Eruantale

Ah, Facebook. How we love thee—and how we love to hate thee. You came along and elbowed MySpace out of the picture for many, replacing its horribly clunky and old fashioned user interface with one that was sleek and minimal. You passed on having customizable user pages and saved many of us from gouging our eyes out at the sight of neon green profiles. To me, Facebook was a breath of fresh air. Clean. User friendly. Lacking in drama. I sold everyone on Facebook. Even my grandma uses it! Unfortunately, these days I’m wondering if my grandma would be better off using MySpace for all the confusion you’ve been causing.

“I hate the new Facebook,” is a status message that those of us with Facebook accounts have seen far too many times. It has resounded across social networking sites, the blog-o-sphere, and crossed over into workplaces, schools, and social gatherings. My mom, my mother-in-law, and my grandma have all uttered this phrase before. If you search for groups containing the keywords “new Facebook,” you come up with “About 146,000 Results,” which were all created at different times. That’s because the powers that be continue to give us a new Facebook far too often.

How many times has there been a new Facebook? At least three times since I’ve been a member on the site. I did some Googling and found a few articles with screen shots of the older iterations of Facebook.

• Facebook is Getting a Facelift: This article has a screen shot of Facebook’s appearance when I registered circa 2007/early 2008 and a screen shot of the first new Facebook I experienced in Summer 2008.
• Hands-on with the new Facebook home page: Here is the second new Facebook I saw, and the one that we’ve all been using since last March.
• New Facebook Redesign 2010: The newest Facebook design, which has been slowly rolling out to users and finally affected this disgruntled blogger today.

The new new new Facebook was presented to me today with this message:

“Welcome to your new, simplified Facebook homepage.”

The designers at Facebook don’t understand that changing the user interface of a social networking website so often does not simplify anything for their users. I understand that Facebook is constantly adding new features and therefore the user interface must adapt. However, these complete overhauls are unnecessary and disorienting. What is the point of shifting the notifications from the upper right hand corner to the lower right hand corner and then to the upper left hand corner? That doesn’t simplify my experience. They have shifted the applications button around pointlessly as well—it’s now back where it was when I first registered at the website.

Good user interface design is intuitive, which means that when your user is accustomed to looking for a particular button in a particular place, you probably shouldn’t move it across the screen. Furthermore, you shouldn’t have redundancy in a design. The new new new Facebook has a chat tab at the bottom right of your screen. When you click the tab, it displays a list of your friends who are currently online. But the same list is also shown on your homepage, in the left hand column. If you click on a friend’s name in either location, you can chat with them. What’s the point of this? Absurdly, the lists don’t even match up!

Unfortunately, no amount of complaining on the part of Facebook’s users is likely to prevent the designers from subjecting us all to another reboot of the user interface. They know that no matter what, most of us will continue to use the website, myself included. But, at least we can all start planning ahead so that we have a witty status update when the new new new new Facebook debuts in 2011.

My jaw hit the floor the other day when a commercial for Campbell’s Select Harvest soup came on television the other day.

Narrator: People often choose light foods without really looking.
Shocked girl holding a frozen dinner: 310 calories?

The narrator then goes on to inform me that Campbell’s Select Harvest soups are only 80 calories—as if 310 calories is outrageous for something that is meant to be eaten as a meal.

This commercial (see video below) is extremely disconcerting to me. Judging by the prevalence of fad diets, weight loss “supplements” and eating disorders, American consumers do not understand basic nutrition or the science behind weight loss. Well intentioned people routinely adopt dangerous habits in order to lose weight these days, and this commercial encourages that mindset.

Your body needs a certain amount of calories each day in order to function. If you eat too few calories, your body will think you are starving. This is dangerous and actually makes it even more difficult to lose weight. The amount of calories you need to eat each day depends on several factors, but in general, consuming less than 1,200 calories a day can provoke this kind of response. Most people who lose weight and maintain the loss do not cut back their calories to such an extreme number, because you can’t live like that for a long time.

I don’t have a problem with Campbell selling a soup that has 80 calories in a serving. If I wanted to have some soup with a sandwich at lunch, I might grab a light variety soup with 80 or 100 calories to a serving. But to insinuate that 310 calories for a meal is shocking and unreasonable is insane. If a person decided to cut back to a diet of 1,600 calories a day in order to lose weight, they could eat five 310 calorie meals a day!

Unless the women in that ad are considering eating an entire Lean Cuisine as a snack, they have no reason to backpedal at the sight of the nutritional information. There are enough commercials on TV pressuring women to go to extreme measures to lose weight these days. Campbell shouldn’t contribute to the problem with more misleading ads that reinforce dangerous eating habits.

See for yourself:

What do you think? Is this ad reasonable? Or is its premise ridiculous?

It’s impossible to browse the web without being bombarded by fishy looking ads that offer free stuff for doing practically nothing. Most of these deals never pay up, but I’ve discovered one that does—and I have proof for the curious.

Swagbucks is a search engine that gives you points or “bucks” that you can redeem for prizes. There are various other methods to earning bucks, including making online purchases through associate websites. Matthew and I bought our airline tickets to Florida through Hotwire and earned over 70 bucks for our purchase.

Swagbucks is really easy to use. It’s set as my default search engine in Firefox, and I randomly earn points for my day to day searches. I usually earn one or two bucks a day. It doesn’t sound like much, but it starts to add up. On Fridays, you have the chance to earn up to 500 bucks in one search.

You can use your points to buy hundreds of different prizes. I have been using it sporadically for about three months and I’ve accumulated enough points to buy a few $5 Amazon gift cards. That doesn’t amount to a lot of extra money, but hey—it was free, and it took no effort to earn, so I’m not complaining. It’s nice to know that when I next order from Amazon I can take a few bucks off!

If you’re interested, try it out. It’s totally legit, and it will save you a little money.

My fiance and I are getting married in just fourteen days, but our honeymoon isn’t until September. We had originally planned to go in December for all of the holiday magic—and in order to avoid the heat—but our college’s finals schedule ruined those plans for us. Because of the dates on which we would have to travel, visiting Disney World in December would cost us a grand total of $1,200 more! So, even though last time I was there I promised myself I would never go back to Disney World in September (because of the oppressive heat, humidity, and thunderstorms), yesterday we booked our trip for September 15th-23rd.

#1: Free Dining

If you stay at a Disney resort during September, you can get the Disney Dining Plan for free. The dining plan is a way to prepay for meals. It usually costs around $40 per person per day, and it gives you one counter service meal, one sit down meal, and one snack per day. We were planning to use the Dining Plan anyway during our stay, so this has saved us over $600, and we don’t even have to worry about factoring food into our budget.

#2: Low Crowds

Most families choose to vacation during Christmas, Spring, or Summer break. Since school often starts in late August or early September, fewer big families with children travel during this month. There are certain days in September where the parks can get crowded, but in general, the crowds are much lower than in the summer months.

#3: Value Season

I never thought we could afford to stay at a Disney hotel. I always thought they were all ridiculously expensive. But, as it turns out, there are hotels in all price ranges and traveling during the value season makes things even more affordable. Hotel rates fluctuate throughout the year, and the value season offers some of the cheapest hotel rates available at Disney. You can stay at a value resort during value season for less than $100 a night, and all of September is considered value season.

#4: Lower Travel Costs

Summer travel drives up the cost of both gas and airfare. People often panic when they see the price of gas start crawling back upwards at the beginning of summer, but it almost always falls back down by September. Likewise, airlines raise their prices during peak travel seasons. Flying during September—especially if you can fly on a Tuesday or Wednesday, or take a red eye flight—will save you money.

#5: Weather

This can deter you or encourage you to travel during this time. Despite the fact that the intense September heat in Florida can be unpleasant, sometimes the heat can be very appealing! It just depends on what type of person you are. If you live in an area where the fall weather is terrible, you may just want to escape to somewhere warm and sunny even if it is a bit wet. Or a lot wet. The rains that usually hit Disney World can sometimes clear the parks. As long as you come prepared with a good poncho and shoes that will dry quickly, it won’t ruin your vacation. And should a hurricane hit—September is hurricane season, after all—Disney is extremely well equipped to handle storms.

#6: Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party

This is a special event (for which you need a separate ticket) that takes place several times a week during September and October. You can stay late in the Magic Kingdom for a special Halloween parade and fireworks show, as well as trick or treating and dance parties. Select rides remain open, and rare characters, including most Disney villains, come out to join the party. You can even come in costume. I’m really looking forward to experiencing this for the first time on our trip!

#7: Night of Joy

Disney’s Hollywood Studios park is home to a contemporary Christian music festival on September 11th and 12th. This is also a special event with separate tickets. You can get into the park after hours for concerts by top artists such as Newsboys, P.O.D., Mandisa, Chris Tomlin, Leeland, and too many more to list. They also open select attractions for Night of Joy guests. I’m disappointed that we have to miss this, but taking our trip this early in September wasn’t an option for us.

#8: Food and Wine Festival

This is another special event that starts at Epcot on September 25th and goes all the way through October. During the Food and Wine Festival, you can sample foods from all over the world, participate in cooking seminars and wine tastings, and enjoy special concerts every night.

#9: Athletes for a Cure Triathlon

I don’t think there is a better place in the world to participate in a marathon or triathlon than Disney World, and there is no better reason than for charity. Part of the registration fee from each participant goes to fund research for a cure for prostate cancer.

#10: It’s Disney!

The best reason to go to Disney World in September is simply that taking a trip to Disney World is incredibly fun. It’s the perfect vacation destination for almost anyone, including families, singles, and, of course, honeymooners! With four main parks, two water parks, a whole host of resorts, a sports complex, a shopping center, and much more, there is never a dull moment, and there is something for everyone to enjoy. That is why we chose to go to Disney in September this year, despite my intense dislike of heat and humidity. I’m buying some shorts and a mister fan and sucking it up, because it is Disney World, after all, and we will still have a great time, even if we’re sweaty and sunburned.