First off - what the heck is “Exit 404″ supposed to be??

Well I was redesigning the ol’ sizzite and I decided to make the header graphic look like an interstate sign for “Summerville.” I needed to make an exit number and 404 was the first thing that popped into my head.

For those of you that don’t know, 404 is the Not Found Error and probably the most common error on the triple W.

When I was close to finishing the redesign, I started thinking about a getting new domain name for the site. I thought “why don’t I just call it Exit 404?” when I was laying in bed one night - so that’s the new site name. It’s the best thing I could come up with that wasn’t already taken.

A new look

The new design resembles the old one in structure, but obviously the color scheme is a lot different - and for the better I think. The old one was just too damn bright and wasn’t very polished. There’s really not too much else I can say about it that you can’t see for yourself - so look around. And I’d love to hear your comments - good or bad constructive - too!

Web 2.0 style

In the spirit of Web 2.0, I’ve made use of the script.aculo.us library. Click one of the section titles in the sidebar and watch that section slide up and outta sight. Click it again and it’ll expand back into view. Pretty slick, eh?

I’ll be writing a post soon detailing how I was able to use the script.aculo.us unobtrisively, and how to store each box’s position in a cookie so it’s reflected on each page.

More content too!

I finally wrote the portfolio section, which is a funny story in itself. I copied the tonysummerville.com Wordpress installation into a new directory/database tables when I began working on the new design. Then I wrote the portfolio section in the test area - thus the data was stored in the test database tables. When I decided to get a new domain for the site, I pointed it to the test site, but before I could go live, I needed the newer content from the tonysummerville.com site. So I copied those tables into the now Exit 404 tables.

Only then did I realize that I’d overwritten all the new portfolio pages, which really, really sucked to say the least. Luckily I was able to retrieve some of the pages from the Firefox cache, but still.. Sometimes I’m just not very smart.

Also new is the archive page, a page-o-links, and a page about subscriptions.

Have a look around and enjoy your stay!

Feel like messing with someone today? Good for you.

Here’s a quick and easy computer prank you can pull, especially if the victim is less than computer savvy.

This works best if the person has closed all open windows, or at least won’t notice if you close them.

1. Looking at the desktop with all windows closed press Print Screen on the keyboard, open up a graphics program (Paint should do) and select Paste (or Ctrl + V). Save the screenshot and exit.
2. Right click anywhere on the desktop and choose Properties to open the Display Properties. Select the Desktop tab, then click Browse and find the desktop screenshot you saved to set it as the desktop background.
   
3. Right click the desktop again, choose Arrange Icons By, and deselect Show Desktop Icons.
   

At this point you should still see the desktop icons, but you shouldn’t be able to click ‘em since they’re just part of the screenshot.

4. Right click on the taskbar at the bottom and deselect Lock the Taskbar.
   
5. Now drag the taskbar down to where it’s no longer visible on the screen.
   
6. Try to keep a straight face when the person can’t figure out what the hell is wrong with their computer. “Everything looks fine, but I can’t click anything!!” Suggest that they reboot (they’ll have to hold the power button down) - it’ll still be the same when Windows restarts!

I’ve been very busy at work writing some new JSP web applications that pull check images and signature cards from the huge-ass image archive. The fraud department can even compare multiple checks too.

I went up to Indianapolis for Katie’s sister’s wedding the other weekend. The slideshow was a huge success.

Both of my fantasy football teams freakin’ sucked last weekend.

Oh, and I’ve been working on a new theme for the ol’ site too. I decided that I don’t like the current one anymore. The new one is much better. I promise.

I’ve been using Dreamweaver 8 and Fireworks 8 and will be writing reviews very soon.

I’ve also been thinkin’ about changing the domain name of this site with the launch of the new theme. tonysummerville.com is kind of boring, but it’s hard to think of a good .com name that isn’t already taken these days.

Last night as I was layin’ in bed, I thought of one, so I got up and turned my computer back on to check it. Low and behold, it was available, so I snagged it.

Will it make the final cut? Maybe. I still like it this morning.. sort of. You’ll just have to wait and see what it is though.

Well I was supposed to go see Coldplay tonight here in Birmingham tonight but unfortunately they’ve canceled the show.

From the Coldplay website:

“Chris is suffering from some issues with his throat and it was felt by his doctor that if he didn’t give his voice a rest he might not be able to sing for the rest of the US dates.”

We’re using FOXSports powered by MSN to host our Fantasy Football league at work and man is it terrible!

The NFL season began on Thursday night so naturally people needed to log in and make their final lineup changes for the weekend. Thursday afternoon, the site was down. Said they were experiencing technical difficulties and should be back up soon. It wasn’t up by kickoff.

Luckily I logged in early Thursday morning to move Antonio Gates out of my starting lineup since he wasn’t playing this weekend. I stuck Heath Miller in and was stoked when he scored a touchdown on Sunday. I was out of town all weekend and didn’t log into my account until Sunday night. When I did, there was Antonio Gates still sitting in my starting lineup.

Not only that, but the scoring was all fucked up too. Some teams had waaaay to many points, some had zero.

This morning the lineup problem was fixed - Heath and his points were in, Gates was on the bench. The scoring seemed right as well, but now it’s screwed up again. The “Live Score” page, which automatically reloads scores (ajax baby!) and *could* be a cool feature, hasn’t worked right for more than an hour at a time.

Given, this is a free league, but I mean come on! You would think such big names and such a big site wouldn’t be having this many problems. Talk about pushing crap out the door…

By the way, I’m in another league that uses Yahoo! and it works absolutely great.