LWN Update [LWN.net]

LWN Update

Posted Nov 27, 2002 4:20 UTC (Wed) by simon_kitching (guest, #4874)
Parent article: LWN Update

One point your stats analysis doesn't take into account are those visitors who have cookie lifetimes set to short periods, or "this session only" (as I have). The effect is that I am an anonymous user of your site except when I have to log in to see the latest weekly news.

Given the (presumably) high awareness of privacy issues for the average LWN reader, this might be a fair proportion of your traffic. In other words, the percentage of subscribed visitors may be > 11%. I can't think of any way to measure this effect, though....

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LWN Update

Posted Nov 27, 2002 14:51 UTC (Wed) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

Indeed. There are a lot of folks that would prefer NOT to be logged and potentially
tracked with more precision than IP, when reading other than subscriber only content,
and unless posting comments such as this one.

I'm like that, only now that I've customized my site colors, I may log in more.

(BTW, why can't I customize comment background color? I prefer light on dark,
almost white on black, so I have text set to light/white, and background set to
dark/black. Unfortunately, there remains no way I can find to set comment
background, which remains un-optionally, and for me, un-optimally, white, so I can't
use TOO light a text, or I can't read comments! The site menu at the top of the page
also remains uncustomizable, unfortunately, so I am seriously limited in what link and
read-link colors I can choose, without making it unreadable, or some other part of the
page with backgrounds I CAN customize to my preferred dark, unreadable. This is
"less than optimal" from this subscribed user's perspective.)

(PS: The comment preview honors my background color choice. Why can't the
comment displays themselves?)

LWN Update

Posted Nov 27, 2002 17:13 UTC (Wed) by dbreakey (guest, #1381) [Link]

Use a browser, such as Mozilla, that allows you to override site style-sheets. Check here for information on defining a user-based style-sheet in various browsers, including Mozilla. Note, I haven't actually tried any of these, since I personally use Galeon, which makes it relatively easy to use a custom style-sheet. Now, if somebody would come out with a browser that allowed definition of custom styles on a per-site basis…

Not the most convenient option, I know, but until they enable that kind of feature as a site option, that's probably the best you'll get.

Customized site colors -> user-side solutions

Posted Nov 27, 2002 18:26 UTC (Wed) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

> Use a browser, such as Mozilla, that allows you to override site style-sheets.

I do, Konqueror, for normal browsing (incl. @ LWN). Unfortunately, that doesn't work
to well, because there are to many sites that for instance set the text/fg color w/o
setting background color (as is the problem here <g>), and I prefer to let the site
override, as in some cases, it adds to the presentation.

This is actually a problem big enough to be specifically mentioned in RichInStyle.com 's
CSS tutorial (before the reading of which, I thought I was the only one to find this
extremely annoying <g>), and I've repeatedly noticed it, even on widely read and
professionally designed commercial sites. Site/page designers will set one attribute,
often foreground, without setting the complimentary attribute. I use an off-dark-green
mid-brightness default background color, browser default, not because I like it all that
well, but because it doesn't glare at me like white does, but both black and white
stand out well on it, as do various other commonly used foreground/text color choices
(nobody chooses this color for foreground, because it's not exactly pretty, but at least
I can SEE the text, in most cases <g>).

One alternative I used to use on MSWormOS was a personal filtering/rewriting proxy
(The Proxomitron), with user creatable/changable filters. Unfortunately, I haven't
found a similar utility for Linux that works for me, and that I am comfortable with. (I'm
currently learning Perl, my first venture beyond shell scripting in Linux, which I only
upgraded to from MSWormOS a year ago, to see what I can do with FilterProxy. The
maintainer could use (and has asked for) help, as last time I checked, the available
newest version used an outdated Perl module and wouldn't function correctly with the
newer version of that module. Working with him on that is likely to be my first
volunteer development project in Linux. I was a hobbiest programmer using Visual
Basic in MSWormOS, and one of the reasons I switched was in ordered to be able to
continue my development under the software libre environment I have become far
more comfortable with. There's a similar project using Java, and others.)

LWN Update

Posted Nov 27, 2002 17:19 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

"why can't I customize comment background color?"

Nobody's asked for it. It won't be a hard feature to add, I'll put it onto the list.

Customized site colors -> Thanks!

Posted Nov 27, 2002 17:26 UTC (Wed) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

Thanks!

Tried to post with just the title and a (n/t) note, but it wouldn't go. Then
added the single word Thanks! and it still wouldn't go. Maybe it will, now? <g>

LWN Update

Posted Nov 27, 2002 16:48 UTC (Wed) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]

Maybe it's because people like me normally check daily updates in lynx without persistent cookies, but enjoy the weekly edition in Phoenix or some other full-featured browser with tabbed browsing, and, coincidentally, persistent cookies that indicate the subscription.

LWN Update

Posted Dec 2, 2002 16:48 UTC (Mon) by a9db0 (subscriber, #2181) [Link]

Jon-

Bad week to check - You published early, but not early enough for at least some of your regular readers (and subscribers) who are catching up after a long weekend.

Check the stats next Thursday, and see what the % is.