HostBlog.co.uk - ramblings of a hosting provider

The most desirable/requested .ME domain names applied for but not allocated in the Sunrise and Landrush pre-ordesr will now be available at auction…

Domain names that come up for auction in April:
April_Auction_List-2009

Domain names that come up for auction in May:
May_Auction_List-2009

First auction - Sunrisers

April 1: List published

April 20: Closing date for applications by registrars

April 22: Notification to participants

April 23 to April 29: Auction held

If you’d like any of these domain names, please contact our Domain Broker Sales Team
who can arrange your participation in the auction, or to bid on your behalf.

Second auction - Landrushers

April 1: List published

May 10: Closing date for applications by registrars

May 13: Notification to participants

May 14 to May 20: Auction held

If you’d like any of these domain names, please contact our Domain Broker Sales Team
who can arrange your participation in the auction, or to bid on your behalf.

2009 will see an explosion of new gTLD’s appearing after proposals under the new ICANN guidelines ICANN New gTLD Program relaxed a number of the constraints.

First up is .paris … a city with it’s own domain type …

Standard Tactics LLC, a hidden/shell company owned by registrar GoDaddy is set to close.

After all the hypocrasy of Bob Parsons, CEO of GD, complaining about domain tasting and kiting, yet running his own domain tasting/cybersquatting company, GoDaddy have finally announced that their sub-company “Standard Tactics LLC” is closing, after numerous trademark infringement cases for cybersquatting.

Whilst this can only be good news for domain purchasers (for actual use or search engine spam or whatever) it’s still not a complete clean-up of their act as a registry/registrar.

If a domain is not renewed, which had previously been registered by GD, and that domain has any sort of “residual” traffic or backlinks - they’re listing them for sale @ $300+ on TDNAM the GoDaddy owned domain aftermarket - rather than release them !

Up until recently, TDNAM had also come under heavy criticism after it was discovered that their own “VP of Aftermarket Sales” was caught bidding against his own clients to shill-bid up the price on 2ndary domains - GD have now issued a “policy” preventing staff bidding against clients on behalf of the company - a practice illegal on auctions in the US - it would be like ebay knowing yor max bid and always forcing you to pay it !

All are located in China !

1. Xinnet Bei Gon Da Software
2. BEIJING Networks
3. Todaynic

And joining the top 3, with guest appearances in the top 25 registrars of spamvertised domains and spammer friendly registrars are:

• Xiamen Ename (ENAME.CN)
• Beijing Innovative Linkage (DNS.COM.CN)
• OnlineNIC (CHINA-CHANNEL.COM)
• HiChina Web Solutions (NET.CN)
• BIZCN.COM

Perhaps if the Great Firewall of China was setup to stop things leaving rather than getting in,
the internet in general and mail in particular would be a safer and more productive place.

For more information about these scum visit knujon registrar listings

Parents, be VERY worried about sending your children to school, unscrupulous IT literate students might be getting them hooked on a drug called Linux …

This is both funny ( I dare you to read the letter outloud and not smile) and sad (because if peple like this really are in positions of power, the human race will be extinct shortly through it’s own ignorance)

Linux holds our kids back.

Thousands of people have fallen for a fake DM (Direct Message) Email claiming to be from the micro-blogging service Twitter.com and proceeded to hand-over their passwords/usernames.

I wonder if the complete muppets that fall for these scams will ever learn to *READ* the url’s of things before randomly clicking on them !

See more on the oficial twitter blog … http://blog.twitter.com/2009/01/gone-phishing.html

Microsoft have announced that the forthcoming Windows Server 2008 R2 release will be available ONLY in the x64 version.
- leaving all users of the current release of x86 W2k8 Server (Web and Datacentre editions) with a near-immediate upgrade issue for both hardware and software.

With many of the initial problems of the 64-bit version still not fully been addressed…

• missing driver issues
• no compatibale backup software
• antivirus/anti-malware software not fully converted to 64-bit
• random crashes of W2k8 Hyper-V Virtual Servers

it seems we’re basically forced to migrate and update, or simply stop offering M$-Windows based hosting solutions

At least R2 appears to offer some useful and necessary upgrades/fixes …

• Hyper-V improvements - fixed Quick/Live Migration, bringing it up to what we already have with our XEN Enterprise linux systems.
• Completed PowerShell - powerShell best 2 finally brings the Windows Server command prompt upto scratch
• Multi Core Support - ability to assess the amount of processing across systems with multiple cores, and under certain hardware setups, to dedicate work to certain cores, or shut cores down completely - true SMP at last, only 6 years being Unix !

Cheers MickeyMouseSoft - a novelty supplier, of minimal use at best - just what we need in the current climate, you forcing a £150k hardware and software upgrade plan onto us

Found a fantastic little plugin for WordPress which reads your blog entries by TTS (text-to-speech) and is remarkably accurate.

The Odigo - Voice Your Content plugin provides you with mp3, online audio and best of all, a link to send it to your itunes account, for adding to your ipod.

There’s a really usefull Java based word-map (tag-cloud) generator which can analyse a blog by it’s RSS Feed and generate an image Wordle

The next ICANN (34) public meeting has been announced - it will be held in Mexico city between 1st and 6th March 2009.
The icann 34 meeting is now online with information on the host, the venue and the meeting.

As a new member, Othello will be attending to have our say in how the domain industry moves forward and is regulated.

• Are household chores cutting into your social life ?
• How many important calls have you missed whilst doing laundry ?
• Dont want to take two appliances into the utility room ?

Then you need …. An Iron Phone

Cleverly combining two of a womans favourite things ( ironing and talking ) into one handy little tool - yes the Iron-Phone really is the social-life saver you have been waiting for.

Now you need never miss that crucial chat with someone you’ll see in person later anyway, about the spotty guy from work and his small dinkle problem …

With 30 minutes of steaming, and 11 hours of talktime on a single charge, it’s powerful enough for even the most dedicated follower of fashion …

Tags: laundry, utility room, ironing, talking

This just amused me

Read more…

I like gadgets - devices to perform a specific function/purpose, to make my life easier, more enjoyable, or just different.

I’m not alone in this - which is why every high-street has a gadget-shop of some kind.

Sadly the human brain is wired so you can only think one of:

• “bling” is fashionable
• technology is clever
• voting Liberal Democrat is a good idea

Sadly, those always on the lookout for stupid people to buy utter crap for lots of money (aka snake-oil peddlers or marketers), have decided to once again combine tasteless “bling-bling” and hi-tech wizardry into the absolutely F-ing stupid concept that is …

The Google Vanity Ring

Yes, now you can look an utter prat and billy-no-mates at exactly the same time, simply by Read more…

Tags: gadgets, The Google Vanity Ring

Mergers and Acquisitions RoundupIts been a busy time in the ISP/Registrar/Host M&A world, with providers vanishing almost on a daily basis.Some of the more notable M&A’s included:

2007

December

• Spanish Registrar Arsys sold to The Carlyle Group and Mercapital private equity~£120,000,000 outright purchase. 550,000 registered domains, 170,000 customers, 250 employees
• WebHost Automation Ltd (WHA) authors of HELM Windows CP taken over by SW-Soft (now renamed Parallels)No figures quotedbased on their (lack of) performance with other control panels acquired, thats the death-kell for HELM users
• Chicago Hosts midPhase purchased in a cash deal by UK2 GroupNo official figures quoted, best guestimates £5,000,000. 250,000 hosted websites. 40 staffSeveral original MP staff setup a new brand SingleHop and party hard at HostingCon

2007

November

• Swedish Managed Hosting pi.se picked up by InterouteNo figures quoted
• Hostroute and Nameroute merged into UltraspeedShare Exchange between existing client and supplier. 50,000 hosted websites.
• BuyAVPS acquired by prolific WHT poster AxisHOSTNo figures quoted

2007

September

• Berkeley Data Systems sell online storage Mozy to EMC Corpororation£40,000,000 outright purchase. 180,000 clients.

2007

August

• NaviSite goes on acquisition spree, buying Alabanza and Jupiter Hosting£8,000,000 cash

2007

July

• NamesCo Registrar and Web Host sold out to Italian ISP Dada (Register.it S.p.A)£24,000,000 for the entire company. 265,000 registered domains, 80,000 hosted websites

(reproduced with permission from Host Acquisitions)

I’ve recently discovered a MMRPG (Massive Multiplayer Role Paying Game) browser based and free, very reminiscent of the early sim-city type programs. This wonderful gem is called Travian, and available to play right now

It’s been around for a while, with active forums, comprehensive wiki, clans (alliances) and so forth, but takes a bit of planning and forethought to get into “late in the game” as I have - so here is a shortcut guide to getting your Empire up-and-running as quickly and efficiently as possible …

Get a good initial resource base

field workers need feeding, building staff need feeding, an army marches on it’s stomach … etc
so start by producing more food … and don’t forget buildings use clay, weapons are made from wood and iron … so your “fields” and the resources they produce are your lifeblood. Read more…

(or at least cause an epileptic fit)
Chuck together

• One dark room
• 100 helium filled balloons
• 100 white LEDs
• Some string and servos
• Music by a Kraftwerk Addict

This simple formula of light, sound and acrobatic bubbles by designers “Electric MoOns” is either a masterpiece, or an experiment in causing people to up-chuck - you decide …

Electric MoOns Atom Dance Video

Tags: ballons, led lights, dance, acid techno, video

“Punchable” is how the tabloids have been describing online scammer Liam Young of OXYUK.

For those that missed his entry into the Big Brother House here’s the video summary …
Habitual Liar Liam Young Enters The Big Brother House

And for completeness sake, here’s link to the video of the lttle bollock-sucker getting evicted from the Big-Brother-House …
Liam Young BB Con Artist Gets Booted

Well, C4’s Big Brother series has started again, with a selection of Endemol hand-picked “characters” to represent a cross section of the UK’s up-and-coming lads and lasses … presumably some attempt by the program makers to “appeal” to a new audience, as the viewing figures continue to decline.

One of the contestants (HouseMates as they’re called) is getting oxycuted by blogs and forums - Mr Liam Young of OxyUK / OxyTechnologies / OxyMorons etc…

I bumped heads with this pOXY muppet back when he was 16, claiming

We currently serve over 70,000 UK customers, and over 10,000 users from worldwide locations

which actually translated into

I’m a shitty little unknown affiliate for Lycos and I get paid a few $ if you sign-up under me

see Liam Young of OXYUK.Ltd

the following day he’d moved the few real clients he had and magically transformed into being a HostGator reseller
Oxy just a HG Reseller

18 months later business is going so well, on some forums he’s claiming 2 million domains on his servers, and on others he’s begging for $2 support jobs … Please employ me

You’d think someone with millions of domains, would be a Nominet member (www.nic.uk) rather than just a 1und1 customer … http://webwhois.nic.uk/cgi-bin/whois.cgi?query=oxyhost.co.uk

After getting shortlisted for the role on BB as an entrepreneur, he then reappears on the same forum that banned him for his bulshit last time - WebHostingTalk.com, asking How to lie about Turnover

The general thread on WHT is good background …
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=660543

As yet unconfirmed - and I REALLY am not going hunting for evidence on this - but there are multiple posts and comments about Liam Young doing himself Anal’y with a glowstick dildo - *nice* !

The DS:BB thread is already over 5 pages long, and currently if you’re not a member shows multiple adverts for gay dating agencies throughout the threads on Liam - do they know something we dont perhaps ?

*edit* I just checked back after fixing a typo and the DS:BB thread is touching *twenty-nine* pages !

Deep in an underground bunker, mad scientist geeks are working night and afternoon (real geeks are like vampires, alergic to sunlight) on the next google launch …

ANDROIDS

This week the big-G registered and drop-caught a number of new domains now sitting on the G’s nameservers including…

• androidhandset.com
• androidhandsets.com
• androidmobile.com
• androidphone.com
• androidphones.com
• androidplatform.com
• androidsdk.com
• androidsoftware.com
• androidtechnology.com

Plus all the usual org/net variations.

No official comment has been made yet about the rumoured launch of the first human looking g-phone.

Personally I’m hoping it looks a lot like a cross between the current bionic woman, seven-of-nine and Caprica-6 with big buttons

Well, it’s almost the end of the year, so in every industry it’ll be Lists and Resolutions for a while now…

The constant dross is on the goggle-box, designed either to make you conform, or simply to confirm that 99% of viewers are brain-dead like…

• 100 most unappaling songs ever
• 100 mind-numbing sports personalities
• 100 most repeated comedy moments
• 100 innuendos from a-n-other gay icon
• 100 worst farts left in a lift
• 100 ways to kill yourself over a list

etc.

Now normally I have enough to-do lists of my own to worry about, and that kind of cr@p gets well avoided, however the annual round-up of business c*ck-ups from Fortune magazine does at least hold some elements of humour… And CNN have kindly stuck it online for those of you who don’t normally read mags - the ones with *those* pictures in doesn’t really count as reading now does it - no matter how good the articles

#16

While working on an article about Microsoft, Wired contributing editor (and former Fortune writer) Fred Vogelstein receives a 13-page dossier about himself, describing him as “tricky” and his stories as “sensational.” The document, prepared by the company’s public relations firm, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, as background for Microsoft executives, was sent inadvertently to the writer

Quoted from CNN/Fortune Magazie

Fortune and The Business are well worth the ~£3/issue - go on, skip a starbucks to buy a copy and get some knowledge inside you, rather than brown slop that tastes like tarmac.