Patrick O'Keefe

As a webmaster and a person who would like to earn a living from his websites one day, I place advertisements on my sites. I personally believe in doing things a certain way, which includes serving unobtrusive ads. So, I serve a few graphic/banner ads and some text link ads and that is about it. I don’t serve popups, invues, interstitials and the like. However, I understand that some webmasters serve those types of ads and that is their right, I am fine with it.

I understand popup blocking. I don’t agree with it. But, I understand it and it is forgivable. I don’t feel visitors have the right to block ads. They have the right to protect their computer from harmful things that would seriously alter the function of their computer – but that is not ads (or all/most ads), nor is it cookies. If a site serves ads I don’t like and I feel that visiting the site is not worth seeing them – I don’t visit the site. That is my right.

You cannot block all ads because a few are bad. Good sites don’t display ads that are bad in this way. You shouldn’t visit sites that serve you these types of ads. You shouldn’t penalize good sites because of bad sites, anymore than your boss should cut your pay for your co-worker falling asleep at the job. I only serve ads from reputable ad networks. These include Tribal Fusion, BURST! Media, FastClick, Casale Media and Google AdSense. I am a “good site” as most appropriate (read: non illegal, non porn, etc.) content sites are.

Worse than blocking popups are people who are blocking ads displayed right on pages. This is horrendous. Despicable. Disrespectful. Comparable to theft. How would you like it if you didn’t get paid for doing your job? There is simply no excuse for blocking ads that are displayed on pages. If you do this, don’t visit my sites. I want visitors and I work for visitors – don’t get me wrong – but I don’t want visitors with such a disregard for everyone else in the world. I don’t want anyone that selfish, that disrespectful. Whether it is Yahoo! or me, many websites need to make money. That is one of my goals in this. I want to do things the right way, I want to build quality properties that I can be proud of and I want to make money. I spend too much time on my network not to. If I had to get a job, my network would suffer greatly. This is a full time job. Like your job or any other job and I will need to support myself. Everyone should care about that or at least understand that not blocking ads on pages is a basic common courtesy, a basic sign of respect, of appreciation for the fact that the site exists.

If you visit a site, you should look at – or at least tolerate – their ads. Your choice is not to visit the site with or without ads – your choice is to visit the site, or not visit the site at all.

So, I went to play some AA as I was hoping Stephan would be there, but we didn’t hook up. At any rate, we were kicking butt when I got thrown out by a system error, so I am estimating what the last 3 games were (I know they were wins, but I don’t know what my stats were exactly)… but we went 16-1 (won the last 10) and I had 31 kills while dying 3 times.

The unbelievable thing was that right after we go 7-0 (and 13-1), one guy starts cursing and saying how he needs kills and him and another guy start arguing. I told them that it was dumb. Here we are, just crushing everyone and this guy is concerned with kills and fragrate. Bah.

Great and true article about Hideki Matsui.

Bingo.

I love the guy. Tough to think of a left fielder I’d rather have.

So, lately, some of the Red Sox have taken turns slamming A-Rod, with some of the absurdity coming from one Trot Nixon who said that A-Rod will have to win a ring before he is considered a true Yankee. Finally, someone has stood up for Alex.

Surprising to some, I am sure, the generally quiet Bernie Williams, the voice of reason, puts the notion to rest.

So, without losing a shred of dignity, Bernie shoots a cannon through that logic and sheds light on the Red Sox inadvertently showing a lack of respect for Donnie Baseball, one of the most beloved Yankees of them all. Nicely done.

In addition to Bernie Baseball, a good nickname for Bernie would be quiet fire.

Via Alex.

I don’t have to say very much… I am in a similar position to Jeremy.

While I have nothing against Firefox and my use of it has been generally positive… I have no reason to switch. There is nothing that jumps out at me and says “you need this!” All of the things people have suggested, in my experience, that Firefox has “better” of, just don’t interest me. Will that change? Maybe. I mean, I just switched from WMP to Winamp… anything is always possible.

Really, the subject as a whole bothers me because it is so unimportant and stupid, yet people can get so nasty. A group of web developers (that make the rest of us look bad) feel it is perfectly acceptable to insult IE users or to put down IE in a really inflammatory way. Of course, it exists on the IE side, but in my opinion – not as much, with a lot of it being magnified because of the people on the other (Firefox) side, originally. I’d just like it all to stop. I’d like people to respect each other and their choices. Will it happen? Yeah, right. And I’ll find a bag of money outside my door tomorrow.

So, to that end, these Firefox and IE discussions are bordering on the insanity of political and religious discussions – are they the next topic to be banned from discussion at professional run Internet communities? Maybe not. But, it is an idea.

Anyone watching House?

That and The Simpsons are the only 2 shows I watch regularly right now.

At various points of developing at some of my communities, there are users who start threads asking the question “Why is this site so dead?” Their exact words, no kidding. Either that, or “We need more users!!!” Things like that.

Now, don’t get me wrong. One of the goals of my communities is too grow. But, I don’t really rush growth. I tell users who ask these questions and say these things that they should enjoy what the community is now. Some people enjoy tight knit communities and almost all miss it (some more or less than others) when it is gone. I know I do. But, I also look excitedly towards growth and the challenges that it presents.

But, while we’re not big, you should enjoy it for what it is. Enjoy it while it lasts because once its gone, it probably isn’t going to come back. And, when we’re big, enjoy that, too. But, whatever moment you are in, take it in and enjoy it and make the most of it.

Well, thanks to Jared, I am now using Winamp. I liked Windows Media Player and still do (I’ll probably still use it to rip CDs), but some of the playlist stuff was annoying me, so I decided to give Winamp a chance. Got my playlist imported and its working pretty well. Still more to learn about it, of course, but we’ll pick it up.

I really like the opacity setting that you can set to make it blend in. Awesome.

Like we should have locked Pettitte up in spring training, we should lock Matsui up in spring training.

He wants to come back. So, bring him back. For me, Matsui is pretty much everything you’d want. Dignified, intelligent, talented (he can hit and field), durable. I love the guy.

Via Pro Sports Daily.

I think I am getting sick. I have a sore throat and that “feeling” that I am getting sick, if you know what I mean.

So, I speak to Gavin (who is sick) one time last night on MSN for 5 minutes and I wake up with a sore throat, brilliant!

Or… I went to the green tag sale and all I got was a cold!

Bah.