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 turn auto-generation of ID numbers off

identityAlthough not recommended, sometimes it is necessary to turn auto-generation of ID numbers off in your database. For instance, I was in a situation where I was completely redesigning a database (deleting tables, renaming tables, purging data, entering new data, ec.). However, the client was insistent on maintaining the ID numbers that were associated with specific items that they wanted to keep.

This is how I turned off the auto-generation of ID numbers in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Management Studio:

  1. Right-click on the table name and hit Design
  2. In the Column Properties tab, find Identity Specification and expand the section
  3. For (Is Identity) change the dropdown to No
  4. Hit Save

If you encounter the following error message, you will need to perform an additional step:error

Go to Tools > Options and click “Designers”.

Uncheck the “Prevent saving changes that require table re-creation” and hit OK.

menu

Try the above steps again.

When you are done, make sure to turn auto-generation back on!!!