posted 10-16-2009 02:31 PM ET (US)        

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How can a company that makes such a sophisticated outboard have such a pitiful web site?

I cannot make the Evinrude.com web site work at all now. Their home page, http://www.evinrude.com/en-US/Flash/index.html has lots of links, but none of them work.

While I admit I have never been able to get their "find a dealer" link to work, at least I could view models and specifications. Now I cannot even do that. Nothing.

I have tried using both Safari and Firefox. Both yield identical, nonfunctional results.

I do wish that BRP would hire Jim Hebert to design their web site, loose the stupid flash and sound and end up with something useful.

posted 10-16-2009 03:13 PM ET (US)            

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Interesting. How many of you guys are using a MAC OS?

I was able to get the Dealer Locator to yield a pop-up in Firefox but after three minutes of waiting I finally get this error messsage:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e57'

[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]String or binary data would be truncated.

/scripts/DealerLocatorComponent_micro.asp, line 336

posted 10-16-2009 03:25 PM ET (US)            

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Will one of you guys with a PC look the nearest E-TEC dealer near Portland, OR for me?

Neither Evinrude.com nor Google.com seem capable of producing this information.

posted 10-16-2009 08:58 PM ET (US)            

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George,

Let me guess, you don't use a Mac.

posted 10-16-2009 09:41 PM ET (US)            

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Well, OK I may have a systemic problem on my machine. I use a Mac with 10.5.8 and prefer to use Safari as my browser. But it doesn't work with Firefox either.

We have three Macs in the house and have had anther two in the last two years running the last four versions of OSX. I have never gotten the "dealer locator" to work on any of the machines.

I've checked and adjusted all the usual things that can affect how one interacts with a web site, pop-up blocker, cookies, cleared the cache, etc. None of that makes any difference.

posted 10-16-2009 10:16 PM ET (US)            

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I'm a multi Mac and I the site works just fine including find a dealer. I'm haven't updated to Snow yet but I'm on 10.5.8 and everything is fine.

Not sure what the problem could be. plist? pRAM- weird man.

posted 10-16-2009 10:19 PM ET (US)            

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Tom-

I have a Dell laptop and an iMac 24". I have never had a problem with either computer on the Evinrude site.

The iMac has Leopard for the O/S and I use Safari for my browser. I am on the Evinrude site all of the time without problems, though I don't think I have ever used Dealer Locator.

Your problem sounds odd.

posted 10-17-2009 01:52 AM ET (US)            

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Using snow leopard as we speak. All the BRP features work fine with Safari right now, since I tested just before I sent this post. I also use Windows with Explorer, and Ubuntu Linux with Firefox, and everything worked the last time I tried them at BRP, which was only a couple of months ago.

-Peter

posted 10-17-2009 08:48 AM ET (US)            

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Tom -

The site works for me running Firefox but not Safari on a MacBook Pro, 10.4.11. Using version 10 r 32 of Flash.

I hate Flash embedded sites.

posted 10-17-2009 09:49 AM ET (US)            

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ASIDE: A few years ago the corporate parent company of my employer decreed that every employee in the corporation (over 20,000) must complete a series of on-line training and certification programs presented through HTML via a website. The creators of the web-based training had used so many unusual elements that the material could not be viewed unless the computer and browser were equipped with the precisely correct combination of add-on software, and a particular version of a particular web browser was used. To make matters worse, at the conclusion of each element of the training there was an examination which had to be taken. If the exam was passed successfully, a certificate had to be printed as proof of compliance. In addition to all the problems with the web presentation, there were also problems in printing the certificate, as it required special software as well.

Employees at our location were extremely frustrated in trying to view the web presentation, complete the training, pass the exam, and print the certificate. The achievement of learning the material became more or less a trivial matter compared to the task of assembling all of the software add-on components to the desktop computer that were necessary to take the training. In the end, the IT department had to build a couple of special computers, put them in certain locations, and all of the training had to be conducted using those computers. It was a valid use of hypertext and on-line training, but the method of presentation and delivery was hopelessly complicated by poor choices of software and techniques.

posted 10-17-2009 10:21 AM ET (US)            

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I'm glad to hear I'm not alone with my problems with the Evinrude website. I use a PC running Windows XP and Internet Explorer 8 with all the appropriate patches. Despite my best efforts at troubleshooting, I've NEVER gotten acceptable results from the Evinrude website. Usually the page just locks up and none of the links work. I've grown to hate the silly little spinning propeller. From time to time the site will work for me in a limited manner, but inevitably it locks up.

As a professional technical writer and instructor, sites such as Evinrude's, and stories like JimH relayed frustrate me to no end. Technology is no substitute for good, sound and simple design. Gee, good information design follows the principle of our Whalers!

posted 10-17-2009 12:12 PM ET (US)            

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Guys, that isn't a browser error, it's a SQL Server error.

It doesn't matter what browser you use, thier web server is calling a stored procedure thats trying to stuff a big string into a little string.