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Sunday, November 2, 2003

Random thought:

GoDaddy, a different kind of registrar

If you want to register a domain name, you have several choices. Network Solutions (part of VeriSign) is one. While VeriSign has improved customer service at Network Solutions in recent years, I've avoided the organization since the time it took more than 3 months to regain control of a domain name for a client. (In fairness to Network Solutions, the cause of the problem was an incredibly irresponsible act by Ameritech and the telephone company's refusal to release a domain name they had registered for a local company until I filed a complaint with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. But during the 3-month period, Network Solutions was singularly unhelpful, too.) You'll pay $35 per year if you register a domain name through Network Solutions.

Other choices include "full-price" registrars such as Register.com. The nominal fee from these registrars is $35 per year, although most offer substantial discounts for multi-year renewals. I used Register.com for most of my clients for several years.

The third kind of registrar is exemplified by GoDaddy.com in Scottsdale , Arizona . GoDaddy is one of the largest of the discount registrars - $8.95 per year or $7.95 per year if you're transferring from another registrar (this week's special is $6.95, and you get a 1-year extension to whatever term you've already registered.) So if you have a 5-year registration with NetRegisterDisaster.com, you can pay GoDaddy $7 and you'll not have to pay another registration fee for 6 years!

How can this be? Can a discount registrar be trusted? Is their management system hard to use? If you need help, can you get it? The answers to those questions are: Volume, yes, no, and yes.

A new client came to me more than a year ago with his domain already registered at GoDaddy. With a name like that, how could the company be serious? I decided not to call the client an idiot. Instead, I obtained the user ID and password. When I went to the site to modify the DNS entry so the rest of the world could see the site I'd developed, I found the best control panel I'd ever seen. And the change was processed fast.

Then, several months ago, I decided to add "techbyter.com" as one of my registered domain names (it's easier to type than "technology-corner.com". On a whim, I registered the domain name with GoDaddy - risking less than 10 bucks on a domain name that wasn't yet in use seemed safe enough. The registration went so well that I went back a few days later and registered "tc610wtvn.net" so that I could see how the control panel works with multiple domains.

I liked it.

About that time, I started poking around the GoDaddy website and found the "Who are we?" page. The company was founded by Bob Parsons, formerly of Parsons Software. I remembered the company as an organization that provided powerful software for not much money. Parsons sold the company to Intuit for $64 million, retired, got bored, and decided to go into the domain registry business. Immediately I felt better about registering domains with the company that had the funny name.

A month later, when 4 client site domain names were up for renewal, I moved them to GoDaddy - and within a week or two after that, I'd transferred every domain I'm responsible for to GoDaddy.

But the question remains - if it costs $35 per year to register a site with NetworkSolutions, how can GoDaddy stay in business?
REAL AUDIO: Bob Parsons 6:40 q-we really get it right

GoDaddy, other registrars, and organizations such as ICANN have filed suit against VeriSign or have threatened to do so because of a service that VeriSign established. The service, currently removed out of operation, bypassed the standard "404" errors and displayed Verisign advertising when people typed the wrong domain name. Bob Parsons explains why other registrars are so upset about the new service ...
REAL AUDIO: Bob Parsons 2:13 q-so we'll see

For more information about Go Daddy, just visit the company's webiste.

Napster vs. Itunes: Battle of the music downloaders

You may be excited about the return of Napster and the advent of Apple's Itunes service for Windows PCs. I've tried them both to see if I could tell which is the better service. The answer for me, sadly, is NEITHER.

I downloaded and installed the software from both Apple's site and the new Napster site. I had problems with both sites so significant that I can't list either as ready for prime time.

What wrong with Itunes?

On the Mac, nothing at all. It's easy to use. It works flawlessly. On the PC, the story is not quite the same.

I downloaded the software, installed it, and tried to sign on. I already have an Apple ID and password. Those were accepted and the system told me that I had not yet used my ID on the Itunes site. Correct. I hadn't. It asked me to verify my account settings, but whenever I clicked the button that would allow me to do that, I received an error message saying that there was a problem with the site.

After two days, I decided to try it on another computer -- my notebook system. Same thing exactly.

Suspecting that the problem might be with the Windows implementation of Itunes, I fired up my Ibook, downloaded and installed the software, and went to the Itunes site. The site told me that my Apple ID had not yet been used with the Itunes site and that I needed to confirm my account settings. I clicked the button that would allow me to do that and was immediately presented with the expected account settings screen. It wanted a credit card number and, once I gave it that, I could go to the Itunes store.

Closing the session, I returned to the PC. This time I was able to get to the store, but the store showed no music genres, no artists, no albums, no tracks. Same thing on the notebook computer.

I sent Itunes support a request for assistance and they suggested that I disable the Norton Firewall. I don't use Norton's firewall, but I do use Zone Alarm on the desktop. I disabled it. No change.

When I explained, in response to the reply, that I had disabled Zone Alarm without seeing any change and that I was seeing the same problem on another computer, the support staff suggested that I should try a computer from some other location.

Sorry. Too much trouble. Despite the problems, the Itunes service turned out to be the less bad of the two.

Technology corner rating for ITUNES

TWO CATS: Apple's Itunes service receives 2 cats. Although the application doesn't work, it also doesn't create any new problems. Apple's programmers will eventually figure out how to do on the Windows platform what they can do on the Mac. Itunes is further along than the first few versions of QuickTime for the PC. That application has gone from one of the worst-ever PC applications to something that's really quite good. Itunes probably will, too. For now, though, Itunes on the PC is NOT ACCEPTABLE.

How the Technology Corner rating system works.

What's wrong with Napster?

I downloaded and installed the software and then logged on to the site with the user ID and password I had created a few days earlier. I was able to browse and see music. We were off to a good start.

I selected a couple of tunes to download and they arrived a few minutes later. Then I started seeing error messages. Lots of error messages.

Every time I tried to listen to a 30-second preview, I was treated to "Sorry. We are unable to connect to the server." In most cases, I saw this when I tried to purchase a track.

Next, "An unexpected error occurred #500," which didn't give me much to go on.

Then, as I tried to switch from one genre of music to another, "Sorry, your Napster session is no longer valid due to an long period of inactivity." The connection was working up to the instant the message arrived.

But I returned to the log-in screen, which told me "Sorry, we were unable to sign you in. Please check your Internet connection." Needless to say, it was fine.

Even the support form was an exercise in frustration. It's written in Flash, but the Tab key, Ctrl-C, and Ctrl-V are disabled. I typed part of the explanation into the wrong field, but there was no way to copy/cut it from that location and paste it into the right location. I left the text where it was.

What did support suggest? Increasing the timeout (even though I clearly explained that the connection "timed out" in less than FIVE SECONDS and telling Napster that I have a connection that's far slower than the connection really is: "In Napster go to File/Options/Advanced tab and increase the timeout speed. [The technician really meant to write "period" instead of "speed".] You may also want to go to File/Options/General Tab and change the connection speed to ISDN level."

I didn't consider these to be good solutions, but they might be acceptable as temporary workarounds. Unfortunately, I never got to try them.

You broke my computer!

That's because I wanted to create a CD with pictures of the Clear Channel Columbus construction site. Sometime next year WTVN and the other Clear Channel stations will be moving to spiffy new quarters and I've been taking pictures of the construction. I wanted to give chief engineer Greg Savoldi a copy of pictures from the first 10 weeks of construction, but the CD burner software couldn't find a CD burner on my system.

Because the only thing that had changed from the last time I used CD Now was installation of Napster software, I suspected that was the problem. I uninstalled the Napster software, but CD Now still didn't work. To fix the problem, I had to re-install CD now. That little exercise in futility cost about 40 minutes I didn't have to spare and that is unforgivable. One application must not break another application.

Could I have just re-installed the CD Now software and hope that this would undo whatever it was that Napster's software did? Sure, I could have tried that. I didn't have either the time or the desire. The application isn't reliable and it broke a piece of software that has proved to be highly reliable.

Nerdly News

AOL does something right

When Microsoft releases service pack 2 for Windows XP, it will automatically turn off the Windows Messenger Service -- that's the component that's used mainly by spammers. Previously (back in April) I told you how to turn off the "service" that's being exploited by spammers to pop-up all sorts of "offers" (ranging from foul to illegal) on your screen. At long last Microsoft has concluded that shipping an operating system with this service turned on by default was lunacy. (OK, Microsoft didn't say that.) Service pack 2 (which will be downloaded and installed by at least 9% of Windows XP users) will turn off this service and will turn on the Windows XP firewall.

It's about time! But I digress.

The thing that AOL did right was to turn off Windows Messaging for all of its clients. If you're an AOL client, you still have my sympathies, but at least Windows Messenger pop-up trash is no longer part of your misery.

AOL used an update of its software to disable the Windows feature without the knowledge or consent of AOL subscribers, raising questions about the ethics of the change.

Until this week, it's been easy for spammers to create a pop-up window on any computer attached to a specific network (aol.com, for example). It's been a year since spammers discovered this "feature" of the Windows operating system and they've put it to good use. When a spammer sends an e-mail, you have to open it. The Windows Messenger Service pops the ad on top of any application that's running. And the creeps don't even need your e-mail address -- just the domain name.

For AOL: Thanks! and it's about time.
For Microsoft: Thanks for being a little less clueless. And it's about time.

Microsoft and the G5 Mac

Everyone who thinks that Microsoft hasn't purchased any G5 Macintosh systems, raise your hand. Anyone? Anyone at all?

Thought so. Just as Apple certainly owns some Windows machines, Microsoft owns some G5 Macs. Michael Hanscom, a guy who works as a temp and had been assigned to a Microsoft print shop took some pictures of a shipment of Macs on Microsoft's loading dock and then put the image on his blog:

CLICK THE IMAGE FOR A LARGER VIEW

Microsoft, it will not surprise you, was not amused and has informed the temp agency that the guy is no longer welcome at Microsoft. That may seem a little harsh, but when you're working for a company (even if you're "just" a contract employee), you're expected to keep the company's best interests in mind. Still, the action seems a bit over the top, particularly when one considers that there is nothing in the photograph to suggest that the truck being unloaded was at a Microsoft building.

What harm could this guy do to Microsoft? He's was probably never allowed to participate in high-level strategic or tactical sessions and what he revealed (that Microsoft owns Macintosh computers) would hardly be a shock to anyone. Still, Microsoft is well within its rights to banish Hanscom from the company. He's shown that he's willing to hold the company up to ridicule. (Although, again, anyone who didn't already know that Microsoft buys Apple hardware and software isn't paying attention.

Besides wanting to see what competitor Apple is doing, Microsoft also has an entire division (granted, they're in California, not Washington) that writes software for Macs. It's difficult to develop applications such as Office X if you don't own some Macs!

The full story -- at least Hanson's side of it -- begins with the infamous picture and from there you can link to the page where he says he was "fired" (even though he still works for the temp agency).

The day started like any other day - get up, dink around for a bit, bus into work, and start working through the stack of jobs. Just shy of an hour after I got in, my manager came in and asked me to step into his office when I had a chance. Sure, no biggie, and I headed over as soon as I finished the job I was setting up.

"Okay, here's the first question. Is this page," and here he turned his monitor towards me, letting me see my "Even Microsoft wants G5s" post from last Thursday, "hosted on any Microsoft computer? Or is it on your own?"

"It's on mine. Well, it's on a hosted site that I pay for, but no, it's not on anything of Microsoft's."

"Good. That means that as it's your site on your own server, you have the right to say anything you want. Unfortunately, Microsoft has the right to decide that because of what you said, you're no longer welcome on the Microsoft campus."

And that simply, as of about 2pm today, I once again joined the ranks of the unemployed.

Orbitz addresses used by spammers

On Friday, I started hearing about people who had started receiving spam addressed to a special account they use for Orbitz. Geeks like me often set up dozens (or hundreds) of e-mail addresses that all forward to a single collector account. When a company sells or rents your address -- or if there's a security problem -- you'll know about it right away.

Orbitz hasn't made an official announcement, but I did communicate with media relations manager Kendra Thornton, who says:

"A small number of customers have informed us that they have received spam or junk e-mail from an unknown party that apparently used unauthorized and/or illegal means to obtain their email addresses used with Orbitz. There is no evidence that customer password or account information has been compromised.

"Protecting customer information is of the utmost importance to Orbitz, which employs best practices in privacy and security and is certified by TRUSTe and Verisign. We have informed law enforcement authorities about this matter. In addition, we have assembled an experienced security team to investigate these reports and will aggressively pursue all individuals who may have been involved."

I suspect this means that more than a few addresses are now in the hands of spammers, but only those who maintain specialized addresses know where the extra spam is coming from.

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

Joe
(Photo by Sally)

Bill
(Photo by Scampi)

Privacy Guarantee:

I HATE SPAM and will not sell, rent, loan, auction, trade, or do anything else with your e-mail address. Period.

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Annoying legal disclaimer
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