---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 31 May 1998 17:16:33 +0000 From: Brent Eades <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: He's ba-a-ack G'day all... yes, I'm back after an extended absence. As for where I've been; well, it doesn't really matter. Suffice it to say I have been through some rather difficult times that are now mercifully behind me, and life is grand once more. So here I am. Have been following various threads on the list for the past week or so, and a few thoughts come to mind: 1. To HTTP or not to HTTP? Generally, I think it's desirable to include the HTTP prefix in the great majority of cases, for several reasons. First, as was pointed out, various applications -- e-mail clients, word-processors, etc -- need to see it in digital documents if they are to properly link to the site in question. Second, it avoids any possible (if unlikely) confusion with FTP servers or e-mail addresses from the same domain; ftp://www.abc.com and http://www.abc.com ain't the same thing, for instance. And looking to the future, it's not utterly inconceivable that the HTTP protocol may eventually be superseded by something else -- just as gopher:// and wais:// fell by the wayside once the Web arrived. So we could have, I dunno, mmgp://www.abc.com and http://www.abc.com existing at once "on the Web", but denoting different digital media. (Well -- it *could* happen...) And finally, it's simply more, well, clear and unambiguous. Sure, 99 users out of 100 will know that "www.abc.com" almost surely refers to a Web site, just as (211) 555-1212 is likely its phone number... but just as I would prefer to see "Telephone:(211) 555-1212" on a business card or wherever, so do I lean towards "http://www.abc.com". Tidier that way. (Though I also do agree with those who endorse the omission of "http://" in some ad copy, commercials, etc: "Visit our new Web site at www-dot-abc-dot-com!") 2. E-mail/e-mail/email/Email? I lean towards "e-mail", for various reasons, though the capital E is acceptable too ("E-mail") under analogous usages (C-section, F-stop, G-man, and so on.) I think "[E]email" without the hyphen is simply not on, considering that the "e" in "e-mail" is an abbreviation for electronic, and thus the hyphen should be retained for clarity's sake. Plus, as a French speaker, I'm thrown off by the word "email" of itself, considering it means "enamel" en francais. And that's how I tend to interpret it when I see it. Yoicks. 3. Interviews An interview can be equally gruelling for both the candidate and the employer, in my experience. I've conducted quite a few in my time, and I never really got any better at it... I rarely made it beyond, "So... er... tell me about your experience working for Great Big Mega Corp," at which point I'd sit back and let the candidate blather for a half-hour or so. And I found I'd usually made my mind up in the first five minutes anyway, for largely subjective reasons -- "Yep, he/she's the one." The remaining 55 minutes or so were window-dressing. Well, that's it for now. More to follow, no doubt. ----------- Brent Eades, Almonte, Ontario E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Town of Almonte: http://www.almonte.com/ Business Web site: http://www.almonte.com/brent/ ____________________________________________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------- Join The Web Consultants Association : Register on our web site Now Web Consultants Web Site : http://just4u.com/webconsultants If you lose the instructions All subscription/unsubscribing can be done directly from our website for all our lists. ---------------------------------------------------------------------
