - LN
I would just like to comment on the irony of the complaints that a guide to sites on the Web is being lambasted for using HTML instead of plain text. I guess they will have to remember to go to your Web site by themselves instead.
Rick Piper
You could get "More Signal, Less Noise" by eliminating the thing at the top of the page which causes my modem to start to dial my ISP whenever I open your mail file. Please do so.
Wayne Chrisman
That's an ad, and you probably have a setting that will prevent the automatic dialing. Probably.... - LN
Congratulations on the continuing excellence of NSD.
However, the right justification of some of the headings is perhaps not as effective as you obviously think - otherwise you would not continue with such an ineffective formatting practice.
When you first used them, I thought you had gone to 800x600 resolution and tried pressing my left scroll to no effect. Then I thought you were quoting from a letter. Now, such headings are merely distracting, making more difficult that which is difficult enough already - reading from a monitor screen.
Please, relocate them to the left margin.
Maurice Tindall - Adelaide, Australia
AHA!!!!! I found the problem! Our HTML code includes an "align right" command in order to get the "Top" link on the right-hand margin. I just checked it out on a Windows machine and I saw the right justification - which carries through to the section headings. My Mac Eudora doesn't do this (both are Light versions 3.X). The problem continues (at least as far as 3.38), however. All of you reading this should write Arthur and tell him to fix it already. - LN
I use Mac Eudora 3.0 to receive my NSDs. Previously, when I received these messages I did a "Save As" adding the .html extention. Then I could "Open File" within Netscape and I would have a live page with clickable links.
Now that doesn't work, and although I see "clickable" links in the e-mail I receive they do not work.
Any help would be appreciated.
Bette Abdu
Let me begin by saying that I think NSD is one of the coolest things I have ever found on the internet. I have found nearly every issue to be useful and/or entertaining. I have recommended it to all of my friends. Who says you can't get anything good for free anymore?
Unfortunately, I have recently had a problem with the format of the issues sent to me. It seems as though I have been switched from the HTML version to the text version all of a sudden. My e-mail is Mac Eudora Light 3.1 and my browser is Netscape Navigator 3.01.
A. Pearson
OK, I think I know what's happening. Eudora 3.1 itself interprets the HTML code, so that what arrives as a HTML issue gets somewhat HTML implemented, and it looks like text - just as an HTML page looks like text in Netscape.
In order to save a HTML copy for viewing in Netscape, you have to press the "blah, blah, blah" button. This will make Eudora display the raw HTML code, and since Mac Eudora only saves what it displays (NOT what it receives), you have to do this to save it as an HTML document. - LN
Just a note about your NSD HTML version: You need to put a quick return link at the bottom of you articles, it's a real pain to have to scroll to the top everytime.
David Hicks
I use a mail reader which is able to read HTML, and I save the whole NSD as a text file, then resend the text file to myself as a mail message.
It strips out all of that ugly html code very nicely. I do this as a matter of principle for all the reasons very nicely covered by other people more eloquent than I.
Michael Zawistowski
I realize that you need bucks to survive, but your sneaky e-mail links suck! Put them in a category called Advertisementor something like that. Don't embed them with your articles.
Rob Pierce
I just wanted to write and tell you that I thought your 12 sites of Christmas was really innovative until I got to the Traci Lord page. Considering this is a page that children would be drawn to (in fact I had pulled it up with my three-year-old), I don't feel that partially nude woman are appropriate. Can you honestly say that it is? I'm sure that you feel that this was not made for children or whatever justification you choose to use, but just by typing in Santa Claus on a search engine I was given your site. Sorry, I just don't feel that the cross reference is appropriate.
Julie Boisseau
I recently ran across your 12 Days of Christmas Page and was highly disappointed. I assumed it would be a family friendly page being about Christmas and all, but what should I find but a link to a porn star? Come on guys, what is wrong with this picture?
Your home page uses key words like responsible, ethical and effective:
"Welcome to Netsurfer Communications, Inc.. We produce a line of specialty E-Zines and provide consulting services to businesses which are interested in creating an ethical, responsible, and effective online presence."
Belinda Augustus
Being "ethical, responsible, and effective" does not mean catering to the lowest common denominator. We will not avoid adult content simply because it is adult content. If it's interesting or amusing we'll deal with it in an adult fashion. Whether we like it or not, sex and even perhaps pornography are part of all societies and it would be hypocritical to ignore them. We don't generally cover them because most of the time these subjects are not all that interesting online (oh boy, another naked behind - snore...) and it's not our primary niche.
It's a big world out there, and "family friendly" does not mean the same thing in all corners of the world. Not that we ever claim to be "family friendly" in the right-wing American religious sense anyway.
I always find it interesting how people tend to read their own values into even the most bland statements without thinking them through. The beauty of the Internet, of course, is that it allows for a wide diversity of opinion. You are free at any time to create your own site which reflects your values for just about no cost. In fact, I would encourage you to do so since I strongly believe in the marketplace of ideas. The good ones will ultimately triumph.
Thanks for the feedback. - AB
Was Pyramid Tile (NSD 3.36) some kind of joke? I looked at the site and saw nothing but "amateur" written all over it. It looked awful and had terrible navigation. How on earth did it get any awards? I couldn't have been looking at the same web site reviewers saw. Was it chosen simply for content? I don't get it.
Bill
Damned if I know. I was out of the loop this time - we were training a substitute editor. I'll take your letter as a negative comment. ;) - LN
It is too bad that the use of crude, filthy language ("Folksy Smart-Ass Gets Own Page", NSD 3.36) mars an otherwise useful source of information. I really expected contributors to be sufficiently fluent in the language so as to be capable of avoiding the use of such demeaning language.
It appears that your contributors are either lacking in language skills or are mentally and morally challenged. I hope that the situation improves. Very soon.
Darry L. Deaton
The only two words I can see that might offend you are "bastard" and "smart-ass". Both of these words, though, come straight from the site and we use them in quotes. The words are not used gratuitously by us, but they do help place the atmosphere of the site in the minds of our readers, most of whom I don't think find them offensive. Whether or not that is the case, I wouldn't use them unless I felt they were useful, and here I do - as underscored by the last line in the article: "Remember, you were warned." - LN
I can't believe you'd actually suggest this creepy Web site ("The Zodiac Killer", NSD 3.38) as a surfing site! Please, haven't we had enough of the gory, true-crime marketing of serial killers as antiheroes? Must you advocate surfing onto such worthless Web sites that exploit the victims unrelenting pain from repeatedly being reminded of the awful losses they've suffered?
Think I'll get off this mailing list!
Cara
Thank you for your inclusion of a plug for the page about HIV/AIDS among the Maasai in NSD 3.36. I do have a problem, however, with your statement that the disease is "running rampant" amongst these people. I did not say this is my article on the page and this may not actually be the case amongst this particular ethnic group. We simply don't know as there are no statistics. It is just an assumption that it is present among the Maasai. There are statistics on the general population, however, and they are frightening.
Jan Kneen-McDaid
I do not know if it is intended but your wording seems xenophobic. In NSD 3,39, you say: "Most hackers attack commercial sites, and 72% of attacks originate outside the US." The original clearly adds: "Because of the nature of the IP protocol, NetRanger is able to determine the origination of the last segment or "hop" of the connection, which may or may not be the actual origination point...."
Even so, 39% seems huge considering the relative amount of Internet users in and out of the US. I guess if I was trying to do something illegal I would try to make it look foreign.
Peter Hodgson
It's difficult to accurately convey the nuances of a complex, number-filled study like this in 12 lines. Instead, we try to hit the highlights and let you read the original source for yourself.
However, we did err in that the accurate quote should have said that 72% of Web attacks instead of, as implied, all attacks were from foreign sources.
So no, while we were not being intentionally xenophobic, we were unintentionally sloppy - well, make that I was unintentionally sloppy, since I'm the one who wrote this item. - AB
Address your letters to
editor@netsurf.com.
Letters and signatures edited for clarity and brevity.