Internet commentary

Citation

(2002), "Internet commentary", Soldering & Surface Mount Technology, Vol. 14 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ssmt.2002.21914bag.001

Internet commentary

The clever men at OxfordKnow all that there is to be knowed.But they none of them know one half as muchAs intelligent Mr Toad! [1]

Keywords: Internet, Microsoft, Kester

The author of the above stanza, Kenneth Grahame, who was born in Edinburgh, the city where I spent my childhood, and who died just three days before I was born, was able to distinguish between cleverness and intelligence. Can web site designers?

Something insidious is happening to many web sites. It is the inordinate use of streamed video or other forms of animation (often with Shockwave), especially on Home Pages, as well as excessive Java, Visual Basic or other Script programming. I hate it, where it is not necessary (which is 99.9 per cent of the time!). This heinous crime is often perpetrated by those who try to impress with their technical prowess, not that it takes much with the available tools, nowadays. The root cause is that it has become too easy to do. To be fair, a few sites do happily offer one the choice to allow you to enter without the offending techniques but they are the exception rather than the rule.

You may ask why I'm so vehement. Well, there are some very good reasons. One reason is my good, old, warhorse of download time. A second one is that such techniques are not permitted in ordinary HTM Language, therefore there is no guarantee that users of the more unusual browsers will even be able to look at the sites so equipped. The third reason is that it requires a "plug-in" (a complementary mini-application, working within the browser) to view these effects. These are constantly being up-dated, requiring a new "plug- in" at frequent intervals because the sites thus developed do not have backward compatibility to legacy devices. Put quite simply, this is not just a pain, but an avoidable one, at that.

I suggest to those who are responsible for site development to ask themselves whether any feature is strictly necessary to convey their message. If not, then scrap it. This includes links to external advertising sites, which often use this kind of technique. In any case, it is absolutely stupid to carry third-party advertisements on your own site, unless you want those who visit you to leave and go to your advertisers' pages, probably never to return.

Along similar lines, I deplore the unnecessary use of HTML in e-mailing. This may take the form of ordinary users writing their text in colour, at a different size or with a non-standard font. In almost all cases, there is a reduction of legibility, compared to the use of the default e-mail font. Maybe these people think they know better than the designers of the e-mail clients. I can assure them they don't. They are reducing the impact of their message and, in some cases, I don't even read their messages, they are so illegible, such is the sin of being too clever by half. Even worse are those with heavy graphics in their e-mails, often used in advertising techniques. Whenever I see an e-mail starting to load with graphics, I hit the "Delete" button, so the originators have lost their message to me. I refuse to have my time wasted by people trying to impose unessential bells and whistles on me.

I can't help but think of Ibsen's line in The Master Builders, "Castles in the air, they are so easy to take refuge in. And easy to build, too.". It is, by far, more difficult to lay solid foundations for a castle.

The sempiternal anti-trust litigation between Microsoft and the US Department of Justice and the eight dissident States looks like it will never be settled. It purports to be all about ensuring that the user obtains the best deal when he buys some software. It started out as to whether it was right for Microsoft to ship the Internet Explorer with its operating systems. It doesn't matter two hoots, whatever the outcome of the action, because Microsoft have already won as the Internet Explorer and Outlook have become the most used Internet tools, the same as the Microsoft Office Suite has wiped the board with its rivals. Yet these are the most buggy, poor-quality and insecure softwares compared with their competitors' products, in my opinion. Furthermore, Microsoft charge you more for Office than their competitors, with the latters' superior software. It is therefore clearly not a market-driven economy, otherwise Corel, Star or others would sweep the board with their cheaper and better programmes. I have a suggestion. Instead of wasting billions of dollars financing the workings of the US Department of Justice, the forthcoming European courts and hordes of top-flight legal eagles, why doesn't everyone just drop the case altogether and pass the resultant savings to all Microsoft clients of new software by halving the price? Don't you think that Microsoft would come out winners? OK, I imagine companies like Netscape, Corel and Sun would be the losers but there will always be niche competition available for those not wanting the Microsoft offerings, especially, like many are doing every day, if they switch to Linux.

Microsoft are furiously trying to elbow their way into the more arcane aspects of the multimedia field. In a way, although their success has been limited to low-tech offerings, they are doing us a service because they may put some order into the chaos that exists in video working for the PC. For those who don't know anything about the subject, to import video into a computer requires a software or hardware device called a codec. This is an acronym for COding/ DECoding and it takes signals from an analogue or digital source, converts them to a digital form that the computer can understand and then reconverts them in to a video form or a different format. There are literally hundreds of codecs on the market and the average serious user of video techniques probably has at least a score on his computer, many of them overlapping. The danger is that Microsoft, or others, offer codecs that do not conform to any standard, as they did when they first brought out the Windows Media Player, a few years back. At this time, the Redmondians issued three codecs, which were purported to be MPEG-4 compliant. Unfortunately, none of them were and this has severely hampered the development of the MPEG-4 standard for use on the PC. This is a pity, because the ISO standard promised higher compression and better visual quality for many types of video work, compared with MPEG-2 (the standard used for DVDs and digital satellite television). It is an unfortunate trait of Microsoft, that may have been contributory to their problems with justice and a stinking reputation among professionals, that they, also, try to be too clever by half, possibly with a view to trying to hammer their competition into the ground. At least, that is how it seems to me. Maybe "Oxford", in my introductory verse, should be changed to "Redmond"?

For my site review, let's go to one of the popular solder manufacturers, at: http://www.kester.com/

This is a case in point, regarding my comments earlier in this article. The Home Page itself is modest, a mere 10 kilobytes, but it has embedded a Shockwave animation of no less than 319,258 bytes. On an average, this will take over 11/4 minutes to download if you have a 56 kbit/s modem on a copper wire at an average Internet usage time and remember that many potential customers may have poorer connections than that. Broadband access to the Internet is still the exception. If you are patient, what do you get at the end? A flashy advertisement which does not really convey any message unless you are already familiar with the product (see Figure 1). It took me a wee while to work out what it was all about and I previously knew about the product, so I don't think it's going to attract great hordes of new customers. More likely, it will drive the cohorts to either click on a hyperlink allowing one to short-circuit the eye- and ear-bashing (yes, it's accompanied by sound, which is boringly repetitive) and to go straight into the site itself, or to go to the competitors' sites. Fortunately, Kester have had the forethought to put in this link, rather than to wait an eternity for the page to finish playing its worst. The Home Page does not have the necessary meta keywords and description to ensure reliable "spidering" by many of the search engines, according to the company's products.

Figure 1 A screen shot taken about half-way though the playback of the annoying advertisement on the Kester Home Page

The hyperlink, mentioned in the last paragraph, takes you into what Kester describes as their Home Page, although I have a problem here. I would have believed that if you type the URL at the heading of this review, this would be the Home Page, not a secondary one. However, this may be semantics. This took every second as long as the last page to download, mainly because of large graphics, combined with a very complex set of CS Script definitions. However, what really got my goat is that two of the graphics were to promote trade shows that took place in January (I'm writing this in late March!). For Goodness' sake, if a company is using its site for advertising events, it should, at least, update them as soon as each one is over, n'est-ce-pas? Or am I just being picky, today? However, be patient with me for a few more lines, please, things are bound to improve after that, I think. The main theme of the page is a 100+ kilobyte graphics background, the principle item being a rather eye-catching bit of trumpet- blowing, listing some awards. At the top of the page, there is a menu bearing the titles Products, Support, Information, Location and Links, each of which has a drop-down secondary hover menu. For example, the Products title comes up with Kester Products Index, DataSheets & MSDS, Electronic Assembly, Industrial Materials and PC Fabrication. This hierarchical approach seems excellent. There is some cross-referencing over the various pages and it may not seem too obvious finding the best path to take you to exactly where you want to go, especially as there is a drop-down "Choose" dialogue box in the header of every page. This box duplicates the hierarchy in a slightly different form. However, you will find what you are seeking, one way or another.

By looking into the Products hierarchy, it is not difficult to find a page (happily, faster loading) relating to the general type of product you are seeking, and then refining it down to specific products or groups of products. Even better, there are downloadable PDF data sheets and dated MSDS files for each product. This is absolutely exemplary (you see, I'm not always negative!). A minor point is that downwards navigation in the hierarchy is easy, but upwards navigation is less so: the browser's "Back" button is an essential accessory, although the "Choose" box is also useful! In the pages leading up to and describing the products, there are three menu links. The first is Purchasing Information which gives useful checklists for specifying what you need, according to the type of product. The next is Find a Distributor: this starts with a world map (slow to download), which takes you to a choice of three pages that demonstrate Kester is probably a lot better at making soldering products and suchlike than geography! Did you know that Egypt and Saudi Arabia are in Europe or Australia is in Asia? Of course, the markets may be handled from Europe or Asia, respectively, but that hardly constitutes transporting the countries across continental boundaries, does it? The third one is a little misleading: it invites one to Shop Online via an SSD. When one has worked out that an SSD is a Soldering Specialist Distributor, it becomes obvious that finding one who has the product you want in stock, and is not three continents away, makes the feature rather dissatisfying. However, samples can be ordered directly from Kester, although carriage forward.

I found the section on Support and especially Technical Support disappointing. I was hoping for lots of useful information, but the largest part was devoted to answering FAQs which were of a level that every reader of this journal could answer, blindfolded and with one arm tied behind his or her back. Most of the answers were correct but there were some which, if not incorrect, could be misleading. For example, one document states, "Kester does not recommend the use of acid fluxes for any electrical or electronic applications! This precaution is known throughout the industry. The clerk at the local hardware store will tell you this ...". Now, we all know what they are trying to say but, as stated, it's wrong, isn't it? (Especially the bit about the clerk at the hardware store: my experience of such persons is that they are more likely to say, "Euhh, what's flux?"!)

Under Information, one is led to a page giving the history of the company from its foundation in Chicago in 1899. There is a photograph (well- worth looking at!) of the Kester "old-timers" that ties in nicely with the locality, as one could easily imagine that they were a subsidiary of Al Capone's outfit! Seriously, though, there are also links to some other pages. The first one is the Trade Show Schedule. Believe it or not, this is even worse than on the Home Page: it bears the heading 2000-2001 and mentions two shows, starting in early October (presumably 2000) and mid-November. I can hardly believe that these were the last exhibitions they attended. The Press Releases were hardly better as they apparently have had little to announce for the past year and what they announced prior to that was mainly a small handful of prestigious awards received. There is one set of sub-pages called Lead- Free Update. Despite the name, it is not exactly up- to-date but it is a very useful set of documents and links, covering the pros and cons, summarising the regulatory positions in the USA, Europe and Japan and giving some good technical and commercial advice on this important subject. I like companies that give the names and e-mail addresses of all their executive and sales staff. Kester does just this in another sub-page, excellent! Under Employment Opportunities, I'm told they have no vacancies for me just now. I wonder when this was posted up, though!

Overall, this site is neither good nor bad. It needs some serious up-dating to enhance its credibility and I strongly recommend that some of the fat be removed. With the addition of some more technical information, such as papers presented by the staff at international conferences, it could become an excellent reference source. After all, web sites are not there solely as an advertisement: they are also consulted for serious information. I hope that this critique may give Kester the impetus to render our industry, and their own image, a service.

Brian EllisCyprusb_ellis@protonique.com

Note1. Grahame, K. (1908), The Wind in the Willows, ch. 10