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Friday, November 9
?id=8675309, of course
Slate has recently redesigned their entire site. I don't spend a lot of time there, but I do enjoy their "Today's Papers" feature. Notice how I don't guide you to the Today's Paper feature with a link. Prior to the redesign, I could. Now, I can't. It used to be that this link: http://slate.msn.com/code/TodaysPapers/TodaysPapers.asp would take you to the latest edition of the feature. Each edition would also have a direct link as well. Slate must have switched to a new content management system, which might be making their lives easier, but it stinks for users. Now everything on Slate has links like this: http://slate.msn.com/?id=117519 If that isn't an URL meant for a machine and not a person, I don't know what is. In case you are wondering, that's the link for the support information for Slate. It sure is easy to remember, isn't it? Much better than: http://slate.msn.com/support It seems Slate realizes this new system is boneheaded and less useful than before, because they've added widgets to each web page to help you make bookmarks. Of course, these widgets only work on a PC browser, and my guess is they probably only work in Internet Explorer. To me, if a site design renders the built in bookmarking function of browsers useless, there's a problem with the design. Adding crap to the page to work around it is a kludge at best. What's truly funny is the bookmark widget actually creates either an incorrect bookmark, pointing to an older entry, or it creates a non-functioning bookmark. Smooth. Very smooth. Why not make the URL completely obscure? http://$bill$gates$=satan+microsoft=evil!666!@3475956930/?id=2058505 That link will actually take you to Friday's edition of "Today's Papers." Enjoy. Addendum Apparently Internet Explorer on the Mac doesn't like my obscured URL to Slate. So, you'll have to use this slightly less obscured one: http://$bill$gates$=satan+microsoft=evil!666!@207.46.228.194/?id=2058505 '; } else { if(stristr($filename,"archive")) { $dir=$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']; $template='_01_archive.html'; $tail=strlen($template); $thisArchive=$filename; //$files=scandir($dir); $dh = opendir($dir); while (false !== ($filename = readdir($dh))) { $files[] = $filename; } sort($files); $earlyarch=""; $laterarch=""; $prevarch=""; $next=0; foreach($files as $file) { if (substr($file,-$tail)==$template) { if ($next==1) { $laterarch=$file; $earlyarch=$prevarch; $next=0; } if ($file==$thisArchive) { $next=1; } else { $prevarch=$file; $earlyarch=$prevarch; } } } $link=''; $divider=''; if(file_exists($earlyarch)) { $link='< Earlier Archive'; $divider=" | "; } if(file_exists($laterarch)) { $link=$link.$divider.'Later Archive >'; } $link=$link.' '; } } echo($link); ?> |