by Matt | Jun 14, 2010 | Aggravation, Culture, Web
It seems the good folks over at Smashing Magazine have started a bit of a shit storm. To be honest, the article was written by a guest columnist as an opinion piece, but, as with a newspaper, once something is published under your banner, it’s hard to retract. The article in question, “Why Designers Should Not Use Ad-Blockers” seems to suggest that most anyone that uses an ad-blocker plugin/application is tantamount to a thief and should mend their evil way less the web is thrown into a state a choas and anarchy. For starters, I can’t believe Smashing Magazine would publish something this obviously slanted, to which I hold them and their editorial staff exclusively responsible, but I also can’t believe that this train of thought actually exists, let alone that it’s some sort of prevailing wisdom.
Just for fun, let’s examine some of the author’s, Louis Lazaris, points.
I’ll start this article with a positive statement: Most people frequenting the web design community understand that nothing is truly free and appreciate the fact that many blogs, design resources, and tech news sites rely on advertising to keep them afloat.”
Hardly a positive statement Louis. Let’s simplify that into “Most designers appreciate that ads make them money”. I think that’s a fair distillation of his point. I would argue that most designers loath advertisements. We don’t like creating them, we don’t like using them, they take up space and steal attention away from our content and designs all for the benefit of a few pennies. Web marketing has been both ineffective and intrusive since it’s birth in the 90’s. I’m glad I’m old enough to remember the beginning of the web with a feeling of nostalgia and pride that it was something truly unique. Pages, of content, linked together to form a rough web of documents, serving the greater good. With in evolution of advertising, we’ve completely and totally lost the original purpose of the web: the information.
But unfortunately, not everyone gets this, and not everyone understands that with some viral pushing of certain trends and ideas, we as a community could be inadvertently shooting ourselves in the foot while we try to make our own browsing experience less ad-intrusive, and more comfortable.”
This entire statement is confusing. It basically says “Because people don’t “get” the trends that “we” are pushing, we could be hurting ourselves because “we” don’t want to see ads”. Gee-wiz Louis, what a deep and thought provoking statement. “People are too stupid to understand the garbage we’re hocking, and since we’re smart enough to not want to see our own ads, our campaigns clearly aren’t working.” Let’s cut to the chase here. If YOU don’t want to see your own ad, it’s not a good ad! This entire statement also insults two entire groups of people. The first un-named group of “not everyone” clearly doesn’t understand marketing. The second group, those nefarious ad-blockers, are selfish pricks for not wanting to see ads. The underlying statement is that people are either too stupid or too selfish, which doesn’t take into account the all important “choice” of the user, but we’ll get to that.
Because of the advent of social media and the apparent ease with which trends, habits, and ideas can be spread, and because of the incredible speed with which such ideas can be spread, the mere discussion of ads being too intrusive on web design blogs could cause a serious problem in a presently-thriving community.”
“Because trends spread fast, talking about ads is bad”. Did I get that right? Why? Why would talking about ads being too intrusive possibly be a bad thing? Advertisement ARE intrusive. What 99.9% of the population forgets is that we allow these advertisements into our both our public and personal spaces. Ads will go as far as we let them. Period. If ads become too intrusive into our lives it is not only our right but our obligation to stand up and say “no, I do not want to see these ads in this manner”. Let’s take an example or two. Nike brands their t-shirts and hats with their “swoosh” logo. People, identifying with the brand, purchase these items and wear them. They are essentially advertising for Nike every time they wear one. What if they took the next step? If Nike invented some sort of e-ink t-shirt that displayed an animated, ever changing ad on the back of it, and essentially turned people into walking billboards, I would hope that those t-shirts wouldn’t sell very well. People can tolerate and accept a small “swoosh” on fabric. But if a shirt started talking to you about the virtues of Nike, that would be the line. It would have been crossed. No one would want that.
To break it down even further, you have the right, as a consumer (regardless of your occupation as a designer) to not view intrusive advertisements. Period.
Ad Blocks Hinder the Community: The design blogging community would not be what it is today without ads.”
I’m not really sure I could actually disagree more. That statement reaches maximum disagreement with me. To infer that websites are what they are because of ads is simply retarded. If it’s more a statement of longevity than quality, than this website is a perfect example of how that’s horribly misguided. This might be a quiet, less-visited corner of the internet, but this website (and my many others) have been running for over TEN YEARS. I have never had advertising on my site. I generate ZERO revenue from these websites. I have no intention of EVER generating ad revenue from these sites. I support this site out of my own pocket. I write content on my own time and for my own enjoyment. If you’re started a website solely to generate ad revenue YOU are what’s horribly wrong with the internet today.
We should be proud that we are part of a community whose advertisements are often from high-quality software and app development companies.”
Huh? Why would I be proud of someone else’s work? Even if it is high-quality and useful, I don’t feel “proud” about it. Oh, and this “community” you’re talking about, doesn’t include YOU. The application developers have a community, and trust me, they don’t consider advertising designers to be part of it. If you actually think you, as a designer, are part of their community, you’re got bigger problems than a crappy ad campaign.
Oh, and by the way, when you title a paragraph something like “Ad Blockers Hinder the Community”, you might want to actually talk about HOW it hinders the community. Your entire train of though consisted of “ads are good” and “isn’t it nice that applications are cool”. Wow.
Ad Blockers Promote a Me-First Attitude. Nothing succeeds when individuals are selfish. Ultimately, selfishness will lead to demise because a community cannot truly thrive if the individuals that comprise it are only in it for themselves. When you choose to block ads while you surf the web, you’re basically saying “I only care about my own comfort, and I don’t want anyone else to benefit from my web surfing.” It’s a shame that any web designer would have that attitude.”
I’ll give you partial credit for that one, but only for the first part. Yes, communities are built by 2+ people. You can’t have a “community” of 1. That extends to just about everything web related. You need people to read and respond for a community to be active. What on earth does that have to do with advertising? Just curious. “When you choose to blocks ads….” Ok, here’s where my problems really begin. I don’t block ads for “my own comfort” any more than I let prison convicts frolic on my back yard because they could use the exercise. I block ads, especially Flash ads, because they are a huge security nightmare. Ads on webpages and in emails are, realistically, responsible for about 75% of all viruses on computers these days. If you don’t block normal ads, you won’t block malicious ads and if you don’t block malicious ads, you’re reinstalled operating systems every weekend. Fuck you for thinking I’m selfish for not wanting my computers to be gaping security holes. Also, I “have that attitude” and I’m a web designers. I don’t put ads on any of the sites I design, and I’m fucking proud of it.
What would happen if ad blocker plugins started spreading like wildfire throughout the design community, rendering virtually all ads useless? That would be a terrible thing, and would effectively destroy many of our favorite blogs…”
No, that would be fucking Utopia. Xanadu. El Dorado. If everyone blocked every ad we might possibly get back to the golden age of the internet, when people wrote and communicated, not for points on some imaginary SEO scoreboard, but because they genuinely wanted to share information with people. Louis’ argument is that without ad revenue, the internet would shrivel up and die. I just don’t see that happening. You would see a drastic reduction in websites that solely existed to generate revenue, yes. I don’t really see the downside to that. My website would still exist. I would still do what I do. I know a half dozen people in the “community” that would still create Photoshop tutorials, plugins, tips and tricks, just because they would want to share it with their fellow man, not for some ad-revenue greed. Sure, ads might help a site that’s struggling to help pay for their hosting bandwidth, but so might any alternative source of income. Premium content, subscriptions, sponsored contests and giveaways. I could go on and on.
Ad Blockers Could Cause a Mini “dot com bust”. I’m in no position to intelligently analyze the dot com bubble burst or “dot com bust” of the late 90s, but if we promote an “everything should be free” industry, then we’re just setting ourselves up for something similar.”
You’re right, you are in no position to intelligently analyze anything. Neither am I, but here we are. I don’t claim to know what websites ad revenues are, but I would imagine that it’s only a smart part of their financial situation. The “bubble burst” wasn’t even based on ad-revenues. The burst happened because web-based companies were taking on huge sums of venture capital cash and then realizing that they only income they had WAS advertising and that it wasn’t enough to keep them afloat. Learn your web history before you bash it.
No, these advertisers are not making these website owners rich, they’re putting thousands of dollars into the design community, which is positively affecting all of us.”
Really? Did you get a check from someone else’s website recently? You can only speak to what you know, which is what you said in the paragraph before, so why would you assume that website owners aren’t making money and why would you assume that it’s benefiting YOU at all if you’re not directly seeing results/income?
When I worked for a big design agency here in Toronto, I almost always used Internet Explorer for my browsing. My co-workers didn’t understand why I used IE so much. Mainly I did so because I was used to it from years of using IE6. But it was also great because it gave me a realistic view of the web, because I saw things the way our clients did.”
Wow. You know what, your co-workers were right. All this time I thought you were just in the pocket of ad agencies. Now it seems pretty clear that you’re simply disillusion as well. I can’t believe you actually just said the phrase “I used IE6 because it gave me a realistic view of the web”. Wow, just wow. That’s so wrong on so many levels. You websites, while they should “work” on IE6, should never have been designed specifically for it. Hell, even when IE6 was brand-new, everyone knew it was crap. Back then, you designed in tables, in the simplest code you could, so that IE6 wouldn’t mangle it all to hell. I can only imagine the nightmare your IT department must have had with your machine if you were running IE6 without any safe-guards. Wow.
As a community, we should take a stand against any person or blog that promotes the use of plugins or other methods that effectively take money out of the pockets of the very people who are willing to put money into our community.”
No. As a community we should take a stand against people telling us how we should and should not view the web. The web would be a wonderful place without ads. I firmly believe that. I think I’ve even stated my case pretty well to that end. All you’ve managed to do is tell people that they’re selfish assholes for taking money out of your the community’s pocket.
If you run a web design blog, don’t promote the use of these browser plugins, and don’t complain about the amount of ads that appear on your favorite blogs — because you probably wouldn’t even know about those blogs if they didn’t have ads on them.”
I would know about those blogs because I READ content and when people talk about other websites, and leave these little things called “links” all over the place, I generally follow them if I’m interested. I do not “know” about a website because of it’s ad on another website. Perhaps if more people like those in your make-believe “community” wrote quality content, shared links and had open discussions (like we’re having now) we wouldn’t need ads in the first place. What a wonderful world that would be. Oh, and just to rub salt in the wound.
AdBlock Plus 1.2 for Firefox
AdBlock for Chrome
NoScript for Firefox
by Matt | Apr 23, 2010 | Aggravation, Culture
You all know I’m historically not the most politically correct person. Actually, I try and be the least politically correct I can be on a regular basis. There is simply nothing I hold higher than the first amendment, and I deeply feel that not only is it being used against us, but twisted and distorted, or discarded all together.
Normally, I wouldn’t bother to mention South Park. Parker and Stone are certainly strong enough individuals, who believe in their own first amendment rights, and who have exercised them numerous times in the past. Which makes this deal with the thinly veiled death threats from cowardly Muslim groups all the more aggravating.
Residing in OUR country, and citing OUR laws, they point to the first amendment and say that their religion is offended because someone is showing a picture of their profit. They say that their first amendment rights mean that everyone has to respect their believes and not show their religious icon. What they fail to understand is the rest of the amendment, the law in it’s entirety.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
If you’re reading that as any normal person would, you’d see a couple things stand our. First, that it’s talking about laws being created, not about you living your daily lives. It says that Congress can’t make a law taking away your freedoms, not that your freedoms can never be ignored by other people. Second, the amendment, if we’re putting it in the context of “personal freedoms” also includes the right to free speech. They are in the same law. They don’t trump one another. You being religious does not trump me or anyone else being able to freely talk about it.
Radical Islamic groups, operating in this country, have realized that we’re such fucking pussies that they can use their religion and their beliefs and our 1st amendment as a trump card and get whatever they want. How long will it be until a Muslim person, in a Muslim community beats and kills a girl who’s seen in public with a man and claim it’s legal and justified under their Sharia law? How much do you want to bet that it’ll become a serious test of our legal system when his murder trial goes to court? I’ll save my view of our legal system being bent over for another time, but if you’re vaguely interested (and like spy novels), check out The Last Patriot by Brad Thor
. Great Book and it has similar themes to what I’m talking about.
Anyway, my point is that it’s not so much an act of cowardice on the part of Comedy Central to ask them to so heavily censor the last episode as it is an abuse of OUR basic freedoms so that retarded radical fuck heads remain unoffended. I can understand the reasons behind it. The terrorists sent them threats of violence and included the names and addresses of Comedy Central head quarters, South Park studios, etc. Under the threat of death, I can see how they would decide that a cartoon is simply not worth having people die over. I understand that completely. What I can’t understand is why Parker and Stone didn’t say “fuck you” to them anyway and why this obviously dangerous group hasn’t been charged and arrested. If it’s their first amendment rights to threaten someone, then its our first amendment rights to offend them in the first place.
I’m sorry. Maybe I’m dumb. Maybe I can’t wrap my head around it. But one persons “right” to not be offended doesn’t override another persons “right” to offend them in the first place. You DON’T have the right to go through this life and not be offended. I’m offended daily by people wearing Yankees hats. Do I threaten them with bombing their place of business? No, of course not. Am I offended by threats against my faith, yes, on occasion, but I don’t insight violence in retaliation. I also know that it was the offenders right to say/do/create whatever they did. I have no right to stop them because they’re being intolerant of me. My beliefs are not their concern, nor should they be.
That entire premise has been both distorted and forgotten by everyone from government to media to people on the street. Why? Because, these particular people wrap towels around their heads and claim to have bombs. You know what, I’m with John Stewart. Go fuck yourselves. I hope you’re offended.
by Matt | Nov 12, 2009 | Aggravation, Friends and Family, Games, Personal
After two solid days of play, and years of previous experience, I feel it safe to say that MW2 passed the “15-Minute Test” with flying colors. That’s not to say it’s perfect however and this post is more pointedly a rant about the sour notes in an otherwise brilliant symphony of gaming goodness.
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by Matt | Nov 10, 2009 | Aggravation, Tech
Yesterday I attended the Windows 7 launch party and developer seminars. The talks were rather interesting, the launch party was rather boring but the real meat and potatoes is that they gave everyone who came a full retail version of Windows 7 Ultimate. Happy I decided to go I left the event in the afternoon and hurried home with my copy of Microsofts newest operating system.
As far as I can tell, I had done everything right. I moved all important data off my C: drive. I backed up everything I wanted to save. I ran the Windows 7 “Upgrade Advisor” to see if there we any problems (which I didn’t list any). I downloaded all the latest Windows 7 drivers to the D: drive for easy installation after I was up and going. I felt I was ready. I put in the install DVD, restarted and booted from the DVD.
Instant BSOD.
I was obviously a little confused. This is a brand new OS, one that’s supposed to be low on resource usage, easy on hardware requirements and heavy on compatibility. Surely I had done something wrong. I restarted again.
Instant BSOD.
As soon as the Windows installer starts I get a bluescreen with the always awesome “IRQL Not Less or Equal” and the explination that nvstor.sys is causing the problem. Apparently nvstor.sys is a nVidia motherboard driver responsible for control over the SATA devices. It’s also been linked to graphics card problems, but I don’t think that’s the issue this time. Either way, it’s an nForce chipset problem. After searching nVidia’s website, they claim that it’s not their problem and that their latest chipset drivers are W7 ready. Microsoft doesn’t even acknowledge that the problem exists and various forums around the internet list it as anything from a RAM timing issue to motherboard features needing to be disabled to a general hardware problem that has no solution. Apparently the recommended process for troubleshooting is tearing your machine apart, removing everything except motherboard and hard drive and installing from there.
I fail to see how that is an acceptable solution. I’m of course going to try it, but it’s so ridiculous that I’d have to remove hardware to install an OS that it’s really beyond description. “I’m sorry sir, we’re going to need to take your engine out, your doors off and remove your stereo so we can rotate your tires”. WTF?!
I’m also going to try, but I don’t know why, to update my chipset drivers and bios. I also fail to see how updating drivers on a hard drive I’m about to format makes any sense at all, but what the hell, it’s worth a shot.
In case you’re interested, I started a thread on Microsoft’s Technet forums to try and get some input on the problem. I’m going to go home today and try updating the BIOS, just for giggles.
I have to say, this is actually kind of a huge disappointment. If I had purchased W7 right now, I would be outraged. Way to drop the ball again MS. Oh, and by the way, a “continental breakfast” at your events should probably include more than danish and burnt Starsucks coffee. Just sayin’.
by Matt | Jul 2, 2009 | Aggravation, Games
Last night for the first time in probably two years I sat down and reunited with my old comrades for some good old fashion, ass kicking computer gaming. The members of the world famous Texas Combat Crew got together and had what I would consider to be a pretty awesome showing of raw gaming playing skill. We’re all older, we’ve all moved on to other things, but damn, we can still kick ass when we want to.
Of course, this meant I had to find and then install a copy of Battlefield 2, a feat that proved to be more difficult than shaking off the rust in-game. I had, at one point, two copies of BF2. One for the house and one for work. Playing at work was always a huge perk, one I genuinely enjoyed, and so that second copy was a necessity, especially since EA was (and still is) being an asshole about what computers use what CD keys. I managed to find both boxes. I managed to find both install CDs with both CD keys. What I couldn’t find anywhere were the “play” CDs.
That entire concept, from the beginning, has always been flawed and this is a perfect example of why. I own, legally, two $59.99 copies of that video game. I can’t use either one of them because I have to have a disk in the PC to play it. There’s nothing actually ON that disk, it’s merely “copy protection”. Now, 5 years after I bought those copies, I can’t find the disk to play. My install CDs, my CD keys, everything is useless without that second disk, the disk with nothing on it.
So, what did I do? The only thing a consumer can do (and they know it), I bought a THIRD copy.
Luckily, it was only $20 and included the entire collection (main game plus 3 expansions). Unfortunately, my fun lesson in economics didn’t end there. No, in order to maintain their place in the universe as a manifestation of everything soulless and wrong, EA requires “product activation” for the expansion packs. “Well, that’s not a big deal” you think, “I’ll just click this…..hmmmm…..why isn’t this working?”
Yeah, in order to play the expansion packs you have to visit EA’s website to register and activate your product. Only problem is, the websites for those expansion packs have long ago disappeared. The embedded links in the installer are dead. So, you get redirected to a page that says “sign up for an EA account”. I opt to login instead, because I already have an EA account from playing Skate and Skate 2. Oh no, that’s an EA Games account and the Battlefield page wants an EA Classics account. So you have to make a new one. Then, you go back and try and register again. This time it tells you it has no record of you playing Battlefield and can’t unlock the packs for you. This is because you haven’t “tied” your EA Classics account to your EA BF2 account. Oh, by the way, the page to do that, also dead.
You can see where I’m going with this. It took literally 10 tries, multiple account logins, multiple account merges, activations, dozens of dead links and finally a trip to customer support to finally get it straitened out. Two hours later (no exaggeration), I was ready to play.
Oh, and in the end, the expansions I was trying to unlock and install, add three (yes, 3) maps a piece. Oh, and the servers to play those on? They were shut down 3 years ago. Isn’t that awesome.
Way to make an installer EA. Keep up the awesome work. It was totally worth it to require I install (and then spend hours activating) those packs so that the main game install would finish. Totally worth it.
In the end, I really did have a blast playing. It was good to meet up with the guys again. It’s been too long. I look forward to the return of “Drunken Wednesdays” from now on.
by Matt | Jun 18, 2009 | Aggravation
It would seem to be redundant to say that GameStop sucks, but it does. They are, without a doubt, the single worst online retailer I’ve ever had the displeasure of dealing with. In terms of actual brick and mortar stores, I still have a special place of disdain for BestBuy, but GameStop is a close second. Let me tell you a little story of ineptitude, poor excuses and lost faith in humanity.
GameStop was having a sale. A big sale. They had copies of Rock Band 2 on sale for $95. That is a ridiculous (more than 50% off) sale price. I jumped all over it the second I read it. As I placed my order, the website said “in stock” and “free shipping”. I clicked “buy”. That was last Wednesday.
On Thursday I got a call from GS “Order Verification” asking me to verify that my order was in fact real. Of course it was real, so I said yes, they thanked me and said my game should ship out the next day. That would have been Friday.
On Monday, it still hadn’t shipped and it’s status on the website had changed to “pending”. I was a bit concerned so I called their Online Orders Department. I talked to this nice lady who had no idea what I was talking about. She said it didn’t say in the computer why my order was pending and that she’d call me back.
An hour or two later she did. She said she had checked with her manager, and he had explained that they had sold out early but that I would get the first ones on their next shipment. A shipment that was arriving on June 30th. She even upgraded my shipping to “Overnight” because of the inconvenience.
I figured that was ok, I could wait a couple extra days for it, it was still a good deal. I also figured it was legit because she had “talked to a manager”.
Today is Thursday, 3 days later. I open my email to find a note from GameStop saying that my order has been canceled and that they’ve discontinued that item and I won’t be getting it. Ever.
I was understandably confused. Just three days ago I had confirmed, for the second time, that even though it was sold out initially (which was bullshit to start with) they would in fact be getting more. So, I called them again. I talked to another nice lady would said that it indeed had been cancelled and that there was nothing she could do about it. They offered me a $10 coupon to go away.
I explained to her all that had gone on previously, that the order had been confirmed TWICE and asked what had changed. She blamed it on inventory problems and that they weren’t going to get any more. I called her on it and said that I had been told that they were in fact getting more. She said she didn’t know anything about that.
I asked for the manager. His name was John.
I then had to explain the entire saga all over again to John. He listened and at the end said “Gee, I’m sorry, but we’re just not getting anymore, it was a really good sale and it just sold really well”. I couldn’t take it anymore. I proceed to tell John that not only had I placed the order while it was “in stock” but that it had been confirmed not once, but twice that eventually I would get one and that I’d really like GameStop to make this right. They have to honor their own sales.
Again, he blamed inventory. I launched into how in this day in age, surely they have a computerized inventory system and couldn’t they have figured this out ahead of time. Then he blamed the website for letting people order even though they were sold out. I suggested that they fix their dumbass website and that they still needed to honor a price they had sold something at. Then he blamed the SKU# saying that it was a special SKU just for the sale and that the SKU had been canceled and they couldn’t sell anything under that SKU again. I told him I didn’t give a crap what SKU it was under, why couldn’t he just sell me a normal copy of the game for a discount.
He laughed. He audibly laughed.
“No, no, I couldn’t do that” he chuckled, “you ordered a used one, I couldn’t sell you a new one, they’re not the same”. That’s where I lost it. I said, in a not-so-nice tone that their fucking website had gone out of it’s way to explain that they BOXES were slightly damaged but the contents of said boxes were in fact brand new. This is what the website STILL says as of this moment:
“During our annual spring cleaning, one of our associates came across a forgotten chamber in the warehouse. He found a cache of leftover Rock Band and Guitar Hero games. These are all new games, but the ravages of time and being entombed in the depths of our warehouse have left some of the boxes in less-than-mint condition. So, although the outsides may be a little worn – just like some of your favorite musicians – the games and products themselves are still in perfect shape.”
I went round and round with John, saying that they needed to make this right, that it was pretty blatantly false advertising, especially if they were considering them “used” in the computer. All I asked for was Rock Band 2, at the price they had quoted. I didn’t want anything for free, I didn’t want anything extra. I just wanted the game. I asked if he could call a store in my area and see if they had a copy, even a used copy and that maybe we could work it out that way, that I’d even pay the difference. He said they had no control over, or way to monitor, any of the EB/GS stores.
In the end, he offered me a $20 coupon for my trouble. I told him that was fucking ridiculous and that maybe if he gave me 5 of those coupons, then that would make it alright. He laughed again. I told him to fuck off.
So, what’s the moral of the story kids? NEVER EVER SHOP AT FUCKING GAMESTOP. It’s my fault really. They had two strikes in my book but the deal was so good that I gave them another shot. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I will fucking end your existance.
Everyone have a nice day. Except GameStop, who can go fuck themselves.
UPDATE:
Wow, this pretty much sums up the entire GameStop shopping experience right here. Even if I had wanted to, with my pathetic $20 coupon, buy a copy of RockBan at full price, I’d still get the shaft. You see GameStop, when you reduced the price of something by $20, then ADD a $19.99 handling fee, you’re pretty much declaring that you’re just raping the customers and you don’t give a damn. Pathetic. Truly pathetic.
Gamestop Sucks
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