Browser Specific Sites

Now websites aren't something I tend to complain about, partly because it's the web and things change very quickly. However, one thing that does really get to me is the exclusion behaviour exhibited by some sites.

For instance, the WiSIG (Wireless Sensing Interest Group) site displays this message if you visit using Firefox:

Thanks for visiting www.wisig.org. This site as well as SensorsKTN.com are best viewed in Internet Explorer 5.5 or above.

If you have a copy of Internet Explorer, now's the time to fire it up and try again ...

Okay, so it's best viewed in IE (according to them), but so what? Are they saying I won't even be able to see the text if I use some other browser? Is the threat to my mental health from the mis-rendered site so bad that I'm not even allowed to try unless I resort to a browser that doesn't even deserve to exist on my system, let alone be "fired up" at the whim of random sites?

Seriously guys, specifically the webmasters among you, even if you "optimise" a site for a specific browser you can still make it work right in other browsers, or failing that at least make it gracefully degrade, or failing that at least let people see it. If nothing else the text will still be visible and they will be able to get the information they want. Forcing the use of a specific browser is very rude behaviour.

If anyone from the WiSIG reads this then sorry for picking on your site but it was one I was trying to visit earlier and I usually expect technology based sites to represent themselves well on the internet. Have a word with your webmaster and see what he/she/it can do for you.

Parallels

Written Thursday 11th August 1994 at 2am (not by me):

I have no life. I never see any of my non-work friends, and I'm wasting away my one and only youth. I ought to be out doing fun things and active things, the kind of things I won't be able to do when my mind and body finally decay. But instead I'm stuck inside under fluorescent lights, pushing bits around inside a computer in ways that are only interesting to other nerds. I glanced at a movie listing and there are movies out that I haven't even heard of. How did that happen?

Far far too true, except I do see non-work people occasionally I guess.

Maybe once my RDC submission and the project review meeting are out of the way, and no doubt several important visitors and miscellaneous demos for other things, and possibly all the reading I've been getting behind on, maybe then I'll be able to... I don't know... eat?

MSN Fails

Is there any official explanation for why MSN Messenger deletes mp3s if you get sent them and try to open them by clicking the link it gives you (the alternative being to navigate to your downloaded files folder)? It says it's potentially harmful and just goes ahead and deletes it, no asking the user, it just does what it feels like. Now I could understand it for executable files, but why mp3s? Executable files, by the way, are not deleted, you just get the potentially harmful warning.

I wonder why I'm gradually not using any MS software?

Hex Strings

Just thought I'd chuck some random numbers out there, a little hex string, no real reason. Enjoy.

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0