HostBlog - incoherent ramblings of a hosting provider.

So things look like they are going from worse to downright abysmal for the many beleagured registerfly clients.

What should have been a realtively painless excercise in admin contacts migrating domains away to a new supplier, with ICANN assistance if the RF systems failed, looks like an ever growing c*ck-up, with class action suits, domains getting deleted, and complete pandemonium.

Many of the RF-Refugee camp are switching to equally poor “cheapo” domain companies, litterally jumping from lifeboat to the next titanic in my opinion, selecting Yahoo, 1&1 and others for their new domain home !

An ever growing FAQ has appeared on the ICANN blog, and all those looking to exit RegFly are advised to read :
http://blog.icann.org/?p=85

Remember OthelloNames.net are offering FREE transfers until the end of May for anyone stuck in this fiasco - use Voucher Code RegisterFly at the checkout to get 8.95+vat off our usual costs.

In a 2 week long madcap race against reality, registerfly has managed to change hands twice

• first back to the original registration company that started it
• second by US Federal courts handing control once more to K Medina
  - the man now (in)famous for spending his customers money not on the renewals they paid for, but on his much needed liposuction instead.

But all good stories have to come to a close, and last night ICANN pulled the plug on the beleaguered registrar with:

http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-2-16mar07.htm

So, no happy ever after in this woefull tale of the domreg company run by a big fairy … several thousand domains already lost by distressed and angry clients, and now a rescue-plan has to be enacted for the remaining 800,000 domains. No more RegisterFly - in 14 days they’ll have to rebrand as RegisterWalk.

From tomorrow until the end of March, our OthelloNames.net Domain Registrar, will be offering free domain transfers and as much assistance with domain recovery as we can to any RegisterFly refugees or anyone looking to move away from their existing registration companies.

Just enter voucher-code RegisterFly on the order to get your domain transfer for free.

Well, the RegFly issues continue, with their official response being basically …

Thank you, your call is important to us, we’re hanging up on you now, as a method of improving our customer service. Goodbye.

Read the full details at :
ICANN Announcement 2/March

In the wake of the Registerfly.com fiasco ICANN anounced that they are going to use their powers and nuke RegFlys Accreditation.

RegisterFly have 2 weeks to solve the customer complaints issues or face termination.

ICANNs letter to them includes a comprehensive shopping list of complaints filed against Registerfly over the past two years and multiple failed attempts to get the company to meet its obligations.

Registerfly’s conduct has fallen far short of both its responsibilities to the public and its agreements. We therefore provide this formal notice of breach of Registerfly’s Registrar Accreditation Agreement with ICANN.

reports ICANN

900,000 domains currently cannot be managed, transferred or renewed - and over 20,000 domains has been lost already.

Yet another example of why “cheap” does not equal “best”

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Finally we get more than 75% of the old content transferred into our shiny new Etomite CMS based website. All PHP and friendly …

So in order to speed up the process of testing and tidyup we’ve put the new site live, and awaiting the flood of client complaints about the new templates and colour schemes.

In all seriousness we do actually read and appreciate peoples comments about the website and services, so any comments on the new style and content of www.Othellotech.NET would be much appreciated - just submit errors and suggestions into the support system at HostAssist.co.uk and the web mistress will read, decide appropriate action and process accordingly.

The remainder of the ordering and product functioanlity should be live by the end of February

So, since publishing the last few blog entries for the edification of the masses, we’ve seen a massive upsurge in spam, where we are getting the bounce messages, as it puports to be from us…

A cursorary glance at the headers show that the spam is actually being generated by a number of exploited boxes all over the globe, but being sent out with :
(envelope-from XXothellotechX [at] ourdomain) where XX X are just 3 random characters
hence the replys/undeliverable messages get back to us.

Has all the usual hallmarks of being a Peter Fvcksh!te Macrae weaselboy job - nice to see he’s becoming a useful part of society - let just hope the cvnt never breeds.

HP’s new chairwoman Patricia Dunn has resigned, effective immediately, after her part in the corporate spying scandal that has dogged the company for weeks was revealed.

Under orders from Ms Dunn, HP hired a team of private investigators to investigate the leaks of confidential corporate information to CNET News during 2005.

The P.I.s have been (illegally) accessing the private telephone records of HP board-members and journalists without their permission, as part of their dubious tactics in order to learn who among the board of directors had revealed corporate secrets.

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Shock News! Accounts are daring *and* exciting people … for those who have a stereo-typical image of Accountants being boring …

Harold Rosenbaum Chartered Accountant Extreme

Act 1 - Audit of Evil

Act 2 - Depreciation to Death

Act 3 - The Taxable Trap

Act 4 - Ledger Lad Liquidation

Act 5 - Damn, It’s Exploding

Despite being called a cynic and a liar when I wrote that after Google Inc became an ICANN registrar, it signified the impending end of hosted services, it sadly transpires that i was correct…

The growth of GoogleMail (GMail) which has largely obliterated Yahoo and Hotmail as a free email service, has now been joined by “Google Tools” for your domain.

https://www.google.com/a/

details the myriad of *FREE* services now available from Google branded with your domain :

• Free GMail for your domain - (address)@yourdomain.com
• Free GoogleTalk - the big G’s appalling Jabber client
• Free GoogleCalendar - online scheduling for your workforce
• Free Google WebBuilder - online web design tool
• Free Hosting

Thats it. The long-standing high-quality business hosts will have to find alternate business models, and the cheapo hosts may as simply pack up if users can get it free …

LINX (London INternet eXchange) today published the agenda for the next meeting being held 21/22 August 2006 at the Goodenough College, London …
One particular item on the technical agenda caught my eye …

Love, Hate, Peering and Transit
- A Sordid Tale of Transit-Swapping,Leaking and Other Nefarious Deeds

sounds gripping, so booked myself in … report to follow afterwards

According to an article published in the New York Times, 8/June/2006, Google Seeks More Power, yet another new massive datacentre is to be constructed utilising the enormous power-generation capabilities of the Columbia River.

This joins MSN and Yahoo!, who already have building works underway in border towns between southern Washington and northern Oregon, all wanting to take advantage of the cheap electricity provided by the powerful mountain river.

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Othello Technology Systems Ltd acquires BeamHost
London, 13th January 2006.

Othello Technology Systems Ltd (www.OthelloTech.net), a leading UK provider of domain names, email/web hosting and online services to the for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), today announced that it has acquired BeamHost (BeamHost.co.uk) effective immediately from Coveria Ltd.
The inclusion of BeamHost’s CPanel and VPS clients further strengthens Othello’s position as a significant force in the shared hosting market.
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Well, it had to happen eventually, and Yesterday was the day we finally caved in and joined LINX - the London INternet eXchange - the bastion of all things right in the UK for the internet.

So it’s one trouser leg rolled up, hat on sideways and funny handshakes allround as we prepare for the next stage in Peering :p

more to come when we get over the shock …

Skype, the proprietory online communications software authors, based in Luxembourg went into a major flap over the Google Talk beta release.

Skype’s hand was forced into immediately disclosing SkypeNet and SkypeWeb specifications.

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So, Google.com the ever growing Search Engine, not content with encroaching into your emails with it’s gmail service, is now looking to get hold of you telephone-calls as well.

Cue the very quiet launch of Google Talk at www.google.com/talk

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