Hannah Frank's Funeral
The funeral of Scottish artist Hannah Frank took place today, the shortest day of the year. She died peacefully last Thursday at the age of 100. From her student days she produced a charming monochrome Art Nouveau illustration for every occasion, until the 1950s when she took up sculpture. In the 1920s she signed her drawings Al Aaraaf, a name she took from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Click the title link to visit the Hannah Frank website, but don't visit its HOME page. Some idiot has put a badly designed Flash Player 9 routine on that page and it crashed Internet Explorer on both occasions I visited it. On my second visit it locked up my PC and I had to press the panic button and reboot. Why do website designers insist on using Flash Player?
posted by Unknown @ 21.12.08
4 comments
4 Comments:
thanks for beautiful blog about my aunt's art and comment about web page, will see what we can do. Fiona Frank.
Dear Fiona
I'm pleased you liked my post on your aunt's work and funeral. Please accept my condolences.
Judging by the information line, your website was trying to load a DVD onto my PC, using a Flash Player routine, when it crashed.
Website designers like to use the latest toys, but this limits the website availability to visitors with the latest hi-tech computers. Even the BBC's Flash Player video routine is sometimes unsafe!
I'm still running Windows 98 SE with IE6. And why not? It works on most websites. I have Adobe Flash Player 9 installed and this again works on "safe" websites.
To see Flash Player used brilliantly, visit Muppets Central and pass your cursor over the graphics at the top of the page. This website has never crashed my PC:
http://www.muppetcentral.com/
My general advice on home pages is to keep them simple. Research in 2007 showed that the majority of broadband users aren't prepared to wait longer than 4 seconds for a page to load! Research this year found that users are becoming increasibgly sophisticated and are avoiding home pages.
I run my own website award. It's worth visiting to see my likes and dislikes in web design:
http://homepages.tesco.net/
ian.cox99/silversurfer.htm
Crashing my PC is the worst crime a website can commit. Please don't apply for my award until your home page is fixed!
Hi - I think (hope) my webguru has fixed the website but I know that it doesn't seem to open in IE XP for some reason. Anyway any chance that you might publicise our Hannah Frank Poetry Competition?
Hannah Frank Art Poetry Competition. Closing date 31st March 2010. Glasgow artist Hannah Frank died in 2008 at the age of 100, and this competition was launched on the first anniversary of her death in order to bring her work to a new audience. It's being organised by St Mungo's Mirrorball poet William Bonar on behalf of Hannah Frank's family, and being judged by David Kinloch. Prizes will be presented on 23rd August 2010 - which would have been her 102nd birthday.
Write a poem of not more than 40 lines in Scots or English based on one of Hannah Frank's black and white drawings. You can see the drawings on the 'gallery' pages at the website www.hannahfrank.org.uk where you'll also find the rules and an application form. First prize: £200 (adult) £100 (18 and under). Prizewinners will also receive a framed Hannah Frank print. Entry costs £3.00 per poem for adults and is free for 18 and under. We welcome group entries from schools - a free Hannah Frank 'pack' consisting of two books and a DVD, worth more than £50, for the first 100 Scottish schools to email hannahfrankpoetry@googlemail.com.
Dear Fiona
I have a new PC running Windows XP and IE 8. Your website worked perfectly on my system. The home page loaded instantly (I'm now on broadband too) and the video was perfect (I watched it until the benediction). So no problems that I could see.
I'll be happy to post an item about the poetry competition, using one of your aunt's pictures for illustration. Later today, as I'm due to go to bed shortly.
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