Just a quick update for anyone who happens to read this blog and not follow me on Twitter. Monday morning at 5:10 AM, I became a father. My amazing wife delivered Alexandra Rose at 5 lbs, 15 oz, and 18 inches long. She was 5.5 weeks early and needs to stay in the NICU for a short while to rest up.
You can see way more pictures than you probably care to look at on my flickr page.
Local technology coach and consultant, Mr. Noobie, is giving away a free Nintendo Wii on his site, www.noobie.com. All you need to do is click over and sign-up.
After you sign-up to win, I’d highly recommend browsing the website for a little bit. No matter what your technical skill level is, noobie.com is one website you’ll want to bookmark and return to again and again. Patric has put together one of the few local sites that always makes me pause and think, “wow, he has put a lot of time and effort into building this website.”
From articles and blog posts to events and personal coaching services, Mr. Noobie is full of relevant and easy-to-understand guides to just about anything technology related. If you are the kind of person that likes to figure stuff out on your own, but sometimes needs a little help, I highly recommend noobie.com.
That, and a chance to win a Nintendo Wii… what more excuse do you need?
Just a fun little example of how even the big guys can still screw things up royally. This morning, CNN posted a little widget that displayed various grades for both Biden and Palin from the Vice Presidential Debate last night. At the bottom of the widget was an area for you to select your own grade for a particular candidate and a “Next” button to submit and view the results.
Seems simple enough. The problem was that if you (like myself) simply want to skip giving your own grade and just view the results, something unexpected happens. By clicking “Next” without selecting a grade, you automatically submit a grade of F!
Oops! At the time of taking this screenshot early this morning, over 16,000 visitors had voted. How many of them had accidentally graded someone with an F? Both candidates had an average grade of D, which leads me to believe that a significant number of people simply clicked next.
While I’m sure this gaffe is the result of rushing to put together a widget, it isn’t like the debates were a surprise. As an update, I’ve noticed that CNN has now corrected the problem by requiring the user to either select a grade before the “Next” button becomes active, or clicking a “View results” link which does not auto-select a grade in the process.
Most people that know me know that I’m a bit domain-crazy. Any half-good idea that I have usually results in a domain name purchase–mostly as a “just in case” I decide to actually develop it. Despite the fact that this is a self-enabling and productivity damaging practice, I still partake in it. However, I have significantly limited myself in terms of what I let myself purchase (the next step was locking my laptop in a trunk and burying it in the back yard).
With that being said, a business parter and I have had our eyes on a particular domain name that is perfect for a future expansion of our current project, IndyDads.com. The domain name we wanted was DadNation.com. I’ll let your capable mind explore exactly what our future idea is with this domain instead of writing about it here. As luck would have it, the domain was up for expiration last month and I was excited at the prospect of snagging it. This is where I ran into trouble.
I was all ready to go. I had my domain name backorder set through GoDaddy and was just waiting for the good news. Now, I understand a thing or two about how competitive the domain name aftermarket can be and that for most good domains, it’s difficult and expensive to snap up expiring names. However, I figured with the relatively low demand for this domain, I would have no problem getting it. I knew I was in trouble when I received my very first email from a domain taster.
Because I had already registered DadNation.org, the domain taster’s automated system had managed to snap up the dot com AND generate a marketing email to me explaining that I could acquire the dot com easily by purchasing it through their company. The asking price? $997!
Ouch! No way. Perhaps if I was some big company that just had to have the domain, $997 wouldn’t seem like so much. But, for a side-project that is mostly a labor of love, that is out of the question.
So, I figured I had lost the domain for good. But, the way the email was written, I figured it was a form letter and not an actual human sending me the message. Two days later, I received another email that was similar, but contained a slightly more urgent call to action. I did some research on domain tasters and confirmed that they indeed only had 5 days to return their domains for a refund. Also, based on what I had read, often times domain tasters base the value of a domain off of the traffic hitting the domain. So, I was careful to neither visit the domain DadNation.com or respond to any of the emails.
I held my breath for 2 more days (not literally).
Then, on August 3rd, I received an email from GoDaddy alerting me that the name servers had changed to GoDaddy name servers! Then, another email telling me my backorder had been successful! It worked! The domain taster returned the domain after getting nothing out of me and I was able to register it for the normal price.
Having lost good domains in the past to a variety of frustrating reasons, it was nice to actually win one (and without spending a small fortune). While I’m sure the situation would change depending on the exact domain name in question, but my parting advice is that your best weapon against a domain taster is patience and silence (and an active backorder on the domain).
I’m working on a new business idea with a friend and we continue to run into problem after problem. What we want to do is time consuming, hard to schedule, risky, and our equipment costs are turning out to be very expensive. Prohibitively expensive for what we are wanting to offer. Vendor after vendor gives us prices that are just too high. It’s getting frustrating and becoming clear why there are not many people doing what we’re trying to do. I should be depressed right now.
For some reason, I’m not! I’m actually excited! Focused. Determined. I feel like we’ve really run into a wall, but I think of all the other people who have given up and turned away because of it. This is where we prove how innovative and creative we are. We have to throw away our conventional thoughts on solving our problem and get a little crazy. If we can solve this problem, we’ll be in great shape and will greatly multiply our success.
I know this is all vague. I just needed to share a business epiphany I’ve had today where I feel I’ve turned a corner on how I handle problems. Instead of taking the easy road and giving up on an idea, I feel compelled to charge ahead.
I think this will be fun. More details eventually. 
Here is a photo I took while on my honeymoon. We came upon these colorful birds shortly after I had a hamburger with a pineapple slice on it for the first time. Delicious!
Sell photos on photrade | By noah
Sell photos on photrade | By noah
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