"Nothing is as terrible to see as ignorance in action." Unknown
Today I was looking through Salon. It's a really good webzine, but I've got some problems with their layout. On the side of the articles, they have links to more articles. Which of course sound interesting, so I click on them. And of course on that article there's more links, so I click on those . . . I spent about six hours following links! Yikes! It's a good thing I don't have homework.There were some other things that bother me about Salon, good as it is. Like it's written in these small, skinny columns that go on forever. And then there's the covers: Before some of the columns, there's a cover photo you have to click on before you get to the article. Now that drives me nuts: What the hell is the point of putting a cover on a Web page? It's just wasting space and time.
It reminds me of my big web page pet peever- huge pictures that take too long to load. My computer at home is slow, and the school modems are 14.4- therefore everything I look at is slow loading. Therefore, it takes ages for me to be able to see pictures and photos on pages. And frankly, I usually get bored of waiting and click somewhere else. Sure, occasionally there's some photo or art I really want to see, and then I'll wait . . . but there's only so many times I can check my e-mail while I wait for pictures to load. The only site I ever saw that loaded pictures fast enough for me was Dead Kelly, which I HIGHLY recommend visiting (see below).
And speaking of e-mail, when I checked mine, I found an invitation to join another diary list. The e-mail also had some links to the diary-L mailing list (remember, I was thinking of joining it), so I checked their FAQ. For the record, I've decided not to join, because I cannot deal with all the messages from 181 people!!!
But what got to me was a question on whether or not you should put forward and back links between entries. And there were a ton of p.o.'ed people who got all snippy about NOT having them. I seem to recall one person calling it pure evil, and many claiming that they wouldn't even read it if the stupid links weren't there.
At first I was going, "Man, are you people lazy." To me, it's not such a big deal- when I read journals I tend to skip around, so I never use those links. And so long as the first page doesn't take forever to load, it doesn't bother me. (And yes, I realize this is hypocritical of me, but I am thinking of moving the entries to another page and removing a few of the GIF's on it.) Not to mention that going back and forth adding in the stupid links would be a big pain in the ass- I have enough trouble getting two pages changed and saved to do one entry some nights.
And there's another thing that annoyed me: A few days ago I found out that Geocities was upping our MB's (11! Yay!), and they give even more if you're a Featured Page. While I wasn't really into putting mine there (I don't think it really fits in), I figured for the freebies I'd check the requirements. Well, screw that, because one of their pet peeves is that they don't like GIF's. Well, excuuuuuuse me for GIFfing! They're amusing, small, I don't need a scanner to put them on, and they load twenty times faster than your average picture. So, they have no problems with my putting twelve huge photos of my cat on my front page (not that I have a cat), but if I do this it's a crime?
Awww, isn't Fluffy cuuuute? She was so scared!
So I don't do what everyone else does, so bite me. I don't particularly desire a guestbook (that's what e-mail is for), I don't want to post photos all over the place, I don't have a separate links page, and I don't put links inside the text. That one's kind of another pet peeve of mine- I'll click on the link and forget to come back, or if I do come back I forgot what I read. Which is why I put all links at the end of the entry, so you've got somewhere to go when you're through, and not before.
But if y'all are THAT upset about such a thing, then fine, I'll cave on that point. After I redo the front page, I'll go through all them damn entries and put the silly little links in. But don't expect them that soon (I've got finals in a few days, then home for a week), and I don't think I'll put in any back links on the current month's entries until they go in the archives. I can't conform to EVERYTHING.
And the GIF's are STAYING!
Links to other sites on the Web
Graphic Station (rolling eyes)
Icon Bazaar (e-mail)
Salon Magazine
Dead Kelly
The Diary List
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