When I read This I Had To Laugh - 404 Error - Time For A Change
- 2
- Add a Comment
When I read this article I had to laugh. The author Steve Atwood and his Coding Horror deserves two thumbs up in my book. Steve describes the old 404 error that one gets when a web site doesn’t appear, with the cryptic messages that can make a new users life miserable.
One tends to forget about the error message after we have been surfing for so many years. And I know most of us just find some other site when this happens. But picture a new user seeing this page for the first time. Say what? You would think that after all these years and with the Internet becoming so popular, someone, somewhere would say “Heh guys, let’s get rid of the 404 and come up with something novel.”
Suggestions I would like to see:
1. There is nothing wrong with your computer.
2. There are millions upon millions of web sites available. Try another one.
3. If the owner of the web sites doesn’t care if you visit their site, why should you?
4. You could try this site later, but why bother.
What do you think? Is it time for a change?
Tags: website, error message, 404, change

2 Comments
Disturbed
March 21st, 2007
at 7:05pm
I so agree with you. Funny I should read your piece through a link in Lockergnome today as last night, after 2 AM, I was trying to find a single line of PostNuke code that I wanted to change. For some weird reason I read the error.php and I laughed myself silly. I am not faking this … it’s really there. Check it yourself!
=======================
-
define(’_ERROR404_HEAD’, ‘The page you requested cannot be found.The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.’);
define(’_ERROR404_TRY’, ‘Please try the following:’);
define(’_ERROR404_TRY1′,’If you typed the page address in the Address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly.’);
define(’_ERROR404_TRY2′,’Open the home page and look for links to the information you want.’);
define(’_ERROR404_TRY3′,’Use the navigation bar to find the link you are looking for.’);
define(’_ERROR404_TRY4′,’Click the Back button to try another link.’);
define(’_ERROR404_TRY5′,’Enter a term in the search form to look for information.’);
define(’_ERROR404_MAILSUBJECT’, ‘404 error report’);
define(’_ERROR404_MAILED’,'The details of this error have automatically been mailed to the webmaster.’);
define(’_ERROR404_FUNTEXT’,'The requested document is not on this server.
I even tried matching your request
with all the re-mapped pages I know about.
but nothing helped.
I\’m really depressed about this.
You see, I\’m a really good web server…
but here I am, brain the size of the universe,
trying to serve you a simple web page,
and it doesn\’t even exist!
Where does that leave me?!
I mean, I don\’t even know you.
How should I know what you wanted from me?
You honestly think I can *guess*,
what someone I don\’t even *know*,
wants to find here?
*sigh*
Man, I\’m so depressed I could just cry.
And then where would we be, I ask you?
It\’s not pretty when a web server cries.
And where do you get off telling me what to show anyway?
Just because I\’m a web server,
and possibly a manic depressive one at that?
Why does that give you the right to tell me what to do?
Huh?
I\’m so depressed…
I think I\’ll crawl off into the trash can and decompose.
I mean, I\’m gonna be obsolete in what, two weeks anyway?
What kind of a life is that?
Two effing weeks,
and then I\’ll be replaced by a .01 release,
that thinks it\’s God\’s gift to web servers,
just because it doesn\’t have some tiddly little
security hole with its HTTP POST implementation,
or something.
I\’m really sorry to burden you with all this,
I mean, it\’s not your job to listen to my problems,
and I guess it is my job to go and fetch web pages for you.
But I couldn\’t get this one.
I\’m so sorry.
Believe me!
Maybe I could interest you in another page?
There are a lot out there that are pretty neat, they say,
with lots of pretty naked web servers on them,
although none of them were put on *my* server, of course.
Figures, huh?
Everything here is just mind-numbingly stupid.
That makes me depressed too, since I have to serve them,
all day and all night long.
Two weeks of information overload,
and then *pffftt*, consigned to the trash.
What kind of a life is that?
Now, please let me sulk alone.
I\’m so depressed.’);
?>
Ron Schenone
March 21st, 2007
at 7:17pm
Disturbed,
Thanks for posting your finding. It is funny.
Regards, Ron