Review of LaunchSplash, a free splash page service

http://www.launchsplash.com

http://www.launchsplash.com

What’s in a splash page? Normally just a blank white page with the words “Under Construction” or “Coming Soon”.  And if you’re a domain registrar, chances are your splash pages are loaded with hundreds of advertisements, links, and useless clutter.  GoDaddy comes to mind…

Although we as designers and developers could create fancy, beautiful, and dynamic splash pages complete with lights and sounds, it may not always be necessary or cost-efficient for our clients–especially if the page is going to be very temporary.  That’s when I stumbled upon LaunchSplash.  I was pleasantly surprised with its capabilities.

It’s completely web-based, so you don’t even have to fire up an editor and FTP client, or worry about hosting.  You really just do what the site says – enter your domain name and hit Create.  It offers a number of useful features including:

  • Sign-up form so users can receive announcements of the upcoming website
  • RSS feed to again keep users updated on the website status
  • Integration of Feedburner & Google Analytics to already begin tracking your client base
  • Domain mapping so you can point your domain to the splash page without using the default URL which is already pretty short (mydomain.launchsplash.com)
  • 2 free launch pages

I’m not overly fond of the freebie design, but it’s adequate for a very temporary splash page.  Of course, you can upgrade for $5/month to use the premium designs.  Here is their demo.

I’ve created one splash page through them and was satisified with the results.  I would definitely use them again for another quick ‘n easy page.

How to export filenames into a text file

Export Windows folder filenames to a text file using Command Line

Export Windows folder filenames to a text file using Command Line

Scenario: You have a Windows folder containing a large amount of files that you need to have exported into one text file listing all the filenames.  For instance, you might need to copy & paste those filenames into an Excel spreadsheet.

Here’s a quick and easy way to do it:

1. Open a Command Window (Start > Run > cmd)

Open the command line

Open the command line

2. Navigate to the folder by using the cd command.   If you need to move up a level, use cd .. If your folder name contains spaces, surround it with quotations.

Commands to type

Commands to type

3. Type the command dir /b>filelist.txt

4.  This will create the text file inside that folder.  If you want the file output elsewhere, use a fully qualified name.  Remember that Windows uses \ as the directory delimiter, not /

The “pretty” alternative:  Simply drag and drop the folder into a Mozilla (Firefox) browser.  The directory structure will be output in a pretty HTML document.

Directory contents listed in an HTML page

Directory contents listed in an HTML page