Alex Harries's diary

(This is another really, *really* boring blog entry. Why not Google for "noodle mining" instead of reading it?) 

I've just made my first bit of Ajax - I feel so proud! Ok, it's sad and geeky, but I'm happy 'cos I just (a) learnt something new, and (b) it worked.

When I tried to get onto the UPSU homepage earlier this evening, it wouldn't load. It was working fine for everyone else, so I figured it had something to do with a piece of code I was loading for myself, meaning the only suspect was the weather box, which only loads for me (as I'm still testing its reliability).

To fix this, we need to have a way of preventing content which relies on other servers or websites, or which is either bulky, not critically important to UPSU.net (or both) from slowing down page loads. Lots of websites use JavaScript to load content into a DIV after the rest of the page has loaded, for example the BBC news homepage (which loads the "Your local news, weather and sport here" box after the rest of the page has loaded). This means that the non-essential content can be as badly behaved as it likes without breaking the rest of the page, even if it never loads. Google Ads also works on this basis to prevent their adverts from slowing down the loading times of the pages displaying the adverts.

Not really having a clue where to start though, I went off on a Google wander and found DynamicDrive.com's excellent cut-out-and-keep guide which does exactly what I was looking for. So, one quick modification (to let me load the EuroWeather module outside of Mambo - it's not a core component and certainly poses no security risks) and we're up and running.

I'll also be using this technique to load in BBC News headlines onto the homepage in the near future, and I'm already trying to think of other ways we can make use of this. An ideal application would be to use it to load additional homepage content, for example my original but not-very-evil plan of converting the hero advert (the big 450x200 box) into a tabbed area which can show either the hero advert, or two or three other boxes of content - "my forum discussions", "my blah blah...", or "my settings" - etc. While it opens the way for us to put a lot of new toys on the homepage we haven't been able to because of size and space restrictions, I'm going to have to be careful not to fall into the trap of piling crap on top of crap just "because it's nice" ;o)

Over on the SUSU forums, I spotted this discussion claiming that SUSU is the best students' union website in the country. Not sure I agree with that, but it's certainly a good site (as I've mentioned before).

I want to see UPSU.net kicking everyone's backsides as a student website - we need to focus hard on improving the content, features, usability, usefulness and looks (in that order), and since we have a potential base of 16,000 students, that's a lot of different needs and levels of computer ability.

I reckon we also need to start taking a much greater interest in what people would like to see. To that end, tell me!

• What do you think?
• What does UPSU.net need?
• What would you like to see on the site?
• What would keep you coming back to the site?

Answers in the boxes below. Thanks! /al

Mass e-mails are always a bit of a contentious subject, and last night's e-mail (you can see it online here) to around 7,000 people has brought with it a few sharp responses from people whose responses made it quite clear that they didn't expect to receive them, and thought that we were simply "spamming" them without permission.

Personally, I hate unsolicited e-mails, and the Union goes to great lengths to make sure that we only send out what we say we're going to send out, and only to the people who agree to receive these e-mails.

We also do our best to make sure that the content of the e-mails is varied and interesting, but there's always room for improvement. If you would like to make a suggestion, you can e-mail us at webteam@upsu.net or add your comments below.

I'm also reviewing the criteria we use to select people for the lists; although we may end up sending out to fewer recipients, those who do receive the mailings should be the people who can actually benefit from the mailings.

You can change your subscription settings by going to your profile (you'll need to sign in first), then click "update my profile" and select the "preferences" and "JobShop" tabs to see your e-mail subscriptions. Don't forget to click the "Update" button at the bottom to save your new preferences.

Last week I went back to my parents' house for a few days to try and concentrate on the website. I ended up dismantling my car's steering trying to fix some weird handling and got practically no work done, so this week has been a hectic mix of lectures and pixel-pushing.

The forums have had a bit of a tidy-up, and I've finally managed to get the "latest discussions" code working just how I want it to; now you can see what topics have been posted on lately, and the list doesn't include any repeats; plus you can see how long ago the last reply was posted, and which forum the topic lives in. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the new layout tweaks; you can add your comments here.

The site's mystery slow-down seems to have been cured by a reboot of the hosting co's firewall. I don't know (and probably wouldn't understand) why it was slower, but apologies to everyone who suffered the annoyance of a slow website and hopefully everything should be back to top speed, which is more than can be said for the annoyingly slow student portal.

With the elections fast approaching, and RAG already with us, I've got to get on with a lot of work; the RAG website especially is going to see a lot of attention from us over the next few days, as it's getting a revamp and will be converted into it's own mini-site. First things first though - I've got to upload all the Purple Wednesdays pics from the RAG re-launch. Lots of nakedness - woohoo! For the elections website, I've got to organise a homepage for all the candidates, including making sure there's an easy way for people to ask the candidates a questions - I think we'll be using a combination of the blogs (diaries) system for candidates to tell the world about themselves, and the forums for people to ask questions on.

As always, we can't make this site (one of) the best Union websites in the country without your feedback, so if you have a comment to make, click here and be as (constructively) critical as you'd like to be - trust me when I say it's welcome!