We have started a separate page for “known issues.” The issues listed there are not typos or individual lesson issues, but larger site issues. Take a look at it before reporting a bug. We will be updating this page frequently.
Check it out: V3 Known Issues
-John
There is no link to the Saturday Show. I can’t even remember how I found this week’s show. In addition, I got a page not found when I clicked on the comments link.
Art,
The Sat Show will find a permanent home and permanent link. http://extra.chinesepod.com/
Ken
HOW TO - How about a blog thread, etc., on V3 How To?, how do stuff in V3. FAQ, what’eva. Things that aren’t problems, but just ‘features’ I’m too lame to have figured out on my own!
For Example:
How do I find the Saturday show from the Explore page?
-Type in Saturday in the Search Field. Just kidding, that won’t work. How about the Connect page, can’t! How about the Study page…nope YOU have to STUDY! Cpod mom says no more playing around.
-Or you can scroll down to the bottom of any page, click on the Chinesepod-Extra link which is in light un-noticeable grey, opps excuse me, discrete, as in right next to the next most eye-catching feature, the Terms of Use and ‘voila!
One commment on the issue with getting bookmarked lessons to show up in the lesson list. The workaround as described often won’t help. Scheduling is not enough to get them to show up - they’ll only show up if scheduled for today or some day in the past. To get this working a bit more like V2 I moved all my bookmarked lessons to a point in the past. What is the intention for how this is ’supposed’ to work, including handling bookmarked/scheduled(past|present|future)/studied states?
Some of the features on this V3 site will need some adjusting from all of us. I bet that new users will experience less difficulties once the bugs get ironed out because for them it will be normal.
Except for the bugs(!) I like what I see. I had some problems with my existing lesson list. It was too long (it included all the deleted items from the old website) I therefore too impractical to schedule. I have asked to delete the list and this was no problem so now I am working with a clean slate again. The scheduling of the lessons is actually a nice feature. When I explore I just ‘bookmark’ away and after having found some interesting lessons I schedule them on the calendar. When you click on ‘Lesson List’ you expect all the lessons to be there? Think again, you will only see the lessons for that day and all the lessons that were scheduled for previous days and that haven’t been marked as studied. There seems to be the possibility to label lessons but as far as I can see it hasn’t been implemented yet as a featur. I hope this will be coming soon.
I like the vocab section now! You can add the vocabulary of a new lesson, including the extra vocab with a few simple mouse clicks. This is actually great. I think I may finally switch to this feature as my only way of managing my acquiered vocabulary. Great stuff!
I also like the ‘Dialogue MP3 download’, although the first one I tried was encoded at about 4x the normal speed. I feared that they were all going to be like this, but it seems to be an isolated bug. On my ‘wish list’ I would like to put a request for the same feature, but on the expansion page. All the sound bites are there, so I imagine it is just a matter of putting it all together.
On second thoughts, I like the new site, it gives an impression of “light” (like Coca Cola Light), very well structured (impelled by database logic), without the unnecessary sugar coating. My main gripe, as with SOOO many others, is the missing numbering scheme, because I have downloaded all of the stuff and imported into an MS Access database for my own use, still I might just continue numbering on my own.
It looks like a quality leap forwards, with the added advantage of a price reduction for the premium per-month fee, now 20$ instead of 30$). Just some ironing left to be done.
Congratulations!
Will there be any sort of RSS for the Dialogue-Only casts? That could provide the handy self-test I had always craved.
I totally agree with Lantian. You should put the links to the blogs/forums/Saturday Show in more noticeable places. Otherwise, newcomers will probably not be able to find them easily.
Marc,
Ah, I see you have encountered the dreaded “chipmunk” phenomenon! We fixed a ton of these before the launch, but a few might have slipped through the cracks. Let us know which lesson, and we can fix it on Monday.
I still can’t download any of the lessons. When I right click on the download, it recognizes the file as an HTML format, not MP3.
I’m assuming its a problem only with myself, since others don’t seem to have the same problem.
Are there any settings on my computer that I need to change to accommodate V3 ?
Paul,
Yeah, the files seem to be recognized as HTML format (I don’t know why), but if you save those files as *.mp3, you can play them with an mp3 player. No problem.
Thanks Pharmine.
Hope CPOD addresses this issue. There isn’t even an instruction box that says “Right-click to download” as in V2.
I like the new organization of V3 overall, but this download issue could be a major problem for any new subscribers.
In general, nice work…
Bug/Problem:
Should I tell you this? Well, yes, of course I should….
If you have an expired basic account (which I temporarily do - will resubscribe premium soon, I promise! ;-)), then you still can download the pdf files - or are they now free?
Also, it took me quite a while to find the ‘community’ section. I’m sure I’ll get used to checking the page bottom for more navigation.
Wish:
Also, PLEASE prioritise the RSS feed for dialogue only podcasts - and if possible, backdate for all previous podcasts - not just last few days. I’ve held off on hacking apart the pre-V3 podcasts on the basis that this was coming!
Aesthetic Comment:
On my new laptop (the breakdown of my old one the cause for my expiring subscription and also of my temporary lack of funds for a new subscription) the site feels ‘cold’ - almost entirely black and white; with the greys very faded (its a 1920×1200 screen, so gives a different feel to the more common 1024×768 view anyway). Pre-V3, I realise now that the red added warmth and the graphics added personality to the site - now the site looks much more clinical and anonymous.
Nonetheless:
That aside, well done! I can see just how much effort has gone into V3 and that, particularly with the addition of dialogue-only podcasts, how much more useful the site will be now.
Congratulations!
http://extra.chinesepod.com/2007/04/14/周六45-the-saturday-show-for-april-14-2007/ does not exist.
The mp3 identified as html is caused by s3.amazonaws.com sending no (or empty) content type in http headers. Browser tries to guess the file type, successfully in case of an image, but mp3 is not typical browser stuff. The browser, having no better guess, then resorts to treating it as html. Hopefully somebody at chinesepod will be able to persuade the sever to send the correct type.
Yes. In V2, the download automatically assigned a MP3 file extension.
For V3, I have been manually typing in the MP3 extension. I’m sure it’s an easy fix.
The guys and gals at CPOD must have their hands full. Looks like a cool new service once the issues are resolved.
Well, I’ve been using V3 more than I probably have been using V2 in the last month… trying to figure out if this will actually work or not.
A few issues:
First, one I didn’t think about posting until I came here to post: Why am I still having to put in my name, email and website? Shouldn’t the profile feature do that now??
Second, every time I come, even if I have a web browser open in which I have already logged in, I have to sign in every time in every web browser, even though I always click “remember email and password”. That’s not working. I would like to be able to come back and instantly be me. Maybe the cookie setting isn’t working for your site? (it’s working just fine for my gmail account)
Third, I am finding it very hard to get arond, and I’m a website programmer (well, formally before getting addicted to the Chinese language and moving to China and just being obsessed with the language for over 4 years now… ha ha). I don’t know what it is, but even just to find my watchlist, I sometimes click on various things, thinking that it is the community link (which got me here) or my Profile link, yet sometimes there is a choice for Watchlist, and sometime it is something else, like the feed watchlist. I will admit that I am not talking a lot of time to read ALL the options on the page, but in V2 I never had and I could find the postcast I wanted to comment on or get the lesson dialog I wanted without any problem… everything was in the menu at the top or the list of pods and posts on the side.
Not being one that says that says bring back V2, since I know how important it is to move on and move up, but I think you have a lot of customizing still to do, and I do kind of recommend getting some of the feel from the old one that worked.
Good luck! Thanksk ChinesePod!
-Rich
Another big issue… Saturday Show Limitations:
Why can’t I get into Saturday Show discussions??? Anything I click on at http://extra.chinesepod.com, except for the MP3 downloads, get me a “Page Doesn’t Exist” page…. I’m sure you’re aware of this, but I am going through a withdrawl of reading the Saturday Show comments for this week… we can’t even comment on Aric’s sunglasses!!! (in the studio? well, cool.)
Is extra.chinesepod.com even tied in with the profile feature? Seems like there are no links to get any profile places. I guess that “site” is just not set up yet much? Tie it in please with all of ChinesePod like before… I find a lot of my Chinese culture learning comes from the Saturday show! (which is kind of ironic since the producer still claims and proves to be a beginner [We love you Aric!] and that I live in China.) So my point being that I don’t see how this isn’t Chinese learning… It’s kind of the Beginner Media level like Advanced has it’s Media level.
’nuff griped.
-Rich
Ok,
not sure if it has been mentioned, why are there only 96 elementary lessons whereas there were 104 before Friday? Also, about 10-12 dialogue-only mp3 files from those 96 are messed up. Sorry if this was already brought up.
It is a bit of a bummer that we can’t give Colleen a proper Zaijian on the Saturday Show blog. But, I suspect she’ll check in even after she leaves for the land of kidney pie and crumpets.
Len,
In another thread titled “Discovering V3″, John@ChinesePod says that “a few lessons were not displaying due to bugs, but there are also lessons that we decided to remove because they were substandard or incompatible with the site in a variety of ways.” Hope that helps.
CPod should be applauded for trying to innovate and improve but I think they went a bit too far with V3 in the name of simplification. I’ve looked things over and have a feeling new users will find the V3 experience to be either very frustrating or they’ll just plain never discover the potential benefits of CPod because they never found them. If I were CPod I’d revive the previous site, establish a reasonable beta period for the new version (maybe another 3 months) and let both run concurrently, offering users on the old site the option to use the new site (not just bits and pieces, by the way). Then use the feedback to make adjustments (major ones if necessary) until V3’s “right”. At that point move everyone over, but not before. In my opinion V3 isn’t ready for prime time.
I am not so happy about the vocabulary flash card set up. I used to be able to see a character, and if I didn’t recognize it, I could listen to it. Then I could see if I understood it’s English meaning before looking it up. Now I see the meaning before I can hear the word said. You just took away one of my major study strategies! Please change it back, so I can hear the word said before I see it’s meaning. Thanks.
Barbara Verble
If you’re trying to figure out what’s what..
Explore -> Lesson Archive
Connect -> Message Board
Study -> Home
Continue Lessons -> Not sure what it was at first. I do now, but don’t see the point
Review your practice plan -> Definitely not what you think it is
Bookmark -> Add Lesson (see below)
Lesson List -> Thought this was lesson archive at first, but it’s your own list (to study today…???)
Study Schedule -> Not the least bit practical
User accounts -> Great to have, but I usually avoid sites that throw it at you
Lesson page -> Looks great
Podcasts -> Worth their filesize in money
ChinesePod Tips -> Really nice idea
ChinesePod Extra -> The Saturday Show - The podcast of podcasts, the glue that held CPod together.. but only a light grey link now. Also includes my other favourite, The Word on the Street.
Bloggers -> Completely snubbed
User home page -> Didn’t like this from the first screenshot
Marc, thanks for the info on the schedule. Didn’t realize it showed today’s and previous days’ lessons.
My impression of V3 is it is now a cookie-cutter format that any language can be crowbarred into a site. This change isn’t for ChinesePod, but for Praxis Language Service. I truly miss the Chinese feel of V2.
Marc…or anyone,
How did you erase all your old lessons to start with a clean slate?
Did anyone use the feature on V2 where you could look at your saved lessons and see which ones you had done the exercises for? I used it and haven’t been able to find how or if that works on V3.
Thanks!
Or more specifically, erase all your old vocab for a clean slate? I bothered manually deleting those 80 or so lessons, but the thought of doing the vocab one-by-one feels exhausting. And I definitely think that starting fresh is the only way to make any sense of all this V3 stuff - importing all the old material from V2 but without any of the V3 tagging/organization done makes sorting through everything quite daunting.
My son Stephane created last Tuesday a free account to test CPod. Under V2, when creating a free account it was full plain that one had 7 days free access to the premium features. Under V3, you have to venture into the Help file to find out that the same premium features are equally accessible when creating the free account under V3. Nice to know, but why is this aspect hidden in the Help file?
However, my son’s account’s free premium access stopped when V3 entered center stage, up to today, no access to the premium features, no possibility for my son to thouroughly test the site. Lost time and efforts, useless to say, he is fed up to the point of not even bothering to express his frustration here online, which I have done on his behalf.
this may just be a matter of knowing how to but I can’t seem to find the calendar of upcoming podcasts?
Hoo boy. This looks sooooo corporate. I was drifting away from CP anyway as I discovered the random nature of the lessons interfered with any meaningful acqusition of content. The front page glamor shots of The Stars just hammer home one of CP’s big problems for me: the Cult of Personality that has been constructed around the hosts. I just want to learn a language. I don’t want to wade through a load of fluff. Once I realized that I was skipping CP lessons on a consistent basis to (maybe) listen to later, it was clear that CP may be oh-so-hip but failing in the language-teaching mission, at least for me. On top of that, to try and decipher your new structure is too much for this user.
Over and out.
@ Hans Stephane / Nyon-Switzerland
Same for me: to access all features I was unable to use my old test account which I created some weeks ago. I have to register again to get premium access for 2 weeks. It took me some time to find this
I thought everybody without paid account would get a free test drive for a few days to find out whats new in v3 and to consider a premium or basic account.
Sorry to be less than positive about V3, but I definitely prefered the V2 site. Mostly I don’t want to have to use the ‘Schedule’ feature, which imposes a calendar. I don’t plan my studies by date. I don’t own an agenda and am not comfortable with this method.
In the old site, I made lists, (Intermediate - in progress) (Intermediate - to review) etc. This suited me perfectly. Now the only status I can assign is Bookmarked, or Finished.
Please consider bringing back some (most) of the old features, I think others might also appreciate them.
Another observation: With V3 I have not been able to click on words in the dialog and in the expansion exercises to put them into my vocabulary list. I’m not talking about the words listed under “Key Vocabulary”. I used to add any word in the lesson that I didn’t know. Is there a new way of adding this vocabulary that I am not aware of? I think this is crucial for anyone who is doing lessons out of order and trying to learn the characters so they can read the dialog in characters. Please tell me I’ve just missed something in the new format and there is a way to add all unknown words in the lesson to my personal vocabulary list.
Another suggestion: Not everyone who enters Chinesepod is computer savvy. Make it as user friendly as possible with step by step instructions on how the make the most of their experience while on the site. I think they will be appreciative. Not knowing how to navigate is really frustrating. It would be a shame to lose people because they don’t know how to obtain your wonderful information. Many of us know what you have to offer, so we’ll stick with you while you work these things out. But others don’t understand the benefits that you have so well hidden.
A couple of audio files still plagued with the chipmunk phenomenon:
Intermediate - Finding Live Music
Intermediate - Going to the Gym
In general, I’ve noticed that in the Intermediate level, files smaller than .6 MB or .7 MB are corrupt, but there are exceptions. Elementaries and Newbies, of course, have smaller dialog files by default.
Anyway, though, have to say I’m loving the new inclusions in V3!
I agree with others that the new “look and feel” of the home page does not capture the Chinese language and cultural learning aspect of the service look the old home page did. Can you make the Chinese characters more prominent than the podcast personalities - that’s what it’s all about for me.
Another comment unrelated to the web site: I’d like to see more variation in the host instructors of the podcasts. Don’t get me wrong - Jenny is great! But everything single podcast? A little too much. I think it’s good to listen to different native speakers and get different takes on the language and the topics.
I personnaly follow all the lessons from Newbie to Upper Intermediate. In the V2, I just to click once to register and I saw them all (in fact, I didn’t even have to register, but more convenient to do it right away.)
In V3, I click to register, then another click to go to this page with tens of options that are either redundant or don’t mean much to me, then another page where I have to click on each tab to check if there is a new lesson.
One click vs 5 or 6 clicks : great design …nooot !
Please HELP REDUCING OVERHEAD.
I think that I spend now more than 50% of my time in administrative work. Updating vocab-list, sheduling etc. Too much and boring. Is there an ERASE ALL button ?
When comparing V3 to old situation: Ok , much more functionality (needed or not: depends on user). But I agree with already mentioned difficulties.
My Problem is LOT OF TIME spending, e.g.:
- Navigating: me also not Nerd, so costs time. But maybe only in beginning
- Scheduling:
The ‘Drag to Calendar’ list is so long: I don’t know how to remove items from that list.
Moreover: so time-consuming, I have to drag them to a calendar only to make a schedule. I made a scheduled, but forgot How. Can I make anther schedule ? Can I rename schedule ?
- Using the schedule: I made already a mess: my list is about 40 lessons. I want to remove them, but only can do it ONE by ONE.
- Vocab list: I have about 430 items: every page contains about 10 items. So I have to handle 43 pages.
-
When I have to choose between old and new, I choose for OLD, despite the many good features of the new system. I don’t want to spend so much time on book-keeping.
About erasing an existing lesson list…
I just emailed ChinesePod and they did it for me. I’m sure they will do this for everyone who asks for it. I have kept my vocab list, but I’m sure they can do the same their side so that you do not have to delete x words one by one.
About scheduling lessons…
I think the problem has been solved now that there is “Bookmarked lessons” page. Before this there was a work-around, you just had to drop the lessons on today’s date in the calendar, as the “Scheduled list” shows you current and past due lessons.
About navigating the website and browsing lessons….
I fail to see what the problem is. There is a link on the home page (”levels”) that will take you straight to the archive page. This is when you don’t bother signing in. When you do sign in there is a link right there too (”Explore”).
Most people will stick to one level only, so it is actually a better solution not to mix up all the lessons, including extra stuff like Word on the street, the Saturday Show, etc. If you do several levels, you probably visit the CP website quit regularly, so you could just watch the link to “Today’s lesson”. Alternatively it may be a good idea to set up a RSS feed. I use the wonderful CPOD Forum Toolbar that has all these feeds already build in (http://cpodforum.forumtoolbar.com/)
Bookmarked lessons page: this helps a lot. Thank u Marc.
About vocab list:Review of my opinion: i study Chinese only for fun. Nice feature of vocab list is get the lessons where words are used, with pronunciation-button .Nice play-tool for me. But is the following possible ?:
- button for last page
- to define a default list, where alle the new marked words appear ?
Instead of putting a link to just “Today’s lesson”, why not add a link to “Yesterday’s lesson”. That would solve part of the problem and avoid setting up RSS or installing toolbars…just to have one functionality.
not all internet users are geeks !
Great companies listen to their users and adapt their products to user needs. Other companies spend their energy trying to convince users of why their way is best. I’m sure CPod will be anxious to show users which type of company it is by their response to V3 feedback.
I’m glad about the bookmared lessons link since I do not plan on using a calendar to plan what i will do on a particular day. but now i realize that the RSS feed only seems to include what dragged onto that calendar? Could it not just inlude my bookmared lessons. or better yet, let me make lists like i did in V2, to organize them the way i like.
I don’t know what i will do tomorrow, and barely know what day today is, so I doubt i will make the effort to use the calendar function.
Marc,
You should clearly state that you don’t work for Chinesepod.
Otherwise, it’s confusing to some readers (see Tom’s message)who may think (wrongly) that Chinesepod ignores their problems and lead them to solutions which are not appropriate to all them.
Well,
V3 is not working for me. First it just takes too many screens to go to where I want to go. For example, the blog was just one click away in V2, now I have to through 5 screens.
But most importantly, all I want to do is to continue with the intermediate lessons from where I left off in V2. So I can’t find the old data.. ok fine. I bookmark some lessons and nothing shows when I click “continue studies”. If I click “bookmarked” lessons, then every single lesson shows up.
The only alternative is to manually click on the lesson and go through the lessons which is LESS functionality than V3.
So much for progress
guillermo:
”For example, the blog was just one click away in V2, now I have to through 5 screens.”
Marc’s suggestion( very handy)
Alternatively it may be a good idea to set up a RSS feed. I use the wonderful CPOD Forum Toolbar that has all these feeds already build in (http://cpodforum.forumtoolbar.com/)
Um … thanks for the praise, but just for the record the CPOD Forum Toolbar has many of the feeds built in, but it is slightly out out date on a few others. We were kinda waiting for the dust to settle on V3 before revamping it a bit; shuffling things around, cleaning out obsolete links and adding a few new ones, etc.
Jingawei,
Why not also recommend xml files so that users could create their own web sites with Chinepod data ?
I use RSS but the average user doesn’t and doesn’t wish to bother.
Toolbars take screen place and should only be recommended if they add tremendous value, not just reducing the number of clicks.
FLASH PAINS - One other bandwidth problem I haven’t heard people mention is the Flash expansion sentences. Pretty much 9/10 times now, my browser locks up when I go to the Expansion or even Vocabulary tab as the browser attempts to connect and transfer from AmazonS3…
In general I don’t have the Flash problemswith AmazonS3 that Lantian mentions. Sometimes though, prbly 1/10, the orange loading icon seems to go on for ever and nothing gets downloaded.
However, when trying to ScrapBook expansion pages, while it does download all mp3s (large and small) when I return to the ScrapBooked page the page tries again to connect so in the end I can’t use Expansion when offline.
FLASH VS. SPIDEY - Hi Goulnik, hey maybe I also don’t have S3 bandwidth problem in terms of the expansion exercises. The downloading icon is also the same symptom I have, just I seem to have it all the time.
Two questions, are you in China and outside of BJ, Shanghai. And what browser do you use? I am using Firefox/2.0.0.3.
Lantian, I’m also using FF 2.0.03, out of Europe
Thanks for sharing
I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting! Look for some my links: