Free .biz domains (seriously!)

I’m totally serious.

I got an e-mail not too long ago from 1&1 telling me of their free .biz domains offer.

Although I’m not sure whether this offer is also valid for new users, I’m extremely pleased with 1&1’s services, and have great confidence that they are absolutely honest and non-deceptive in this offer. I’ve registered “freddyware.biz” among others, all of which I plan on developing — there’s a requirement that you can only register .biz domains if you are going to use it for business/commercial purposes (which do not include selling or trading domains).

Anyhow, check it out. This is an offer webmasters cannot miss out on.

(3 votes, average: 1.67 out of 5)

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More Interaction

I’ve been introduced to two great commenting systems: Disqus and Intense Debate. Thanks to net@night for introducing this dilemma.

Essentially, these services replace a blog’s built-in commenting system with something far more interactive. Both are great Web 2.0 services, and I feel that both would encourage more interaction from the readers and visitors of this blog.

Disqus:

Intense Debate (as implemented on Feld Thoughts):

Help me choose a comment system. Disqus or Intense Debate?

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When to use JavaScript, when to use PHP

As the number of Web 2.0 sites and networks increases significantly the latter part of this decade, we are seeing increased use of technologies like AJAX, JSON, and XML-based data interchanges. This necessitates certain programming to handle data and user interaction, but it’s often debated whether client-side scripting like JavaScript should be used so extensively.

This article will discuss the simpler aspects of using JavaScript, the simpler aspects of using PHP, and will discuss when to use one or the other.

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Don’t let Microsoft buy Yahoo!

It’s been widely reported that Microsoft has offered $44.6 billion to acquire Yahoo! Inc., which comes to around $1500 per user of Yahoo!. It’s evident that they are doing so in order to compete with Google’s rising (56%) share of search queries. But don’t let Microsoft do it! It will be the downfall of Yahoo! and will negatively impact many people.

How many times have we seen Microsoft do questionable things? Here are some of the likely things to happen if and when Microsoft purchases Yahoo!:

• Yahoo! products to disappear:
  • Yahoo! Messenger (to be replaced with Windows Live Messenger)
  • Yahoo! ID and plans for OpenID (to be replaced with Windows Live ID)
  • Personals (to be replaced with Windows Live Spaces)
  • Maps
  • Yahoo! Widgets
  • Mozilla Firefox Yahoo! Edition
  • Music Jukebox (to be replaced with some form of Windows Media Player / Zune Marketplace)
  • All the Yahoo! toolbars (to be replaced with some form of the Windows Live Toolbar)
• MSN and Yahoo! merge into some sort of weird portal
• Yahoo! Publisher Network becomes an active competitor to AdSense (and accepts publishers outside the U.S.)
• Yahoo! Mail loses the “unlimited” storage and the interface changes

Doesn’t it seem a tiny bit anticompetitive if Microsoft eliminates the Yahoo! products that would have competed with the Windows Live products, and forces those users to switch to the Microsoft products? This simply consolidates the users into one group of people locked into Microsoft products.

Clearly, Yahoo! has created a great deal of services that compete directly with Microsoft: Yahoo! Messenger, Yahoo! ID, Maps, Mozilla Firefox Yahoo! Edition, and the Yahoo! Toolbar… even Yahoo! Mail. Does it not seem likely that Microsoft will favour its own products over those of Yahoo!, despite the strong Yahoo! brand?

We will see hundreds of thousands of dissatisfied users. They have remained dedicated to Yahoo! products for its strong brand, some of the reputable features in its services, and also for its willingness to help open source — as demonstrated in the Yahoo! Developer Network as well as some of its open API’s.

It is good that Google will have competition, but not when the opposition is Microsoft. In such circumstances, we will not see benefits for the users — only more hooks to “lock” the users in.

TechCrunch also has an article on this, but is more specific about some of the changes, although I seem to disagree with some of them. For instance, I do not believe that Live Search will replace Yahoo! Search — rather, I feel that they will merge into one. Hopefully, they’ll come up with a better name than Yahoo! Live Search. TechCrunch also mentions that it’s possible for Flickr to integrate with Windows Live, or to offer a Picasa-competing download.

TechBlog mentions that this purchase will need to be approved by various regulating agencies, and that would include the Justice Department. Quite obviously, this hostile purchase is intended to crush a competitor, Google, and given the history that Microsoft has in antitrust, we can probably expect some trouble from the E.U., where corruption isn’t an issue. (I’m not saying it is for the U.S., but Microsoft does pay a great deal of money to the government — can we really trust an entity that contributes so significantly to the U.S. economy, which is heading into recession?) This issue will create an uphill battle for Microsoft.

But there are others, who feel that such a purchase or merger will be very beneficial for bloggers, the Internet, and even Google. The argument is that this sort of action does increase competition (agreed), and that will allow cheaper search engine advertising, push Google to improve its services even more, and allow third parties such as bloggers to earn a higher revenue share from programs like AdSense. Respectfully, I understand this view, but it has to be seen that this power that Microsoft-Yahoo! would have can be abused, and it’s quite possible we’ll see the decline of Google services like AdSense.

Some people, including John C. Dvorak, previously mentioned for his Tech5 podcast, do feel that this purchase won’t go through. Clearly, the European Union has dealt with Microsoft before, and Microsoft has not yet won a major fight in its courts. Hopefully, this is the case and Microsoft’s attempt is crushed.

What do you think? Should we let this happen? Should the European Union allow Microsoft to take such drastic measures? I don’t think so. What about you?

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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Looking for web hosting?

Are you looking for reliable web hosting? Would you like to compare different services without getting into a site with annoying ads? Web Hosting Choice has exactly what you’re looking for — an ad-free guide to web hosting.

It may seem to you that, with all the affiliates lurking around the Internet promoting various hosts, that it is no longer possible to find an accurate, unbiased review for any service. But at Web Hosting Choice, hosts are actually ranked and listed in such a way that you can decide for yourself which one to go with. You can search by monthly price, disk space and/or bandwidth, and the features of each web host is listed in a standardized format, so you can take a glance and see which one you don’t want.

If you’re someone like me who is always on guard for inexpensive Linux hosting supporting PHP, Apache, and MySQL, the Web Host Plans section on their site is a good place to begin a categorized view of different services. It’s really a well-designed site — one that runs without advertisements, as well.

Web Hosting Choice - your guide to web hosting.

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New Logo Images

In coordination with the effort to modernize the logos of our member assets, as well as the FreddyWare Solutions Enterprise Network, we are adopting a few newer logos.

Firstly, Geekie.org Apps, with the older logo of:

has now gotten the new design:

which reflects the capabilities of Geekie.org Apps, including 5+ GB webmail, calendar, documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, as well as text/audio chat using Google Talk.

A note about the new logo (above): we have no non-transparent version of the logo, so it will not display properly in Internet Explorer due to the alpha transparency issue in PNG. Additionally, it IS transparent, so what you are seeing on a browser like Firefox is the black-background view of the logo (and it doesn’t look that much worse); simply click on the image to see it on a white background.

(If you haven’t signed up for Geekie.org Apps yet, now is a good time to contact us and get an account.)

We will also use a new favicon for Geekie.org, based on a set of graphic designs called Crystal.

Clearly, our new designs will be more modern and suitable for our organization as we proceed forward in time.

One more thing: if you haven’t done so yet, you can check out our new FreddyWare Toolbar, which has built-in search of our network sites, integrated search capability with Geekie.org’s search, menus with links to our sites, integrated feed reader, and one-click access to Geekie.org Apps. (Available for Firefox and Internet Explorer.)

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