NYFF 2009: Usability Frustrations and Lessons

So this was the first year that the Film Society of Lincoln Center decided to do away with the longstanding mail-in order process and went completely digital (other than the time-tested method of showing up at the box office — more on that later), and I decided to give it a try, to see if it was truly an improvement over printed forms over snailmail.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who experienced what was not an entirely enjoyable process, but rather than simply bitch about how bad it was, I thought it might be a bit more helpful if we approached it as a “teachable moment” and came up with some usability suggestions for the next time.

First, I will give them credit for promptness. Their web site declared that tickets would go on sale on September 13th at noon, and sure enough, at 11:58, the “Tickets Not On Sale” disappeared, and a “Purchase” button appeared, right on time.

Unfortunately, like many other businesses in the same situation, it appeared that the FSLC was not prepared for the initial upsurge in demand on their web site, and as I expected, response ground to a screeching halt. Pages would not refresh, or the “waiting for …” status appeared in the bottom of the browser, and the purchase request seemed to disappear into the ether.

So here’s our first “teachable moment”. As cheap as hosting is these days, why not set up a temporary server farm next year, to handle the initial surge in demand? You probably don’t need to “rent” more than a day’s worth of processing time, but it will probably make a world of difference to the people who want to order as soon as they gates are open.

As it turned out, this was an opportunity to discover a way to scam the system.

Inadvertent system workaround

 

As most people who find themselves in this frustrating situation, I kept clicking “Purchase”, repeatedly, 3-4 times, with no apparent effect. However, when the shopping cart window finally appeared, I discovered that each one of my clicks had in fact registered, and now my shopping cart was filled with multiple copies of tickets for “Broken Embraces”. Not what I had intended, but a lucky break, as it turned out.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve always had this issue with declarations from event ticket web sites that declare that you’re getting the “best seats available”. What does that mean? How do you know where I prefer to sit? I realize that at certain events, you want to be as close to the actual “event” as possible — the ball game, a concert or the theater — but there’s no universal definition of what the “best seats” are at the movies. Some people prefer the back, some people prefer the front. Some prefer the middle of the row, while others would rather be closer to the aisle.

Me, I’d prefer the front, and for years, I was so pleased that I actually got a discount to taking seats in the first six rows at Alice Tully Hall (they stopped that generosity a few years ago).

So now, my shopping cart is filled with six separate ticket orders, some in the back, some in the front; some in the middle of the row, and some on the aisle. Here, completely by accident, I had stumbled upon a “tool” for me to use to find the “best seats” as far as I was concerned.

shopping cart timeout

Another no-no that I see they’ve actually rectified, probably because they were getting angry phone calls from ticket buyers was the shopping cart time out.

This is a fairly common feature on ticketing web sites, like ticketmaster.com, so it wasn’t entirely surprising to find one here, but as one soon discovered, the way that it was implemented in this instance had not really been very well thought through.

At first blush, it doesn’t seem particularly onerous (I believe it was 5-10 minutes), but after you start clicking through a couple of web pages that take a minute or more to load, all of a sudden, those minutes start to tick down very quickly. At one point, I lost track of the countdown, and as I tried pruning my shopping cart down to my desired order, suddenly, I was looking at an empty cart! I suspect that I was not the only one caught in this dilemma.

Given the slow performance of the site, I was forced to limit my order to just a fraction of what I had intended to buy. I restricted my choices to three showings, “Broken Embraces”, “Precious” and “Wild Grass”, the films that I figured would sell out first. Even with such a limited slate, I had dificulty completing my order in time. Why? Because as the site warned you in the beginning, it requires a registration, including the creation of an account on the filmlinc web site, and this is in addition to the usual fill-ins of credit card and address info to complete the order. All of a sudden, 10 minutes starts to seem waaaaay too little time.

Now, as I wrote before, I give FSLC credit for increasing this timeout (it’s up to 20 minutes now), but I’m not entirely sure that 20 minutes is enough, given the complex nature of this process. 5 or 10 minutes might be adequate when you’re ordering a single set of tickets for a single event on a single day, but that’s not what the NYFF is. It’s a multi-part, multi-day event, made up of numerous separate sub-events, most with more than one show time. The calculations are rather complex, and one choice may be contingent upon or affected by several other decisions. Can you make two late showings during the week? Can you stand another two hour film immediately following a three hour marathon? If your first choice for time and date for a film is sold out, do you want to try for the second showing?

You not only need more time, but a more complex and comprehensive order process, patterned on the old order forms that we used to mail in (or hand deliver to the box office, if you were a neurotic like me). Your choices are best displayed on a grid or calendar, with times displayed, so that you can ferret out the conflicts and clashes.

I don’t know if there is an “ideal” way to present this information in a shopping cart, providing enough time and information for the proper shopping experience, but I think the FSLC needs to at least re-think the process, and accept the fact that this shopping process is not the typical ticket shopping experience.

Once I had placed my limited order and gotten the confirmation email (kudos for the timeliness of this process), I wasn’t willing to go through it again for my other movies, and because I had to pick up my tickets at the box office anyway (that’s right: “will call” is the only option here; what happened to mailing me my tix?), I decided to hop on the bus to Alice Tully Hall to see how the “live” experience differed from the on line one.

This turned out to be an informative trip.

First, I discovered that the line for tickets was rather short. When I arrived, it was probably less than 50 people, and it was well managed and moving at a reasonable pace. I wound up spending about 30 minutes on line.

When I got up to the box office, the first interesting observation that I noted was that the people in the box office have a much more complete view of the seating when placing your order.

It would seem that if airlines can do this, theaters should be able to use the same model to give people the ability to choose the best seats for them. Show me a live seating chart and let me choose the seat location that appeals to me. In the back, in the front; on the aisle or dead center. In fact, if the FSLC wants an interesting model to follow, they should check out the ticket purchase process on aa.com, the web site for American Airlines.

 

NYC ICY Returns!

NYC ICY Returns!, originally uploaded by maisa_nyc.

After a prolonged absence, since their store in the East Village closed, NYC ICY has re-opened on 10th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen!

The storefront has been up since late last year (I think), but they’ve finally opened for business. It must’ve been some time in the last week or two, because I walk by this block several times a week, and I haven’t noticed it open before tonight.

I’m not too sure about the timing or the location. The summer is more than half over, and this new location isn’t nearly as high-traffic as their original location on the lower east side.

 

Test-pattern-mercial

Remember test patterns?

In the old days, when a TV station went off the air for the night, they threw up a “test pattern” and played a tone, both of which continued until the next morning, when programming resumed.

Nowadays, many stations, unable to justify the cost of programming during the wee hours, instead turns the late-night programming slots over to those annoying “infomercials”.

I’m getting over jet-lag from my vacation trip to Japan, and as a result, I find myself sleeping — and waking — at odd hours, and I found myself awakened last night, by a loud infomercial after I’d fallen asleep earlier that night.

In the old days, I might’ve been awakened instead by the closing patriotic vignette, accompanied by the “Star-spangled Banner”, or by the tone accompanying the “test pattern”, instead of the infomercial.

Then it occurred to me: that’s what these things should be called. After all, there’s really very little “information” in an infomercial. Really, it’s just an overly long commercial (if anything, that’s a more accurate name for them), but given that they’re broadcast mostly during these wee hours of the early morning, they should be more appropriately dubbed “test-pattern-mercials”!

 

I Was Harassed For Using A Tripod Or: How Is Lincoln Center Reading My Mind?

Lincoln Center Xmas Tree, originally uploaded by maisa_nyc.

I stopped to take a photo of the Xmas Tree in the plaza in Lincoln Center. I had set up my tripod and taken this one shot when a security guard came up to me and informed me that photography on Lincoln Center property using a tripod was forbidden because the presumption was that I was a commercial photographer. In order to use a tripod on Lincoln Center property, I would need a permit from their “media office”.

While I was being prevented from taking my photographs, dozens of people were standing all around the tree, taking picture after picture. The only difference between me and those people was that I was using a tripod.

I am not a professional or commercial photographer. I do not take pictures for a living. My pictures earn me zero dollars in income. Yet, somehow, Lincoln Center is able to divine from my equipment that I have nefarious commercial intent for my photographs. Does this clairvoyance also enable them to see into the hearts of all those other people shooting with their tripod-less cameras and know that they have no such intentions?

I know that the general tenet is that on private property, anything goes, and the property owners have the right to enforce just about any rule they please, but this rule is neither coherent nor consistent. Why is it all right for Lincoln Center to infringe upon my First Amendment rights, when I am simply trying to engage in the exact same activity that dozens of other people are engaged in, all around me? Why is it OK to discriminate against photographers with tripods?

 

Does A NYC Photo Permit Trump The First Amendment?

I attended the “town hall meeting” sponsored by the International Center For Photography last Monday to “discuss” the proposed new and revised regulations for photo/film/video permits in NYC. The panel was made up of three representatives from the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting, including the commissioner, Katherine Oliver.

The meeting was held in a medium-sized space on the ground floor of the IPC museum on 43rd Street. Judging from the RSVP list and the number of seats, it appeared that they were expecting a larger crowd. It was rather disappointing to find that ultimately, the space was maybe half full at the end of the meeting.

Now, I realize that the revised regulations are rather complex and difficult to decipher (one of the objections raised by pictureny.org as well as several attendees at the meeting), but did that really require that Ms Oliver and her assistants take up nearly half the time allotted (a paltry hour) to doing a sell job of the new regulations? If you have a 12-page regulation that requires three people a half hour to explain, shouldn’t that be a tip-off that maybe they’re a tad dense? Moreover, this isn’t the Rockefeller Center Xmas tree lighting. The people in attendance are hardly likely to have come to this meeting with complete ignorance of these regulations. Did we need to spend all of that time up front, having them interpreted for us?

Ultimately, there are a number of issues raised by this regulation and by the MOFTB representatives’ characterization of their actions.

First, as one of the attendees brought up, the regulations do not clearly state whether a lone photographer (or videographer or cinematographer), by his presence and activity alone, can be construed to be creating an “obstruction”.

Second, on several occasions, the MOFTB stated categorically that on public property, the First Amendment entitles anyone to film/photograph/tape anything (provided that you are not infringing upon someone else’s Constitutional right to privacy), but that they have always issued, and included in these new regulations, the “optional” permit as a form of protection against harassment by police, business owners, etc.

My question is: if the First Amendment guarantees our right to photograph in public, why do we need a permit at all? Calling it “optional” does not matter. It still implies that somehow, these MOFTB permits grant us some rights that are not already ours via the First Amendment. If photographers are being harassed in violation of their First Amendment rights, why is the remedy additional regulation? Why is it not simply more vigorous application of the First Amendment and better education for the misinformed?

Rather than codifying these “optional” permits, why can’t the MOFTB issue a certificate stating that they support and stand behind the U.S. Constitution and a photographer’s right to photograph on public property without restrictions, hindrance or harassment from anyone? They could outline for clarification, the guidelines under which a permit would be required on the back, so that if a photographer is questioned while taking pictures on the streets, he can easily demonstrate that he does not need one.

Why would the MOFTB be opposed to issuing a simple, clear certificate like that, downloadable on line, that any photographer, videographer or cinematographer can download and carry with them? Why is the MOFTB more interested in covering their legal butts than in supporting the rights and freedoms of citizen photographers on the streets of New York? Why are they intent upon implementing regulations that provide benefits to a small minority of photographers, cinematographers and videographers (who just happen to spend the most money) without granting any benefits to or affirming the right for anyone to film freely in public for the thousands of others in New York photographing, filming or videotaping without a budget, crew or block-long trailer caravans, who gain absolutely nothing from these useless regulations?

 

Drive A Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle FREE!

I saw this on elevator news, of all places (you know, those annoying screens that office buildings are installing in their elevators for extra income).

GM is “lending” a fuel cell vehicle to eligible drivers in the New York, DC and Southern California metropolitan regions  to help them with developing the technology. If you’re interested in participating in this program, you can take a brief survey to qualify yourself at GM’s Fuel Cell Test Program site. I didn’t qualify (probably because I live about a mile from work so I wouldn’t be using it every day to commute), but I did sign up in case they opened the program up for additional participants. Sounds like a neat idea.

 

Technology At The Speed Of Gordon Moore

My mobo adventures continue.

I built my system from parts, buying the processor, motherboard, graphics card, RAM, hard drives, and even the power supply and case separately. I’ve got an ATI All-in-WonderX800-XT. I’ve had AiW graphics cards for several generations now, and I like having the multiple inputs and outputs for video, and a nice beefy graphics processor on a separate board.

I actually bought the AiW that I have now after I’d put together this current system with the fried motherboard. The original graphics card that I had in the system was an AiW Radeon 8500DV, a pretty decent board in its day, but my Civ4 games kept freezing up, so I felt that it was time to update that part of my system.

Both boards are AGP boards — and for those of you who might not be quite up on this stuff, AGP is just an interface standard for connecting graphics adapters to the system board — and I’m not ready to give up on my latest AiW since it’s maybe a little over a year old. Nor am I willing to throw away my processor, an AMD Athlon 64 with a socket 754 interface, nor the RAM I’ve got in the current system either.

So I set about trying to find the best board that fit all of my requirements.

I had no problem finding boards; I had no problem finding boards that fit all of my requirements and had great reviews; I had no problem finding boards that seemed to be priced right too. The only problem was, I couldn’t find any of these boards being sold anywhere.

The problem was, the technological standards had passed me and my system by. AGP has been eclipsed by the PCI-Express standard. The 754 socket had been succeeded by socket 939 and AM2 standards, and ATA drive interfaces are slowly being replaced by SATA drive interfaces. All of the major mobo manufacturers had moved onto manufacturing and selling boards built around those current standards, leaving the market for boards built around the older standards to the lesser manufacturers. I felt like a guy in Best Buy shopping for a regular tube TV, surrounded by flat-panel big screen plasma TVs.

I finally settled on the ECS 755-A2, a “budget” board from Elite. At least that’s how it’s described in just about every review that I read about it.

That’s about where I am, I guess. Unwilling to throw away my entire kit, based on the failure of one single component, but not wanting to spend an arm and a leg to replace the mobo, because I see the writing on the wall, and I’m probably going to have to replace everything — or damn near — the next time I do this.

 

Dyson AirBlade

So my PC is fried, but there are still some gadgets out there that work and work really well, like the Dyson AirBlade.

I first read about this thing in BusinessWeek. I’ve never owned or used a Dyson vacuum cleaner, but the concept of the AirBlade sounded very cool, so it stuck in my head.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I was leaving the Rose Center at the the Time Warner Center, and I needed a bathroom, so I ducked into the one on the third floor and discovered … an AirBlade!

So the concept of the AirBlade is just as it sounds. It’s an air-squeegee that uses two, high pressure streams of air that act like air-curtains on both sides of your hands that blow the water off of your hands as you pass them through the air-jets.

They work great! and unlike the traditional hand-blowers, they dry your hands in under 10 second. It took two passes through the air bursts to get my hands nearly completely dry, plus my hands didn’t feel dried out like they do with the regular hand dryers.

If you happen to be in the Time Warner Center, check out the Dyson AirBlade in the restrooms on the third floor.

 

I Fried My BIOS

Yep.

If you do any sort of DIY computer stuff at home, you’re bound to do it eventually, and my turn came today.

I was running low on HD space, so I decided to buy a brand-spanking new Western Digital SATA drive. 500 Gigs! I was all set.

Now, I’d never connected a SATA drive before, but I figured that it couldn’t be much more difficult than connecting any other hard drive. I already had two IDE drives connected in my home-built PC, and it had two SATA connectors, so I thought that it would be just another device connecting to my motherboard.

From step 1, it proved to be different, as I needed totally different cables for both the power and the data connections. Luckily, my motherboard, an ASUS K8V SE Deluxe that I bought about 3 years ago, had come with SATA cables and power converters, so all I had to do was to hook up the drive.

At first, the system didn’t see the drive at all. I checked the BIOS, and I re-enabled the SATA controller and put it in ATA drive mode, but still nothing. Then I started poking around the ASUS support site and found some SATA drivers that looked like they might be helpful, so I downloaded them, installed them in Windows, and rebooted a couple of times. Lo and behold, the system finally recognized the drive and it looked like I was cooking with gas. I formatted the drive, and this morning, I copied over some data to free up some room on my other drives.

Then the fun began.

I restarted the PC and when Windows finished starting up, the drive was nowhere in sight! Crap! So I started futzing with the drivers, and some of the BIOS settings, but still, no avail, so I went poking around on google, hoping that someone might’ve run into the same situation and found a solution. I read one post in some tech support forum that mentioned updating the BIOS. Now, I’d done this before, so it didn’t completely scare me, but I’d read enough stories about BIOS updates freezing up or crashing, leaving you with a dead, useless system, that I was no completely nonchalant about it either.

I downloaded the latest update, ran the utility and crossed my fingers. The entire update process ran, and it looked like I was in the clear, but when I restarted my PC, it wouldn’t even go to POST now. I just get this audio message about system crash due to overclocking the CPU. I’d never overclocked my CPU, either before or during the update, but now, apparently, it thought I had.

So now, I’m stuck with a useless system, and I’m too impatient and anxious to try and fix this thing, so I’ve ordered a new motherboard, with the hope that once I install it, all will be well. I’m just going to be in a very cranky mood until I can see all of my files again.

 

The Perfect Roast Chicken

Range Restaurant, originally uploaded by maisa_nyc.

A roasted chicken is really a simple thing, yet surprisingly, it’s not easy to find a good one, even in some really expensive and supposedly excellent restaurants.

That’s why a roast chicken is my rosetta stone for grading restaurants. It’s like a baseline that I like to establish at any place that I might consider frequenting a second time.

So it was a special pleasure when I had a truly wonderful roast chicken at my new favorite restaurant in San Francisco, Range.

I discovered this place last year, when I was in town for a conference at the Moscone. My first visit was a bit hectic, as I’d not had the foresight to make reservations, but after about an hour wait, they got me a table in the front and I enjoyed a terrific meal.

I went back again, earlier this year, with a friend and we both agreed that the food was truly excellent.

That’s why we decided to go for a third meal (for me) when we were in San Francisco a couple of weekends ago.

First off, the chicken tastes like a chicken. Yes, I realize how ridiculous that sounds, but anyone who’s eaten chicken in the past several years, knows what I’m talking about.

Second, it was seasoned well, which includes not only spices and herbs, but also salt, in the proper quantities. For those who say that salt is merely an anachronistic preservative that overpowers food, I say “nonsense!” The right amount of salt brings out the other flavors in the food and enhances the overall taste of a dish, in most cases.

Third, it was cooked just right. Just the right amount of crispiness in the skin, yet not a hint of any burnt bitterness or overcooked dryness, either inside or out. Each bite was equally tender, juicy and full of chicken-y goodness.

Couple that with wonderful sides and delectable appetizers (like the salted cod cakes, which were absolutely delicious) and you’ve got yourself one terrific meal at this wonderful find of a restaurant in San Francisco. The menu changes, seasonally, I think, so you have a good chance of having something different and wonderful, if you go back again and again as I have.