Webword Statistics - Recent Comments

last updated:16 Aug 2002 13: 33 Webword time, or 16 Aug 2002 18:33 UK time

Webword Statistics - Recent Comments
(Comments added for week ending Sun 30 Dec 2001) | View Other Weeks

'This late in history,' what shall we choose to read? | Wed 26 Dec

But at some point along the path to discovery, the reader confronts his or her reading mortality. Theres only so much time. And there are so many great books. And every year more books are published, some of which will be great. Reluctantly, the reader begins to acknowledge the appalling necessity of choosing to read certain good things and not other good things.

Wed 26 Dec 19:35 | John S. Rhodes | Information overload... I've started to notice that my pile of books is growing faster than I would like. I'm seriously behind, no matter how much I read. I have been implicitly prioritizing the pile based on need (e.g., business), not pleasure (e.g., sci-fi). That's unfortunate, because I love to read.

Thu 27 Dec 14:13 | MadMan | Hey, join the club, buddy. I love to read too, and I now have at least 5 books waiting to be read. In fact, I haven't read any fiction for about a year :(

Thu 27 Dec 17:09 | Francis Wu | I doubt that this overload is restricted only to books. In fact, it is my assumption that North America is suffering from an entertainment overload. Too many movies to see, too many books to read, too many channels. Driving the entertainment industry are advertisers bombarding viewers (read 'consumers') with products. Consequently, we're seeing a misalignment of social values. Success is too heavily tied with material gain. Children beat each other up for Pokemon, and misguided welfare recipients would rather use their food stamps to buy a stereo if they had the chance. Those are my two cents.

Fri 28 Dec 11:28 | Jack Schonchin | I am torn between selling my TV, stereo, etc. to live in peace, and selling it to buy a new massive, awesome home entertainment center.

Sun 30 Dec 21:05 | Morris Cox | In my opinion, there are two kinds of information overload: option overload, where there is so many choices that you're confused (what shall I wear today?), and data overload, where there is too much data/information coming in. (Cramming for a test is one case of data overload.)The Internet can do both quite easily. So many places, too much stuff on them.

WebWord Comment | Fri 28 Dec

I would like to be given a brief history of my previous actions on a web site. For example, imagine that you are visiting a retail web site and you are looking for an item. Suppose you find it but you dont add it to your shopping cart for some reason and then you leave the site. Now, imagine that you return to the site. I think it would be kind of cool for the site to give you quick links to the last 3 or 4 pages you visited when you were last at the site, perhaps in some logical order. This trail should be out of the way, yet still conceptually obvious (i.e., page titles act as links). This is a nice way to capitalize on recognition. That is, it doesnt force users to recall how they made it to those pages before. It also seems like it would help people pick up where they left off, or find familiar navigational cues. What are your thoughts on this?

Sat 29 Dec 00:26 | Jack Schonchin | Scenarios... 1) Wife visits site and sees what I was thinking of giving her for a gift. 2) Wife visits site and sees the [insert objectionable item here] I was browsing. 3) Wife or other person visits site and sees what embarassing item I was browsing (Preparation H?) I dislike this idea immensely. My browsing is my private data and I don't want anyone seeing it unless I choose to share it with them. Thanksfully I reject permanent cookies (per-session cookies are OK), so such a 'feature' would not work in my browser.

Sat 29 Dec 09:04 | Frédéric Roland | This should be an option and not turned on by default but I think it's a great idea. Maybe a browser add on may implement this and it may be a good idea to protect it by a password.

Sat 29 Dec 09:52 | John S. Rhodes | JS, you seem to have a real knack for finding the flaws in things. That is not a slam, indeed, it's a compliment. I like to see the other side of the coin. Your comments force me to think about the comments that I make and they prime me for comments I will make in the future. I need to ask myself, 'What would JS say about this?', and then I can write my comments.

Sat 29 Dec 11:04 | Jack Schonchin | Thus is the life of a perfectionist. I see the downside of everything.

Sat 29 Dec 16:38 | Francis Wu | JS, therein lies the problem with multiple users. Under such circumstances, it's best to set up different accounts for your computer. Otherwise, users are free to access your private stash of sites and content. Additionally, this is a good way of making sure that nobody screws with the settings of your computer. Personally, I think cookies are great for personalization and customization.

Sat 29 Dec 16:39 | Francis Wu | JS, therein lies the problem with multiple users. Under such circumstances, it's best to set up different accounts for your computer. Otherwise, users are free to access your private stash of sites and content. Additionally, this is a good way of making sure that nobody screws with the settings of your computer. Personally, I think cookies are great for personalization and customization.

Sat 29 Dec 16:57 | Ryan | I think the idea is a strong one, if the user has the option of turning the feature off (which JS would choose to do if shopping for the wife.) A problem would be presenting the infomation in a unobtrusive yet obvious way - I think it could be somewhat expensive to implement, the site may not support it without developing short names for pages/products. I do like the idea of a site asking at the home page 'Continue last session or start new session' but there are flaws to that too, I often browse a site in multiple windows. In the end, while the idea is interesting, it may not be very feasible.

Sat 29 Dec 16:58 | Ryan | I think the idea is a strong one, if the user has the option of turning the feature off (which JS would choose to do if shopping for the wife.) A problem would be presenting the infomation in a unobtrusive yet obvious way - I think it could be somewhat expensive to implement, the site may not support it without developing short names for pages/products. I do like the idea of a site asking at the home page 'Continue last session or start new session' but there are flaws to that too, I often browse a site in multiple windows. In the end, while the idea is interesting, it may not be very feasible.

Sat 29 Dec 18:24 | Frédéric Roland | IMHO it should be a browser add-on. The add-on could 'recognize' websites that have been already visited and always record the last X page visited for each website. In fact it's a kind of enhanced browser history management. You could have a privacy button or a clear history for this website button or a crypted list of website where you don't want any data to be recorded...

Sun 30 Dec 01:50 | MadMan | Well, the ever-enterprising Amazon people have already used this idea, folks :) If you're signed in to Amazon, go visit now. Browse around a couple of titles, and then check in the left column. You should see a 'Recently viewed items' box. And in true Amazon style, they also have a 'page you made' section, which displays recommendations based on what you've been browsing (not what you've bought). Pretty cool, eh? They've also thought of JS, I guess. So these are only per session i.e., if you close your browser window, your wife won't be able to see what you've been browsing. How many of you knew about this Amazon feature?

Sun 30 Dec 03:11 | Francis Wu | MadMan, I noticed the feature. Struck me as a good idea... however, I personally don't bother with it. Perhaps it's 'cause I'm on a fast connection?

Sun 30 Dec 10:51 | John S. Rhodes | MadMan, I also noticed this feature. However, as you say, it only lasts for one session. I'd like to see it last over multiple sessions. In general, I care about where I went from session to session at a site, versus page to page during a session (i.e., inter-session vs. intra-session).

Sun 30 Dec 11:14 | Jack Schonchin | Well, with the per-session box, and Amazon's 'wishlist' what more could you need? I use the wishlist to save items I'm thinking about.

Sun 30 Dec 11:40 | John S. Rhodes | JS, I also use the wishlist to store information and items. However, sometimes I don't feel like managing it from session to session. There are also times where I don't find exactly what I want, but I feel like I am close. The inter-session box would be better for me in those circumstances. Also, if we think beyond Amazon, and other online retailing, then this might be more important. For example, if I was doing research the inter-session box might be very useful.

WebWord Comment | Fri 28 Dec

This is one of the coolest things I have seen regarding accessibility. Give it a try. Spend some time at this super slim Amazon web site.

Sat 29 Dec 00:29 | Jack Schonchin | Is Amazon marketing this is an accessible web site? It is lacking in that respect. It seems better suited as a rough draft for a wireless Palm-type interface.

Sat 29 Dec 07:24 | Matt Round | It'd help far more if the main site used valid HTML and basic labelling of images and image map areas. Once you've got your site optimised then you can start producing cut-down versions and talking about accessibility.

Sat 29 Dec 09:39 | John S. Rhodes | I'm interested in this site because of what they decided to remove. Therefore I agree with JS, that this site is better suited as a slim PDA version of the Amazon site. That's what I meant by 'accessibility' -- not that this site is the paradigm of accessibility itself. (I still think it is a cool version of their site.)

Sat 29 Dec 11:06 | Jack Schonchin | How do you find the site from their 'real' front page?

Sat 29 Dec 15:07 | John S. Rhodes | I found the amazon.com/access link on another weblog. I meant to give them credit, but I lost the URL. Oh, just in case anyone cares, I own stock in Amazon. Not much, just a few shares. That's my disclaimer.

Sat 29 Dec 22:43 | Sean | A backlink check at google might recover the lost URL, plus a few other oddbits. The site is also reachable via http://www.amazon.com/pocketpc/ OT - 'A Census Bureau survey taken in 1999 showed that about 1.24 million people -- 34 percent of the 3.6 million people classified as visually impaired -- have access to the Internet. About 870,000, or 24 percent of those surveyed, said they use a computer on a regular basis.' NewsFactor

Sun 30 Dec 01:25 | john | i'm betting you saw it on one of the following six blogs: http://blogdex.media.mit.edu/browseSource.asp?url=http://www.amazon.com/access/ or if that url is too long, try this one: http://makeashorterlink.com/?J1D52324 my guess would be olivier's webvoice blog - how did i do? :-)

Sun 30 Dec 10:36 | Peter | or http://liga1.com/article.php?sid=132&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0 The post mentions someone at the CHI-WEB list posting the link, althoug after the aforementioned blogs :)

Un-spam: The greatest gift of all | Fri 28 Dec

(ZDNet) Likewise, many of the unsubscribe links take you to a Web site where you must enter the e-mail address that you want to unsubscribe. These are most often the types of links that are broken. Unfortunately, even if the link works, its useless if the recipient has no idea what address was used in the first place.

Fri 28 Dec 18:30 | John S. Rhodes | Some list removal mechanisms actually grab your email address and keep it. Why? Well, by following the unsubscribe link, or by using the removal tools on their web pages, you are validating your email address. If your email adress is 'valid', it will be added to a validated spam list and you'll get more spam than ever. The spammers will know that your address is being used and won't bounce their messages. Ack!!

Sat 29 Dec 11:08 | Jack Schonchin | Ya, but some spammers sign you up for daily 'newsletters.' Then you have to chance using their unsubscribe mechanism. I'm about ready to abandon an address I've used for 4 years... now up to about 50 spams a day. 99 percent are caught by a spam filter, but it still bothers me.

Sun 30 Dec 02:03 | MadMan | I find life much easier by using SneakEmail to generate 'disposable' email addresses. When I'm suspicious of a site, I just generate a new sneakemail ID with a label such as 'Casino site - shady-site.com' All mail that gets sent to this email address then gets 'tagged' by the sneakemail system to identify which email address was used. So... if I later get spam sent to this address, I see '[Casino site - shady-site.com] in the 'From:' field also. This tells me that shady-site.com has sold my address to spammers. Now that I know this, I simply kill the address with sneakemail (or I can do stuff like blocking all mail from certain addresses). So all mails to that address will then bounce. The spammers still don't have my real email address. I've even replaced the email hyperlinks on my weblog with sneakemail addresses. This tells me how many spambots are scraping my site for email links because those messages are tagged [madman-blog]. John, if you're getting a lot of spam (which I'm sure you are), just use SneakEmail. I see your email address liberally sprinkled around the Net ;) Lastly, please set up an account at http://spamcop.net/ and forward your spam to them. They will then generate automated messages to go to the abuse addresses of ISPs, etc. Disclaimer: I don't work for SneakEmail or SpamCop, and don't know anyone there.