Blogs

Errors and Inconsistencies on Empire Avenue

Tue, 05/07/2013 - 12:33am — decibel.places

Social Networking sites like Empire Avenue are fantastic - but often they #fail in their UI/UX. I collect and report foibles on LinkedIn and Google+ already. Here are some on Empire Avenue (bet you saw this coming!)

Negative Mission Rewards Remaining

In my Mission Dashboard, one mission has been fully claimed with twenty completions. However, instead of showing 0 remaining rewards, it shows -20

Cinco de Mayo, Dries Buytaert in a sombrero etc.

Fri, 05/03/2013 - 2:18pm — decibel.places

As a 1/4 Mexican, I feel gifted with a birthday on Cinco de Mayo

(for you gringos, that's May 5th)

Even better to share a photo of Drupal creator and curator Dries Buytaert in a sombrero (while a student at Ghent University, where Drupal originated)

Dries Buytaert in a sombrero

photo via Forest Mars

Try my vegetarian recipes:

Bean burritos y arroz con frijoles

Pro Bowl Guacamole

This remains the 10th most popular post on my blog, up from 8709 views a year ago to 15,037 now

Errors and Inconsistencies on LinkedIn

Fri, 05/03/2013 - 1:50pm — decibel.places

I have great respect for the pool of experts and talent who are members of LinkedIn.

However, I find the LinkedIn interface clumsy, cumbersome, and often, wrong.

Here is a collection of errors and inconsistencies collected from LinkedIn.

Cannot reply to message

Got a message on Yahoo Mail, but it didn't load

So I tried to reply on LinkedIn

but I was prompted to log in

(although I was already loggged in, AND the login screen kept appearing... a sub-bug?)

and when I viewed my sent messages, the reply was not there

SOPA Pirates Drupal Module for Internet Freedom Day

Fri, 01/18/2013 - 8:42am — decibel.places

In honor o' Internet Freedom Day I'm Bumpin' This Post || RIP Aaron Swartz

Help spread th' word by joinin' this Thunderclap: https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/1039-internet-freedom-day

What Is that Scurvey SOPA Treaty? Get me spyglass, I'll warrant ye!

(original text Pirated from Gizmodo.com)

If ye ha'nae heard o' that Scurvey SOPA Treaty before, ye likely have by now: Some o' th' internet's most influential sites—Reddit an' Wikipedia among them—be goin' dark t' protest th' much-maligned anti-Spred th' Booty t' th' Pirate 99% bill, and a bottle of rum! But other than bein' a very bad thin', what is that Scurvey SOPA Treaty? And what will it mean fer ye if it passes?
that Scurvey SOPA Treaty is an anti-Spred th' Booty t' th' Pirate 99% bill workin' its way through crimey Cap'ns o' Congress...

Hooseses Judges 'o' scallywags Meetin' Maven Maggots Chair an' Texas Re'plundrican Lamar Smith, along with 12 co-sponsors, introduced th' Stop Online Spred th' Booty t' th' Pirate 99% Act on October 26th o' last year, Dance the Hempen Jig Debate on H.R. 3261, as 'tis formally known, has consisted o' one hearin' on November 16th an' a "mark-up period" on December 15th, which were bein' designed t' make th' bill more agreeable t' both parties. Its counterpart in th' Seine-net is th' Protect Ineffectual Piracy Act (S. 968). Also known by its cuter-but-still-deadly name: that Putrid PIPA Treaty, and a bottle of rum! There will likely be a vote on that Putrid PIPA Treaty next Wednesday; that Scurvey SOPA Treaty discussions had been placed on hold but will resume in February o' this year.
...that would grant Cont-in-ent creators extraordinary power o'er th' internet...

The beatin' heart o' that Scurvey SOPA Treaty is th' ability o' Ineffectual Propaganda owners (read: Moody Stunt-oo an' Rip-Cord LaBelle) t' effectively pull th' plug on foreign sites against whom they have a Copy-left 'n Then Sum claim, pass the grog, Get out of me rum! If Warner Bros., fer example, says that a site in Italy is torrentin' a copy o' The Dark Knight, th' studio could deman' that Google remove that site from its search results, that PayPal no longer accept payments t' or from that site, that ad services pull all ads an' finances from it, an'—most dangerously—that th' site's ISP prevent th' othr' 99% from even goin' thar.
...which would go almost comedically unchecked...

Perhaps th' most gallin' thin' about that Scurvey SOPA Treaty in its original construction is that it let Ineffectual Piracy owners take these actions without a single court appearance or judicial sign-off, to be sure. All it required were bein' a single letter claimin' a "good faith belief" that th' target site has infringed on its Cont-in-ent. Once Google or PayPal or whoever received th' quarantine notice, they would have five days t' either abide or t' challenge th' claim in court. Rights holders still have th' power t' request that kind o' blockade, but in th' most recent version o' th' bill th' five day window has softened, an' ConsPira-cies now would need th' court's permission.

Pirate Translation provided by SOPA Pirates for Drupal Module

Three Letters (not) Make A Big Difference In Communication

Fri, 11/16/2012 - 5:22pm — decibel.places

Since my colleague xxx,xxxx said he could [sic] see the video, I checked it and I couldn't see it.

Turns out he couldn't see it either

From: xxx, xxxx
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2012 3:47 PM
Subject: RE: mediaelementjs alternative as HTML5 video player

I could not see too. There was a typo.

From: Goya, Randall
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2012 3:37 PM
Subject: RE: mediaelementjs alternative as HTML5 video player

This test fails for me.

1. Video does not load in Chrome

2. Video does not play plus error in IE8

3. Video does not play in Safari

4. Video does not play plus many errors in Console in Firefox

From: xxx, xxxx
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2012 12:44 PM
Subject: RE: mediaelementjs alternative as HTML5 video player

Thanks for the research into the video player options.

I could see the video in IE8,firefox and chrome with the below url you shared.

Errors and Inconsistencies on Pinterest

Fri, 10/19/2012 - 9:18pm — decibel.places

Social Networking sites are fun - but often they #fail in their UI/UX. I collect and report foibles on LinkedIn and Google+ already. Here are some on Pinterest (bet you saw this coming!)

Constant Contact URL (or Image Size ?) Suppresses Pin Photo

I tried to pin a page I viewed by clicking on a link in an email. The pin is successful, it is counted on the board, but the image is not displayed. Why? When I removed the Constant Contact (email marketing) tracking token from the URL, then the pin's image displayed. But then it went away too. Now I have a board with 7 pins, which only displays two pins:

But the cover, which also lists 7 pins, shows the dog image 4 times:

Or maybe the image is too large? It's 950px × 2,418px (and cute too)

Or maybe Pinterest is having some hiccups tonight, because when I tried to pin the small image above to a new board Error Screenshots the image doesn't display there either: