Enough, guys...
we already had several long and controversial discussions about those annoying and dilettantly badly done IBM flash ads which rendered our browsers totally unresponsive, and even made our CPU fans spin fast due to the waste of CPU cycles those ads provoked...
I hope that it didn't pass unnoticed that some (valuable) members have refrained from visiting the CG forums during that time - some of them have come back in the meantime, some have not (there are other interesting developer forums out there, ya know?)
The situation has been slightly alleviated over time, and the worst bugs in those flash ads seem to have been fixed (although it took a long time, and left an interesting impression of IBM's skills in the IT field in general, and in their interest in customers in particular... :rolleyes: ) In short, those ads have been just counter-productive, safely putting any user of this site in a position against IBM. But that's their problem.
But now, shortly after the IBM nightmare has stopped, here we are again with a new campaign, this time from AMD, and it is even worse! The browser (okay, I'm using the IE7 beta) stops responding altogether for half a minute or so while one of those AMD ads is dsplayed (I can't even browse in other tabs - the entire app is just dead! Amazing - how are they doing that? Perhaps they should seriously get into the business of writing malware, and stop producing CPUs altogether?) To add to that, that annoying banner in top of the page also inadvertently pops up a larger window - right when you're about to click a link in the page, covering the link you want to click! Sorry, guys, but is this supposed to be an April fools joke (we're in August), a virus, or what? In any case, it seems to be a very well thought out strategy to make anyone stop using this site (and build up a healthy aversion against any AMD product). Great going, guys... :thumb: (Or wait... Is it perhaps Intel who is behind this anti-AMD campaign, and pays JupiterMedia for it? Very cunning...)
I don't know for others - but while I already lost interest in replying to CG threads during the IBM campaign, the current AMD impertinence makes it almost impossible to use this site - so I'll just refrain, plain and simple. (And as a side-effect, I'm certain to opt for Intel CPUs in the future, if I have the choice).
Another hint for you advertising guys: Contrary to the IBM and the AMD ads, those flash movies from Microsoft (VS 2005) behave very well, and have no negative impact whatever on the usability of the CG site (and they're just as colorful and animated as your's, only better). So you see, it can be done. It's probably just a question of the right know-how. Perhaps you should ask MS who does their ads, and learn from those guys.
// Please excse any typos in this post - but one side-effect of those AMD ads is that while compsing a post, some chracters are just missed out - the brwser seems to be busy with more impotant things than accepting user input... :rolleyes:
