Tuesday June 28, 2005
99.9% of the time I use Firefox to view the web. Now and then I run across sites that just refuse to play nice with it, so I drag up IE. Sometimes I send mail to the folks who are being stupid. Especially when I think they should and could do better.
Recently I bitched at Google because their really cool maps site renders a completely useless empty gray rectangle iff (if and only if) you happen to be using the .ca domain. Try it if you are also using FF and let me know if you see good stuff at the .com domain and crap at the .ca domain. If you see good on both sites then also tell me if you are using Windows XP or Linux as your O/S.
BTW: after clearing the cache per their directions and still having the problem, I told them I didn't think it was on my end but also that they could fix it quick and dirty like by redirecting the seemingly redundant .ca domain address to the .com address because the latter allows you to locate places in Canada anyway. No response for the past few days and I see that the symptoms remain as described to them.
Just now, I have experienced a similar situation: FF rendering two versions of a company's site differently enough that the .ca version is pretty well useless for browsing products. This time it is not possible to just redirect one to the other, since the offerings are quite different and prices, locations, blah blah. To top it off, only the .com domain has a link I could find to send them email. Who deploys these sites anyway? Harumph.
I am interested to know if anyone else sees a difference between Home Depot (.com) Faucets page and Home Depot (.ca) Faucets page viewed with FF.
Here's the part that adds a bit of a twist: these two sets of Canadian vs American domains show no differences if viewed with IE 6 (w SP2). Can anyone 'splain that? Before I complain any more, that is... :=)
[Updated - 3pm] The Google Team got back to me and solved my problem with the .ca domain of the maps stuff. Here's what they said
Thank you for your reply. We've received similar reports from other users, and in most cases the problem was being caused by a specific browser setting that prevents certain images from loading. If Firefox users choose to only load images for the originating website, some Google Maps images may not be displayed.
In order to view all Google Maps images, you can either enable all images to load, or add the originating site of these images to your list of exceptions.
[---snipped instructions---]If altering this setting will interfere with your normal use of this browser, you may add [mt.google.com] and [kh.google.com] to your list of exceptions instead, allowing all Google Maps images to load:
[---snipped instructions---]Please let us know if we can assist you further.
Regards,
The Google Team
This one solves it. And it only took two emails on my part. Not bad. Not sure I like the solution, but it works for now. I used the second alternative, in case it is of interest.
BUT:-- Only for the Google sites. The Home Depot sites are still a problem, of course. An email asking what sites serve the images is in order - no? Oui!
[EOU]