Ideas Online

Something Vint Cerf Said

roger — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:10:31 +0000

Yesterday I was reminded of something Vint Cerf said in one of his talks in one of the ICANN Meetings I attended while at Afternic. He pointed out how the Internet had changed our social life everywhere, even the simple routine of having dinner at home with your spouse. In fact, he said at home is where he noticed the Internet’s impact the most. He said when he or his wife used to have a question about something during dinner conversation, they’d have to just table it. However, with the Internet they could just google the answer right then and there.

I fixed my garbage disposal yesterday by googling “troubleshoot garbage disposal” and finding a page titled “Garbage Disposal Hums But Doesn’t Grind.” It told me how to use a hex key to force the impellers to move and hopefully dislodge whatever was jamming it. It worked and I saved money and felt more at peace with my environment at home (a Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance reference).

I cook sometimes just because it is so easy to find recipes, reviews of recipes, and even video demonstrations on how to cook. I doubt I would ever have dabbled in this area if the Internet didn’t make it so easy.

I think about Vint Cerf’s message when I notice how the Internet has improved our lives profoundly at home.

Waterski camp

roger — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:53:39 +0000

For the 3rd year in a row our family attended Coble Waterski/Wakeboard School for four days of intense waterski or wakeboard instruction. Here’s a pic of me working my way through the slalom course.

New Idol gets 55M votes but how many uniques?

roger — Thu, 22 May 2008 13:05:59 +0000

We watched David Cook win American Idol last night and I was impressed like everyone else about the number of votes. By my calculations from numbers mentioned, David C. received about 55M and David A. received 43M votes. Cook received almost as many votes as Bush received in the last election (62M). However, we have to keep in mind that Idol voters could vote multiple times and we can be sure that many voters did indeed vote many times. It would be nice to know the uniques.

Moved to Hostway server

roger — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:39:21 +0000

This blog is now moved to a Hostway dedicated server!

Domain Name Keywords Script

roger — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:17:31 +0000

One of the common problems that domain name industry programmers have is splitting a domain name like bluesuedeshoes.com into its keywords, blue suede shoes. It is trickier than it seems at first glance. I’ve decided to share my version just to demonstrate some recursive programming in PHP and to see if anyone else can put it to good use to evaluate domain names.

Domain Name Keywords Script

PHP PageRank query script

roger — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 19:46:21 +0000

Google PageRank (PR) is a value from 0 to 10 representing how important your web page is according to Google’s search engine. I wanted to gather the PR for certain domains (or rather the typical home page URL of these domains, “http://www.example.com/”). Most of the PHP scripts I found are broken, so I thought I might improve the signal to noise ratio of the Internet by posting a version that works. I also simplified it by removing any graphical presentation of the result. Here it is:

pagerank-rc.php

Selling my touring bike

roger — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 20:30:52 +0000

I’m letting my fellow CFCRers have first dibs. If no takers there I’ll probably offer it on eBay. See more pics here. Here’s the description:

2006 BMW K1200GT

152HP
Factory electric cruise control
ESA
Heated seats & grips
On board computer
BMW Trunk
Bill Mayer leather seat
Baher intercom system with cable for bike to bike push to talk, cable for cell phone, cable for Garmin GPS w/ XM or iPods
Extra power port in dash
Extra passenger power port
Mounts for GPS, XM antenna, cell phone, and bike-to-bike radio or iPod
Remus Carbon Fiber Genesis slip on exhaust (stock exhaust included)
Adjustable footpeg lowering kit and shift extender (not installed)
Carbon fiber tank guard

Like new condition, 8,000 miles

Asking $16,900

Drew Carey - Hero Mention #1 - Reason.tv

roger — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:30:54 +0000

I recall when I first looked at MySpace.com (when it was sold for $580M – I’m slow sometimes… ok, many times) that it had a standard section in everyone’s profile for his or her heroes. I liked that because my heroes are important to society, and our hero picks reveal a lot about ourselves. That’s efficient personal revelation. My first mention, for hero, and most recent addition to my list, is Drew Carey.

Economic ignorance is the #1 problem in society so economic education is the #1 cause. Drew Carey is producing some compelling videos everyone needs to watch. Check them out at Reason.tv.

QuikDrop.com parked page

roger — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:04:47 +0000

I was curious how the eBay drop-off industry was doing and I have some stuff I’d like to sell on eBay, which added to my motivation to research this sector. The first mover and still one of the largest players by number of stores is Quikdrop International Inc. Unfortunately and incredibly their website QuikDrop.com is a parked page, which by design is effectively advertising several of their competitors.

Note that their company name and domain name use the typo Quik. Congrats to the owner of the correct spelling of this otherwise generic domain.

Perfect counter example for a course on online best practices. Could you get any worse than this?

You gotta love GoDaddy’s marketing, too. This parked page is a “courtesy” of GoDaddy.com - QuikDrop is not even making any money advertising competitors on their site.

Let’s see how long before they fix it. Good luck, QuikDrop.

Why another blog

roger — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 01:05:48 +0000

The only reason anyone should blog is because he or she has something to say.

I plan to write about the domain name industry where I spent the last five years because I think I can help balance the discussions. Most folks that write about domains are biased on the optimistic side.

I plan to write about economics because I think it is the most effective tool for understanding almost everything.

I used to instruct college students how to develop database-driven websites. I still love to discuss information technology and plan to do some of that on this blog.

As I evolve this site, especially by adding links to the blogs and sites I like most, I will try to write about them.

If YOU want to do me a big favor that requires little effort, please leave a comment. Ask a question, say hi, disagree… anything you say will probably help my motivation to blog.

Also feel free to give me some pointers about blogging. I admit to still being a beginner even though I have dabbled at it before. You can email be. My address is my first name at this domain name. Get it?

Thank you for reading!