November 19th, 2009 • by David Zatz
Those using Internet Explorer 7 may have noticed a sudden change recently – if they have a narrow screen.
Over time, we’d phased in a style that restricted the width of the window, for two reasons. First, it helped to reduce oddities with images appearing in the wrong place; and second, it made it easier to read the pages. We tried to get a balance between an easy-reading width (where narrower is, up to point, better) and image size (where wider is, within reason, better).
Internet Explorer 7, though, has some peculiarities, one of which is that when you set the maximum width, it also takes that as the minimum width. So now, after a rather long delay, we have an automatic script in the header which sees if you’re using Explorer, then sees if your window is narrow; and if it is, it will replace that style with an automatic-width style. The result is that Explorer 7 people can see the pages the same way Firefox, Safari, and Chrome users have seen it… which is to say, correctly. (I believe Explorer 8 fixed this problem, and Explorer 6 wasn’t good enough at CSS to have it in the first place.)
At the same time, we figured out how to reduce the number of ads showing up on the top of the page so they wouldn’t be crazily crowded together. We haven’t figured out how to center them yet, but give us a few more years and we might figure that out too. This second change affects people with just about any browser.
Meanwhile, the news page has two plug-ins to provide a better experience for smartphone users. iPhone and Android users, in particular, will see a much more appropriate page for mobile phone users.
If you haven’t already seen it, we’re also transitioning over to YouTube for our video needs. When we start producing new videos, we can have higher resolutions and less compression; it’ll look better. (This is largely a matter of policy changes at powerTV).
You may have already noticed the new, faster-acting menus. At some point we’ll try customizing them for the section you’re in.
Our changes may not be as sweeping as Chrysler’s, but we’re still moving forward.
November 8th, 2009 • by David Zatz
One of the more interesting aspects of the Five Year Plan presentation was the Q&A period at the end, in which people asked Sergio Marchionne questions to which the answer was obvious, like (paraphrasing) “Are you kidding?” and “Really, are you kidding?”
But, reflecting the general tendency of mass media reporters and analysts to not remember the companies they’re following, nobody asked about a few key items.
The first of those was the Chrysler 200C, which many people felt could be a game-changer for Chrysler. The rear wheel drive sedan could be gas-powered, hybrid, or electric, and it was reportedly ready for production. A photo of the interior display was used in the Chrysler overview as an icon for innovation. Still, absolutely no mention of this car was made, and none was in the charts and graphics. That does not mean it’s dead, but it’s not a good sign, either.
The second was the general electric strategy – the “modular components used in existing cars” idea. It appears to be dead, but there’s no real way of knowing. We do know that the prior strategy is gone now, and only one electric commercial vehicle is planned for the near future – an electric minivan or electric Fiat commercial van, it seems, with the latter being more likely. (Of interest, again, is that Chrysler built and sold electric vans in the 1990s, which were completely ignored by the movie “Who killed the electric car?” but which are still on the street. Some of them, anyway.)
The Dodge Circuit seems to be gone; it wasn’t mentioned by name but fits the description of the un-marketable car floating around. The Circuit would compete directly with the Tesla and the value proposition for Chrysler was… not there. I always thought that one was nutty, myself, because Tesla has that market wrapped up in the public and media eye. The Circuit could be like the Spirit R/T: fine on its own, but completely overshadowed by its competitor (Taurus SHO at the time), regardless of technical merit.
So where is the 200C?
There really is no way to know unless you’re at Chrysler. It’s possible they’ll swap it in for the existing Sebring with the “refresh” though everything they announced makes that seem very unlikely. It’s possible they’ll sell it as a surprise gift. It might show up as a Lancia or Alfa Romeo since it’s sized appropriately for those brands and would sell in competition with the front-wheel-drive Sebring and its successor.
We are intensely curious…
