Evasive Measures

[tealin]

1. Download and install Firefox (it's just better anyways)

2. Download and install Adblock Plus

If you're logged in you can't see 'em (for now) but following the above instructions should eliminate the ads from the side of my journal, only slightly messing up the formatting of the page.

Curse you, LJ – your antics have not perturbed me until now.

Comments

[fani.livejournal.com]

I can't see any ads on your LJ : | issss this a problem?

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Are you logged in? They go away when you log in, though I don't see this lasting for long.

Or maybe they're USA only ...

[anathelen.livejournal.com]

As mention at the top of this post (http://news.livejournal.com/109854.html), the ads only show in Basic accounts before you log in. I haven't had much quarrel with LJ before, but to suddenly have ads on my tidy little journal after five years is annoying and vaguely insulting.

I watched Master & Commander last weekend. It wasn't what I was expecting since I've only read the first book ("Waaaait, that ship isn't called the Sophie...") but gosh darn it was so good! The costuming and portrayal of life on the high seas were fantastic and Maturin was delightful. I went sailing the next day with friends and had way too much fun quoting the movie/trying to reenact antics. The other boats were mostly confused by our gleeful maneuvers.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

What bothers me is if they're going to put ads on our journals anyway, why not give us all plus accounts so we can enjoy the [trivial] benefits?

>>ANNOYED<<

Also, yes, insulted.

And flummoxed because the only way out of it, really, is to get a paid account, but that means giving money to the people who annoy me, which is like rewarding them for their bad behaviour. NO.

But M&C is grand! Glad you liked it! I think it's best the third time through, when you recognize the crew members well enough to be able to follow their story arcs as well as the main one. Sigh. So good.

[noodledaddy.livejournal.com]

I'm in the USA. I log in automatically. I see no ads, and no problem with LJ putting ads in. After all, it costs them money to purchase and maintain their infrastrucutre.

That being said, technology and resourcefulness will always trump corporate desires, as you have shown.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I don't have a problem with them earning money, but that's what paid accounts (extra privileges like image hosting and unlimited icons) and plus accounts (many of the same privileges for free but with ads) are for. The basic account was a hook that could introduce you to the fun and adventure of LJ, and once you saw how much more fun having a premium account could be, you'd either give them your own money or let them use you to rake in money from advertisers. Lots of people did this! The cost wasn't prohibitive and the benefits were both fun and useful.

What annoys me more than the bait and switch, though, is that we Basic users who have ads foisted on us don't even get the compensation of plus account privileges. If they said 'We're getting rid of basic accounts; here, all you Basic people, you're now Plus,' that would have been a lot more understandable and I, for one, would not be so offended. It would at least look like they were trying to be fair.

[fani.livejournal.com]

Yes, logged in, Safari Macintosh Laptop

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Well, Safari ... No Safari love in this camp. Drives me batty. Firefox is better.

[lizetm.livejournal.com]

Yup to both ... adblock rules my life and so does firefox ... V2 that is. *hates V3!*

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I use v2 at work and v3 at home, and honestly can't tell the difference most of the time, aside from the drop-down history thing (too much information). What do you hate about 3?

[lizetm.livejournal.com]

LOL, that (the drop down thing)... and some of the things it does with my e-mail tabs. Its hard to explain .. I just prefer v2, I'm used to it. :/

[moonmystique.livejournal.com]

I wasn't able to use the new version on firefox on my new computer cause vista is stupid and keeps closing it. Oi.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Ohhh, VISTA. Vista is EVIL. I think I remember hearing something about a way to circumvent that ... they might have it on the Mozilla site somewhere ... [is not helpful at all]

[moonmystique.livejournal.com]

Mmyah. And it doesn't help that windows xp and lower aren't going to have any technical support anymore so it kinds forces people to get vista.
What kind of computer/operating system do you use? I'm looking into other options, thinking about returning the vista computer.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I got XP on my laptop last summer (paid extra for it because it was supposed to come with Vista). Apparently now you have to pay an arm and a leg for XP but people still do because it's worth it. I've been using a Mac at work for about a year and after an initial honeymoon of blissful Mac love I still like XP a bit better. Linux is bloody annoying; don't go there unless you're a programmer or something.

As for tech support, well ... how much do you actually use it? The help files will still work, they just won't keep sending out updates and doing online support stuff. I wonder how much XP piracy will explode when they finally cut it off ...

[moonmystique.livejournal.com]

The laptop that I got 3-4 years ago all of a sudden has been dying; the keys don't work all the time, and the battery's shot, when I barely ever used it. Though i did some research and it's apparantly the model, it heat up too much and just fries the inside. So I really needed something new for school, and my dad wanted me to have something that's top notch, BUT that means it's a Vista. And 64 bit, so I basically need to up grade all my software eventually to 64 bit. And my scanner no longer works with the computer. I'm just so not computer-knowledged to know what to do; the Mac G5 is about $1,800 more expensive that what I've already paid for (2K, which is a lot of money for something that annoys me).

BUT in anycase, my bf's roommate said I could get a more customized computer for cheaper if I get someone to build it for me, and he's into that kind of stuff, so I'll have to look into that, hmm.

(Oh and one of my friends got Disney's Story apprenticeship/internship this year, so you'll probably meet him later in the year when it starts)

[anathelen.livejournal.com]

If you're doing basic computing (spreadsheets, word processing, internet surfing, listening to music) you can install Ubuntu Linux (http://www.ubuntu.com/) on your computer with an hour or two of help from a reasonably computer literate friend. No programming knowledge is required and it looks and runs nearly identically to OSX or XP's graphic user interface, whichever you want. It comes with all the basic kinds of programs a Windows operating system does and the programs are much better designed than Vista's are. There's great security and community support as well, and since Linux manages computer resources better than Vista your laptop will run faster without getting your hardware upgraded.

Unfortunately, if you're using more advanced software that you can't get in the Linux community (Photoshop/Flash/video games) you'll have to run a Windows emulator like Wine (http://www.winehq.org/) on top of Linux to 'fool' the Windows program, which gets a lot more complicated and might not be worth the hassle and complexity for the average computer user.

[moonmystique.livejournal.com]

My laptop has XP which I've used for years an lover, but my new desktop has vista. So yeah I work with PS and Flash and a bunch of other programs like Maya, so I don't think I'd have the paitence or time to figure out how to work it with Linux. But thanks for letting me know 8) I may just end up learning to accept vista, until they come out with something that's not so ridiculous.

[wizardelfgirl.livejournal.com]

Only, for people who have deviant accounts, the adblock screws up the browser, meaning you can't view people's galleries. So it has its drawbacks.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Wow! Strike number fifteen for DA! (I do not like that site.)

I've been to DA before and after the invention of adblock and didn't notice any change in the number of problems with it ... ? Maybe I just have a roundabout way of navigating ...

Random Question

[(Anonymous)]

I've never joined in on this blog before, but I just have a random question to ask: why do you not like the DeviantArt site?

Re: Random Question

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

1. Unclear navigation. Every time I go I have to search around for where the tiny little unobtrusive grey-on-grey gallery links are.
2. Redundant categories. Am I looking for something in the Gallery? Scraps? Deviations? What the crap is a 'deviation' anyway? Everyone seems to have different criteria for what goes where – a sketch on lined paper is a scrap to one person and a gallery piece for another.
3. Some people use it as a blog and some just use it as an image repository. The two don't seem to be very clearly delineated; I have never been able to find my way to an area that is very clearly A Blog, with entries listed by date and comments assigned to each one. Perhaps I am stupid, or perhaps I am just not patient enough to learn my way through the poorly-organized grey labyrinth to get to the blog section, but the fact that there is not an obvious 'This way to the blog!' button on the front page annoys me.
4. No threaded comments, and a random comment column on the front page where people appear to be having conversations with each other but it's unclear what they're replying to, even if they're replying to something recent enough to be on the front page. And it's all in reverse order.
5. The way other users are referred to by icon alone. Heaven forbid anyone ever change their icon, you'd have no idea who they are, or know who anyone is talking about.
6. You have to click on about three different links to see a piece of art full-size. First you have to find out which gallery it's in, then find the thumbnail (which might be several gallery pages in), then click on the thumbnail, then click on the small version.
6a. Every step in this process loads a whole new page, not just the frame that the image/gallery is in. This is made further annoying by:
7. Everything takes a REALLY LONG TIME TO LOAD. This might just be a problem with ... every computer I've ever used to access DA ... but it's bloody annoying that no matter my connection speed I have to go through so many hoops and wait so long just to see one lousy image, and repeat this process for every subsequent image I want to see.

And that's just what I can list without going to the site and actually looking for things that annoy me.

Re: Random Question

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

8. The way 90% of the comments are just vacuous fawning over the art ... If it's an artistic community, where is the constructive criticism? The suggestions? The specific mention of things that have been well-executed by people who know what they're talking about? The demographics of DA are, to my mind, about 20 excellent artists, 500 or so people with talent who are working on their art and learning, and 1.5 million delirious teenage girls who copy/paste "omg ur art is so amazing ur such a good drawer!!!!!!!!!!!! draw more [character x]!!!!!!!! omg kawaii!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Re: Random Question

[anathelen.livejournal.com]

You have the matter exactly, madame.