Hey,
The new FIRST website is up!
I like it. What does everyone else think?
Will take some getting used to…
I’m trying to find the regional info, the documentation for the old game, etc… and I can’t, yet.
Is this a hint!?
I think it’s pretty darn awesome!
The videos on the main page are pretty cool little segments as well.
Also, the 2007 manual page is up and ready for the sections to be linked to encrypted PDFs.
Yep… I found my way to it eventually…
already involved -> FRC -> Events
already involved -> FRC -> Documents and Updates
Bea-utiful.
But slow.
Generally, I like it.
I’m having a bit of trouble navigating though … I’m looking for the Form W9 and where to send it, but I can’t seem to find it (and site search returns 0 results). Anyone else have better luck? 
EDIT: If you go to What’s Going On In My Area? (the new team map) and look at FRC teams from X area, clicking on their team name now brings you to their personal website … it doesn’t give you the competitions they’ve attended, awards they’ve won, etc. 
I really liked being able to see that! I hope it comes back soon.
I like the look. I bemoan the use of pop-out menus, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it someday.
From what I have been able to do here at school its nice. And as others said it will take some gtiing used to, and it is also very slow.
One of the official notices:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=50275
The link to the W9 page through TIMS is broken, but it’s here:
http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc/content.aspx?id=462
You get there via:
Top-bar: Already Involved -> FRC
Side-bar: TIMS & Registration -> Registration Process
Here’s the short answer in case you’re feeling rushed: 
Please fax W-9 to 603-647-5772 (Attention: FIRST Finance).
I am finding it slow to load and harder to navigate than the old page. At first, I wasn’t able to get to any sub-sections of the website because the Javascript hadn’t loaded properly. Also, I am a bit worried about the main page’s mousing over images changing the video link, since that seems entirely unintuitive with nothing labeled.
It seems that now that everything is actually loading properly for me that the page is pretty nice looking and not too hard to use, but I wish the contrast on some of the text was higher and that the site wasn’t so completely reliant on Javascript. I don’t see a site map at the bottom and I am worried how my Wii will handle browsing it.
Eww, and the Javascript navbars prevent me from ctrl-clicking links to open them in a new tab. It just uses Javascript to change the current page. I really dislike when sites do that. It makes them a lot harder for me to pull down massive amounts of information from at once, and really is completely not necessary.
Ah, the FIRST Community, aka The Land of Little Patience
The official launch time isn’t until 1pm. I would tack on a couple hours afterwards for getting everything settled.
Slow but cool
No DOCTYPE declared, I wonder if that is causing some of the speed problems.
I want the Video. Will there be a copy in the KOP???
Cool, that gives me time to go shopping for presents and a good cup of eggnog coffee. YaY.
The speed problems seem to stem from both the server-side-scripting(/database?), and the actual rate at which the page is being sent. I’m getting a 2KB/sec download rate, and a 5-7 second delay before the server even starts sending the pages. Should be fine later?
The links to the team information pages are missing.
I hope this gets fixed.
The speed the site is loading made me wonder if somehow I missed a few weeks and it was kickoff Saturday.
I do like the blue shade on the side though. Anyone else missing a backing for the drop down menus? All I get is black text dropping down.
Wetzel
Just found the FIRST Alumni Community. I would guess that this will be around longer than the college networks that have come before…
Wetzel
Holy cow…I’m on a backbone connection at Purdue. This thing still hasn’t loaded; it’s been trying to load for 3 minutes.
Here is the RoboMom advice.
Give IT a day or so to work out the major glitches.
Let’s assemble a concise list of what isn’t working-stuff you can’t find, etc. Can we put this in a numbered document? Then the entire list can be forwarded up to the people that need to see it. Or if you don’t want to work as a group, can use the “website feedback” form under “quick links.”
For example:
- “If you go to What’s Going On In My Area? (the new team map) and look at FRC teams from X area, clicking on their team name now brings you to their personal website … it doesn’t give you the competitions they’ve attended, awards they’ve won, etc. I really liked being able to see that! I hope it comes back soon.”
Slllllllllllooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
But yeah, it’s nice, I’ll have to get used to it. Seems like they shifted the focus more away from team resources on the main page to a more “here’s what we are, support us” main page. Let me go around and use it during the season, then I’ll develop more of a mindset about the new site.