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Information on information technology. Mostly a collection of how-to — or, how-I-did — articles.

Teksavvy, update 3

Feb 22nd, 2026
by Craig.
No comments yet

I haven’t updated this topic because I’ve been busy, wonder of all wonders, but also because my ire is now focussed on my television, made by Samsung. It’s amazes me how far back in time we’ve progressed as time has worn on. But I’m saving up my annoyance to write a specific post about that. For example, we’ve progressed so far now that you can no longer turn the TV off, and turn it back on again a few seconds or a minute or a day later, and have the TV come on displaying the exact same channel that was playing when you turned it off. No, you have to fuck around pressing all of the seven fucking buttons on the remote control to navigate back to where you were, along with all the spinning circles that display while you’re waiting. Along with boycotting all Samsung telephones, I will now never again buy any sort of Samsung electronic device.

Progress!

Speaking of the seven buttons, you might notice that that the number is less than ten, which is the minimum number of buttons for a remote that has ten digits … you know, 0 through 9. So no, even though I know that the channel I usually want to watch is 206, I have no way of typing in “206” and thereby going straight to my preferred channel. Mind-numbingly stupid.

But let’s ignore that for a moment, as I have been doing for about two months now.

Now my problem is with Tek Savvy. They’re down. (This was written offline earlier.) Below is a screenshot of their Network Status page. (Taken when I was connected through my phone.) You will notice the following:

  • The outage map shows no outages. I’ve zoomed in on the Vancouver area (where I am, obviously), but there are also no outages in the slightly larger Toronto area either, which is the default display for the map. In the past, on any given day, there have been multiple outages in the Toronto area, most of them minor or being notices of network maintenance. And the page didn’t ask for my permission to geolocate my browser.
  • Note that the “live chat” is not live, it’s dead.
  • Note the “hours of operation” for “technical support”: 24/7. Umm, it’s quarter past now where I am, and according to my very careful calculations, that’s within operating hours. So obviously the claim that technical support is available 24/7 is 100% bullshit.
Tek Savvy, Network Status page, 2026-02-21

Tek Savvy, Network Status page, 2026-02-21.

It’s not as if this is the first time that they’ve been down. I haven’t kept track of how often they’ve been down, and to be honest it isn’t often, but it’s been more than Shaw/Rogers were down at my last place, and their being down affects everything in the household, most obviously the Internet and TV.

So I’m still pissed off at switching to Tek Savvy, although I’m 100% glad I switched from Rogers. I’ll probably update this topic at least one more time, probably to bring it to a conclusion, although that won’t include my planned review of my crappy Samsung TV.

Teksavvy, update 2

Dec 24th, 2025
by Craig.
Comments are off for this post

I was busy yesterday (Tuesday), so I’m late.

I woke up in the morning (again, Tuesday) to find the downstream light on my modem still flashing, which meant my Internet access was still not working. I rebooted the machine, no change.

Then I left because I had stuff to do.

I came back after 13:00, no change in the modem status. I again rebooted it, just to see if that would help. No go.

So, using my lightning fast (that’s a joke) Troublesome Mobile connection, I entered chat with a Tek-non-Savvy person. I have to admit the wait is not too long, but it ironically starts with, “We hate that you are having service issues”, and provides a link to basic troubleshooting. Nice, if it helps, which it doesn’t, because my problem isn’t basic.

The customer service person says my service has been activated, so I need to try another cable outlet. I ask her, “What if it works, but it’s not in the room where our TV will be?” I had attached it to the cable outlet (they’re using Rogers, sadly) in the living room near where the previous owners had a TV mounted on the wall. When I attached it to another outlet and I rebooted the modem, it eventually connected. Great! So I do finally have Internet access!

Oh, but wait.

Me: “OK, now it is [online]. But a wifi connection to the TV is not as good as an RJ-45 connection. Why do we not have connectivity on the one outlet where we want it?”

Her: “We have no control over which outlet the vendor activates for the modem, unfortunately.” (I’m starting to see a scam here.)

Her: “I can make some changes in the modem to improve the wifi. What would you like your network name and password to be?” Huh?

After being disconnected and reconnecting: “Why can we not get service at the cable outlet by our future TV?”

Her: “We have no control over which cable outlet the vendor activates for the modem. If you want to relocate the active jack, there is a fee to dispatch a technician. I can make a change in the modem that will help improve your wifi. What would you like your wifi network name and password to be?”

Me: “That hilarious. So you cripple a new modem? I will consult with the person bringing us our new TV on the 28th, but this might be a very short subscription. Would you rather charge us the fee, or have our subscription?”

Her: “It’s not crippling the modem. Band steering is enabled in the modem by default. Disabling it separates the two wifi networks so you can better manage your devices.”

(I looked up “band steering” on Wikipedia: “Some enterprise-grade APs [access points, I believe] use band steering to send 802.11n clients to the 5 GHz band, leaving the 2.4 GHz band for legacy clients. Band steering works by responding only to 5 GHz association requests and not the 2.4 GHz requests from dual-band clients.” Duck.ai says, “The main difference between 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz WiFi is that 5 GHz offers faster speeds but has a shorter range, while 2.4 GHz provides a longer range but slower speeds. Additionally, 2.4 GHz is more prone to interference from other devices, making 5 GHz a better choice for high-bandwidth activities in less crowded environments.” So despite the conventional wisdom that a “hard” connection (network cable) is better than a “soft” connection like wifi, she’s suggesting that I put my modem in another room (rather then right next to the TV) and connect to the modem over wifi. I don’t think so. The building is wood, but there is obviously a wall between the room with the modem and the room with the TV. By connecting the TV to the modem over wifi we’re jeopardising the quality of what the TV plays back. I have almost no experience in this area (TVs), so I have no idea what the degradation will look like; will it look like snow on a 1950’s TV, or what?)

More importantly, the “scam” I’m seeing here is that when we’ve set up Shaw (and then Rogers) cable TV and Internet in new abodes in the past, all cable outlets have been activated; we had a “main” TV in the lounge and a small TV in the bedroom. So if only one of the three outlets we have now was activated, why? Why this one instead of the one by the TV? Why this one instead of the one in the bedroom? And why hold us hostage if their random pick of outlet was wrong and we want to activate a different outlet? Why do they have to send a well-paid technician out? They can do most (if not all) things remotely, so their “claim” that they need to send someone in person sounds bogus to me, especially as what’s probably really happening is that a switch is being flipped back in the central office and the person they send just has to look busy on our premises for a few minutes.

This sounds like it’s worth bringing to the attention of the CRTC, quite frankly. This is either a scam on the part of the established players, or a reseller (TekSavvy) is rolling over. Either way, I don’t think this is playing within the spirit of the rules.

I’ll finish the conversation with Tek-non-Savvy:

Her: “The vendor charges us a fee to dispatch their techs, we have to pass this fee onto the customer.”

Me: “But why are you only activating *one* *random* outlet?”

Her: “That’s the way the vendor does it. Rogers. They own the lines”.

Her: “They complete the activation”.

Me: “I understand how the system works, but when we used to be with Rogers they activated all outlets in the suite.”

Me: “That’s how we believe it was with the previous owners.”

Her: “We have no control over this, unfortunately”.

Me: “Wow, not impressed. I will have to reconsider this whole palaver.”

Me: “I guess that’s it then.”

Her: “Have a good evening”.

Yup, TekSavvy: “We’re different. In a good way.” Depends; do you consider it good to subject your new customers to more fees rather than just providing the service and taking your fee every month? It certainly seems that this technician doesn’t give a shit and wants their mark-up on the Rogers technician’s time rather than my monthly revenue. That’s the most egregious short-term thinking I’ve ever come across.

I will have to consider my options when the Geek Squad guys show up with the new TV. But as I said above, it looks like this whole TekSavvy palaver has been a waste of time and money, so it’s fake competition.

Tek Savvy, update 1

Dec 23rd, 2025
by Craig.
Comments are off for this post

The grind continues.

My modem arrived today, a day early. Yippee! No more dealing with this 300 bps Troublesome Mobile connection! So I did as instructed and connected everything and contacted TekSavvy when the modem did not connect to the Internet, as expected.

“We’ll connect you tomorrow as scheduled.”

OK, so what was the *&^^)*&%%^& point of contacting you then?!

So I continue to operate on a child’s Internet connection from the mid eighties.

TekSavvy review: Initial impressions

Dec 17th, 2025
by Craig.
Comments are off for this post

I wrote a long email to TekSavvy, but they have conveniently given me no place to send it, so fuck it, I’ll post it here.

So far, my experience with Tek Savvy is anything but pleasant.

I made enquiries last week and signed up this week. I spent a considerable amount of time browsing and configuring my account, and managed to change an email address associated with billing, but not the overall email address for the account. No problem. Get onto chat and ask them to change it. Despite the simplicity of changing a SINGLE database entry, turns out your support people are NOT very tech savvy. No, I have to go through the process of creating and configuring a whole new account.

Get onto the sign-up page and go through the process of creating an account. (Remember, I am using my phone’s hotspot for now, which is slower than molasses and costing me a mint, while I wait for my modem.) Won’t work. Get back on chat. A person with a name this time confirms that she can’t edit a database entry either, and that my “customer ID number” has to be entered without the letters that you so helpfully put into it. I’ve lost track now how many times I’ve “chatted” to your not-so-helpful support personnel. 4? 5? 6? Did you know that most programming languages helpfully strip unwanted characters (e.g., letters) from data entered into a form field so that entering “ABC1234567” results in just “1234567”? Didn’t think so. Computer Science 101 might be helpful.

On every attempt to sign up, I enter all the information and click the “Confirm account” button, only to have the page sit there with the button and the form fields greyed out, and no network activity. I tried several times. On one of my many attempts to “chat” with support, I was told that this “must be” the fault of the web browser (easiest excuse for the uninitiated in the tech support book), the latest version of the browser I have been using for years with no problems, Firefox. It can’t possibly be that your site is defective, because that’s just not possible. No, I’m encouraged to use my phone to use the form, which also uses Firefox because, just like with the Canadian ISP I’m trying to choose, I’m trying to exercise my choice to choose something else other then the oligopolies (namely Google, which you support person suggested) I’m presented with.

So with your support person apparently willing to lose a client because he can’t use your website, she dumped me to figure it out on my own. Can’t possibly escalate the support ticket to someone who can write to your database, which would ABSOLUTELY be the most straightforward thing to do, and the least problem for your new customer.

Oh, and after all this, I received an email from Canpar to tell me that my modem is on its way … with all links for tracking and arranging the delivery “invalid”. This just gets better and better! Canpar tells me on the error page that they can’t help me, but suggest I “may want to contact the sender of the email message to see if they can provide an alternative link.” I laugh that off, because Tek Savvy can’t even help me with their OWN system!

So I await my modem to see what calamity awaits me. I can’t log into my account to rearrange the TV channels I want, so I expect more battles with your website in my “old” browser or hours on hold on my cell phone trying to deal with your unhelpful and very tech non-savvy support people.

Network Solutions denies transfer out before domain enters RGP (part one)

Oct 25th, 2025
by Craig.
Comments are off for this post

As the subject reads, Network Solutions has denied a domain transfer before a dot-com domain has entered the “redemption grace period” (RGP). This is prohibited by ICANN, as you can read here:

https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/domain-name-renewal-expiration-faqs-2018-12-07-en

Where it reads:

4. My domain name has just expired. Can my registrar require me to pay for a renewal before I can transfer the domain name to a new registrar?

No. You have the right to transfer an expired domain. Registrars are not allowed to deny a transfer due to expiration or non-renewal. (unless you haven’t paid for a previous registration period).

I have to assemble all the evidence and I will then make a formal complaint to ICANN and post it here. Seems they haven’t got over the fact that they lost their monopoly years ago.

Follow-up on the last post, “Dave Cooper and AI”

Jul 23rd, 2025
by Craig.
Comments are off for this post

This won’t be an ongoing theme, I can assure you, but I did as I suggested yesterday I’d do today, which was query Duck.ai again and see what nonsense it came up with this time. As I suspected, a link to my previous post was now in the search results and the AI-generated output was totally different!

Here it is:

Dave Cooper is known for his contributions to discussions about Zambia’s history, particularly when it was called Northern Rhodesia. He has shared insights about the region’s past and its cultural significance.

Background on Northern Rhodesia

Northern Rhodesia was the name used for what is now Zambia during British colonial rule. It was established in the late 19th century and became a British protectorate in 1924. The region was rich in natural resources, particularly copper, which played a significant role in its economy.

Dave Cooper’s Contributions

Dave Cooper is noted for his historical insights into Northern Rhodesia, particularly regarding its geography and cultural history. He has shared valuable information about the region’s past, including maps and personal anecdotes from his experiences growing up there.

Cultural Significance

The area is known for its diverse wildlife and rich cultural heritage. Many people, including Cooper, have fond memories of exploring the local bush and observing various bird species. This includes references to sunbirds, which are often confused with hummingbirds due to their similar feeding habits and vibrant colors.

Modern Zambia

Today, Zambia is recognized for its mineral wealth and is home to a growing population. The legacy of Northern Rhodesia continues to influence Zambian culture and identity, with ongoing discussions about its historical significance and impact on contemporary society.

I suppose if one searched for “salt” and generated an AI answer, the results would be pretty much identical each time. I searched for my own name without any additional search terms and, as expected, the output was about some slightly better-known person than me. So I added a couple of search terms and all I can say is that the result gives a whole new meaning to the term, “ego surfing“. If you need to generate a very important-sounding résumé for yourself, this might be the way to go! In fact, post your AI-generated output on your blog, on LinkedIn and a bunch of other places and it could be the equivalent of Google bombing / link bombing.

Just don’t tell them I sent you.

Dave Cooper according to AI a day later

Dave Cooper according to AI a day later.

Dave Cooper and AI

Jul 23rd, 2025
by Craig.
1 comment

Huh, interesting. I searched for Dave’s name on DuckDuckGo and decided to query their AI feature, “Search Assist”, not expecting much. These were the surprising results:

Dave Cooper was a notable figure associated with Northern Rhodesia, known for his vibrant personality and contributions to the community. He passed away on July 19, 2025, and was remembered fondly by friends and family for his unique character and love for life.

Dave Cooper’s Connection to Northern Rhodesia

Background

Dave Cooper was a notable figure who had a deep connection to Northern Rhodesia, now known as Zambia. He spent his childhood in Kitwe, where he developed a passion for exploring the local wildlife and nature.

Recent Events

Dave Cooper passed away peacefully on July 19, 2025, in the Netherlands. His life was marked by a vibrant personality and a love for the natural world. He was remembered fondly by friends and family for his unique character and the impact he had on those around him.

Memorial Plans

Cooper’s remains were cremated on July 22, 2025. In a tribute to his enduring friendships and shared passions, his ashes will be scattered in Québec, which he considered his second home. This ceremony reflects his connection to both his past in Northern Rhodesia and his later life experiences.

Legacy

Cooper’s legacy includes his love for nature and the memories he created during his time in Northern Rhodesia. His story is a reminder of the rich history and personal narratives tied to this region.

I find it interesting that this was created based on only my own personal website — where Dave is only mentioned once (making him “notable”), in his obituary yesterday — and on the Great North Road website where there is currently only a placeholder page and a link to a PDF document he created based on an original document from 1936 which, of course, isn’t about him!

I think there was a lot of interpolation by AI and, of course, some nice, trite words based on AI’s understanding of what recent death means to us humans. I wonder what the output from an AI will be tomorrow based on the addition of this string of text to its corpus. (Interestingly, Google’s search results don’t include any AI output, at least not for the same search string.)

Dave Cooper according to AI

Dave Cooper according to AI.

Spam from kingex.io (Kingex Crypto and Cash exchange)

Apr 28th, 2025
by Craig.
Comments are off for this post

Spam is frustrating. It is for me on many levels, not least of which because I run a mail server for a few thousand users. This is especially true since my company is a small hosting provider, so we have almost no leverage with the “big boys”, Google, Microsoft/Hotmail/Outlook (however they want to be known today), Yahoo, etc. The one that can’t make up their mind what they’re called has a programme called “Smart Network Data Services” but which used to be called “Postmaster Live”, but it’s as useless as tits on a bull. I’ve jumped through all of the hoops, but I still get just infuriating auto-replies and ignored when I try to interact with their system and the people behind their system. Google’s system is completely worthless and unworkable, as in order for my company to be a part of it, I’d have to create a new account for every domain we host! I can’t just sign up my mail servers’ IP addresses and deal with them that way! It’s stupid beyond belief.

But the point of these programmes/systems is for, as in the “old days” of the Internet, service providers — particularly the postmasters of said service providers — to interact and resolve issues. But the “big boys” don’t actually make any effort to “interact and resolve” anything; they just dictate how the rest of the world is supposed to interact with them, even when they’re operating outside of the RFCs, which are, essentially, the laws of the Internet.

One day I’ll write a more comprehensive post about how I think that all of said “big boys” are colluding to ensure that only they provide email service in the future, and companies like NinerNet Communications — with whom people are currently free to contract! — are shunted to the side, and encouraged to become their resellers.

But on a personal level, I myself get hardly any spam. Seriously! (Seventeen since 2021.) But when I do, I go through the roof, especially if it’s sent to one of my personal addresses, which I never give to anyone but close friends and family (I just don’t!), other than my “personal company” address, which I use to communicate with clients as well, of course. And I never enter it into a form on a website either! I have a system of rotating email addresses, and addresses I set up for individual suppliers and for specific purposes. For example, if I sign up for a Twitter account, the email address I give them is twitter123@myspecial.subdomain.com. That makes is easy to filter messages from them, and also makes it clear to me who leaked my email address if that address is spammed.

And if I’m going on a trip (as I just did), I set up an “alias” for the trip; that way I can use it for everything from plane tickets, to hotels, to entry tickets … the works! After the trip, I delete it. All of those airlines and hotels and theatres can spam me all they want — and they do! — but at the flick of a switch when I get home, all of that spam stops. Ahhhh, peace!

So after five paragraphs I should address the spam I received on Thursday from a company called Kingex, who bill themselves as a “crypto and cash exchange”. Years ago I gave up reporting spam to the email service providers from where the spam originated, and the hosts of the spamvertised websites. I used to have a very sophisticated and in-depth system for doing so — as good as if not better than Spamcop’s — but I eventually realised that it was a complete waste of time to do so … and it was a significant amount of time to do so, looking up the owners and contacts for multiple IP addresses and domains. It was a waste of time because my reports were completely ignored, and in some cases the hosts justified the spam, questioned my intelligence (“You probably just forgot you signed up for the spam”) and/or defended the spammers.

Anyway, this spam from kingex.io was sent to my personal company email address, not to one of my rotating or supplier email addresses. (I have a “personal company” email address, and a “personal personal” email address, both on their own domains, neither of which are the domain of this website.) Ironically the message included a request and a link: “Please leave us some feedback https://www.trustpilot.com/review/kingex.io”. So I thought, “What the hell, I won’t be reporting this, but I’ll give them some appropriate feedback.” And I did:

Never heard of these guys until I received spam from them a few minutes ago asking to be reviewed. So I am. Never deal with spammers.

I also perused a few of the other reviews, most of which were five (of five) stars, of course, as is typical on review websites where customers are coerced or otherwise strongly motivated into leaving reviews. But there were a few negative ones (read them yourself) where (a) Kingex representatice(s) was/were very aggressive in putting down the reviewer … which, as everyone knows, is Customer Service 101, put down any criticism with aggression.

In that vein my review received this response:

Dear customer,

We do not send unsolicited emails and do not promote our exchange services via email marketing. If you believe you received a message claiming to be from us, please provide the email address in question or contact us directly at support@kingex.io — we will be happy to investigate the matter thoroughly.

Until any evidence is presented, we consider this review an attempt to discredit our exchange service without basis.

Best regards,
Kingex Team

Because, as everyone knows, every negative review is quite clearly “an attempt to discredit our [company/]service without basis.” Yup, I’ve got nothing better to do all day than find new companies and leave them negative reviews.

Anyway, I’ve posted this here so that when I send these morons the copy of the spam I received, I will send it along with a link to this post, because on the Trust Pilot website there doesn’t seem to be a possibility of engaging in any back-and-forth, so my blog is where I will make this back-and-forth possible because Kingex will probably do all they can to have my Trust Pilot review removed. But, you know, when someone accuses you right off the bat with lying, there’s not much chance of any constructive back-and-forth. (Ironically, I see they now have another one-star review from someone else they spammed, with the same copied-and-pasted aggressive reply; see screenshot.) Here, the review cannot and will not be removed.

Oh, and their domain has been blocked on my company’s mail servers, so any future spam from them will not be delivered to our users’ mail boxes.

Kingex review and reply

Kingex review and reply.

Kingex spam complaints

Kingex spam complaints.

And here’s the spam:

Return-Path: <dumbass@kingex.io>
Delivered-To: xxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
Received: from nc036.ninernet.net (nc036.ninernet.net [127.0.0.1])
by nc036.ninernet.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id DD920C540C3
for <xxxxx@xxxxx.xxx>; Fri, 25 Apr 2025 00:54:25 +0000 (UTC)
X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at nc036.ninernet.net
X-Spam-Flag: NO
X-Spam-Score: 2.787
X-Spam-Level: **
X-Spam-Status: No, score=2.787 tagged_above=-100 required=3.5
tests=[BAYES_00=-1.9, HTML_MESSAGE=0.001, MISSING_HEADERS=1.021,
RCVD_IN_BL_SPAMCOP_NET=1.347, RCVD_IN_MSPIKE_BL=0.001,
RCVD_IN_MSPIKE_ZBI=0.001, RCVD_IN_VALIDITY_RPBL_BLOCKED=0.001,
RCVD_IN_VALIDITY_SAFE_BLOCKED=0.001, RCVD_IN_ZEN_BLOCKED_OPENDNS=0.001,
RDNS_NONE=0.793, SPF_HELO_FAIL=0.001, SPF_SOFTFAIL=0.665,
TVD_SPACE_RATIO=0.001, TVD_SPACE_RATIO_MINFP=0.85, URIBL_BLOCKED=0.001,
URIBL_DBL_BLOCKED_OPENDNS=0.001, URIBL_ZEN_BLOCKED_OPENDNS=0.001]
autolearn=no autolearn_force=no
Received: from nc036.ninernet.net ([127.0.0.1]) by nc036.ninernet.net
(nc036.ninernet.net [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id
X-fluxj0TjIf for <xxxxx@xxxxx.xxx>; Fri, 25 Apr 2025 00:54:24 +0000
(UTC)
Received: from domain.com (unknown [94.26.90.29])
by nc036.ninernet.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id D05C2C540C1
for <xxxxx@xxxxx.xxx>; Fri, 25 Apr 2025 00:54:24 +0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: <252444ef1bdff5fed9e3aa01f5012a2fb46c4b@kingex.io>
From: Kingex <dumbass@kingex.io>
Subject: Best exchange
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2025 17:54:02 -0700
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="2b81c86397537de6c56f26bd48820a7ce3"
X-Evolution-Source: 0ff2745c15978e92c527518f51fd77983813ec4b

–2b81c86397537de6c56f26bd48820a7ce3
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=”utf-8″
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

A BUNCH OF LINKS REMOVED

Please leave us some feedback https://www.trustpilot.com/review/kingex.io

–2b81c86397537de6c56f26bd48820a7ce3
Content-Type: text/html; charset=”utf-8″
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

A BUNCH OF LINKS REMOVED

–2b81c86397537de6c56f26bd48820a7ce3–

Updated, 2025-04-28: Firefox turns a bare Tiktok link into a tracking warning. I am not tracking anything.

Updated, 2025-04-28: Actually, removed most of the body of the spam message, as WordPress (Word-press?) just makes a mess of it, and all I was doing was helping to promote the spammer. Ain’t WYSIWYG great?!

Do you load the embedded images in email messages you receive?

Dec 22nd, 2024
by Craig.
Comments are off for this post

In my daily emails I invariably receive HTML messages with embedded images that are remotely hosted. I’m not talking about attached images that may or may not be displayed in-line, I’m referring to images that are hosted elsewhere and are pulled in over an Internet connection.

Every email client I’ve ever used — which is only two, Eudora and Evolution (I miss Eudora!), not counting the few I have tried temporarily — has given me the option to display these automatically or not. I always choose not to display them. Why? Because invariably one or all of the images are intended to track whether or not the person at my email address has opened the message and (presumably) read, understood and agreed to it. No thanks. There’s no benefit in that to me the receiver, so why would I do that?

Example of poorly designed HTML email message displayed in Evolution.

Example of poorly designed HTML email message displayed in Evolution

Where I really notice this is in marketing messages, of course. One in particular that I receive daily (at left) lists a number of products in which I might be interested. There are six of them on the page, and it used to be that three of them displayed above the fold — i.e., where the screen ended before I am forced to scroll. I didn’t see the images due to the default settings in my email clients that do not display the images, but there were textual descriptions that were enough to make me decide whether or not to click to go to the website for more details. Sometimes I would click, but often not. The point is though that some months ago they changed the layout of the messages, and now there are none above the fold, and no visible text descriptions without scrolling. As a result, I don’t even remember the last time I clicked for more information.

And then there are messages where the header image seems to take up so much space that you have to scroll down fourteen screens to see any text! I’m not sure which is worse; that, or messages where the whole message is contained in one embedded image!

There are even companies that provide a service where you place an image bug in normal, everyday emails, usually in your email signature. These companies must be on the decline though, as I haven’t seen any in a while. When I do come across them I block their domains using my machine’s “hosts” file, so that they never achieve their purpose, even if I do load the images in the email.

To answer my own question, I almost never load the images. It’s an immediate turn-off if you can’t explain what you’re communicating about without pictures.

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