Things I Hate About The Internet

by Richard Lowe, Jr.

Spam - The number one thing that I hate about the internet is the proliferation of spam email. For every email that I receive I at least one spam message. Hardly a day goes by when I don't get some idiot asking me to help them smuggle a hundred million dollars out of Nigeria, increase the sizes of various body parts, or sign up (for "almost free") for some sexual site. It's gotten so that life without spam filters would not even be possible. Do these people make any money off their spam? What kind of imbecile would respond to a spam message and purchase anything?

http://www.internet-tips.net/Email/SPAM.htm

Email harvesters - Since we manage several dozen websites, my wife and I have had to take extreme precautions to ensure that our email addresses do not get picked up by email harvesters. These are software robots that scan websites for email addresses, which are then added to those "bizillion contacts" CD collections. Putting your email address on your web site used to be normal, now it's become suicidal.

Pop-up Windows - These include pop-ups and all of the clever derivations like pop-unders. In years past, a pop-up was the sign of a free site (such as Tripod or GeoCities) or some tacky spammy site. Now everyone seems to be doing it. I'll put up with one pop-up once and only once from a site. But if they want me to return or purchase something, they had better not put up another.

Anti-Microsoft ranting - I know that Microsoft has it's faults (more than their share of them) and I know the company often is it's own worst enemy, but is it possible to write about the company (positive or negative) without producing a slew of rantings? It used to be entertaining, now it's just more of the same.

Web Bugs - These are little 1x1 pixel graphics designed to help marketing companies track the performance of their advertising campaigns. More insidiously, web bugs can be used to track people's movement throughout the web. Life would be better without them, especially in HTML email messages.

Advertising for that "tiny little wireless camera that goes anywhere" - This has to be one of the most annoying advertisements on the web. Can't we just ban it forever?

Webmasters that are more worried about getting listed by search engines than creating quality sites - I understand that search engines are necessary for the survival of a web site. But adding countless link farms, keywords and other things is getting ridiculous. Removing content or links or webrings just to get listed is even worse. I believe we webmasters should just create good sites.

Sites that try to prevent deep linking - The web is all about linking. While it is indeed bandwidth theft to link to an object such as an image, movie or audio clip, linking to any HTML (or ASP, PHP or similar) page is not only fine but must be encouraged. You will hear similar arguments against fair use. As you no doubt already know, the fair use laws (part of copyright) allow you to quote or make minor usage of copy written works without permission or notification. The uninformed will often argue that any copying is bad - however, fair use is not only good but essential in a free world (how else could you write a movie review, for example, or a term paper).

Deep linking is equally essential to the survival of the web as such. Any attempts by those with hidden agendas or those with little intelligence to suppress our ability to deep link must be fought with all of our might. If not, the web will cease to be free and will become a quagmire much like American television.

Bandwidth Theft - Please don't link directly to my pictures, videos, sound files and other similar objects. You can link to my pages, but not to the other things. This is called bandwidth theft, and it basically means you are stealing from me.

Changing my Browsers controls - Webmasters, please don't change my back key to back up to anything except the previous page. Please don't disable the right click function and don't do anything to the size of the browser window. It's rude and you can pretty much bet that I won't be back.

Free Hosts that Disable use - A new trend is free hosts which allow a certain amount of bandwidth to be used by each site per month. Once that limit is exceeded the site is shut down until the next month. This makes it really difficult for these free sites to survive, as they will drop from search engines and be removed from webrings because for a week or two they don't exist. Worse yet, most of these free hosts state the bandwidth is a certain amount (say 2gb/month) but the sites they shut down most certainly do not get anywhere near that much traffic.

Paid hosts that go to hell - Every single paid hosting service that I've used (about a dozen of them) started good and quickly went downhill. In the hosting world, poor customer service, poor performance and rudeness to customers seems to be the rule. Perhaps this is why they seem to be failing right and left.

Sites that include a statement like "Best viewed with" - A good webmaster makes sure that his site can be viewed (at least at a crude level) in any browser. Older browsers may only display text and text links, but the site should still work.

Sites without site maps - This is like trying to read a book without a table of contents. Please take the time to make a decent site map so I can get around your site.

Large Sites Without Site Search Engines - Sites with thousands of pages need to include site specific search engines. Why? Because it is not possible to have a navigation system that foresees everything I might want to find out. If you want me to use your site and it's large, then please include a good search capability.

Informational Sites with too much advertising - Look, I know some sites want to remain "free" and must pay the bills somehow. And I understand that the chosen dogma is that advertisers will pay for exposure. But do you have to include a half dozen banners, twenty links, three pop-ups, a pop-under and those silly monitors which fall from the top of the screen? Sites which do this would be better just charging people for access - if their content is good people will pay.

Sites which do not respect my privacy - I'm sorry, but you don't need my address, phone number or social security number unless I am doing specific kinds of business with you. And I am not going to tell you all about myself to fill out your silly survey. Just give me good content, a good shopping experience or good entertainment (whatever you are selling) and I will be happy.

And, oh yes, I do monitor where my information goes. If I find out my personal data has been given or sold to another company, you will NOT get my business again.

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Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets at http://www.internet-tips.net - Visit our website any time to read over 1,000 complete FREE articles about how to improve your internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.

Today's Motivational Reading

Have you ever thought, exactly what are your standards?

by Power-thinker.net

What are your standards for money? What are your standards for health? What are your standards for your relationship(s)?

Standards are a part of our value system. Our values are the things that are important us. Standards are things that we will not tolerate or put up with.

Our actions, situations, and environments are a direct representation of our standards.

What are you willing to tolerate?

How do you raise your standards? Remember, your standards are a part of your system of values. Your values are part of your heart's desires which include your beliefs, feelings, attitudes.

The formula is simple! Control and change your thoughts consistently and you'll raise your standards!

*** Repetitive thoughts produce patterns of thinking,

*** Patterns of thinking produce your beliefs, attitudes, values, standards, desires, and feelings

*** Beliefs, attitudes, values, standards, desires, and feelings produce actions, choices, decisions

*** Your actions, choices, and decisions produce all of the things you want out of life.

WOW! The formula is the same all the time!

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Power-thinker.net
"How To Consistently Control Your Thoughts!"

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Subscribers' Corner:

Instant Success or Gradual Improvement?

by Michael Southon

We live in a culture of instant success.

This is especially so on the Internet. Everyone wants to become an 'Overnight Millionaire', 'Retire Quickly', 'Get Rich Quick', and so on.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work - except in rare cases.

But here's a system that does work - it's called evolution or Gradual Improvement and Nature has been doing it for millions of years.

Nature operates through trial and error. It's constantly experimenting, testing. Each generation produces new mutations. Some succeed, some don't. Those that succeed become the basis for the next advance, and so on.

And that's also the secret of successful web marketers - trial and error. They constantly test. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. When they find something that works, they improve on it. Each tiny success becomes the platform for the next success, and so on.

In fact, people who succeed in any walk of life do so not because they discover a 'formula for success', but because they learn how to deal with failure.

Thomas Edison, when asked if he felt discouraged by the 1,073 failures he had before inventing the electric light bulb, replied "I did not fail 1,073 times, I found 1,073 ways not to do it"

Remember, there's no failing, just learning.

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Read Our Weekly Column
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