[H-GEN] Re: HTML email

[Ian Pulsford]

[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and     ]
[ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will vanish. ]

Nikolai Lusan wrote:
> 
> [ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and     ]
> [ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will vanish. ]
> 
> On Fri, 19 Apr 2002, Greg Black wrote:
> 
> > | Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of using *nix to access the net. I
> > | need to use Windows simply because of the functionality of IE. There are
> > | things that IE does that none of the *nix browsers do and some of the people
> > | I work with write their web pages that way.
> >
> > If people don't want me to read their web pages, then I'm happy
> > not to read them.  If they do want me to read stuff, they will
> > produce it in a format that I can read.  This includes using
> > fonts that I can see with my old eyes and writing in one of the
> > languages that I speak and not using stupid html/java/foobar
> > tricks in their web pages.
> 
> I agree, "you need IE to view it" is just not right - it's like saying
> "you need a ford to drive on this road". The same goes with the
> circulation of documents sending things in proprietry formats is just
> not on (I personally fight this battle with people all the time). If
> people are writing web pages that can only be viewed using IE then they
> are stupid, it is not the only browser out there and if you need a
> specific browser then what happens to people with incredibly poor vison
> or those who are blind? these pages will be barely negotiable with large
> fonts, no images and a braille or speach based browser. There quite
> simply are too many people out the who don't refuse to be forced to use
> Microsoft products or who cannot view these "spiffy" pages for other
> reasons, and to say "well thats the way we do it" is like arguing that
> spam is a legitimate business tactic.

I do most of my www surfing spoofing my browser agent string (to IE)
with squid.  Some sites actually have scripts that won't let a non-MS
browser through and yet are (reasonably) viewable with Nutscrape.  Many
of those sites are not worth viewing anyway.  Some are entertainment
oriented and are more stable with IE anyway.  It doesn't matter.  The
places I go to get meaty chunks of information are almost always fast,
plain, stable basic HTML.  Who cares if the rest of the web goes to
hell, as long as the real stuff is clean fast HTML?  Let the sad sops
who see the WWW as some sort of entertainment playground suffer crappy
scripts and slow pages.  I am not easily entertained by heaps of
dumbarse animations, I feed my mind with content not webpage-blinken
lights.


Ian

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