This is a follow up post to one at Ben Forta’s blog: WebKinz - How NOT To Cater To The Young.
Both my kids got WebKinz for Christmas. They also got a new computer which I discuss here.
When we finally found some time to ‘register’ the Webkinz I found out where all the old Flash programmers who no longer program those idiotic splash screens go to die…
First - we booted up the kid’s new computer (running Edubuntu) and tried there. No go even though I had just installed the latest version of Flash. They had some form of captha going on and we couldn’t see the letters. Reading their ‘help’ section - they suggested NOT using AOL and upgrading to Internet Explorer 7.
This is when I suspected things were going to go downhill.
And indeed they did as we trundled off downstairs - the kids clutching their Webkinz and their father mumbling obscenities under his breath about Microsoft and Flash.
We cranked up my wife’s PC (Windows XP) and logged in as one of my daughters. Using IE7 we clicked through the tedious registration screens and… WTF - still no letters! I then updated Flash on my wife’s computer. Back through the registration. Still no letters! For kicks I tried Firefox. No letters.
By this time the kids had wondered off and I was mentally composing an email to WebKinz composed of nothing but 4 letter words…
Next I decided to try to login as myself as both the kid’s accounts are limited. Again, I clicked through the registration screens and this time was greeted with a hazy, difficult to read captcha. Success!
I have no idea why this didn’t work using the kid’s accounts or for that matter on Edubuntu. All in all - it was a tedious, painful experience that could have just as easily been done in HTML using a few simple forms and been cross browser/platform compatible and the only thing we would have missed was an annoying talking duck.
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8 Comments
While I agree the navigation leaves a little to be desired, I (and my 5 year old daughter) have never had any problems with the above. We use the site on Mac OSX 10.4 with Firefox 2, Mac OSX with Firefox 3 and Win XP with Firefox 2 and IE 7.
However, I will say that trying to use the site Xmas day was not even an option as their servers weren’t handling the load very well and they maybe why the captcha was not showing up. We couldn’t even get in to the account to play the games or anything, much less register a new pet.
Yes, I should have noted… we did try registering Xmas day but as you said the servers were overloaded. We ran into these issues on Saturday.
I am suprised at how many of the kids sites are totally in flash. I guess it makes sense with the games and heavy interactivity. I just wonder what they web will look like in 15 years when that age bracket is the cutting edge web designers.
My daughter registered hers on OSX 10.4 with Safari, and plays a lot with XP and Firefox.
After the PC died, we went Mac. The kids got a mini for Christmas. We have been unable to get past the Webkins log-in screen (we get “loading” but it never loads) to access previously established accounts. I’ve downloaded flash player, but no luck. I’ve attempted through Safari and AOL. I thought it was due to heavy web site traffic, but our neighbors use PC and have had no problems. Any suggestions?
Greg
I just tried again from my MacBook Pro with Leopard and using FireFox 3 Beta 2 and also Safari 3.0.4. Both have the latest flash player available from Adobe and both worked just fine for me.
I would maybe try FireFox 3 if you are having problems (and the beta of FF3 seems even more stable than the constantly crash FF2 on the Mac). You can get it here.
@Greg - unfortunately I can’t offer an Mac help - see Mike’s suggestions… You may also want to blow away and saved cookies and clear your cache.
We got a Webkinz for Christmas and have only been able to login twice since then (despite numerous attempts). We have a mac and I’m wondering if that is the problem. My niece has no problem getting on, but she has a PC.
Any advice on how to get logged in??
Thanks!
I’d try Firefox on the Mac and make sure you have the latest Flash installed. My kids run into occasional problems now and then but for the most part things are working great with Edubuntu…