Acro.net – Technology Rants & Raves by Acroplex®

Unless your trip to TRAFFIC Las Vegas or to DomainFest in California was paid for by your employer, it’s time to take a good look into your credit card and even your bank account, for any unauthorized charges.

The days in TRAFFIC Las Vegas were packed with events – and of course after hours everyone had a great time attending parties, social gatherings and impromptu get-togethers – all while consuming higher than usual quantities of alcohol. Welcome to Vegas, baby.

Unless I spend cash that happens to be in my wallet, I use my credit cards, as they provide protection over unauthorized charges. However, there was a single time while in Las Vegas that I made the mistake of using my debit card in order to withdraw cash.

Even though I went to an ATM of my very own bank somewhere off the Strip, it appears that the location was rigged with a card skimmer. In essence, my debit card was “copied” without ever realizing it and three days later I received automated phonecalls and emails from my bank’s alert system.

The bank notified me of suspicious activity and use of my debit card and upon examining my account online I noticed two transactions that had occurred outside of the US. Some crook used my card and spent approximately $300 buying chocolates at an overseas supermarket. I hope he chokes on it.

Thankfully, my bank immediately closed my card and reversed the charges at no cost to me. It’s definitely the last time that I’ll be using my debit card to withdraw cash at a tourist location away from home. Crooks are everywhere – just search for “Card Skimmers Las Vegas” in Google.

As I’m battling a rather nasty case of flu, I can’t but think of the great time I had at TRAFFIC Las Vegas. The change of guard, from Rick Schwartz to Rick Latona, came with several challenges that in my opinion were handled efficiently and with utmost class.

For starters, Rick Latona’s energy and “go get them” attitude permeated throughout the conference. Rick’s decision to pause and restart the crashed live auction the following day, was the proper action and enforced “damage control”. The auction platform presented some programming challenges that I am certain they’ll be ironed out in time for next TRAFFIC.

The networking sessions were superb, although the twist to the musical chairs introduced by Rick Silver was a bit too much, in my opinion. The zig-zagging added intensity and by the end of the session my voice, like that of others, was gone. Still, an interesting way to break the ice on the starting day; and a reminder for me to bring twice as many business cards with me the next time.

Jodi Chamberlain – event coordinator – was truly superb in every way. Not only did she ensure everyone got going around the conference’s halls but she went far beyond any “call of duty” to keep us happy. She truly seems to enjoy her job, possesses a great sense of humor and a lot of energy in her remarkably minute stature.

As a side-note, Rick Schwartz and Howard Neu seemed to enjoy their assumed role of observers versus organizers of an event that started six years ago as invite only. They were very cordial and far more relaxed than at the previous TRAFFIC conference that I attended in Orlando, in 2008.

Once again, thank you, Rick and Jodi – a job well done.

The devastation from the earthquake that hit Haiti cannot yet be assessed; some fear that 50,000 people might be dead and thousands more injured.

In today’s interconnected world, with each natural or man-made catastrophe the descriptive terms are the first ones to be searched on the Internet; currently people all over the world are interested in finding out what is going on in Haiti and would like to make donations.

However, Haiti.com is being used as a tourism portal to the Caribbean, as it forwards to the domain COL.com. The bright colors of the COL.com web page are in stark contrast with the grim situation in Haiti, where buildings lay in rubble and blood-drenched corpses are being brought out from under the debris.

In a similar fashion, Donations.com and its co-owned Donations.org do not resolve at all. Owned by some corporation based in Switzerland, both generics would play a major role in directing traffic en masse to temporary portals created for the particular devastation.

Unfortunately, the opposite happens currently, as opportunists have already registered domain names related to the earthquake that hit Haiti and are listing them on various venues, including eBay and Sedo.

These are not noble attempts to direct donations but an attempt to collect – or, extort – money from organizations that exist or would be formed in order to rebuild Haiti.

Essentially, the only place to donate through which guarantees an efficient processing of the donations, is the Red Cross. And please note, that’s at RedCross.org as the .com – owned by the Red Cross – ironically appears to be down.

Yesterday I went to Raglan Road, a posh Irish pub in the Downtown Disney area. The temperature outside hovered just above the freezing point; it was the first time ever that I didn’t feel out of place wearing a hat and gloves in Florida.

Inside the restaurant, the beautiful dancer occupied most of the central stage, while us, the patrons enjoyed our meals, ogling her moves. Fish and chips was definitely creamy and fresh, despite being served in a clean piece of cooking paper instead of the traditional newspaper. This is Disney property, after all, and sanitation is more important than tradition.

The various items on shelves, full of rich Irish culture reminded me of times that have long passed by; when deals closed with a firm handshake and a man’s word was unbreakable.

The Irish immigrants to the US were looked down upon, they had to stick to their own but once cornered, those feisty individuals wasted no time in defending their own.

On their footsteps, Greek immigrants helped build the railroads that connected the east and west through the mid-west and the plains of America, often being treated with contempt and racial discrimination for their initiative and dare to venture onto a new land that wasn’t their place of birth.

Every time someone attempts to belittle you, who speaks low of you, who due to his own failed mind attempts to bring you down, that’s the time that the gloves are off. That’s the time that you become a giant, a union of all men whose steps you’re following to achieve your life’s goals with no power other than your own.

The DomainGang.com project has been a baby of mine for the past three months. Although it was conceived long ago, sometimes it’s easy to plan and dream than to create, nourish and grow. Other times, it’s easier to be pure and full of ideals than to be wary of other people’s intentions and to carry a stick for defending yourself.

In the long run, it’s better to squash the bugs before they become roadside monsters that demand your unwilling contribution each time passers-by want to reach your entertainment establishment.

In just 90 days, DomainGang.com has achieved a Google PR3, an Alexa rating of about 43,000 and a followship that despises regurgitated news. DomainGang.com is offering the option to its readership to expand their minds, to remove their blinders and to read between the lines of the domain industry.

DomainGang LLC will be present in both TRAFFIC Las Vegas and DomainFest, in different formats. To those that are willing to see what DomainGang does, what it offers currently and what the future beholds for the domain business – see you there.

Just remember: the gloves are off.

In the past, I’ve been critical to the point of harshness with Sedo. The multi-national corporation that monetizes and auctions domains is definitely a major player in the domain industry; an industry still in early infancy.

With that in mind, when things go wrong I often go off on a “rant” to make it clear that I, the customer, is always right. Although I strive to maintain a level of professionalism in my statements, I make it loud and clear so that I’m heard.

Over the years, Sedo has improved their services, methodology and even their PPC. Yes, there are times that things get frustrating: low advertising volume causes loss of spending and loss of revenue for the Sedo accounts.

However, Sedo’s customer service has always been top notch, hard-working and eager to resolve any issues that might arise. In the end, even when a situation appears to be frustrating Sedo’s customer service has delivered.

The Sedo platform is without a doubt the biggest domain selling market on the Internet. Sedo’s customer service is always eager and willing to listen to suggestions, recommendations for improvement and often offers a surprising and satisfactory resolution to customer issues.

It’s an opportunity for everyone to adjust their ways of communicating their problems and to ensure that business is improved and expanded, in the wonderful world of domaining.

As I traveled by airplane during the change of the year, I could not but notice how the rules of the traveling game have become stricter. After the incident with the Nigerian terrorist who attempted to blow up a Delta Airlines plane bound for Detroit, there is no more room for mistakes.

TSA’s new set of regulations include enforcing restrictions of flying to high-risk individuals, tighter control of carry-on luggage and manual “frisking” of travelers. Despite the inconvenience caused by this detailed checking of human flow, the end result is higher security and flight safety for all air travelers.

Meanwhile, for the third time I’ve had a non-paying bidder at Sedo from a country in the Middle East.

Although Sedo supposedly collects information that verifies the identity of individuals and companies, it’s unacceptable that a pattern of non-paying bidders isn’t eliminated by enforcing similar rules to those observed by the TSA.

Sedo should restrict domain bidding by “domainers” that originate in countries with a high rate of fraud or non-payment. As a US-based corporation, there is little one can do with so-called “binding” contracts between US-based sellers and those outside Uncle Sam’s reach.

Prevention is better than sitting and wasting one’s time and locked down PPC revenue, all while waiting for the foreign prankster to unveil their lack of commitment to a business deal.

On this fabulous post-Christmas day, I’m pondering why I’ve been using Firefox for the past few years. When I changed over from Internet Explorer to using Firefox, it was due to the world wide web peer pressure – hordes of tech geeks crying out how “evil” IE has been and how insecure.

The truth is, Firefox is by no means more secure; there have been more security issues for it in the past year than for Internet Explorer, which rarely has any “holes” anymore, due to the overall patching of the OS by Microsoft.

Having moved over to the Windows 7 platform, it seems that not even a clean installation can speed up Firefox, that chokes on every occasion. Even with the network tweaks available for it, most of the time Firefox appears to be more of a turtle than a speedy fox.

Perusing Expedia has been an absolute nightmare with Firefox, resulting in hang pages and resubmitting of queries; lots of lost time and even a double booking. I had to end up using Chrome for that one, that cut through Expedia like a hot knife through butter.

Web sites that utilize ajax technology to query databases or push out content are the slowest. Having tested both Chrome and Opera I’ve concluded that Opera is by far the best and most stable browser, second in speed only to Google’s Chrome browser. As the new millennium’s “Big Brother” isn’t Microsoft, but Google, I somehow refuse to surrender an extra layer of privacy to the company who proclaims to be “Not Evil” but gathers all the info that they can on every individual that uses their services.

Therefore, in the new year 2010, I am switching over to Opera. Available from www.Opera.com the software has been around for several years and is loaded with features and capabilities that match or surpass those of other browsers. Yes, Internet Explorer has maintained the majority of the browser market for years now, ever since Netscape died in the hands of AOL. But that’s another story to be told in 2010.

Happy last weekend of the year!