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Webinar on How to Use the New ARRL Web Site
Midwest Division ARRL Members have been invited to attend an online
Webinar on How to Use the New ARRL Web Site. The Webinar will be on June 15, 2010 from 8:00 PM to 9:30 PM CDT, and is sponsored by Atlantic Division Director Bill Edgar N3LLR. See the topics and list of presenters below. To reserve a seat for the Webinar, click on the link below or copy and paste the link into your browser. 73, Cliff K0CA How to Use the New ARRL Web Site Join us for a Webinar on June 15 Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/704588721 We will be discussing the thought behind and the capabilities of the new ARRL Website that debuted two months ago. Topics will include registration, setting up your profile, navigation, how to save Favorites and use of other new and advanced features. We will also be taking questions from participants. Presenters will include Harold Kramer, ARRL COO; Katie Glass, ARRL Digital Content Manager; and Brent Robertson, KB1PYY, President of Fathom, the firm that designed the site. Title: How to Use the New ARRL Web Site Date: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 Time: 9:00 PM - 10:30 PM EDT After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar. System Requirements PC-based attendees Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP, 2003 Server or 2000 Macintosh®-based attendees Required: Mac OS® X 10.4.11 (Tiger®) or newer -------------------------------------------------------------------- ARRL Midwest Division Director: Cliff H Ahrens, K0CA -------------------------------------------------------------------- |
#2
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Webinar on How to Use the New ARRL Web Site
Is it just me, or does it seem wrong somehow, that you need a webinar to
teach you how to find stuff on a website? Especially since all the stuff was easy to find in the old, lame, outdated website that just did it's jo b? Could someone help me to understand the philosophy here? 73, Steve W1KF On 6/9/2010 9:56 AM, ARRL Members Only Web site wrote: Midwest Division ARRL Members have been invited to attend an online Webinar on How to Use the New ARRL Web Site. The Webinar will be on June 15, 2010 from 8:00 PM to 9:30 PM CDT, and is sponsored by Atlantic Division Director Bill Edgar N3LLR. See the topics and list of presenters below. To reserve a seat for the Webinar, click on the link below or copy and paste the link into your browser. 73, Cliff K0CA How to Use the New ARRL Web Site Join us for a Webinar on June 15 Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/704588721 We will be discussing the thought behind and the capabilities of the new ARRL Website that debuted two months ago. Topics will include registration, setting up your profile, navigation, how to save Favorites and use of other new and advanced features. We will also be taking questions from participants. Presenters will include Harold Kramer, ARRL COO; Katie Glass, ARRL Digital Content Manager; and Brent Robertson, KB1PYY, President of Fathom, the firm that designed the site. Title: How to Use the New ARRL Web Site Date: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 Time: 9:00 PM - 10:30 PM EDT After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar. System Requirements PC-based attendees Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP, 2003 Server or 2000 Macintosh®-based attendees Required: Mac OS® X 10.4.11 (Tiger®) or newer -------------------------------------------------------------------- ARRL Midwest Division Director: Cliff H Ahrens, K0CA -------------------------------------------------------------------- |
#3
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Webinar on How to Use the New ARRL Web Site
Steve, I agree. It is bizarre that people would need a webinar to learn how to find stuff. The old site wasn't broken. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It's just like when Microsoft or some other software company comes out with a new and "improved" program or operating system. You have to learn how to use it all over again. And many links on the site don't work. How come only Midwest Division members get to have a webinar? What about us out West? Or New Englander? Or Southerners? Yesterday, I tried to use the Field Day site locator to locate Field Day sites. The search function didn't work. But I was able to mouse-drag the map to the area I wanted. Dick AC7EL On Thu, 10 Jun 2010 22:38:46 EDT, Steve Reinhardt wrote: Is it just me, or does it seem wrong somehow, that you need a webinar to teach you how to find stuff on a website? Especially since all the stuff was easy to find in the old, lame, outdated website that just did it's jo b? Could someone help me to understand the philosophy here? 73, Steve W1KF On 6/9/2010 9:56 AM, ARRL Members Only Web site wrote: Midwest Division ARRL Members have been invited to attend an online Webinar on How to Use the New ARRL Web Site. The Webinar will be on [ snip ] |
#4
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Webinar on How to Use the New ARRL Web Site
"Dick Grady AC7EL" wrote
I agree. It is bizarre that people would need a webinar to learn how to find stuff. The old site wasn't broken. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It's just like when Microsoft or some other software company comes out with a new and "improved" program or operating system. You have to learn how to use it all over again. And many links on the site don't work. I, too, agree. It was working fine, and now I have a harder time finding things. At least once I do find something I use often, such as Product Reviews, I can save it on the site to my favorites. Otherwise I'll never find it again. The only improvement I see is that it's.... prettier. *sigh* Howard N7SO |
#5
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Webinar on How to Use the New ARRL Web Site
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1 In Dick Grady AC7EL writes: Steve, I agree. It is bizarre that people would need a webinar to learn how to find stuff. Training can be useful, even in organizations full of experts, to quickly and efficiently get everyone up to a baseline of knowledge, as well as be able to get/contribute consistent results. I certainly expect that most amateurs, and ARRL members, are technically savvy, and can quickly come up to speed with new systems and technologies. Those like you and me that "grew up" with technologies like the Internet in their personal and professional lives may find them to be intuitive. Others may not. Not everyone might be able to quickly self-train, and the alternative to accessible one-to-many training like webinars may be to devote a lot of individual customer service support to those who might need extra assistance. The old site wasn't broken. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It's just like when Microsoft or some other software company comes out with a new and "improved" program or operating system. You have to learn how to use it all over again. Welcome to the world of the technology life cycle! Though perhaps you've been here before... Unfortunately systems don't exist in a vacuum, nor do they have infinite lifespans. They require a lot of supporting infrastructure, including hardware, operating systems, applications, as well as trained administrators and users. Each provider of the individual pieces may choose to improve (or try to improve) their products periodically, and make obsolete, or "end-of-life" their previous versions. Finite resources means having to make sometimes difficult tradeoffs between supporting the old and developing the new. Hardware might not be available on the new or reconditioned market, or have parts available, or be able to run current versions of operating systems. Operating systems may no longer have security updates, documentation, and training provided by their vendors. Same with applications. Current applications may not run on old operating systems and hardware, or vice-versa. Trying to maintain in-house training for old systems in the face of lack of support from vendors and turnover in staff can be daunting. Maybe the ARRL was facing all of these challenges, and decided that this was a good time to upgrade. Perhaps the new site is much easier to extend and support new advanced features. I would even be sympathetic to the need for an upgrade if the new site was feature-neutral, but was easier or less expensive to maintain, or had higher performance and capacity. While the overall long-term progress is commendable, there are those speed bumps when doing transitions and upgrades. I at least credit the ARRL for trying to run both systems in parallel during a test phase, then cutting over when the site substantially worked (even taking the hit and embarrassment when it was clear that they needed to delay rollout due to performance issues). Internal systems at the ARRL have been rolled out this way for many years. It's only now more visible when applied to directly member-accessible resources like their web site. Somewhat imperfect analogy: It's like asking why didn't we stick with the '57 Chevy or the Saturn V rocket (or the Drake transceiver), as those were notable examples of what worked well in the past. The general answer is that those examples were quite serviceable for their time, but technology improves and is incorporated into new products. Blueprints and other institutional knowledge for '57 Chevy's and Saturn V rockets exist, but unless you have huge warehouses of original New-Old-Stock (NOS) parts, or existing factories that can make "vintage" components (anything from transistors to just era-specific screws and bolts), you may wind up having to re-engineer, re-integrate, and re-certify a design with currently available components, and at that point, you may as well have started with a clean sheet design in the first place. (The analogy is imperfect, as I know that small-scale boutique or cottage industries have licensed the '57 Chevy tooling and blueprints from GM and can provide identical, sometimes improved, versions of nearly 100% of the original parts catalog, including a full body, for a '57 Chevy. But that's still not practical or cost-effective for large-scale production of something to be used for modern, everyday transportation. Especially if it has to meet current safety and reliability standards. Drake ran out of parts for some of its legendary amateur radio equipment some years back, is not planning to reproduce them, nor are third-party vendors stepping up to do so.) And many links on the site don't work. It seems that that's the biggest "bug" in the new system. That, and not making sure that all existing direct links from the old site, that might be stored in members' bookmark files (such as the A-1 operators page), had redirection from old names to new so that members were not experiencing broken links. At the very least, all old addresses that were deleted or modified should have been redirected to the main page, instead of returning a "404" Error with no further information. How come only Midwest Division members get to have a webinar? What about us out West? Or New Englander? Or Southerners? It appears that the Atlantic Division leadership took the initiative to set up these webinars for the benefit of their members, using volunteers and free or inexpensive on-line resources (i.e., it's not a fully-funded ARRL-wide service yet). They have done webinars on other amateur-radio-related topics in the past, not just "simple" ones like ARRL web site training, and are likely to do others in the future. They seem to be treating it as a pilot/proof-of-concept with the intention of gradually rolling it out to other Divisions. Immediate expansion to everyone may not be practical due to limited current resources, such as the maximum number of attendees that can be accommodated at the gotomeeting.com site. I think that it's a commendable initiative, and I choose to view the present glass as half-full rather than half-empty, and look forward to when it can be filled. Yesterday, I tried to use the Field Day site locator to locate Field Day sites. The search function didn't work. But I was able to mouse-drag the map to the area I wanted. Was the Field Day site locator available on the old site? If not, then maybe that's an example of a new capability that wasn't practical to roll out on the old site. I agree that it should have been fully functional when rolled out to production, but the fact that it was available and partially working shows that the ARRL is planning improvements over the old site. Dick AC7EL - -- 73, Paul W. Schleck, K3FU http://www.novia.net/~pschleck/ Finger for PGP Public Key On Thu, 10 Jun 2010 22:38:46 EDT, Steve Reinhardt wrote: Is it just me, or does it seem wrong somehow, that you need a webinar to teach you how to find stuff on a website? Especially since all the stuff was easy to find in the old, lame, outdated website that just did it's jo b? Could someone help me to understand the philosophy here? 73, Steve W1KF On 6/9/2010 9:56 AM, ARRL Members Only Web site wrote: Midwest Division ARRL Members have been invited to attend an online Webinar on How to Use the New ARRL Web Site. The Webinar will be on [ snip ] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (SunOS) iD8DBQFMEmOb6Pj0az779o4RAvuAAJ994SwynTNk1SDzNvdFtn Wh5oM5rQCg1FsH zHLaGpx2FRDrikjBiiT2kCM= =gV3x -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- |
#6
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Webinar on How to Use the New ARRL Web Site
On 6/11/2010 8:36 AM, Dick Grady AC7EL wrote:
Steve, I agree. It is bizarre that people would need a webinar to learn how to find stuff. The old site wasn't broken. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It's just like when Microsoft or some other software company comes out with a new and "improved" program or operating system. You have to learn how to use it all over again. And many links on the site don't work. TO take this issue first.. The web site is supposed to have a ton of new features.. And a conference (Training conference) which is what this is can help you to forget,, ur, learn to quickly access the features you need. As for why only Midwest.. Cause that's the directors sponsoring the event.. Other directors are welcome to do the same in their areas. |
#7
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Webinar on How to Use the New ARRL Web Site
On Jun 12, 12:24 pm, John Davis wrote:
On 6/11/2010 8:36 AM, Dick Grady AC7EL wrote: Steve, I agree. It is bizarre that people would need a webinar to learn how to find stuff. The old site wasn't broken. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It's just like when Microsoft or some other software company comes out with a new and "improved" program or operating system. You have to learn how to use it all over again. And many links on the site don't work. TO take this issue first.. The web site is supposed to have a ton of new features.. And a conference (Training conference) which is what this is can help you to forget,, ur, learn to quickly access the features you nee d. As for why only Midwest.. Cause that's the directors sponsoring the event.. Other directors are welcome to do the same in their areas. It is a matter of perspective and temperament. My own perspective is that intelligent and smart people can and should design websites that allow people to do what they want, without having to learn or have other extraneous "stuff" get in their way. That stuff can act as a barrier. Illustrative related story: I needed a new pair of skates, and I needed the quickly for a game the next morning. I like CCM skates, so I went to their website. I get a screen saying I needed to install a new version of Flash player. No other choice, and I wasn't going to get to see anything if I didn't. So I download the new version. Install, and I had to reboot. I'm starting to get annoyed. Then I go to the site again. Computer freezes. Task manager wasn't up to the task, so I had to hard shutdown, safe boot, restart. Okay, I'll give it another try. I went to the site, and got to see that critical Flash animation. It was a goalie sliding sideways across the screen. 45 minutes of messing around to see a goalie slide across the screen. I left them a note explaining that if I hadn't been committed to buying their skates, I would have given up and gone to another site and probably not given CCM another look. The ARRL website is a true failure. broken links, and if we have to be trained to use it, it moves all the way to epic failure. I used to visit daily, now I don't use it at all. It has moved from being a great resource to something I avoid. Seriously, how does this site get published with bad links? Any decent web publishing package will run a check on your links and tell you which ones don't work. There is a lesson here, and it is something that web designers have come across again and again, from the days of designing websites specifically for Internet Explorer, and bragging about it. Web designers have their preferences. I've sat in meetings where a designer has declared users that don't have whatever "feature" he wants to put in the page as irrelevant. It is also why a lot of businesses have to use Internet explorer 6, as bad a program as that is, they've designed their web apps specifically for it. The lesson is that web pages should be designed for the user, not the designer. If training is involved, if links don't work, then it is hard to call this one a success. - 73 de Mike N3LI - |
#8
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Webinar on How to Use the New ARRL Web Site
On Fri, 11 Jun 2010 22:41:59 EDT, Paul W. Schleck
" wrote: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 In Dick Grady AC7EL writes: Yesterday, I tried to use the Field Day site locator to locate Field Day sites. The search function didn't work. But I was able to mouse-drag the map to the area I wanted. Was the Field Day site locator available on the old site? It was on the old site for the last 2 years, and worked perfectly. The arrl.org web site is intended for all people, hams and non-hams alike, and not just for a specialized subset of people who can get training. It is bad design if the general public cannot find what they need without taking a class. Heck, I have problems finding stuff on the site, and I'm an experienced ham and I have my own web site. Dick AC7EL |
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