DTSL Williams' BackOffice for Orlando Web Design and Other Things

It’s not that I’m ignoring this site

DTSL Williams — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:20:36 +0000

It is really just that I haven’t gotten back to it with the dozen web sites I’m running on wordpress now. Related posts:Finally Done, Orlando Directory Site This Blog, This Site Five Ways to Tell if Your Site Sucks Related posts:

Five Ways to Tell if Your Site Sucks

DTSL Williams — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:51:43 +0000

Let’s face facts. There are more bad sites, than good sites and far many more horrible sites than great sites. Even great web designers can make bad web design choices. And just about anyone can see a bad website when they happen to find one.

Business web sites tend to be real offends as the web is an easy way to generate easy sales leads, connect with customers, and cut overhead on advertising. But for whatever reason or a number of reasons, many sites suck in one of Five Ways

Building an Unsafe Structure

You may or may not know it, but your site may be built like that dog house your father made when you were a kid. You know, the one the dog is terrified to go into and later collapsed from slight breeze. An intuitive website, a useful website, has a great simple structure behind it where every page is logically organized and placed. Navigating a site should be a simple affair allowing visitors to find what they need quickly. Every piece of information flows logically to a customer wandering around the site leading to the call to action.

You can tell if you have failed this if your friends -who have never seen the site- visit the website and get confused or have to ask questions about where things are or how to do certain things.

Choice Madness

I’m guilty of this. In an effort to answer every possible question, I sometimes find myself loading up every possible choice a visitor can make on the front page. To a visitor looking for one or two answers, 20 possible choices is confusing and overwhelming. Its good to have lots of stuff on your site, but everything has its own place where it belongs.

If you know exactly what your site is supposed to be doing, selling, and promoting than that should be up front. For example, a store should bring the customer right into the sales page first with the best deals, bargins, and buy-now right there. A car dealership may want to showcase it’s top cars, brands, and contact information. A service company would want its services, a place for quotes, and customer service in easy to find places. And so on.

Imagine your site as a Funnel. The widest part is where customers come in, and the narrowest part is where you close the sale. If your site has more than one exit point or the funnel is too broad, then you will be waiting too long for a sale or missing them as leads leak pest you.

Meet Randy Randomous R Randoms.

You can put anything on the web. Damn near anything. But a bunch of random items thrown on a web site is silly, inconsistent, and unprofessional. The more random junk on a site, the worse it is. On any site, content should be arranged consistently, with clean consistent graphics, good spacing, and familar placement of non-content items, such as menus and banners.

While this is not so much an issue anymore with template designs and easy access to sets of graphics, it does creep in after time or if more than one person updates your website. Anyone can see if a web site has random junk tacked on or not. They can also see if the flow content breaks from the insertion of bits of text, such as unnatural keywords, or from the deletion of text.

The more random your content and site appears, the more it sucks and the less likely customers and visitors will return for serious business.

Getting Old

Nothing is wrong with old sites, but everything is wrong if that old site of yours shows its age. Just as people fight to stay looking young, your web site should as well. Certain things on the web come and go, some are hear to stay, and a few become standards that will always be a must. It is the last two you must pay attention to. When reviewing a site, a lot of things can be discarded or should be ready to discard because they are fads. A good example is the proliferation of social networking icons. I’ve seen sites with 30-50 of those little icons on the site. Only 6 of which where really relevant. Many of these icons are useless or will become useless. Be ready to dump them.

While not updating is a key point, updating for the sake of updating is just as bad. Often these updates will contain no useful information which wastes a customer’s time. Update with relevant information and if you run a blog on your site, make sure you have a set schedule for updates. Normally I tell my clients to pick out 4 or 5 items for a month which relates to your company, services, products, and customers and post one a week or every other week. If you don’t have a blog, keep last-updated dates off of pages as you would other annoyances.

Another part of a site getting old is the use of dated styles for the design. Certain styles have no place on a web site today, like animated gifs and ‘click here’ and splash pages.

Welcome to Generation NOW!

Thanks to computers, a culture of Now, and ever pressing deadlines, people are impatient for what you have on your site. Don’t make them wait. They won’t. Your competitors won’t wait for you to screw up, they’ll exploit it. As a result, you make your customers wait for you. Serve them now with what they need, the result will be that they come back to your site and send even more traffic your way. Even more so if you give provide genuine help and answers to questions.

I’ve long said, the web shouldn’t be treated as regular TV/print/sales ads and more like a direct person to person conversation. If your customers and visitors feel like you are communicating and genuinely trying to help them get their needs met, they will slow down and respect that and listen to what you have to offer.

If you ignore them and proceed with your sales pitch and slam them with industry buzzwords, they will come to see you as ignoring them and as another salesman with a slimy pitch. On the web, this is an almost unforgivable sin a site can commit as once you break the trust your visitors and customers give you, they will never trust it again.

And then your site will really suck.

I know I don’t blog that much

DTSL Williams — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 06:27:23 +0000

Odd really. I love wordpress with a passion, building sites in it, writing content, and more. But beyond all my reasons, I simply cannot bring myself to stick to it. I blame youtube, the greatest time waster of the internet. Related posts:This Blog, This Site Calling Foul on the Republicans and Fox News It’s not that I’m ignoring this [...] Related posts:

Renters need More Protection

DTSL Williams — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:19:48 +0000

It dawned on me that while Obama’s Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act of 2009 is great for protecting unsuspecting renters from sudden eviction by a bank in the event of foreclosure, but it does nothing to protect renters, like myself, who have found out about the forclosure, has deadbeat landlords who are trying to evict me so they can scam someone else.

Even now, as I write this from work, my slumlord lanlord could be looting my home.

How is it that life has come to this?

Obama’s legislation should’ve allowed for a stay on any eviction proceedings when a home enters into forclosure. Owner or Bank initated.

But it doesn’t.

But that is the problem. We have a legislative body, party doesn’t matter, that isn’t interested in the public welfare, but it keeping their jobs. The legislature shouldn’t worry about getting reelected, they should be concerned with improving the life of all americans, not letting foreign powers and interests rip us all off.

That New Car Smell, Last Year’s Model

DTSL Williams — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:22:57 +0000

Last Week I posted about the overhaul of this blog. After spending three days and two nights working on it, I managed to recreate the old theme, discarding the K2 options completely. I also took steps to overhaul and renovate the archive pages and post pages along with adding in some new features.

There are many more changes to come, but for now my mind is focused on this move to a new home.

While I haven’t discussed it to much, my home, a rental, is in foreclosure at the moment and it seems the bank is claiming it this Friday. Not only have I been cheated out of my money for over a year by this deadbeat landlord, but now I have 2 days to find a new home and money to put down for it.

This Blog, This Site

DTSL Williams — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:31:36 +0000

I think it’s time for a changeToday, as we celebrate our nation’s birth, I can’t help but look upon this domain. It needs work, it really does. It needs some vast and drastic improvements. Originally this was a theme for wordpress 2.1 which I have, over time, upgraded and modified.

But I think it’s reached an end of its ability and the script is in need of being swept aside and replaced.

Got a Big Hat, But No Cattle

DTSL Williams — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 04:37:52 +0000

I realize now that these posts are actually, and to some extent, about lying to people. But in business you do have people who lie and people who are honest and then the final group who are honestly believe their lies.

I know a lot of people who are big on promises, short on delivery. In some aspect, my previous post was all about one such person. In most organizations, there is someone like that. Sometimes it is the leader, or a new sales man, or some contractor or even one of the regular employees who has an ego in need of check.

I hold high self-opinions in low regard.

You know, now that I think about it, In the last 5 years I’ve met and worked with at least a dozen people like this. Now most of the time they left on their own accord, unable to meet their high goals, they simply walked away from the job. Other times, they stuck in there and failed to deliver only to be called out by their coworkers creating a ‘difficult’ situation.

Recently, most recently, one of my clients was approached by an oil drilling firm whom had great plans to drill in texas for oil, but needd an investor. Now they made this deal sound great. So my client called his bluff and asked to see his books, meet in person and meet with his lawyer. Never heard from that snake oil tycoon again.

Lesson Learned

Know yourself, Know your limits and abilities. Know what you can deliver. Never brag when you have nothing to back it up because there is always someone who can play poker better than you.

Too Clever By Half

DTSL Williams — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 02:50:09 +0000

Sometimes being right isn’t enough. Sometimes people make a point of being right and thinking they are right about everything. I’d say “We’ve all met the type of person before…” but then I’d be reading your mind so I’ll get started witht he article.

‘Winning the battle, but loosing the war’, ‘Pyrrhic Victory’, and ‘Being a Know it All’ all fall into the same category of unlikability.

I’ve recently worked with one such individual, who has made a point of making himself appear to know more than anyone else. He’d argue with me and those around him not because he was right, but because he demanded everyone acknowledge he was right and superior in knowledge than him — Despite having a complete lack of knowledge or experience in the areas in question.

I would cite exact incidents, but as it relates to current projects, I find myself bound by ethics to hold back.

Needless to say, the person in question made a great show of grandstanding his ability to sell and generate revenue. He spent a significant amount of time doing this for prospective clients and spent even more time pursuing leads in a method that many, many people would consider ‘out-moded’. While I give him this, he is courteous, kind, and polite with people, once you stray into technical details or personal experience, his one-up-you ability kicks on and starts to annoy.

To this day, he is yet to close a sale on his own.

Twice now, he has managed to get himself cut from easy sales because of his inability to stop trying to out-do the customer and talk himself right out of an easy sale.

Lesson Learned

Don’t be too smart for your own good. You could end up cutting off your own nose.

Putting Lipstick on a Pig

DTSL Williams — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 01:57:18 +0000

I’ve heard this phrase since I was a kid. Ann Richards rode it to her governorship of texas. Recently it was a weak attempt to paint a future president as sexist. But this phrase has a fundamental truth to it and a lesson to be learned.

An ugly situation cannot be improved with window dressing. No one is fooled by such antics and lies eventually catch up and ruin one’s reputation while breaking the trust in a single blow. Some think they can rake in a lot of money with some smoke and mirrors, but sooner or later people find out that they are being tricked.

I met a guy once, and to be honest I didn’t really want to pay attention to him. I was just there as an extra ear to help evaluate the offer. He had a simple plan. He wanted to ‘ally’ with local businesses to improve their ability to get leads, make money, and purchase materials at a better price by pooling resources. But the truth was that every business involved has to give up their hard earned business names, transfer ownership – in part at least – to him, and work under him. He would pay you a wage for this and oversee the operations.

It was a fucking take over con disuguised as a business association.

Well, when he called me (bypassing my client) and told me that he spoke to them and they had agreed to it. Okay. He then told me to move their site to his server, forward all their emails to him, and re-brand their site with his information and forward their domain to his. He also asked me to schedule a time with his guys for them to come over and rebrand all of my clients trucks with his branding and give him the business phone account information to my client so he can move the lines.

Yeah Right.

I talked it over with my client and he understood very clearly what was being done and severed all contact this this shady fellow.

Flash forward a few years later, My Client is bidding on a contact worth 120 grand a year against this guy. My Client won the client because he was honest, open, and transparent about his business while the Shady Fellow was busy presenting himself as the “National Conglomerate” he wasn’t.

Lesson Learned

Don’t make stuff up. Don’t EVER lie to clients. They check, they investigate, and they WILL catch you in a lie if you lie.

The Dog That Won’t Hunt

DTSL Williams — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 01:38:15 +0000

Last Week I talked about customer and client loyalty, this week I’m going to talk about choosing the right hunting dogs for business. Actually, it is about wasting time and not wasting time.Because we all know, even if we haven’t been on a hunting trip, that brining along a dog that won’t hunt doesn’t make one bit of sense. Yet every day I see it happening all the time. How many prospects can we count that just strung us along for months, without any real intention of investing in the products of services offered?

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and rationalize why the deal hasn’t closed, but I do realize that I have to be honest and understand that some people won’t be clients.

I’ve learned this one the hard way too. I spent a significant amount of time trying to convince a prospective client of the need for a strong unified brand and the need to know his clients. In reality, he just wanted a basic website and a business card. In the amount of time I spent making my case, I could’ve spent that time going after other leads and building new business for myself.

This scenario happens far too much and far too many businesses waste too much time on dead leads. Now I try to work on as many leads as possible to improve my odds and I’ve now added the all important question, “Tell Me What You Need” to my client discussions.

Lesson Learned

Find the Dog that Hunts, Keep Him Happy, and Success Follows.

Dancing with the Date that Brung Ya

DTSL Williams — Mon, 25 May 2009 01:37:30 +0000

To be fair, I’m not someone who has been in business for long. But in my short time, I’ve learned a lot of good advice, wit, and experiences that are worth repeating. This southern quote, I oft repeat because of its value not just to myself, but to those around me.

You see, for some reason specific people are prone to severe cases of amnesia after things go their way, they meet success, and enjoy the boon of it and are often the first ones to call upon you when they need a favor — but are never there when you need a favor. We have all met those types.

I remember walking on to a Marina whom was facing bankruptcy, had a website crafted by some kid, and an inventory of only six run down boats and no idea what the web or marketing on the web was about. They wanted a website. I needed work. I was a kid myself, barely 21.

I worked with them for nearly 2 years, and while I won’t take all the credit for their turn around, I know the web site I built for them proved highly successful and allowed them to generate new business that they didn’t have before. On more than one occasion they attributed the turn around and successful growth in their marketing to the website I built. Of course, eventually they were wooed by another web designer/design group and ‘traded up’ some time after I ended my responsibilities with them. I haven’t seen or heard much about them lately and last time I drove past their property, it was full of old inventory. In fact, I visited the new site and was surprised but how common it has become. that was all several months ago.

Several months when I got a call from them about the site that is. Needless to say, I didn’t take the business offer to resume my work on their site. My own work consumes most of my time,

The Lesson I Learned

Be good to those who helped you before you were a success and don’t forget them when you succeed.

Orlando Web Directory Updates March 2009

DTSL Williams — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 14:28:10 +0000

It’s been a while, but its about time I did some housecleaning in the directory. There are a lot of bad links out there, but these are a bunch I’ve forgotten to take care of and remove and I’m sure there are more to remove.

New Links

kidsshapeitup.com, orangecycleorlando.com, juliecopeland.com, a photographer was added.

Updated Links

Santa Fe Community College, Florida Coastal School of Law, State Archives of Florida moved and is now updated to reflect that.

Dead Links

takashracecraft.com, bennetttruckequipment.com was removed after goall.com started squatting it.
drumdoctor.com, adorablebodies.com, orlandofreelance.com, komencentralflorida.com, centralfloridaspeaker.com was removed after their site expired.
clinicalesthetics.com, gah! goall.com squatting again.
suncoastdharma.org, cfvadfas.tripod.com, moaafl.org/chapters-clubs/fl05.html,nsmpalaw.com, mickface.com, icepilots.com, americanmarineind.com, properbodyfuel.com, rawjidds.com, lanakilas.com, home.earthlink.net/~uahospital8873, vintragon.com, volocommunications.com, ocalaartgroup.org, spspublication.com, orlandoautorental.com, mauricepine.com, jaxcudas.com, dbcc.edu, gainesvillefilm.com, fvmr.org was deleted after I found the domain had expired.
pbw.cc, gotha.ocps.net, boonebraves.ocps.net, dphs.ocps.net, hunprep.ocps.net, orhs.ocps.net, racerock.com, ffwiki.net, was deleted as the site had closed.
orlandozen.org, spruegames.com, magic-balloon-party-clown.com, wqh.com, platinumplusauto.com, marmotgraphics.com was taken over by squatters and removed.
wigsforless.net and mhosjewelry.com merged with another site and was removed as redundant

Links Pending Deletion

jdbyriderflorida.com was dead, now has a pending construction sign up so I’ll give it another month.
VeteransPartyofAmerica.com, erights4all.com, atheistfoxholes.org, eolawinecompany.com, imagescarcare.com, seasidemusictheater.org appears dead, but may simply be moving hosts or suspended. They’ll get a month
happyharmonies.com appears to have been hacked by mal-ware spreaders and is now pending delete.
see-idoux.com has thrown up a 403-forbidden page and is pending delete unless a site reappears

Orlando.Searchr Development

As you may have noticed, recently our thumbnail provider websnapr have lowered their cap for how many thumbnails can be generated from 600+ to less than 100. While I’m considering snapping off the 600+ myself, I’ve changed to artviper’s service in the meantime.

I’m also considering abandoning the scripts in use now for something more versatile, or even a wordpress customization. I do feel that Orlando.Searchr needs a major overhaul to some degree, but I believe that it might wait until summer as the recession has ruthlessly killed off sites and I’d like to wait and see how business on the net does before I do that. As it stands, OrlandoSearchr has dropped from a high of 693 sites to 607 in three months.

Sunday Humor at Pizza Hut

DTSL Williams — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 02:59:00 +0000

An image I found over at failblog.org, one is left to wonder if sometimes not putting a message up is better than putting up a message that might confirm any long-standing questions on if pizza hut offers pizza.

Bioshock plans a star wars-esque future

DTSL Williams — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 02:23:49 +0000

What news flows down the great chain today. While I’m a fan of Bioshock, I’m left perplexed by the statements of Christoph Hartmann and his plan to create 5 more sequels to the successful game.

For fans of the game this is great news. President Christoph Hartmann (2K) said that he hoped to emulate star wars. Interesting given that same speculation on the Bioshock sequel “Sea of Dreams” (expected 2009) might connect back to the building of the game’s city of Rapture. Could future sequels follow the arcs of characters like Andrew Ryan or Fontaine during their respective rises and downfall?

I’m a big fan of the game, it’s a fun and great adventure in the survival-horror/first person shooter genre of games that the Xbox 360 dominates. I’m left wondering how they can assemble 5 more games worth of material and how much demand there will be fore five games. Then again they keep churning out crap Sonic the Hedgehog games and Mario has chased the same princess for what seems like decades on end and they keep making money.

In the meantime, I’ll sit and wait and enjoy trying to unlock more achievements in Bioshock.

Here is the link to the MCV Story.

The Speech McNasty wanted to give

DTSL Williams — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:30:20 +0000

We all know Sen. John McCain (R) ran one of the nastiest and most brutal campaigns in history, in addition to the most erratic campaign. Now over at cracked.com they’ve spliced together the speech McCain more than likely wanted to give.

The sad part of this speech is that many republicans feel that way about the elections.

It’s Soooo sweeet.

DTSL Williams — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:59:39 +0000

5 Reasons Why Falling Behind Ends Up with Someone Kicking Your Ass

DTSL Williams — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 05:08:12 +0000

We all do it sooner or later. Procrastinate, put things off, get in over our own heads, you name it. Falling behind on work, I believe, does two things to you.

Destroys your morale to the point where you don’t want to do it because you become ashamed of not having done it to begin with. This vicious depression it causes brings even the best workers to their knees.
Destroys faith in your ability to deliver upon your word. It destroys trust that others have on you to the point where they don’t rely on you. Even if its friends joking around, it hurts you and impacting the shame brought on by the former item.

So by recognizing some of the reasons, we can identify the problem and thus develop a solution. Putting things off is really a series of small problems that can create bigger problems and bigger headaches for your later.

1.) I’ll have more time later.

This is the destroyer of worlds. Don’t put it off now, because you don’t know for certain – absolute certainty – that you will have time later. If you have the time now, do it now. That way you won’t forget about it and you won’t need to panic later when something comes up and you can’t do it. This excuse for putting off tasks always, always, always will come back and bite you square in the ass.

The best solution to this is immediate action. Just do it now and get it over with. That way you’ll have more time later to do what you want and need to do.

2.) It’s only a small bit of work, so it can wait.

More than once I’ve thrown a small bit of work aside in favor of other tasks and my own free time – only to forget about it for weeks. In an office environment, putting a few sheets of paperwork off each day can end up with a backlog of lost paperwork stretching back for months. You know what that means? It means long hours spent tracking down paper, embarrassment, and angry people. All aimed right at you.

Again, simple solution for this act of laziness. Just do it now and get it out of your way. Not only with the tasks be done, but you won’t loose things and you’ll be able to say you were on top of things.

3.) I just don’t feel like doing it right now.

I hear you on this. There are days where time could be better spent by relaxing and deferring tasks to a later time. Fun. The problem is, other people don’t care what you feel like doing, they care about what they want you to do for them. Also putting things off burns away time that you might need if complications arise. Let’s say you don’t feel like registering to vote until the deadline but miss an important part of the form. You won’t know about that until you find out you can’t vote. Too bad for you, you procrastinated.

Simple solution. Just do it. You might not want to do it, you’ll more than likely drag your feet at it. But do it. In life, we all do things we don’t want to do but we have to because its a requirement. No one likes doing the dishes, but I know what is worse than cleaning the dishes. It’s cleaning out a sink full of rotting food and maggots.

4.) They can wait.

Any time you are engaged in work for someone else, they expect said work to get done on the agreed upon time (better if done sooner but rarely rewarded). This reason for not getting work on is pretty bad. This is you telling someone who may very well be counting on you or paying you or both that you don’t care about the task at hand. It’s an angry dismissal of a task at hand that has only one logical conclusion.

Someone gets angry with you.

This can be prevented by holding true to your word and getting the task done at hand and if they do need to wait, you need to tell them before the deadline passes. It’s always better to ask forgiveness before the transgression is committed.

5.) Lies

Lying is the next stage of putting things off too much. Once you fall behind, a nice little excuse or white lie is made to cover your ass. As you fall further behind, you’ll dig a deeper and deeper hole with those lies. Meanwhile, the people counting on you keep loosing respect for you and get angrier. Lying breaks trust with people and it’s rarely possible to recover from that.

Best to avoid it all together.

Didn’t I make a long-time-no-see post before?

DTSL Williams — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:19:21 +0000

But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy. I’ve been building websites and developing content and fixing up the old place for the coming months. I still have lots to do. Hell, I still need to clean my place up and sort out my dirty laundry. I have lots to talk about to. From politics to web design to rampancy.

The fact of the matter is that I’ve been busy, and I haven’t been. I really ought to be more productive so I will strive to do so. As for what I’ve been up to, read on.

This Election, I’m voting against Big Oil.

DTSL Williams — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:52:24 +0000

June/July/August Orlando Web Directory Updates

DTSL Williams — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:29:51 +0000

Well, I really aught to have been doing these monthly, but I haven’t done to much to be honest on the website as of late. Been busy hither and tither.

But for the updates to OrlandoSearchr or the Orlando Web Directory.

new features and changes

New Directory Topic added for Classic Cars, this can be found under Orlando Automotive.
Link re-order and condensation of directory listings underway.

new sites in the directory

Bob’s Classics, Inc Dealership added under Classic Cars
Vintage Motors of Sarasota Dealership added under Classic Cars
Hyman Ltd. Classic Cars added under Classic Cars
Electoral Vote Tracker site was added under Presidency
Hunter Marine added under Boating
Precision Boat Works added under Boating
Don’s Boating Supplies added under Boating
Com-Pac Yachts added under Boating
BoatTree added under Boating
BMC Boats added under Boating

sites removed from the directory

Rad Distribution LLC was purged from the index on 7/14/2008.
Vero Beach Dodgers were removed from the index on 7/14/2008

Robert F Kenndy Jr exposes the phony conservatives

DTSL Williams — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 22:56:32 +0000

Here’s an amazing video by Robert F Kennedy jr, whom I feel isn’t as strong of a speaker as his father and uncles, brings the point home still.

His comments are very true and I think in this day and age, we need to start looking back at those whom upheld the law and use their example to restore the republic.

Why can’t http error pages be sexy?

DTSL Williams — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 23:47:30 +0000

While I took obvious cues from the upcoming firefox 3’s security design I could not help but make a set of my own. I simply fell in love with firefox’s clever, clean, and usable design, so I shamelessly imitated the look. I plan to visit it and start putting my own twists and takes on it.

Originally, I had patterned my “Notice of Site Take Down / Closure” after the FireFox Reported Site Attack warning page. Pretty snazzy, eh? First pass I gnarled up the spelling and punctuation gloriously. Pleased with the results, I took to adapting it to my other error pages and I aim to deploy it across all of my managed domains.

With my 404 page, which was patterned off of a bastard combination of a Microsoft red screen of death and a mac os kernel panic I had implemented a very useful 404 java script found at A List Apart. Originally red, I changed it to orange before finally arriving on a blue with a magic eight ball 404 page.

Then I moved on to 403 errors, which is better known as a forbidden page error. A quick red shield and it was read to roll. It was originally very unfriendly, but I decided to make it a bit nicer. The result was a red page (originally to be yellow with a lock) for my custom 403 error forbidden page.

now the final page, often done by my own misadventures in programming, is the 500 http error page. This one has a bit more humor and engrish in it including a lengthy rant about conspiracy theorists being responsible for everything from World War 2 to Sliced Bread. Enjoy my paranoid 500 error page.

now this wouldn’t be complete without the codes to make it work in my .htaccess file. All I added was:

ErrorDocument 404 /404.html
ErrorDocument 403 /403.html
ErrorDocument 500 /500.html

And then I was done.

Now I got some handsome and delightfully professional error pages.

Hopefully no offense to the original designers of the firefox error pages.

Meet Angus. Angus Likes Chips.

DTSL Williams — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 22:50:23 +0000

Angus is like any other kid and loves chips. Of course, he hates paying for anything. So naturally he tries to match his brains against that of a vending machine. A clearly more intelligent opponent.

Did I mention that Angus, like a dog I once knew of the same name, likes chips way too much.

Something to Think about

DTSL Williams — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 16:11:10 +0000

In that what the fuck kind of way.

You have to wonder how bad that person’s eyesight was to make a fuck up like that.

Every reason you need to not buy Chinese in one truck

DTSL Williams — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:46:34 +0000

Just think about this. The people who make this truck are the same type of people who send products to the untied states via a thousand differing means and want to start taking over US auto making markets.

This truck, this video of a truck crash test underscores everything about why China’s industrial complex is…

1.) Dangerous to all forms of life
2.) Should be barred from import
3.) A limited threat to world economy once safety standards are enforced.

Science, Religion, and a Room

DTSL Williams — Mon, 26 May 2008 15:31:37 +0000

a classic debate about religion vs science expressed in the form of a 12-panel comic strip.

All credit goes to the author that came up with this.

10 Questions I Respectfully Demand all Religions to Answer.

DTSL Williams — Thu, 22 May 2008 15:03:29 +0000

While the following video demands these questions be answered by all Christians, I must respectfully demand that this video be answered by folk of all faiths. Why?

Because these are questions that must be answered.