Chatter Of The Squirrel

Entertaining Games

Random Flash games can really kill some time.

Still remember that insane few days of Desktop Tower Defense a year ago, when a few of us played it for days non-stop until we carved our places in the top echelon.

Just spent a few minutes launching a hedgehog into space. Random silliness.

On Line Specs

You can get spectacles online at Zennioptical.com.

Just browsing it was an interesting experience for me…

For most people, glasses are a fashion accessory, and looks come first in their choice of frames. These people probably can’t imagine not buying their glasses at a store where they can try them on and admire themselves in a mirror.

But I shop for glasses the same way I shop for anything else, based on criteria of value, material & specs (look, I punned “specifications”). For me, I enjoy seeing my choices properly organised by price range, by gender, or letting me look in one glance all the designs that use memory titanium.

It just makes the most sense to me this way.

Doesn’t it?

Look at the funky choices.

This post is sponsored by Zenni Optical

Network Solutions Suck

I’m talking about Network Solutions the company.

They used to have the monopoly selling all .com domains. And charge US$35 a year to register.

But now, after the monopoly has been broken, many other registrars can register their domains for as low as US$5.99.

My company domain is registered to Network Solutions. And the past 2 weeks, I’ve been engaged in a tug of war to wrest our domain from their grasp, and let a more reasonable registrar handle it.

NetSol tries to make it as DIFFICULT as possible. I’m not the only one who had such troubles.

First and foremost, is the lack of documentation… Their interface is slow, and it took me hours to navigate through every crook and cranny of it, and finally determine that there is no Help on how to transfer my domain OUT of NetSol.

For such info, you’ll have to look to any of the other registrars. Many of them tells you that you’ll need to CALL their customer service to effect a change.

First, I need to be the Primary Contact for the domain. And the webhost who registered the domain for the company only has a Technical Login Account. The dude who was Primary Contact is long gone.But at least from the Technical Account, I can see who the Primary Contact was, and what email was registered.

Luckily, there is still access to the contact email. At least to the .net domain. The .com domain is registered to a dead email account, and I’ll need to fax in a photo ID on company letterhead to change that, but I have until October for that problem.

Some login / password recovery, and I finally get access, and took over as Primary Contact.

Then, there’s this wonderful thing called Domain Locking. To “protect” your domain from unauthorised transfers. I managed to unlock it, and requested an Authorization Code. I’ll need to give this code to the new registrar, so they can take over the domain.

Sounds good.

But almost immediately, a new undocumented ‘feature’ popped in. Upon unlocking the ‘protection’, the system imposes a Transfer-Lock on the domain that prevents it from being transfered within the next 30 days. And hidden in the mess of verbiage, it tells me that I can contact Customer Services if I can’t wait the 30 days.

Pissed. I replied with a curt email and asked to remove this blasted lock immediately.

After replying, I realised the form mail they sent didn’t even have my domain details, so it’s not enough info for them to generate a case. I immediately replied a second time, supplying the details.

To be bloody safe, I created an Express Support Request on their website on this same issue.

Hours later, Customer Service replied and asked for my domain details. Acting dumb, buying time. Pretending that they didn’t receive the second email I sent already had the info they wanted. I whacked the ball hard back into their court.

A day later, CS replied and said that they can’t facilitate this request by email, and that I MUST call their support line to get this done. More delaying tactics. But they did supply their CS phone number in this email. This is the same phone number that NetSol does not put on their FAQ, but which every competing registrar will tell you in their PDFs and FAQs.

Luckily, a few hours later, my Express Support request also kicked in, at express speed, and this support guy more willingly gave me what I wanted. Nice, saved myself the phonecall.

Transfer-Lock defeated. I can now initiate the transfer from the new registrar.

Immediately, I got an email from the new registrar, to confirm that I, as Primary Contact, approved this transfer to take place. Clicked on a link to approve.

Next, I get an email from the loser registrar, to let me know that a transfer is taking place, please click on this helpfully supplied link to BLOCK THE TRANSFER. Or just ignore this email if you want the transfer to happen. I was wary of such tactics, so I made sure to read before clicking anything.

Then over a few days, the domain is finally transfered over to the new registrar. Whereupon, I’ll need to login, update my DNS information, and let the new information propagate outwards to the rest of the internet.

Because once your domain is no longer in their records, any DNS requests that still goes through NetSol, will be rewarded with an ad for NetSol’s ’services’. Complete with multiple pop-under ads. And it can take days for every ISP out there to refresh their DNS information. Until then, the .net will be broken.

As of this writing, some servers have refreshed. But TM is still pointing to the obsolete name server.

This will be challenging come the time to transfer the .com, since our email is using that domain… Must plan the transfer carefully and try to let it happen on a weekend.