Launching it softly, with this post
Posted By Mike Orren in Square Pegs on November 20, 2009
We've been squawking about it long enough, and today is the day that PegNews gets to try on her sexy new duds. This is what folks in the restaurant biz call a soft launch. We wanted the lower-traffic weekend to work out the most egregious bugs, and you'll see tweaks, refinements and new goodies throughout the next couple weeks.
So consider this a really expansive preview, and pardon our dust as we tie up the loose ends. Let us know what you think, understanding that we're still at the stage where we're not sure exactly where that lamp should go. A few things that we know are wonky that I want to warn you about:
- Main site search still needs work. However, I think you'll already find event search and restaurant search dramatically improved.
- For our friends who don't keep up on the latest and greatest versions of browsers, some advance apologies. If you're on Internet Explorer 7, you may notice a few minor oddities. If you're on Internet Explorer 6, you're probably not reading this: Come join us in the future.
- We're still organizing our video library, so you may come across the odd really old video in a hubpage player. Enjoy the nostalgia-- it'll be fixed ASAP
Even though this is as close as I get to slapping a "beta" label on something, the main operation and design is pretty much here, and we have a lot of people to thank for that:
Stephen Anderson is the designer behind the look, feel and architecture of the new site. He's also largely responsible for finding ways to make our massive piles of data useful and navigable without neutering them. He did all of this in a fraction of the time any reasonable company would allow a designer tackling such a huge project.
Our team of developers has put in a heroic effort in taking Stephen's mocks and making them work inside the Matrix, working long hours and putting up with my constant feature creep.
And none of this would be possible if our parent company hadn't seen fit to invest the time and resource to give this little website the bespoke suit she's so long deserved.
I feel a little strange today -- I was actually absent for the launch of Pegasus News, away begging for capital in New York. So I don't exactly know what one does after we flip the switch. I imagine a toast will be in order. Followed by a quick sigh of relief that we didn't break the InterWebs. And then we'll start working on the next release...
Find...
an event
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a restaurant
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a garage sale
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a drink special
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a movie
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local music
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a deal
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a job
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a pet
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a house
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Jesus Valadez, says:
I like it. Just have to used to everything again. Time to go exploring some more!
Verified
2 months, 2 weeks agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
Ted Howard, says:
Looks nice. Great work.
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2 months, 2 weeks agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
Michael Anderson, says:
Congrats to all of you for your hard work. I'm still getting used to the new look but I'm liking it more and more. Any way those pop up ads can go away?
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2 months, 2 weeks agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
Mike Orren, says:
Couple other things we know are busted right now -- music players and the Arts page. Really appreciate the feedback and general comments. Let's save any "X" is totally broken for a little bit, as the elves are already hard at work cleaning up the mess.
Staff
2 months, 2 weeks agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
Mike Orren, says:
There's a comment from a user that you can't see yet, complaining about having trouble finding tonight's concerts. We need to do a smidge of tweaking on the Event hub and music page to make that easier than it is, but for now, go here:
http://www.pegasusnews.com/search/eve...
The reason there's an invisible comment is that we've made it easier for users to register and finish doing what they want without waiting around for an email confirmation, but they still have to confirm before their post goes live. We'll make this a little more self-explanatory as we go...
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2 months, 2 weeks agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
Mike Orren, says:
Err... That concert listing link is incomplete. Worry not-- only a temporary thing.
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pabloindallas, says:
Nice website. Now all you need is more readers.
Anonymous
2 months, 2 weeks agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
Travis Bush, says:
On the Event Submission..why make people have to translate regular time to military time? Dropdown box for people who don't want to do the math?
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Mike Orren, says:
Thanks, Pablo. You could help us with that:
http://www.pegasusnews.com/accounts/p...
I agree with you Travis-- That's easier said than done. Event submission is the only form that actually goes directly into our content management system. All the others go to a person to enter, but because of event volume, we have that one go straight in. Computers don't like AM/PM, so we do the military time. That's been on our fixlist for a long time -- but there's enough wiring there that the fix alone would take as long as rolling out a new feature. But, in the light of our relaunch, we're looking at some things with fresh eyes. I'll put a translator into our to-do list.
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2 months, 2 weeks agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
Pavel Lishin, says:
Okay, well, I meant to kudos ya'll for the new popup review dialog, but if you cancel and click this box it CLEARS OUT ANY PRAISE I HAD FOR YA'LL.
So just imagine it in your head.
Also - I just copypasta'd the above - if you go back and click "preview" again, you go to a /post/ page that informs you of an error. So you've still got a few bugs to iron out. :P Is there an official bug submission page, aside from this? Because I'm apparently great at finding those :P
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Mike Orren, says:
Consider this the official bug page for now. And I'm not surprised the comment box is wonky. We're on it.
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Tracy Yost, says:
ya I got some of those too
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Travis Bush, says:
Also, peg is now addressing us in the first person..."I'll show you your post ins a second"...Really? How about showing a bit more..eh Peg? eheh..
Also, no toolbars for comment boxes?
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Travis Bush, says:
Also on Latest Comments..why not have every avatar show up next to the individual comment?
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James Scott, says:
I'm writing this comment the 2nd time, because it got blown away the first :(
I like it, design looks great, although it seems to take a lot of real-estate for comments. Not sure if IE can scroll that far down if we have ourselves another Caesar Chavez controversy.
Also, it will take some getting used to the latest comments/stories on the bottom - and it would be nice to be able to see more than two latest comments.
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James Scott, says:
Hmmm...something weird. It seems like it's only taking the comment that I entered when hitting "preview comment" the very first time. I hit "preview comment", then revise comment, then preview again - I didn't submit, but I hit "X". That took me back to the initial page, but blew away my comments.
When I wrote in a new comment and went through the preview comment spiel again, the comment that actually got submitted was the first one that I thought was blown away, not the new one I just wrote.
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Mike Orren, says:
Good idea Travis. I think that page still needs some work and I'm all for more avatar.
Sorry bout the comment nuke James. I'm also wondering about more stuff in the footer, but am also worried about it getting too long.
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2 months, 2 weeks agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
Travis Bush, says:
@ @Home my first instinct was to click there when I wanted to get back to the Peg News home page, not my personal info. Why isn't that nested in Profile? The card thing at the top is also slightly problematic. I would really prefer a bigger link back to Peg Home. I already see my avatar on a regular basis on places like FB...What if the ussr had a chance to close/minimize that? Hope that makes sense...If not, these aren't the comments you are looking for...move along.
Most of us would prefer @ Home info for the cute Peg News staffers, excluding Bullock and Meyers..and yourself, of course.
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Tracy Yost, says:
yeh, I've been using my bookmark to hop back to the main page.
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Tracy Yost, says:
do the rest of ya'll see the drinks map? I got no drinks map.
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Pavel Lishin, says:
Lush!
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Travis Bush, says:
When logged out, "Create My Profile" Button/Space is larger than Pavel's monthly vodka budget.
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Travis Bush, says:
Featured User..eh...one expects this feature to show his places of interest and favorites...it doesn't. If sassing on Peg News is among his favorite things to do then that explains a lot...Pavel should let him out of the dungeon more often.
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Andrew Laska, says:
I guess I'm the contrarian. I think the layout looks good but has serious functional difficulties. It hides content I want to see. New users may not even know its there. Take notice: Even the Dallas Morning News has its top stories better exposed. Pictures changing in rollovers are obnoxious.
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Mike Orren, says:
Directions to homepage:
Click anything but your avatar on the logo gets you there. Only the avatar goes to profile. Also, "TopPicks" in the main nav = home. We've been debating that language and the discussion above may be our answer...
Tracy, we've tried to replicate your drinks map issue in every browser and OS imaginable and haven't been able to. Can you see the Garage sale map?:
http://www.pegasusnews.com/shopping/g...
Yes the create profile information is prominent for unlogged. One of our big goals is to get more people registered and therefore more active.
Good point on the featured user, Travis. You're one click away from what ScoDo likes with the options on the right rail, but that's a bit silly. We'll tweak.
Andrew, what content is hidden? We're under the impression that this brings more of our latest and greatest to the fore versus the old design.
Sorry you don't like the photo-rollover thing. We think it's a way to have more than one lead story at a time (see issue above).
Keep the feedback coming, y'all. This is why we soft launched over a weekend so that those who know us best can tell us which accessories in the new wardrobe are less flattering...
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Andrew Laska, says:
Hidden as in hidden amongst too much stuff. Compare to two examples. Go to the DMN and NYTimes and what headlines you see without touching the mouse. Now compare it to your new one. I see mostly open space and the most prominent thing drawing the eye is the stylized date.
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Mike Orren, says:
I think I see the disconnect Andrew-- We're not trying to be the DMN or NYT. We're trying to do what we can do really well and not fill the homepage with links to a lot of two line stories.
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James Scott, says:
As this comment thread has gone on (which many tend to do), there is lots of white space to the right hand side of the screen - seems kind of lonely. What would be cool is if there was a hovering side-bar on the right that would scroll down with you that would keep "latest stories", "latest comments", "things you can't miss", etc - or any other navigation feature (even "back to top"). As it is, once you start scrolling down on comments, you're kind of it no-mans land until you get to the bottom.
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Andrew Laska, says:
Mike, nobody suggested you were trying to be like any of those. Its a question of design. Originally Pegasus was attractive because of substance over style. I think its gone the other direction.
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Tracy Yost, says:
Hey Mike - cannot see the garage sales either. On a different computer this morning, with winxp and ffox 3.5.5 Last night was using vista with ffox 3.5.5
It seems to be a gmaps thing, status bar says "reading maps.gstatic.com".... forever :-)
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Travis Bush, says:
Hmm....the Favoriting button is cheesy...a heart? Really? As well, it isn't intuitive..at least not for me.
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Mike Orren, says:
Fair 'nuff Andrew-- I'm still hopeful that the two aren't mutually exclusive.
Thanks, Tracy-- that's a great clue.
Taken under advisement, Travis :-)
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Travis Bush, says:
Dunno why I didn't mention this before, but on your event submission page, why not have the option to upload a flyer/poster image? You can restrict size and all that east enough and it would just be an enhancement and possibly an inducement for people listing more stuff.
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Mike Orren, says:
Agreed, Travis. Working on that one. Event submission is something we only changed aesthetically, partly due to the intergration I mentioned elsewhere. I've just put a full revamp on our punchlist.
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2 months, 2 weeks agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
Scott Doyle, says:
IT'S DIFFERENT
Sorry, been ridiculously busy past couple of weeks. I did poke my head in yesterday randomly and caught the new design. Mixed feelings, mostly b/c I'm simply not used to it - I'm sure after I get acclimated it'll be much preferred. =)
Apparently I was the 1st featured user? Many thanks if so! I saw it and honestly just thought it was one of the bugs. =p DaGo just mentioned it in an IM so I guess not.
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OEsophagus, says:
I was very disappointed that Scott Doyle had his profile set to privates.
Anonymous
2 months, 2 weeks agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
Jason Rice, says:
Latest comments at the bottom is a bit of a shame.... especially with so much blank space above the fold.
On the other hand -- I bet more people care that it's partly cloudy than that ScoDo has another ax to grind with Tumbles' dating plans.
And did we lose a coupla comments of my whinging about the whiteness (no Mike not the Caucasian-ness... we all know Colleen will keep us honest on that front) and the teensy default font?
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Rawlins Gilliland, says:
If you're happy, I am.
That said, are we rich yet?
As the say after eating chili, "Tums Up!"
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Pavel Lishin, says:
I just realized that links in comments are styled to look just like text, which might cause some people to miss out on my hilarity.
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Travis Bush, says:
Favoriting not working..didn't for this event anyway.
http://www.pegasusnews.com/events/200...
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James Scott, says:
Favoriting seemed to work for me, however, on my home page (which I guess now is the Daily You), it seems like I have a lot fewer events based on my favorites. I'm not even seeing an event that I've favorited showing up on my "For you --> events" (winter art mart at the bath house). I'm used to going to my profile page and seeing a list of all events from venues and artists that I've favorited, but I'm not seeing anything like that anymore. Am I missing something?
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Mike Orren, says:
Trying to replicate the favoriting thing, Travis, but seems to be working.
James, all that is still there and more-- Hard to explain without pictures. I'll do a short screencast later. In the meantime, the key is this bar at the right of the page:
Lots of sorting available within those categories. I think what you seek is under the Event near the top.
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2 months, 2 weeks agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
Mike Orren, says:
Ah. I think I see the problem. I think it is picking up based on fave places and bands but not explicitly chosen events. Easily fixed tomorrow. Sorry 'bout that.
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2 months, 2 weeks agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
Michael Anderson, says:
I really like a lot of the new functionality on the new site, but while we're on the topic of favorites, how come a my favorites list appears on the Daily You page (on the tab you show above), the Music page, the Arts page (although it doesn't appear to be listing my favorites on that page) and the Dining page (although it only lists my fav retaurants, not fav restaurant events that are listed on the other pages) but not on the Events page itself?
Also, it seems a lot more intuitive to me that my "Favorite Users' Activity" tab would be called just that or shortened to "Favorites' Activity" or maybe "Favs' Activity" instead of "Recently" which isn't at all obvious to me.
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Mike Orren, says:
Heh. Michael, that's a great question. My guess is the same kind of "too close to it" myopia that left no link to the blog or our snazzy new photo galleries. Another thing we'll tweak.
Your copy suggestion is well taken. We have a character limit there, but could be more descriptive.
Y'all have probably figured out, but we're not pushing out any big fixes until Monday, even though we're working behind the scenes. You'll start seeing batch fixes coming pretty regularly throughout the next week(s).
One other thing for expectation management: While we do have frequency limitation on all the popup ads, you may occasionally get multiples in a visit. That means that we just pushed new code, which requires a server reset, which to our computer, everyone's "visit" starts over.
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2 months, 2 weeks agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
Michael Anderson, says:
Cool, Mike, thanks. On the positive side, I'm a big fan of the new video window and the audio player (maybe that isn't new but I just discovered it with the relaunch). Is it at all possible to have the video window expand out into a larger window? Your demo video, which I thought was very informative from an audio standpoint, was also an exercise in eye-squinting frustration from a video standpoint on my computer. I'm sure this isn't an easy fix, but I'm probably not the only one who feels this way.
And, one more bit of constructive feedback, add me to the camp of people who prefer to see the last 5 comments rather than just the last 2. Always like to see what everyone else is buzzing about.
Overall, I like how related stories and Outbursts seem to be more pervasively incorporated into the hub pages and the various stories I've clicked on. I enjoy the free associate aspect of it a lot.
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Mike Orren, says:
The video probably looks better and can be expanded here:
http://www.pegasusnews.com/about/wtf/
The player on the hubs is not very configurable. It's not our technology and we're working with its overlords to try to make it work more to our liking. The best way to see a video is in a story page or a full page like we did with the above. The hub player is more of a sampler, and unfortunately won't resize.
The comment request has been heard and we'll expand the footer a bit.
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2 months, 2 weeks agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
Michael Anderson, says:
Much better, thanks Mike! One other minor thing I've noticed is when I'm doing a restaurant search and I've already narrowed by cuisine, it tends to kick me back to the larger cuisine group (e.g. from Indian to Asian) when I then click to sort by distance. I can then go back and narrow it to the specific cuisine again without losing the distance sort so it's not a big deal but I thought you'd want to know about it.
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Mike Orren, says:
Yeah-- We got a little too clever on some of the location-based search. Tweaking...
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Jason Rice, says:
ok, yeah, I've developed an opinion.
22 "page downs" past blank white space (right bar) to see what "Most Discussed" (cool, but bottom of page) "Latest Stories" and "Latest Comments" are -- kinda predicates their eventual extinction.
With 50% Non-data at the top of each page, I'm giving the new look a solid B-
Let's see if the new functionality wins me over.
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Jason Rice, says:
On the other hand -- all the white space could be ads. So the most talked about stuff runs the most ads.
And for a small weekly fee, I can regularly infuriate LULAC that yet another public facility, public thoroughfare or private building has not yet been rename Cesar Chavez!
I mean, isn't it about time TXU acknowledged their debt to that great Arizonan by being known as Cesar Chavez Electrical Extortionists? The logo possibilities for CCEE are darned near limitless.
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OEsophagus, says:
I'm not sure why there are so many typefaces or what they signify.
Anonymous
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Travis Bush, says:
Mike..maybe it just takes some time for it to show up under the Fans tab.
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ijules, says:
I like it alright but dude, could there BE any more fonts?
Anonymous
2 months, 2 weeks agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
Jason Rice, says:
Hmm. Looks like the font variety is only for the layout.
No font formatting available in comments any more. Only raw Markdown. Bummer.
Pics don't seem to embed either. bummer. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3183/2...
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Jason Rice, says:
And putting a pic in a comment eliminates the preview.
I'm dropping the layout to a C
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Mike Orren, says:
Jason, those comment issues are temporary. Changing to a new commenting system without losing data was tricky, and we're still catching those glitches. Everything you've just pointed out as comment problems are already on our punchlist.
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Jason Rice, says:
Grump gust abated
Lots of those happen near headaches, I've noticed
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Scott Doyle, says:
I just realized that links in comments are styled to look just like text, which might cause some people to miss out on my hilarity.
I concur, something must be done about this posthaste!
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James Scott, says:
One thing that would be nice is to have verified user names beneath their picture icons. While many of us like to keep the same pics, others tend to be a little erratic with their avatars. So, the first thing I see is the pic, but I have to scroll my eyes over to the little font with the person's name to see who it is. You would think all identity info (pics + name) would be in one place so you wouldn't have to look in multiple places. Maybe even if it's just the first name for verified users only - it would be cool.
I know that's just nitpicking at this point, but just a suggestion.
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Billusa99, says:
I totally agree. Much too much eye movement involved with the avatar w/ no name, then having to scan down and right to see who is commenting, then back up and left to read the comment. It gets very tiring, fast!
I want to know who is "talking" before "listening," not afterward.
Anonymous
2 months, 2 weeks agoLink to this comment | Suggest removal
Mike Orren, says:
Good points guys. The reason we didn't put name under photo was that most usernames are too long to fit. Just talked to the elves and the compromise is that we'll move the name to the top of the talk bubble.
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jtmbls, says:
I am reserving judgement until I get home and can view it from Firefox. Thank you for reminding me at least fifty-two times that my browser here at the office sux. :)
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Mike Orren, says:
You should only get the browser warning once a day, jtmbls. We're fixing...
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What do you think?