OT: Flash defeats cookie deletion

For those who care, Macromedia's Flash plug-in is also being used to track cookie-deleting web users:

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Macromedia offers instructions on controlling "Local Shared Objects," the entities used to store tracking info on your computer:

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In an article in today's Wall Street Journal:

"For its part, Macromedia, which recently agreed to be acquired by Adobe Systems Inc., has not received consumer complaints about the use of PIE, says Kevin Lynch, chief software architect."

I didn't complain, I just uninstalled Flash.

HTH, James Arthur

Reply to
dagmargoodboat
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Hi, James,

Spyware!

Firefox + Flashblock lets you see Flash when you really need to.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

Like Intersil?

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I claim credit for making them put the pitiful little row of links at the bottom.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

What I would like to see is a picture-style parts catalog, especially for connectors. I miss the big Molex, Amp, etc paper catalogs.

Reply to
Richard Henry

The Japanese sites tend to be terrible, too. You click on something like "transformers" any you get 300 links to large, strangely-named PDFs without any further clues.

The other thing I hate is sites that are organized by application, especially with classes like "wideband" and "telecom" and "networking" and "wireless."

As my old mentor Melvin Goldstein used to say, "The easiest thing in the world is not to sell."

John

Reply to
John Larkin

I have a sort-of competitor in Germany, and I'd like to know the price of one of their gadgets. They won't tell me. So I had an academic friend on the East coast ask, and they replied with a bunch of questions like "who recommended us" and "what's your application" and stuff. They didn't like his answers, so wouldn't give him the price. So I don't worry about competing with them; they obviously are too paranoid to actually sell anything.

Hell, it's to my advantage that my competitors know my pricing, so they don't undercut me too much by accident.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

Greetings Joerg, A very sensible policy. In fact it's not clear to me why Flash would ever be *needed* on a technical site, as datasheets and the info I usually seek are hopefully NOT animated.

That leaves ads and razzle-dazzle, which I already have plenty of, thank-you-very-much.

Regards, James Arthur

Reply to
dagmargoodboat

Howdy John, I do use Firefox (love that tabbed browsing..), & thanks for the tip on Flashblock. Honestly, I long for the days of 4800 baud dial-up, when the web was fast. I'd just set the browser for text-only, and the screens would fly up. The 2k of content moves a lot faster without 60k of baggage.

I'm oft tempted to go back.

Still have that Foothills flea market up there?

Regards, James

Reply to
dagmargoodboat

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is a picture catalog, in english.

Click on the Connectors, and then on subtypes of connectors in the menu until you reach a certain type, the pictures and data will show up in the right frame.

There is also a button in the left frame for turning on and turning off pictures, they are on by default.

--
 Roger J.
Reply to
Roger Johansson

Hello James,

I never installed Flash. If a company requires Flash to look at their products I apply a simple rule: They do not get my business.

Regards, Joerg

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Reply to
Joerg

Hello John,

Maybe they would have clocked a lot more in sales if you had made them do that earlier ;-)

Sometimes I wonder who designs web sites at some large companies. Many sites are so utterly useless that engineers never go there anymore. European companies seem to have a higher incidence of poor web site design. Probably they pay the most for it, to some artist who never did any engineering work.

Regards, Joerg

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Reply to
Joerg

Hello Martin,

Bankers usually don't. They just have their assistants pull down the press releases, 10K filings and some other financial info. The main source of information is through visits. I actually always enjoyed being questioned by investors.

Engineers need to be able to find parts fast and have instant access to budgetary pricing. The first is understood by less than 50% of marketing folks at semi companies, the latter is understood by a much smaller fraction. Some day they'll be gone and they won't even know what hit them.

HD?

Regards, Joerg

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Reply to
Joerg

I tried it. It is better than most websites, but not as good as the paper catalogs.

Here's a test for a connector commonly found around the house - find a picture of a DE9S.

Reply to
Richard Henry

True. There seem to be 2 sorts of website, one where you start at the products page and where you start at the corporate flash intro page with no useful info

Who actually uses semiconductor company websites, is it mainly "us" or do many institutions(money grubbing pension fraudsters) visit them

Damn, with the fraughtness of my HD dying today, I missed my Dilbert Fix

martin

Reply to
martin griffith

Did you notice that you get an enlarged picture if you click on the small picture? How many paper catalogs have the data sheet available right there at each component?

The web version of the catalog already contains more information than the paper version ever could. Counting all the pdf data sheets it would take a whole forest for each catalog, and they would have to deliver it with a fork lift.

--
 Roger J.
Reply to
Roger Johansson

Hi Joerg

HD... hard drive..... dont ask....

martin

Reply to
martin griffith

Hello Martin,

My sympathies. That is not going to be any fun.

Regards, Joerg

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Reply to
Joerg

Hello John,

That is a bad trend. Even some big semi corps do that. The worst is when it's not even applications anymore but their trade names. You have the option to either click on hyper-gizmo or platinum-widget.

He spoke the truth. Wish he had also mentored some of the big shot VP of Sales. One of them frowned after my suggestion of placing pricing info on the web site. He: "Then all our competitors would know", Me: "But I can already get that info on distributor sites. It's just cumbersome not to have it right here.", He: "Ahm, Ahem, uhm, well, errr .... ".

Regards, Joerg

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Reply to
Joerg

Hello John,

That wouldn't be much of a competitor then. In Europe companies are much more paranoid about anyone knowing their prices than here. Guess why my design-in percentage with National, TI and the like has grown?

What many don't realize is how easy it can be in the US that the price is being divulged. All it may take is for them to sell something to a gvt agency and then the competitors might only be one FOIA request away from knowing.

Regards, Joerg

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Reply to
Joerg

They got booted out of the parking lot at Foothill College, so moved to a parking lot at Ampex. I haven't been in a long time... all the good stuff is on ebay now.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

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