How not to build a usable "web service"
I just downloaded a file from the web onto my Windows Vista PC. The file extension, TGZ, was unlikely to be opened successfully by any software installed on my PC (no problems of course on OSX or *nix).
I double clicked the file:
OK, what suggestions do you have for TGZ file "Web Service"? I clicked OK.
Great ...
OK, let me enumerate through a few the problems:
- Absolutely no mention anywhere on the page what the "file type" was that brought me here. It's in the URL, but they couldn't bring themselves to actually display it on the page.
- It claims there's actually information about this file type, yet there isn't a single piece of useful information. Better yet, "this page will help you find software..."
- It's a common file type, hardly different from a ZIP file in the computer world, yet no one at Microsoft could be bothered with adding it to this list of File Associations?
- It tells me I can purchase or download software related to this file type, even though they haven't a clue what it is.
- It's formatting leaves something to be desired with everything being the same font size; the labels are emphasized rather than the data.
I just tried PDF:
http://shell.windows.com/fileassoc/0409/xml/redir.asp?EXT=pdf
I didn't realize that the Descriptions were provided by the companies who create the products sometimes:
Invented by Adobe Systems and perfected over 15 years, Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) lets you capture and view robust information — from any application, on any computer system — and share it with anyone around the world.
For .doc:
This document is a Word file.
Short and to the point I suppose.
For .cs (c# files), no results. For .java:
File Type: J# source file
File Extension: .java
Description: J# source file (using Java language syntax)
Software or information available at:
Microsoft has information on Java, but not C#! VB is the same as C#.
Here was the first result in the Window's Live Search:
Microsoft might as well just jump to their search product "Live", rather than use their stupid File Association tool.
Clicking purchase gives me one option (which is a free option -- I've never heard of ShellZip, WinZip -- hmmm.. that's familiar for some reason ... :) ).
