I was very pleased to see that the decrepit web browser, IE6, is finally approaching its demise. We web developers have been suffering with coding for this Beleaguered Bucket of Bogusness for years now. Now the idea of dumping it has taken on more urgency, as its security flaws were a key element in cyberattacks (traced to Chinese sources) on several large sites, most notably Google. Now whole countries seem to be urging the removal of IE6, with England and Germany taking the lead. Web developers all over the world are celebrating!
There seem to be two groups that still use this slow, buggy, graphically-challenged, security-risk-riddled browser: poor innocent folks who have no idea they even have it, (Hi, Mom!) and corporate intranets who, sadly, built huge important company applications that won’t work on any other browser. For the first group, it’s fairly easy to get rid of IE6, you simply upgrade – users are generally prompted to do that . Even I will admit that IE8 is a pretty decent browser – though it’s not in the class of Firefox or Chrome, I’d say it’s about as good as Safari by now.
Continue reading “Two Silly Web Trends Seem to be Abating! IE6 and Flash Intros”
Posted in Web Development |
I bought something a couple years ago from Sweetwater. They do offer good deals on a wide variety of music gear, and they have a wide selection. When I made my purchase, they dutifully assigned me a “Sales Engineer”. I began to receive regular emails from this person and Sweetwater, long after I had no more interest in hearing from them.
Spam emails are annoying enough, but then he started to phone me. I finally managed to speak to him and told him that I didn’t want phone calls. He fought me a bit – you know how salespeople can get – but he finally relented. Problem solved, or so I thought.
Just today I got an email from a fellow, let’s call him “T”, who was supposedly my new “Sales Engineer”. I simply deleted it. To a very small degree, I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. Big mistake. After getting the email today, I noticed that I had a voicemail. It was the very same “T”, who lead his pitch with “I know you don’t want be called, but your email bounced..” That’s all I would listen to before deleting it, and I was very angry by this time.
Continue reading “Sweetwater Music: Does Their Sales Force Suck?”
Posted in General |
It would be so cool to just ditch your job as a corporate desk jockey or grunt laborer and instead work for a guitar company, right? Well, maybe not. Gibson is purportedly a hellish place to work due to the CEO.
Gibson has been a venerated guitar brand for many years. I have played great Gibson guitars in the past, but I’ve never been able to own one. My only real beef with them is that their prices are astronomical, so when I was playing electric guitar for a living, even if I wanted one, no way. But frankly, I do like to see companies called out when they treat their employees like dirt. Before the web, companies could happily keep all this secret. And yes, obviously this is one side of the story, but the overwhelmingly negative reactions are pretty compelling to me.
By the way, it was fascinating that the company that famously breaks guitars has a ranking on Glass Door almost as bad as Gibson’s. To enjoy some dirty details and get your daily dose of schadenfreude, check out this page at GlassDoor.com. Or just enjoy some choice titles by people reviewing the company:
Continue reading “Gibson Ranks Highly on a Worst Companies to Work For List”
Posted in General |