Just a few weeks ago we held a little event known at BarCamp, and since we needed to let people know where it was, we got some large vinyl banners suitable for attaching to the outside of the building. I know you’re wondering how we attached them to the outside of the building, well… it wasn’t duct tape. Duct tape is terrible in every way. We used gaff tape. Gaff tape is better than duct tape in every way. I highly recommend it.

And vinyl? It’s pretty tough! It doesn’t really tear easily, and it’s pretty weatherproof. Rain, snow, hail… they shouldn’t cause any damage. Strong stuff!

Oh, you might also want to get your vinyl banners with grommets in them, which will allow you to attach them to things using rope, twine, string, wire, zip ties, or something else. I mean, these will all be fine if you don’t have gaff tape handy. (By the way, gaff tape comes in black and white. Choose the one one that works for you!)

So yeah, here’s the deal… if you were to look for a place to get vinyl banners from, you might just try going to vinylbanners.com because, you know, I mean, it seems like the guys at vinylbanners.com would know a thing or two about vinyl banners, right? Right.

I was impressed with how nice the code on the better bathrooms web site looked. While the page does not validate, they managed to maintain a nice clean structure to the HTML and it appears they went to great lengths to make sure it works properly in many versions of Internet Explorer. I applaud the developers of this web site.

Moving on to the question of social media, the have “Follow us on” links for Facebook and Twitter, which many would consider a requirement for any business/web site these days, though it looks like it’s mostly a broadcast medium and there hasn’t been a lot of dialog with users/customers thus far.

They’ve also got a blog which could be useful to subscribe to if you were into bathroom remodeling. I personally don’t even own a bathroom, so I’m not really in the market for such things… I didn’t even know you could get Heated Towel Rails, but they sound awesome!

The About Us section has some well done videos, which is refreshing to see. So many companies don’t place enough value on well done videos, and either do it themselves (poorly) or have it done cheaply by folks who really don’t know what they’re doing.

Visually the site is well done. I’m not a huge fan of the color scheme, but I think this is more of a personal preference. I’m going to assume the designers stuck to the brand-approved colors when creating the site. Some of the icons appear a bit more “cartoony” than I’d like, but again, it doesn’t really detract from the site. They got so many other things right, I can forgive the small things.

I do have on small complaint about the functionality of the site. I tried to right-click on a link to open it in a new tab (it was an image with a link) and a Javascript alert popped up saying “All images on this site are copyrighted” which I found offensive. First, if I want an image from the site, I can get it it. This will not stop me, or anyone with any technical skills who wants an image from the site. Second, this discourages sharing. Perhaps someone bought a sink and wants to post about it on their own blog… should they be scared to take an image from the site to use? Third, it breaks functionality. It’s completely normal to right-click on a link to open it in a new tab/window, but they have make this much more difficult on their web site. That’s not cool.

Overall, BetterBathrooms.com is a nice site for creating better bathrooms, and the annoyances are pretty minor, so well done web designers and developers!

Cop’s Closet is owned by Cops, for Cops. Yeah, they’re serious. You want more? Check out their About Us page. Having the right gear at the best price is what they do. Ex-police officer, ex-military, these guys know 5.11 Tactical Gear like nobody else!

What that’s? You say you don’t need tactical gear? Everyone needs tactical gear! Check out this 5.11 Tactical TDU 1.75 inch Belt… no metal! That’s what I want next time I have to go through security at the airport.

And here’s something I won’t bring to the airport, but who doesn’t want a 5.11 Tactical Side Kick Boot Knife? You wanna be ready for anything right? Yes. Yes, you do…

ASP Pink Handcuffs? They got ‘em. (In face it’s one of their most popular style of handcuffs!)

Pink Pepperspray Keychain by Sabre? Yup. And, it supports the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

I’m pretty confident in saying that Cop’s Closet is the best public safety uniform and equipment industry web site I’ve ever had the privilege to browse through. These guys are the real deal…

Do it now. Check out www.copscloset.com (You can even ‘like’ them on Facebook.)

First off, let me say that I am not a gambler… Sure, I gamble with my life every time I walk out the front door, or drive on the freeway, but that’s just the way I do it. When it comes to putting money on the table, I rarely have any to put down. Still, I know gambling is a popular pastime and I’ve learned a thing or two from Kenny Rogers (as well as Kenny Loggins) over the years, so I thought I’d impart my wisdom to you…

Casino.de is in German, and I don’t know much German, except for Willkommen and a few other words, but the design of the site is actually pretty fitting. Graphically, it’s well done, and while I could do with less of the blinky animated GIFs, it’s probably right for the intended audience, which in the marketing world, is all good…

I noticed they went with XHTML 1.0 Strict for the DOCTYPE when authoring pages, and while I often use Transitional myself, I do like to see people use Strict, but… they missed the mark on this, as there are a number of errors, many from using <br> instead of <br /> and a few cases of using attributes that do not exist in the Strict DOCTYPE. These are problems that are easily fixable, and I’d give the site a higher score if it was valid XHTML 1.0 Strict.

That aside, they have an English site at online-casinos.com which I can read. Again, not knowing much about gambling, I am at a loss, but with this site they choose to use HTML 4.01 Transitional (which I personally only use for HTML emails nowadays.) There are just a few errors on the home page, and again, they could be easily fixed. Again, the design is nice, and fitting to the subject, and… they’ve even got an RSS feed, which is nice to see. I did not see an RSS feed on casino.de, which I think it should have.

Casino.de appears to be running on Drupal 5, and hey, I always like to see more Drupal sites. But, they seem to be using Drupal 5.7, and I’d at least want to see them upgrade to the latest in the D5 branch, which as of this writing is Drupal 5.12 (sure, Drupal 6 would be better, but there may be reasons they’ve not upgraded to that yet… I mean, I still have Drupal 5 sites out there as well.)

So in conclusion, I found the design of Casino.de to be well done, and the content is probably good, though I don’t read German very well, and don’t know about gambling, and the code (well, the theme in this case) could use a little cleaning up, and they get points for using Drupal, but they should really upgrade.

It’s no secret that I drive a Honda CR-V, and while it’s 9 years old, and has it’s faults, I love it. Honda makes good cars… and now they make hybrid cars. Heck, if I had the cash in hand, I wouldd run out today and replace my Honda with a hybrid car. Let’s all work together to save the planet… your kids will thank you, and so will I.

And while were on the subject of kids… I know many of us grew up expecting flying cars, and that didn’t happen, and we are angry, but now… we have a chance. Tell your kids about the future, where they will be driving electric cars, and buying gasoline will be something they won’t have to deal with, just a memory of the past, and the air will be clean, and we won’t go to war over oil. Hybrids are a good start, get one if you can!

Web Hosting Pal has reviews of web hosting companies, and yeas, there is a ton of information. I know, you think you can just ask a few friends who they use and get the scoop, and hey, that might work, but Web Hosting Pal… man, those dudes are your Pals! I looked up Globat and it said “Globat has been removed for too many complaints” how awesome is that? It’s like one of your bros looking out for you. “Dude, you wanna host with XYZ Hosting Biz? Run, run fast! They suck hard!” yeah… that’s the kind of information I am talking about!

Right now they have a top 10 list of web hosting companies, but I’m hoping that gets expanded in the future. Why not the top 50, or heck, even the bottom 50? You gotta know who to avoid just as much as who to go with, right?

The focus seems to be on low-priced hosting packages, which is good, because that is what most beginners need, and need to know about. If you’re running as root on you own VPS instance, you might not get as much value from Web Hosting Pal, but if you are just starting out, and have no friends to ask, hit up Web Hosting Pal and see if you can learn a few things. Deal? Yes… got it.

There were not a lot of options. She needed medical attention, but not just any medical attention, medical attention that could only be found in a far away land, and we had to get there. Fast.

Things were getting worse, and I knew that no automobile or watercraft was going to get us there in time… but we had one hope, and that hope rested on an air ambulance service.

But where would one find an air ambulance service at this time of night? Wait! What’s this? A web site that can provide information? Why, it’s air ambulance service! Yes! Our prayers were answered…

We were able to charter a flight from New York to Hawaii and get the critical care we needed. While we started to worry about her fading fast during a cross-country road trip, our worries turned to relief knowing that she would get the medical care possible while flying in an airplane, all thanks to the amazing powers of the air ambulance service.

Now an air ambulance service is not for everyone. I mean, if you don’t care about your loved ones, then by all means, put them on a bus, or charter a small fishing boat, and see if they survive the trip. But come on, that’s just not right! If you care about someone, damn the expenses! Charter a flight and get them on an air ambulance. They’ll thank you for it when they’re recovering, and they’ll remember it in their later years when they are giving away their millions… and you’ll be right there in line to get what’s due… all thanks to air ambulance service.

I like chocolate. I hope I can get some coupons for chocolate.

In the old days, you had to get coupons from the newspaper. (My daughter likes to cut out coupons, but I think it’s more the process of looking and finding and cutting that interests her, she never buys anything!) Anyway, nowadays you can get coupons online. Yes, that’s right, online coupons from places like UltimateCoupons.com

10% off, 15% off, even 20% off! If you purchase products, coupons can save you money.