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Every semester, I get at least one student who asks about the paper submission process in TurnItIn.com. Paper 2 drafts are due on Wednesday in IS 6100 and Friday in IS 7010.

I discussed this issue in this 29 January article.

The short version: When users press the “submit” button to send an assignment to TurnItIn.com, the web site retrieves the document from the user’s computer. This process is similar to uploading an attachment to a web-based email system like Gmail or Yahoo Mail!

TurnItIn.com refreshes the web page and displays an unformatted, text-only version of the uploaded paper, along with a second submit button.

This confirmation step should help users determine if they uploaded the correct file. TurnItIn.com does let instructors limit students to a single upload on an assignment. But some users get confused because their paper is displayed without any formatting at all!

I’ve always believed this was a usability issue that TurnItIn.com’s software and user interface designers should fix. The only reason I can think of is that TurnItIn.com management wants to reduce the response time during the submission upload cycle. Generating an image or PDF would increase the time needed to submit a paper.

I usually allow students to upload their file as many times as they wish before the assignment deadline.

DWIMNWIS = “do what I meant, not what I said”

TurnItIn.com does send a digital receipt via email to the user after a successful submission. But I’m not sure this confirmation message is enough. TurnItIn.com should always display a PDF or graphical version of the formatted document. Students who use Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, or almost any other Mac or Windows-based word processor usually keep their software in a layout mode that supports WYSIWYG, and displays the actual fonts, margins, spacing, and other document attributes.

So I’m not surprised when some students expect TurnItIn.com to display a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) version of their paper with the formatting and graphics intact. If I hadn’t used TurnItIn.com before, I’d probably ask the same question!

TechRepublic has a photo gallery of Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 1 through 7, along with pictures of some old PCs. I doubt any of these PCs from the 80s ran IE, as version 1 was released in 1995. This industrial film from 1994 helps set the mood.

Meanwhile, a German website has some photos of Apple prototypes and products from the same period. Check out the 1983 iPhone! Reminds me of Minitel, an online service that most Americans have never heard of, even if it’s still popular in France. See these BBC and Wikipedia. articles for more information.

Thanks to Alex King’s wp-mobile plugin, PDA and mobile device users can view this blog in a low-bandwidth, easy-to-read format. Ten minutes for installation and testing was all I needed. Not bad for my first day with WordPress!

I’m starting a new blog at this site, using a system that is much more powerful than Bloglines’ rudimentary tools.

I’ll still use http://bloglines.com/blog/wsodeman to post articles that I find in Bloglines. It’s the most used web-based RSS reader, as I pointed out two days ago.

While that site is an excellent search engine and a great clipping service, several users found the Bloglines navigation system very difficult to use. After my own struggles with that same UI this month, I was frustrated. There’s no good method to create a direct link to a Bloglines post.

This article first appeared on my old blog at

I do like using Google, because their user interface is clean, their service is reliable, and they seem to understand information security.

Google does not use popup windows on its sites. I really hate popup windows in Web browsers, especially when the window contains an advertisement or a large media download. Sometimes I’m using a narrowband connection, and msot of the time, I just don’t want to see the ads.

One of the reasons I am not using WebCT this term is that the university’s version can generate a blizzard of popup windows. That’s just what a new WebCT user needs to see, right?

I use a Firefox extension called CustomizeGoogle to turn off the ads in Gmail and other Google sites. It’s not an official Google product, and Google staff have actually claimed that the extension does not work properly. The extension was written by a third party and has been translated into mor than 50 languages.

But it’s brilliant, it works, it’s free, and their programmers update the extension regularly as Google changes and adds services and features.

While the Honolulu Star-Bulletin’s online team should be commended for recommending Firefox to their users, I really wish that StarBulletin.com would rethink its policy on popup advertisement windows. I have a popup blocker set up in Firefox on most of my computers, but if I use Safari or Internet Explorer, I’ll get the Star’s silly windows.

Frankly, the Star-Bulletin needs to review their banner advertisments too. They’ve been showing the same iTunes “Single of the Week” banner for months now. The hyperlink expired long ago.

Perhaps the StarBulletin.com staff could learn a few things from Google’s “list of ten”.