Tuesday, November 20, 2001
Go to Hell-O
Two years ago I registered several domain names with Register.com. Cluelog.com was one. Ocode.com was another. Obuilder.com was another. I wasn't interested in renewing them (well, maybe Cluelog). So I decided to let them lapse out. Register.com sent me notices that the names were expiring, but I ignored them.
Then I got this:
E-MAIL INVOICE FOR DOMAIN REGISTRATION/RENEWAL
Please see the register.com Services Agreement (link below).
register.com is in receipt of valid credit card information for payment and confirms the following:
Domain Name: cluelog.com
Subscription Length: 1 year
Period From: 11/19/2001
Period To: 11/19/2002
Amount Charged (US$): $34.99
If you feel that this charge is in error or do not wish to renew the domain name(s) listed above, please contact register.com immediately in one of the following ways:
Contact a Customer Support representative online by visiting:
(A URL that allows me to kill the domain name and have a credit issued on the credit card)
Or call:
Toll free in the U.S. and Canada: (877) 209-1434
Outside the U.S. and Canada: +1 (212) 798-9277
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Registrant agrees to the terms and conditions of the current Services Agreement.
To access the register.com Services Agreement, please visit http://www.register.com/service-agreement.cgi.
I guess it's an opt-out service agreement.
Is this a sucky system? A little presumptuous, perhaps? I think so.
With a plot like a Southern novel
When I lived between Hillsborough and Chapel HIill, I had no idea that the former was a Literary Community. Seems it is. Thanks for the link to Don McArthur.
Freebloggery
David Williams points to Freeblogger on SourceForge, about which he says, I think that FreeBlogger could lower the barrier of entry to the Weblogging world.... I feel that Weblogging in general is a peoples' journalism... and therefore, all people should have an equal opportunity to maintain one.
I'm not sure opportunity is the real issue here (or if there's an issue at all), since I don't see anything standing in the way of anybody blogging, courtesy of Userland, Pyra and others. But maybe David can tell us more on his blog.
Semi-speaking of which, if you're looking to get deeper on the whole open source subject (or just part of it, which I think David is getting at with Freeblogger), check out Jonathan Peterson's blog. He's another thinker/programmer/journalist (among many other things, it's clear). Here's something he adds by email:
Open Source will never deliver a vertical market product (i.e. a hospital billing system) because it cannot serve a narrow customer base. BUT it is a fine way to create coding infrastructure": HTML servers, intra-application communication standards, etc. Because there can be no political machinations or hidden agendas in the development of features.
What's clear to me is that blogs would not exist or improve constantly if commercial developers were not doing creative work and giving stuff away.
We've called some bloggers worse, no?
Chris Locke points to a contrary opinion about Benjamin Franklin, from none other than D.H. Lawrence. D.H. calls B.F. "that snuff-coloured little man," and worse.
Hell 2.0
I keep getting Type 2 crashes with Eudora on the laptop, along with lots of other stuff that isn't quite working, either. Arg.
Our Founding Blogfathers
Steve MacLaughlin over at Saltire has nominated (with help from Chris Locke) three Blogfathers: Samuels Pepys and Johnson and James Boswell.
I nominate our country's good-humored founding gonzo polymath, Benjamin Franklin. Poor Richards Almanac was, let's admit it, the very first blog. Significantly, he launched it even though he already owned a newspaper.
Is it too late for a celebrity smackdown between the four of them?