This morning, Thomas Hawk explains why he doesn’t read The Green Button as much as he used to. Broken RSS feeds amd terrible site performance are at the top of his list. To which I would add a horrible search capability
For those who don’t know it, The Green Button is a community site for Media Center enthusiasts. There’s lots of great content there, but it’s too hard to get to. I also find it odd that the flesh-and-blood people behind the site don’t identify themselves anywhere. Who owns it? Who runs it? A little more transparency on the About Us page would help. As it stands, this page says the site was “[s]tarted in January 2003 by two Windows MCE enthusiasts,” who apparently wish to remain anonymous. Why?
Very much agreed. It’s still probably the best MCE site on the web, well maybe not anymore but only a little effort would fix all of that. This is too bad because the name was so fitting. =)
I thought it was just me being thick!!! Thank god, I can lift my head high again. Now I’ve got my confidence back, why are there so many threads and tips that are waaaaay out of date? I appreciate there may be some relevance but archiving them might be a good idea.
I’ll second the mention of the searching capability, or lack thereof. Using Firefox and want to search the site? Sorry, out of luck; some naff Javascript means that you’re back to IE. And speed is also something that the site is lacking in vast quantities. And what’s with the bizarre resolutions it seems to want to run at? Not everyone has 1280×1024 on their laptops, so the ability to resize a little more gracefully would be appreciated.
But still has some great content (although I spend more time at http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au because it runs faster and searches under Firefox)
At the risk of coming across as a TGB apologist, I’m OK with it. Would I like to see better performance? Certainly. Are the RSS feed a little more than problematic? Yeah, they are broken… Do I get an invalid page error quite frequently when trying to view a posting? Yup…happens once or twice per day. So, with all that being said, why would I be OK with it? Easy…content! Anytime I’ve wanted to tackle a project on my MCE box, TGB has been there with a strong community bordering on zealots. I’ve ventured over to xpmce.com every now and then and found the content lacking and the community not as tight. Yeah, the performance is blazing (when the site is actually up) but all the answers are over on TGB. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that if I’m about to take on anything on MCE, I’m going to have to sit in front of the TV with the laptop, get ready to wait for page loads, ferret through many postings in order to get to the heart of a project. I’ve yet to be let down with this philosophy.
I find it a little interesting that Mill Creek, WA is only 17 miles from Redmond. Microsoft employees running the site maybe?
Sorry, should have been a little more clear…..under the About Us page as referenced in the title letter, the site is registered to The Green Button, Inc., which is located in Mill Creek – a mere 17 miles from Redmond.
The site looks suspiciously like something M$ would create. It uses a Windows Server and works only under IE. I’ve suspected for some time that it’s owned by M$. Not sure that it’s particularly a bad thing, but still.
The Green Button has the absolute worst performance I have ever encountered on a web site. I would never use it, but MCE needs strong community support. I have been TRYING to use TGB for 2 years!!! I can’t even get a page to load to post this bitch!
Please TGB, fix your broken server or connection! You guys suck
As a long time TGB user, I am at a loss for words. I found this during a search on google, and I am very surprised by these comments. TGB is a great site, offering solutions to peoples problems. The knowledge base in there exceeds most other sites out there, in terms of Media Center functionality.
Turns out, that if you say anything anti-MS, you get booted.. Must be a MS run site.. Beware to anyone entering that site.. Chris Lanier is a prick.. Don’t say anything anti-MS… Wait, in a country, where there is supposed to be freedom of speech, MS is censoring people..
Microsoft and Chris Lanier are Anti-American..
Watch out
I’m sure by now you’ve all realized that the site performance and search issues have been fixed with an entirely new site platform.
In terms of MSFT owning TGB? Phooey. I own it and receive no monetary subsidy from MSFT. I just happen to live in the Seattle/Redmond area. Case closed.
In terms of censorship? We do not censor content. The only content that gets removed is that which personally attacks another member or is non-constructive. If something else is happening that I am not aware of, I’d love to know what it is.
Best,
Daniel Sterling
The Green Button
Why spam?