University Notes Blog

This week I pushed a few updates to the system that I hope folks will enjoy. First I updated/double checked the sorting on our data pages (ratings, content, classes) to ensure they were sorted in a way that made sense.

Second, when you login now you will see a quick list of all your classes and data about what was updated for each class. This gives you a quick way to see the most recent activity in the courses you care about.

I know a few of us students are always excited when school cancellations occur. However, when it is for a hurricane, I would rather be in school. We hope that all LA (and surrounding area) residents have taken the appropriate and necessary actions for the upcoming storm.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those who have lost their lives due to this powerful storm. Let's hope for a quick passing and rapidly weakening storm as it approaches our state.

-The UN Team

Yes, I broke the server again tonight, but just for a few minutes. I pushed some updates to the server that I hope folks will appreciate. The biggest change is a simple one - if you logon with a invalid value, we actually tell you now. Duh. Why didn't I code that before? Secondly, if you log on from some other page, when you authenticate, you will return back to the page you were visiting.

I also updated some of the links to be even shorter, since shorter is Web 2.0.

If you see anything wrong, let me know!

Hey Everyone! We are working on rejuvenating the University Notes blog. We hope to be able to bring you important campus news and events, which affect all college students. We will also be bringing back the "Student Steals" entries to let everyone know about great deals on the internet us college students can get our hands on.

So, how do you get a free iTunes gift card? Simply, leave us a comment, via the link below, regarding what kind of news you would like to see on the blog, what your favorite part of the UN site is, what we could do to make it better, or just anything you would like to say about the site. As long as you leave a comment (with a valid email address filled in on the form), you will be entered for the gift card.

From all of us at University Notes, we want to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. In the spirit of the day, we are thankful for all of our users. We cannot thank you enough for your continued use and support of the site. Please have a relaxing and food-filled day.

Cause we all know what is waiting for us at school when we come back... FINALS!

We noticed that we had a little bug in some of our email notification code. Apparently, some of the links sent to users in the emails were directing users to incorrect course pages.

We should now have this problem corrected. If you happen to receive an email notifcation that sends you to an incorrect course page, please let us know.

Some of you may have noticed a few new additions to the site. As of this weekend, we are excited about the addition of a few new features to the site that we think you all will be excited about as well. Below is a list of some of the updates/changes we have made.

Top Users Page: If you are one of those users who contribute all the time and always wanted your name in the spotlight, well now you have it. Top Users lists the top 50 users (by score) on University Notes. Want to make the list? You can increase your score by adding content, rating teachers, and having other users download material you have submitted.

Email Notifications: Always wondering when new content and/or comments have been added to one of the classes you are taking? University Notes now makes that easier by emailing you when new content and noteboard posts have been added to your courses. Make sure to "Add" courses to your "My Courses" section to receive these notifications. To opt out of receiving these notifications for your classes, simply tell us so under your account info section.

We Remember You: A common complaint from a number of users regarding the site was that you had to continually select your school when looking at courses and content on the site. No longer. When logged in, we know who you are and what school you go to, so the site automatically pulls up courses and content for your school by default.

Those were the major updates this weekend. You may also notice a number of aesthetic changes and formatting updates. Don't worry though. We got plenty more good stuff on the way for you! As always, please feel free to provide us with any comments, complaints or suggestions on how to make UN better for all our users.

-The UN Team

As of today, notes, tests, and other shared content on University Notes reached a major milestone. This user-submitted content has been downloaded over 100,000 times!

We work around the clock on ways to make the site better. Sometimes it is very time and energy consuming. However, when we see numbers like this, we can't help to be a little impressed ourselves. Many files on the site have been downloaded multiple thousands of times alone. So thank you to all our users! We can see there is a demand for what we do and what is being shared on the site.

So we'll make you a deal...

You keep sharing notes, tests, study guides, flashcards, diagrams, drawings, ratings and whatever else you think other students could benefit from, and we will keep working everyday to bring you a better University Notes!

The site has been updated and everything should be working normal. If you see anything wrong, please contact us. For folks who are interested - here is what we did...

First, I upgraded the server from ColdFusion 7 to ColdFusion 8. This is the latest version of the ColdFusion Application Server and has significant improvements, especially in speed. The site should now be running about 4 times faster than what it was before.

Secondly, I changed all the Ajax functions to use JSON instead of XML. This had a dramatic effect on the Ajax pages as it cut the amount of text going back and forth by more than half.

Some minor changes were done to both the "My Status" pod and your profile.

So all in all - everything should be zippier. What's next? Some cool new features, hopefully over the next two weeks. Let us know what you think!

Just a heads up for all our users. University Notes will be undergoing scheduled maintenance early Saturday morning. We expect occasional down times and/or possible interruptions of service around 8-9 am CST.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause to our users. Please bare with us as we work to make University Notes better for all of our users.