The Daily Tangent

Making YourErie.com readable in Google Chrome: Two Methods!

I’ve already expressed my love of Google Chrome on this site before but it’s not without issues.  Some are the fault of Google but a lot are just sites that aren’t up to standard.

I was going to post a rant about how YourErie.com needs to get with the times, support standards, blah blah blah.  You see, YourErie.com renders like a pile of poo in Google Chrome.  I’m not sure why exactly but it’s related to the javascript menu they use, it renders the entire thing (TWICE!) in my browser making the page unreadable:

So yea, I could whine and bitch… which, don’t get me wrong, I love to (did you see my cell phone post?!)…but, honestly, what is that really going to change?

I doubt WJET wants to invest any money to change their site, and I know it’s just a canned “News CMS system” of some sort…

How about I show you a way to make YourErie.com bearable until they get with the times?  Great.  Let’s get on with it then, it’s easy.  In fact I’ll show you two ways, both easy, to get the job done!

I’m going to provide two options for Google Chrome users to use YourErie.com.  One is drop dead easy, and the other is easy and adds a great tool to your web-repertoire for other misbehaving sites!  I recommend option two but it depends on how geeky you want to get!

Option 1: Use IE Tab for YourErie.com

1) Get the latest beta build of Google Chrome as it supports add-ins necessary for the fix.

http://www.google.com/landing/chrome/beta/

2) Get and install IE Tab, a plugin that renders specific pages in Internet Explorer directly within Chrome.  This is useful for pages that have requirements for IE such as corporate intranets or pages that behave goofy like YourErie.com

3) Click on the new “IE Tab” button found in Chrome, and once it’s toolbar loads click the icon that looks like a filter or funnel.

4) This opens a window to add sites to be handled by IE Tab instead of Chrome, in that window type *yourerie* and click “Add”.  The next time you view YourErie.com it will be rendered properly in IE!  I will say again, this option is my less preferred but simpler method.  It has the advantage that the entire site stays usable, whereas option two removes your ability to navigate easily.

Option 2: Use AdThwart to block the offending page element (extra geek points!!)

Go from this (blah):

To this (yay!):

Now the biggest issue with this solution is that you’ll loose the top navigation on the site, but let’s be honest…if you’re like me you probably just use the site to check the weather and get your real news from a site like ErieBlogs.com right?

Here are the steps to a workable YourErie.com:

1) Get the latest beta build of Google Chrome as it supports add-ins necessary for the fix.

http://www.google.com/landing/chrome/beta/

2) Get and install AdThwart, a plugin that blocks ads and has the ability to block chunks of content on any website.

Now there should be a little devil in your address bar, ready to do your bidding:

3) Navigate out to good ol’ YourErie.com, right-click on your new friend the devil and hit “Options”

4) Scroll all the way down to “Advanced: Add your own filters” and type into the lil’ box these exact magic words and click Add: yourerie.com###topNav

5) Yer done!  YourErie.com is now o’ so pretty and you have a new tool under the belt for other offending ads, site elements, and more!  Feel free to use and abuse AdThwart in new ways, be sure and comment here with your ideas and solutions!  Check out it’s “Easy create filter” option for stupid simple content blocking too!