There are lots of free tools available these days for creating and enhancing web sites- I rely on a number of them every day. This blog uses WordPress, for example, while postalnews.com uses Google’s Blogger. Google also provides my email, and for some time now, I’ve used Firefox as my web browser. Using Firefox is what caused me to be blissfully unaware of the fact that a number of users were unable to view my sites yesterday afternoon.

Another free tool I (formerly) used, Sitemeter, a hit-counting service, upgraded some of its scripts yesterday but apparently failed to check them out carefully enough. And then, I’m guessing, Sitemeter hopped in its car and took off for the weekend. Meanwhile, web sites across the country started dropping like flies.

I didn’t find out about it until a reader emailed me to let me know- after all, the site was loading just fine in Firefox. The folks at Sitemeter were apparently still in the dark about the problem, because their own web site was producing the same “operation aborted” error message that their product was causing on mine. When I checked their site using Firefox, I could find no mention of any problems.

According to The Reference Frame, the culprit was actually a known bug in Internet Explorer 7. If you use a newer or older version of IE, or better yet, Firefox or Safari, there’s no problem. Sitemeter’s statistics tell me that 54% of postalnews.com’s readers use IE7, though, so I didn’t have any choice but to remove the code from the site.

The fact that the bug is actually a Microsoft error mitigates Sitemeter’s guilt a bit I suppose. But even so, it’s hard to believe that they’d change code without (apparently) testing it out thoroughly with the browser that, like it or not, still has the lion’s share of the market! (And how could they not know that their own site was dead for 18 hours?) I guess the bottom line is that despite all the state of the art free tools available, there’s still some truth to the old saying “you get what you pay for”!

Rochester, NY (PRWEB) December 7, 2007 — Kodak, the world’s foremost imaging innovator, announced an new arrangement between Kodak and multi-channel technology specialist Indros Group. This arrangement includes an integration between Kodak’s Darwin VI Authoring Tool and Indros Group’s Easy Personalized URLs (www.easypurl.com), a popular platform for creating personalized URLs and customized landing pages for direct mail that is used by many of the nation’s top agencies and printers.

This integration will enable users of Kodak Darwin VI Authoring Tool to add personalized URLs to their direct mail campaigns using Indros’s solution. Personalized URLs allow prospects to respond to direct mail by visiting a web page created expressly for each individual respondent.

Kodak Darwin VI Authoring Tool converts documents originated in QuarkXpress and Adobe InDesign into variable data documents in which all elements — text, graphics, colors, layout, charts, backgrounds, personalized images and even entire pages — can be dynamic. Darwin VI authoring software can create complex campaigns with many changes in variable elements without the need for scripting or programming, working with very large databases of recipients.

“Darwin VI Authoring Tool users will (now) be able to add URLs for personalized landing pages to direct mail pieces, providing an immediate response mechanism for recipients. Adding this web function drives better conversion of prospects, increased response, profiling and more effective tracking of campaign results,” noted Gershon Alon, Director, On-Demand Applications, Kodak’s Print On Demand Solutions. “The cross-media capabilities enabled means commercial printers can now offer their customers the opportunity to increase responses to their mailings while shortening response time, using the web to offer prospects the ability to visit a personalized website.”

“We are excited about this integration,” explained Tej Kohli, Executive Vice President at Indros Group. “Darwin VDP software customers can now gain access to our Personalized URL technology in a streamlined manner, allowing for an integrated campaign workflow. Additional, our robust reporting interface will provide users of Darwin VI detailed analytics in real-time. For agencies and printers, creating personalized multi-channel direct mail campaigns has never been easier.”

The Indros Group solution works with the Windows version of Darwin software (v.2.0). To test the latest version of the Darwin VI authoring tool, visit

www.graphics.kodak.com/darwin.