Althouse: If a reader came to my blog and Site Meter didn't record it, would it still make a sound?

August 1, 2008

If a reader came to my blog and Site Meter didn't record it, would it still make a sound?

Take down Site Meter? Noooooo. Site Meter means too much to me. You need to take down Internet Explorer.

Microsoft sucks.

IN THE COMMENTS: alank has a fix.... [FIX DELETED].

UPDATE: I followed the advice here and got my meter out of all the tables. It's at the bottom of the blog, in case you want to read it. Hope this works!

28 comments:

Buford Gooch said...: Well, hello. I'm here, but I use Firefox. Microsft is screwing stuff up again. Hope the lose the market soon.; 8/1/08, 10:59 PM
James Wigderson said...: Resist the Evil Empire? I have enough trouble picking fights with the Cap Times.; 8/1/08, 11:06 PM
Anonymous said...: If you click the red x before site meter loads, then the page loads fine. Do you know for a fact that this is a Microsoft-caused problem and not an error caused by Sitemeter screwing around with their script?; 8/1/08, 11:15 PM
Paddy O said...: Speaking of Instapundit...

What's the record for most So,number of posts a day?

You hit 15 today. That's Instapundit quality, with a lot more commentary than usual over there.; 8/1/08, 11:17 PM
James Wigderson said...: It looks like a Sitemeter problem, but No Runny Eggs claims he is not having problems in IE 8 (beta).

But back to Ann's question, if someone reads my blog via RSS, it's not recorded then either, right?; 8/1/08, 11:20 PM
Gideon7 said...: Sitemeter.com is delivering buggy JavaScript code.

To fix IE7: Click on the menu Tools -> Internet Options. Click on the tab Security. Click on the icon Restricted Sites. Click on the button Sites. Type the text '*.sitemeter.com' (without quotes). Click the Add button.

If you still have problems, you may need to clear your page cache to remove the bad .js file.; 8/1/08, 11:23 PM
Anonymous said...: Thanks, alank! That worked for me (much easier than clicking the X every time I loaded a page here).; 8/1/08, 11:32 PM
Grames said...: I too have given sitemeter the death penalty by making it a restriced site. No problems now.

When they fix their probleem, will I take them of the death list? Probly not.; 8/1/08, 11:38 PM
vbspurs said...: Question (not necessarily to Ann, who may not know):

When I check Althouse via the Amazon Kindle, does it show up?

This sounds like one of those Philosophy 101 exam questions, doesn't it.

Cheers,
Victoria; 8/2/08, 1:00 AM
Christy said...: Didn't work for me.; 8/2/08, 1:06 AM
Paul said...: The problem with Site Meter combined with your earlier post on trolling, with a dash of Postel’s Law, has created the kind of à propos synchronicity that only the Internet really ever brings about at my desktop. Just minutes ago I was reading a blog post titled “Martian Headsets” which explains in marvelous detail how Postel’s Law really screwed up the Internet and is the primary cause for why the average person has the tendency to blame one browser or another for all the poorly written code out there, and how in the end it’s that lack of standards on the Internet that caused you to blame Microsoft for how it couldn’t handle the bad code from your Site Meter. If trolling is “People who want the most freedom for themselves and the least for you” when they come to your site, do we have a word for people who would rather keep bad, browser-crashing code up on their website than allow people to use the most common internet browser on the planet? “You, the troll says, are not worthy of my understanding; I, therefore, will do everything I can to confound you.”; 8/2/08, 1:43 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Paul, the meter is important to me and the code has worked fine for years. Tonight a problem arose. I am confident that it will be fixed. You don't rip everything down for one flaw. And it's not "crashing your browser," it's just making my page inaccessible. You can browse on to wherever you want with your uncrashed browser.

And maybe you, Paul, are a troll.; 8/2/08, 2:11 AM
Ann Althouse said...: (Or a Microsoft representative.); 8/2/08, 2:11 AM
Ann Althouse said...: And from my statistics, IE is not the most common internet browser on the planet. Firefox is.; 8/2/08, 2:13 AM
blake said...: Paul...Allen?; 8/2/08, 2:23 AM
Paul said...: Gosh, Ann, I'm really sorry my comment came across like that. I certainly was smiling when I typed it, but I see in retrospect how it could have really been seen as negative. But yes, my browser was closing every time the message popped up. Again, my apologies. Consider me browsed on.; 8/2/08, 3:47 AM
Ralph L said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/2/08, 6:24 AM
Ralph L said...: A small but critical part of one of our suppliers' sales reporting websites wouldn't work on Safari or Firefox on our Mac because of Javascript, so I had to bring the data home to my IE7. While it may have been our particular computer, it's atrocious that some websites only work on IE.

I have just escaped paranoia when the 3 blogs I follow, JOM, Althouse, and AoSpades, were suddenly aborting.; 8/2/08, 6:32 AM
Ralph L said...: Well that's odd. I've had the same aborting problem for months when pulling up Carolyn Hax's advice column on WaPo. The fix that alank suggested fixed that problem, too.; 8/2/08, 6:38 AM
AllenS said...: Big thanks to alank!; 8/2/08, 8:02 AM
knox said...: You need to take down Internet Explorer. Microsoft sucks.

My husband is a Flash developer and he says that IE is "the bane of any developer's existience" For example:

savethedeveloper.org; 8/2/08, 8:49 AM
john said...: Thanks Ann,

As someone commented - If you can't read this message please switch browers. Sounds good to me, especially after spending last evening:

- running every anti-spy/virus/rootkit program I had or could download,

- running Housecall (takes hours),

- removing every favorite and retyping it in,

- dumping all the caches,

- going back two days to my last valid system restore,

- missing the new Dodger flame, that Ramerez guy, ground into a 9th inning double play insuring a win for the D'Backs and a 7-1 road series record - Go CoJack!

- Finishing the Merlot, something I really didnt need to do,

- Finding the fix on Volokh this morning. Yes, getting rid of sitemeter works for me.

So why did it happen yesterday afternoon? Anyone know how so many computers (well, at least mine) failed?; 8/2/08, 9:21 AM
Kev said...: You need to take down Internet Explorer. Microsoft sucks.

One of the (many, many) things that made me happy when I got my MacBook Pro a few years ago was that IE was no longer an option. (I'm also happy that there's that little application called Flip4Mac that allows me to see and hear WMV content without having to actually install that horrid program on my computer.)

Part of me still wishes that Microsoft had lost that lawsuit back in the '90s, because it's hard to deny that WIndows ripped off the Mac OS. But in a way, I'm thankful, because it forced Apple to be more innovative later on down the road. If Apple had won that suit, they'd probably be the big guy and Microsoft would be the underdog, and we'd all be buying music from the MicroTunes Music Store and loading it onto our Zunes. Yuck...; 8/2/08, 10:40 AM
Trooper York said...: I was sure that you had caught some sort of virus. After all Pamela Anderson has been hanging around a lot lately. Just sayn'; 8/2/08, 11:23 AM
Luboš Motl said...: Wow, I would surely be proud about 15 million visits, too. ;-) Your site works well in IE7 now.; 8/2/08, 11:31 AM
Moose said...: Ann,

Your site and several others (Insty, Volohk, Sully) were working fine one day, and then the next, they all failed to load.

The issue was Sitemeter. The error (and it is an error) is handled in a not so good way in IE 7, and ignored in other browswers. However it is still poor codiing of the web sites that causes the errors.

You just ran into the classic Microsoft conundrum - how to ensure that your product works with *all products* in *all combinations*, *all the time*. Whups. Sometimes it doesn't.

Apple fixes much of thes by one simple fix - it won't run ActiveX, or a number of other Microsoft technology.

So explain it to me - how does limiting your choices become better technology?; 8/2/08, 8:05 PM
Moose said...: ...and by the way. I would classify the statement "Internet Explorer sucks, take it down" as trolling for flames.

Grow up.; 8/2/08, 8:06 PM
blake said...: So explain it to me - how does limiting your choices become better technology?

Because some choices are bad? Is that so difficult to understand?

ActiveX is a particularly good example of a bad choice that Mac users don't have to make.

...and by the way. I would classify the statement "Internet Explorer sucks, take it down" as trolling for flames.

It does suck, and people (rightfully) resent MS for trying to leverage their OS monopoly to the web.

IE6 languished for years, pure crapware, a vector for all kinds of bad stuff, but it wasn't until Firefox pantsed MS that they reacted by making IE7.

They've strung Mac users along for years, and Mac users in particular have a vested interest in seeing IE go away.

Meanwhile, we know exactly what MS will do if people use IE7. We know exactly how the market will react--by making MS the de facto setter of standards, however bad. And we know exactly what their disregard of standards means to real-live developers, users and businesses.

So it may be provocative, but the stance taken is far from childish.; 8/2/08, 9:32 PM