The first time I saw these cursors I thought, "that's pretty cool, I wonder how they did that?" The answer was obvious since cursor required download of a special Internet Explorer plug-in.

I see these cursors all over place. I visit a lot of sites, and many of them have some strange or not-so-strange cursors running. Some sites even have a different cursor on each and every page!

What's problem with this? Well, on a personal home page, nothing. In fact, a nice, cute cursor on someone's page about his wife or dog is a great touch, adding some special nicety which makes pages stand out. A little waving flag on someone's page about their Vietnam War experiences is great, and a heart can make a romantic page really stand out.

But on a professional site these cursors tend to be, well, tacky. They turn away visitors for a number of reasons. These don't matter that much on a personal site - after all, most people create personal sites for satisfaction, not to make money or get a high hit count.

Professional sites are different. You want your visitors to stay and read your message, comprehend your data or buy your products. Under these circumstances it is critical that you do nothing to chase anyone away.

Some of drawbacks of special cursors include following.

1) Including special cursors requires download of a plug-in. This has a tendency to turn away visitors right away. People are afraid, rightly so, of anything that pops up a security alert, and attempting to download an ActiveX control will do exactly that.

On other hand, a site with bad graphics or some obvious blunders can be agonizing and even painful to look at. Here are some of more common errors.

Large Graphics

Large graphics have their place on web. Some sites give away massive numbers of wallpaper images, which by definition are very large. In fact, I know of a site which offers over a thousand Tomb Raider wallpapers that is very good.

What you want to avoid is using large graphics on your main pages. Instead, you can use a technique such as showing thumbnail images or links to larger graphics. Thus, those people who want large graphics can get them, while those who do not are not forced to wait for them to load. The Tomb Raider site solved this problem by including 100 very small (32 x 32 pixel) thumbnails on a page. Clicking on an image displays larger wall wallpaper.

Improperly Optimized Graphics