Another example of those who can write code can't design web pages...

To Dream an Impossible Dream...

As a college student, whose campus is 20 miles away, I recently became engulfed with the burning desire to access from home the files collecting dust on my college server.

I asked one of my instructors of the feasibility of this, and she visibly blanched, and began to shudder.  After a moment she composed herself, and hastily scribbled something on a corner of paper torn from her syllabus.  

"Talk to these people.  They might.. they might be able to help you."  She looked around furtively.  "I hope I haven't said too much!"  She gathered up her belongings and fled the class, even though we had forty minutes remaining. 

My curiosity piqued, I glanced at the sheet.  Written on it, in the blood-colored ink instructors use for corrections, were the words "MyLab, " with no spaces.  Must be a typo, I thought.  How little I knew.  

Several hours of web-surfing later, I remembered my original task, and went to the DMACC Help Desk page and clicked on the "MyLab" link.  (And yes, it was deliberately named without spaces, probably in the hopes that it would make it seem cooler than actually was.)  A drop down menu with only one option appeared, a design flaw that hinted of ominous things to come. 

As I had no other (drop-down window) choice, I clicked on the link for "Connect to MyLab."  And, and... it was a lie!  There was no link - only a series of possible program downloads and this indecipherable text: 

I've read passages in ancient Greek that made more sense.  At least I could make out some of the sorority and fraternity letters, and math symbols.  And this page, it was so... so... ugly!

On top of that it listed four possible download options, but didn't explain why the user would require the use of one over another.  Just here they are... blah!  Of course, I ended up doing exactly what the Help Desk didn't want me to do, what this page had been created to prevent me doing.

By that, I mean I had to call the Help Desk people and ask them what the page didn't explain. 

You really have to wonder how these pages are tested.  Just having the guy at the next desk in the IT office check it for spelling errors, or what?  

I finally got it sorted out after speaking to some anonymous Help Desk minion.  The conversation only took a couple of minutes, but it would have been even shorter if he hadn't taken the time to exhale a long, loud sigh after each of my questions. 

All gratuitous examples of my scathing with aside, I wouldn't have had to call in and been sighed at if they just had put just a wee bit more information on the page.  If you have Windows 7, or Vista, 64 bit, then download this.  Local Mode means this.  It would have only taken a few minutes longer to create that page, versus the one they currently have, maybe a bit longer if the IT guys insisted on sighing while writing.

I LOVE this site!

design - vanilla | content - tutti-frutti

Reader caveat - I have to admit, I'm much more about content than style when it comes to web pages.  I don't care about the design bells and whistles.  In fact, the less filler to get in my way, the better.  I rarely click on video links. I'd rather read the story and look at a high quality still picture.

That having been said, Fortean Times is one of my favorite time wasting websites. 

news of the weird, anyone?

Fortean Times a website (and a off-line magazine) devoted to the documentation and discussion of anomalous events.  It is named after a 19th century cataloger of such events, Charles Fort.  Fort published four books that were essentially a collection of blogs about the "news of the weird" of his day. 

This website either grabs you or repels you from the front page.  Links to the most recent "news of the weird" stories from around the world are what greet you when you open it.  There are no belief statements attached to the news, no debates for or against, just the links to the stories, on their respective native news sites. 

are you sure you want to click on that picture link?

Since truly strange or inexplicable events are few and far between, a lot of the links involve mysteries of crime or science.  There are almost always pictures, and oftentimes videos. 

Beast of Bray Road?

There are more in-depth investigative stories tucked here and there on the site, but the tone is never credulous.  The rule of thumb for content presented on the site is that the simplest (most plausible) answer is probably the truth.

a community of "high weirdness"

There is also a very active community which posts weird stories from their respective locals.  If the story can be documented (is something from an official news source) it may be featured as a breaking news story on the main page.  

The community also features an extremely engrossing forum:  It Happened to Me!  These are first person accounts of encounters with anomalous events - ghost stories, alien encounters, run-ins with the Beast of Bray Road (a werewolf type creature said to haunt the byways near Elkhorn, WI).   

My only complaint about Fortean Times is that since some of the content is tied to the monthly magazine, the site doesn't update as frequently as I'd like.  But when I visit, I find myself spending hours.