in so many words

I recently discovered a web site that rates blogs on readability, or the “level of education that is required to understand your blog”. I hadn’t really thought about this before - I’ve just assumed that most everyone who has a basic command of the English language could understand what I’ve written. But now the people at Critics Rant have created a web script that analyzes web pages and determines what level of education is needed to read the analyzed web site. I don’t know what parameters they use to make their determination, but it seems to me that there are too many variables involved to accurately assign an educational grade level to the reading level a particular web site using only scripting code. So I don’t put a lot of stock in this rating, but it’s interesting to me in a technological way - someone wrote the code to search blogs (it also works on web sites), rate the type of words used, and determine a level of comparative educational understanding. Cool, but it’s really all for fun - after all, you’d think that a guy in his fifties who got A’s in college English could write better than high school level, but according to Critics Rant, that apparently not in the case… maybe if I had written more sentences like “She remained entirely pusillanimous and supercilious, yet her enticing pulchritude and luminosity were thoroughly debilitating” I would have gotten a better score.

More sagacious than pedantic

Today we’re discussing Internet domain names - the names you type into your browser, like microsoft.com or yahoo.com, to get to your favorite web sites. For those of you who glaze over whenever computer geeks begin talking about computers, you are forewarned that this posts contains some computer terms and references, but I will try and keep it simple. And if you are involved in managing an Internet web site or need information about domain names, you may find this post helpful.

I began my computer career in the mid-90s building web sites for local area businesses, and since that time have been involved in helping to set up every aspect of a web site, including the domain name. A domain name is simply the main address name - it’s a user-friendly name that makes it easy to remember a web site’s address. The Internet actually works on a numbering scheme - for example, Microsoft’s address number is 207.46.232.182. If you paste that number into your Internet browser, you will see the Microsoft Corp. main web page. But “microsoft.com” is easier to remember and deal with than “207.46.232.182″, so domain names are a big help and are pretty much required for promoting a web site, and because of that they have become important. And buying and selling domain names is a big business on the Internet. Now, you can make up your own domain name and register it as long as no one has used it before. But if the name you want is taken, your only choices are to think up a different name or offer to buy the name you want, which may not be an option at all because the person owning the name may not want to sell it. To register your name, you would use a Domain Registrar. Network Solutions was the first domain registrar, and for the first years of the Internet they had the monopoly on registering and selling domain names. But the monopoly was ended and now many companies are available for registering domain names, which has brought the prices down considerably - Network Solutions used to charge $70 per name/per year when they were the only game in town. Now there are many companies that will register your domain name for less than $10/year.

One of the most popular and visible domain registrars is GoDaddy. They have registered a large percentage of domain names, they have low prices, and many people know of them from their “titillating” ads, especially their Super Bowl ads. I’ve been using GoDaddy for a while now - I started using them when they were new on the scene so I’ve been with them for several years and, up until now, have all of my domain names registered through them. Their tech support has been good for me - you can search the Internet and find customers who have issues with them, but by and large I think they do a good job, and I’ve always been able to get support when I need it. They tend to be heavy-handed with their sales promotions - when registering a domain name, the customer will have to click through a few pages of colorful ads designed to sell more products like GoDaddy web hosting or GoDaddy email services. And they send out similar full-color ads to customers, advertising GoDaddy products and sales promotions. But that’s not the worst of it for me, and that’s not why I’m leaving GoDaddy.

I’m leaving GoDaddy because of the GoDaddy girls. The female race car driver on the GoDaddy website who’s also in all of my GoDaddy email ads. The buxom scantily clad models in those Super Bowl ads. The perfect-looking faces that smile at me while I’m using the GoDaddy site. These are the reasons that I’m leaving GoDaddy. Don’t misunderstand - I’m not a misogynist, and I’m “hetro from the word go”. But the sales philosophy of GoDaddy seems to be “put a pretty girl in front of guys and they’ll buy anything”. And that bothers me on several levels, starting with my pride. Because even though I’ve done some stupid things in my life, I’m not a stupid person. So when GoDaddy thinks they can get me to use their services because they show a large-breasted female in their Super Bowl ad, I am insulted. Instead of appealing to my intelligence or common sense or even my wallet, they appeal to my hormones and apparently think that that’s all it takes to win me over. And the more I think about it, the more offended I feel - that’s what GoDaddy thinks of customers like me, that all they need to do is put a female in our line of sight and we simply start salivating and pull out the credit card to order.

But besides my self-important pride, there is another issue here. I am opposed to the sexual objectification of women. Because I like women. I’ve met a lot of them, and they’re some of my favorite people. Many of them have helped me during my life. Some of them have been very good friends. One of them is my best friend. And using their image as a sexual lure, appealing to a base instinct for the purpose of selling product and making money, is more than a bit disgusting to me. Yes, I know lots of businesses do it, and I know that “sex sells”. I know I’m not going to change the world with my little Internet diatribe. But as I’ve watched this marketing campaign develop over the years at GoDaddy, I’ve become more and more uncomfortable with it, and now I no longer want to do business with them. So I am in the process of moving my domain name management to other registrars.

I did my online research and came up with two registrars who received consistently good reviews - NameCheap and Moniker. Both offer good prices and have good reputations, so I opened accounts with both of them to explore their services and support. The basic experience with both has been smooth - easy sign-up and domain transfer - but NameCheap offers free email and URL forwarding, and Moniker charges extra for these services. In fact, with their web interface and features, NameCheap seems the best candidate for GoDaddy’s former customers. Over the next few months, as the yearly fees for my domains with GoDaddy come due, I will be moving my domain names to one of these registrars. If you need to register a domain name, either of these two domain registrars would serve you well - unless you’re just looking for boobs.

You telling lies thinking I can’t see, you don’t cry ‘cos you’re laughing at me

Today I received another of what I call “guilt email” messages. You’ve probably received these before… they start off with a story - it could be a cute, religious, patriotic, medical or philosophical story, or sometimes it is all of the above. The story is meant to encourage, inspire or just entertain, and at the end of the story the receiver is bidden to forward the message to others, usually with a directive like “if you care about (whatever) forward this email to 10 friends…”. And it’s that “if” that bothers me the most. Because the message will state something like “if you really care/believe/whatever” with the implication that if you don’t forward the message, you are uncaring, insensitive or don’t really love God/Jesus/Mom/your country/your friends/cute little animals. Now I believe in Jesus, I like my country and I care about my friends, but my faith in Jesus, my feelings for my cat, and my concerns for my friends have nothing to do with whether or not I forward an email. In fact, I generally don’t forward email messages. Working in the computer industry I’m aware that the volume of email on the Internet is tremendous, and that’s primarily because of spam, but I don’t think I need to add to it by forwarding every cute joke I receive from friends. And emails with attachments are even worse, using more Internet bandwidth and taking up more space on your hard drive. So usually don’t forward email stories/jokes, but in spite of what these messages imply, that doesn’t make me a bad or insensitive person for not wanting to clutter the Internet with forwarded email. I also don’t like being someone who fills up my friends’ mailboxes with alot of email - if my friends are anything like me, they already get alot of email, and don’t always have time to read what they’ve already received. But I’ve noticed that sometimes, when someone realizes I didn’t forward their email, their reaction indicates some degree of surprise and/or disappointment. Surprise that I didn’t just forward the message along (like they did) and disappointment in me for not forwarding something they sent to me. Hey, it’s nothing personal… I still like you, your kids and and your dog - I’m just trying to do my part to reduce email.

Use the “delete” button

Most computer users who haven’t been living in dungeons with dragons for the last 10 years are aware of computer viruses and anti-virus software. Viruses, of course, are bad, and can wreak havoc on your computer, causing it to do many bad things, from secretly sending Spam email to everyone in your address book to erasing your hard drive files along with the 1500 photos that your son/daughter took of him/herself to post on MySpace. So it’s generally wise to avoid virus infection unless you’re trying to get rid of those MySpace photos. That’s where anti-virus software comes in - installed on your computer, it can protect your computer and, more importantly, your data from those evil viruses running rampant across the Internet. Anti-virus software is big business, and there are several software companies whose sole purpose is producing anti-virus programs to sell to all of us virus-fearing computer users. The big players in this field for consumers are Symantec and McAfee, but there are others like Trend Micro, Kaspersky and AVG, who makes a very good free anti-virus program. Of course, all computer programs are not created equal, and some of these AV programs work better than others. Websites like Virus Bullentin rate the effectiveness of anti-virus programs - Kaspersky and Trend Micro are two programs that tend to consistently score near the top for these ratings, and they are also two of the more expensive programs. But besides effectiveness, another consideration for any computer program is the way it impacts the performance of your computer. AV programs that cause a good computer to run slower are “resource intensive”, so the balancing act with anti-virus software is to find an effective and affordable program that doesn’t unreasonably slow down your computer. Although Symantec and McAfee tend to be fairly effective and are the most popular AV programs, their latest versions are also two of the worst programs in terms of affecting computer performance. AVG’s free anti-virus program runs effortlessly on most computers, and the price is right, but there are other AV programs that rate higher at catching viruses. While AVG is a great solution for most home users, in our home I wanted something better for our computers - Emily has her laptop, our daughter Rachel uses the computer in the kitchen area, we have a home server for shared and stored files, and in my office (Emily calls it my “cockpit”) I have two computers - my Internet computer and a custom computer that I use for audio/music recording and video editing. So I went looking for an anti-virus program that is rated better than average and doesn’t slow down our computers, but wouldn’t cost me a fortune to install on all of my computers. And what I found was a program called NOD32, made by a company called ESET. I discovered NOD32 while reseaching ratings of AV software - I noticed that NOD32 rated pretty highly, but I had never heard of this program. So I found the website and downloaded the 30-day demo, and was very pleased to find that NOD32 didn’t adversely effect performance - not resource intensive. Finally, the price was reasonable - many people will only use free AV programs, but I don’t mind paying a small price to get good protection for all of the data on our family’s computers. Like most computer users, our data has become too important to risk losing it. YMMV.

As a side note, many Apple computer users feel that they don’t need to worry about viruses and boast that they don’t even use any anti-virus software. The truth is that all computers - PCs and Macs, even Linux computers - are vulnerable to virus attacks. However, since well over 90% of the world is using Windows PCs, and the Apple Mac market is comparatively tiny, Mac users are generally spared the inconvenience of virus attacks because most viruses are written for Windows PCs and don’t effect Macs. But there are an increasing number of Mac viruses circulating, and wise Mac owners more and more are using anti-virus programs.

I think it’s all some evil game you’re playin’…

Anyone using the Internet has had to learn about using a browser, which is a software application that allows the user to view web pages on the Internet. In fact, whether you know it or not, you are viewing this blog through a browser. As the Internet became popular in the 90s, the browser used by most people was Netscape Navigator. After a few years Microsoft took the lead by giving away their Internet Explorer browser, but more recently the Mozilla Firefox browser has been gaining in market share. As a computer tech I have been recommending, for security reasons as well as for functionality, that people use a browser other than Internet Explorer. Firefox is a good alternative and a good browser, but my personal preference is a browser called Opera. I have been using Opera for several years; when I started using it, Opera’s free version had a banner ad in the top right corner, and users could pay for a version that had no ads (which is what I did). Now, Opera is a free browser with no ads but lots of functionality. For example, Opera was the first browser to offer a tab view. Tabs are simply windows to view web pages, but you can open multiple tabs simultaneously meaning that you can have several web sites open and tab between them, which is extremely convenient (I’m probably not describing tabs very well, but if you have never used tabs you should try it. For most people, once they start using tabs for viewing web sites, they don’t want to give up that feature). Firefox also offers tabbed viewing, but Internet Explorer only offers tabs in their latest version, IE7. This is a nice feature, but only one of the reasons I prefer Opera for my main browser. Tests have shown that Opera loads web pages faster than IE, and the ability to configure Opera exceeds either IE or Firefox (although my understanding is that Firefox version 3 will have many of the same features that Opera has had). The one down side to using Opera is not really an Opera flaw - many web sites are still coded to look their best in Internet Explorer. This is a throwback to the days when IE was the browser used by the vast majority of folks, and although that is no longer the case, there are still a few web sites that look or function a bit differently in Opera than in IE. But this issue is getting better all the time, and for me the benefit I get from using Opera outweighs this issue, which I rarely experience. You don’t have to be a computer expert to try Opera - just go the the Opera site, download and install the Opera browser, and give it a try. If you don’t like it, it uninstalls cleanly - but I think you will like it.