*Words of Wisdom From The Elder

I’ve been using Google News for a long time.  There  are lots of news sites out there that allow one to keep up with lots of news.  News.Yahoo.Com, CNN, and others come to mind.  For some reason I like the simplicity of Google News and the ability to create alerts on news items so I use it quiet a bit.  I’m not sure when the feature “Add Section” was added but it is a welcomed feature to site but here is how it works.

First visit http://news.google.com and be sure you are logged into your Google account.  On the left side of the page you should see this:

Clicking “Add Section” will bring up an overlay screen that allows you to pick content. 

For my first test I chose keywords and took a stab at the dark to see what something like our podcast would look like.

Unfortunately it didn’t reveal any results.

I then tried a location and put in the zip code of my home town.

Within a second my home town appeared in the left navigation menu:

It is a pretty interesting feature but I have some problems with it.  If you add something to the site you appear to only have one chance at removing the item from your menu.  When you add a new item this shows up at the top of the page:

Once I clicked off this page, I have not been able to find any way to remove the news item I previously added.  That is a problem and can’t believe something so trivial is missing. 

I was curious to see if what I had added would show up on the mobile version of the news site.  It doesn’t.  Apparently they desktop version and mobile version do not tie into each other.

I like it when Google adds features to their product offerings, but they always seem to be half-baked, lacking features, and disconnected.  I just don’t get why something as simple as removing a news section is so hard and tying in what I did on the desktop doesn’t reflect on the mobile version.  For some reason Google can get away with lack of features yet other companies would be slammed for not having basic integration and basic features.  Google, just so you know, I’m not letting you off the hook.  I expect more from you.  Stop messing around and get your head on straight.

Can you believe we made it to Episode 10!?  It is such a nice round number isn’t it?  If you think about it, technically we only have two more episodes than Michael Phelps has gold medals.  Episode 10 is part two of our Silverlight discussion with Shawn Wildermuth.  Honestly, I think this episode is the best of the two, mainly because we have a “rusty washers” segment in it that really runs Silverlight through its paces. 

In this episode we welcome a new sponsor to the show, DevExpress, the makers of Coderush and Refactor Pro among a ton of other things.  Just a little FYI, they have a grid specifically for Silverlight that comes with the source code.  Check it out.

What interesting facts will you learn in this episode?  Let’s see.  You’ll probably learn that I have a riding lawn mower and have to mow way too much grass.  You’ll also learn that Woody would get the gold medal for the tallest grass in his neighborhood along with some great guidance about how Silverlight should be used.

Listen to the show

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The Olympics are upon us and NBC has been making a lot of waves about having 2,000 hours of streaming Silverlight video available online. This is a great time to catch up on your Olympic Badminton and other sports online that don’t get a lot prime time coverage.  Yesterday I actually did watch a match of Olympic Badminton only to realize that I missed my Olympic dreams.  I seriously used to be really good at Badminton and think I could have played in the Olympics based on what I saw.  Before that I got to watch some basketball where Lebron and Kobe put on one heck of a slam dunk show over the Chinese.

In celebration of the Olympics and their use of Silverlight, in Episode 9 of Deep Fried Bytes we talk Silverlight with Shawn Wildermuth.  We call it a “practical” look because what you will hear is what I think is a very down to earth discussion about where Silverlight fits into a developers bag of tricks and more importantly where it doesn’t.  I guess you can call it guidance on some level.  Shawn’s a wealth of knowledge as you’ll find out when you listen to the show.  Best of all, he’s from the South and loves anything Deep Fried.  We hope you enjoy this episode.

Listen to the show

Ways To Listen To The Show

There are several ways to listen to Deep Fried Bytes.

1. Directly From The Web Site (or click the link above)

When you visit the site look for this:

Clicking the triangle will launch the Yahoo! media player and automatically start playing the show for you. As long as you leave the browser window open the player will stay open. Clicking off the page WILL stop the player!

2. Subscribe via iTunes and Zune

If you have iTunes or Zune installed on your computer you can subscribe to our show. In iTunes open the Music Store and search for “Deep Fried Bytes”. In the Zune software, go to the MarketPlace select Podcast and search for “Deep Fried Bytes” to subscribe to the show. You can also click either of the two icons below to automatically subscribe to the show if you have iTunes or Zune installed.

3. Subscribe to RSS Feed

To stay current and up to date with the show, subscribe to the site’s RSS Feed. If you don’t know about RSS feeds you can read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format)

If you already have an RSS reader installed and setup, click the feed icon below to grab our news feed.

What’s the worst thing that could happen to you electronically speaking?  Maybe someone could steal your bank account information?  How about get your credit card information?  Someone stealing your identity?  Those are all the standard things we think of when we think about electronic security.  Or at least the first ones that come to mind.  Sunday morning I woke up and was drinking coffee at the computer.  I saw a tweet from someone on Twitter who asked a question that I had a perfect answer for on my blog.  I typed in my blog address in my web browser to find it and when I did I saw this:

First Reaction

My first reaction was I typed in my domain name incorrectly.  I was shocked but not worried or concerned.  Checking the domain name again I realized I had typed in the correct response.  Ok, not cool.  Freak out meter 10% at this point.

Second Reaction

My second reaction was my site had been hacked.  I opened up an FTP connection to the server and checked files.  Everything was in place.  Things were fine.  Not freaking out yet, but fearing the worst at this point.  Freak out meter 15%.

Third Reaction

My third reaction was Comcast messed up DNS and or cached some wrong information.  I opened up a command prompt and typed in:

ping keithelder.net

I got back an IP address that I didn’t recall.  Ok, what’s going on.  Freaking out meter was now at 65.43%.  Thinking quickly I asked myself, how could someone change my IP address of my domain.  Answer, they are in control of my DNS!  Ok, freak out meter just went to 85%.

Fourth Reaction

I pulled up http://samspade.org which is an online site that allows a WHOIS query to be run.  I checked my DNS records and everything appeared to be fine.  But then I noticed something at the bottom of the page that sent chills down my spine:

Today was August 10th!  For reasons I still cannot explain, my domain had expired!  Ok, freak out meter was now at 100%.

My Worse Fear

The worst fear imaginable hit me.  Do you remember the things I brought up at the beginning about bank information, identity etc?  Every bit of that could be very well underway if someone took over my domain.  There are people or companies out there that make a living buying domains after they expire.  To get a domain back from these people is almost virtually impossible without hiring a lawyer and taking action or spending a large sum of money.  For the domain snatcher, these domains can be a gold mine because of previous page rankings and previous built traffic.

Think about it, if someone controls the domain, they control the email accounts.   If they control the email accounts they can reset passwords to accounts you use online (which is why I hate systems that verify identity via email).  This is about the point I started to freak out and hit 100%.

Restoring Logical Order

I pulled up my registrar and logged in.  I didn’t see my domain.  Thinking under immense pressure I thought I had completely screwed up.  I quickly picked up the phone and made a call to tech support and got someone.  I explained the situation in just a few words and the representative pulled up my account.  He then gave me a HUGE sign of relief and said, “Your domain is listed under the expired section.  If you go there, you can renew it.”

Whew, no one had taken control over it (my worst fear).  I started to verbally abuse myself for letting my domain expire.  I thought the domain was set on auto renew but it wasn’t.  After getting over my worst fear of someone hijacking my domain, logical order started to return to my brain. 

How Domain Expirations Work

After logical order was restored to my brain I realized that technically it takes longer than one day to snatch a domain after it expires.  As a matter of fact it takes about 75 days after a domain expires to be fully removed from the ICANN database.  For those that don’t know there is 40 days after a domain expires that is considered a grace period.  Then there is a redemption period and then there are 5 days of a deletion period.  Thus technically I had about 74 days left to re-buy my domain.  But for those days my web site would be showing the web site you saw above, NOT COOL.

I’m Not The Only One

Before you start pointing fingers and laughing at my situation note that I’m not the only one that’s had this happen.  Probably the most famous story I remember is a story from 1999 when Microsoft forgot to re-register their Hotmail.Com domain.  You read the correctly, Hotmail!  A Hotmail subscriber re-registered the domain to restore their email services just so he could get his email.

http://news.cnet.com/Good-Samaritan-squashes-Hotmail-lapse/2100-1023_3-234907.html

There are others, and probably a lot we don’t even know about.

Lessons Learned

If you own your own domain(s) there are some huge lessons that can be learned from this.

1. Make sure you can get emails from your registrar.  Double and triple check spam filters and email inbox rules to make sure if they send you something it gets into your Inbox.
2. If your registrar offers the option to set your domains to auto renew, do it.  The registrar I use has this option.  For some reason I forgot to set it though.
3. Use a credit card like American Express that you pay off every month and don’t have to worry about being over balance on.  AMEX is great for re-occurring charges and bills you pay off at the end of the month.  This will ensure when it comes time for the domain to be renewed it will be.  Or at least give you a better shot at it. 
4. Schedule the expiration date of your domain(s) in your calendars.  Notice I said plural.  Put this everywhere you can.  In most cases registrars email the owner of a domain when it is about to expire, but just in case their email gets trapped by a spam filter or something and there is a problem you’ll be reminded to double check it. 

Everything turned out fine in the end but the feeling I had of potentially having my main domain taken away is a feeling I do not wish to repeat for the foreseeable future.  If you own a personal domain (as I know many of you do) you maybe should think twice about letting that domain expire if you have email accounts tied to that domain, even if you don’t use that domain anymore.  At least make sure you have no ties to it whatsoever before letting it expire.  Whatever you are doing right now, stop and check if your domain is about to expire and follow my tips above.  Don’t be like me and suddenly start selling real estate on a Sunday morning.  🙂

The Olympics are upon us!  I called myself preparing for the Olympics last night by installing Silverlight so I could watch the Oylympics via http://nbcolympics.com.  I’m running Server 2008 and I quickly ran into a problem.  The work around turned out to not be that difficult at all so here is a walk through.

Step 1

Save the Silverlight.exe to your hard drive. Although you can run it directly it doesn’t work because of the default policy set on Server 2008.

Step 2

Right click the Siliverlight.exe and click “Run as administrator”.

Step 3

Click Run.

Step 4

Press Install.

Step 5

Close the installation dialog.

Step 6

The first time you visit a Silverlight site you’ll be given a security prompt.  I suggest checking the box in the dialog so you don’t get this again.