Realespace

I just got this email for a domain I own with Yahoo.com

Dear Matt Dunlap,

Thanks for using Yahoo! Domains. We’re writing to remind you that it’s time for the annual autorenewal of your service.

Your Domains plan, associated with the domain domain_name.com, will renew on 07/07/2008. If your billing information is up-to-date, there’s no need to do a thing (except keep enjoying your service).

Important note: Beginning on July 1, 2008, Yahoo!’s annual domain renewal price increases to $34.95 per year.

You can verify your billing information by visiting yahoo billing and clicking the Update link next to your plan. Click the gray Edit button to the right of your payment method to review your payment details.

(Please note that the billing center will not reflect the new $34.95 domain-renewal price until July 1. Until that time, you will continue to see the old renewal price next to your plan.)

Best regards,

You have to be joking right? Is this a current trend in domain names? Is it because I have owned it for 5 years and it renews every year?

This is completely unacceptable. to jump from $9.95 a year to $34.95 a year, especially in a time that domain name are so easy to register for cheap, really shows where Yahoo.com is heading.

Thanks for the heads-up Yahoo, I will transfer be to a new registrar soon.

All I can say is try it…

You’re not going to find anything useful, but the concept isreally cool. Millions of blogs posts streaming to your computer screensaver as the world spins around. My laptop could not handle the screensaver. It was really jittery, but they do have a standard mode you can open from your start menu which was nice and smooth.

Source: http://twingly.se/ScreenSaver.aspx

I like the ideas of information getting spread on sources outside of normal paths. There is another screensaver that I like called Electricsheep. Electricsheep is open source and allows anyone to create animations for it.

Source: http://electricsheep.org/

Blogging for Personal Branding id a slideshare show that teaching you how to blog. Trisha is an expert blogger that has taken her career to new levels. Trish Okubo is the disruptive innovator for Ebay and founded Omiru.com

Don’t be scared the 326 slides, They are very well planned and you click through them in only a couple minutes. The slides were made for the web 2.0 expo.

10 Steps overview

1. Pick a topic that is uniquely you
2. Stand for something real - If you don’t love it, don’t blog about it
3. Be newsworthy
4. Be awesome!
5. Create a stoplist
6. Build real relationships
7. Meet people in person
8. Make it easy to spread the word
9. Create community wherever you go
10. Be patient

This is really good stuff, and I see a few that I need to work on immediately.

I just noticed a new little feature over at Techcrunch. At the very bottom of the pages there is a new widget to add video comments. The provider of the video player/editor is Seesmic, which is only accepting alpha subscribers to their service, so don’t expect to see many video comments just yet…since there are that many accounts.

Cool stuff, we all know you can say anything when not held accountable. This is especially true when commenting on blog posts. Video will definitely get more click backs to your site from the comment section.

I stumbled another great firefox plugin recently called stylish.It let’s you change the look of any website including google, yahoo, gmail…anything.

Sample gmail skinned:

You can download full styles, or create your own and upload them for others to use. It’s a lot of fun.

Start be grabbing the Stylish Firefox extension

After you install it, you can go to userstyles.org to grab styles. There are user styles for all the major websites. Warning though, if you use a skin that is heavy with graphics, it will slow the site down. The gmail example above is really slow.

If you want to style your own website, rather someone else’s website, go to Tools > add-ons in the Firefox menu and click on Options for the stylish add-on

By clicking on Options you will open up the editor. Click on Write to start a new website. In this example I choose Activerain.com. I chose activerain because 1. it is a blank canvas with not a lot of styling, and 2. there is a new activerain customizer which is pretty cool.The activerain customizer is built by danko web design, and they did a great job!

It is really simple to change main html tags like body, a, table, etc… but if you really want to customize it, you have to get the CSS stylesheet. To get the stylesheet from any website, do a View Source and look for a link tag in the head. if this is not making any sense, simply do a search for “stylesheet” and you should find it. Open that link in your browser and you should see the styles.

There will be a lot of styles, so you might want to grab another firefox extension called the web developer toolbar, which will allow you to mouseover different locations on the website and see what the style id or class is.

Here is activerain.com after I styled it

Some things to note about styling other websites.

1. html tags with class are identified with a period in the stylsheet. Example: .main_header
2. html tags with id’s are identified with a # in the stylsheet. Example: #main_header
3. you need to add “!important” after any line in the stylesheet to override the original CSS
4. to overide only one site, you must include @-moz-document domain(”activerain.com”) {}. All additional styles must go into the brackets or else every website that has the same class and id’s will change.
5. here is a link to a CSS tutorial if you need to learn more about styles

Years ago, Network Solutions was the leader in domain name registrations. This is when domain names cost $70 a year. Over the years domain name registration has dropped to $9.99 in most cases and some sites like Yahoo and GoDaddy run specials to register for $1.99.

Netsol is now just a pathetic company on the same lines with Liberty Names of America. They hijack domain names and profit from your internet real estate

You probably only know of Liberty Names of America (LNOA.com) if you already own a domain name. LNOA will send you a letter in the mail politely telling you that your domain name is about to expire and you can re-register with them, for an extremely high price. There current price plans include $30 for 1 year, with a 5 year deal that drops the price to $18.88 per year. They are obviously going after people that have no idea about domain name registration and probably bought the domain name back in 1994.

Jimboykin.com - more problems with liberty names of america

back to Netsol. A few months ago, Netsol started to automatically register domain names that you searced for. For example, if you looking for a domain name and use there search tool, it would register it for you and temporarily hold it for 5 days, just in case you forget to follow through and register yourself. Netsol’s current price to register a domain name is $34.99 per year. If you go to Yahoo.com to buy it there for $9.99, you would be out of luck because Netsol has control of it, you can only buy it from them. Needless to say this outraged many people.

They changed the policy after the outrage and now displays this message:

Now, Netsol has started to park advertising on unused subdomains. So if you are not using news.domainame.com, netsol will redirect a visitor to an advertising page when a visitor tries to access that page.

According to a search on DomainTools there are 294,438 sites on the same Network Solutions IP address as GotGame.com. I ran a test on the sites listed (for free) by DomainTools and every single one had the same issue: unassigned domain names with link filled Network Solutions holding pages.
Source:techcrunch

This issue will probably break any wordpress MU install for a domain name that uses Netsol as a nameserver. Since Wordpress MU uses a .htaccess file to redirect subdomains to blogs, if there is not a true subdomain defined at the nameserver, Netsol will highjack it.

I have not used Netsol for years so I don’t know if these solutions will work, but you can give it a try.

1. stop using Netsols nameservers. Most registrars will let you use a different nameserver without transfering the domain.
2. If you must use Netsols nameservers, add an “A” RECORD that creates a dns wildcard. *.domain.com. This will cause all subdomains to resolve the website you want the visitors to go to.
3. transfer the domain name to another provider. This will cost some money but well worth it.

here is an interesting concept, virtual tours of businesses such as restaurants, bars, etc… OK I know that does not sound new and frankly it isn’t, but when you combine Street View Mapping (Google) and virtual tours it works well. Everyscape.com has done exactly this

When I first saw the site I was not impressed, but it is new so I wasn’t expecting much. There is a funky autodrive option that let’s you sit back and be a passenger, but up on Twin Peaks in San Francisco the autodrive just took you into a tiny circle.

This isn’t a mapping website. This is an advertising website for businesses. There are many places to add your brand and marketing, and add a virtual tour of your business.

restaurant example - Ski Mountain Example (virtual tour of ski resort is a pretty good idea)

As a Scape Artist, you’ll be helping to create more than an online world — you’ll be creating the world, online. Whether you’re driving the streets with EveryScape’s special roof-mounted, multicamera, shooting the interiors of your favorite joints, passing on the inside scoop on a local shop, or just making sure that your world is being represented the way it should be. As a Scape Artist, you have the ability and responsibility to create something that means something.
Become a Scape Artist

Sign me up, I’d love to drive one of those cars with the roof mounted cameras through bars, restaurants and up ski mountains

Bottom line, this is a great start to an interesting website, but they need to get the traffic by offering Yelp like features and involve the community, not just businesses looking to advertise online.

Sorry for the lack of blog posts recently, I’ve been under heavy sniper fire and can only post during calm periods.

The newest Google lawsuit is over Google’s useful street view mapping application.

According to a lawsuit filed in Allegheny County’s Court of Common Pleas this week, Aaron and Christine Boring accuse Google of “intentional and/or grossly reckless invasion”
Source: TechCrunch

Other Google Lawsuits:

• Geico vs. Google
  
• Viacom vs. Youtube
• Thailand vs. Youtube (Yes…the Country)

Many more Lawsuits here…Google Watch