Earlier I had posted about knowing who manages your domain names. I would like to build on this by adding being aware of solicitations that appear to be invoices for domain name renewals or services.

Recently the mail has increased with what appears to be an invoice for the renewal of a domain name or for Web site services such as search engine submissions. These usually come by US Mail, but are now starting to come by email. Where they look like an invoice, they are in actuality a solicitation, and further inspection will show small print to that effect. The hopes of these scam artists is to trick you into moving your domain name to them or to pay for services you may not want.

In that original post I said there is a big business around domain names. You can register domain names with any number of sources. My business Dunkirk Systems is a reseller of domain names, and all domain names are registered through ICANN-accredited domain name registrars. Asking a person or entity for their business is not deceptive or unethical itself, but it can be in the way it is executed.

If you receive such an invoice letter or email, verify who it is from. Contact whomever you have your domain names registered through to verify if the invoice is legitimate or not. If you do get a letter or have any questions, please post a comment here – I am more than willing to help!

Business • Domain Names • Technology • (2) Comments • Permalink

After taking a long weekend away from the computer (note PC, not Treo for email) I went back to check on the status of The Hot Iron and see if anyone posted any comments while I was away. While I checked this information, I also caught up on reading blogs that I subscribe to.

Here are my results:

• 92 comments posted since last Thursday morning
• 1 legitimate comment (thanks Adam!) meaning 91 were pure spam
• 100+ new blog posts were in my Google Reader, as it only displays accurate numbers under 99. For some reason, they can’t count in Mountain View

Where my blog is new and I am not expecting zillions of hits and comments, getting them from the far-away spammers was not a welcome after the weekend. As I do have moderating turned on, these were only my problem and did not impact any readers.

Technology • (5) Comments • Permalink

One of the largest consumption of my time, next to delivering Internet solutions to my clients, is following the news and trends in the Internet space. It is tough to keep up with all that is new, some of those things more relevant or interesting than others. Twitter has been in the headlines since the recent South by Southwest (SXSW) conference. I won’t rehash what Twitter is, and fellow Chicagoan Andy Wibbels wrote this good overview of Twitter.

To me, the fact that someone will care about what I am doing right now, the core of Twitter, is as much fascinating as it is odd. However, when I hear of new services or gizmos such as Twitter, I tend to think of more practical implications. Perhaps knowing what I have been doing all day, at the end of the day, would help in accounting for my time? And in addition to logging what I am doing, could I also log what I just did or notes on something I need to do? Could an application like this replace scraps of paper and sticky notes all over my desk?

Twitter has inspired me in this regard. But I won’t be using the application itself, as I don’t want the world to know what I have been doing all day. A small enhancement to an existing custom Web application could just do the trick. I’ll let you know how this plays out.

Business • Technology • (2) Comments • Permalink

Many times we instinctively do something that, if we take a step back and observe ourselves, we didn’t realize we do. I found when I go to search the Web for some topics, the first place I go is Wikipedia and not Google. I have Wikipedia in the search engines in Firefox, so it is as easy for me to search Wikipedia as it is for me to search Google using the Google search bar. The picture below shows my Firefox setup.

So what am I searching on Wikipedia? Proper nouns – names, cities, companies and even some words I need the definition for are what I am entering in the search box to the right. If I am looking for a technical solution, then I am most always searching Google.

A few things come to mind as a result of this search. I am not viewing any ads on Wikipedia that in some cases may give me a link more relevant to what I may be seeking. I am also relying on the editors of Wikipedia to provide me information. But am I taking anything I see on either search as gospel? Of course not!

What are you using to search, and for what?

Technology • (4) Comments • Permalink

As other bloggers have commented over the past few days on how they read blogs, I have decided to chime in, as well as make a public declaration not only of how I read them, but how many I will read.

Google Reader is my feed reader of choice. I say "feed" as I subscribe to feeds that are not necessarily blogs, such as the news headlines from Web sites. It has worked well for me, both on my PC and my Treo 680. I browse through all of the new feeds in a big list, and do not use any of the other features, including folders. This is acceptable to me as I have a variety of feeds, both business and personal, and going through the list and reading the mix is a good break in the day for me.

Last week I decided to keep the number of feeds I subscribe to fewer than 200. I have found that I don’t put too much thought into a blog or Web site when I subscribe to the feed. If I happen upon the site for whatever reason and find some useful information, I will just subscribe. It is not until I subscribe that I see what the feed gives me. If the content is no longer relevant to me, duplicate of something else I am reading or if there are too many posts, I will unsubscribe.

Two hundred has actually been the cap I have been using all along, noticing it when I manage my feeds. Do you have a magic number for your feeds?

Technology • (7) Comments • Permalink