If you had a robotic servant, would he be able to fix your website?

First off, I'd like to wish all my customers past, present and future a healthy, wealthy and happy New Year.

2009!!! It really is the future now, which leaves me wondering - where exactly are my solar-powered hovercraft and my robotic servant?

As I like to tell anyone who'll listen, bad design annoys me. Anyway, what with it being the future and all I was musing over how many websites there are out there that look like they're from 1994. I was already on the internet in those days, indeed I proudly created my first web "pages" whilst a student at Newcastle University. They were awful for two reasons: firstly, I didn't have a clue what I was doing back then and secondly, the internet was in its infancy and the tools, methods and protocols we use to create shinytastic sites today just weren't available.

But this is 2009 - also, where is the daily shuttle to our colony on Mars? - and there's no excuse to have a dodgy looking, unusable, inaccessible website in 2009. You've got me to design a good one for you! I've always maintained that it's better to have no website at all than a bad web site. You wouldn't have your shop window or your reception daubed in flaky paint; you wouldn't have your receptionist answer the phone with a curt "what?"; you wouldn't go to a meeting wearing the rags you do your DIY in. So why present such an ugly and unprofessional face to anyone who might find you on the internet?

If your site looks like it belongs on this archive of the "worst of the web" then you definitely need to be contacting a web designer post haste. Welcome to 2009 - it's the future you know!