In a way I love cookies, chocolate chip and may other flavours make their way to my mouth on a regular basis. For most people when you use the word cookies this is the picture they would have in their head. A few years (many years) ago while working on my rather fast 233mhz Intel Pentium 2 computer and playing on my Dreamcast with built in 56k Modem, I started being asked by the settings on these systems about how I would like to treat my cookies? Silly questions like “would you like to accept cookies?” and such – now before the World Wide Web I would have 100% accepted cookies and maintained my bulk with pride but I started to ask questions about what these little buggers do? For a while I thought they were bad, telling secret men in underground bunkers who worked for the KGB just how much time I was spending on the Spice Girls site or even worse, copying my passwords and sending them to nasty gangs of Nigel Havers style blagards and cads.
It was like this for a long time, there was information to be had to tell us what they did but I think we (me) were much to happy to believe that they were nasty bleeders and needed to be stamped into crumbs. Are they Spyware...when I run a check so many “Tracking Cookies” were coming up.....why were people out to get me, or was I just paranoid? And just because I was paranoid it did not mean they weren’t. I got over it and with new browsers and systems like the XBOX Live network they became something I no longer cared about. In fact, I realised that when greeted with a big “HEY ANDREW” on sites I been to before there could even be a benefit to them.
Did You Know...
The name cookie derives from UNIX objects called magic cookies. These are tokens that are attached to a user or program and change depending on the areas entered by the user or program. You can use that UBER nerd piece of info at the next party you go too....
So there are web cookies, session cookies (they expire when you leave the site) and persistent cookies (used by analytics to identify your return to a site) and more but I have only had so much time to research. Analytics is an important topic when discussing cookies because people pour over their figures without wondering: are some of these visits from the 25% of people who clear out the cookies once a week? How many came to my site with cookies turned off? And with the new EU Directive (back off Brussels) on the privacy of communications where you will have to approve and accept cookies as you browse it could really affect your results, will this really affect people’s use of Free analytics software? I would imagine it could because right now by default visitors are not notified when cookies are collected.
I dont image this is the end of the world (wide web) but it will create new challenges and a new opportunities – we are more than happy to advise in this area so shout if you have any questions.
To sum up, good cookies are cool cookies – safe surfing and being careful on-line is really easy and we’d all love to know how many people are taking an interest in our businesses and I hope we can continue to collect this harmless information.
Update on Apple Print.
So we have had another great sales month, over target by 11% - beginning to think I need to up the targets J - we are all looking forward to our “Open House” 80’s themed 25th Birthday party on the 11th of August here at Apple Print’s offices Starting at 3pm, feel free to come along and have a Babycham with us.
I will sign off with a wave goodbye to one of Mankind’s greatest engineering feats “Space Shuttle” its final mission comes to and end and I think it a shame to say farewell, this Iconic vessel will live on in the hearts of many a middle aged little boy! John Morgan was just telling me about the great system of cooling the Ship employs, using its own fuel to cool the surface of the exhaust nozzles....learn more here and it’s worth a read if only as a final sign off to a great machine.
Have fun and good luck!
No comments:
Post a Comment