Archive | March, 2007

XXX Domains Get Voted Down Again

Mar/30 in Web Hosting

The one story that always seems to come back to me is the triple X domain name struggle. If I am not mistaken, I think I talked about it on the first episode of the Web Hosting Show podcast and that was over two years ago. I do believe that it was first introduced in around the year 2000.

Why can’t we just give it up already? Here is some more information about the ruling from the Domain Tools blog.

Advanced word at the ICANN meeting tonight in Lisbon just came in. I understand that the board has voted down the Dot XXX proposal tonight. The board decided behind closed doors that the new TLD should not be added to the Internet root. It is a long standing tradition at ICANN to have the secret board meeting the night before the official board meeting.

If this ever goes through (which I can almost promise you it will not) it isn’t going to make your Internet safer. It isn’t going to keep all the adult Web sites under one roof. The only thing it will do is make the rich richer. You have to bet they are already making deals for the best .xxx domains and they will be going for top dollar.

Sure you could block the .xxx domain and filter out all that new porn. The old porn is going to stay where it is at though. No successful site is going to want to change their domain name, that is Web suicide. If the US government tries to make them do it, they will just base themselves out of a different country where we can not reach them.

So in turn, instead of creating an easier way to filter porn, we are actually creating more porn on the Web. Dot XXX is not the best idea in the world.

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Don’t Touch the Legos

Mar/28 in Hot Web Topics

Come on people, don’t take the legos away, please! Think of the poor children!

According to the article, the students had been building an elaborate “Legotown,” but it was accidentally demolished. The teachers decided its destruction was an opportunity to explore “the inequities of private ownership.” According to the teachers, “Our intention was to promote a contrasting set of values: collectivity, collaboration, resource-sharing, and full democratic participation.”

So in other words, if I build a house that has no doors and kind of looks like a boat on wheels – this is a bad thing? Sure it is good to teach kids to play nice with each other but they are going to have to learn eventually that not everything looks the same in the real world.

Is it better to own your own blocks or use the blocks of the community? Personally I would like to have my own blocks. That way I know little Jimmy down the street with his runny nose didn’t get snot all over my gray blocks. If I work harder, I should have more blocks than the guy down the street. Everybody wants to own a little ‘bit of something.

Social issues and politics aside, lets just let the kids play with the damn legos. We are slowly ruining all other childhood pass times, lets not see legos go the way of dodge ball and tag (both known to be banned in some schools).

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Cheap, Legal, and Awesome Music

Mar/27 in Online Apps

Amie StreetI found a new music service that might get me back into the whole world of finding new things to listen to.

The name of the Web site that has brought me so much joy is Amie Street. I haven’t had the time to really get down and dirty with it yet, but so far I like what I see.

Most of the music on the Web site is from independent artists and fairly cheap too. Of course the more popular the artist becomes, the more expensive the music downloads might be. All the songs start out as free – and can rise to 98 cents.

What about DRM protection? None to be found!

We have no DRM on our mp3’s, so once you buy them, they’re yours. Put them on your iPod, your computer, a CD you made for road trips, or anything else you can come up with.

So if you are looking for a a new way to discover some awesome new bands, give it a shot. You might even be able to find a few coupons out there to give you an even better free sample of what you can do with the service. If you join up, add me as a friend – I am interested in seeing how that aspect works as well.

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Mozilla Trashes Extensions?

Mar/26 in Hot Web Topics

Mozilla has taken a lot of a good extensions and tossed them in the trash. Why? I don’t really know. There is somewhat of an explanation for their actions here – but it doesn’t tell me too much. I have been a big Firefox fan for a long time, but this was just a stupid move.

I have gotten a lot of people saying that some links on my Firefox blog, FirefoxFacts.com are broken now because of this. I’ll be doing my best trying to fix their mess and finding alternative links to themes and extensions. The thing that sucks if for many of these extensions I am the number one source, so finding an alternative might be harder than I thought.

Maybe it is my fault as well, maybe I was stupid to think that Mozilla wouldn’t be clueless enough to eliminate that many quality extensions. Maybe I shouldn’t have kept giving them credit and linking back to them?

Maybe I’ll get started on Opera Facts? Ok – no reason to take it that far yet.

Was your extension deleted by Mozilla? If so – send me an E-mail and I’ll be happy to highlight you on Firefox Facts. As long as you have an alternative hosting solution setup for the extension or theme I’ll be happy to highlight you.

Update: Looks like links are coming back – or so I am being told via E-mail. I have been talking with several people from Mozilla and they promise they the broken links should only be a temporary thing as they work the bugs out of the new system. Mozilla, you won me back over again! Thanks for getting it fixed quickly!

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My Brain is 72 Years Old

Mar/23 in Personal

Brain AgeI picked up Brain Age for my new Nintendo DS Lite the other day, because I had heard such rave reviews for how unique and different it was. Am I impressed? Yep!

Brain tests and teasers have always gotten my attention. This game delivers that and I also am no longer confused about how to exactly fill out a Sudoku puzzle. It is a good game to pick up and play for a few minutes while killing time or while relaxing after a long day of work.

Day one my brain age ended up being 73. Day two? I made it down to 72. If 20 is suppose to be the ideal age, I think I still have a ways to go.

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Twitter is Lame

Mar/21 in Hot Web Topics

Over the past few weeks I have been reading a lot about Twitter. At first I didn’t really get the idea behind it, and after I did finally “get it” – I wished I was still in the dark. Is it just me or is this just a really lame idea?

Who in the blue monkey hell wants to know that I am warming up a Pop-Tart at 8:45 PM on their cell phone? I know blogging got a bad name for a long time because it was stereotyped as a bunch of depressed goth teenagers talking about why they hate their mother and love their twelve cats.

Twitter is the Internet (or better yet user driven content) jumping the shark.

The worst thing about it all is that people are building up huge bills because of this stupid addiction. Why? So they can tell me, “Wow, that episode of Lost was KEWL”.

So what is the deal? When people post lame content via the Web they are lame, but when they do it via their cell phone it is somehow awesome? I think not.

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Was RegisterFly Hacked?

Mar/20 in Web Hosting

I have been following the RegisterFly saga via the Web Hosting Show over the past few weeks and it just seems to be getting uglier and uglier. It is safe to say that I would recommend anybody registered with them with any service they provide should get out now while the getting is still good.

After reading through a few posts on Web Hosting Talk, I noticed a thread talking about RegisterFly being hacked. Here is a screenshot that was posted:

RegisterFly Hacked

I hope things get better before they get worse, but from the looks of things brighter days are not ahead anytime soon for the RegisterFly company or their customers.

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Serphing Around the Internet

Mar/19 in Online Apps

I need a better Mitch aggregator. From what I can see, that is what Serph hopes to be.

I have just started playing with the new beta release of Serph. The whole thing is closed off to being a private beta test right now, but I am sure they will be ready to go public sometime in the near future.

Thus far with the beta the first thing they allow you to do is search all the big social Web 2.0 places out there for your company, name, or product.

Serph - Search Social WebYou can “explore the social media” and find lots of good content covering the subjects that you search for.

I first noticed this Web site when I was coming through my referrals for the Web Hosting Show. Seems I turned up a lot with the search for “hosting” or “web hosting”. One thing I would really like to see them do is give me the ability to customize my results some and let me take myself out of the equation.

Going back to the idea of a Mitch aggregator, I don’t want to see my own results for me – I want to see other’s results for me. Hopefully they will get this ignored feature (ignored with most other searches out there) covered.

Serph

Right now it it a little hard to say much more because there is still a lot to be done. I wish the folks at Serph the best of luck though because thus far I like what I see.

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Using WordPress for Static Web Sites

Mar/14 in Online Apps

I like to tinker and play with scripts and services Online. When it comes to doing this with Web sites, my best friend at the moment is WordPress. That wonderful little CMS can be used to create just about anything.

You are not limited to just creating a blog by any means. Using some good plugins and imagination you can even create a static Web site from the dynamic guts of this content publisher.

Got this E-mail from a reader of this Web site that wants to know how I did just that with my official Web site MitchKeeler.com and Hosting Hoopla.

Hi Mitch, I love all of your Web sites and I subscribe to them all. I was wondering how you got WordPress to work on your main Web site? I can’t seem to figure it out myself but I would love to use WordPress as less of a blog and more of an easy way to manage my own bio and resume Web site. Any help would be appreciated.

Well I have to say I have no real “pretty” way of getting this done. A lot of the links back and forth through the Web pages I had to edit by hand in the code for the WordPress “style” I am using. So that gets navigation out of the way.

The hardest part was figuring out how to show a regular static Web page as the main index instead of a listing of blogs. Once you do that, you can create all your other Web pages by going to “Write” and then “Write Pages” inside of WordPress.

Filosofo Home-Page Control is the WordPress plugin you need if you want to set one of these created pages inside of WordPress as your main index. Just drop that into your plugins folder, activate it and pick the one you want to use. It doesn’t get anymore simple than that.

Home Page Control

Now mix all of that with the Edit N Place plugin and now you don’t even have to login to WordPress to do edits to your existing pages under your Web site either.

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Nintendo DS vs Sony PSP?

Mar/13 in Personal

I finally got my new toy in the mail yesterday. What is that toy? A Nintendo DS Lite! Now that I own a Nintendo DS Lite and a PlayStation Portable I think I am pretty ready to do a side by side comparison.

Good Things About Nintendo DS Lite

1. Original and Different Way of Playing Games.
2. Bright Screen – I Would Say Even Brighter Than the PSP.
3. All Your Favorite Old School Titles Will Be or Are There.

Good Things About the PlayStation Portable

1. It Can Act as a Portable Media Machine as Well with Photos, Music and Videos.
2. More Functionality With Homebrew and Custom Firmwares.
3. A Different Game Libary – Good Games There Too.

Which is better? As you can see both have their good points, so I would have to say it has to do with what you want from your portable gaming experience. If you want fun and different I would pick a Nintendo DS Lite. If you want a media manager and good looking games – go with the PlayStation Portable.

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