What is this site about, and why the domain name?
When i first started this blog back in 2014/15 Windows XP was on its way out, and Windows 7 was replacing both XP and those unlucky enough to have Vista. It was really only at the end of 2014 that Internet explorer was being ousted from business PC’s and being replaced with Chrome or Firefox.
I was working my first IT related job, leased lines, and 10/100mb switches were still a thing. For old companies, it was just about time to renew some of the first equipment they had invested in from the last 10 years. Network issues were commonplace, and driver issues even more so. Thus, one of the most common networking issues i would receive from staff would be ‘help, “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage”.
At the time there were also multiple graphics card and monitor vendors which had the built in “Cannot Display this Video Mode” Error – usually brought about by an unsupported resolution, or a bad VGA cable. Remember, these were the days that even popular drivers were not automatically baked into the OS. Video cards did not just work by physically installing them alone. XP and even windows 7 basic drivers were pretty pathetic, and Monitor manufacturers were pedantic about you using their prefered resolution, or none at all!
After analysing my helpdesk tickets for 2014, it was these two words which had the highest shared percentage for all my jobs within the issue field. ‘Cannot Display’.
Looking back on why i chose this blog name, it made sense at the time, and it always will in some cases. It’s interesting to spot trends in website copy (text), and even people’s forum posts, and to see how gramatically, and semantically we have moved more and more to using abbreviations and slang on the internet.
At the time i considered using ‘Can’t’ as opposed to ‘Cannot’ for the domain name, however the educated part of me couldn’t stand not being able to have apostrophes (‘) within the domain name itself. If only for purely aesthetic reasons…
A quick search for this blog makes my case; a search for “cannot display” brings back results for IE and graphics errors, whereas a search for “can’t display” brings back results for things like Windows 10 and Microsoft PowerBI – both relatively new technologies. Seems like microsoft is also softening their use of formal language!
As for me, i’ll be sticking just where i am. For now…