Posts by happygeek

Are 404 errors a missed marketing opportunity for most web designers, or should they be left as a ‘page not found’ marker and nothing more?

Certainly the vast majority of sites would appear to point to nothing more useful than the Apache or ISS default error page, which strikes me as being one heck of a missed opportunity. Any reason you can think of for not using a custom 404 that points back to the home page, a site index, a site search, something, anything other than a large boot with which to kick a potential visitor away?

Free marketing opportunities are few and far between at the best of times, so why aren’t more people using custom 404’s? Is it down to ignorance on behalf of the customer or the web design company?

Finally, what information would you suggest including on a custom 404 page?

Saugatuck Technology has published research which suggests that have the large businesses on the planet will have switched to Linux for mission-critical applications within the next 5 years. Things will, Saugatuck say, get off to a relatively slow start with just 18% of businesses making that switch by the year end, but quickly accelerate by 40% between 2007 and 2009, and 80% from 2009 to the end of 2011. Who says so? The senior IT decision makers surveyed by Saugatuck, that’s who. The people with the budgets and the savvy to decide if Linux can make the move into the business big time.

The report states that “by now it should be obvious to even the most casual industry observers that Linux operating systems – and open source-based software in general – have reached critical marketplace mass.” Indeed, this enterprise grade message is reinforced by the kind of recent announcements and deals made by the likes of both Oracle and Microsoft, joining the open source is good debate that IBM and Unisys have long since been cheerleading. This legitimization of Linux can only continue to rub off into corporate culture, and that’s the thrust of the report findings.

But do you agree, is the end of commercial, proprietary platforms within the corporate marketplace really nigh?

The End. Or

It's not a matter of 'not caring' but rather one of wanting to foster debate, conversation and a feeling of belonging. Rather than just be a dry place where you ask a question, get an answer and then disappear we are trying to make DaniWeb the kind of place where members care enough to want to ask a question, get an answer and then enter into informative and interesting discussion based around it.

If that makes sense.

movie is perhaps the wrong word, I would say borefest.

three words at

Hi Blue, welcome to DaniWeb...

perhaps practise patiently?

Oh and if anyone wants a brief heads up on Liam, then his blog post which mentions people describing him as a "ranting mouthpiece for the Linux Taliban" is pretty much spot on, in the nicest possible way! :)

The badge is yours forever, unless you start writing really rubbish blogs or stop altogether of course :)

And thanks for the kind words...

There is no definitive 'better' browser, only 'different' if taken as a whole. You can look at particualr attributes and come up with substantive reasons why one might be better than the other, but would probably have to bring other clients into the frame as well (Opera for security issues, for example.)

That said, I have had to do head-to-head reviews of FF and IE in my professional capacity as a tech journalist and FF wins every time... :)

Mine has now arrived!

Yeah I agree...

display of alliteration

Cool, here's hoping DaniWeb continues to float your boat :) Welcome to the community my friend.

Nice one, DaniWeb makes the perfect homepage. Welcome to the community.

A 16 year old in to BOC, now that is unusual!

Hey Liam, glad you could make it over! Have this 'real' welcome on me, to replace the boilerplate one :)

Please also give your hearty congratulations and warmest welcome to the latest DaniWeb Featured Writer, roryt.

Rory has been devoting time to putting together some excellent tutorials for the benefit of the community here, and for this reason richly deserves Featured Writer status.

Check out some of his latest tutorials such as Transparent Navigation in Photoshop, Photoshop Tutorial - Interface Style Content Box and Styling Text Fields With CSS and HTML.

If you would like to become a Featured Writer yourself, all you have to do is prove your worth by submitting high quality tutorials as Rory has done. Take care to follow the same formatting and layout as existing tutorials, check your spelling and ensure the tutorial is all your own work (no copying from other sites or straight out of a textbook please) before submitting though!

Congratulations and welcome to our newest Featured Blogger here at DaniWeb, the superbly interesting author of the Right On - What IT really is blog, the one and only joeprogrammer.

If you've not read it yet, you might want to start as it really is good stuff. Recent postings include such varied subjects as Fedora Legacy Project no more, iPod's copy-protection system brings in federal lawsuits and Make programming as fun as Line Rider.

If you want to get a Featured Blogger badge for yourself, then follow the joeprogrammer example and simply make regular, relevant and interesting posters...

Thanks for the kinds words about DaniWeb, and welcome to the community my friend.

Still no sign of a newsletter in my mailbox, by the way.

Can someone post a quick note to say they have got it, so that Dani and I can remove our cloaks of paranoia :)

for our sins,

I thought the whole Nokia New Year thing was excellent, and hope they run an even bigger global party for 2007/2008.

Nothing has arrived here as of yet...

very slowly indeed.

That would be this thread methinks, he says proving that the DaniWeb search system really does work :)

Learning back to front, tackling projects in reverse, starting books in the middle. Hey, that's me that is!

Welcome to DaniWeb Chris, and a very happy new year to you.

Crikey, what the heck is 4 wall handball? Says the old geek showing his age and lack of street cred no doubt :)

Welcome to DaniWeb!

Happy New Year, and welcome to DaniWeb. Can this old geek request that you keep the 'TXT talk' shorthand to a minimum in forum though? It takes the same amount of time and space to write celebrating as it does celebr8ting and the former is much easier to read for the vast majority of people.

To quote the rules "We strive to be a community geared towards the professional. We strongly encourage all posts to be in full-sentence English. Please do not use "leet" speak or "chatroom" speak."

Ta :)

Welcome to DaniWeb, but please don't use this place simply as a vehicle for advertising your place :)

I write my blogs in MS Word, then cut and paste into the blog editor where I do the final formatting, adding links etc. Once I publish the posting I read it through and make any changes there and then - in effect using this as you would a preview function. To be honest I don't miss there not being one, and I don't use a preview function in any other blogging system either.

But everyone is different of course, and I'm sure if there was a big enough demand for such a thing that Dani would consider it.

Happy New Year and welcome to DaniWeb.

said the maiden,

We welcome you with open arms and hope that you find what you have been searching for within the DaniWeb community.

Happy New Year!

See this post. :)

I think he may be referring to the ability to edit a posting? Which did used to be there but became time limited after one chap threw a wobbly and edited away all the content of his blog in a hissy fit.

Hint hint Rory :)

tickle his feet

Tell us if you got any cool tech toys for presents. (Oh right, you probably got the same presents for Christmas as for your Birthday... oh well)

I got a very old bottle of port from a good friend, a huge selection of hand picked stones and crystals from my six year old daughter, some fake poo from my son (he is eight, say no more) and a wonderful meal out from my wife.

No sign of anything even near technology related though :)

Happy birthday :) Incidentally, did you get the happy birthday email from DaniWeb?

Thanks, and I did. Indeed, I probably got more birthday emails from online forums than I did actual cards :)

Yeah, Happy New Year!!!

The NYC ball drop doesn't even tend to get featured on the round up of midnight action around the world on the news here any more.

We get the live stuff from London beamed around the country (fireworks at midnight on the Thames, using the London Eye as the centrepiece, and Big Ben striking the hour) with some brief looks at places such as Edinburgh, Cardiff and possibly one or two other big cities if they have done something interesting. Then, the next day, we get a round up of what happened around the world - usually fireworks related as we seem to be obsessed with the darn things...

Hello, welcome to DaniWeb and a very Happy New Year to you!

Hi Alastair, welcome to DaniWeb and Happy New Year!

Hello and welcome to DaniWeb.

Oh, and Happy New Year!

the cat so?

what was that

large tip behind

His moustache will be much missed amongst comedy dictators the world over.

for the road