Favicons that sometimes don't work.

Favicons.

The tiny little squares that appear next to website addresses.

Or not, that is if you're trying to add them using a PC that runs on Vista.

Because I just spent the entire morning making and then uploading different versions of my own favicon. But when you're using VISTA It DOESN'T WORK.

The desired favicon is now in place both on site and on blog too. But there is no reason at all why it didn't work using Vista. I had to switch to my aging Apple Mac to make it work properly whereopon it worked first time straight away.

So enraged am I, I'm going to put in a clip about things that don't work from news source supreme the Onion:

http://www.theonion.com/video/sony-releases-new-stupid-piece-of-shit-that-doesnt,14309/


But there's more!

Not entirely happy with a bog basic favicon I thought I could make it better. I even accidentally made an animated version of the one that was successful. However once you've loaded it up the site seems to forget what you just did and lose the link. Websites losing links are the ongoing blight of the web designer because they give the impression of working fine then disappear as soon as you turn the computer back on. SO while I did make an animated version, the format of ICO must be maintained. You can make something that looks like an animated favicon but the furthest it can get is being previewed in a web browser. This is getting too complicated so I need to tidy up a little:

What is possible:

A favicon using any graphics you want. As long as it is 16x16 in size and has a tag of ICO it will work fine.

It can also start life as a transparent GIF and hold its transparency when converting into ICO format.

What is not possible: snimations.

I've spent too much time on this. Most of the world has spent too much time on this kind of problem.