Site Issues and Updates

26
Dec

2011

The 10 Most Commented-Upon Posts On The Gondola Project (2010)

As this time of year brings reflection, we thought it a good idea to take this week to look back upon The Gondola Project and revisit of our successes from the past two years. 

Since we didn’t do such a thing last year (and because the site was just barely a year old), we’ve decided to start this week with a way-back look at the 10 Most Commented-Upon Posts on The Gondola Project from 2010 and tomorrow we’ll revisit those from 2011.

Note: If you’re new to the site, feel free to join the conversation and add to the debates found below:

  1. Dwell Times
  2. A Toronto Gondola System
  3. The Problem With Metrocables
  4. Squaw Valley Funitel Stats
  5. Weekly Roundup – October 2, 2010
  6. A Silver Bullet Urban Gondola Transit System
  7. Rio to Open Urban Gondola System This Year – The Complexo do Alemao Teleférico
  8. The Koblenz Rheinseilbahn, Part 2: The Vehicles
  9. Inflexible Inventory
  10. Chinese Tunnel Bus


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08
Nov

2011

For New Visitors: Site Updates (New Material Below)

Women, too. Image by flickr user Sean MacEntee.

Regular readers of The Gondola Project know we’re under going some renovations and changes on the site. But for new visitors, we realized they could land on the site and be completely unaware of the fact.

As such, we just wanted to take the time to let new visitors know that if you come across a page or post that seems incomplete or has some sort of problem with it, it’s being worked on. Please have a little patience and it will get sorted out. Changes are scheduled to all be complete by month’s end.

This message will likely remain here for the next week or so, but be rest assured that new material can be found below.

Thanks!



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25
Oct

2011

Cable Cars and Gondolas on Flickr

We’ve been undergoing a pretty significant rebuild/reorganization of the site and it’s progressing well. One thing we’ve wanted to do is improve our integration with Flickr and expand our offerings.

So while our Image Gallery Page lists only 12 different galleries, we’ve actually created a total of 35. They all can be viewed here. We’ll be adding direct links to those galleries to The Gondola Project shortly, but we wanted to share those galleries with you now.

The goal is to get the number of galleries up to around 50 or 60 in the near future.

In addition: You’ll notice that some galleries have been appended with a “(CC)” indicator. These are images that are licensed under the Creative Commons which means you can use them in your own work free of charge.

Galleries without the “(CC)” indicator, meanwhile, are populated with content that is fully copyright-protected.

One of the goals of this site has been to make the “discovery” of cable as easy as possible for researchers, students and reporters. Providing quick and easy access to hundreds of CC-licensed images helps reinforce that goal and we hope they help.

Note: Before using any CC-licensed images in your own work, it is essential that you familiarize yourself with The Creative Commons and understand what your legal obligations and/or restrictions are when using said images. CUP Projects is in no way libel or responsible for misuse of CC-licensed images in your work.



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18
Oct

2011

Conceptual Designs Wanted

For the upcoming 2 year anniversary of The Gondola Project, we’d like to dedicate a week purely to conceptual gondola plans created by Gondola Project readers.

Concept plans such as those created for Pittsburgh, Seattle or Toronto invariably spur some of the most interesting discussions on the site and generate a lot of local interest. Furthermore, they take the idea of Urban Gondolas out of the realm of the fantastical and theoretical and ground it in reality.

As such, if you’re a student, professional or armchair enthusiast with an interest in Urban Gondolas and an idea or concept plan for a route or system in your city, please send us an email at gondola (at) creativeurbanprojects (dot) com and we’ll make sure to feature you and your work in late November / early December.

Note: If your concept/idea exists on another website (or your own website), we’ll be happy to link to it.



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06
Oct

2011

Site Updates: Weekly Roundup and Sunday Stats

As of this week, The Gondola Project will discontinue posting on Saturdays and Sundays. Recent developments and a large surge in readership have caused us to rethink our strategy and focus on high-quality posts during the prime readership days of Monday through Friday.

We’re hoping this will result in a shift from quantity to quality and help to facilitate our rebuild and reorganization of the site.

For those interested, The Weekly Roundup will shift from Saturday to Friday (and commence tomorrow) while The Sunday Stats With Nick Chu will shift to a new web-based urban application CUP Projects be launching in the coming couple months.

These are exciting times for Creative Urban Projects (CUP, CUP Projects, whatever you like) and we are so truly grateful for the support everyone has extended us. Your participation, enthusiasm and generosity are an inspiration to us to keep improving what we do and how we do it.

We can’t wait to share what’s next . . .



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30
Sep

2011

Gondola Project Revamp

Next week Nick, Julia and I will be rehabilitating, refurbishing and revamping The Gondola Project.

While the site continues to experience a growing readership and subscriber base, there’s simply too many usability issues. We want to make the site as useful and easy for people as possible and it just isn’t right now.

Three things I want to see in the new update:

  • Ongoing project pages – Projects that are in the planning, construction or testing phases with up-to-date links to reports, updates and commentary.
  • Conceptual gallery – We’re gathering a pretty good set of urban gondola concepts and it would be great to compile them all in one place.
  • Image gallery – I’d really like to improve the functionality of the image galleries so that they’re more than just links to our flickr group.
  • And speaking of the flickr group – we need to spend some time organizing it. It’s a total mess right now.

I’m sure there will be more beyond those, so if you have anything you’d like to see more of (or less of) let us know in the comments. Furthermore, if there’s a feature on the site you’d like to see but currently don’t, let us know as well.

This will be a far more comprehensive overhaul than our last few minor updates, so please let us know what you’d like to see.



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16
Sep

2011

The Logic of Hotel Wi-Fi

Sorry for not getting a post up yesterday. It’s been a very hectic week of projects, presentations and travel. I did, however, want to share an experience that just truly blew my mind:

I’m currently staying in a hotel with the typical “free wi-fi” amenity. Now let’s ignore the fact that “free wi-fi” typically means “wi-fi that doesn’t work or is embarrassingly slow” and focus instead on an unbelievable hotel policy that makes their “free wi-fi” entirely and utterly useless.

As tends to happen in smaller, old hotels, wi-fi networks crash – a lot. Been there. Done that. Doing it tomorrow. All that’s typically required to fix the problem is a quick phone call to the front desk asking them to reset the network.

Thirty seconds later, you’re back up an running.

But what happens when the reset button is located in the locked “money counting room” (as the night desk clerk described it) where only senior management and ownership can access it?

What happens when the likelihood of a network crash is at its greatest during the peak usage hours of 6 – 9 pm, well after senior management and ownership has gone home for the night?

What happens when the network crashes 3 times in less than 24 hours?

I’m sure ownership has some very sound and logical rationale for putting their network reset button in a locked room accessible only to themselves (likely for some perceived rather than actual increase in security), but such policy is utterly unworkable for the day-to-day runnings of an old hotel in a major city.

I’m sure Rube Goldberg would be proud.

At best, policy crafted in a space devoid of implementation and practice is useless. At worst, it can disrupt the natural processes and flows we’ve all come to know and rely upon.



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