27 May 2015
Near-Name Collision in The Cold Heart of Space
I just noticed there is a band that made an album (or at least half of one... looks like they have one side of a cassette tape filled... not sure if it was a joke or not, didn't listen to the music) that has a very similar name to my blog. Just to clarify, I'm in no way related to the band, and they are in no way related to me. But they chose an awesome name. :-)
26 May 2015
And Now Back to Our Regularly-Scheduled Program...
Wow. If you haven't noticed, this site was inaccessible via www.thecoldheartofspace.com for almost six months. You could still get to it via the blog address, but who knew that address anyway?
Why? you ask. Well, in my quest to do things super-cheaply, I made a serious blunder. But you'll have to read the backstory first...
Backstory:
I first registered this domain via register.com. They were okay. Things worked. It wasn't bad. They gave me a super deal on the first year. Then, the next year, they wanted to raise the prices to ridiculous levels. I balked, and decided to transfer to the cheapest thing I could find. It turned out I chose 1and1. Big mistake.
First, the transfer process from Register.com was tedious, and didn't actually work. I had to call them to enable transferring, but by the time 1and1 (or me, not sure who was the weak link) got around to actually pulling the trigger on the transfer, the code register.com gave me no longer worked. And I made the mistake of updating my whois settings (because I had moved), and it locked me out of any other changes (such as transferring to a new registrar) for 2 weeks. Great. So the domain name actually expired, and rather than pay the insane oops-I-let-it-expire-and-now-I-want-it-back extortion fee, I simply waited the 35 days for the ransom era to end. Yeah, I'm cheap, but for a silly little blog that's read by like 2 people ever, I'm not paying hundreds of dollars to get my domain name back. Tough luck. :-) So first lesson learned, I don't think register.com is actually an a registrar. I think they are a reseller. Probably should have gone with an actual registrar. Anyway, after the domain name expired and the ransom period was over, I purchased the domain name via 1and1.com. The price was great, but for some bizarre reason, I could not make it point appropriately to my blog. They apparently don't like google blogs, or something. There was a guide on the web that said "here's how to work around this and make it work". I tried to follow it again and again, but with no success. They want you to add subdomains to verify with google that you can edit records to make sure you own the domain and what not. Well, with register.com, that sort of thing would happen within an hour or two. With 1and1.com, it took over 4 days. Craziness. I got sick of trying to mess with it , so I decided to move it to Google domains. 1and1.com wouldn't let go of the domain and actually prevented me from transferring it for 90 days. When it finally went through, ONE SIMPLE CLICK (and typing in my blog address) on Google Domains and my blog was back to being pointed at by the domain name of my choice. Note I did have to go back into blogger settings and tell it to redirect from the blog address to the domain name I chose, but that was easy. Google only charged me $12 for a year, and that includes whois privacy. And it's simple to use. I can customize what I need and don't have to go through an AGONIZING web interface. The difference is night and day.
No longer backstory:
So, long story short, be careful who you choose to register your domain name through. I'm very happy with Google Domains. Register.com was okay, but did the jack-up-the-prices-like-crazy trick after one year. 1and1.com was agonizing. And I never successfully made it point my domain name to my blogger blog. Your mileage my vary, but I'm never going back. :-)
Oh yeah. One more thing to yell about. 1and1.com had the craziest interface for DNS. I simply COULD NOT set things up. It was like they put boxing gloves on my hands and told me to type the collective works of Bill Shakespeare. In an hour. It was brutal. I felt like screaming each time I tried, unsuccessfully, to get my simple little blog on the interweb again.
Why? you ask. Well, in my quest to do things super-cheaply, I made a serious blunder. But you'll have to read the backstory first...
Backstory:
I first registered this domain via register.com. They were okay. Things worked. It wasn't bad. They gave me a super deal on the first year. Then, the next year, they wanted to raise the prices to ridiculous levels. I balked, and decided to transfer to the cheapest thing I could find. It turned out I chose 1and1. Big mistake.
First, the transfer process from Register.com was tedious, and didn't actually work. I had to call them to enable transferring, but by the time 1and1 (or me, not sure who was the weak link) got around to actually pulling the trigger on the transfer, the code register.com gave me no longer worked. And I made the mistake of updating my whois settings (because I had moved), and it locked me out of any other changes (such as transferring to a new registrar) for 2 weeks. Great. So the domain name actually expired, and rather than pay the insane oops-I-let-it-expire-and-now-I-want-it-back extortion fee, I simply waited the 35 days for the ransom era to end. Yeah, I'm cheap, but for a silly little blog that's read by like 2 people ever, I'm not paying hundreds of dollars to get my domain name back. Tough luck. :-) So first lesson learned, I don't think register.com is actually an a registrar. I think they are a reseller. Probably should have gone with an actual registrar. Anyway, after the domain name expired and the ransom period was over, I purchased the domain name via 1and1.com. The price was great, but for some bizarre reason, I could not make it point appropriately to my blog. They apparently don't like google blogs, or something. There was a guide on the web that said "here's how to work around this and make it work". I tried to follow it again and again, but with no success. They want you to add subdomains to verify with google that you can edit records to make sure you own the domain and what not. Well, with register.com, that sort of thing would happen within an hour or two. With 1and1.com, it took over 4 days. Craziness. I got sick of trying to mess with it , so I decided to move it to Google domains. 1and1.com wouldn't let go of the domain and actually prevented me from transferring it for 90 days. When it finally went through, ONE SIMPLE CLICK (and typing in my blog address) on Google Domains and my blog was back to being pointed at by the domain name of my choice. Note I did have to go back into blogger settings and tell it to redirect from the blog address to the domain name I chose, but that was easy. Google only charged me $12 for a year, and that includes whois privacy. And it's simple to use. I can customize what I need and don't have to go through an AGONIZING web interface. The difference is night and day.
No longer backstory:
So, long story short, be careful who you choose to register your domain name through. I'm very happy with Google Domains. Register.com was okay, but did the jack-up-the-prices-like-crazy trick after one year. 1and1.com was agonizing. And I never successfully made it point my domain name to my blogger blog. Your mileage my vary, but I'm never going back. :-)
Oh yeah. One more thing to yell about. 1and1.com had the craziest interface for DNS. I simply COULD NOT set things up. It was like they put boxing gloves on my hands and told me to type the collective works of Bill Shakespeare. In an hour. It was brutal. I felt like screaming each time I tried, unsuccessfully, to get my simple little blog on the interweb again.
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