Broken Links

[Gareth Watkins]

Hi Guys

I've watched the two episodes that are downloadable... but have been very frustrated that there are so many broken links on the site...esp videos..

the stuff you are putting up is great for beginners like me, but not being able to view it is soooooooooooo annoying...

I can only see the latest episode and the Jody Eldred part 2... all the others in both QT and WMV throw up an unobtainable page... also the Contact link is down too....

With such an invaluable site for us newbies... can you fix the links...
cheers

Gareth

[Jonathan Ames]

In moving the simplistic site to a more complex one, we're making some revisions, that being the contact page especially. We immediately opened the gates to spam city when we launched the site with a conventional page up and Keith and Paolo are working to create one that is still easy to use but avoids the spam that xxx@xxx.xxx causes. Please bear with us as we go through the revisions.However, that being said, we don't know what other links you're referring to. All of the other movies download and stream perfectly to a total of 11 systems from here in the San Francisco "W" hotel to Santa Cruz where Paolo is to San Jose at the Apple campus to Los Angeles where our offices are to Palmdale where my home is to Camarillo where my daughter lives and finally to the studio where our five separate systems, each with different flavors of three operatibng systems and three browsers check the downloads and streaming capabilities before they're posted. We, in fact, did two laerge doms for the Marketing and Advertising people at Apple in San Jose and Adobe in San Francisco today and they were wowed.

I'm truly sorry that you're having difficuty however, and I say this with the utmost of respect, you may need to check your end. I'll ask Paolo to look at everything again however we do everything we can, which is a heck of alot more than most companies do, to assure that you're not frustrated however, again, that being said, we can't control your system. All we can do is check and recheck before the content hits the street so that's what we do. Please let me know if you're still having issues tomorrow and we'll look deeper into thing although I'm at a loss to know how to do that. But we'll figure it out. Again, sorry for the frustration. In short, you're the customer so to speak and we want to make you all happy. All of our people here are volunteers giving of their time and money to that end, your education.

P

[Paolo Ciccone]

Hey Gareth.

Sorry for the links, we've been meeting possible sponsors all day and I just got the chance to see you message now.
I found two links in the video that didn't work and the contact page that we were aware of. It should be fixed now, the contact page will come up later.

Let us know if there is anything else that we didn't catch.

[Jonathan Ames]

Ha ha! You see. You ask and it's done. Thanks Paolo. I must have tested after you got to the pages. i knew 11 systems couldn't be THAT wrong so keep holding our feet to the fire, Gareth and others. This site really is all about you guys and I think that's why we have such a wonderful list of people who have worked with 2nd Unit and are waiting to. Gareth, are yo in the Los Angeles area and if so, you should join us on set for a day or so. We have people coming from as far away as Utah and Wyoming so please consider it. Newbies as you put it are the Number 1 people we invite to the set.

[Gareth Watkins]

Wow that was fast!!!!...

cheers guys, and thank you for the very instructive site... I'll continue to check in from time to time...

Regards
Gareth

[Gareth Watkins]

Hi Jonathan

Many thanks for your invitation... and I'd love to join you... unfortunately I'm currently on the other side of the globe in Lyon, France.

I'm new to video over the last couple of years, (I was a wire service news photographer for 17 odd years before) so my learning curve is going through the roof at the mo. Sites like this message board and your own have helped me learn so much about shooting better footage.

Once again thanks for your replies and your informative website.

Regards
Gareth

[Jeff Sayre]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Ames

We immediately opened the gates to spam city when we launched the site with a conventional page up and Keith and Paolo are working to create one that is still easy to use but avoids the spam that xxx@xxx.xxx causes.

Other than having a Barracuda Spam Firewall (http://www.barracudanetworks.com/ns/?L=en) or something like that, one technique I've seen more and more websites deploying is to make their email addresses as graphic images such as a jpg. That way, the automated spam bots cannot grab your email address off of your website since they search text strings. Of course, this only works as long as you do not set the alt = "" or title = "" for that image in your HTML to your email address. Instead, you would leave those expressions blank.

The one downside to this approach is that users have to manually copy the email address. Also, clicking on the address, which is now an image, will not launch their email application.

So, your options are:

1. Put up with all the disgusting spam
2. Use the mediocre spam filter that your web hosting and ISP firms provide
3. Get the rocking Barracuda Spam Firewall or a competing product (this requires a lot more work since you have to have your own mail server)
4. Turn all references to your email address into image files

For best spam protection, using a combination of 3 & 4 may be prudent. But before implementing 4, I would give 3 a try if practical. Either way, if you do use technique number 4, make sure you tell people that visit your website why you have done so. It can make the difference from them being ticked off at having to manually copy the email address and being sympathetic.

[Paolo Ciccone]

Hey Jeff.

Thank for the suggestions. Actually I'm gonna go for a CGI script (php) with submission form so that we don't expose the email address but at the same time we don't require people to type it, remember it etc. It just takes a little more time than writing a standard HTML page.

[Jeff Sayre]

Well you know that is, of course, an option I failed to consider. If you simply don't list your email address but instead give people a form to fill out, then you can easily control email spam.

You're on top of it as always, Paolo!

[Jonathan Ames]

And that's exactly what the guys are preparing. Great minds think alike you know. Unfortunate but necessary that the reader has to bear extra work because of a few spammers out there.

[Gareth Watkins]

Hi Guys

Still can't get up the Episode 4 with Jody....
All the rest works...

cheers
Gareth

[Patricia Lamm]

I too am having difficulties with this episode. I get the quicktime symbol but the video never comes on. Thanks for all your great work!

[Paolo Ciccone]

Garethy, yes, Episode 4 needs some fixing, the WMV file works for now, I'll fix the QT version asap, probably Sunday.