I’ve been thinking over yesterday’s idea, and discussing it with some people. I think it could actually fly. My main obstacle though is that it’s tough to give up a really great job that I enjoy doing - especially since it pays well too. I don’t see me doing it anytime soon.

I don’t think I’ll tease you with it any more - after a few weeks, I might disclose the full details of it, so that somebody will do it ;)

Today I will talk to you about confusing interfaces.

I was searching for a particular classical piece in MP3 format last night, and found a site that apparently has a library of 11,000 free MP3’s available for download. Great! Well, sort of.

I found the song I wanted, and hit the download link. A window pops up saying something about a server now being available. There’s a button that says something about downloading software - when I clicked it, an ad for silverware popped up - at least I think it was an ad for silverware. It was in Italian. Anyway, there was another link in the original window that said something about downloading the file. I clicked that, and was taken to another site - this one had a splash page, and a coffee cup spinning around on a CD to click on.

The first time I went there, I thought I’d done something wrong, so I closed the window, and went through the whole process again. Anyway, winding up at the spash page again, I thought I’d click “Enter” and see what it brought me. It took me to a site that does compilation based recommendations. You have to log in, and create compilations - you can see other people’s compilations, rate them, and find other compilations with similar attributes. I created an account - requiring only a userID and password, and then had to search for music again. The interface was different this time, and kind of slow, but still, workable. Once I found a song I wanted to download (actually several) I added them to my compilation. There’s a download button. I hit the download button, and after supplying some more details on my compilation (giving it a name - in this case - music ;) and hitting continue, I’m forwarded to another page. This one is asking me a trivia question about classical music. It’s multiple choice, and I recognize all but two of the potential answers (I’m relatively certain that Saddam Hussein and Abraham Lincoln aren’t world renowned composers…) I guessed the wrong one. It lets me try again - this time with a question that I can eliminate all the wrong answers. I got it right, and am presented with a page that lets me download the MP3s that were in my compilation. No kidding. Really high quality MP3’s too. I’m not sure what all the hoops were for, but I got music in the end.

I downloaded a bunch of music, some by Haydn, some by Mozart. It was the most surreal way to get there, but in the end, I was listening to MP3s. The amusing part is the part of the FAQ on the second site that says they don’t provide downloads of MP3s. I really don’t know why I persevered after reading that.

Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself - the site I started at was Karadar. You might want to have a printout of this post handy in order to get through the convoluted path ;)

Simpson’s quote of the day: “”The three little sentences that will get you through life:

1. Cover for me.
2. Oh, good idea, Boss!

3. It was like that when I got here.”
- Homer