Disable your browser's security features to view your university's course websites!



  • So I went to my university's D2L page (whatever that stands for) because a professor was explaining it in class.
    @SIDEBAR SIDEBAR WTF said:

    This professor called ssh "telnet" and tried to download PuTTY by entering the word "google" into Internet Explorer's address bar. Today he taught the class (of computer scientists) how to use the cd command. This is a required course with no way to test out of it.

    On the sidebar of the site, I noticed this:

    So apparently both Chrome and Firefox are incapable of displaying the university's website. News to me. Could it be activex? No. It was worse:

    Their workaround, instead of modifying the software (y'know, the one they wrote) to not pull its scripts from insecure pages, or even turning off https support until they figured out what to do, was to post a notice on their site (the one that you can't view with firefox or chrome apparently) telling their users to turn off their browser's security features.

    Hey, at least Internet Explorer doesn't have this problem.



  • Not surprising when you take a look at the normal quality of web things that universities use.  Just be glad you can escape having to touch something like blackboard or angel.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @locallunatic said:

    blackboard
     

    {nightsweat}

    Fucking flashbacks.



  • When I was in school, the blackboards were green.



  • @Ben L. said:

    So I went to my university's D2L page (whatever that stands for)

    [url=http://lmgtfy.com/?q=d2l]DesireToLearn[/url] apparently.

    @Ben L. said:

    Their workaround, instead of modifying the software (y'know, the one they wrote)

    Your university wrote D2L?  [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire2Learn]Are you sure[/url]?

     



  • @locallunatic said:

    blackboard

    {gags}


    Moodle's pretty bad, too.



  • @mikeTheLiar said:

    @locallunatic said:
    blackboard

    {gags}


    Moodle's pretty bad, too.

    Hey, moodle is open source! It has an excuse!



  • @powerlord said:

    @Ben L. said:

    So I went to my university's D2L page (whatever that stands for)

    DesireToLearn apparently.

    @Ben L. said:

    Their workaround, instead of modifying the software (y'know, the one they wrote)

    Your university wrote D2L?  Are you sure?

     


    Well, they wrote the template, at least. That should be enough to fix the problem they created. Also, where did you learn HTML? Your code is awful.



  • @powerlord said:

    @Ben L. said:

    So I went to my university's D2L page (whatever that stands for)

    DesireToLearn apparently.

    Wait, wasn't that the company with the thing talked about in the  How not to check email address validity thread?



  • Lets just agree that LMS' are horrible. I've only used D2L and Moodle (a bit) and they were both pretty bad.


  • Considered Harmful

    @aapis said:

    Lets just agree that LMS' are horrible. I've only used D2L and Moodle (a bit) and they were both pretty bad.

    My last job tasked me with building a LMS. By myself. From scratch. In a month and a half. I told them it would take a year. They said get it done in a month and a half. The specs filled a 3-ring binder to overflowing.

    After ~8 months of 80 hour work weeks and one very pissed off client, I delivered a mostly functional product. Which the client scrapped because they couldn't figure out how to import their old data into the new data model (which was never specified as a requirement). And then I quit. Because 8 month death march.

    I usually work 40 hours at my new job, and it pays over double!

    I hear the client is on something like their fifth from-scratch rewrite.



  • @Ben L. said:

    Hey, moodle is open source! It has an excuse!

    I honestly did not know that.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    I usually work 40 hours at my new job, and it pays over double!

    So you have to get a new job once a week? That must be painful.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    I told them it would take a year. They said get it done in a month and a half.

    I'm staring down the barrel of a similar situation.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Ben L. said:

    Hey, moodle is open source! It has an excuse!

    Is there any LMS that isn't a steaming pile of WTF? I only have experience with Plateau Success Factors, and I wish that I didn't.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    @aapis said:
    Lets just agree that LMS' are horrible. I've only used D2L and Moodle (a bit) and they were both pretty bad.

    My last job tasked me with building a LMS. By myself. From scratch. In a month and a half. I told them it would take a year. They said get it done in a month and a half. The specs filled a 3-ring binder to overflowing.

    All of the companies that I've interviewed at (either for internships or jobs) that made them were huge piles of WTF.  But that's because no one who is capable of rational thought would enter that market.



  • @mikeTheLiar said:

    @locallunatic said:
    blackboard
    {gags}

    Moodle's pretty bad, too.
    Then there are the ones that are targeted at busniness.  I spent several years developing courses for something called ClarityNet which was absolutely dreadful.  Then we were bought by a company that uses an LMS called Exxtend Learning, that is even worse. What's the deal with the developers who create LMS software?  They make Community Server look like a work of art.



  • @Ben L. said:

    @joe.edwards said:

    I usually work 40 hours at my new job, and it pays over double!

    So you have to get a new job once a week? That must be painful.

    But in 20 weeks he'll be getting over a million times his old salary, and destroy the world economy in less than a year.



  •  @boomzilla said:

    Is there any LMS that isn't a steaming pile of WTF?
    Long answer: No. I've found Moodle to be the least worst (in part because you can muck around with it) and Blackboard is awful and incredibly inconsistent--doing similar things requires different, unguessable procedures via completely dissimilar interfaces.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    My last job tasked me with building a LMS. By myself. From scratch. In a month and a half. I told them it would take a year. They said get it done in a month and a half. The specs filled a 3-ring binder to overflowing.
     

    Ah.  So you had to write something using SCORM?  I ended up doing 6 months of work during weekends since my regular stuff couldn't be deferred.  Came out to something like 300+ hours.  3% bonus.

     



  • @Ben L. said:

    Hey, moodle is open source! It has an excuse!
    That's a reason. Not an excuse.



  • @barfoo said:

     @boomzilla said:
    Is there any LMS that isn't a steaming pile of WTF?
    Long answer: No.

    What's the short answer?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Ben L. said:

    @barfoo said:
     @boomzilla said:
    Is there any LMS that isn't a steaming pile of WTF?
    Long answer: No.

    What's the short answer?
    No



  • @Ben L. said:

    @powerlord said:
    Also, where did you learn HTML? Your code is awful.

    ?  I didn't write any HTML for that post, just BBCode.

     



  • @barfoo said:

     @boomzilla said:

    Is there any LMS that isn't a steaming pile of WTF?
    Long answer: No. I've found Moodle to be the least worst (in part because you can muck around with it) and Blackboard is awful and incredibly inconsistent--doing similar things requires different, unguessable procedures via completely dissimilar interfaces.

     

    There also used to be Angel, but apparently BlackBoard bought it a few years back.

     



  • @powerlord said:

    @Ben L. said:

    @powerlord said:
    Also, where did you learn HTML? Your code is awful.

    ?  I didn't write any HTML for that post, just BBCode.

     


    What browser does that fucking work in, anyway? No matter which browser I use, I get the plaintext editor. But whenever I try to put HTML in my signature, it gets encoded.



  • @mikeTheLiar said:

    @powerlord said:
    @Ben L. said:
    @powerlord said:
    Also, where did you learn HTML? Your code is awful.
    ?  I didn't write any HTML for that post, just BBCode.

     

    What browser does that fucking work in, anyway? No matter which browser I use, I get the plaintext editor. But whenever I try to put HTML in my signature, it gets encoded.
    Edit profile <font face="courier new,courier">--></font> Site Options <font face="courier new,courier">--></font> Content Editor<font face="courier new,courier"> --></font> Advanced

     

    Unless you're using Chrome.

     



  • @El_Heffe said:

    Unless you're using Chrome anything but Firefox or IE.

    FTFY.



  • @anonymous235 said:

    @El_Heffe said:

    Unless you're using Chrome anything but Firefox or IE.

    FTFY.

    I'm pretty sure I tried FF, but maybe I fucked something up. I don't really mind writing my own HTML/CSS in posts, but I would like to be able to format my signature all fancy-like.



  • @mikeTheLiar said:

    @Ben L. said:
    Hey, moodle is open source! It has an excuse!
    I honestly did not know that.

    What?  That's the only reason anybody ever uses it.

     @El_Heffe said:

    Then there are the ones that are targeted at busniness...

    Companies that sell to people make good (or at least passable) software. Companies that sell for business make kick backs.



  • @mikeTheLiar said:

    What browser does that fucking work in, anyway? No matter which browser I use, I get the plaintext editor. But whenever I try to put HTML in my signature, it gets encoded.
     

    Iceweasel 17 works fine. Also Konqueror never had a problem.

    I should try linx next time, and Netscape 7.2.


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