04.22.2007

Microsoft MVPs: Congratulations go out to LauraEHunterMVP, redseatechnologies, Jay_Jay70, and Chaosian for their inclusion in Microsoft's MVP program.

New Moderators: Please join us in welcoming Vee_Mod and modguy to the Moderator team.

One of our own: GhostMod, who has been noticeable by his absence the last few months, has been accepted to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the fall.

Experts Exchange celebrated another first recently, as TheLearnedOne became the founding member of the Four Genius Certificates Club by going over the 1,000,000 point mark in the ASP.NET zone. Another multiple Genius is angelIII, who picked up his second certificate for reaching 1,000,000 points, this time in the Databases zone.

Others who have received Genius certificates through the end of March include Nightman in MS SQL Server; itsmeandnobodyelse in C++ Programming; third in Javascript; TeRReF in PHP; redseatechnologies in Exchange Server; sirbounty and Merete in Windows XP; rindi in Drives / Storage; JOrzech in Microsoft Word; and samtran0331 in ASP.NET.

As you’ve undoubtedly noticed, Experts Exchange launched its new interface on Tuesday, February 13, 2007. The new interface has successfully updated the look and feel of Experts Exchange, made asking questions easier for our users, and introduced new tools to assist Experts in answering questions more effectively. Releasing the site is a huge milestone for Experts Exchange, representing many months of effort. We are extremely excited about the release. Here are some new features which will make Experts Exchange better for you:

• The Question Wizard makes asking questions easier than ever for Premium Service Members. Enter your question and its title and the Question Wizard will help you select which Zones to post your question in. The new site allows you to cross post questions in up to 3 Zones so that Experts are more likely to see it!
• Our new Community Advisor is your personalized guide to Experts Exchange. If you have any general questions about Experts Exchange or how to make the most of your experience, you can ask our Community Advisor.  We encourage our new Premium Service Members to contact the Community Advisor with questions about using the site to get their solutions more quickly and easily. Look for the Contact Community Advisor link on the home page after you’ve logged in.

• The new Expert Skin allows Experts to access the content they want faster. With fewer graphics, the Expert Skin boasts considerably faster load times than our legacy site, giving Experts quick access regardless of their connection speed. Use the Display Preferences page to switch between skins.
• Our new Experts Tab, designed just for Experts, places all the most useful Expert tools and features in one place. Because this page contains so many great tools for Experts, we encourage Experts to bookmark this page and navigate straight here once they have logged in. The following tools and features are available on the new Experts Tab:
  • Question Filters allow Experts to filter out and access the questions they want answer within the new Expert Tab. 789 Experts have already discovered the power of Question Filters. 263 of these Experts have increased their chances of providing the accepted solution by enabling email notifications for new questions matching their filter criteria.
  • The Zone Rank tab allows Experts to view the Expert points they have earned segmented by Zone. Experts can also view point breakdowns for their Expert colleagues and break down earned points into month, day or year.
  • Member Rank enables Experts to view their overall rank broken down by month, day, year or Zone. Like the Zone Rank feature, Experts can also check out these stats for their fellow Experts.
  • The Questions in Progress box is also available on this page. This box allows Experts to track the status of questions they have participated in, questions they have selected to monitor and questions they have asked.

The team here at Experts Exchange understands that change can be difficult. For many of our Premium Service Members and Experts who have used and contributed to our site for years, the new interface will involve a considerable adjustment period. We hope that as you adjust, you will realize that our new interface is a sincere effort to improve Experts Exchange for our Premium Service Members and Experts alike. You will notice a number of updates and enhancements on the interface over the coming months. We know that there is always room for improvement and we hope that you, as a part of the Experts Exchange community, will continue to help us identify our opportunities to make the site better for you! Use our feedback page to send us your constructive thoughts and ideas. We have already received considerable feedback since the new site launch and have already implemented some of these suggestions. We are in the process of evaluating, prioritizing and implementing the remainder of your suggested improvements.

Along with our new website, Experts Exchange has launched many new Zones. We’ve been listening to your suggestions for new Zones and they are now available on the site! Experts Exchange understands how hard it can be to keep up with technology nowadays, and we want to make sure that you can stay up to date with new technology right here on the site.

To all of our Experts, these new Zones are ripe with opportunity! Because most of our new Zones are still growing in terms of questions asked and solutions accepted, the Top Expert positions in these new Zones are within your reach. Now is your chance to get ahead of your competition from the beginning and to become a Top Expert in a new Zone.

Here are our new top-level Zones. Note that we’ve added new Zones within each of these top-level Zones including the legacy Zones that existed on our site before the redesign. The All Zones page will show you which Zones are new by identifying them with a “new” tag next to their names. Answer or ask questions in these new Zones now!

When the new site debuted a few weeks ago, the task of explaining how everything worked fell to the Moderators. We asked Netminder, one of the Site Administrators, to write up something about how some of the new features of the site work.

What a rush! Experts Exchange pushed its latest iteration live a couple of months ago, and it's a whole new world -- but it is by no means complete. Over the coming weeks and months, features that have been requested by members will be incorporated, including new zones. As such, the absence of a functionality should not be taken to mean it will never be there -- only that it isn't there at the moment.

What follows is a brief description of some of the new features, with basic information on how to use them. Much of this is new technology at EE, so if you need some help, please ask for it in the Community Support General zone, and the Moderators will help you with specifics. You can email your concerns, comments or complaints to feedback@experts-exchange.com, or use the Feedback link shown on every page. EE is paying attention to your comments, and uses your emails to create and maintain a priority list of requests.

The Skins: There are two skins currently available. The Exchange skin is more graphics-intense than the Expert skin, which is available to Exchange Members (also known as Premium Services members), but both provide virtually exactly the same functionality; what differences there are is almost insignificant. We have provided this section only because it is important to know how big the difference is. Our own tests indicate that the Expert skin reduces the amount of information sent from EE's servers to you by around 80 per cent; the Expert skin actually uses less bandwidth than does the site did.

Question Wizard: The Question Wizard is one of the two most obvious changes to Experts Exchange. Askers no longer have to navigate to the correct zone; instead, the Wizard analyzes the question and title, and suggests zones that might be appropriate for the question.

The analysis done by the Wizard uses two sources of information to make its recommendations. The first is sets of keywords developed by the Page Editors and Moderators. The other source -- and the one that will become dominant over time -- is the zone itself. As more questions are asked, the Wizard will use an algorithm to match the question to other, similar questions, and will suggest zones based on its own findings. It will, in essence, create its own keywords.

The Wizard allows you to cross-post the question in up to three topic areas, but it does not require that it be cross-posted. The Page Editors and Moderators have the authority and the tools to move a question to the correct zone; to remove a question from an inappropriate zone; and to add to the zones in which a question is posted.

Filters: The second most obvious change to Experts Exchange is the Filters. In the past, EE's programming has required that Experts navigate to topic areas in order to find questions they are interested in helping solve. That is no longer the case.

The Filters allow you to monitor zones based on the criteria you select. You can create one filter that shows all of the open questions in the PHP and MySQL zones, another for showing all of the questions that were closed in the various Macromedia zones in the past week, and a third that shows all the questions that have the keywords "iPod" and "download" in them, regardless of what zone they are asked in. You can set them to send you notifications for every new question, or hourly or daily summaries. The hourly notifications actually include the entire text of the question.

There is no restriction on the number of filters you can have, and you can move them up and down the list, and remove them entirely if you choose. You run the filter simply by clicking a link. For a complete description of how to use the filters, see the Help page.

Experts in zones don't always agree on what the best way to do something is, but they can still arrive at the same conclusion. Such was the case when redseatechnologies and Chris-Dent responded to a question about whether the domain name and the recipient name should be the same in Active Directory.

Much of a Moderator's time is spent making decisions about who will get points in a given question. It's rare, and therefore worth noting, that sometimes, Experts will argue that someone else should get the points. A tip of the hat goes out to riteheer and rpggamergirl, for setting an example all Experts should follow.

An editor by trade a writer by avocation and an Expert by happenstance, ericpete is the person who puts together the newsletter for Experts Exchange.

I'll admit it: I was raised in print media, and while I spend time doing web development, I'm not one of those bells and whistles kinds of people. I like things simple and clean; to me, Google is the best example of what a website should be. There aren't a lot of questions one can ask about how to use it; its interface makes it obvious how it works. What I admire about the people at 37 signals, a Chicago-based design firm, is that they get it when it comes to web development. Sites need to work first and be pretty later; if people can't figure out how to use a site, they won't use it, and all the pretty and promotion in the world won't help.

Having said that, the other day we came across what has to be the best example of the worst of design in almost every sense of the word. One of the best ways of teaching people how to do things right is to show them how it's done wrong; by looking at just this one page -- it will take a while to load, unfortunately -- you can pretty much see how to not do web design.

The problem: where to start. I've always thought that websites are like buildings as much as anything; architects design buildings with the function of the building in mind, and then worry about what it looks like after that. You wouldn't design a library with a bunch of tiny rooms, one for each section of the Dewey Decimal System; as Hemingway noted, it should be a "clean, well-lighted place for books." Librarys are generally a few big rooms because how they function -- and when an architect goes to work, that's his first consideration. A web designer does the same thing; if he's doing his job, his first questions to his client are something along the lines of "what is it you want people to do, and how do you want them to do it?", and he builds on that.

Since, at their core, websites are manifestations of a communications medium, the matter of conveying information efficiently is the next factor. What do people need to know in order to use the site, and what steps does the site have to take in order to make it so that it is obvious to the user how to use the site? Aside from all the technical peculiarities our "best example" has -- no fewer than 29 scrolling marquees, rotating images that are more a distraction than they are informative, 1.3 mb of text (and you thought the help page took a long time to load), tables without padding, multiple typefaces, color combinations reminiscent of the mid-1960s... you get the idea -- it's damn near impossible to figure out what these people actually do.

Early on in my newspaper career (about age nine or ten), my father taught me that you get about four seconds to get someone's attention and hold it; people who looked at the dead-tree-medium back in the sixties were a lot more patient, because the web design gurus say you get about half that. So the next consideration for a designer: How do you get people's attention and hold it long enough for them to want to look at what you want them to look at?

<Off-topic>
I've been known to rip into marketing and advertising people on occasion, but some of them are brilliant. Thanks for the link, Jürgen!
</Off-topic>

In a word: content. If people are looking at a site trying to find information, they want it now; they don't want finding that information to be a scavenger hunt. That's not to denigrate the glitz of Flash-based sites; a picture is worth a thousand words, and what some people can do with Flash content is truly remarkable. But it's not the Flash that makes the site successful, with lots of traffic; it's the information transmitted using Flash.

If the site is one based on user-created content, then looking at the issues of what, where and how become that much more important. What are the things people are trying to do? What do they have to do to accomplish those tasks? Do we explain all the processes, and do they make sense? Have we made it too complicated? I'm guilty of that; I did a site once for a guy, and it did exactly what he wanted. The problems were a) that no one bothered to find out if users wanted to do what he wanted them to do; b) that it wasn't obvious to users that they could do what he wanted them to do; and c) that even if they could do it, how they did it was a bit of a chore. So they picked up the phone and called, or worse, went to someone else.

All too often, websites work the way they do because someone thinks they know what users want without checking first. That's not something that is solely a website issue; businesses come and go all the time because they don't change the menu, or stock new products, or modify their ways of doing business to adapt to the times; it wasn't all that long ago that Tadich Grill didn't take credit cards. Even the PC manufacturers are finding out that people don't want things they haven't asked for.

But for websites, that's a huge problem. Yes, the site needs to be at least a little attractive, just like the part of the front page of the newpaper that is above the fold needs to get the attention of passers-by. But in making it attractive, you're wasting precious time if you're not helping your user find his way around. Content isn't just the information -- the writing and images -- on the page; it's whether the information is relevant and useful. If it isn't, then get rid of it; sorry, but if I'm looking for a hosting service, I don't want to see photos of your dog everywhere.

Of course, I could be wrong.

You asked your question. There are a few responses, but nothing really solves the problem, so you do a little digging and a bit of experimenting, and Eureka!, you have your own solution. So what now?

Strictly speaking, you should award the points; about the only reason the Membership Agreement recognizes as a reason for getting your points back is when you get no responses at all. But from a practical point of view, most Experts would rather you get your points back than get a C grade.

So, here's how to handle it. First, post your solution in the thread. Be as complete as you can; if it involves code, post it, and if it involves some steps, include them -- and be prepared to respond to posts by other members who might have questions about your solution. Then post a request in the General Community Support zone asking the Moderators to refund your points.

The Mods will post a notice that says the matter will be dealt with in four days; that is done to give the Experts time to agree or disagree with the request. Most of the time, if you have participated and posted your solution, they won't.

Fun with Google: One of the Zone Advisers was thinking of paying us a visit, or at least, getting close enough such that we could get together with him. So he punched in a request to Google Maps for directions. He was fine until he got to Step 33.

That time again: Nobody's life, liberty or property is safe when the legislature is in session, so all you US-based folks need to start writing your congressmen. There are a good number of them who want to let state and local governments tax Internet access and use.

The good, the bad and the just-plain weak: In case you missed April Fools Day, Google came up with GMail Paper, an indication of how attorneys involved in the Viacom lawsuit will be storing their email conversations. c|net did a mock front page that had some great stuff (if you're a member, you were logged in as Bill Gates, and one of the stories had animal rights groups protesting the repeated death of Schroedinger's cat. There is a list.

This just in (a month or so ago): Lake Superior State University's annual list of words that should be banned. TechTarget had their own list back in December. Our word for inclusion: deliverables.

Sites of the week: They aren't the 14 things we're really that interested in learning, but Popular Science magazine's site has 14 things geeks can teach the world. We would be fascinated to hear what others you would list. Then there's Zamzar, which allows you to convert files from one format to another (wav to mp3, for example) for free. Finally, online storage for the masses.

We told you so: We said that the deep pockets of Google would become the target of those who feel wronged by YouTube; Viacom has filed a $1 billion-plus lawsuit alleging copyright infringements. Oh... and the new Daylight Savings Time, which was supposed to save 100,000 barrels of oil a day, didn't..

En requiem: David Halberstam, Pulitzer Prize winning author. His book, The Best and The Brightest, is stunning in its completeness.

Maxxed out: TJMaxx may well be one of the few stores my wife has never been in. This turns out to be a good thing, because the company has told the Securities and Exchange Commission that information related to 47.5 million debit and credit cards were stolen by hackers who had the company's encryption key -- the largest breach of security yet. Six people have been arrested but four others are still at large.

If a tree falls in the forest...: then as it turns out, it might not make a sound after all. Or it will, but it will be the sound of one hand clapping.

If at first you don't succeed: Yahoo has announced that it will release APIs for its email to outside developers and will also give email users unlimited storage -- just in time for all the people who want to archive the E8 calculation.

iPhone, uPhone, we_all_Phone: You want one? Think June 11 in San Francisco. No word whether they will be available with a Leopard skin. Since we're on the topic of phones, bookmark dialahuman.com.

Lest we forget: Shi Tao is still in prison. Wang Xiaoning, who was in prison in China, filed suit against Yahoo because of it.

Signs of the Apocalypse: The IRS is still lousy about protecting taxpayer data, but the Department of Homeland Security is no longer flunking cybersecurity. Maybe the OMB will get them moving. And Microsoft is suggesting that Google should be looked at for antitrust violations.

I saw an article a few weeks ago that talked about an annual conference MIT holds that has to do with spam -- email spam, blog spam, website spam -- but the one thing nobody wants to do anything about is search spam. Why? Because there's too much money in it. You know what I mean. You do a search for something and get a gazillion links to websites that have nothing to do with what you're looking for.

The thing is, the three big companies who dominate the search market -- Microsoft, Google and Yahoo -- have no real interest in solving the problem. Search results all have paid ads included, and so do websites that participate in the advertising programs of the search companies. Each time one of those ads gets clicked, the website owner makes a little money... and the search company gets its hand wet. Everyone shares (why do I think of Milo Minderbinder every time I hear that?) so it's a non-problem -- except for those of us who actually use search sites to find things.

If your cursor suddenly starts doing funny things, you might be on the receiving end of something which has taken advantage of a security hole that takes advantage of animated cursors. The flaw can be exploited either by a rigged website or by an email with the code -- so as if I haven't said it often enough, make sure you have all your patches in place, and get a good antivirus program.

One last thing. Susan Kirkland, one of the Zone Advisors for the Apple/Mac zones, sent me a note about her electric bill and the technology the power companies use to read your meters:

"Ever done anything on AMR? That's the automatic electric meter reading technology power companies use so they don't have to send a man out to your house. There's only one problem (which I discovered after some minor google research). It's called signal drift (duh) which is caused by cold temperatures.

"I've always been conscientious when it comes to energy. I turn the lights off when I leave the room -- maybe the nuns did that to me. Waste not, want not (?) who knows. Three months in a row, I got this "double what it usually is" power bill. I paid; I'm not one to question the power company. This month, I got a bill 6 times the usual usage. I went out to read the meter -- it said 8834. What did this mean? I looked at my bill; it said for usage from 9633 to 12363. I called and the high school graduate told me it was because I was using more electricity now that I had the heat on. She said to disconnect the breakers and see which one was eating up my power. When I mentioned the odd numbers on the meter, she sighed, as if I was arguing with her good sense (LOL) like sooooo many others who just didn't get it. They sent a man out to read the meter. He discovered the meter was malfunctioning. He put in a new meter. They will adjust my bill.

"How many times does this happen without your knowledge? Check your electric meters -- after all, it uses a modem to communicate the readings."

At least she didn't say that they use Windows Vista.