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Sunday, August 10, 2003

Random thought:

Domain registrars

In the beginning there was InterNIC, a quasi-governmental agency. If you wanted to register a domain name, the only game in town was InterNIC. Period. About the time the Internet began to be available to anyone, InterNIC begat Network Solutions.

Network Solutions was a private company with a guaranteed monopoly and an attitude that reflected the reality of their place in the market, with a little bureaucratic chip on their shoulder for good measure. Network Solutions was not a joy to deal with.

There came to be ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers*, and that led to a proliferation of registrars (although Network Solutions, now owned by the equally rigid and bureaucratic VeriSign Corporation, maintains a strangle-hold on the profitable com and net top-level domains). Other registrars can handle registrations, but must still deal with NetSol to finalize the registration.

Initially, the stand-out third-party registrar was Register.com of New York City. The company provided the means by which domain names could be registered or changed in minutes instead of months. This was a huge improvement. Register.com also provided customer service 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Life was good.

In recent years, Register.com has modified its operating procedures. It's still easy to register domain names and make changes, but Register.com adds pop-ups and links to spy-ware for domain names that have been registered but not implemented -- those "parked" at Register.com. I have complained to the director of worldwide marketing, but to no avail.

Starting less than a year ago, Register began sending multiple renewal messages to every address on file for a given domain. In some cases, I have received 3 or more messages per day (to various e-mail addresses that all are mine) on several consecutive days. In some cases, these reminders are for domains that my client has decided to abandon or for services such as domain forwarding that are no longer needed. Reminders are welcome because the owner of a domain name doesn't want to lose the name by failing to renew it. But there should be a way to turn off messages for domains and services that will not be renewed. I have suggested this to Register.com, but to no avail.

There should, in fact, be a way to turn off all messages. I am responsible for approximately 30 domain names and have my own methods for tracking expiration dates. I can't imagined how much e-mail would come to the person who has hundreds of names registered for clients. I have suggested this. Actually, I have demanded it, but (as you might suspect) to no avail.

A few weeks ago, I decided to create a new domain name for technology-corner.com and I recalled making DNS changes for a client who had registered his domain names with a company called "GoDaddy.com". I didn't think much of the company name, but when I went to the site to make changes, I found it even easier to use that Register.com's site. And the changes seemed to happen a bit faster.

So I decided to give GoDaddy.com a chance with "610tech.net". Registration was quick and easy. Everything worked as expected. I looked around the site a bit and discovered that GoDaddy.com was started by Bob Parsons, the guy who started Parsons Technology, the little software company that was eventually bought (and essentially gutted) by Intuit. Software from Parsons tended to consist of low-cost high-performance applications.

I returned to GoDaddy.com and registered "tc610wtvn.net" (both of them work just fine) and, a day later, returned to institute the transfer of 24 additional domains from Register.com to GoDaddy.com. For $8 per year per domain, GoDaddy added 1 year's worth of registration to whatever was on record already at Register.com. (One domain that was scheduled to expire in 2011 is now good until 2012.) Every domain I'm responsible for, except for a few that will be allowed to expire and vanish, are now at GoDaddy.com.

When I threatened Register.com that I would take the domains registered with them someplace else if they didn't change their ways, I didn't have a new location in mind. If I'd known then what I know now about GoDaddy, I would never have threatened Register. I would just have moved.

Memo to Microsoft: Left hand, meet right hand

This week, I thought I had another bogus e-mail -- one purporting to be from Microsoft, but really sent from a spamhaus. Well, I was part right. The source of the e-mail is also the source of so much spam that I filter any messages that specifically name the domain into the trash. Let's look at the consequences.

This is a report so long that it belongs in its own file. You'll find it here.

Your own personal screensaver!

Have you ever wanted to make your own screen saver with text or pictures that are yours instead of somebody else's? All right, I have to admit that if you'd asked me this question last week, my response probably would have been No. Wrong answer.

Leave it to the folks at Xara to come up with a way to make screen savers -- even screen savers that incorporate photographs -- in a way that anybody can do it and without having to read even 1 word of documentation.

Xara's Screenmaker program ($14.95) is typical of what I've come to expect from the company: A tightly-focused program at a bargain price.

You'll be offered several text options and a few photo options. Fill in the text or provide links to the photos and Screenmaker does the rest. I downloaded the application, installed it, and made the 7 screen savers you'll find at http://www.technology-corner.com/screensavers/ in less than 30 minutes.

Shortcomings? A couple, maybe. It would be nice to be able to choose an 'n'-sided 3-dimensional object for use with photographs. It would be nice to be able to specify typefaces for the text-based screen savers. But for a $15 application, I can't fault Xara. Screenmaker offers far more than $15 worth of value. Maybe future versions of the application will have other cool features. Maybe not. Either way, if you want to make a screen saver today and you don't want to have to learn how to program in C++ to do it, Screenmaker is the way to go.

You can download a trial version at http://www.xara.com/. Play with it for a few minutes and see if you can keep yourself from registering it!

And to see what I came up with in less than half an hour, hop over to http://www.technology-corner.com/screensavers/, download the files, install them in the directory where your version of Windows keeps its screen saver files, and give one a try. Or just download one and double-click it to see what it does.

Xara seems determined to make life far too easy.

Beware the creeps

Earthlink user? The creeps are out to get you. Watch out for fake messages that claim your credit card was rejected. If you follow the link, the creeps then ask for your credit card number (don't you think they might already have it if they're legitimate?) and every other piece of information that would allow them to steal your credit card number and your identity.

The people who put together sites like this (this one is housed in Australia) think Internet users are idiots. All too often, they're right. In case you wonder why I'm concerned about Microsoft's use of a company that obscures is mailing address, consider this ... "from" Earthlink.

		Here's an e-mail message that claims to be from Earthlink, but Earthlink is a .net, not a .com -- and don't you think that the folks at Earthlink might know how to spell "truly"? CLICK THE IMAGE FOR A LARGER VIEW
		The website you're directed to is not Earthlink, but it does look like it. You're asked for all the information the creeps need to steal your identity. How many people were dumb enough to fall for this one? CLICK THE IMAGE FOR A LARGER VIEW

Considering that there are forgeries such as this on the Internet every single day, does it seem logical or prudent to you for Microsoft to do what it did (see earlier report.) There are words to describe Microsoft's actions and those of the creeps that set up this site, but neither of those terms is something that we can use on the radio on Sunday morning.

Nerdly News

Everybody's getting into the WiFi business

Our "local" telephone company, SBC Communications, (with "local" headquarters in Texas) plans to set up more than 20,000 WiFi (wireless fidelity) hot spots in 6,000 locations within the next 3 years. Sprint, the wire and wireless telephone company, plans to build on its 3G wireless system to create another 15,000 or so WiFi spots. At this rate, everyone will have instant communications from everywhere soon.

SBC's WiFi service will be called FreedomLink. It will be available by the end of 2006 in more than 6,000 hotels, airports, convention centers, and other locations (SBC's PR flacks would call those "venues") throughout the the company's 13-state region. SBC has an agreement with Wayport, Inc., to provide additional service on a "roaming" basis to add another 650 locations -- 565 hotels, 8 airports, and 75 restaurants -- where Wayport already has service.

This is just so exciting that I can hardly contain myself. Now we'll have even more opportunities to work from locations where we used to enjoy ourselves.

We'll never have time for this anyway

There is no second Nerdly News story this week. No third story. Given the account of the enormous kerfuffle with Microsoft, we won't get to half of the stuff in this show.

Let us know what you think about this program! Write to:
Bill Blinn --
(wtvn@blinn.com still works)
Joe Bradley --

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Annoying legal disclaimer
My attorney says I really need to say this: The Technology Corner website is for informational purposes only. Neither Joe nor I assume any responsibility for its accuracy, although we do our best. The information is subject to change without notice. Any actions you take based on information from the radio program or from this website are entirely at your own risk. Products and services are mentioned for informational purposes only and their various trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners. Technology Corner cannot provide technical support for products or services mentioned on the air or on the website.