Friday, August 27, 1999
In NSD 5.14 ("Court Settles Trademark Scuffle"), you wrote: "the Court set down rules which should help keep the Web useful as an information tool."
I disagree. The Court likened the use of a competitor's trademarked phrase in meta tags to phony signposts along a real world road. The analogy is weak. First, search engines generate lists, not hyperlinks. Therefore, the use of competitors' names in meta tags may help generate more relevant lists, since competing links may be conceptually related.
Second, search engine listings generally provide more than merely a link. The accompanying description or description meta tag, will provide important information that may essential to the determination of whether or not consumers are confused by a listing.
Lastly, clicking on a Web site is hardly like a wrong turn on a road. A simple click takes you to or away from a Web site. A wrong turn on a road involves considerably more inconvenience to the consumer. Trademark law exists primarily to prevent merchants from portraying their wares as coming from sources other than those from which they actually come and thus confusing the public. Although the law does not permit purveyors of goods to unscrupulously trade off the reputations developed by other businesspeople, its primarly purpose is the protection of consumers, not competitors. Uncritical acceptance of decisions like this one by the Net community may result in the establishment of legal rules that are detrimental to the Web's progress and growth.
Roger Klein, MD, JD
At http://www.netsurf.com/nsb/ you have, "Read the legendary Netsurfer Digest, the oldest ezine on the web bringing cyberspace directly to your mailbox since 1994."
Huh? There were e-zines around long before 1994, and some are still publishing. Just a few examples: Tidbits started in 1990, Fun People in 1991, and Risks Digest began some years before that. I suggest a correction.
Bob Rankin
All those fine publications started on the
pre-Web Internet or in the BBS community as text-only publications. We
are the oldest surviving e-zine specifically designed for and published
on the Web, born just a few months after Mosaic was unleashed on the
masses. Those others converted to the Web after we'd been on it for
some time. That's not to minimize their contribution - NSD owes a lot
to Risks and Edupage as models. But we were the first regularly
published HTML Web-based e-zine. That's something we'll stand by
proudly. What's more, we were the first ones to regularly send Web
pages through e-mail - though some crusty oldsters still view that as
anathema. :)
BTW, you can see the first editions of the Digest - indeed all
the back issues - on the
Back Issues page. - AB
Arthur, that http://www.netsurf.com/nsb/ sentence could use a good edit.... - LN
Yep that's the way to make more work for yourself, go for it :) - AB
I respect NSD a lot. Although I can't surf on the net - I'm travelling on a boat - I have a fairly good idea what goes on with the witty description you give on a good number of topics.
But "Access Your E-Mail through the Web" (NSD 5.15) is in my eyes pure nonsense.
You might be away from your local access provider, but you are never away from your e-mail account when you have access to the Net. These are two different things!
You don't need to call home to get your e-mail. If you have a laptop, just log in to a local access provider. Or use a public system in a library or cafe and configure a the e-mail software with your own e-mail address to check your mail. If you want global access, go with ATT, IBM, or an iPass ISP. Or use a Web gateway - most cruisers do it like that with e-mail accounts at Yahoo or Hotmail.
The invention of Umailme is a non-thing. You can put a '.forward' in your mailconfig to your Yahoo or Hotmail or whatever account. I hope you agree that this article misinforms and puts the not-so technically oriented readers of NSD on the wrong foot.
Paul van Oss - S/V Watergeus, somewhere near Central America
Your suggestions are all accurate, but as an option, I'd prefer Umailme. I get my mail which stays on my server (unless I choose to delete it) without hassles. All of your suggestions require a second e-mail account (as in Hotmail) or a second dial-up account (as in IBM), added configuring, some risk, etc. With Umailme, all you need is any old connection and any old Web browser on any old platform. - LN
Why ask about Exleysucks.com ("Bush Battles Bogus Basher", NSD 5.16)? Just curious - I thought Chuck was brilliant.
Linda and Jim Beard
It's always good to lock your back door if you're taking potshots out the front.... - LN
You poor dumb b......! It is obvious that your experience with nuclear weapons is on video. That yellow-bellied traitor that sold the White House ought to be tried and shot. That's what we did with the Rosenbergs. I have seen them go off up close and personal. Seen their light and felt their heat. Before you tell me how small an atomic weapon is, tell me all about the biggest explosion you have personally witnessed. Today, even a 2" firecracker is illegal. Forgive them for they know not what they've done. You just don't know.
EJ Woolums
P. S. you've excused that @#$%$#$#% for the last time. Please cancel NSD to this account. You're as bad as he is.
(EJ's referring to "The Cox Report on Chinese
Spying" in NSD 5.17).
What on Earth are you on about? OK, you think nuclear weapons are more
dangerous than economic chaos. Fine.
But who have we excused? Who do you call a "yellow bellied traitor"?
According to the Cox Report, the Chinese have been stealing nuclear
secrets for 20 years. - LN
It's outrageous that anyone who has even a general understanding of what is contained within the Cox report can state that it's "the international equivalent of boys will be boys".
Sure, countries are going to spy on one another. That's a part of the game. If China obtained enough missile technology to advance them 40 or 50 years, nobody can blame them for trying.
That's not what the Cox report was about. The underlying theme was that there's a strong possibility that the one or more administrations may have made it easier for the Chinese to get missile and bomb technology in exchange for something. This bipartisan report shows strong evidence ofthis and it should be investigated.
I believe that "most sensible people" would read the Cox report and see that things happened that cannot be ignored just because it's a "dead issue with the press".
Your obvious political slant is not what I read NSD for.
Adam
Secrets are a commodity in the intelligence business, so why can't they be traded for other considerations by those who own them? - LN
Referring to your article "Steam Engines" (NSD 5.17), I have to point out that "Scuola Media" is not an Italian new media student farm, but it is a school for children 11-13 years old. In fact, "media" is not, in this case, the short form for "mass media" but it means "middle", for this kind of school is between "scuola elementare" (6-10) and "scuola superiore" (14-18).
dr. Zantaf (and others)
Crap. I even checked it with Babelfish. Still, that's better than the unedited version, in which our anonymous writer thought Scuola Media di Calizzano was a man. :) - LN
I'm a teacher at Calizzano school. I'm very well surprised for your appreciation of the work on the steam engines. Please excuse my bad English. Best regards.
Francesco Calcagno
Hey, he didn't even mention you know what! - LN
I've been receiving NSD for some time, and have mostly been pleased with the content. However, I was profoundly disgusted with NSD 5.17, specifically the article irreverently titled "Jesus is Coming - Look Busy". The Web site you refer to is misguided at best and deliberately antagonistic to real Christianity at worst. If the editors of the site were at all concerned about Christian "mission," as you claim, they would be proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Nowhere on the site do they do so.
Furthermore, what you call "strong writing" is unbelievably biased, completely lacks Biblical citation (which reveals that the authors are purely unconcerned with the other sides of the issues they "rant" about), is totally unsupported by physical data of any kind, and is riddled with arguments so weak as to be absolutely laughable. In other words, the entire content of the site amounts to nothing more than a slugfest of opinions. The authors of the site reveal themselves to be completely devoid of any wish to effectively argue the points which they thrust upon their online audience. Nowhere in their "strong writing" do they cite any sources. Your presentation of the site in your description makes the site appear to be honestly presented, which it flagrantly is not. I'm not sure with which party to be more disgusted, "Ship of Fools" or the person who wrote the site description for NSD.
And regarding WWJD, does "Ship of Fools" ever say anything about what the whole issue is about? Absolutely not. No mention is made of the book upon which the entire movement is based. No attempt is made to argue the main points of the whole issue, of a person basing their entire life on the life of Jesus Christ. "Ship of Fools," in their typical style, ignores the cogent points of the issue, preferring to deal soley with the surface material, making the whole thing out to be a money scam. It positively reeks of yellow journalism, propagandism, and one-sided data presentation. So does the description of the site in the NSD.
Quite frankly, I expected better of you people.
Jason C. Hackwith
I gotta say, that's one hell of a letter. - LN
Thanks for the terrific newsletter. It's always a joy to read. However, in NSD 5.18, you goofed. In the review of "Literate Gen-X Travel and Musings", you discuss assume a recent court ruling about the possession of child pornography comes from Ontario. The ruling was made in British Columbia where all things wacky and wonderful are always taking place.
Gwen Marsh
No one ever tells you what the patients were like before the lobotomy. Lobotomy was only used for violently psychotic patients - uncontrollably maniacal, hysterical, thrashing, harmful to others, self abusive, requiring restraint in four limb leather cuffs that would cut into their skin leaving them with bleeding and infected sores, vomiting, urinating, and evacuating their bowels indescriminantly.
Sometimes they were simply thrown into empty rooms with padded walls (they really did exist). There was no effective medication when Freeman invented the his surgical procedure that relied on neurophysiologic theory that was cutting edge at the time. It may seem barbaric, but anesthesia was available in those years, and was used. It made light years of difference in the care of those patients.
The "ice pick" lobotomy was actually performed for only a short time, with refinement of the technique coming soon after its inception. The frontal leucotomy took its place and was far less disturbing. Once the anti psychotic medications were developed (Thorazine and others), the procedure fell into disuse. Those medications, however, are not without their own litany of side effects, several of which are both common and debilitating.
The real shame of it all is that in 1999, the sub selective pre-frontal leucotomy could be performed stereotactically with a single tiny incision, under local anesthesia, with pinpoint accuracy, and good results, avoiding most the problems of the original techniques, and all of the problems of the medications.
But because the procedure has such a bad reputation with the general public, which has virtually no understanding of the facts involved, and because of horribly skewed portrayals like "One Flew Over The Cookoo's Nest", performing that operation has become socially unacceptable, and hence, carries too much liability to perform. Too bad for the poor psychotic who shuffles through life in a stupor of powerful sedatives, a slave of the uncontrollable movement disorder produced by the chronic use of those drugs, and further obtunded by the medications used to treat the side effects of the first meds.
Sort of gives the problem a whole new side, say what?
Adam HaAretz
In NSD 5.21, you said: "Bottom line: if you got this issue without problems, great - that's what we expect. If you see anything odd or failed to get this issue then do let us know - we do appreciate your help and try to 'fess up to any problems as soon as possible."
If I failed to get this issue, how would I know?
Robert Williams
I received this last issue just fine, however you asked those that didn't get it to let you know. If you didn't get the issue how are you going to see the request you made? Isn't that kind of like getting a storm warning from your turned off radio or TV? Just thought I'd ask.
Norman Russell
Ah, the paradoxes of modern life.... Seriously, many readers, when an issue seems late, check what's posted at our Web site. If they see an issue there that's more recent than the last one they got, they assume something's wrong. - LN
In NSD 5.26, it says: "An enterprising young copyright-ignorer has posted an almost complete transcription of the (South Park) movie."
If, as the statement implies, the material is copyrighted and someone has violated that copyright by posting the script on a Web site, it is grossly irresponsible for NSD to promulgate this violation and characterize the lawbreaker as an "enterprising young copyright-ignorer". You might have well as said "enterprising young criminal".
Is NSD following the societal slide into the gutter of the '80s and '90s whereby the rule of law is something you simply ignore whenever you think you can get away with the crime, grab some attention, and profit financially - regardless of the harm it may do to others?
If my interpretation is correct, I would like to write the public affairs departments of your banner advertisers to tell them that I will add them to my "Do Not Buy Any Products/Services From These Companies" list. If not, then I thank you in advance for your clarification and the time you took to respond.
Michael Blackman
I'm glad you called us on this, because I've been
dying to explain our stand on the matter. :)
Being publishers of intellectual goods ourselves, we are sensitive to
copyright and we do not condone anyone who ignores it. I will not put
any blatant copyright infringer in NSD.
There are a couple of exceptions, however. First, it's sometimes too
hard for us to tell who's infringing. A few years ago, we highlighted a
sight that offered free clip art. A week later, the site was shut down
because it offered art ripped off from other sources. We couldn't have
known. Next, South Park is an exception. Comedy Central, which
distributes South Park, actively encourages the free online
availability of South Park scripts and even whole episodes in various
online video formats. With that in mind, I have no qualms about sending
people to this script, even if technically the poster does not have a
legal right to do so.
I should have explained this in the NSD article, however. I hope you
now better understand my rationale. - LN
I have never seen South Park and know nothing about the show or the popular culture surrounding it. If Comedy Central is generally known to encourage people to ignore their copyright of the show's content, your article makes more sense. Thanks for your reply.
Michael
Pointing at an illegal act and saying "Oh look,
there's an illegal act!" is hardly promulgates the violation. Not doing
so would promulgate ignorence, promulgate the inability of our
intelligent readers to judge for themselves, and as a consequence
promulgate what is arguably a much more grossly irresponsible editorial
position which condones obscurity as a valid principal of government
and the law. Bottom line, if the law is being broken then let me see it
with my own eyes rather then with the highly biased orbs of the
professionally outraged prosecutor.
Sometimes, though not in this case, the law is an ass. We would not shy
away from saying so if we thought a law should be ignored. Civil
disobedience has a fine tradition as a tool of political change, and it
is great folly to blindly accept the rule of any law without constant
vigilance. For example, there is a great debate in our society right
now about the utility of current copyright laws, and it is not at all
certain that these laws will survive in their present form. The more
thoughtful among our readers might consider that the presence of this
script online is a symptom of how such laws are a) ineffective, and b)
not serving the needs of many, thus making criminals of a large segment
of our society - ultimately a recipe for random opression and
disrespect for society's laws, good and bad alike.
Also, it is demonstrably true that one man's gutter is another man's
bachelor party. We like to think our readers can see a bit deeper and
have an appreciation for the complexities of the real world. -
AB
Unless I have missed more of NSD's irony, it seems evident from your response that you think that the article and URL-reference are fully justified. Thank you for making NSD's position clear. If NSD had simply described an illegal act, then you would be saying, "Oh look, there's an illegal act!" Posting the URL, however, is saying, "Look there's an illegal act, go participate in the crime!" I agree that a vigorous societal debate about copyright laws certainly could lead to changes and improvements. I am disappointed that NSD has chosen to offer explicit encouragement to others to break the existing copyright laws, rather than participate in the debate. Of course you are right that ..."one man's gutter is another man's bachelor party". Evidently, NSD believes that encouraging copyright violation is a "bachelor party".
Michael Blackman
Doh! - LN (who is in no way violating any copyright of The Simpsons by writing that)
You wrote in NSD 5.18: "A couple of years ago, an artist by the name of Gunther Von Hagen displayed the human body as art in a museum in Mannheim, Germany."
Gunther von Hagens is Professor for Anatomy, not an artist (even if he looks like Beuys..), and he's the inventor and patent-holder of the plastination technique.
The exhibition ran from Oct. 30, 1997 to Mar. 1, 1998, and was by and large the most successful exhibition in Germany ever; it was seen by 750,000 people!
Research, people....
Andre Welling
As a tool for medical research, study, and teaching, yes, of course. But plastination as art? Under what organization's auspices was this grotesque misuse of technology allowed? Did the deceased individuals will their bodies to the so-called artist expressly for the purpose of being skinned and displayed to the public? I find it hard to believe.
While I find it admirable to donate one's body to science, I find it reprehensible and shocking that anyone would use bodies of the deceased in an attempt to increase their fame.
David and Michelle Krilevich
No harder to believe then the display of mummies
in museums, or those creepy decomposing saints on display in every
other church in Europe. See Catherine of Sienna for a particularly
fascinating example.
Personally, I think being plastinated after I croak and displayed to
shock the prim and proper uptight crowd sounds pretty cool. Surely, to
be a work of art and hung on a wall is better then moldering forgotten
in some anonymous hole in the ground. No accounting for taste, I
guess.
Your premise is that there is something sacred about the dead - surely
a very culturally specific belief. And for all we know, the plasticized
dead may have given their permission. - AB
As a citizen of Quebec ("Quebec Cracks down on English Web Site, Again" NSD 5.18), I agree with the Office de la langue francaise (OLF), which is devoted to promote French (without suppressing other languages) in the province. This behaviour is mandatory because we number only seven million. A free market is bullshit in this case. You just can't understand that we need to protect our culture and our language.
Alain Dumas
How can you say the Office does not suppress other languages when its job is to make sure non-French wording on signs is written half the size of French? - LN
It's not as simple as it seems. The real point behind the OLF's action is about the duties of any citizen. Can citizens decide to ignore the law just because anyone in the world can read what we put on a Web site?
You're right, the OLF demands that advertisements be in French on commercial Web sites marketing in Quebec. But anything else can be written in any language. It is a good compromise between the rights of the minority and those of the majority. We do not want Quebec to become like Louisiana.
You can debate the difference between the Web and other advertising media. Maybe, like television advertisements, Web advertisements should not have to be both in English and in French. But courts should decide if the OLF is right or wrong and Quebec society should debate the rights and duties of the Quebec citizens, even on the Web. The debate is not an easy one, but so far we have had two referendums and no civil war.
Michel Monette - Charlesbourg, Quebec
But I have yet to see any explanation - coherent or not - of why the OLF doesn't challenge MacDonald's instead of mom and pop operations. It should also be noted that the Quebec Supreme Court ruled that Bill 101, the law that originally mandated French to the exclusion of other languages, was unconstitutional and illegal. The Quebec government used a loophole to enact it anyway. - LN
Hey, I object. The French language law in Quebec does not force you to have a French Web site if you have a server in Quebec and market in Quebec. Your market could be in Poland and you'd still have to have it in French.
It reminds me of a college student who was interviewed as an complainant (government-funded to complain about non-compliant signs) who said that if people from Vermont wanted to be tourists in Quebec they have to speak French.
With attitudes like this is a wonder that the province spends most of its time in the economic, political, and social toilet between short and frantic gasps of air?
John Gancz - Quebec resident, house for sale
You should know that in Ottawa, the federal government of Canada does all its best to crush the use of French in the whole country, including Quebec when it's possible. Typically racist attitude of some anglos. Just try to post French advertising outside Quebec, even in towns where the majority speaks French, and you'll get hate and attacks from the news.
It is not in your honour to carry such "opinions" - racism is definatively not an opinion.
JM Dossogne - Philippeville, Belgique
Frankly, you have no idea what your talking about. Every label in Canada must be bilingual by federal law, for example. Every federal document comes in English or French. There's more, but I have better bones to pick. - LN
I was deeply offended by your article on Quebec's defense of the French language. Their attempts are sometimes ill-advised and somewhat anti-free speech. But your self-righteous USA-centric, WASPy perspective is as oppressive. You crushed the culture of the native Americans and the blacks over the last two centuries, and you're still at it today with others. I am not Canadian, but as a European, I am a witness of the culturally crushing power of the American economic machine. Your comments are like Saddam Hussein speaking ill of Milosevic: the Quebec language policy is wrong and you are wrong. They have an identity war going on there, but it takes two to tango. When will you grow up and not divide all issues in Good Guys (yourselves) and Bad Guys (the others)? Pretty soon, NSD will be a voice outlet for Jesse Helms!
Yves Jodogne
If so, maybe we'll get EJ back as a reader. By the way, I am neither American, WASP, nor a culturally crushing economic machine (I wish!). - LN
Thanks for publishing all the responses to your disastrous "NT beats Linux" story (Letters 5.14).
Why don't you at least admit that you blew it by not including the obviously important (and readily available) information about who sponsored the study and the crooked setup of the machines?
Perhaps you too are sponsored by Bill Gates?
Joseph Catanzarite - Pasadena, California
I read with interest the rants from the Linux crowd. Anyone who read your article realized you correctly identified Microsoft as the Mindcraft test sponsor. I for one, am no MS or Bill Gates fan - I can't stand either. However, I think NSD did a valiant job of reporting this. The report itself is newsworthy. Anyone who can find their keyboard knows Linux would smoke NT if properly tweaked.
You stated in your editorial responses that part of the reason you reported on the benchmark was to watch the response of the hackers, and respond they did. I have gotten a good laugh out of it.
Don't print my name - I don't wanna get spammed by the Linux crowd. What an angry bunch of babies!
SL
I think you are doing your job quite well. I believe your job is to get people to think for themselves, even though this maybe hard for some. Keep up the good work by keeping things stirred up.
CyberBiker
I have recommended NSD to a number of folks who have subscribed. Only other thing I can do to show support is join your SETI@home Team, which I have.
Keep up the good work, I appreciate it.
John L. Hedinger
I've been on the Net since '95, I trade stocks over the Net, and I'm just a general nethead. Over time, I've signed up for hundreds of newsletters and what not.
I find 99% of Net services to be scams, lies, advertising portals, etc,. I have discontinued or blocked all but four or five. NSD delivers content and links to stories and sites I've not already seen ten times in the course of my daily cruising, but the main thing I don't get from NSD is unsolicited AOLish spam crap. I have no problem recommending NSD to my Net friends. Thanks for a creating a site with integrity, foresight, and, most of all, advanced Net savvy.
Greg Wilson
Thank you for including my Web site, Le Theatre du Baton Figure, in NSD 5.13. It resulted in hundreds of visits, and you have become my number one source of referrals.
The pressure of hundreds of guests prompted me to add two new films to the theatre - "The School Bus" and "The Vampire". I hope you enjoy them.
Michael Jantzen
After your inclusion of "The Horizontal Bopper" in NSD 5.10, I thought you would appreciate an update. My goal is to get to the US for medical treatment through my musical ability. I have gained numerous sponsors including Roland, Pioneer, Yamaha-Kemble, RealNetworks (Real Audio), and DomainNames.Com.
I have been recognised by the "Guinness Book of Records" as the first bed-bound paraplegic to be offered a five-year publishing and record contract.
My new domain is being constructed very simply, with children in mind, and I would like to invite schools and children to join in with Web page designs, artwork, and music samples.
I hope to achieve a fresh new dialogue between the disabled and the able-bodied, and my whole family has offered to answer any questions about coping with my disability throughout their childhoods and beyond. My children were less than three years old when I became bed-bound 15 years ago.
I hope to make contacts in the Miami area where I hope to have treatment. I want to know more about the area, people, and culture so that I can treat them with the same respect I hope to be encounter during my three-month-visit. I also hope to attract the attention of the local media in support of my achievement.
Paul Simpson (Horizontal Paul)
Just wanted you to know, my friends and I really enjoy reading NSD. Don't change a thing. It's the best of its kind. You're doing a great job.
Dr. Robert J. Wesch Sr.
I've been reading your newsletter nearly since the publication of your first issue. The recent redesign, utilizing HTML in e-mail, is really excellent. It enhances the reading experience. The brief articles remain well written and informative. There is seldom an issue that does not prompt me to follow a link. And, for the most part, you've resisted the impulse to get slick and hip in writing style; that deserves big congratulations. I have only one question. How do you make any money? Don't you all have to eat?
Ron Tobey, Riverside California
Ads, and people buying stuff we recommend. - LN
Just a note to say thanks for your review of the Real Mom Club (NSD 5.19). All stories on the site are based on factual events... so as you can imagine my life is very exciting. Last week, the spawnlings experimented with licking up flies swimming in the hot tub. Who knows what new tasty maternal experience I will get to savor this week.
Denise Rissell
I am the creator and webmaster of Trinity Divinity School's Theology Web site which you reviewed very favorably in NSD 5.21. Your review was encouraging as it pointed out one of our main emphases, namely the development of a broad and open forum for scholarly discussion of theology. I will be very pleased to share your review with our regular visitors.
Scott Foutz
Don't much else about you yet, but had to tell you, "I LOVE your humor!!
JimO
I just wanted to drop you a thank-you note for one of the nicest "welcome to a mailing list" messages that I have ever received, and I have been on quite a few lists in my time! Shows that there is someone there who really does care about his readers!
I know that even if you don't reply you will have read this and therefore I have accomplished doing what I set out to do in the first place, and that is... thanks.
Vic Firestone
Believe me, we do read these things, and quite enjoy them. And thank you for thanking us. - AB
I have subscribed to NSD since issue 1.01 and I have found it extremely useful and enjoyable over the years. However, I have been reading it less and less these days because of the annoying wait of up to a minute while it pulls in ads from Flycast. This is especially annoying when you consider how one uses NSD - find an interesting link, visit it, come back to NSD, find another, visit it, come back, etc.
Each time you come back you have that irritating wait. I have even taken the trouble of writing a script that strips the ads out before I load the page, but I'd rather not have to run that every time, and I'm sure you and your sponsors don't want me to, either. I know how important advertising is and am grateful that you can offer free subscriptions because of it, but there must be a better way. Is it really necessary to make us wait for the ads to completely load before we see any content?
Robin Chapman
Don't ask me, I don't program. One recommendation I can make is that you make good use of the "New window with this link" option found in fine browsers everywhere. It saves a heck of a lot of time. - LN
Your newsletter has grown way too large! I had to unsubscribe; it takes too long to load. Why not a non-HTML version?
Joe Mezzanini
Why not a decent e-mail client? - LN
I think you should get rid of the "More Signal, Less Noise " motto on NSD; it takes more and more time every issue to load all the advert banners before the real information.
Slawek Sagan - Warsaw
I've been subscribed for several years. I regularly recommend you to my friends. However, lately, there has been a problem. Perhaps three out of five times I experience difficulty opening your transmissions. This happens both at home on my 28.8 connection and at work on our ISDN network. Usually the thing hangs right away while attempting to contact adex3.flycast.com.
This is getting very frustrating and I'm thinking of just dropping NSD. What gives?
Dennis O'Connor
I like NSD but absolutely hate the slow speed with which it actually loads. Since you're in the business, can you not do something to speed things up?
J-M D'Aoust
I like your links, but the weekly update is slow to load (and I have a cable modem). I don't know how others find this, but whenever I get your weekly update my first reaction is frustration rather than interest.
No need for a reply but thought a redesign might be in order
WG Snow
A difficult problem, brought on by a combination
of two things - unintelligent rendering code in the browsers and slow
ad servers. In a perfect world, browsers would render the whole issue
and leave holes for the advertising banners so they can load at their
leisure. Unfortunately, the browsers are not smart enough to do that
when tables are involved - as they have to be in order to get decent
layout accross many platforms and many browser versions.
The second problem is that if the load on the ad servers is high, or if
the routes to them are heavily loaded, then it takes a long time for
the banners to load, which only makes the above problem more acute
since you can't see the text of NSD for a long time. Unfortunately,
this will get worse this fall as pre-holiday ad traffic goes through
the roof.
We're caught in the middle, because redesigning without using tables
for layout is pretty much out of the question at this point - we have
too much invested in the status quo in terms of links, positions,
support software, look and feel, etc. At the same time, we have no
control over the ad server speeds. Kinda sucks, don't you think?
Ultimately, the solution should be a new generation of browsers with
better rendering code, and beefed up ad serving capabilities at our ad
service (Flycast).
So what are your options? Well - and I feel pretty confident that we're
the only online publication which would actually give you this kind of
honest advice - if you decide that the pain of the wait outweighs the
pleasure of reading NSD, then you can certainly unsubscribe (ooooh,
that was painful, let me catch my breath...). You always have the
option of reading NSD on our Web site, though the wait would still be
there, but perhaps a bit more psychologically palatable since you can
have multiple windows open.
Hope that explains the situation.- AB
If I download NSD into Netscape 4.6 it takes months for the content to appear. Put it straight into Eudora Pro 4.2 and everything is there as soon as downloading finishes. Any idea why?
Richard Weeks
Besides the reasons given above, it's all about
the layout engine - some browsers are smarter then others in how they
interpret HTML code. Netscape 4.x for example, is not very intelligent
and it waits for the first ad in Netsurfer to show up before it will
print the rest of the issue on the screen. Some browsers are just
inherently faster.
Bottom line: lots of pretty complicated technology stands between you
and your browsers. - AB
In NSD 5.17, you wrote: "The usual tedious GeoCities pop-up windows have to be regularly swatted..." unless you're running Siemens Web Washer! It not only saves the bandwidth used by banner ads, but that of myriad pop-ups, too. Enjoy!
John Hodges
I wrote you earlier this year because my copies of NSD were arriving completely blank in my Hotmail inbox. After some time, that problem was corrected. Now another problem that is so annoying that I have changed the e-mail address to which NSD comes.
About an inch of text on the right side does not print. This applies to ANY message or e-publication I receive on Hotmail, not only NSD. I have carried on an extensive e-mail correspondence with Hotmail bots and humans and nothing has helped, including changing the number of characters per line. This didn't start until Microsoft bought Hotmail, so I guess this is still another example of Microsoft driving users crazy with their idiocies! I'll check you out on Excite.com.
Ronald W. Kenyon - Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia
An ad on your site said "If you live in the UK, we want your opinion." I dutifully clicked on the link (after all, you need to get paid somehow). It took me to a survey that asked all sorts of questions about my PC, my life, and even about my carpeting. But the survey-takers gave no indication whatsoever of who they were, or what they want the information for.
Can you let me know who they are, and why they had no company information on their page? The URL was fairly anonymous, as well. I don't like people getting info from me without at least knowing who they are!
Dominic Pain
We get our ads through a service called Flycast.
We have no control over which ads appear and consequently we don't know
who advertises with us. All we know is that the ads have passed
Flycast's scrutiny.
If you feel like pursuing your questions further, give Flycast a ring.
They'd know better than us. - LN
That's not entirely true. We have control in that
we can choose to reject advertisers we don't think are ethical, or we
can leave Flycast if we think its quality takes a dive. At heart,
Flycast is an ad auction site we use to sell some of our advertising.
They have a pretty stringent screening process for whom they allow to
participate and over the years we've been very happy with the quality
and quantity of the clients who bought our ad space through Flycast.
Laurie is correct in that we don't know the specific timing of when a
particular ad will appear or which particular banner of a campaign will
appear at any given time - all that is highly automated. So if you can
recall the URL of the advertisers - probably just the domain name would
be fine - or what the banner looked like, we can probably figure out
who was doing the survey. If we don't like what they plan on doing with
the info we'll block them.
Flycast, however, might have a hard time tracking down a particular ad
being served at a particular time. These operations are so
statistically oriented, to any particular click or banner view is
pretty irrelevant. The online ad business only cares about the large
scale. In addition, this is such a dynamic business that ad buyers have
the capability to change ads minute to minute if they want - and some
do.
The bottom line is that I'll be happy to follow this up if you give me
some info to go on about the banner or the URL. We like to keep our
readers happy, and that extends to not serving them annoying or
misleading ads. - AB
I didn't really expect to get so much response about this!
Unfortunately, I didn't take note of the URL. Not knowing how your advertising works, I assumed that you knew who was advertising on your site. There was no banner, which is why it stuck in my mind. I was halfway through filling in the form before I realised that I had no idea who I was giving the information to. The sort of yellowy-brown background is all that I recall now.
Don't worry about it too much. If it's just me that has a problem, out of x-hundred-thousand visitors you (and Flycast) have, then it's probably me just being cranky.
I'm very pleased and impressed, though, that my mail got so much attention. Thanks a lot, I mean it. I'm not just a faceless clicker, after all.
Dominic
Only one editor was harmed in the making of this product.
Publisher: Arthur Bebak
Editor: Lawrence Nyveen
Address your letters to
editor@netsurf.com.
Letters and signatures edited for clarity and brevity.