Argh. At least I still own the domain name, and the hosing company has put up one of those dummy sites with other links for now. I e-mailed them so it should be back within a day or two.

It's only on the index page so far. If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, the favorites icon, or "favicon," is the icon that appears in the address bar of your browser (LJ's is a blue pencil). Older browsers may not show it, or only show it if the page is in your bookmarks/favorites.

I've been meaning to set it up so the whole site is in PHP, with a header and footer in their own files, so it's easier to add stuff like this without having to edit and upload dozens of separate pages but I haven't gotten around to that. Maybe I will now that I have some free time.

Also, I almost forgot to set my festive default icon. Here it is.

Just checked my webserver stats again. The huge increase in traffic prompted me to check my Alexa rank: 247,886.

I should leave it with no updates for months at a time more often.

But seriously, I really have to come up with some new stuff. I have one great idea but I'd have to learn Flash first and it would take at least a year, if my rate of getting comics done is anything to judge by.

I e-mailed the teacher of the C++ class about taking an incomplete because I don't think I'll have time to finish by the time the class ends. I'll still do the assignments in my own time.

But this means I'll have a little time to start learning Flash.

http://www.unplug.com/great/: advice on web design by people who clearly don't know a goddamn thing about web design. Such as:

"tip #60 - use frames,"

"tip #87 - use GIF animation,"

and

"tip #96 - get HTML editors" which would be OK except it includes "I can highly recommend Microsoft FrontPage."

"If you follow these and other exciting tips, you too can have a web site almost as ugly as ours."

OK, it doesn't really say that last bit.

But cripes, that is one amateurish-looking site right there. I'm sure it's possible to make decent graphics using exclusively MS Paint but it's much, much more likely you'll end up with a crappy site like this one. Maybe I'm just biased because my graphics use more than 6 colors.

And it's not easy to find things. Just now, I was thinking "was the FrontPage reference in 'Beginning Tips' or 'Advanced Tips?'" It's a pitty they don't have a tip that says "make things easy to find" because that would have been deliciously ironic.

ETA: wait a minute, those drop shadows on the text? They had to have used a decent program! And one of their tips is "tip #30 - master your graphics tools." OK, that's my irony quota filled.

1. I recently discovered that bots have been spamming my guestbook with text ads for sites selling Xanax and crap. I deleted those entries and I've put in code so there can't be usable html in the comments field. Then this morning I had three e-mails (I'd written the code to begin with that makes it e-mail me when an attempt to make an entry fails) and there were three failed attempts all in a short span of time. Could it be that the code that turns html into plain text has prevented the bots from posting? I would have thought the result would be that I'd just have to delete the bot entries but at least their links wouldn't work. I tried doing a test entry myself and it worked fine. Odd.

So the question is: has anyone else had experience with this sort of thing?

2. Where did everybody get the Harry Potter PowerPuff Girls icons? Those are cool.

2b. Look at my new Snape icon. I colorized the picture from the book. Isn't it nifty? Except in retrospect, it sort of looks like he farted and set something on fire. But he didn't. It might look better without the smoke. I just love the smudgy tool.

Why isn't this working? All I want to do is have an expanding menu and it's straightforward enough but it keeps saying "Object doesn't support this property or method" when I try to use getElementByID. But I have IE6 and I know it works with the DOM because the same thing works for me on other pages, just not mine.

I got just about the simplest example I could find and it still doesn't work. What's wrong with it?

<html>
<head>
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
function ChangeTitle(){
var newtitle = document.form1.newtitle.value;
var changeme = document.getElementByID("head1");
changeme.firstChild.nodeValue = newtitle;
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<h1 id="head1">Dynamic Heading<
<br>
<form name="form1">
<input type="text" name="newtitle">
<input type="button" value="Change!" onClick="ChangeTitle();">
</form>
</body>
</html>

No, I'm not being sarcastic. They really are. They did renew my account but they're not open all night as I thought, so they just weren't able to send me the confirmation e-mail till this morning. Not only that but they're going to give me a refund for the other account I foolishly created this morning, in a fit of sleep-deprivation-induced paranoia. Plus, it wasn't their fault I wasn't getting the e-mails; that was AOL's fault. They said it'll take some time to get everything set up with the database and all but Pirate Monkeys Inc. should be back online by tonight!

It's not the worst-case scenario, at least not yet. I finally got an e-mail from seanic on my UCD address, saying they'd been sending notices about non-payment to my AOL address. So I've paid now. What remains to be seen is whether I can get my domain renewed in time. I have until Wednesday, at which point seanic will delete all my files. I think. I'm not sure what'll happen if I don't get my old domain back, now that I've already paid. Presumably, I could just get another domain temporarily. I'm waiting to hear confirmation from seanic that they acknowledge my payment. And from OnlineNIC about renewing my domain. The only thing that worries me is that OnlineNIC will be slow about it and I'll get the domain back but only after seanic's canceled my account and deleted everything. I have almost everything on my hard drive; there are maybe fewer than 10 images - banners for other people's sites, avatars, that sort of thing - that I just put on the server and didn't bother to keep but I can go and get those easily enough. So I guess, objectively, it's not all that bad. Not like I didn't have my files on my hard drive. ...the way my luck's been going, my computer'll crash next. So I'm just burning all my web stuff onto a CD. OK, there it is.

I just feel so stupid for not having realized earlier that they were sending me the e-mails and I wasn't getting them. Goddamn AOL. If I didn't get the e-mail address free with my parents' account, I'd cancel it. I'm going to stop using it for anything important, though.

I also feel bloody annoyed that all of this could have been avoided if seanic had let me give them my new credit card number when I tried to.

So I tried to upload some pages to my site today, only to discover that it's down. Rarely, seanic.net has problems with the server, and everything's up and running again soon. I'm worried because I'm due to pay the bill for having it hosted with them some time this month. If they just try to bill my credit card with my old info, it won't work because I lost that card. When I first got my new card, I tried to give them my new billing info but they wouldn't let me - they said they'd contact me when the bill was due and I could give them the new info then. According to their TOS, I'm supposed to be notified a month in advance if they're going to take down my site due to non-payment.

OK, I had a nasty false alarm for a second that someone else had already registered my domain. But I'm still listed as the registrant but it looks like it expired on the 11th, though it says it's still unavailable. I just hope seanic.net replies to my e-mail soon.

...Well now I'm confused: reading more carefully, it looks like it was renewed and the company that's the Registrar has it till Feb 11, 2005 but it expired for me on Feb 11, 2004. But they specifically told me I couldn't pay them till they sent me an e-mail! Fucking hell. I have all my pages on my hard drive but I really don't want to lose my domain name. I don't know if this means the company owns it now and I'll have to pay them to get it back. I don't even care; I'll fucking pay them, I just want my site back.

I've redesigned my website. It's mostly text for now - I'm going to put up spiffy graphics soon. The content is mostly unchanged.

I had fun shopping at the hardware store this weekend. I got a bunch of plants and a drill. Because I didn't have a drill and I needed one to put up a hook for hanging plants, or people who annoy me. I'm making a little garden on my patio (since I don't have a yard). It's going to be cool. I'm growing tomatoes and herbs. Yum! Good food for pirate monkeys.