Alldomains Issues

Alldomains seems to be doing really strict domain name server checks which is preventing me from adding my nameservers to host my domain. Even Network Solutions works better than this.

Subdomain Delegation

I was impatient with my domain registrations and wanted to play with DNS immediately. A lot of dynamic DNS providers offer hostnames but few delegate the subdomain to your nameservers. A couple, cjb.net and Free DNS offer delegation. Both are much snappier to work with than a real domain which takes a day or two to propagate.

CoreFTP vs FileZilla

I had to switch back to CoreFTP because FileZilla couldn't seem to make an SFTP connection to my FreeBSD box.

Domain Name Redundancy Plan

There are 13 or so root name servers. If all these servers fail, we have a bigger problem. The next set of servers resolve the "com" part of the address. Both "com" and "net" use gtld-servers.net which are run by Verisign and Network Solutions. They run a bank of another 13 or so servers which all appear to have IP addresses starting with 192. I would suspect that they could easily have a shared configuration which could render them inoperable in various capacities, including Verisign's Sitefinder.

Additional redundancy can be found by using the "org" or "us" top-level domains which are not run by Verisign. By using a separate set of managed servers, misconfiguration errors can be mitigated. The "org" top-level domain is run by a different set of servers than the "us" top-level domain.

For most, the "edu" top-level domain is not an option. But for the curious, it appears to be run by Verisign as well, but using a different set of servers.

After considering the managers of the top-level domain servers, the next focus would be on registrars like All Domains, which appears to be partnered with Mark Monitor. The other registrar which is well-adopted by companies and websites is Tucows Inc. These two are all second tier compared to Verisign and Network Solutions.

My current strategy is to use a "com" and an "org" address. I could further mitigate errors by staggering registrations a few months apart. Coupled a pair of geographically distrubuted virtual private server hosting providers, I may have better disaster recovery than some Fortune 500 companies. Uptime should be easy; particularly if I don't offer any services.

I have a couple "us" addresses which I am retiring. I've been fiddling with the idea that names and identifiers should be assigned instead of chosen.

I found Ben Edelman's analysis of the domain name registrar industry quite useful. He has listed the breakdown of whichcompanies and sites use which registrars.

Domain Name Registration

I was looking to register a couple more domain names. I needed a registrar that wouldn't charge too much like Network Solutions, but I wanted to have the same reliability. Plus, I didn't want to support the Verisign DNS fiasco where the put advertisments on non-registered domains.

During my search, the most cost-effective and large registrar was Go Daddy. However, they needed domain name servers for your domain to have machine names outside of the new domain and couldn't support naming the domain name servers by IP address.

I searched other major companies to see where they registered. Aside from Network Solutions, they used Tucows which offers domain reselling and an end-user registrar, Domain Direct, which charges about $15 per year for their simplest domain registration. After registering one domain with them, I went searching for other domain registrars. Some large, brand-valuing companies used Mark Monitor which doesn't offer consumer level accounts. Other companies use All Domains which charges about $25 per year.

Then, I looked up the registrar for GNU. They use GANDI which is very privacy friendly. Most other registrars charge you extra for anonymous domain registration, but GANDI doesn't seem to charge an additional fee.

Now it's time to dump those domains that I don't use anymore.

Getting Samba Working

I revived my FreeBSD server for home. To make it useful, I tried installing samba. To get it working with Windows XP, it required that I change the default configuration.

• encrypted passwords - Windows XP only deals with "encrypted" passwords
  
• smbpasswd - The password file needs to be initialized
  

perl search engine

perlfect [http://perlfect.com/freescripts/search/]

Blogger Funky

It's publishing, but it gets stuck.



I filled up my yahoo email quota. now to get gmail filled. large attachments are fun.



Things for an electronic address book:

* versioning

* name

* title

* company

* address (multiple with types)

* phone (multiple with types)

* email (multiple with types)

* web page

*IM

? Roles



I would focus on people rather than companies which have all these
tweaked ways of doing things beyond the most basic return
merchandise authorization.

Gmail ActiveX

A good friend was having problems with gmail since it required activex or something. Time to go back to hotmail and yahoo.

Vacation

Bermuda, Bali, Africa, Costa Rica, Carribbean, Peru, Utah Canyonlands, Russell Racing

Menlo School thibs down

It seems the server is gone forever. Also their server appears to be down as well.

Persimon Jam and Ice Cream

When there's a fall crop, I'm going to try this out.

Cable Modem Aggregation

Use a wireless link to aggregate cable modems and DSL in an apartment building to get even higher burst rates.