Archive for November 2003

In this Bob the Angry flower picture, he’s furious about apostrophes. I’m on board with him. [Link: Tara Calishain]

Clueless Mailers’ Spamdemic Research Center: The Spamdemic(TM) Map shows the spammer relationships as well as relationships among spammers and other entities. The creator of the map set out to figure out how spammers were getting his email address and thus, the map was born. [Link: DMXzone]

Angryflower published an angry cartoon about using its and it’s correctly. Enjoy the Unwelcome Education product. [Link: Tara]

When IE 6.0 came out, designers and others were wanting a way to run multiple versions of IE on one computer. Microsoft set it up so that only one could be running. No more! Multiple Versions of Internet Explorer shows you how to do it and includes downloads going back to IE v3.0! I believe there are very few using anything older than v4.0.

Remember the golden rule — don’t try to make a Web site look EXACTLY the same in all browsers. It’s a lost cause.

Buy Outwitting Writers’ Block: And Other Problems of the Pen TODAY (November 19) and get over $100 worth of stuff free. It’s good till 11:59 PM your time. I am so mad at myself, I meant to post this earlier, but got distracted. You can see my review of the book.

After you buy it, forward your receipt to outwitting@sendfree.com, and you’ll immediately get access to all of your bonuses.

Lockergnome has a new Web site and newsletter design and I’ve been dealing with the flood of feedback emails, most not happy. Plus, I’ve been working with Chance (the talented designer) and Jason to determine what we need to fix based on reader feedback. After almost three weeks of fire put-outing, readers are happy with the latest iteration.

Somewhere in there, I got a cold and could barely talk. Spent my days and nights coughing while managing The Remediator and InformIT. The Remediator has an enthusiastic and involved audience and I’m still answering their emails from the first issue (September). It’s great communicating with readers even though it’s got me snowed under (no snow here in Texas, otherwise).

On Monday, I had to have an endoscopy, something I must do every two years since I’ve been diagnosed with Barrett’s Esophagus. My cold came in handy! The endoscopy gives me a sore throat, but not this time since the cold already took care of it. The only side effect I have this time is sleepiness.

And how is your November going? I’ll be glad to have the week off from my day job next week and enjoy the American Thanksgiving with my family. I still be here doing work behind the scenes.

I posted a long entry at InformIT about handling changes on a Web site and anything related to it. It’s not a pretty sight and I hope it won’t happen to you.

As one who uses a relay service to make phone calls, I prefer to connect with humans instead of dealing the mile long recorded-message hell. It takes a long time for the operator to type the entire recording and by the time it ends, the phone has hung up. 1-800-Annoy me now shares a few workarounds for going straight to a live operator. Is it no wonder Southwest Airlines is successful? They have live operators handling every call.

When I need to fill a page with content, but it ain’t ready yet, I go to Lorem Ipsum and generate as many paragraphs as I need. ungreek generates content from various resources such as Rubaiyat, Tao Te Ching, Jane Eyre, and the Internet RFC by Tim Berners-Lee. [Link: ResearchBuzz]

Link rot is nothing new as sites get redesigned, the site can’t fix links from other sites to its pages. Sites created during the hot dotcom times are littering the Internet as they’ve become dead Web sites. Sites are abandoned for various reasons.

For instance, my b-day blog ended shortly after my son’s birth. It served its purpose, which was to chronicle the pregnancy and arrival of my third child. Why do I keep it on the ‘net? I created the site for two reasons: (1) to share my progress with friends and family, and (2) to provide a real-life resource on the topic for others. #2 is served by keeping the site up so when someone or a friend is pregnant, she can use the site for references.

I’ve been to dead sites found through search engines that need to disappear as they serve no purpose, historical or otherwise. The information is outdated and useless. To save time on an already overflowing Internet, such sites need to be buried off the ‘net.

Some dead sites being kept alive on a respirator aren’t the fault of the creator. When I moved from DC to Texas, I didn’t renew my service with my provider who hosted my site. The provider kept the site alive and I had no way of delete its contents off the server because I no longer had access.

A grace period is acceptable, but it needs a deadline. One year? 18 months? Of course, people get busy and just forget they still have a Web site online especially with a free host. I had one with a free host for a class I took. Occasionally, I’d use it for other things. Over time, I used it less and forgot about it. Eventually, I lost access and it disappeared. Too bad more sites don’t follow this example especially with regard to IDs.

I tried to remove an account with a site, but it didn’t offer a way to do it. Someone may want to use that ID. The Internet is old enough that sites need to offer options to delete IDs, sites, etc. as well as a grace period and stick to it. [Link: Webreference]