Friday, August 02, 2002


The Return of the Useless Blob

The little guy started disappearing on me several times, and each time I knew exactly why- the image comes from his home over at Spacefem. Normally when people give you images to link to (biggest and best example being results from online quizzes), what they don't tell you is that when too many people link to the image on the original server (read: not yours), it can crash someone's server.

Now, when you visit sites that offer "free graphics" like Animation City or on sites where computer artists showcase their works, the put a disclaimer on the page telling you to please upload any images you take to your own server cuz by not doing that, you are stealing their bandwidth and can thus cause their server to crash.

Both camps are correct, but the quizzers don't clearly state this hazzard on their sites. In fact, whenever they say "copy this code", if you look closely, it shows the link for the image on their own server. Basically, this is an open invitation to steal their bandwidth and crash their server- thus losing both the cool graphic and the cool quiz and you end up with the big dreaded red "x" on your page where an image should be.

Well, I'm sorry Spacefem, but when I got my useless blob, you were doing what the quiz folks were doing. Normally, I do download the images to my own server, but without the big fat disclaimer on the useless blob page (or more poignantly) next to the "copy this code", you were headed for a server crash. When you don't put this disclaimer up, two things happen: 1) people who don't know better will link to the image on your server simply cuz they don't know better and 2) people who *do* know better don't see the disclaimer and thus assume that you have a big fat server that can take the load.

Now, I admit to direct linking (definition: "linking to something on someone else's server, especially an image, which steals bandwidth") but this was because at the time I adopted a useless blob, there was no big fat disclaimer/warning staring me in the face. I was wrong to assume, and you were wrong to not put that big fat warning up. We're both sorry. We ok?

And just for the record, this is the only time I had kept a direct link up. After an experience with my first online quiz, I put the image on my own server for safekeeping and safeguarding. And yes I did do the same with the useless blobs I adopted just in case something like this happened. The direct links are no more now. From now on, if you see a big red "x" where my useless blobs (one's in a blogpost from way back) should be, either reload the page, or email me. Thanks!
posted @ 11:38 PM  |   0 comments  |  

0 Comments:

Anything to add?