BlathrWayne Lorentz

A mystery error on a bank web site. Thatʼs OK. Itʼs not like people trust banks with their money or anything.

A web siteʼs 404 page is often the most neglected page of the site. Netflix wonʼt even waste CSS on it.

Citibankʼs web site says my browser is not supported. It wants a minimum of Safari 15.2.

Iʼm using 16.3.

Is it too much to expect a bank to know how to count?

Well, hereʼs something you almost never see: an error message from the B&H web site.

B&H takes its web presence very seriously, and is among the planetʼs biggest targets for criminals. But somehow the boffins on 9^th Avenue manage to keep the fraudsters at bay, while maintaining a web site that is fast, complex, and fairly easy to use.

This error message didnʼt last long. Only a few seconds. Perhaps today is a good day to buy a lottery ticket.

You want to be mad because Carnivalʼs web site is needlessly complex. But who can be cross with a towel animal?

Yes. The error was doing business with MediaTemple/GoDaddy.

Oh, the hazards of storing HTML in a database. You never know whoʼs going to SELECT it and squirt it on the screen unparsed.

It seems strange to me that when filling in your personal information on the Fortnum and Mason web site that the default telephone country code is +229. Thatʼs Benin, all the way in Africa.

It would make sense for the default country code to be +44, since itʼs a British department store. Or maybe the country codes could be sorted numerically, so itʼs easier to find the one youʼre looking for. Or perhaps use the country code of the customers who generate the most revenue for the store, whatever number that may be.

But I doubt that the people of Benin buy more F&M stuff than any other country.

WordPress gets a lot of flack from snobby devs who like to see their names in pixels on the internet. And while Iʼm not a huge fan of the planetʼs most popular content management system, it has earned my respect.

Due to some unfortunate circumstances, I recently had to temporarily transplant a WordPress installation from one server to another server to another server, along the way performing a number of upgrades to both the WordPress installation, the servers, and the content. And you know what? It all worked.

Yes, WordPress complained occasionally, but far less than I thought it would. And it dutifully updated and upgraded the content database at each step, while retaining all of the goodies therein.

So, itʼs not the best CMS in the world. There is no best CMS. But the code sure as heck is durable. Outside of mainframes and the scientific community, you donʼt see that kind of resiliency in coding very often these days.

Netflix is one of the largest media companies on the planet. If it canʼt keep its web site from eating itself, what chance do I have?

While I appreciate the Potter Country Store being creative with its web site, I donʼt think a laundry basket is quite the right icon for a virtual shopping cart.

Unless they use laundry baskets to do their shopping in Schulenburg, Texas. You never know. People in Pennsylvania call shopping carts “buggies.”

I know that Iʼm not perfect. I know that while I think my web sites work on every device, thereʼs probably a configuration out there on which they fall over. But the University of Houston/Downtown really has no excuse for this.

How is it possible for an organization to put out a public web site in 2022 that doesnʼt work on mobile phones? Itʼs bad enough that this page from UH/D is cut off on the right side, but there is no way to even scroll to the right to see whatʼs missing! And this is on a recent iPhone, not some obscure open source homebrew kit.

I preview every single web page I build for desktop, tablet, and two mobile phones. Every one. Sometimes dozens each week.

The University of Houston/Downtown brags that itʼs the second-largest university in Americaʼs fourth-largest city. Surely, someone on campus must have a smart phone to test with.

Houston Methodist Hospital has eighty-brazillion dollars and ninty-brazillion employees. If it canʼt keep its webview from breaking a leg, what am I supposed to do?

Also, someone should fix that grammar. It's probably Epicʼs default, but that doesnʼt make it right.

Ordinary human being: “What's the longest day of the year?”

With half a trillion dollars to work with, this still happens to Amazon.com. So, what chance do I have?

H.E.B. has over 100,000 employees. Someone should get out and push.

I sure hope Iʼve never broken a web site so badly that it starts squirting JSON all over the intarwebs.

The National Weather Service has a budget of $1.2 billion. If it canʼt keep a web site from drowning, what chance do I have?

Iʼm supposed to have super-duper awesome benefits with United Airlines because I have a Chase credit card. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to see what those benefits are. Naturally, the link on the Chase web site was broken. It just looped though a login screen over and over.

Since Iʼm a paying customer, I moaned about it to Chaseʼs customer service.

I ended up booking my ticket on another airline, and forgot all about it until I got this in the the mail today. I guess someone at Chase figured it would be faster to mail me a book about the benefits than to fix the link.

I guess this ends up being a story about good customer service, because not only do I have the book, but I just checked, and the link is fixed, too.

Today I learned from tech support at Citibank that Safari is not supported for “security reasons.” She recommended that I use the vastly less-secure Google Chrome browser, instead.

Good job, Citibank.

I sure wish I could book a flight on United Airlines. But for three days in two different browsers on two different computers, all I get when I search is this screen, which never changes.

Maybe American Airlines wants my money.

HEB made $31,000,000,000 last year. If it can't make a web site work, what chance do I have?

Dominoʼs Pizza made four billion dollars in 2020. It should have enough people working on its web site to make sure the CAPTCHA doesn't overflow its container.

It also shouldnʼt use Google's reCAPTCHA service, but thatʼs a different bucket of plastic monkeys.

This is what happens when you try to let Houston Methodist know about an error on its web site.

Thatʼs one way to reduce customer service costs by 100%.

H.E.B. makes web developers sad.

Today I learned that Chick-fil-a is not interested in serving the 50 million Americans, including the elderly, the poor, and some disabled people, who do not have or cannot use a mobile phone.

Also, anyone whoʼs phone has run out of battery, or anyone has dropped their phone, or pays for data, or is from another country.

I think that the word “unexpected” is pretty high on the list of words you donʼt want to hear from your bank. It ranks right up there with “insolvent.”

Fortunately, Citibank is only the third-largest bank in America. Itʼs not like its web site is used for anything important.

If Citibank canʼt keep its web site from going all pear-shaped, what chance do I have?

Citibank is the third-largest bank in the United States. It has almost two trillion dollars. Itʼs been around for 210 years.

And yet, it still canʼt make a web site that works. So what chance do I have?

Also, with two trillion dollars, youʼd think it could hire people who can write complete sentences.

Thereʼs a big backup at the floating bridge toll booth, so there are no Amazon.com employees available to take my order right now.

If Amazon.com canʼt keep its web site running, what chance do I have?

If the single largest technology company on the planet canʼt keep its web site from upchucking, what chance do I have?

If the largest newspaper in America canʼt keep its web site running, what chance do I have?

The New York Times has “lost” this web page. I guess thatʼs not surprising, since it also lost my newspaper today.

I think I have found the worst government web site on the planet: New Jersey Family Care.

Its many technical faults aside, it looks like something a kid whipped up in Geocities in the 1990ʼs, not something dealing with healthcare. And certainly not something that taxpayer dollars paid for.

Iʼm not happy that Netflix is borked. But at least the error message is creative.

But if Netflix canʼt keep its system running, what chance do I have?

If I canʼt trust Capital One to run a web site, how can I trust it with my money?

“Before Time Runs Out?” Thatʼs pretty scary.

What does Marriott know about my health that I donʼt? Or maybe itʼs some kind of a threat? Why is Marriott threatening me?

I guess Iʼll stay somewhere else thatʼs less threatening.

With 200,000 employees, if Bank of America canʼt keep its web site from failing, what chance do I have?

In spite of all their fancy JavaScript, and invasive telemetry, I donʼt think online stores really have any idea how much money they lose every day by making their shopping process so complicated that the web site breaks.

Simplifying the stack would save development costs, management costs, and increase sales.

But nobody in tech gets promoted for making things less complicated.

Vague error messages cost less, and Walmart passes that savings on to you!

Assuming you can eventually get to the check-out portion of the web site.

Somewhere, a Walmart web developer and his database manager are learning about UTF-8 and utfmb8.

Sure wish I could order Dairy Queen through DoorDash, like the web site says I can.

But DoorDashʼs web site insists that I pick a size for a box of Buster Bars, which only come in one size.

I wonder how many other sales Dairy Queen has lost because of DoorDash.

Facebook claims to have the “smartest people in the room” working for it.

If Facebook canʼt keep its web site working, what chance do I have?

After enduring four pop-ups, I click on “Gifts” and get a 404 error. Good job, Diptyque. It looks like the marketing department runs the web site, not IT.

I wonder what kind off things Made In New Mexico sells. I guess Iʼll never know since the products are hidden behind six pop-ups.

So I bought elsewhere.

If Amazon.com canʼt keep Whole Foods running, what chance do I have?

If fleaBay canʼt keep its web site up, what chance do I have?

There is simply no way to opt-out of #spam from fleaBay.

If it canʼt handle something as simple as e-mail subscriptions, why would I trust it with money?

If PayPal canʼt handle running a web site, how can I trust it with my money?

Looks like someone at Grace Digital applied strip_tags() in a location where marketing wanted to track some people with JavaScript.

You donʼt need JavaScript to keep track of your customers.

If both Chase and Citibankʼs web sites can be borked at the same time, what chance do I have?

I hate to buy cat food from Amazon.com, but I donʼt have much of a choice since Chewyʼs web site has been borked for half an hour now.

If Chewy canʼt keep a web site running, what chance do I have?

The New York Timesʼ 500 page is 404.

We only gave Citibank $326,000,000,000.00 in taxpayer money for its bailout. Maybe if we all chip in a little more, Citi can fix its web site.

Ever have one of those days when you think, “Wow, my web sites are really fast today!” and then you realize you spent the last hour tinkering on localhost?

This is what happens when you try to view the privacy policy and terms of service on the Smashing Pumpkins web store.

The good news is it isnʼt just banks that constantly have borked web sites.

The bad news is that the Nevada Secretary of State is farkled now.

I hope everyone didnʼt go home for the long weekend already.

If the Library of Congress — the federally-funded keeper of all the nationʼs facts and secrets — canʼt keep its web site running, what chance do I have?

One of the bugs in my code has escaped, and is crawling up the wall.

“Give us a moment” has been spinning in my browser for three hours.

I guess AT&Tʼs web site is connected through the ever-reliable AT&T network.

I guess “bang” is one way for an electric company to get my attention.

My first thought was to blame the webdev for using unvetted user-uploaded photos when no other pictures of the property were available. Then I realized I should blame the people who run the motel for the condition it is in.

If anyoneʼs looking for a doctor online and the maps donʼt match up with the addresses… yeah, thatʼs my fault. Render faster, ya pile of crap!

When your internet providerʼs web site is borked…

Naturally, the bill payment section works. But only the bill payment section.

I think this is the dumbest thing Iʼve ever seen while trying to pay a bill online.

If you spend 20 solid minutes trying to figure out the proper sequence for _']}');";, you might develop in a LAMP stack.