Babble v1 174

babble-digest Saturday, January 31 1998 Volume 01 : Number 174

In this issue:
www.jodi.org bashing
Need some javascript help
The mysterious Jodi.org
Re: critiquing Gabocorp...
zdnet critic
Re: Need some javascript help
Babble Archives
Web Fonts
http://www.jodi.org...wow!
web design laboratory
Netly piece on Gabocorp
Re: http://www.jodi.org...wow!
Re: Web Fonts
Re: critiquing Gabocorp...
TECH: capturing/caching dynamic sites (mac)
gabbo v. jodi v. what works

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 10:40:03 -0600
From: Pat Flanagan <pfpd@pfpd.com>
Subject: www.jodi.org bashing

Sorry for the long post, but I feel I should say this.

Hasn't this been an interesting thread I inadvertantly generated. I've been
on many lists in my long time on the 'net, and I've never received as many
off-list emails questioning:

A) My visual and artistic tastes
B) My intelligence
C) My reason for being
D) My worth as a person

Does this bother me? Not in the least bit. If you're going to call
something a "garbage heap" (and I still feel that the site as it was when I
saw it was a garbage heap), you need to be thick-skinned enough to accept
the flak you'll inevitably get. I'm rather surprised, though, that an
intelligent grownup would send an message like

"You dumbf**k, where do you come off calling www.jodi.org a garbage
heap -- why don't you take your empty head and shove it back up your
f**king ass where it belongs, and leave it there. Don't bother us with
your juvenile s**t. If you can't appreciate art, then get the f**k out
of the way, you're wasting our time."

I'm assuming this person was speaking for himself, and not the bulk of the
list. :D Anyway, I got a good laugh out of THAT one. There will always be a
two-year-old in the bunch. (I'm saying "two-year-old" based on the original
spelling in the above message, which I greatly corrected for general
consumption -- regular posts, I don't care about spelling, grammar,
punctuation, capitalization, etc., but if you're going to flame someone, do
it right, because poor spelling will degrade your flame into a barely
puttering ember.) Yeah, uh huh, WHO'S juvenile? :D

But, since I rankled some feathers, maybe I should give y'all some insight
into the way I write and think. This isn't the first time I've seen
www.jodi.org. I've liked it before, I've hated it before, and this was one
of the times I hated it. When I see something I like, I say so. When I see
something I don't like, I say so. I'm not afraid to tell the waiter at my
favorite restaurant that the steak's bad. That doesn't mean I'm criticizing
the waiter, the restaurant, or the cook. I'm criticizing the steak. Send it
back, and the next time 'round, maybe it'll be better.

Chris brought up my frequently ending posts with "cheers!". Well, I do have
some British and Irish in my lineage (just check my name), but I also have
a fairly broad streak of sarcasm in me. When I end a post with "cheers!",
that's a signal that I just let some of it loose (my "sugarcoat my comments
so as to not offend the fragile, precious sensibilities of the annointed
arbiters of digirati taste" comment is a good example -- I figured I'd be
flamed to death on that one, I actually only received compliments!). So,
um, don't take my posts (or anyone's, for that matter) SOOOOO seriously
that they ruin your day, or soil your diaper, or get your panties in a
twist, or however you want to say it. CHEERS!

Anyway, I always feel free to state my opinion. I'm a Libertarian, I feel
it's my right, and I feel it's everyone else's right to state their
opinion. If a site is mentioned on this list, I feel it's open season for
commentary, period, no ifs, ands, or buts. We're a discussion group, that's
discussion. And people's exact feelings, however valid you feel they are,
are always the best to state. Siskel & Ebert don't hate a movie but say
"all films are art, so we must give this film a thumbs up to support art,
even though we hated it." Nope, they call it as they see it.

Note: www.jodi.org has changed a bit since I first viewed it, and it's
better, no strobing -- I hope it didn't cause anyone to have seizures,
full-screen strobing is a very irresponsible thing to do. I think that's
the A#1 thing that bothered me about the site as it was when I saw it.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
____________________
PFPD -- newmedia marketing consulting
a limited liability company
PO Box 281, Granger, IN 46530-0281 v:616.663.2250
<mailto:pfpd@pfpd.com> -- <http://www.pfpd.com>
competitive business advantages through creative technology
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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 08:08:41 -0800 (PST)
From: Patricia <prism@lightspeed.bc.ca>
Subject: Need some javascript help

Hello all.

I'm looking for some help from you javascript gurus. I've got the rollovers
on my site working just fine (I used the web coder's "definitive rollover"
script). However, I still get error messages from any browsers earlier than
IE 4 or Netscape 3.

Is there a simple script I can use that will eliminate these error messages
when viewing the site in a javascript-challenged browser?

Any assistance is much appreciated! ;-)

You can e-mail me at prism@lightspeed.bc.ca

Patricia
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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 11:57:54 -0600
From: Ross Thompson <ross@ssgp.com>
Subject: The mysterious Jodi.org

I'm glad someone mentioned viewing the source of these apparently random
pages of ascii. I did this to see what was going on and discovered fairly
elaborate ascii art. But with no <pre> tags the pages get parsed as long
strings of characters. Is this intentional? Are we meant to look at the
source to find the pictures within? Or do they actually display correctly
for any of you?

I must say my first visit to jodi.org was disappointing, since it was
through IE on a Mac. Nothing happens. I looked at it today with Navigator
and experienced the blinking ascii and all. I sat through it as long as I
could stand it, then finally clicked through to the randomly generated
index, where links are discovered only by rolling the mouse around.

I found many of the pages interesting, if incomprehensible. Have you all
found the map to other strange places? I can understand the "garbageheap"
reaction, since that is how I initially felt as well. But after exploring,
going deeper, viewing the source, I have a new respect for the artist. It
provoked a visceral reaction in me that changed as I lingered. Art is
supposed to do that. That doesn't mean we have to like it.

I get the feeling (and I'm no art critic, so pardon me if this is obvious)
that jodi.org is expressing something about the de-humanizing nature of our
technologies. Kind of a love-hate thing. The artist really digs the
programming that produces the effect, but feels de-humanized by the
process, perhaps? How many of you have been tempted at times to throw your
computer out the window and take up farming? I love this work, but when the
system is freezing up, or random crashes occuring too frequently I just
wanna put my fist through the screen!

Ultimately, jodi.org is for a sophisticated browsing crowd, such as the
readers of this list. If you don't work at it, you don't find the
interesting stuff. How many of your average browsers even know they can
view the source, let alone have any interest in doing so? For me, it's the
first thing I do when I see an interesting page. jodi.org's source code
seems carefully crafted to force exploration. The index page, for example,
lists several links that appear to be incomplete <a href>s until you scroll
sideways some distance and dicover the rest of each tag. So many spaces
inserted in the middle of the tag, for what reason other than this?

I plan to check into this site regularly.

Ross Thompson

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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 11:41:14 -0700
From: "John P. Mays" <dojpaul@coffey.com>
Subject: Re: critiquing Gabocorp...

If one wanted to develop a site similar to that of Gabocorp.com, using the
same technologies, where might one learn to develop such a site?

I'm extremely knowledgeable of HTML, and I'm very familiar using
Javascript, ActiveX, and VBScript, plus I'm "ok" when it comes to graphic
design, but this Macromedia Flash is really something that bowls me over!
After visiting Gabocorp, I was in total awe... and knew that that was
something I'd like to learn!

I'd be most appreciative if you guys could provide me with some
recommendations. Thank you!

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
john p. mays dojpaul@coffey.com : http://advocate.pair.com/maysweb/
///level 2 member, site builder network\\\///member, h.w.g.
"Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has
genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now." -Goethe
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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- ----------
: From: Tari Akpodiete <tari@sympatico.ca>
: To: babble@highfive.com
: Subject: critiquing Gabocorp...
: Date: Friday, January 30, 1998 11:36 p.m.
:
: Actually, what happened was someone posted it as an interesting site to
: go and have a look at. People went and all of a sudden it became a big
: conversation. Yes some people were critical, but that was NOT how it
: started out. When I mentioned the site on other lists AFTER finding out
: about it here, I specifically said that I was NOT asking for a site
: critique. Suggesting that someone take a look at a site is not asking
: for a critique. Although some people might take it as an invitation...
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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 11:05:14 -0700
From: Trope newMedia <trope@teleport.com>
Subject: zdnet critic

someone suggested a look at that web designers' list of deadly sins from
zdnet . i took the bait and hopped over to
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_1716.html . the zdnet author's
brilliant insights include a slam against under construction banners and
dead links . i've been asked to keep my comments more objective than they
have been . could we also ask that babblers keep redunant uninformed crap
like off the list and too themselves ?

jeff faulkner

____________________________________________
<b>TropE new media creative</b> now up and running at
http://www.teleport.com/~trope
_____________________________________________

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 14:05:50 -0500 (EST)
From: Porter Glendinning <ag@cen.com>
Subject: Re: Need some javascript help

Howdy Patricia,

It will be somewhat difficult for anyone one the list to give you
valuable feedback on your JavaScript errors without an example to look
at. As a general rule when posting questions about specific
implementations, you should post a URL if it's possible. Also helpful
would be the specific errors you're getting in which browsers.

List etiquette dealt with, if you using the "if(document.images)" method
(I think that's what the "Definitive..." script uses, if I remember
correctly.), check to make sure you are wrapping both the preloading of
images and the swapping of images with that conditional. That's the first
thing off the top of my head, looking at which browsers you say you get
errors in.

Hope this helps. :)
- - Porter

- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Porter Glendinning pglendinning@cen.com
WWW Developer http://www.serve.com/apg/

On Sat, 31 Jan 1998, Patricia wrote:
[snip]
> I'm looking for some help from you javascript gurus. I've got the rollovers
> on my site working just fine (I used the web coder's "definitive rollover"
> script). However, I still get error messages from any browsers earlier than
> IE 4 or Netscape 3.
[snip]
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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 15:19:15 EST
From: TheGilster@aol.com
Subject: Babble Archives

Dear Babblers,
Is the Babble list archived anywhere on the H5 site? If not, I think
that the H5 should consider settingo ne up, as it might be useful
for those to check past threads before sending out new ones. It would also
act a place to reference someone to it if you notice the needs of a listee
have already been answered. Anyone with me on this one?

Gil Kruger
Zob New Media, Inc.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 12:39:17 PST
From: "Joel Fisher" <designer4hire@hotmail.com>
Subject: Web Fonts

I am trying to put together a list of the best fonts to use on the
web..do me a favor and e-mail me your favorites. Thanks alot..

Send them to: jfisher@ravenet.com (just a list not the fonts)
and I will get the list together and post it here. That way
we won't fill this mailing list with a number of lame posts.

Thanks for your help.

Joel Fisher

______________________________________________________
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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 12:45:47 -0800
From: Brad Westgaard <alutha@gaiaone.com>
Subject: http://www.jodi.org...wow!

I was amazed, puzzled, challenged by http://www.jodi.org.

Exploring it got me out of *my* box. It presented me with *my* interface. The
usual markers, hints, and rewards that I use to wind my my way thru known
cyberspace weren't there.

What do I do?

How are my actions connected to the (apparent) result?

It challenged me to think differently, to think outside of my box.

For that experience I am very grateful.

I understand why some people hated their experience--the same puzzle box that
was liberating for me, was disorientating and annoying for others. Both
experiences were valid, and simply describing mine won't make it *accessible*
to those who hated it.

Keep in mind that there is another layer beneath the layer of the
artist...that of the self. And beneath that of the self...a layer called in
greek (it's rusty) houpokamonos or "that-which-underlies-all"

(../marketing/artist/self/houpokamonos)

Remember that design is not just alignments and white space...it is at its
best a conversation with the cosmos. I enjoyed my conversation at Jodi's...it
knocked me flat on my perceptual ass.

Brad Westgaard
alutha@gaiaone.com
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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 22:02:22 +0100
From: Pascale Camus-Walter <camwal@cybercable.tm.fr>
Subject: web design laboratory

"Welcome! get a breath of fresh air after so many overkilled pages. Come in"

This is the java script message of the status bar when you come to the site:

http://shinzo.com/.

I know i'm insisting a lot for people visiting this site and giving an
opinion about it, but, if I had to say: what's the ideal example of an
intelligent application od David Siegel's principles, I would say, it's it.

(In fact, as far as i can understand, it's a japanese site, very private,
not announced to search engines, done by a professional designer.).

Killersite. (In my opinion).

I liked jordi, but it is the aesthetic of many techno- magazines in France,
just animated. I like Gabocorp's site too, but I was somehow desappointed
by the quality of the personal drawings. With shinzo, I like everything.

Il est plus facile de rayer l'obscurité que la lumière. R. Juarroz
+---------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
artKfee: http://www.cybercable.fr/~camwal/
The Waltercolour studio: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/5806/
apastras: http://web.superb.net/apastras
+------------------------------------+----------------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 15:29:38 -0600
From: Greg Lindsay <greg@babelfish.net>
Subject: Netly piece on Gabocorp

First of all, I would like to say thank you to everyone who
responded. There were enough of you to warrant a general post to the list,
which also gives me a convenient way to restate my plea to Babblers for
on-the-record comments about the Gabocorp site.

If you would like for me to simply quote from your posts, please
mail to me the sections of your posts you'd like me to use. I lost a lot of
the early postings about the site, and I also wouldn't want to embarass you
by putting words meant for a private conversation into print.

If you would like to say something new about the site, now that
we've all had time to digest it, hear are a few of the particular things
I'm interested in:

1. The navigation issue. His nearly full screen navigation -- good,
bad, or ugly? What about the idea of navigational flow? (Porter had some
great thoughts about this and I hope he'll contribute to this question.

2. The use of Flash. Is Flash a potential way out of the static
sites we see every day? What are its pros and cons as a technology? Is the
fact that it's a plug-in dissuade you from using it, in spite of its
promise?

3. His use of background music. I personally loved it although some
on the list said they were annoyed. How can designers eventually work sound
into the fabric of the site while giving users some control over it?

4. His business saavy. Several people mentioned that his site was
way too flashy (no pun intended). If so, how can his kind of style be
integrated into more corporate and other conservative client sites.

Like I said, these are just a few questions. If there's something
else you'd like to address, please do. Thank you all very much.

Greg

greg lindsay
contributing editor
The Netly News
(217) 332 4100
greg@babelfish.net
www.netlynews.com

- --------------------
"Just because something is
legible doesn't mean it
communicates; it could be
communicating completely
the wrong thing."

-- d. carson

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 15:28:19 -0700
From: "Matt" <fergusons@codenet.net>
Subject: Re: http://www.jodi.org...wow!

What the heck? This is totally crazy... What's up with the site?

>I was amazed, puzzled, challenged by http://www.jodi.org.
>
>Exploring it got me out of *my* box. It presented me with *my* interface.
The
>usual markers, hints, and rewards that I use to wind my my way thru known
>cyberspace weren't there.
>
>What do I do?
>
>How are my actions connected to the (apparent) result?
>
>It challenged me to think differently, to think outside of my box.
>
>For that experience I am very grateful.
>
>I understand why some people hated their experience--the same puzzle box
that
>was liberating for me, was disorientating and annoying for others. Both
>experiences were valid, and simply describing mine won't make it
*accessible*
>to those who hated it.
>
>Keep in mind that there is another layer beneath the layer of the
>artist...that of the self. And beneath that of the self...a layer called in
>greek (it's rusty) houpokamonos or "that-which-underlies-all"
>
> (../marketing/artist/self/houpokamonos)
>
>Remember that design is not just alignments and white space...it is at its
>best a conversation with the cosmos. I enjoyed my conversation at
Jodi's...it
>knocked me flat on my perceptual ass.
>
>Brad Westgaard
>alutha@gaiaone.com
>..H5 Babble Design List Info: http://www.highfive.com/h5/babble.html
>..To unsubscribe, send the following one line to majordomo@highfive.com:
>."unsubscribe (babble or babble-digest) (e-mail address)"
>

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 16:06:31 -0800
From: "|| c a r l a ||| a t >>CB-MEDIA<< |||" <carla@cb-media.com>
Subject: Re: Web Fonts

The Font Empire has great links and fonts, they are always adding more.
Plastique and Violation are my favorites
<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>
http://www.cb-media.com/carla
Carla@cb-media.com
<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>
http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/cmarina
Cmarina@sprynet.com
<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>*<<*>>

- -----Original Message-----
From: Joel Fisher <designer4hire@hotmail.com>
To: babble@highfive.com <babble@highfive.com>
Date: Saturday, January 31, 1998 1:40 PM
Subject: Web Fonts

>I am trying to put together a list of the best fonts to use on the
>web..do me a favor and e-mail me your favorites. Thanks alot..
>
>Send them to: jfisher@ravenet.com (just a list not the fonts)
>and I will get the list together and post it here. That way
>we won't fill this mailing list with a number of lame posts.
>
>Thanks for your help.
>
> Joel Fisher
>
>
>
>______________________________________________________
>Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>..H5 Babble Design List Info: http://www.highfive.com/h5/babble.html
>..To unsubscribe, send the following one line to majordomo@highfive.com:
>."unsubscribe (babble or babble-digest) (e-mail address)"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Feb 1998 22:59:32 -0500
From: Ryan Ferguson <signacct@signweb.com>
Subject: Re: critiquing Gabocorp...

>I'd be most appreciative if you guys could provide me with some
>recommendations. Thank you!

Recommendation:

Buy Flash. Learn it.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 17:12:08 +1300
From: Mark Zeman <zeman@morse.co.nz>
Subject: TECH: capturing/caching dynamic sites (mac)

Hi all,

We're trying to get a home made page caching system up and running...

We want to be able to use standard database middleware such as tango or
lasso to develop and maintain web sites on our server using all the
standard tricks - but we don't provide a full blown hosting environment
(yet). Is there a way to render out the contents of a dynamically
constructed site? In another words, have the client log-in to our server
and make changes to the site/database, then the server automatically
renders the changed pages to disk and they are mirrored to their final
destination on another server?

Any advice/pointers or suggested software would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your time.

Cheers,
Mark Zeman

Director/Designer

........

Morse Media - design for new media
http://www.morse.co.nz

ph 64 4 499 2505
fax 64 4 499 2504

PGP fingerprint: 91E0 691A 32C4 66D9 C46A 2088 7981 6FD8 2671 73CE

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Feb 1998 01:28:10 +0000
From: Michael Wade <mbwade@visi.net>
Subject: gabbo v. jodi v. what works

Hello all-

This is my first post to any sort of 'list'. I have subscribed to
this list for one week and have found the conversations quite valuble,
as I consider that many of you have been doing this for some time and
that this knowledge cannot be found in any book. I figured that I'd
give you the perspective of someone who has just stumbled into this
world.

jodi . org
-I first visited this site months ago because I had seen it mentioned
several times by designers. I thought "what the hell is this," and went
on. Just now I gave it another look, and peeked at the source code. "
Wow. Now that I've gotten through the ACSII art and into the rest of
the site, I don't think that I'll ever come out. There's so much there
that I would like to learn and adapt for my designs. And yes, is as
much about art as it is technology, no matter what it was intended for.
.
gabbo
-I was blown away when I saw this, and so has everyone else that I've
shown. They're for Flash one hundred % and want to redesign our site for
flash. I'm trying not too, but I think that it would be for certain
applications. I think that limiting things to the newest technology
would cut off too many people. Just because I'm getting a cable modem
doesn't mean that I'm not going to start designing sites that need high
bandwidth to use. I think that as long as one remembers their audience
and doesn't forget them they'll be alright.

I agree wholeheartedly with Faulkner who spoke about the
[..ability to suspend judgement and use it as a way to advance
creativity..] and [..once you decide whether or not something
is valid, you've forfeited the chance to learn anything more
from it..]

This is true of so many things.

- -Michael Wade

------------------------------

End of babble-digest V1 #174
****************************

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