Ever on the lookout for god and bad ideas in software user-interface design, here is one on LinkedIn really blows me away. Its a classic case of what I term Front Door Syndrome.
Front Door Syndrome is a website misfeature most often designed-in by web designers who come from the conventional advertising or conventional media world - a world where there really is a Front Door - a single point of entry. Somehow they try to keep hold of this idea in the web, where it really doesn't apply at all. They forget, or never absorbed the fact, that every page in a website is a Front Door. And, in a world of such abundance that the only realistic way to navigate to content we seek is through search, every page is guaranteed to be used as a Front Door: A First Point of Entry into a website.
We've all seen those sites; if you're lucky its just a big page saying "Welcome to Fubar.com. Click <here> to enter." If you're less lucky it is a great ugly Flash animation. Personally I never get further - my mouse finger has reflexively clicked me away to somewhere safer and more pleasant in the 'net.
So what has this to do with LinkedIn? I searched for the name of someone I knew long ago, and their name turned up on LinkedIn. I clicked the link from the search-results page to take a look whether this page really belongs to the person I was looking for. Something like http://www.linkedin.com/pub/1/801/801 (I'll use my brother's LinkedIn page to illustrate, firstly to protect the unwary, and secondly because I know he won't mind some publicity).
Go ahead - click the link. I'll wait here for you....
...Good! You're back. If you're using a decent browser you can have both pages open on different tabs so you can see exactly what I'm about to tell you about. But I digress...
On the destination LinkedIn page, there are a couple of links enabling non-members of the LinkedIn network to Join Now. Very good. Very viral. But I am already a LinkedIn user.
Where is the link allowing me to log in? Where is a link to a login page? Nowhere.
No wonder LinkedIn is seen by geeks as a tool purely for spammers and fools.
22 May 2006
14 February 2006
Total SNAFU
Woke up to find the offshore (UK) server down again. This after having spent the best part of yesterday playing exactly the same game. No response from the datacentre for two hours! Eventually it took a phone-call to my provider to get some action going. Eventually we got the server back around 1 o' clock, but not before I had everyone screaming. I've asked the provider to replace RAM and PSu in an attempt to stabilise the thing, but we really have to look for a fail-over server. Trouble is that the cashflow right now just doesn't cover the costs. As it is, I am getting absolutely nothing out of this deal -- zippo! -- and am beginning to wonder if its worth it.
I mean, its all really very nice having your own server to play with, hosting your own wikis, blogs, etc., but I ask myself, "Is it really worth the bother?" I could probably move everything that I personally want and use onto a small/cheap VPS machine for a relatively small cost that I can carry myself as a hobby cost. Particlarly as I am likely to be able (Telkom-willing) to be able to get ADSL connectivity in a month-or-so, which will about halve my connectivity costs, so I could spend a little of that on a purely private VPS.
Just to add to everything, it looks like someone broke into the shed last night and made off with a bag of old clothes. They must have been disturbed by OB the PHD (pointy-headed dog.) I did hear a noise and her barking, and investigated sometime around 10:30 last night, but saw nothing -- not that I looked very well. We're so used to OB barking at bushpigs, bushbuck, porcupines and other night-wanderers that its a far-from-unusual happening.
What happened to all those dreamers who thought that 2006 was going to be the Turning Point? A Great Year?
I mean, its all really very nice having your own server to play with, hosting your own wikis, blogs, etc., but I ask myself, "Is it really worth the bother?" I could probably move everything that I personally want and use onto a small/cheap VPS machine for a relatively small cost that I can carry myself as a hobby cost. Particlarly as I am likely to be able (Telkom-willing) to be able to get ADSL connectivity in a month-or-so, which will about halve my connectivity costs, so I could spend a little of that on a purely private VPS.
Just to add to everything, it looks like someone broke into the shed last night and made off with a bag of old clothes. They must have been disturbed by OB the PHD (pointy-headed dog.) I did hear a noise and her barking, and investigated sometime around 10:30 last night, but saw nothing -- not that I looked very well. We're so used to OB barking at bushpigs, bushbuck, porcupines and other night-wanderers that its a far-from-unusual happening.
What happened to all those dreamers who thought that 2006 was going to be the Turning Point? A Great Year?
18 October 2005
Fun Being a Techie
Having fun being a techie again, catching up on some gaps in my knowledge of building webapps in Java. Its fun stuff, and I find myself wondering why so many webapps are so badly designed and implemented; many of them are truly awful. (No, I won't mention them by name :-)
It's soooo tempting to just stay with doing "real" stuff, rather than "suit" stuff.
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