Acro.net – Technology Rants & Raves by Acroplex®

During an ongoing transfer of a domain sold at Sedo, I was notified that the domain must be renewed before proceeding any further.

That’s a first for me, as usually I get inquiries to domains *after* they get renewed, not just before.

It seems that potential buyers that monitor a domain anxiously, place offers as soon as it’s renewed for another year.

In this case, however, the buyer placed a bid 28 days before expiration, so Sedo asked me to renew it at the current registrar, Fabulous.com

There’s no point in fussing over reg fees, just keep that in mind when selling a domain that if it’s less than 30 days to expiration, Sedo will ask you to renew it.

Happy Holidays!

Every week, I get dozens of domain solicitations. Some are inquiries to sell, others to buy.

When people ask me to buy a domain, I quote a price. When I receive an offer selling me a domain, I expect an asking price.

This fella emailed me with a domain, stating he’d like to sell it to me.

I asked for a price. He responded with “make an offer”.

That’s where the conversation went south.

Contacting me out of the blue, without prior introduction and with no asking price for a domain I didn’t inquire about in the first place – that’s spam in my book.

Of course the guy denied that he mass-emailed other domainers about the domain but that’s not the point: when reaching out to *sell* your domain or service, be sure to have a price in mind – or you’re most definitely going to lose a sale, with me.

I thought I’d start the week with a tribute to Google and its ability to return useful results to meaningful search queries.

Projectors were eliminated from Kodak’s line of products in late 2003, much to the dismay of aging family men and old-school salesmen. For only $65 I managed to get one such projector on Craigslist; the price even justified driving to Daytona Beach to get it.

When faced with a situation where the newly acquired but rather aged (16 years old) Kodak projector kept firing up slides non-stop, I had no recourse but look online for help.

Googling the model number didn’t help much; the results involved an endless line of eBay auctions and such.

Then I searched for “Kodak Carousel 4400 keeps moving slides” and sure enough I found a meaningful result in the form of an online resource of problem-posting and problem-solving.

The Fixya.com web page contained even a schematic diagram of how to fix the problem; after taking apart the projector and pondering about the complexity of hardware made in the US, it took me just 5 minutes to fix the problem.

As it happens in those cases, it took me 30 minutes to put the projector back together but that’s a totally different story.

Thanks Google. You nailed it this time.

It’s the Holiday Season and the world of consumerism that we live in is abundant with gifts and endless spending.

The use of credit cards increases during this time of the year and that’s why an increased number of phishing emails are sent out.

On a daily basis, I receive close to 30 emails with the subject line being related to one of the following:

• ACH transfer
• Credit balance
• Log into your CitiBank account
• Transaction declined
• Update your login details

These are typical attempts to make one click on a compromised link or a spoofed web site, in order to surrender their credit card or login information.

One’s alerts are low during the Holiday season and phishing scammers know that quite well.

As always, never click on emailed links; visit the web site of your bank or financial institution by typing in the URL in the browser.

Wishing you Happy and safe holidays.

Almost a decade ago, I hand-registered a two-word .com related to web browsing and the Internet.

It’s a cool, brandable name that can be used in other industries as well.

A few days ago, I found out that a start-up in the domain industry registered two other TLDs and after a little research I found out that they launched a product by that name.

Incidentally, the company’s CEO happened to be one hop away in terms of business acquaintances, thanks to LinkedIn.

I had nothing to lose but ask to be introduced, so I did. The initial communication was short but quickly expanded into lengthy exchanges.

The CEO has been around the block for a while but didn’t seem to share my opinion that they need the dot com and said that they will do ok with what they have.

The truth is, that any TLD will do the job but only the dot com will do it right.

My asking price was in accordance to my investment: I don’t flip domains for change and I’m very experienced in identifying a domain’s potential.

Despite my offer to exchange the domain for interest in the company, I was turned down. It seems that the CEO is confident that there will be no traffic trickling to my dot com once their product is adopted by millions of people on the Internet.

At that point, I knew that any further attempt to pitch my domain to the company would be a waste of time. So I thanked him and we parted ways.

One thing is certain: he lost the opportunity to get the domain at a reasonable, “friendly” price, because in the future – once the traffic arrives to the dot com – my price will more than double.