Relaunch of Athletics Website

[Josh '99]

[Q]Jordan 04 Wrote:
Additionally, even throughout ESPN's redesigns, at least the last couple of times, no matter how they changed the "look" of the site or added additional info to the home page, the core menu on the left, Top Story in the middle, and headlines on the right, has changed very little in recent years.  And I'm sure these are the only 3 items used by a vast majority of users, a vast majority of the time.[/q]It'd be nice if one of ESPN's redesigns could make it, I don't know, NOT CRASH.

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

All I want is a get rid of the annoying ads button - including the CSTV BBall one on the RHS.

It's the same format as several other schools web pages, and IMO it's not very good.  But you can be sure, they contracted out the web design for a large sum of money so they wouldn't have to employ anyone in Ithaca to do it.

[KeithK]

[q]I do go the Cornell Athletics website on my own to check schedules and reports on Football, baseball, basketball, wrestling, and Track and to get the link for the audio of the hockey games that I can't attend.[/q]If you're looking for info on other sports that aren't as well covered as college hockey then I can see why you'd go the official site.  (I'm just as likely to look at ESPN for football/hockey on those rare occasions when I'm interested.)  But for hockey there are plenty of better resources.

In fairness, the site is better than the absolute piece of s*** that existed back in '96 or '97, which prompted me to start a Cornell hockey website.  I just don't think it's nearly as good as it could be. *shrug*

[billhoward]

Al - Pop-up ads and motion ads are seductive from the POV of the site developer because they're dynamic and they have the potential to generate more clicks / revenue. Cornell perhaps has dreams of pop-ups curing the athletics department deficit. Problem is, when every ad buzzes, waves, pops ups/flies around, or flashes, it's annoying as hell, and the viewer goes away. When even one ad does that, it's annoying. It's possible it's generational: people who grew up on MTV don't mind all the motion. People who remember flower power and free love may mind very much indeed.

Ooops, I just got hit by a pop-up. I clicked "Don't Show Again" and we'll see if that means "don't ever pop up this crap ever again or I'm withholding my check to the Cornell Fund" or "don't pop up this specific ad for the remainder of this session." [Two minutes later:] Must be the latter. A different ad flew in.

Too bad one of the My Big Red News options is: Nothing that's animated. Right now there's an annoying CSTV motion ad in a frame on the right plus the fly-arounds.

While we're pointing fingers at Cornell, the site appears to be handled by College Sports Online http://www.collegesports.com/online/ and that appears to be an affiliate of CSTV, and CSO says that it "designs [and] markets" web sites for colleges. To me, this would be one case where in loco parentis should be reinstituted on East Hill.

At page-bottom there is a feedback option: http://cornellbigred.collegesports.com/feedback/corn-feedback.html  I'm using it. But if the comments go to CSO not Cornell, then Cornell isn't hearing our concerns.

BMW's iDrive, the twirly dial on the console of the 7, 5, and soon 3 Series, is an example of what happens when brilliant engineers didn't seek outside input. Once you've spent a couple hundred hours with prototypes, it becomes second nature, but that wouldn't be very good for new owners. As a rough analogy to the pop-ups on the site, only with the 3 Series do you have a delete option, and that's by not order the navigation system, which is no great loss, because while it's decent, it's not in the same league as the Denso and Alpine systems on Lexus, Infiniti, Acura, etcetera.

Enough. I think I've used my allotment of words for today.

[Scersk '97]

Why are our colors "red and black?"

http://cornellbigred.collegesports.com/ot/faqs.html

[Scersk '97]

And defending our Cornellian colors, sadly, does not result in "Cornell, victorious to the end."

http://cornellbigred.collegesports.com/trads/corn-trads.html

The accepted spelling of "Tee Fee Crane" has never been "Teefy."  Man...  utter lack of proofreading.  It's not like these things are a matter of oral history:  all they would have had to do was refer to "Songs of Cornell."

[Chris 02]

I get those pop-ups that say "Never show again"...and I click that...and they still come back!!!!    ::screwy::

[Al DeFlorio]

[Q]Scersk '97 Wrote:

 Why are our colors "red and black?"

[/q]

Dunno, but I wish we'd remove all the ugly black, blue, and silver/gray trim from our uniforms.  Seems to me only hockey has it right:  Carnelian and white.  Period.

[Scersk '97]

[Q]Al DeFlorio Wrote:

 [Q2]Scersk '97 Wrote:

 Why are our colors "red and black?"

[/Q]
Dunno, but I wish we'd remove all the ugly black, blue, and silver/gray trim from our uniforms.  Seems to me only hockey has it right:  Carnelian and white.  Period.[/q]

Yes, a new fan could be led astray by the trim on uniforms of the last few years.

I am also thankful that the hockey uniforms have remained inviolate.

[Jerseygirl]

I'm going through the site tonight, page by page, and letting them know where the errors are -- and the red and black question is clearly one of them.

And yes, they know that I am dorking it out like this and are receptive to me doing so.

So at least very little will be factually incorrect or formatted wrong on the site after tomorrow, even if the website is still not to everyone's liking.

This is what happens when one has a severe head cold and a shiny new computer with which to play.

[Tub(a)]

[Q]Jeff Hopkins '82 Wrote:

 All I want is a get rid of the annoying ads button - including the CSTV BBall one on the RHS.
[/q]

www.firefox.com :-D

[KeithK]

[q]www.firefox.com[/q]Yup.  I don't have any idea what everyoneis complaining about.

[Chris \'03]

[Q]billhoward Wrote:


There's no poll right now, no chance to vote on things like: "Cornell will win Friday night, yes, no, not sure."



Edited 2 times. Last edit at 03/16/05 04:46PM by billhoward.[/q]

I see a poll. Same as the one from the old page. It's about wrestling and you need to click the vote button to get your choices. Look below the Pepsi ad and the the left of the link to the NCAA...

[ben03]

[Q]billhoward Wrote:
BMW's iDrive, the twirly dial on the console of the 7, 5, and soon 3 Series, is an example of what happens when brilliant engineers didn't seek outside input. Once you've spent a couple hundred hours with prototypes, it becomes second nature, but that wouldn't be very good for new owners. As a rough analogy to the pop-ups on the site, only with the 3 Series do you have a delete option, and that's by not order the navigation system, which is no great loss, because while it's decent, it's not in the same league as the Denso and Alpine systems on Lexus, Infiniti, Acura, etcetera. [/q]
funny thing about BMW's I-Drive is that most people who trash-talk it have never even used it for 5 seconds. it's really not that difficult (honestly it’s not, i swear) you just have to take 15-30 minutes to actually learn how it works. seems yet another example of how the american auto consumer liked what they had and that new technology scares them out of their mind. i guess 15-30 minutes of reading/experimenting is just too much to ask these days  ::screwy::
BMW was just the first to market with their system and competitors Audi, Saab and Ford have either added or plan to add similar systems to their vehicle lineups.
/rant

[billhoward]

[OT] If you can make iDrive work well in 15-30 minutes then you can explain this thing about matter sometimes becoming energy and giving off a lot of heat and noise as well.

I have 5,000 miles on iDrive in five different BMWs dating back to July 2001 in both U.S and European models and only now do I feel comfortable with it. The simplified four-not-eight-ways 5 Series controller is marginally easier. Voice input helps only some. In the very first models, pushing a CD in the CD slot didn't play the CD, it stored it, and you had to invoke iDrive to help you navigate from FM to CD. (Why you see more radio controls on the dash now than in 2001.) To zoom in on a nav map you still have to turn the knob counter-clockwise which is against most people's (not all) common sense and against the better judgments of many of the BMW engineers who worked on it. The titanium or aluminum billet the knob is machined from looks gorgeous but is incredibly slippery.

Audi MMI is superior by virtue of having 12 pre-fetch buttons arrayed around its controller and little genius touches such as a roller wheel on the steering wheel for volume, and slapping the radio power button next to the MMI controller mutes the audio if, say, you come to a busy intersection. The only letdown is the Audi button marked NET doesn't fetch email; it activates OnStar.

Acura's controller in RL is nice but it's not quite to the same level as the BMW or Audi but you don't notice it because the car is otherwise so sensatonal.

But yes, as you say, this is the way the world is going. The other automakers are greatful to BMW for giving it the old collge try.

And what do you think of active steering?