As well as being a horribly unusable Flash site, it had some odd terms and conditions.  This is the screen you are initially presented with when hitting the site.

Upon proceeding, you get a chance to view the terms and conditions.

In amongst all the usual clauses, such as pointing out that the contest is actually run by a third party, there’s a lovely clause that reads:

7.  One (1) winner will be selected.  This will be the first entry randomly drawn from all correct entries received.

8.  The winner shall receive one (1) Nintendo Wii Console, one (1) Wii Balance Board and one (1) Wii Fit Game.

9.  For the avoidance of doubt, the prizes do not consist of anything other than expressly set out in Term 8 above and no additional costs (including, without limitation, spending money) are included.

I’ve emboldened two pertinent bits above.  These terms effectively mean that the winner of the competition on www.win-streetfighter.co.uk will actually win a Wii Console, a Wii Balance Board and a copy of Wii Fit.  Clause 9 then makes it doubly clear that the prize is not, and can never be, anything other than that defined in clause 8.  To make matters worse, Street Fighter IV isn’t even available on the Wii!

Well played Mr Lawyer, well played.

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Take a look at the image to the right for an example of the duplicate stories.  Out of the 18 stories, 11 are duplicates (indicated by arrows).  That’s not a great ratio.  What this means is that for one day I saw over 280 Reddit stories in my feed reader, while another popular (more popular, in theory) social news site, digg.com only had 75.  So using the screen to the right as a sample, out of those 280 stories, about 171 (61%) will be duplicates.

So maybe this is a one-off?  Unfortunately not.  Scrolling down just one page of RSS entries reveals the following stories from Reddit (see image to the left).  In this snapshot, we’ve got 13 duplicates.  And not only that, we have one story that appears four times, three of those times consecutively.  I don’t know what’s causing these duplicate stories to appear, but it’s clear that there’s no quality control happening on the RSS feed side of Reddit’s business.

I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine who’s been going through a rough time recently.  It’s the Reddit Alien, and he’s looking a little beaten up.  This is the image that greats you every time you request a Reddit page that doesn’t exist.  Unfortunately, I’ve been seeing this more and more.  I chose to read 10 stories from the Reddit RSS feed and 4 resulted in a 404 page being displayed.  The important thing to remember here is that these are the Reddit pages that can’t be displayed, not the page on an external site being linked to.  The RSS feed is asking me to visit a page that doesn’t exist.

I just quickly want to mention something else that annoys me about the Reddit RSS feed.  The URL the item links to is the external site, not the Reddit page.  This is important because the item being linked to could be literally anything.  It could be NSFW when I’m at work, it could be a virus, it could be a spam site, it could be anything.  And given the opportunity for stories to hit the Reddit front page without that many (relatively) up mods, you do, at times, have to tread carefully.  I want check out the comments before visiting the link.  The decision to use the story url in the RSS feed has two problems.  Firstly, I lose much of the social aspect of Reddit if I just visit the story straight away (actually, I can view the story without ever visiting Reddit) and secondly, Reddit are losing out on page views.  Contrast this with digg.com, who’s RSS feed links to the digg page for the story.  For sites such as these, it seems like a no-brainer.

As a fairly long time user of Reddit, I think I agree with others in that its popularity is directly inversely proportional to the quality of the service, and the stories it covers.  So as the site becomes more popular, the stories get worse.  Hopefully it’s not too far gone, and we can have our Reddit back.

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photo credit: nata2

As an outsider, someone who has absolutely no vested interest in any of the runners, a few things become obvious.  And after thinking about it, I’m really glad I don’t have to vote.  Why?  Why would I find it so difficult to vote in the election?  And why is it so baffling?

Money

Reading through some of the coverage, the money involved in running for candidacy is obscene.  For Clinton and Obama, we’re talking over $100 million each.  To me, this means two things.  Firstly, unless you can raise, at a minimum, tens of millions, you can’t compete.  This effectively limits participation at the highest level to either the well endowed or the well connected.  Secondly, in order to raise this level of funding, you have to have relationships with big business, or at least big business men (or women).  When you’re talking about politics, this can only be an unhealthy relationship.  It seems utterly bizarre that this is even allowed (and I know that we have a similar situation in UK politics, which infuriates me, but the level of funding in the US is on a completely different level). If a candidate is gifted, say $10million, there is surely promises made in return.  There’s no way it would work any other way, despite what may be claimed.

The Two Party System

I can’t imagine going to the ballots and only having two options, but this is the reality for America.  While many countries only have two parties that are viable options, very few have this built into the system.  If my views, beliefs or policies lie outside of the Democrats or Republicans, I have no where to go.  The main problem with this approach is that you get very low risk politics.  There isn’t a Liberal Democrats party to test the waters of more speculative policies.  Innovation in politics is often drive by the smaller parties, the ones who have nothing to lose and want to make a name for themselves.  In fact, many would argue that the current British Labour party takes its inspiration from the Monster Raving Looney Party (ok, that was a low-blow but let’s face it, they have really lost the plot recently).  If you compare this election to the last one, the faces may have changed but many of the fundamental policies are broadly similar.  The American system is run very much on personality more than anything else.

The Primaries

The Presidential Primaries are similar to the UK Party Leader elections, except they are played out in public, and voted for, in large part, by the public.  The key difference seems to be the way in which the candidates approach the competition.  The US Primaries effectively choose the two most suitable candidates for the White House, one from each party.  Except the campaigns they run include a fair bit of character assassination.  This is normal in Political Elections, we see it over here and it’s played out across the world.  The stand out point about the American Primaries, however, is that the candidates are from the same party.  They are, for all intensive purposes, trying as best they can to make the other delegate(s) unelectable.  In the long run, the loser who runs the best Primary campaign may very well cause the party they are a member of to miss out on the White House.  The concept of “the greater good” doesn’t seem to apply here.

I’d like to point out at this stage that I’m not, even for a second, suggesting that the UK system is any better.  Any political system where the Popular Vote isn’t the one that counts, is clearly deeply flawed (just look at the way Labour redrew the boundaries in its own favour before the last election, only to lose the Popular Vote but retain power).  It can’t really be defined as a democracy if the person the majority votes for doesn’t win.  I’m also firmly of the opinion that the current parties in the UK system are all unelectable.  I don’t want to vote for any of them and I shouldn’t have to settle for the “best of a bad bunch”.  Particularly, the tax increases under the guise of environmental protection is sickening and devious.

Am I off the mark with my comments on the American system?  Do people like/agree with it?

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There have been some minor, and not so minor, updates to Google Reader since it’s launch and this week brought another little tweak.  Now, when you try and mark a certain number of items as “Read” you get a warning asking if you’re sure.  I don’t know what the exact number is, but I’d guess around 50.  I can’t see the reason for this.  one of Google Reader’s strengths is the ability to deal with multiple feeds and a high number of feed items.  This new feature does impact, albeit in a minor way, on this strength.

The reason I’m confused by this new feature is that once items are read, they’re not lost forever.  If you accidentally marked something as read, you can still get to it.   All you have to do is click the “All Items” link, and then you can view the read items for the folder you’re currently in.  I just don’t get it.

Is this a life-saver for some users?  Or just an annoyance when you’re trying to get through your feeds ever day.

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Let me start off by giving a bit of background. I signed up for a new Credit Card. Christmas, along with a trip to New York, is coming up, so a bit of credit comes in handy. Especially when BarclayCard are offering interest free purchases and balance transfers. Great, so I signed up. A few days later my new Platinum BarclayCard arrived in the post. I phoned up to activate it and transfer some money from a different card. Great, I thought, job done.

Well, no.

I received a letter earlier this week saying that the account was in arrears and I owed them two minimum payments. Couldn’t be, I thought. I set up a Direct Debit when I signed up. Apparently, BarclayCard have failed to carry out my instruction to set up a Direct Debit which meant I had missed a payment. So as soon as I received the letter I logged in to their website and immediately set up a direct debit. After a while something occured to me. I remember reading something in the terms and conditions that said if a payment was made late, any promotional rates would be lost. So at this point I tried to contact BarclayCard to find out if this is the case. And this is where the poor customer service really goes out of its way to hinder you.

Firstly, I looked for a phone number to call. With respect to BarclayCard, the number was easy to find (see image to the right, click to enlarge). So I called this “24 Hour” number. Turns out that this number only really operates 24 hours a week, not a day. So despite the number being labelled “24 Hours”, and despite making me type out my full 16 digit credit card number, I got a message saying the line was closed and advising me of the opening hours. It then abruptly cut my off. How DARE I think a number labelled “24 Hour” would actually by open on a Saturday Afternoon.

Right. Let’s try the online contact methods then. Once again, easy to find, but the actual design just screams “GO AWAY!“. As a web designer, you often have to consider your target audience. If you’re designing a site like this, you can be fairly confident that visitors are fairly IT literate. So you can take a few liberties. If you are designing a site for a bank, you can’t. Many visitors will be completely un-IT-literate, beginners. People like your parents. So everything has to be clear, big, easy to read and obvious. What you don’t expect is a form that limits what you can say and rushes you. but that’s what I found. I’ve put a screenshot to the left (click to enlarge) so you can see for yourself. It limits the amount you can write and imposes a time limit. There is absolutely no reason for doing either of these things other than to restrict what the user writes. They really don’t want you to contact them. Can you imagine your mother, for example, trying to write out a query in a tiny form box, in a limited amount of characters and within a time limit. To make matters worse, there’s a bug in their javascript that means when you reach the limit, your cursor and view jump to the top of the text box, so you can’t easily delete parts of your message.

Of course, this isn’t the full story of poor customer service. Since then I was told that it takes Six Weeks to set up a direct debit, so I had to pay the amount owed. Which I did. But then I was phoned up by someone from BarclayCard demanding payment. This is despite the fact I have a Direct Debit set up (twice!), have paid the amount requested by bank transfer and, worse of all, when I log in to may account it says payment isn’t due for another 9 days. I’ve never had such a poor customer service experience with any company. Maybe the Credit Crunch is affecting customer service?

So, to summarise. If you want to do customer service on the cheap, advertise great customer service like a 24 hour contact number, but don’t follow it through. And then, make any other means of contacting you impossible to use.

I’ve heard a rumour that the only way that BarclayCard accept complaints is written in blood on 200 year old parchment.

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Of course, I’m talking about headaches. As a chronic sufferer with head aches, I’ve noticed there are a number of things which tend to bring them on. Fortunately, there are a number of precautions I can take to help prevent them, and a number of steps I can take to help them dissipate if I do suffer. So, from a lifelong sufferer, these are my top five tips to help keep your head, ache free.

1. Eyesight – For me, this is the biggest factor when it comes to keeping my head clear. I’ve had poor eye sight for some time, I’m not terrible but to get any work done I need to wear glasses. One thing that has been blatantly obvious is, if I have to strain my eyes to do any work, I WILL get a headache. No question about it. There are a couple of things to remember, this isn’t just about going out and getting some glasses, but making sure you keep your prescription up to date. Wearing glasses that don’t match your eye sight is just as bad as not wearing them at all. And while I’m on the subject of correcting your vision, beware contact lenses. Personally, and chats I’ve had with other people back this up, wearing contact lenses for extended periods can lead to head aches and just general discomfort.
2. Contrast – A lot of people will warn against having brightness turned up on your monitor. While this makes sense I think the more obvious step is to reduce the amount of contrast in your working environment. If you are in a dark room, you don’t want a really bright screen else it will be glaring and your eyes will have trouble adjusting quickly every time you look away from your monitor. This constant readjusting (which equates to muscles in your eyes moving from fully extended to fully contracted regularly and quickly) is going to tire your eyes and lead to headaches aplenty. And it’s not just bright screens in dark work areas, a dark screen in a bright work area has the same effect. My personal preference is to have the brightness of my monitor as low as possible while still being able to comfortably read it. A good way to find a comfortable level is to hold a piece of paper up next to your monitor. The whites on the monitor should be similar in colour and shade to the paper. Of course, make sure your lighting is at a level where you can comfortably read from the paper first!  You also want to make sure the level of contrast on your screen provides a comfortable space to read and write in.
3. Take a Break – Obvious, I know, but the effect can’t be understated. You also need to make sure you take the right type of break. I’ve seen many office workers go to take a break to alleviate a headache and find that it hasn’t helped at all. Why? Well, there are a couple of reasons I can think of. Some people head off to the canteen/kitchen to get a drink, usually coffee (this is an office after all). When you do this you are remaining within the same environment, so the air is the same, the noise is the same and the lighting is the same. All three of these factors can, and do, contribute to headaches, and you are not taking a break from any of them. Coffee is also a stimulant, and if your headache was caused through over working your brain, this isn’t going to help you out. Another group of people who make strange use of their breaks are smokers. While many are forced to at least go outside to take a smoking break, being in an environment with smoke in the air, their eyes and throats isn’t going to alleviate any headache. I would recommend getting a cool drink of water and heading outside for some fresh air. Works like a charm.
4. Environment – I find it too much of a coincidence to ignore that I’m often uncomfortable at the same time I get a headache. There are a couple of major factors that seem to lead to me being uncomfortable, and probably highest on the list is heat. I’m a very warm person, but I prefer to be cool. Feeling too hot, or feeling like it’s stuffy usually leads to a headache. I also find that having to position my head, neck or back strangely will quickly lead to a head ache. So comfort is key. Once again, taking a break is a great way to help with this.
5. Find Something that Works – Finally, what should you do if you still get a headache? I think this is something that’s highly personal and being someone who has a lot of headaches, it took me a while, but I found what works for me. Ibuprofen seems to work better than anything else, so I make sure I have some handy at all times (in the house, office and car). I always try not to take them though, and I think this is important. I always try to correct the problem that’s causing the headache first, otherwise your headache will only be alleviated for the period the pain killers last for.  There are so many remedies out there for head aches, ranging from tablets to gels and even head bands, so it really is worth experimenting a bit to find out what works for you. And when you find it, stock up.  Another tactic is to try and change single aspects of your environment to see if it helps reduce the frequency, or intensity of your headaches.  This is a common tactic in other aspects of your life, and is effectively removing all possibilities until you find the determining factor. If, or when, you find the thing that causes your headaches, eliminate it.

So those are my five tips to help with head aches, from a chronic headache sufferer. What do you do to prevent head aches, or any other health related problem us modern workers face? Photo credit http://www.sxc.hu/profile/channah.

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I went straight to the blog to investigate and, lo and behold, the offending post has now gone. Is this another example of Blogger being hacked in a very public way? Or is it an inside job?

We’ve seen Google Blogs being hacked before, so you would have thought they would have sured up their security. In fact, I seem to recall that when a previous hack occurred, the offender just tried to register the account through blogger, no trickery involved.  This new message posted earlier today certainly implies a similar situation. What do you think?  Is it just a Google staff member not realising that the blog they just registered for is publicly viewable?  Or something more nefarious?

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For all those smaller sites out there, a serious problem exists. If you do get dugg and the server goes down, the tech support is generally appalling. As evidenced by GoDaddy taking my site off line and not even telling me, and The Seminal’s host simply not knowing why the site went down. The strange thing is, I would be ok with a site going down under the huge stress of a digg effect, its a fairly unusual situation for most sites. What I, and many other webmasters/bloggers are not happy with, is the useless support you get.

Update:  Check out this post over at the Web 2.0 Blog to see how many sites actually go down under the digg effect on any given day.

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This post was originally published on The Oak Innovations Blog. Follow me on Twitter.

Make Money From Your Blog or Website

This post was originally published on The Oak Innovations Blog. Follow me on Twitter.

Make Money From Your Blog or Website

This post was originally published on The Oak Innovations Blog. Follow me on Twitter.