Do you know this man?

This guy has been making random appearances on live television for the last couple of months.

He has appeared in the background of live news reports on BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky News at random locations and at random times. It seems if there is a camera crew about at the moment, he is there too!

The latest time I’ve spotted him was today on the ITV lunchtime news where he stood in the background of an outside broadcast by the Houses of Parliament.

He has also been spotted in the background of an episode of the Antiques Roadshow.

Here are some more of his appearances.

BBC News Channel:

Channel 4 news:

Sky News:

Sky news again. He actually walked round when the camera changed angle to get back in shot.

Back at St Pancras station, time to read the newspaper!

Getting involved in the Unite-BA press conference this time:

And finally spotted in the background of the Antiques Roadshow.

More sightings and updates on the next page

Have you ever visited a website and wondered when the page was last updated? Well if it’s not clear from the page itself, there is a way that will work with a lot of pages.

1) Visit the web page you want to check

2) Once on the page you want to check, replace the web address in the browser address bar with:

javascript:alert(document.lastModified)

and hit ENTER.

3) You should get a javascript popup like this:

From this we can see the web page was last updated on 30th September 2009 at 5:26pm.

Please remember this is just a guide. It won’t be accurate with all pages – especially those with dynamic content.

Clashing colours, animated GIF’s, flashing text and more. Each of these 10 websites have committed the crime of assault on the eyes.

1) Yvettesbridalformal.com

I think Yvette’s is a bridal shop. When you think of weddings, you think of style and class. I don’t think this is quite what the website portrays.

2) Mccormickrecovery.co.uk

I’m sure they offer a great service, but I’m sure the amount breakdown recovery costs, they could have got a professional in to do the website. This this site, not only do we have animated GIF’s and a hideous yellow background, we also have scrolling text moving over the main picture.

3) Fabricland.co.uk

Another fan of the yellow here. With multicoloured tables , animated GIF’sand confusing navigation, the designer also seems to have ignored the aspect ration of the images with pictures stretched. Search engine optimisation is lacking too with the title of the website showing as “New page 1″.

4) dokimos.org

Whilst it’s not as bad as some of the others, this still deserves it’s place here. Dokimos.org bills itself as an “Interactive 3-D Virtual World Ministry”. It’s also an assault on the senses.

5) Havenworks.com

Havenworks seems to be some sort of news website. I’ve tried to clarify what it actually is, honestly, but there’s just so much information on the page, I give up after approximately 3 seconds. A lot of effort seems to have gone into the site, but it’s just an information overload.

6) Ronoslund.com

This seems to be a personal homepage of a guy called Ron Oslund. Now from the homepage I can see he may have been in a band at some point, but that’s pretty much it. The site seems to be “under construction” although it seems to have been that way since 17th August 2001.

7) Haiti-News.net

I’m not sure what the point of this stite is – it just seems to be a collection of animated images linking to Haiti related content. Just visit it and you see why it’s ended up in this list.

8) Arngren.net

This is a Norwegian gadget company. It looks like they have some great products but there is really no need to try and cram them all onto the homepage! It even ignores the window size and you have to keep scrolling sideways. Oh, and see the flags at the top of the page? You would expect to find an English version of the site there, yes? Nope – it takes you to a page where they try to sell you a pocket translator.

9) frnz.de

I’ve no idea what this site is about (anyone?) – I do know it deserves to be here though!

10) Lingscars.com 

Last but not least is Lings Cars. Created by Ling Valentine who appeared on the BBC’s Dragon’s Den. I’ve included this site on the list not because I think it’s bad, but because it has a reputation of being bad. I actually quite like it. It’s fun, quirky, and definitely wacky.

I can see what she it trying to achieve, and I think she does. A lot of work has been put into the site and I’ve found myself wandering the site on more than one occasion and I’m not even interested in leasing a car! Lingscars just goes to show that having a polished website is not always a good thing.

I hope you enjoyed this furtle into the uglier side of the web. if you did, please share it with your friends. Do you know of any more bad sites, or would like to comment on any of these sites? Please do so below.