Add PM, to be sure to be sure.
One problem with the 12 hour clock is that if AM or PM is omitted or unreadable, you are could be very early or very late for your appointment.
The 24 hour clock eliminates any ambiguity and does so without making the number of characters used any longer. In fact it makes it shorter (01:00 is shorter than 1:00 AM).
In Blanchardstown Centre they want to really, really sure that there is no confusion as to when the on-site creche closes. It doesn’t close at 5:00 PM. It doesn’t close at 17:00. No, it closes at 17:00 PM!
At least the addition of “PM” is shorter than adding “in the morning“
Red cold, blue hot taps reversed
I joined my former college classmates for the early portion of the Jim Finn Stag pub crawl, before everyone got incoherent.
In the third pub, The Hut in Phibsborough, the bathroom had a sign about the incorrectly coloured taps.
The blue tap gives hot water, the red tap is for cold water.
That reversal must really get messy when the clients are drunk.
Why couldn’t the owners either swap the taps, or the feed pipes or even the coloured plastic at the top of the taps.
Ticket machine - Buy not translated
Irish Rail have installed automated ticket machines throughout the network. The interface can be displayed in multiple languages.
One day, while sheltering from the rain at the station, I decided to look at the translated interface. Early in my career I worked in localisation and we checked the translated software displayed and worked correctly when translated.
I checked the German translation to see if all the words fit (because German words are frequently longer than English) and it looked good. French was fine too, but then I noticed something small – the Buy button was not translated! Ouch.
It is surprising that this was noticed (and fixed) during product development.
KFC protecting the enviromental
When I worked in East Point Business Park I noticed that Smoking impacts dexterity, for Oracle employees anyway.
From a recent visit to the Blanchardstown Centre I saw an embarrassing attempt at a “green stance” by KFC. There are a few bins outside the restaurant with a brutal spelling error on them.
The bins say:
Thank You. Protecting the Enviromental (sic) for the next generation
“Enviromental” should be “Environment” – add an ‘a’ and drop the ‘al.’
I normally report issues that I find to the company or organisation responsible. The KFC.ie web site is a single page with no contact links. The KFC.co.uk site only lists a snail mail address.
Bogus clothes collection
We are all very familiar with the bogus used clothes collectors that drive by in the early hours to grab the bags that have been left out in response to their regular never ending leaflet drops.
A recent leaflet for one such collection had the gall to ask people not to put the bags out the night before because
That will help us to get rid of bogus collectors
Pot, kettle, black anyone?
In some respects I am impressed with these bogus collectors – they are relentless in their leaflet drops and the leaflets change each time (same contact info but very different “theme” to the leaflet to try to appeal to get people to donate the clothes).
No More Babys (sic)
Not surprisingly there was quite a reaction to this, with the doctor being investigated and the woman’s grandparents calling her “absolutely irresponsible” and her behaviour “unconscionable“.
The photo here, from the Irish Times, shows a local resident protesting outside the woman’s home. Nice sentiment but poor delivery.
Even now, 8 months later, stories of Octomom provoke a strong reaction.
Residents with Fingal County Council as their local authority may know about their often bad road design and brutal signage. The Roads Department isn’t good at implementing pedestrian or cyclist facilities in thoughtful ways.
There is a gem of an example on Blanchardstown Road South, behind Power City. There is a nice footpath and off-road cycle track that brings you from the nearby Renault garage to … well, that’s it, it doesn’t go anywhere. A little after you turn the corner and pass the pedestrian crossing, the footpath and cycle track just end. How bloody hard would have been to continue to Clonsilla Road, a mere 200 metres. The area is reserved for Metro West so ownership of the land would not have been a problem. Pathetic.
Not even nearly line up
Looking at the pedestrian crossing points at a nearby roundabout it looks like the Traffic Engineers at Fingal County Council have a wonky ruler.
The dished parts of the pavement on either side don’t even nearly line up. Even a kid would draw a more straight line freehand.
This was designed by the department whose policy is:
to provide appropriate traffic measures to ensure efficient and safe transportation for all road users.
A friend asked me to look at the website for Cronin moving company because he couldn’t find the phone number. He wasn’t mistaken, it’s not on the site! Nor is the company address! The phone book was used to get the number.
This omissions violates item 7 (Hidden Contact Details) in 10 reasons why your website sucks. In the list it gives Amazon.co.uk as an example. From a web development perspective, the site is horrible – look at the source code. Shudder. It appears to have been generated by Adobe GoLive 4 (AFAIK current version is GoLive 9).
Recently a new web design company asked those on the boards.ie Webmaster forum to review their website. It was a bloodbath.
The thread started off without a link to the site. As soon as that was rectified the massacre started. The site is so bad that some thought it was a joke.
Are you tired of being quoted ridiculous for the design of a site. Nowadays, with the cost of internet access getting cheaper, it’s of the utmost imporance that a company have it’s own web page(s) presence.
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Tired of being quoted ridiculous what? “imporance” is spelt wrong. “it’s” should be “its”. “page(s)” should be omitted. The guy in the photo on the site looks sleazy.