Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Breakfast: granola with sliced banana. Laptop maintenance for student AJ. Lots of web edits—the e-mail support section of our website was in need of a lot of updated information. Microsoft recently redesigned their Mactopia website. Unfortunately, while making their site look prettier, they also stopped using unique URLs to identify specific downloads—you access downloads now with interactive DHTML. I sent them the following feedback today: "So pretty and beautiful, it's useless! How do I link to 'Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 0.2.1 (Beta)' so that I can easily communicate to someone that they should download it to resolve a problem?! Grrr!" The problem is that previously I could link to [http://www.microsoft.com/ mac/downloads.mspx? pid=Mactopia_Office2004& fid=AB66B5BF- 37C3-41BB-945E- 784782FC582C# viewer] (spaces added to avoid layout problems), which, at 115 crazy characters, is poor URL design no matter how you slice it, but at least I could link to a single page that identified a single resource (i.e., page) about a specific topic, namely the software called Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 0.2.1 (Beta). Now, to direct the users I support, I have to say, "Visit http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx, then in the Browse for Downloads section in the lower left corner select Office 2004, then select Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 0.2.1 (Beta)." In contrast, this is 218 characters, and even then you can't click once to open the page in a web browser. If you happen to have Javascript disabled, you can't access the download at all because clicking on a product name such as Office 2004 does nothing! Ironically, the page title is "Office for Mac - Easy Access to Downloads and Updates | Mactopia." Oh, so far I haven't had to go in for jury duty. They don't make it very clear either on the telephone or the website. I envision that when you go to the website and you don't need to go in it shows a large image of a smiling white man giving a thumbs up sign. (A white man because, after all, who largely runs the judicial system in the United States, yes?) When you do have to go in, it shows the white man frowning or being angry. To me, that would be a much clearer way of communicating jury duty reporting. Lunch today was salisbury steak, fried cabbage, brown rice, dinner roll, Promise. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftovers plus steamed asparagus. Dessert: one Almond Roca. Worked on Danny's website.