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The first order of business for this group of designers and developers with powers far beyond those of mortal men was to set up a home page. These days, even super heroes need a web presence.
But they were opposed at every turn by the dire machinations of their arch-enemies, The League of Very Bad Persons Composed of Ad-Man, Avant Guarde, Miss Confusion and Mister Malware. I spoke with them at the Federal Detention Center at Terra Haute, Indiana.
Ludwig S. Ryan: Introduce yourself to our readers.
Ad-Man: Glad to meet you! And everyone will be glad to meet you when you wear Muswell brand action slacks and skirts. I'm currently doing an extended consultation here in the Terra Haute Federal Detention Center for Crimes Against Good Taste, Inappropriate Placement of Advertising - as if there could be any such thing, Inappropriate Advertising Content, Conspiracy to defraud and several violations of Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (18 U.S.C.) in relation to my association with The League of Very Bad Persons.
All a huge misunderstanding, I assure you. But YOU'LL never be misunderstood, friend, when you wear Wild Tiger brand colognes and perfumes to your next social function. RAWR!
Mister Malware: OMG, these l0z0rs has pwn'd me. But I did nots do it! . . .
Due to Mister Malware's errr unique manner of speech, known as 3l33t or leet speak on the internet, this publication has hired a translator at the last minute and at no small expense, for you, our valued reader
M. M. (Translation): I was convicted of a crime that I didn't commit! I'm an innocent man! Okay, maybe not. I'd have gotten away with it too if it hadn't been for the Purple Team . . .
I've been convicted of Crimes Against Good Taste, The Use of Viruses and Key-loggers (one hundred and forty seven thousand counts), along with violations of the RICO act (18 U.S.C.) in relation to my association with The League of Very Bad Persons.
Miss Organization: I've been responsible for every major foul up in the whole world since 1972. I'm the only member of The League of Very Bad Persons who has been even remotely successful against that stupid, do-gooding Purple Team.
I've been convicted for Crimes Against Good Planning and Procedure, Crimes Against Good Troubleshooting Methodologies, Crimes Against Good Taste, and several violations of 18 U.S.C., the RICO Act in relation to my association with The League of Very Bad Persons.
Oh! And littering!
Avant Guarde: Hmmph. How snooty. I am obviously the most attractive and successful member of our team. I am not a crass salesman like our so-called leader, Ad-man.
I am not a pimply faced child who hasn't seen the light of day in over a decade and is terrified of ze women.
Avant Guarde glares at Mister Malware
Nor am I fractured personage like Miss Organization who should perhaps work more on finding her car keys before attempting to thwart the so-called Purple Team.
No. I am zee ARTEEST. A mundane scribbler like you could never understand me. I vill not list the ridiculous trumped up charges for which I am incarcerated in this hole in the ground in the American Midwest.
LR:How did you plan to thwart the Purple Team?
A-M: I'm glad you asked that Ludwig, and you'll be glad you asked about Dewey Cheat'em and Howe insurance, annuity and investment products!
I set up a host, a host with the ever-so special needs of the Purple Team in mind.
It had HUGE TRACTS OF LAND, you know tons of web space even though they code conservatively using the bare minimum of mark up and graphical elements to get their point across.
The user agreement contract was filled with confusing clauses and riders. Had they signed it we would've owned the rights their likeness, name and all products associated with their name. Have you seen the numbers on their line of action figures?!
That agreement was also there to hide the, shall we say, less than savory aspects of the host.
LR: Could you expound on that?
A-M: I'd be happy to Ludwig, I'm always proud of a bad job well done, even if it is only well done on paper. Speaking of which, have you considered the soft, pliant touch of Pumice brand bathroom tissue?
We also had tons of hidden costs. The hosting itself was free provided you purchased a domain from us at a three thousand percent mark up, only twenty five thousand dollars a year.
Our pricing plan also included penalties for going over your bandwidth cap, using tupperware on a Sunday and walking while chewing bubblegum. It was a sure thing.
Ads. Now I love ads, Ludwig and hidden in our agreement was the stipulation that ads would be served to both the party hosting the site and the end user of the site - twenty four hours a day.
Through the miracle of Mister Malware's Miracle Malware Machine, adware would've attached itself to the Purple Team's computers and into their very minds themselves!
Just imagine it!
Ad-Man spends a moment caught up in a reverie, imaging a world where pop-ups follow each of us through the day like a serial killer . . .
We also made sure the pages loaded like molasses on a cold day, and that the user interface was designed to cause insanity, migraines and the heartbreak of psoriasis.
But the UI wasn't really my department. Talk to Avant Guarde and Mister Malware about that.
Talk to me about how you can get rich really quick by selling distributorships to others who will then sell distributorships to others . . . kinda like a big pyramid. Big bucks, Ludwig. Think about it.
M. O.: What about me? What about MY NEEDS! Look buster, I'm the only one of these clowns that was remotely successful. So you should be talking to me. ME!
M. O.: I used my cosmic powers of disorganization to tap into Purple Team's internet service provider. Once there, I used the Discombobulator Ray, which is my own invention by the way to create chaos, dissension and disorder in the ranks of those do-gooders.
LR: So what happened?
MO: Well . . .
I got a little distracted and confused . . . I was in the middle of using the ray and I almost had them . . .
Just then my guildleader in World of Warcraft came on Ventrillo to ask me to tank a Kharazan run on my Druid, my cell phone started ringing and I got this really great idea for a plan to crush the Earth under my pointy boots . . .
I didn't check back in on the ray for about six hours or so and by that time the Purple Team had rallied and finished their web site project at the eleventh hour.
LR: I guess you were the victim of your own super power, huh.
Miss Organization shot me a wicked glare and I suddenly misplaced my ball point pen . . .
M.M. (Translated): Avant Guarde and I designed the user interface for the hosting site. All the ads on the control panel were carriers for my brilliant adware products. Once they got onto a users machine, you'd have to burn the box to get it off.
I had all the control panel text, and help files for the control panel written in an obscure dialect of Urdu, spoken by only three people on Earth.
A. G.: I made a brilliant user interface for that control panel. Ze critics. They are useless! They say that buttons and controls should be obvious, and not point to Ursa minor in the night sky . . .
Of course the control panel's color scheme was red with purple text. Wonderful colors and the purple in my color scheme was designed to lure the Purple Team in further . . .
L.R.: But you failed . . . it does seem like a devious plan. How did the Purple Team escape your machinations?
M. O.: Once they were free of my Discombobulator Ray they planned. They determined their needs in a host and looked for sites focused on meeting those needs. Curses!
A-M:: They looked at our site, carefully read the user agreement - seriously, who does that? Don't these people have lives?
A chorus of agreement from other members of League of Very Bad Persons
A-M:They discovered all of my evil clauses and riders, and determined that heroichost.com was not suitable for their needs.
M.M. (Translated): All that work . . .
A.G.: Is ees for NOTHING! We'll get you ze next time, Purple Team!
After speaking with the League of Very Bad Persons, I went back to Saint Petersburg College and spoke with the students of the "real" Purple Team there.
L.R.: So how did the team actually chose a host?
Jeff Sperry: Well, there weren't any super villains or flashy gadgets, but there were a lot of hosts that didn't make the grade.
Victoria Rahall: That's true. We were looking for a completely free host that provided subdomains.
Rachael Gelb: It had to be completely ad free too. Poorly placed ads can destroy the look of your site, and can display inappropriate content.
Chris Demmons: It had to have a good user interface on it's control panel. We also wanted fast page load times.
L.R.: What wasn't important to you?
C.D.: Bandwidth wasn't a huge consideration. This site wasn't going to be eBay or Amazon.com. It is a student project and thus should only attract limited traffic. The site we ended up choosing provides unlimited bandwidth, and that's not a bad thing. It just wasn't a real consideration in our decision.
Also HUGE TRACTS OF LAND err, I mean outrageous amounts of disk space was something we didn't consider very important. The site we chose provides 60MB of hard drive space which is more than enough to fill our needs.
R.G.: SQL, PHP, and other scripting support wasn't something we considered important. We planned on building this page strictly with standards compliant xhtml and cascading style sheets.
J. S.: While a known provider such as Yahoo geocities.com, is nice, the notoriety of the host wasn't something we considered very important. So long as the site appeared reputable and wasn't dumping malware on us that was good enough.
V.R.: As we are students learning how to use xhtml and CSS to build a site; WYSIWYG site editor tools such as the ones provided by Google Pages was something we didn't want.
L.R.: At this phase of your project, what was your biggest obstacle?
J.S.: Organization and communication. This was the first team project assigned to us and we weren't used to working together.
L.R.: So which host did you eventually chose, and what features did it offer?
V.R.: I found 50webs.com, a host which provides 60MB of hard disk space, unlimited bandwidth, a free FTP account and an easy to use control panel. As a team we selected it and originally posted this page there. As you can see, we've gotten a lot better since then.
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