I have been working on the College of Engineering, Natural Sciences, and Forestry website for a few weeks throughout the semester.  Recently, we started working on the little details like adding forms that people can fill out and submit.

Interestingly, most departments that accept these online forms for review have some sort of mindset that they need people to re-enter all of the data that NAU keeps track of.  Why would this be?  I think it is because many people do not understand the powers of LDAP.  Many companies, organizations, and campuses especially keep large internal records of all of their students.  A piece of this information can be viewed online by the public, just like a phone directory.  Makes sense right?

The Lookup:

Since the school already maintains a big database of information, shouldn’t any department on campus be able to take a username and look up all the information on that user?  It makes sense to me.  Unfortunately, this is not what happens.  Instead, every organization requires that you fill out the entire form, including username, phone number, permanent address, degree major; even though it is all accessible in LDAP.

So my solution is this; allow the user to optionally log in through NAU’s central authentication service (CAS), and fill in all the information automatically.  Then, require the user to review the accuracy of the information and fill out ONLY the additions to the information needed.  Store the changes and submit the form to the appropriate department.

Sounds great right?  Yes, it is great, because that is how I design intelligent software...

Other Applications:

I currently maintain at least 6 online profiles (oDesk, ELance, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, Microsoft) and none of these have the ability to check or sync to any of the other profiles. However, sometimes I will come across an “automatically import your contacts”, where it gives me the option to sign in to Google or upload a comma separated values file of my contacts from Outlook.  This makes me smile; but why not take it a step further?  Most of these services have some sort of remote API for accessing a person’s profile, such as using MSN and clicking “View Profile”.  So why can’t other websites just view the profile you specify and download the information from it?

Filling out repetitive forms is annoying...

It is important for us all to understand that modern day computing machines are actually systems of systems built on top of each other.  A computer processor has microchips around it that understand how to communicate with it, there are chips around that which run software, there is software that loads into memory and runs core functionality; software runs on top of that and depends on software running in other places.  Software runs on top of other software; enough rambling.

It is also important to realize that most of the population’s largest software users are also connected to the internet.  It is for this reason that “Automatic Updates” were invented.

Automatic Updates:

Commonly, we know Automatic Updates as that thing that pops up on Windows and says that it is doing stuff that it thinks we care about, and then prompts us to restart our computer every 15 minutes.

So let’s analyze this functionality.  Windows automatically downloads updates from the internet.  It can then optionally install these updates without any user interaction.  So far, this is all seamless, unobtrusive, and in general, a good idea.  But, Windows would not be Windows if it didn’t find some way to annoy its users.  Automatic Updates then decided to prompt the user every 15 minutes to restart the computer.  Instead of handling it behind the scenes and just waiting until the computer is not being used, it prompts to restart dozens of times until the user finally gives in.  Windows 7 fixes this problem by giving options up to 4 hours to delay the restart.  Good solution, but not perfect.

I am a very big advocate of Slysoft, but my one problem is that they release so many updates; I am constantly getting a popup telling me there is a new version.  The absolute worst scenario is when software gives a user an option for functionality and then completely disregards it.  Slysoft is guilty of this; there is an option to uncheck “Automatically Check for Updates”, yet it still displayed the popup notifying me that there is an update available.  Their software Bumblebee, used for automatically updating AnyDVD is downright useless; how many times am I going to get this message before it actually downloads?

And then there is iTunes:

iTunes gets its own heading because it is the absolute most intrusive update process.  First, a program constantly runs in the background taking up system resources and opening plenty of opportunities for attacks and failure.  When an update is downloaded successfully it prompts the user to install the update.  Then the program sits open on the screen while displaying a useless progress bar that doesn’t reflect the completeness of the update but rather loops across the screen indicating that it might be doing something.

The worst part about the iTunes updater is that it doesn’t check if something is open and using the programs it is trying to update.  Similar to the Adobe updater, it tries to go through the entire installation process before it finally indicates that it can’t update and has failed.  Also, WHY DO THESE UPDATERS INSIST ON PUTTING THEIR ICONS BACK ON MY DESKTOP?

The infallible Firefox:

Firefox has simply the best implementation of automatic updates.  It first downloads new updates, and once it completes the download, it prompts the user to restart Firefox now or Later.  If you click Later, Firefox just assumes that eventually the browser will be restarted and it leaves the user alone.  When Firefox is started the next time, the update is quickly and seamlessly installed as a part of the startup process for the browser.  If you click Restart Firefox Now, your current activity is stored, and the browser is restarted, all of your pages are completely restored when it comes back up.

The Solution:

Every program should implement an unobtrusive tray icon for when updating is taking place.  The updates should be installed or postponed whether or not the program is being used currently.  The user should be notified that the update is going to be installed, but it should be completely ignorable.  The user should NEVER be interrupted from what they are doing.  The computer should NEVER have to be restarted immediately for any reason.  A couple hours of the vulnerability still existing is not going to make a difference for the running system.  Why can't windows restore your open programs just like Firefox does?  Enough ranting for now.