Link Rot

[Ali]

> However, it's far from perfect--in particular ftp content has
> apparently

Yes, who would have ever thought FTPs would be dropping like flies though? Web sites? Sure. But FTP - how else were you going to distribute all those drivers, patches, etc... Short answer just don't bother doing it....

> Try searching for some of the older, say, HP support pages.  I'm pretty
> sure that some "executive' made the decision to pull all of the support
> material for old systems, as that doesn't contribute to the bottom
> line.
> 
> The New HP Way.

No, the new HP way is to make it very hard to find information (if it exists) then move it behind a pay wall and finally get rid of it... I've run into this a few times with firmware that used to be freely available from Compaq FTP now being behind a "support contract needed" pay wall... The one company that gets kudos for maintaining their support site is Adaptec - after multiple mergers and buyouts you can still get drivers and manuals for products as old as the 1540... Too bad there is no easy way to archive their site...

> A more disturbing popular trend is information being placed in long-ish
> Youtube videos that could have been summarized concisely in a page of
> text.


You can't monetize a page of text as easily as you can a video view on YouTube.... Luckily so far I have never ever had to watch one of these videos for info that can be gleaned from text. Other videos, such as techniques on soldering, are a different story as those skills cannot be taught simply by reading about them....

I continue to have my own personal archive of pages and YouTube videos for things I find useful. Because you never know...