I always get discouraged when I google something and pick a link that seems to have exactly what I am looking for, only to open a site that has nothing to do with what I am searching. Or worse yet, some annoying error message that explains that the page is no longer available, which makes me wonder why it came up on the search in the first place. Still, an error message would be preferable to dealing with some of the sites that came up on the Web Pages That Suck website. They are definitely there for a reason.
I think it must have been difficult to limit the list of sites provided of the 10 Worst Web Pages Featured on Web Pages That Suck in 2006, which explains the second list of the 10 Worst Web Sites to Navigate in 2006. Here are my impressions of the first list.
#10 Brown University
I have found in the past that there are many universities with difficult to navigate sites. This is one that I think was worse than most. I think the first lesson that they could learn is adopting the same style as the stores we looked at in class with nice white backgrounds on their sites. Many of the rows of links move up when I try to click on them, which is annoying too. The undergraduate link on the “Academic Life” bar takes the user to the office of the dean. It’s confusing! To borrow a line from UPS, what can Brown do for me? Redesign their site.
#9 NEIU Foreign Exchange Lab
Well, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to say much on this site since the provided link gave me some error message, but I didn’t let that stop me from finding the site. I couldn’t believe that this site was an extension of the Northeastern Illinois University. The rainbow header switches through the different languages that it I found it difficult to read even when words in English flew through. Apparently an opera, Manon, is our cyberguide for the site, which features a Beverly Sills album of the cyberguide’s opera. The black silk background and rose borders make this site feel like it should feature Fabio and the latest bodice-ripped romance novel rather than links for students’ education. This site is also full of dead links. Oh, that they were all that way!
#8 Red Blood Club
I don’t have a lot to say about this site. It is just a glorified link to the MySpace page for this establishment. The content is graphic and offensive so I didn’t bother to spend much time exploring. The initial page is disturbing enough that you get a general sense of the content.
#7 Tampax
Not much to say here either. The vertical menu does make the site difficult to navigate. The ‘cute factor’ is a bit overdone too. They provide some serious information for women regarding abuse, rape and women’s health issue with colorful bubbly backgrounds. It seems a little contradictory to me. Also, women’s issues are all in the same group as issues that young women face. It would be nice to see a little more thought go into the organization of the menu.
#6 LongsCycle
I never thought I would see a site that dedicated so much passion to socks (and other cycling apparel)! The left side menu is like a mantra with repetitions of SAVE and CYCLING this and that. The use of highlighting text already large enough to read from space is also a little redundant. The person who submitted the site noted that “this site comes up number one in the Google search for ‘cycling clothes.’” I tested this and in fact it does. I have to agree with the Web Pages that Suck site manager that this definitely shows the “irony of how high they rank vs. the quality of the web site.” My eyes had glowing yellow bars in them when I blinked for hours after viewing this site.
#5 HRODC
Just a word of caution. This site took forever to open (and close!) on my computer. Check it out when you have time to kill. Speaking of killing, how do I pull the plug on this site? Resource and Organisational Development Consultancy Ltd.’s site is one that, instead of offering you a menu with similar items grouped under a tab, have just laid it all out for you in one giant pile. If you scroll down below the initial table you have a menu on the left-hand side but some of the writing is cut off. . I clicked one link to see where it took me and after waiting for 60+ items to load, the screen never changed. I figured out that if I scrolled down I would find the linked information but not only did I have to scroll down but left to right to see all of it. And if that wasn’t enough there was another extensive menu on the right-hand side associated with that particular link. It seems they need to study numbers 53 and 54 on their home page a little more.
#4 Accept Jesus, Forever Forgiven!
Another word of caution, don your sunglasses and turn down your speakers before loading this site! Well, where do I begin? I could start with the psychedelic rainbow that backgrounds the home page or I could say something about the chipper midi music which cannot be turned off. Maybe I should mention that every time you hit a link and then hit the back button it sounds like you just stopped on the black path that continuously crosses your path on the bottom of the screen. I think maybe I’ll go with the name of the organization – the Empowered Evangelical Charismatic Protestant Bible Gospel Christian Ministry. Say that ten times fast! And for those users who don’t feel like getting up and dressed to go to church on Sunday, just grab your Second Life Bible and meet other member in the CyberChurch [12] in Second Life. This site has received 23 awards inlcuding the Excellence in Fishing Award and the Beautiful Site Award, which perhaps was awarded by users of site #2 on my list.
#3 TIE — VTR Australia, Ms. Dewey, and CyberAtlas
I started out reviewing Ms. Dewey as I thought it would be interesting, but it just became annoying really fast because I had to sit and wait while she pondering the questions I gave her. So I tried the video of VTR Australia and literally got motion sickness watching the navigating of their site. It has been changed. I skipped Cyber Atlas. I couldn’t take much more.
#2 Association of International Glaucoma Societies
The initial look of this website gives me the impression that I expect somewhere to find my horoscope for the day. The dizzy dancing heads at the top left corner, aside from being annoying, seem a little insulting for a site for people who have eyesight problems. The scrolling menu on the left-hand side seems in the usual order but as I scrolled to the bottom I am met by a disturbing image of someone’s eye that seems a little voyeuristic. Then I clicked on it and it blinked! Really creepy! But if that is your sort of thing you might be interested in downloading the Glaucoma Hymn (with accompanying lyrics). I actually listened to all 3½ minutes of it, which strangely left me wanting to see that musical about that state that is just below Kansas.
#1 Optimal World
This site appears to be inactive now. Maybe after making the list they took it down to redesign it. I tried to find another way in but all links seem to be dead. It’s probably for the best anyway.
This has been interesting seeing how badly people can screw up a website. I find it hard to believe that they don’t see some flaws in their design as they are creating it but I guess it takes all sorts.
November 24, 2007
November 14, 2007
Malware Podcast
(This is the text for a podcast that is presently not available. This will be updated as soon as possible.)
Welcome back for podcast number four. Once again this is Verlene Schafer for IRLS 571. The Internet is rich with stories of malware attacks. It can be frightening to even turn on a computer for fear of what may be lost to viruses and trojans. Email boxes are stuffed with tempting offers of free items, or “remember me” letters from people you never knew. According to Matt Hines of InfoWorld (http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/10/03/Second-tier-AV-labs-decry-commoditization-claims_1.html), over the first six months of 2007, anti-virus applications market leader Symantec found a total of 212,101 new malware variants, an astonishing 185 percent increase over the second half of 2006, totaling an average of well over 1,100 unique samples arriving per day.
Malware programmers are becoming more sophisticated but unfortunately users are not. In an article from TechNewsWorld I read that what worries Louis Cheng, spokesperson for Finjan Software security products, is how easily uninformed computer users become victims of spyware and other malware products. With the increase in threat levels, more damage will occur. In that same article Edward English, CEO of InterMute, which makes the well-known products SpySubtract, Spam Subtract and AdSubtract called spyware a national security concern. He says, "It is so easy for companies, tricksters and deviants to get spyware planted on a PC. Just post it on a download site and call it 'freeware.' People will download and install it. There are millions of naive users out there installing 'free' spyware daily," (TechNewsWorld http://www.technewsworld.com/story/34228.html)
To be sure, some malicious hackers are doing creative work. This year saw some sophisticated phishing attacks, and virus writers have been branching into relatively new areas like instant messaging and social networking sites, noted Christopher Boyd, security research manager for FaceTime Communications. But the trend overall, he said, has been "quantity over quality." (TechNewsWorld) http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/12/18/HNmalware_1.html
An example of these new attacks is found in an article from Tech2.com http://www.tech2.com/india/news/telecom/wikipedia-hijacked-to-spread-malware/2667/0
Computer users are being warned against opening unsolicited mails after hackers took advantage of the popular Wikipedia encyclopedia in their attempt to spread malicious code. Wikipedia allows anyone to create and modify articles, a policy of openness which has often been abused by mischief-makers in the past. Taking advantage of this fact, an article on the German edition of Wikipedia, was created by hackers claiming to include a link to a fix for a supposedly new version of the Blaster worm. However, the 'fix' was actually a piece of malicious code, designed to infect visitors' PCs. In an article for eWeek, http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2078379,00.asp IM viruses are highlighted, stating that the “final three months of 2006 represented the heaviest volume of IM threats ever seen.” The article also notes that researchers said the distribution of IM threats slowed during summer months and then increased during the fourth quarter of the calendar year.” The same trend for the past three years. This is the time for everyone to be more wary and aware. So one might wonder, if things are so bad why use a computer at all? I think that would be like saying, hey, there are germs and disease outside so I will just stay in so I don’t catch anything. I recall two of the adages my mother used to use on me. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and stay in school. There are many programs that can protect your computer, many at no cost to the user. Users can prevent malware attacks if they take a little time to run the programs and clean up their computers on a regular basis. The second thing to do is stay informed. Taking some time each week or two to read about what is happening can help keep users’ information safe. But this is not just a one time study, the malware creators are constantly creating new ways to get past your defenses and educating oneself is the first step to blocking those attacks. The online magazines in this podcast are a great place to start. For software to protect and remove problems check out sites like Ad-Aware www.lavasoftusa.com/ or Tucows http://www.tucows.com/, Download.com http://www.download.com/. Take the time to protect your information, just like you protect yourself from the world outside, you need to protect yourself virtually too. Well, that is all for now. This has been Verlene Schafer for IRLS 571. Thanks for listening.
Welcome back for podcast number four. Once again this is Verlene Schafer for IRLS 571. The Internet is rich with stories of malware attacks. It can be frightening to even turn on a computer for fear of what may be lost to viruses and trojans. Email boxes are stuffed with tempting offers of free items, or “remember me” letters from people you never knew. According to Matt Hines of InfoWorld (http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/10/03/Second-tier-AV-labs-decry-commoditization-claims_1.html), over the first six months of 2007, anti-virus applications market leader Symantec found a total of 212,101 new malware variants, an astonishing 185 percent increase over the second half of 2006, totaling an average of well over 1,100 unique samples arriving per day.
Malware programmers are becoming more sophisticated but unfortunately users are not. In an article from TechNewsWorld I read that what worries Louis Cheng, spokesperson for Finjan Software security products, is how easily uninformed computer users become victims of spyware and other malware products. With the increase in threat levels, more damage will occur. In that same article Edward English, CEO of InterMute, which makes the well-known products SpySubtract, Spam Subtract and AdSubtract called spyware a national security concern. He says, "It is so easy for companies, tricksters and deviants to get spyware planted on a PC. Just post it on a download site and call it 'freeware.' People will download and install it. There are millions of naive users out there installing 'free' spyware daily," (TechNewsWorld http://www.technewsworld.com/story/34228.html)
To be sure, some malicious hackers are doing creative work. This year saw some sophisticated phishing attacks, and virus writers have been branching into relatively new areas like instant messaging and social networking sites, noted Christopher Boyd, security research manager for FaceTime Communications. But the trend overall, he said, has been "quantity over quality." (TechNewsWorld) http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/12/18/HNmalware_1.html
An example of these new attacks is found in an article from Tech2.com http://www.tech2.com/india/news/telecom/wikipedia-hijacked-to-spread-malware/2667/0
Computer users are being warned against opening unsolicited mails after hackers took advantage of the popular Wikipedia encyclopedia in their attempt to spread malicious code. Wikipedia allows anyone to create and modify articles, a policy of openness which has often been abused by mischief-makers in the past. Taking advantage of this fact, an article on the German edition of Wikipedia, was created by hackers claiming to include a link to a fix for a supposedly new version of the Blaster worm. However, the 'fix' was actually a piece of malicious code, designed to infect visitors' PCs. In an article for eWeek, http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2078379,00.asp IM viruses are highlighted, stating that the “final three months of 2006 represented the heaviest volume of IM threats ever seen.” The article also notes that researchers said the distribution of IM threats slowed during summer months and then increased during the fourth quarter of the calendar year.” The same trend for the past three years. This is the time for everyone to be more wary and aware. So one might wonder, if things are so bad why use a computer at all? I think that would be like saying, hey, there are germs and disease outside so I will just stay in so I don’t catch anything. I recall two of the adages my mother used to use on me. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and stay in school. There are many programs that can protect your computer, many at no cost to the user. Users can prevent malware attacks if they take a little time to run the programs and clean up their computers on a regular basis. The second thing to do is stay informed. Taking some time each week or two to read about what is happening can help keep users’ information safe. But this is not just a one time study, the malware creators are constantly creating new ways to get past your defenses and educating oneself is the first step to blocking those attacks. The online magazines in this podcast are a great place to start. For software to protect and remove problems check out sites like Ad-Aware www.lavasoftusa.com/ or Tucows http://www.tucows.com/, Download.com http://www.download.com/. Take the time to protect your information, just like you protect yourself from the world outside, you need to protect yourself virtually too. Well, that is all for now. This has been Verlene Schafer for IRLS 571. Thanks for listening.
November 9, 2007
Rich Media Websites
All of the sites reviewed below are new to me except for the popular video sites, which almost everyone is familiar with. This was a great opportunity for me to discover new resources and develop ideas for using rich media in the future as I continue to develop my technology skills.
Interactive Advertising Bureau –
It is important to have standards when creating a website. The more a site designer considers their audience the more likely viewers are to return to that site for information or products. It seems that the Interactive Advertising Bureau put a lot of research into creating guidelines for effective website advertisements, noting that “rich media is especially good at moving purchase intent.” The bureau studied customer satisfaction in regards to pop-up ads, which are so persistent and found that “more than 90% of consumers find pop-ups annoying and objectionable” and “more than 50% of users cited a ‘very negative affect’ to brands using pop-ups.” This is easily understood and it seems that of the millions of sites online that many companies would follow these guidelines to improve the users’ experience and yet the list of companies who are compliant is surprisingly short. While it is an impossible task to regulate the web, I would have thought that more companies would at least try to follow some kind of standard. The Interactive Advertising Bureau even designed a sort of seal of approval for companies who are compliant with their guidelines. “The IAB suggests that compliant member sites post the Compliance Seal in their online media kit as well as in their print versions. Media buyers will be educated as to the benefits of Rich Media Guidelines and be encouraged to look for the Seal.” Many of the sites listed as compliant that I looked at did not have the seal.
Learning Technologies Center –
While the examples on this site are few it does bring to mind ways that these technologies might be used in a library. The 3D modeling and animation would be useful to create virtual library tours or resource tutorials. These technologies could also be used to create opportunities for virtual interaction with other libraries or for users who want to participate in activities that otherwise they may not be able to.
Pima Community College –
I enjoyed looking at the different ways PCC used flash technology to make their site more interactive. Not only was it more visually appealing, but it also allowed the user more participation in the information than just reading. The map and directions page was also interesting. I liked how links were highlighted as I moved the cursor around the map because it helped highlight active links which when selected provided a menu specific to the location and directions.
UA Virtual Reality Annex –
This is a great example of what can be done with rich media. Interactive panoramic views like this would be great for school librarians to use to compliment curriculum in history or areas of current events. This would also work for libraries for people to see where items are located so they will be familiar with the physical space when they visit. It encourages interest in community sites to visit and appreciate, and allows viewers to visit these amazing places from their computer. It would be great to add interactive links with more information about specific items or parts. If a library created a panoramic tour of the library it could include links which might provide information on new titles in that particular section of the library or more information about what a user might find. It could also provide information about the various formats the information is available in such as audiobooks, ebooks, serials, videos, or websites.
SonicFoundry’s Media Site –
I am very impressed with the media on this site. I like how the presentations are provided with video and slides side by side. It also offers the option of enlarging the video so the viewer can just watch the presenter or just watch the slide show with audio. Skipping from one slide to the next or previous slide also moves the audio/video to the same part of the presentation so a viewer can skip or review parts without adjusting the other media attached to that presentation. I watched a presentation entitled Enhancing the Learning Environment with Rich Media: Best Practices. The part specific to rich media would be helpful for librarians who are developing technology programs. It provides great information on what one might need to begin and what to do with everything when completing a project. It was brief but offered very helpful tips. While I did not have the chance to look at many, when I searched for presentations using library as my search term, I got over 1,200 hit results. I also reviewed a presentation of Santa reading The Night Before Christmas, which would be a great link to have for kids, especially those learning to read since with the slides they could read along with Santa. Other stories and characters could be used in a similar way to develop some great media for children’s librarians.
Popular Video Sites –
MSN Video seems to provide news-related video rather than user created video. This would be useful to keep up on the latest new regarding any given topic for users who want to know more, or for libraries to keep up with what other libraries are doing in the news or information regarding political actions that may affect libraries. Google Video seems to have few original videos, most of the videos that came up on their search were from YouTube. YouTube seems to be the site that most library-created videos are found as well as user-produced videos.
Other Video Sites –
SciVee has great information on the sciences but also offers great RSS feeds for items that would be appreciated by any user, such as the 10 Simple Rules videos on making oral presentations or getting grants. FORA.tv provides a wealth of current event presentations that would be beneficial for library users though I thought that the site was not well organized. It was hard to navigate the busy homepage. TeacherTube and the TED website both offered rich media that addressed more than just the science and math emphasis which was helpful since that is my background and I was able to find more useful information in those sites.
I took a lot of creative writing classes during my undergraduate studies. I think that by using rich media applications both learning about and creating new works could have been enhanced by using technology more in the classroom. A good example of how media could be used to engage students in learning about new authors is one that I found on the TeacherTube website. If one does a search for Billy Collins there is a series of videos that present his poetry in amazing ways. Most are done by the same person(s) but there is one that seems student produced. Allowing students to create their own interpretation of a poem would have been a great project for the classes I took. Also I think that concrete poetry would have been another type of assignment that could have used the 3D applications available at UA.
Interactive Advertising Bureau –
It is important to have standards when creating a website. The more a site designer considers their audience the more likely viewers are to return to that site for information or products. It seems that the Interactive Advertising Bureau put a lot of research into creating guidelines for effective website advertisements, noting that “rich media is especially good at moving purchase intent.” The bureau studied customer satisfaction in regards to pop-up ads, which are so persistent and found that “more than 90% of consumers find pop-ups annoying and objectionable” and “more than 50% of users cited a ‘very negative affect’ to brands using pop-ups.” This is easily understood and it seems that of the millions of sites online that many companies would follow these guidelines to improve the users’ experience and yet the list of companies who are compliant is surprisingly short. While it is an impossible task to regulate the web, I would have thought that more companies would at least try to follow some kind of standard. The Interactive Advertising Bureau even designed a sort of seal of approval for companies who are compliant with their guidelines. “The IAB suggests that compliant member sites post the Compliance Seal in their online media kit as well as in their print versions. Media buyers will be educated as to the benefits of Rich Media Guidelines and be encouraged to look for the Seal.” Many of the sites listed as compliant that I looked at did not have the seal.
Learning Technologies Center –
While the examples on this site are few it does bring to mind ways that these technologies might be used in a library. The 3D modeling and animation would be useful to create virtual library tours or resource tutorials. These technologies could also be used to create opportunities for virtual interaction with other libraries or for users who want to participate in activities that otherwise they may not be able to.
Pima Community College –
I enjoyed looking at the different ways PCC used flash technology to make their site more interactive. Not only was it more visually appealing, but it also allowed the user more participation in the information than just reading. The map and directions page was also interesting. I liked how links were highlighted as I moved the cursor around the map because it helped highlight active links which when selected provided a menu specific to the location and directions.
UA Virtual Reality Annex –
This is a great example of what can be done with rich media. Interactive panoramic views like this would be great for school librarians to use to compliment curriculum in history or areas of current events. This would also work for libraries for people to see where items are located so they will be familiar with the physical space when they visit. It encourages interest in community sites to visit and appreciate, and allows viewers to visit these amazing places from their computer. It would be great to add interactive links with more information about specific items or parts. If a library created a panoramic tour of the library it could include links which might provide information on new titles in that particular section of the library or more information about what a user might find. It could also provide information about the various formats the information is available in such as audiobooks, ebooks, serials, videos, or websites.
SonicFoundry’s Media Site –
I am very impressed with the media on this site. I like how the presentations are provided with video and slides side by side. It also offers the option of enlarging the video so the viewer can just watch the presenter or just watch the slide show with audio. Skipping from one slide to the next or previous slide also moves the audio/video to the same part of the presentation so a viewer can skip or review parts without adjusting the other media attached to that presentation. I watched a presentation entitled Enhancing the Learning Environment with Rich Media: Best Practices. The part specific to rich media would be helpful for librarians who are developing technology programs. It provides great information on what one might need to begin and what to do with everything when completing a project. It was brief but offered very helpful tips. While I did not have the chance to look at many, when I searched for presentations using library as my search term, I got over 1,200 hit results. I also reviewed a presentation of Santa reading The Night Before Christmas, which would be a great link to have for kids, especially those learning to read since with the slides they could read along with Santa. Other stories and characters could be used in a similar way to develop some great media for children’s librarians.
Popular Video Sites –
MSN Video seems to provide news-related video rather than user created video. This would be useful to keep up on the latest new regarding any given topic for users who want to know more, or for libraries to keep up with what other libraries are doing in the news or information regarding political actions that may affect libraries. Google Video seems to have few original videos, most of the videos that came up on their search were from YouTube. YouTube seems to be the site that most library-created videos are found as well as user-produced videos.
Other Video Sites –
SciVee has great information on the sciences but also offers great RSS feeds for items that would be appreciated by any user, such as the 10 Simple Rules videos on making oral presentations or getting grants. FORA.tv provides a wealth of current event presentations that would be beneficial for library users though I thought that the site was not well organized. It was hard to navigate the busy homepage. TeacherTube and the TED website both offered rich media that addressed more than just the science and math emphasis which was helpful since that is my background and I was able to find more useful information in those sites.
I took a lot of creative writing classes during my undergraduate studies. I think that by using rich media applications both learning about and creating new works could have been enhanced by using technology more in the classroom. A good example of how media could be used to engage students in learning about new authors is one that I found on the TeacherTube website. If one does a search for Billy Collins there is a series of videos that present his poetry in amazing ways. Most are done by the same person(s) but there is one that seems student produced. Allowing students to create their own interpretation of a poem would have been a great project for the classes I took. Also I think that concrete poetry would have been another type of assignment that could have used the 3D applications available at UA.
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