Registered: Jan 2001
Location: Misplaced Canuck in Charleston SC
Posts: 257

Image free handspring.com website

I use Mozilla as my main browser, and one of the features it has is to let you only accept images that come from the website you're visiting. Helps cut down on some of the annoying ads that pop up all over the place.

Went to the Handspring website today for the first time in a long while, and what do i see? nothing! Some text here and there, but nothing else.

after some teeth gnashing thinking my computer was all messed up because of having a zillion things open and being worked on, i remembered this feature of mozilla. turned it off, and i could see again!

Seems all of the images used on Handspring's website are hosted elsewhere. And to make matters worse, there are no alt tags used anywhere on the site.

anyway, i had a good chuckle over this and thought I'd share it with people

__________________
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GS d-(+) s: a C++ UX++++V++S++ P+>+++ L>+++ E+>++ W++ N++(+++) o? K? w !O !M V-- PS PE Y+ PGP++ t++ 5++ X++ R+ tv++ b++(+++) DI++++ D+ G++ e+++>++++ h--- r+++ y?
-----END GEEK CODE BLOCK-----

Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Out of my skull, back in five minutes
Posts: 1435

I had a look at their source code for the main page. The majority of the images are hosted at http://handspring.speedera.net -- Speedera is a "Global Content Provider"

quote:

---

from http://www.speedera.com/
Speedera is a top-tier global provider of Internet content delivery services for static and dynamic content ranging from streaming media to encrypted data to rich graphics. We put your website's content closer to users - for dramatically improved performance, quality, reliability and scalability. Off-loading your site's content to Speedera's worldwide edge delivery network will slash your infrastructure costs and drive online revenues.

---

__________________
The light at the end of your tunnel has been disconnected due to non-payment. Please remit funds immediately for restoration of hope.

Registered: Mar 2001
Location:
Posts: 347

Actually a LOT of other companies do this. There're ton's of these content providers around. In fact, there's one here in Nashville called Tapped_into. They provide content in the form of images, audio and video. The most well know provider is Inktomi. I think they do IBM, CNN and many high profile sites.

Registered: Apr 2002
Location: Laid-Off Land
Posts: 6

The leader in the "content distribution" field is a company called Akamai. CNN and Microsoft are two of their clients.

Registered: Apr 2001
Location: 'braska
Posts: 211

Re: Image free handspring.com website

quote:

---

Originally posted by imabug
I use Mozilla as my main browser, and one of the features it has is to let you only accept images that come from the website you're visiting. Helps cut down on some of the annoying ads that pop up all over the place.

---

__________________
www.jphillips66.org

Registered: Apr 2002
Location:
Posts: 74

however.

in regards to images; as a deaf person, I'm kind of sympathetic to people with other types of disabilities and this ranks HIGH on my list of frustrations with websites:

Except for the US Government and other disability-related organizations, almost EVERY site out there has so many tags and useless FLASH junk or images that a blind person using their "screen readers" gets treated a lot of gibberish BEFORE they even get to the actual meat of the site.

This has been published, to my knowledge by the groups that make recommendations on internet accessibility, but they recommend that ALL websites have a "text-only" page with tags that actually describe the pictures (eg. The Visor Pro- A silver handspring visor with a 3 1/2 inch by 2 1/2 inch screen and 4 buttons along the bottom for application access and two buttons for page up and page down features)

This would be GREAT for the web industry.. web developers would have more work to do thus more jobs for them!

Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Out of my skull, back in five minutes
Posts: 1435

There are actually rules from W3C (the organization which defines the standards for the Internet) about accessibility for users with handicaps, such as blindness or deafness or whatever. (That's not to say many of the more monied websites or owners thereof are or will be folowing them.)
http://www.w3.org/WAI/

__________________
The light at the end of your tunnel has been disconnected due to non-payment. Please remit funds immediately for restoration of hope.

Registered: Apr 2001
Location: 'braska
Posts: 211

Re: however.

quote:

---

Originally posted by NeilMcD
Except for the US Government and other disability-related organizations, almost EVERY site out there has so many tags and useless FLASH junk or images that a blind person using their "screen readers" gets treated a lot of gibberish BEFORE they even get to the actual meat of the site.

---

The most recently released version of Flash (plugin 6 / MX for development) is supposed to address some of these issues. While I do not know the details (I don't work with Flash much), I know this is one of the main reasons for developers to upgrade.

quote:

---

This would be GREAT for the web industry.. web developers would have more work to do thus more jobs for them!

---

Trust me, web developers have plenty to do, they have all the work that their former coworkers were doing . There in lies part of the problem, the economics of accessibility. Some companies who are hard pressed for resources may have a hard time justifying using those resources to make their materials available to a relativly small set of users. It takes either a company that has a strong moral obligation to accessibility (in which case they are probably not hurting for resources) or there is a mandate by the the customer that these issues be addressed. This is the case with the Federal Government, and why the we pay $800 for toilet seats.

Being a developer, I try to take accesibility into everything that I do, but it is something of a moving target. Two years ago it was making descriptions for your images, today it is much more confusing. With the W3C recomendations now available, hopefully we can move on from here.

__________________
www.jphillips66.org

Registered: Sep 2001
Location: Singapore
Posts: 174

quote:

---

Originally posted by rluxemburg
The leader in the "content distribution" field is a company called Akamai. CNN and Microsoft are two of their clients.

---

Not to forget.... Apple uses their services too!

__________________
my little webby
I still love my Visor Prism