Coopers is and old and respected brewery in Adelaide. I've been drinking their beers for years, and in the past have linked to their site.
Unfortunately, their web site is now inaccessible. They have apparently installed some proprietary software which requires the use of Macromedia Shockwave Flash. I don't use this software, and I have no intention of installing it.
On Sunday, 10 August 2003 I wrote them the following mail message. Unfortunately, they have neither a postmaster nor a webmaster alias. Their DNS functions are done by server-dns.com. In short, they appear to have missed the boat. Here's the message I sent them. If anybody can tell me how to contact them electronically, I'd be grateful.
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2003 11:22:11 +0930
From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
To: info@coopers.com.au
Cc: postmaster@coopers.com.au, webmaster@coopers.com.au
Subject: Unable to access http://www.coopers.com.au/
I'm guessing at the mail ID of the contact person at Coopers':
postmaster, if I'm wrong, will you please forward this message to the
right person? Thanks.
In the past, I have enjoyed looking at your web site. Unfortunately,
it appears that you have made a decision to exclude a certain class of
people from your current web site. Specifically, it is impossible to
access it without installing Macromedia's "Shockwave" software.
I will not install this software. It is restrictive and may contain
security exploits. As a result, I can't access your web site.
If you're in the business of promoting certain kinds of software, this
may be an appropriate and intentional thing to do. If you're in the
beer brewing business, however, you have excluded a significant
proportion of your customer base from accessing your web site. Apart
from people such as myself, who have technical issues with the
software, you're also excluding people with computers too weak to run
"shockwave", people who find the name stupid, people who don't have
machines which can run "shockwave", and blind people reliant on
text-based browsers. For example, this is *all* that a user of the
lynx browser sees:
Coopers Brewey Website
[EMBED]
It's my suspicion that you are unaware of these problems. It's in
your interest to supply a non-proprietary alternative for these
people. I had wanted to make a link to your web site from a page I'm
writing. Instead, I've created a new page,
http://www.lemis.com/grog/coopers-shock.html. If you wish to discuss
the matter, you can call me on 8388 8286. Please don't get somebody
who doesn't understand the issues to make a conciliatory call,
however.
Greg Lehey
--
Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key
See complete headers for address and phone numbers
While writing up this page, I noted the text Coopers Brewey Website. This is not a
typo on my part.
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