Welcome

Another blog let me know that Times Select is now free for students and faculty with a .edu e-mail address. This service is normally about $50 per year.

Times select is essentially access to columnists, NYTimes online archives, customized e-mail alerts among other things. See here for a full list.

The trouble starts after you have submitted and verified your university address.

The verification link takes you to this page. Can you figure out quickly how to create an account?

I have a NYT account but it doesn't use my .edu address. At first I thought about logging in using that account but that wouldn't make sense. The box on the left says "Upgrade to Times Select". I don't think I want to do that since I already have free Times Select I think. The button on the left says upgrade and not register so I am not sure what to do. I check my verification e-mail for a password but I don't see one. I spend a little more time staring at it and then decide to just click the login button on the right. Hoping for a good error message.

This time I get some helpful red text that tells me to register by clicking on the button on the left. I then see in small gray type "Not a NYTimes.com member yet?". Now I understand what to do and was able to register for the service.

I created a registration system based off of the NYTimes.com design a few years ago so I know it wasn't this confusing previously.

The key things wrong here are: labeling the button upgrade instead of register, making upgrade to Times Select the largest things on the left and overshadowing the only hint that you should use this link to register.

How this could be fixed: go back to having people register and then make your Times Select pitch on the registration page, another option is to make it smaller than the "Not a NYTimes.com member yet?" text.

I wonder if anyone else has run into this issue.

Many news sites use some sort of list of article related to the story you are reading. This information gives the reader more background on the current story and keeps them on the site longer.

CNET has a new graphical way of doing this that I saw today on this story http://msn-cnet.com.com/Sun+servers+heading+back+to+Intel+chips/2100-1010_3-6151872.html?part=msn-cnet&subj=ns_2510&tag=mymsn.

This is the map off of that story.

When you mouse over one of the items it gives you the options of putting it in the center or reading the story. Interwoven in red and green they have placed overarching topics and companies that are involved or related to the story. Clicking on an item re centers it and takes you to the story.

This is a really interesting way to graphically represent how all of the stories link together using something more visually pleasing than a list.

This is an interesting thing I ran into this evening. I was using a link to Google words to a song and came up with a link to a site that said it had the lyrics. When I clicked on the page I got this from Google.

" Warning - visiting this web site may harm your computer!
You can learn more about harmful web content and how to protect your computer at StopBadware.org.

Suggestions:

* Return to the previous page and pick another result.
* Try another search to find what you're looking for.

Or you can continue to http://www.lyricsandsongs.com/lyrics/RAY_LAMONTAGNE.html at your own risk.

Advisory provided by Google"

See here for the actual page
http://www.google.com/interstitial?url=http://www.lyricsandsongs.com/lyrics/RAY_LAMONTAGNE.html

The question is how did they end up on the malware list? How do get off of the list if you end up on it and don't belong there?

For example in my last job our papers sent out e-mail newsletters to people who had asked to get them. Often the papers would complain that users were not getting the newsletters. Sometimes it had to do with our newsletters ending up on the spam list of AOL, Yahoo or one of the other major e-mail providers. So then we had to jump through the hoops to get off of the list. This happened every month or so and then we would have to fight to get off the list again.

I wonder if this will happen with this new malware advisory. I guess we shall see.

As a side note they do ban you from messing with the url parameter and making it look like a clean site is a malware site. I am sure they saw people seeing this is an easy hack.

I have been working with two of our papers in Louisana the last few weeks on adding new functionality and new content to their sites in relation to Hurricane Katrina.

We started the Sunday before Katrina hit posting news as it came in. Both newsrooms evacuated so they relied on me to help them post stories. I also set up some interactivity on the site that has proved to be popular. I added some forums where people could post information and look for information on loved ones as well as status of properties in the area. I also added an area where users could upload their photos of the damage.

I had been through three hurricanes last year in Lakeland so I was able to take the lessons I learned there and apply them to this site. It helped that I sort of knew what to do.

The staffs there were really great. One of my good friends is the online director there and the only online staff they have for two sites so help from the outside was welcomed by him.

With every one of these events you learn more about the best way to help the community through the web site.

The site I am working with is http://www.houmatoday.com.