Top Five Things That Make Me Leave…
your web site. Ironically enough, it’s not a web page or even a plugin that inspired this post, but a FaceBook app. (Birthday Card, should you wonder.) I just won’t tolerate that behavior, it’s beyond sloppy coding and goes to bad manners. There’s no doubt in my mind that web designers (and FB programmers) who engage in this behavior probably not only pick their noses but likely also ingest the products of that nasal navigation. But I digress. Scandal said it best back in 1982:
1. Play loud, obnoxious heavy metal music on page load. Now, I am a child of the 80s, and my favorite bands include Great White, Guns N Roses, AC-DC and the like. But I might not be surfing from the comfort of my bedroom Imposing your musical tasts on me (or on my co-workers around me if I happen to be surfing from work) Is. Not. Cool. Period.
2. Hijack my browser’s back button or my mouse cursor. Those things belong to ME, not you. And especially with regard to the browser’s back button? Remember, some people might be using a text-reader or a handheld device. So you’ve just yanked the rug right out from under them with this stunt. Nice move.
3. Use absolute font sizes so that if I’m unlucky enough to be using a browser like IE6 (which I am forced to do while I’m at the office), I can’t zoom the text. I’d even forgive you if you provided a JavaScript based font resizing tool. But bottom line is CSS has been around a long time, and the web is not the printed page.
4. Fail to declare a background color (if your text/background scheme is something other than dark text on a light background). It renders your page illegible and me insane. Stop it, stop it right now. If you run your CSS through a validator (and you better be!), it will catch these kinds of errors. And as I said before, if you are using traditional dark text on a light background, you don’t have to worry about it so much. (But if you are anal, like me, and want your CSS to validate, you will anyway.) :)
5. Bombard me with pop-up ads and flyins. If I didn’t buy it before, that’s not going to make me whip my credit card out. It’s going to make me hunt for that back button. Oh, wait. You’ve disabled that! I’m always amazed at the places where I see such flyin ads. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the equivalent of a man forcing my head down, know what I mean? And THAT, guys (and girls) is NOT nice.
I was able to stay online via my Verizon cell phone while huddled in my hallway that night while a local TV station twittered what was going on around us. But it was during Ike’s aftermath that I had new respect for Twitter. That same TV station continued to twitter about useful pieces of information: Who has gasoline and how much it costs, who is handing out ice and bottled water, the status of electrical outages (they were citywide for days), which restaurants and grocery stores are open for business, etc. It was an invaluable resource for late-breaking very salient information. I’ve been hooked ever since!
The email went on to state that due to inaccurate domain contact information, the domain (and they never once indicate WHICH domain is at issue) was “subsequently purchased by another party.” The link provided to verify and update contact information is http://www.enom.com.sys53.ru/. Why bother if the domain is now out of my hands? This particular phishing scam seems inept at best. First of all, it went to the root email address, not an address that I normally use for anything, personal or business. That was red flag no. 1. Second of all, it never once in the three paragraphs of the email indicated which domain contained this incorrect contact information. Third, the link itself with a *.ru extension is a dead giveaway that it’s a phishing scam.