iWindsurf.com SUCKS!
Will Harper
like I usually do, and it sends me to this iWindsurf thing that loads
fast as a snail, fails to load several pages (got blank blue pages with
their logo at the top until re-loaded several times) and sends me to TWO
DIFFERENT SCREENS to check north and south Bay Area wind and forecasts.
IDIOTIC!!! Why ruin something that worked reasonably well? COW had a
great site that was functional and reasonably fast. iWindsurf.com is a
serious downgrade and a bummer in the shorts for people used to the
efficiency of Call of the Wind. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. This
"fix" is a disaster in my opinion, I hope things change fast.
w
--
William S. Harper
e-mail: Wil...@home.com
William Braden
Bill
Will Harper wrote:
>
> Went to check the Godsey forecast this morning on Call of the Wind site
> like I usually do, and it sends me to this iWindsurf thing that loads
> fast as a snail, fails to load several pages (got blank blue pages with
> their logo at the top until re-loaded several times) and sends me to TWO
> DIFFERENT SCREENS to check north and south Bay Area wind and forecasts.
> IDIOTIC!!! Why ruin something that worked reasonably well? etc etc
Glenn Woodell
>iWindsurf.com is a
>serious downgrade and a bummer in the shorts for people used to the
>efficiency of Call of the Wind. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. This
>"fix" is a disaster in my opinion, I hope things change fast.
I would hihgly suggest that you write them directly and make some
suggestions.These guys are really trying to make a good priduct and even took
in some of my input. Mine had nothing to do with the programming though. :)
Seriously I am sure they would appreciate some feedback. I will forward this
posts to my contact there personally.
doug_a...@my-deja.com
everything. Geez, I can even get a detailed forecast for Palo Alto now!
The software is way more sophisticated, but there's the rub. Just a ton
more to squeeze down your old pipe. Bit of a strain even for my cable
modem. No doubt the AOL crowd ain't too pleased. Its much like back when
you were so pleased with your new 486 computer, and then the next
version of windows came out ...
Hopefully they're still working on the server. I notice pings there take
twice as long as the old windcall site. Otherwise maybe they'll come up
with a stripped down, simpler graphical format. Or maybe it's just too
new and they've got more basic bugs to get out. Anyway, I'll give it
some time before I go bitch at Jim. I really think its beautiful. Wish
them all the best at speeding it up.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Glenn Woodell
>
>Hopefully they're still working on the server.
I am sure they will take that into consideration. I know they are playing with
pager service providers to make sure they get the best coverage. I've even
carried some around with me for some beta testing of coverage. Sure was
belittling looking at Maui data for a few days.
Loco4wind
around SF has been split into 2 zones, forcing me to check both, and even more
so that the forecasts are split into several pieces. While I like their
attempts at forecasting each separate site, they should still have an overall
forecast, where on one page we can get an idea of the overall forecast for the
day.
Glenn Woodell
says...
>
>I agree with some of Will Harper's observations...
Thanks. I have forwarded all of your comments to the staff. This is what they
need to give you what you want. I am assuming they can accomodate you.
ma...@my-deja.com
wil...@home.com wrote:
> Went to check the Godsey forecast this morning on Call of the Wind
site
> like I usually do, and it sends me to this iWindsurf thing that loads
> fast as a snail, fails to load several pages (got blank blue pages
with
> their logo at the top until re-loaded several times) and sends me to
TWO
> DIFFERENT SCREENS to check north and south Bay Area wind and
forecasts.
a
> serious downgrade and a bummer in the shorts for people used to the
> efficiency of Call of the Wind. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
This
> "fix" is a disaster in my opinion, I hope things change fast.
>
The pager still does the same abbreviated forecast, so that's
something. But from a usability standpoint, the site is a disaster zone
both functionally (too fragmented; un-intuitive layout of the content;
too many user actions required to get where you need to go) and
technically (I got several 404's; tons of hanging, and generally slow
download times despite the fact that my Internet connection at work is
about as fast as you can get). There's certainly room for improvement
here. Maybe they should consider using the old CotW as a shadow site
for West Coast sailors until they've got the main site going in a
reasonable way.
Andreas
Glenn Woodell
>
>
>There's certainly room for improvement
>here. Maybe they should consider using the old CotW as a shadow site
>for West Coast sailors until they've got the main site going in a
>reasonable way.
I know they are not finished yet. I will forward your comments as I have the
others. Thanks.
Will Harper
way--on the Call of the Wind site. As long as they put it both places
I'm happy to ignore iWindsurf.com and all their lame extras. Too bad
the forecast isn't for more wind, but I guess even Godsey can't help that....
jgue...@my-deja.com
phase it out?
I have to agree that this new iWindsurf site does suck.
If they are not planning on keeping the Call of the Wind site then they
should model the new site on it.
In article <38FC8F2E...@home.com>,
Keith Koenig
improvement of iWindsurf.com. We are a small group of windsurfers working
hard to provide real-time wind information, free classifieds, forecast
services and much more. As you can imagine this is a big endeavor for such a
small team. Your comments are being heard and we're here all day and night
trying to make them a reality. So please keep feeding us any and all helpful
input.
To answer some of your questions:
1) SLOWNESS: We currently use Microsoft Internet Information Servers and
SQL Server database to deliver the site. All pages are dynamically generated
using Cold Fusion. (For all you open source guys, we tried using Linux but
after much debate it became clear that IIS and SQL server were better for
our small development team and short time frame.) The site is optimized for
IE 4.x+. For reasons not totally known to us, Netscape is incredibly slow
in comparison. Further, Netscape 4.7 has a known bug that makes it difficult
to view secure (SSL) pages. I assure you that we are doing everything
possible to create a solution to this slowness. We are also working on a
"lite" graphics version for those still having speed problems. If there are
any technically savvy folks out there that can offer answers to our Netscape
woes, please talk to us! In the mean time, we strongly suggest using
Internet Explorer, it's much faster in comparison.
2) SITE DESIGN: This site was designed by windsurfers who are not only avid
users of both COTW and WHL, but also the same orginal designers. Legacy
users of COTW and WHL may complain of confusing navigation, etc. Yes, we
know, change is often tough to deal with. In designing the new site, we took
a from-the-ground-up approach, although we did pay particular attention to
keeping many of the familiar pieces. Further, we intend to add a number of
useful features such as a gear guide with a user rating sytem, a travel
guide, and many more features. For these reasons, we had to design the site
to be scalable. Best bet is to bookmark your "Region Snapshot" page and then
go from there to find site specific wind graphs, forecasts, local info,
tides, etc. Remember when you switched from Windows 3.1 to Windows
95?....frustrating at first, but much better in the end.
3) REGIONAL SNAPSHOTS: These dynamically generated wind maps are designed to
give you a quick graphical reference of the wind speed and direction in your
region. Regions accomodate approximately 10 sensors each. We orginally tried
to fit the entire Bay Area on one snapshot and it was
impossible....especially since we will be rolling out more new sensors in
the future. It's really pretty simple to jump to another snapshot map,
simply use the drop down menu on the left nav, or click one of the mapquest
style arrows to jump to the adjacent region. For those of you who can not
deal with graphics, we continue to offer the beloved COTW style horizontal
bar graphs. We are toying with the idea of a mondo bar graph page that lists
all of our sites (nearing 200) ...hummmm.
4) FORECASTS: Thanks for all your comments. We are working on a revised
system with Mike Godsey, et al. Your continued constructive feedback is
super helpful as we fine-tune this feature.
5) FREE: After many renditions of the business model, we have decided to
make real-time wind free for all users. We hope the general wind-enthused
public can appreciate the all the free services and information we are
working to provide. I assure you, none of us are getting rich. Paid service:
we will be rolling out a slew of "premium" services for FX and WIRELESS
members including wind-specific micro-forecasting, custom wind alert email
service, customizeable home page (my.iwindsurf.com), premium forecasting
tools, onsite reports, and more as we continually develop them. The FX
membership costs just $4 per month, like I said, we're not getting rich
here. The WIRELESS membership will provide the same great pager service with
streamlined enhancements in billing and a reduced price tag.
6) PHASE OUT COTW: Yes, we will be phasing out the windcall.com site in the
next few weeks. But, not until we work out all of the bugs. Again, we are
relying on your constructive feedback to make the transition smooth.
Thanks again to all of you out there helping to make this a reality. By
windsurfers for windsurfer, we're in this together.
iWindsurf.com Support Team
sup...@iwindsurf.com
----------------------------
Will Harper <wil...@home.com> wrote in message
news:38F8C736...@home.com...
> Went to check the Godsey forecast this morning on Call of the Wind site
> like I usually do, and it sends me to this iWindsurf thing that loads
> fast as a snail, fails to load several pages (got blank blue pages with
> their logo at the top until re-loaded several times) and sends me to TWO
> DIFFERENT SCREENS to check north and south Bay Area wind and forecasts.
> IDIOTIC!!! Why ruin something that worked reasonably well? COW had a
> great site that was functional and reasonably fast. iWindsurf.com is a
> serious downgrade and a bummer in the shorts for people used to the
> efficiency of Call of the Wind. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. This
> "fix" is a disaster in my opinion, I hope things change fast.
>
>
>
Tauras
You have too many disclaimers on your data and content to be taken
seriously. Since you are basically doing a simple rehash of hourly
NOAA/airport readings without providing added value like forecasts or real
time data presentation. Your site will fail unless you team with a company
that has money to burn and no clue how to use publicly available data...
sadly those time ended last week :-|
____viento villain------I need a sesh baaaaaaad~~~~~~
Jim Gallant wrote in message
>Mind giving your opinion on a site I've been working on? It's:
>
>http://www.OutsideConnection.com
>
>-Jim Gallant
>Seattle, WA
>
>
>In article <8di98f$5g4$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, jgue...@my-deja.com says...
>>
>>Are they going to keep the Call of the Wind site? Or are they going to
>>phase it out?
>>
>>I have to agree that this new iWindsurf site does suck.
>>If they are not planning on keeping the Call of the Wind site then they
>>should model the new site on it.
>>
>>In article <38FC8F2E...@home.com>,
>> wil...@home.com wrote:
>>> Call off the dogs-- I got the Godsey forcast last two days the regular
>>> way--on the Call of the Wind site. As long as they put it both places
>>> I'm happy to ignore iWindsurf.com and all their lame extras. Too bad
>>> the forecast isn't for more wind, but I guess even Godsey can't help
>>that....
>>>
>>> w
>>> --
>>> William S. Harper
>>> e-mail: Wil...@home.com
>>>
>>
>>
Jim Gallant
Cliff Frost
> Thanks to all of you out there helping with the creation and continued
> improvement of iWindsurf.com. We are a small group of windsurfers working
> 1) SLOWNESS: We currently use Microsoft Internet Information Servers and
Lose all the d*mn cookies and you'll speed things up a lot.
Thanks,
Cliff
Mike F
1. I've noticed no slowdown in going from COW to iW via IE. I select iW, and
within seconds ... viola! .. at 26,400 bps connect speed.
2. OTOH .. where are the Gorge forecasts? Such comments as "gradient
improving in the PM" as the entire forecast is quite useless. The newspaper
forecast is more useful, fergoodnesssake.
3. "COW still available for the time being"? Not on my computer. All I'm
seeing is several-days-old forecasts.
4. Yes, navigation is more confusing, mostly because it's new.
GREAT effort, guys. Squash the bugs and we're with you!
Mike \m/
Glenn Woodell
says...
>
>Mind giving your opinion on a site I've been working on? It's:
Nice culmination of airport data and some buoy data but with the WindHotline
and COW sensors almost at water's level, these are not that accurate. No
forecasts either. Again, nice data site and valuable data, but it's not the
same. Good job.
Glenn Woodell
>
>1) SLOWNESS: The site is optimized for
>IE 4.x+. For reasons not totally known to us, Netscape is incredibly slow
>in comparison.
Wow! You were right. I just tried IW and the page really zipped in at
lightening speed. Thanks for the tip.
Tom von Alten
no serious trouble tracking down the main site I'm after,
and bookmarking it. It loads today with no problem, and
not lightning fast, but fast enough on NS v4.7.
Good information, real-time, in my bookmark list, what more
could I ask for?
My only complaint is that I went to Coyote YESTERDAY,
INSTEAD OF TODAY! But I can't really blame iwindsurf
for that. :-/
Keith Koenig wrote:
> 3) REGIONAL SNAPSHOTS: These dynamically generated wind maps are
> designed to give you a quick graphical reference of the wind speed
> and direction in your region. Regions accomodate approximately 10
> sensors each. We orginally tried to fit the entire Bay Area on one
> snapshot and it was impossible....
When you're ready to set your sites higher, have a look at
http://sfports.wr.usgs.gov/wind/
They've found a way to fit the entire Bay area onto a snap shot,
*very* effectively.
> 5) FREE: After many renditions of the business model, we have
> decided to make real-time wind free for all users. We hope the
> general wind-enthused public can appreciate the all the free
> services and information we are working to provide.
I appreciate it! Thank you!
_____________
Tom von Alten http://pobox.com/~tva
t...@pobox.com