Watch Embedded Tools for Unwanted Behavior

I wrote yesterday about three free online poll creation tools you can use to add interactivity to your blog. I had created and posted sample polls using all three tools in the left-hand sidebar of this blog, so you could experiment and compare results.

I have since taken down the samples because one of them was causing huge delays in downloading. I have no idea which of the three was the culprit, but it was really messing with download speed and overall site performance. Strange, because it wasn't happening yesterday. Maybe three is just overkill.

Another issue I was unaware of yesterday: One of these tools (BraveNet) scatters pop-ups all over the screen. I didn't realize this when I posted yesterday since I usually work with pop-ups blocked.

Lesson learned: it's always a good idea to test any tools you embed in a web site, with pop-ups enabled, to make sure they aren't spewing unwanted garbage all over the screens of your visitors! This will, unfortunately, reflect poorly not on the source of the pop-ups but on you.

So, to anyone I've annoyed with obnoxious advertising , my apologies :-)