Jul 12 2008

Holy Bundled Software, Batman!

Last week, I installed Netscape 4.79 on a virtual machine to verify my bold claims only to end up with:

  1. Netscape Navigator
  2. AOL Instant Messenger
  3. RealPlayer
  4. Winamp
  5. Netscape Messenger
  6. Netscape Composer

…as well as palm top sync tools and a bunch of utilities. And people tell me Microsoft are bad for bundling software, pfft!

PS. fresh layout :)

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Warning

This post is over 6 months old. This means that, despite my best intentions, it may no longer be accurate. Age, motherhood, experience, loss... these things have all changed me from when this blog was started back in the heady (ha) days of my youth.

As much as I would like to go back and edit 10 years of archives to provide an insight into the 'me' of now — to update coding snippets and revise website advice — it would probably take years to do so (by which point I'd have to start again!) This would defeat the point of keeping these archives anyway.

Please take these posts for what they are: a brief look into my past, my history, my journey.

46 Responses so far

  1. Matt says: July 12, 2008 at 7:01 pm # ·

    Woah! Talk about a lot of bloat. I hate installing things only to realize a bunch of other programs have been installed too.

    I like the layout but wish there was more contrast between the content background (white) and the main background :/

  2. Lotta says: July 12, 2008 at 7:07 pm # ·

    I love your new layout – simple, nice colors and not full of crap, just like it’s supposed to be :)

  3. Vera says: July 12, 2008 at 7:07 pm # ·

    … and here I thought that being forcefed iTunes, just because I wanted QuickTime was annoying.

    And “holy”? LOL

  4. Robbie says: July 12, 2008 at 7:22 pm # ·

    Lovely, nothing like useless crap you don’t want bundled with useless crap you do want…

    Love the new layout, very clean.

  5. Sarah says: July 12, 2008 at 7:26 pm # ·

    I love this design. It is blue and clean. :D

  6. Yesenia says: July 12, 2008 at 7:27 pm # ·

    Ooh, nice layout! So simple and clean!

  7. Josh says: July 12, 2008 at 7:34 pm # ·

    Cor blast!

    I like the new design. I’m not sure what people mean when they say that it’s “clean”—is web design ever dirty?—but it’s nice. Would be nice if it was grid-based, however.

  8. Maria says: July 12, 2008 at 7:54 pm # ·

    Wish I could see the full benefit of the layout, but not using my monitor and am viewing this on a tiny laptop screen set for a 1024 resolution. Damn it.

    Anyway, that totally sucks ass. I hate it when installing one program requires or decides to stick in a few other programs with that. Did you do the standard install or did you do a custom? They should allow you to decide if you want those installed, no?

  9. Vanesa says: July 12, 2008 at 8:01 pm # ·

    Nice layout! :) It scared me a little, actually… I thought “OMGZ Jemjabella changed! :O” when it really was just new a layout. Silly me.

  10. Amber says: July 12, 2008 at 8:11 pm # ·

    Beautiful new design, Jem! When the page loaded I initially thought I had clicked the wrong bookmark. It’s very refreshing and easy on the eyes. :)

  11. Cristina says: July 12, 2008 at 8:19 pm # ·

    Love the new layout Jem!

    So when you installed Netscape it didn’t even give you a prompt to where you could choose to have those programs installed or not? I know a few programs that try to make me install the Yahoo! toolbar but at least they give me the option of saying no.

  12. Aisling says: July 12, 2008 at 8:30 pm # ·

    You sure are addicted to blue. :P I like this one. :) It’s very nice. I like the gradient on the navigation. :D

  13. Arwen says: July 12, 2008 at 8:49 pm # ·

    AIM has been bundled with Netscape for the longest time, I knew that much, but I didn’t know it came with all that other stuff.

  14. Saya says: July 12, 2008 at 8:53 pm # ·

    I like the new layout! It’s nice and fresh : ) Really like the gradient in the top nav.

  15. Stephanie says: July 12, 2008 at 9:30 pm # ·

    Sorry to be the one to rain on the parade… but I don’t like the left-hand bar…

    I like it otherwise! I just feel like I can’t pick where to look… it’s distracting to me :\

  16. Ramsha says: July 12, 2008 at 9:34 pm # ·

    Urgh, that sucks. I hate it when installing something a screen comes up to tell me if I want to install such-and-such toolbar, but this is beyond annoying!

    Anywho, the new layout is lovely! :)

  17. Melinda says: July 12, 2008 at 9:49 pm # ·

    This layout is fabulous! I love it.

  18. Lydia says: July 12, 2008 at 10:03 pm # ·

    Nice clean layout!
    It looks a little bit corporate though.

  19. Hayley says: July 12, 2008 at 10:28 pm # ·

    Like the layout although I too feel it’d benefit from a slightly darker background. No more style switcher? :(

  20. Chelsea says: July 12, 2008 at 10:55 pm # ·

    Ooh, layou’ts looking nice. I’d go with a darker background. Not much, just enough to distinguish where the content-y bit is :)

    I hate having to install extra stuff with one thing. Every time I install Firefox (I have to a lot because my dad is constantly re-booting the darned thing to ‘make it go faster’) it asks me if I want to install all these junky toolbars which is crappy. I just want what I asked for, thanks!

  21. Chelsea says: July 12, 2008 at 10:56 pm # ·

    You know, I knew I’d make a mistake somewhere in that because I didn’t proof read…

    layout’s*

  22. Aaron says: July 12, 2008 at 11:06 pm # ·

    I think what I liked more about PC bloat is that Sony has (had? Don’t know, it was a few months ago) a service called FreshStart that sent you a computer without any of the pre-loaded trial software crap. Only, it costed $50 EXTRA to get it! They promptly removed the fee and made it free of charge a couple days after they introduced it.

    Nice layout. :)

  23. Cel says: July 12, 2008 at 11:45 pm # ·

    I refreshed your blog in one of my tabs and got rather of a shock. Everything went from dark grey to white. But it looks very nice. Not fussy and pretentious. I love the bouncy guestbook icon in your footer. ^^

    Sorry about the massive bundled software overload…but I’m sure Netscape Composer will be useful. Maybe. Possibly. What is it?

  24. Aimée says: July 13, 2008 at 12:35 am # ·

    The layout is fantastic! Love it!

  25. Mimi says: July 13, 2008 at 2:46 am # ·

    Loving the new layout! It’s so bright and crisp :)

  26. Hanna says: July 13, 2008 at 3:14 am # ·

    I remember when I was once using Netscape, it wanted to install pretty much everything including the browser. I didn’t like Netscape… But I like this new layout :)

  27. Leo says: July 13, 2008 at 3:24 am # ·

    The new layout looks amazing!

  28. Mumblies says: July 13, 2008 at 5:01 am # ·

    Too bright, hurts my eyes

  29. Rainbow says: July 13, 2008 at 5:44 am # ·

    As always a very nice layout and colors. I am as well a sucker for blue. Soft blues for sure! :)

  30. echo says: July 13, 2008 at 6:46 am # ·

    Is that how I ended up with all of that stuff back in the day? At least I used some of it back then… Hey, Netscape may be responsible for introducing me to Winamp! (Just looking for a bright side, I guess.)

    @Cel: Netscape Composer is a WYSIWYG HTML editor. I tried using it a couple of times — not sure which version, but it must have been 7-10 years ago — and of course, I ended up going back and editing the HTML source myself.
    Wow, this post calls to mind the days when I used to “design” separate layouts for Netscape & IE; I loved Netscape, but most people used IE — because of bundling!!

    About the layout: Glad you delivered more blue! I was also going to say thanks for making the fonts bigger, but then I realized I should hit ctrl+0 because Firefox is now remembering my previous settings. So, thanks for always making sure I can resize your text without ruining the look :D

  31. Niwa says: July 13, 2008 at 8:09 am # ·

    Love the new layout Jem! I clicked on my bookmark, and thought I clicked on the wrong link! Very refreshing! :)

  32. Niki says: July 13, 2008 at 8:50 am # ·

    The new layout is awesome. I like blue :)

  33. Alexandra says: July 13, 2008 at 12:43 pm # ·

    Winamp? Yuck.

    I also like the new layout. Feels lightweight!

  34. Kim says: July 13, 2008 at 3:34 pm # ·

    I like the new layout except I’m a sidebar on the left hand side (as you look at the screen) fan so I may switch to another that has that.
    I really like the colour scheme though.

  35. Kim says: July 13, 2008 at 3:36 pm # ·

    … Do you not have your skin switcher any more? I am unable to find the link to it.

  36. Jem says: July 13, 2008 at 3:40 pm # ·

    No, I’ve removed it, because it doesn’t work with the caching plugin that I intend on using.

  37. Kim says: July 13, 2008 at 3:45 pm # ·

    OK Jem, thanks for letting me know. :)

  38. Nyx says: July 13, 2008 at 4:30 pm # ·

    Adding my voice to the new layout love!

  39. Alex says: July 13, 2008 at 4:33 pm # ·

    I LOVE the layout. Clean, sleek, awesome.

  40. Yos says: July 13, 2008 at 4:37 pm # ·

    Ooh! Blue! :D I love it!
    Very clean and refreshing

  41. Claire says: July 13, 2008 at 6:01 pm # ·

    Nice and it renders relatively sensibly on my PDA, too. (Most of your layouts are pulled to bits by mobile browsers, but I was able to read your posts with only minor cosmetic mischief) ;)

  42. Hev says: July 13, 2008 at 8:37 pm # ·

    I love it Jem. It is so nice & simple looking. It doesn’t hurt my eyes, & I can easily sit here & read it without having to select the text like I have to on some of the other’s websites.

  43. Rachael says: July 14, 2008 at 11:19 am # ·

    Hmm… This looks much nicer on this PC than it does at home, but… I think what’s making it look slightly “odd” is that the “jemjabella” isn’t centred over the “articles”… Or maybe the articles isn’t in the centre and it’s making the jemjabella look off-centre. Hmm…

  44. Jem says: July 14, 2008 at 12:09 pm # ·

    The “jemjabella” text is centred in the div, the navigation word “Articles” doesn’t come in to it as it’s given a 20% width and centred in that… no ‘relation’ to the header whatsoever.

  45. Rachael says: July 14, 2008 at 5:00 pm # ·

    Yeah, I gathered that. It just looks a bit unsettling because it’s centred on my screen at home but not at work. I’m not suggesting you change it, I’m just saying I find it unsettling. ;)

    Although in theory, they should match up… jemjabella is central in the header, and articles is central in the central block of navigation. Weird.

  46. Carly says: July 15, 2008 at 4:58 pm # ·

    Lovely new theme Jem, very clean, light and airy.