Oh, Dear!

Computers Made Simple of San Antonio, TX, will, apparently teach you how to use both hard- and soft-ware which you may inadvertently purchased in a fit of pique.

Their Website is a model of what NOT to do.

In fact, this effort at "communication" is so abysmal that we're not quite sure where to start...

How about with the 81K background on the "homepage"? It shows one-third of a car parked in front of a building "designed", it appears, in the "'60's Brutalist" style.

Or perhaps the attractively overlaid orange text, which, in addition to being long-winded and ungrammatical, inexplicably has a blank line inserted towards the end?

The bold link transports one to a page which further invites one to "click HERE". The text is yellow on white. The page serves no apparent purpose.

But clicking on "HERE" transports us magically to -- a scanned brochure! The 125K download is prefaced by a warning that the page "may take some time to load".

We're not quite sure what this "site" is intended to achieve. The effect - albeit undoubtedly unwitting - is to convey the notion of a bunch of rank amateurs whose comprehension of the New Medium is risible.

It is unfortunate for them that, no matter how good they are at training the mugs who give them money, that impression will prevail. --John Blower

Web Site Garage

The good folks at AtWeb.com gave us a sneak preview of their new web site tuneup station: Web Site Garage. The new all-in-one service effectively aggregates many validation, performance, and pr services under one "roof" to make checking and promoting your web site a one- stop affair. Webmasters just pull into the garage, type in their URL, and hit go.

The mechanics quickly look under your site's hood and up pops a 50's style oil-change-like clipboard, complete with an overall rating and a 5-point checklist.

You can browse through the results, and see where the problems lie. We liked the HTML Design Check, that uses lint, and color codes the numbered lines of bad HTML. Included in the free Tune Up package are checks for:

• Load Time
• Dead Link
• Spelling
• HTML Design
• Site Popularity

Each report is formatted for both the Web and easy printing, signed by the head mechanic. After checking over the problem spots in your page, you can choose to upgrade to their self-serve turbocharge service, or go for a complete overhaul.

AtWeb offers their own Register-It! promotion services, a complete site analysis version, as well as best of breed services with partners like Businesswire.com for press releases.

Best of all, each Turbocharge service is priced at under $100. There's also a free GIF/JPEG image reduction and conversion service called GIF Lube, that looks promising but was still in beta as we went to press.

If you don't want to promote and redesign it yourself you can order a complete overhaul and have the pros do the job. Complete promotion packages, press releases, site redesigns and more can be had for under $1000 each.

The AtWeb technicians said they have designed the back end to be scalable and plan on adding more services each month. Overall we were impressed with the design and convenience the service offers. Busy webmasters will appreciate the site's one-stop convenience for validating and promoting their web sites.

http://www.websitegarage.com/start.cgi?banner=webreference-- John Blower