I have worked on the NMSU Phonebook. The Phonebook has three sections to it, and each section offers something that I have yet to see at any other university.

First is the person lookup page. Clicking on the A (which is all last names beginning with A) brings up a list of people. First, this offers the ability to use it as a directory, just like any phonebook. You can do searches as well. The information is presented in a pleasant manner with nice colors and in a zebra table so the names are easily distinguished from one another. But the one unique feature that I have not seen at other universities is the Rolodex. You can at a glance see the person's name, email address (if on campus, otherwise an email form), and their phone number. Now, with most traditional phonebooks you click on the person's name which takes you to a new page to learn more information about that person. That's so 1995. With the help of Rico we can accomplish this in a much nicer way without displaying a whole new page. Click on a person's name and it unfolds to show more information, including work and/or personal information. It looks like a business card. Now, how do we get this information into Outlook or other email program. The old way is typing in the details to save a new contact, the new way is by clicking on the icon to download the person's vCard. Now the information is automagically added to your email program.

The second section is the department lookup list. This is where we use AJAX. You can do a search for the departments in a traditional way, but doing an AJAX call is so much faster. It might be a little overkill, but the speed is just awesome. It also includes links to an Google Maps implementation of campus that I and my co-workers worked on (future post).

Finally, we have the hierarchy page. I have not even seen this page at any other university. I think it is totally cool. It is basically a hierarchy of departments. So you know who is on the food chain.

Of course all of these link together. Click on a person in the hierarchy and it takes you to the person lookup. Click on a department on the person lookup or department lookup page and it takes you to that department in the hierarchy. In my opinion, very cool.

Well, hot on the heals of getting screwed over by Creative, I now got screwed over by Gateway. You may remember that I had to send my laptop in for repair.

The reason I sent it in was because there was a gap between the plastic and the LCD screen that was shipped from the factory like that. Dust gets in there and behind the screen. The second and more important reason was because it would constantly crash and I would get strange graphic corruption on the screen.

Well, I finally received it yesterday and I am extremely disappointed in them. They didn't fix the screen and all they did was reformat the drive and put Windows XP Tablet Edition on it, like it came from the factory. The computer was labeled as Vista Compatible and I was reassured that Vista would work on it without problems. To make sure that it isn't software I reformatted the drive and installed Vista. While I was in the Vista set-up screen I noticed several pixels flickering on and off on the screen. It didn't do that the first time I installed Vista. After it was installed the Windows Sidebar started flickering and when I went to connect to my wireless network the entire screen went to a black and white pattern and the computer locked up. This was before I installed any software or anything, it was just a fresh install of Vista.

I'm sending it back, again, maybe this time they will fix it.

I wrote Creative regarding their horrible Vista support for my Creative Labs PCMCIA Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Notebook card.

I purchased a Creative Audigy 2 ZS Notebook card. I purchased it for a Windows Vista laptop. The information displayed on the creative website said this would be compatible with Vista. However, the support is terrible. The last driver released for this card was March 16, 2007. That is totally unacceptable. When will this card's drivers be updated to be more compatible with Vista. You are starting to lose a loyal Creative Customer.

The card causes blue screens. Also, in Vista's Control Panel, there is an option to hear the output out of all 5.1 speakers. I only hear output out of the front two. The drivers just do not play well with Vista.

Their response:

Dear Curtis

Thank you for contacting Creative email support. I appreciate the opportunity to help you.

Regarding your last email. We are not aware a new update for this product will be released. They only release if one is need. We have modems that have not been updated for several years. Until what is listed online it obsolete and I new one is needed there probably will not be anymore. Also remember that ANY Email Creative advisors are not forewarned or told about future releases. When they hit the Creative Web page they are ready.

I apologize for any inconvenience this issue may have caused you.

Here is a link to the Creative savings center.

http://us.creative.com/shop/

Thank you for choosing Creative!

The bad grammer is theirs. Basically I was just told to buy a newer product. Goodbye creative. Anyone try Sondigo's Callisto Home Theatre Adapter?