Website W3C compliancy and SEO

In the past couple of days, I have tried to fix various small W3C compliancy issues on my costume renting website. This also included more unique H1 tags for SEO purposes. The W3C related work is still ongoing, but should not take too much longer. SEO work is more tedious due to checking all pages for unique titles and content. The photo section is also going to take some work as well as the search results.

All of this effort is in the long run for proepr rendering by various web browsers and devices as well as for the search engines which are essentially also browsers. It is quite important to have the HTML standards compliant for various reasons.

Foam latex Halloween masks

Halloween is coming soon and I want to go to a Halloween party this year. Preferably I want to go to a proepr costume party and take my girlfriend along. She doesn't like costumes too much due to feeling awkward which I understand because that usually happens to me if I put on a costume to go to those rare costume parties that I go to once or twice a year.

What I would like to do is to be dressed up to look completely different like I did last year where more or less nobody realised that I was actually wearing a realistic looking female mask to make my costume look proper because I was dressed as a french maid.

The plan is to maybe be dressed with my girlfriend as two ugly looking witches which are twins, but I am not sure if my girlfriend would want to attempt that. Alternatively, I can always try anything else or take someone else along.

This is where the dilemma comes in: Which masks to get? I cannot afford too many and shipping takes time to get them here from Europe.

Costume renting website updates

My costume renting website was in urgent need of an update. Last night I finally rewired the menu system a bit as well as split the contact details section into three pages. There was a problem with the menu in Internet Explorer and using lower screen resolutions cut off some text.

The website is also in the process of getting new sections and a shift from ADODB to PDO. Part of the update was the preparation ofr this.

Expensive electricity

The electricity price increase of close to 35% by Eskom about two or three months ago is really becoming noticed by many people. In my case it seems a lot worse than I had expected. There is a chance that I have an electrical leak, but I am not sure. If I have one, then at least some electricity savings can be made.

Ideas needed for costume shop promotion

The weekend of 4 and 5 October 2009, I am going to be promoting my costume renting business at a sale in Campsbay. I still need to design and print something for that, but have no idea what, other than business cards.

Part of the promotion is to be there in costume and possibly switch between several throughout the hours being there. Ideas for that are some of my superhero costumes, maybe Darth Vader (which will get hot), possibly a purple dinosaur and maybe my new lion costume.

If possible, I am also looking for someone else to stand there with me but to also be in costume. I will pay for these services if someone volunteers.

Ideas and volunteers are welcome.

Halloween requests

Finally some Halloween requests are showing up. I was expecting them a little bit sooner. There are still some masks and costumes that I want to get as well and hopefully find out about some Halloween party that I can go to.