http://hd911.com Redirecting Again

I didn’t think anyone had noticed, but I finally fixed the DNS issue I was having with hd911.com (www. was working fine as well as blackbox. and sybian. don’t you just want to know!?!).  A few weeks ago while moving an A record in my DNS registrar’s amazing control panel (GoDaddy, your application and advertising/spam-fest you call a shop/checkout area are an inspiration to us all), the default web host was stuck on the old address, even though it looked right in the control panel.

After a series of emails to support , I finally  talked to someone who could help, and they reset the hosts so now browsing to http://hd911.com redirects back to this page instead of the error page (you would have seen an IIS Under Construction page during this period).

The strange thing is, I’ve noticed more than just a few visitors coming in on this link (without the www.), so it must be up on a web directory somewhere that I don’t know about?!

CSS/Styling (mostly) Fixed

Before any designers/style-fascists say anything, I’m not a perfectionist, and this site is by no means perfect, but my tests in IE7/8, Safari, Firefox 3.6/3.7 and Chrome all look decent enough so I’m getting to the point with the layout/typography where I’m relatively happy.  Saying that, if anyone notices any complete style vomit or things plain don’t work, comment here and I’ll get onto them right away.   However, if this is being read in Internet Explorer 6, I know it looks odd, I like it that way, and if Google says “No, to IE6″ finally, then its good enough for me.

The Logo (or lack thereof)

This is something that has been bothering me, I need an idea for a logo, I’ve tried a few combinations of things that I think would look OK, like steel/boiler plated bold text, or an artist-ey cursive scribble to say, “If you weren’t reading me on the screen from half a world away, this would be written on a paper with a real feather and ink”.  I can’t for the life of me think of, or design something that would look OK in that corner though…

Any ideas?

Changes should appear swiftly over the next few weeks as I get the blog design complete, finish off the new sections and write some new content to get ready for 2010.

* actually, a few months less than this, but in the backup/restore process, some old posts went missing.

Oh wait, that’s not true, or should I say ture.

However, now I’m left wondering exactly what to do with my lovechild, that which I’ve nurtured into adulthood, and has give me back so much.  I’ve said it before, and I’m pretty sure I’ll say it again, I’d like to get out “talking cod-shit to strangers”, and embark on a whole new level of world domination, and i have high plans for the next 12 months.

But do I disband HD911 and let it fall by the way side into the otherwise packed scum bucket that is the internet?  Or do I transition, from blog about nothing, to empire about something?

Wait and see… I know I am.

You may remember a week or so ago I wrote a few thoughts about the release of the new version of Ubuntu, due to which I was riding a tidal wave of visits (in comparison to the previous time this blog has been open) for a number of days totalling over 400 page hits in 5 days (almost half the total hits since I moved the site to this new domain). Don’t laugh! This is good for HD911, any self respecting site probably gets this figure within an hour, or the likes of google whom I imagine hits this figure every nth of a nanosecond.

 Dismal Beginnings

Since the Ubuntu boom of late October things have dwindled completely, to a point where I’m averaging less than 20 hits a day now. Yes, like the impending recession after the mining boom, or the transport slump in the U.S since September 11 (why I can even attempt to compare this, I don’t know), my webgraph looks a lot like the recent stock performance of Northern Rock bank after their recent credit/lending crisis.

There’s only one reason for this too, I’ve got to pull my finger out and post some interesting content.  Time will tell, but I’ve got forces working against me, like my mediocre writing ability, these random darting thoughts in my head,  these bats in the sky, (Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?) or the damn snakes on this plane.  But let it be known, the vision of HD911 is to grow from its meagre beginnings to become something, and do this it will.  Someday anyway.

But its been interesting none the less.  We’ve recently launched three sites at work and its been interesting seeing the different interest in each due to product knowledge, advertising and type of the site.  For instance, our company site, new revamp, which has always been a solid performer has been on the increase ever since the launch.  No boom, just rising steadily.  Another, which has had a heap of marketing and a push in the past is dwindling now where as another with short term (I won’t say viral, but similar) marketing has gone from being a no name to having a huge influx of users on a daily basis.  I’ve also realised this Search Enging Optimisation (SEO) stuff is not for me, least not as a full time job anyway! I’m a doing man, and working in a position where you carefully lay the ground work for possible future gain is a little to unexciting for me.  It’s vitally important though.