The Domain Demesne and Charlie's Last Chance

"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this."

I'm not so foolish as to compare myself with the originator of Post-it Notepads, Spencer Silver, whose wisdom is quoted above. But after I'd completed my 1st Web site some years ago I felt as if I'd achieved the impossible.

In fact, creating the site was simple compared to maintaining and updating it, as you'll see if you visit my site, which I haven't updated in ten months. As a repository for my columns, and thus largely text, it required only a minimum of hand-coded HTML. Contrary to popular belief, fancy web design tools are not necessary for personal sites, though they are valuable for complex business sites.

Anyone who can use a word processor can, with a bit of determination, learn enough HTML to make a site. And there are plenty of free web hosts so that cost is not a factor.

But do you really want to ask people to remember www.members.hooha.com/jerry to access your site? Or even www.jerry.hooha.com, as some hosts permit?

One free and easy way around that is to use a redirecting service like www.v3.com, which uses exotic country domains like Tonga's .to. V3 will provide a URL like www.go.to/ipcc (the International Press Club of Chicago site), redirecting it to your free host.

I still use that little trick for sites I create for friends and clients who don't want to spend anything on a domain name. Two years ago, however, I finally decided to plunk down the $70 for www.maizell.com. At the time, Network Solutions Inc. (www.networksolutions.com) was still the only game in town. NSI was a U.S. government-granted monopoly, owned by a bunch of ex-intelligence community insiders. Given that the Internet developed from a government project, that was understandable.

But a domain name requires that the name points to the host on two domain name servers (DNS), something that is impractical for most individuals. So the name needs to be hosted by, or parked at, a professional outfit, usually an ISP.

Instead, I chose Domain Direct (www.domaindirect.com), owned by Tucows (www.tucows.com) the Canadian company that has made such a name for itself as a distributor of shareware. For only $40 they provided me with two years of DNS and URL forwarding, so that www.maizell.com was automatically and immediately forwarded to my free site on Tripod (www.tripod.com).

Domain Direct also included forwarding of up to five e-mail addresses, so that, for example, I had jerry@maizell.com forwarded to my ISP e-mail account, and my wife's e-mail, lou@maizell.com, forwarded to her ISP e-mail account.

Two years went by swiftly, but much has changed in the interim. When I received a notice from NSI that it was time to renew, along with a bill for another $70, I decided to consider the alternatives. There are now many domain registrars, some of which are considerably less expensive and/or offer more or better services. [The SPCUG enjoys the registration services of Calweb.com. –Ed.]

I transferred my registration to Domain Direct for just $49.99 for two years, including all their other services. A new registration would cost $70, also including all services (e.g., URL and e-mail forwarding, hit statistics).

I also took advantage of their free POP e-mail account. My new ISP, ATT@home cable Internet service, offers a reliable and speedy connection, but the most abysmally abominable e-mail servers I've ever encountered. Sometimes one can't even login to @home's e-mail server, and when one does manage to connect, the e-mail is often delayed for hours, days or weeks.

Domain Direct's e-mail has been excellent thus far, the one caveat being that (like many ISPs) they have a security block that requires one to check for incoming mail before one can send outgoing mail. I added an extra POP account for my wife for only $2 monthly (paid two years in advance so as to synchronize with the domain registration period).

I am very happy with Domain Direct. The few problems I've encountered were speedily resolved via their website's online support chat facility. There are cheaper services. But be careful out there:

If you are very sophisticated about such things, and are prepared to do the work yourself, you can even get your domain registered free: www.dhs.org. Just be sure you really know what you're doing (and don't ask me for help; if I were up to it I'd have gotten a free domain myself).

NameZero (www.namezero.com) and NameDemo (www.namedemo.com) also offer free domain names – but they retain ownership of the name, giving you permission to use it. You have to use their ad-supported web hosting services. You can pay to upgrade – with restrictions.

Dotster (www.dotster.com) charges only $14.95 for a one-year registration (and currently has a special promotion for transferred domains, just $11.95). But if you don't host your own DNS add another $10, plus $5 for URL forwarding, $29 for a POP e-mail account, $10 for forwarding up to ten e-mail addresses. Or they package some of those services for $29.95. You do the math.

Go Daddy (the owners must have a `50s nostalgia fetish, as they can't be old enough to remember that old hipster talk), www.godaddy.com, will register your name for 10 years for less than most others will for two (only $8.95 for one year, $17.50 for two, $69.50 for 10). But you had better know what you're going to do about DNS hosting, URL forwarding and other requirements.

If you register your name with Catalog.com (www.catalog.com), $65 for two years, you get free and ad-free web hosting "forever," as well as some interesting e-mail services. CNET (www.cnet.com) reports, however, that their e-mail and FTP servers may not always be reliable. If that is not an obstacle for you (it is for me) this is a helluva deal, everything you need in one cheap package.

Sooner or later everyone is going to have a domain name, or whatever the equivalent turns out to be in future iterations of the Internet. You may not have a Web site now and may never have one. But wouldn't it be nice to have your very own e-mail address based on your name or some other personal identification?

Most registrars will park your name for free, with an "under construction" Web site, so you can use the name just for e-mail. Don't be afraid that you have a "common" name that is probably already taken. You can't get, for example, www johnson.com or www.charliejohnson.com but you may well get www.charliejohnson.net or .org.

The Route Over the Internet Abyss

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster."

Nietzsche's advice rings in my ears after yet another battle with the computer gods. In this case, with those minor but irascible deities who oversee the broadband netherworld.

A fellow columnist, Gene Helton, wrote of his broadband experience and makes clear, neither DSL nor cable are unalloyed blessings. Getting either installed and running satisfactorily may subject your nervous system to stresses you may have only experienced when contemplating the imminent loss of your virginity.

I was lucky. Both DSL and cable installations went smoothly. After some slight confusion, the Efficient Networks DSL router (provided by Bazillion, my original ISP, and Covad, free after rebate) neatly distributed my broadband connection to all four PCs on my home network more or less automatically.

But ATT supplied only a cable modem, not a network router. Like all broadband ISPs, ATT prefers to sell extra IP (Internet protocol) addresses for each networked PC ($5 per PC per month). Also like all ISPs, they don't support networks. They won't interfere with your setup, but they won't help you do it.

(If you own two or more PCs and haven't networked them, you're wasting your resources. But that's a subject for another column.) It is possible to share a broadband connection via software, including the free Internet connection sharing (ICS) that comes with Windows98/ME, or various commercial and shareware applications. But for a small investment you can do it the better way, with a cable/ DSL router.

The most popular router for home use is the LinkSys BEFSR41. It is cheap – look for rebates in computer store promotional flyers, though I bought mine from Amazon.com, $130 after rebate. The lowest price I've seen [when this article was written] without rebates was $125 at www.allbusiness.com. (Click Products, then in Search Products enter LinkSys. Cookies, unfortunately, must be enabled.)

It includes a 4-port switch that replaces, and is faster than, a network hub. (There's an even cheaper, 1-port model that can be uplinked to a hub, but the extra few dollars for the 4-port version are well-spent, even if you're linking only two computers. Every extra link in the chain introduces another potential weakness.

It is also said to be easy to configure. Some users claim they did it in 15 minutes. And if everything goes smoothly, that's probably true. But when does anything with computers go smoothly? I didn't quote Nietzsche's caution merely because I admire the old guy.

This was actually my 2nd go-round with the Linky, as the cognoscenti affectionately call it. The 1st was for a client with a dynamic DSL connection, i.e. one that uses DHCP (dynamic host control protocol) to assign IP numbers as required.

It developed that LinkSys' installation manual omitted the single most important step for his setup. I couldn't get through to LinkSys tech support, so struggled for several hours before finding the solution buried deep within www.linksys.com.

On LinkSys' site, click Tech Support, drill down to the product name, then select Tech Helper where you'll find the real step-by-step way to get started. (What was required in my client's case was to record the existing network settings then delete them and start over. No hint about that in the manual.)

I struggled with my own installation (with a static IP address) for two hours before calling support. This time I got through quickly and the tech patiently (and successfully) walked me through the configuration.

The configuration is done via your browser, by entering http://192.168.1.1, which brings up the utility. It is not a complex or technically difficult process, but it is also not intuitive.

Before beginning, you need to have run winipcfg (in Win98), selected your network card and recorded the details for reference. Right-click Network Neighborhood, click Properties and find the unique computer name assigned by the cable installer, your Workgroup name and other details.

Leave the user name box empty, then enter "admin" in the password box. After finishing the setup, be sure to change that default password or sooner or later you may have unwelcome guests.

Not least of a router's benefits is that it presents only its own face to the Internet, so it acts as a firewall, essentially making your system invisible to would-be intruders. While my testing showed it to be quite effective, I recommend a belt-&-suspenders approach: Install ZoneAlarm, the excellent free software firewall from www.zonealarm.com.

Connecting to the Internet without a firewall is like bending over an unknown abyss. "And," as Nietzsche further notes, "if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

Four Candles, No Ashes

It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.

Inspired by that ancient wisdom, I hereby designate myself a one-man truth squad, shining a few rays of light in some of the murkier corners of the current computer scene.

Candle One: Divide and Rule
"For every problem there is a solution that is simple, direct and wrong. " - H. L. Mencken

When I first wrote about the digital divide a couple of years ago, I dismissed it too lightly, never imagining that a scam of such transparency could have any staying power. I underestimated the powerful forces and the vested interests that stood to benefit, whether financially, through ego-inflation or satisfaction-of-power mania.

The self-styled do-gooders just can't let go of the myth that the populace of the entire so-called "Third World" thinks of little else beyond surfing the Web. The whole alphabet soup of aid agencies, every politician sucking up to Silicon Valley, every dot-com zillionaire looking for a tax deduction, every sob sister of every tv talking head conglomerate, is eager to convince us that the world's huddled masses aren't yearning to breathe free, they're yearning to Yahoo.

Along with every other unthinking dupe of the Aristocracy of Mercy (as British journalist Graham Hancock calls the international aid community in his authoritative book, Lords of Poverty), these propagandists self-righteously condemn the selfish attitude of the Internet-connected who decline to share that glory with the world's poor.

Let's get it straight. Anyone who has visited truly poor countries must know that "poor" in the real world doesn't mean someone who has only one television set. It means someone who struggles for his daily bread and water. It means someone who can barely clothe himself and his family and maintain shelter for them against weather and malarial mosquitoes.

It is not the lack of computers and broadband Internet service that holds such people back. It is corrupt governments that spend millions and billions feathering their own nests while even their subjects who are fortunate enough to have enough to eat have no electricity in their homes.

The Brazilian government has designed, and is trying to get built, an Internet appliance that its indigent citizens could afford. But most Brazilians don't have a telephone. Rather than build public Internet kiosks they might consider spending the money on phone lines so that a poor family that has an emergency could call an ambulance. Assuming, that is, that there's a hospital or even a doctor within driving distance.

Uganda is one of the African countries that have done relatively well economically in recent years: Only 55% of the population live below the poverty line. There are three ISPs for the nation's 23 million people, whose average life expectancy is about 43 years.

The [current] president, Yoweri Museveni, seized power in 1986. Maybe he's managed to retain his position because he's popular with the people. Or maybe it's because political parties other than the president's are forbidden to sponsor candidates for office.

Ugandan opposition parties are forbidden to do much of anything on the basis of any political philosophy. No more than six members are permitted to gather at any one time. But that's a minor matter, apparently, compared to the need perceived by the digital dividers for Ugandans to bid on eBay, check their stock portfolios on E-Trade and reply to their Hotmail.

Though Lords of Poverty was published in 1989 (Atlantic Monthly Press), before the digital divide was added to their toolbox, Graham Hancock nicely sums up the scammers:

"… [T]hat notorious club of parasites and hangers-on made up of the United Nations, the World Bank and the bilateral agencies … has provided hundreds of thousands of 'jobs for the boys' and… permitted record-breaking standards to be set in self-serving behaviour, arrogance, moral cowardice and mendacity. At the same time, in the developing countries, …it has allowed governments characterised by historic ignorance, avarice and irresponsibility to thrive; last but not least, it has condoned – and in some cases facilitated – the most consistent and grievous abuses of human rights that have occurred anywhere in the world since the dark ages."

Candle Two: The Mercedes Divide
"Public money is like holy water; everyone helps himself to it. " - Italian proverb

It's not their money they want to spend, it's ours. Sen. Hillary, along with other political pickpockets of both parties, proposes to allow communities to use their bond-issuing powers to fund the building of broadband networks. The real nub of her brainstorm, however, is to pave the way for federal grants.

As one who waited years to get broadband service to my hut in the boonies, I empathize with those similarly or worse situated. But among the chief reasons that cable and DSL Internet providers are slow to expand into the hinterlands is that it is expensive to build the infrastructure.

Even if one accepts that the federal government has a legitimate social role to play, despite the fact that the Constitution does not provide for it, where are the priorities of these dispensers of our largesse?

They want to help the poor. Good. They want to feed the hungry. Fine. They want to ensure that everyone gets good health care and prescription drugs. OK. Now they want us to pay for Farmer Jones to connect to AOL a bit faster?

Let Hillary start a private fund for Web-surfing farmers with the $8 million she got as an advance for a book someone else wrote for her. Her hubby can chip in $50k for every $100k speech he gives.

In the meantime perhaps we should remind our congress-critters that satellite Internet service knows no boundaries. DirecPC (www.direcpc.com) costs the same as most cable or DSL service.

On the bright side, there's at least one person in Washington who sees the issue in its proper perspective. The New York Times quotes new FCC head Michael Powell on the digital divide: "I think there is a Mercedes divide. I'd like to have one; I can't afford one… I'm not meaning to be completely flip about this…. But [the digital divide] shouldn't be used to justify the notion of essentially the socialization of the deployment of the infrastructure."

Candle Three: RIAA versus 60 Million Customers
"A .44 magnum beats four aces. " -Anonymous

You can hardly pick up a newspaper or magazine or turn on the television without hearing about the poor, poor recording industry. File-sharing networks, it seems, have all but destroyed it, threatening to drive thousands of rock musicians and industry executives into Salvation Army soup kitchens, sobbing their poor little hearts out as they lie awake all night on their cots in the basement of the Pacific Garden Mission. The big guns of the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) have taken aim at file sharing and its 60 million plus users – every one of whom the RIAA says is a criminal, robbing it of its meager profits from even the few CDs it manages to hawk on lonely street corners.

I'm almost ashamed to tell you about SoundScan. SoundScan is an information system that tracks actual sales of music throughout the country. Sales data from point-of-sale cash registers is collected weekly from over 16,000 retail, mass merchant and non-traditional outlets, including on-line stores. Data is compiled and distributed to SoundScan's subscribers each Wednesday.

SoundScan is located at One North Lexington Avenue, 14th Floor, White Plains, NY 10601. Their phone number is 914 684-5527. If you're willing to pay their fee they'll gladly tell you all about the level of CD sales all over the world.

SoundScan reports that the year 2000, while Napster was supposedly robbing the industry blind, was the biggest year for recorded music sales in history. I don't have the current dollar figures handy, but when I wrote about Napster awhile ago, the worldwide earnings were on the order of $15 billion.

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) estimates that U.S. consumers alone overpaid $480 million for CDs because of industry price fixing in restraint of trade.

Now that I've made the RIAA bigwigs feel better, let me give them something new to worry about: Total Recorder. Here's what it does: Records sound being played by other computer programs (e.g. RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, Quick Time, WinAmp) including live Internet broadcasts.

Converts different sound formats to WAVE format (plain or compressed) or MP3 format, providing you have a player capable of playing a particular format.

Records from any sound card input line. For example, you can record from CD or you can hook up a cassette player and record from it. A built-in scheduler lets you schedule future recordings and playbacks. Or you can use Total Recorder's command line options with an external scheduler such as Microsoft Task Scheduler. And if that isn't enough, it will also record Internet telephony conversations.

Now let me reassure the RIAA. Total Recorder, unlike Napster, is not free. (I can hear their collective sigh of relief.) It costs… $11.95. You can download a fully functional evaluation version at www.highcriteria.com.

The RIAA makes a big deal out of copyright infringement, as if that were the point. The real reason the RIAA is out to stop innovation in digital music distribution is that they are comfortable with their price-fixing business model. They're making billions by controlling the sales of over-priced CDs, so have no incentive to change to a technology they can't control.

As Jeff Joseph, vice-president of communications at the Consumer Electronics Association said (in Computerworld, Feb. 19, 2001, www.computerworld.com), "Not only is the genie out of the bottle; the bottle's broken."

Candle Four: Microsoft – Trust and Antitrust
"Don't tell any big lies today. Small ones can be just as effective. " -An unknown marketroid

A reader writes, "What's your take on the MS antitrust case? I watched the appeals court hearings and it seemed as though the judges didn't think MS was the evil empire. So what's all the fuss about? MS products are dominant because people like them. Isn't that what a free market is supposed to do?"

I watched the appeals court hearings too. It was difficult to tell who was least well informed about the problem, the judges or the Department of Justice attorneys. Microsoft's lawyers, of course, are required to be intentionally obtuse on behalf of their client.

One small point should alone suffice to explain Microsoft's "market success." Until the court intervened, Microsoft wouldn't sell Windows to any OEM (PC maker) unless the OEM agreed to pay MS a license fee for each and every PC shipped – whether or not it included Windows or any other MS application. This was known in the trade as "the MS tax."

Even the trial court's proposed solution is unlikely to change things much. Breaking MS into two companies may give us two monopolies instead of one.

My libertarian friends complain that the government has no business interfering with business. The antitrust laws, they say, are outdated at best.

I agree. But… the solution is not to exempt MS from the law. The solution is to either repeal the law or apply it equally. Let a thousand predatory monopolies bloom, not just one.

IBM was restrained, by an antitrust consent decree, from marketing its superior operating system, OS/2, in the way that MS marketed Windows. IBM's marketing at the time was, in any case, so stupid that MS might well have triumphed anyway. But we'll never know. I won't try to untangle the legal niceties.

But anyone who believes that Windows and Internet Explorer are "popular" because consumers voted for them with their dollars must also believe that the movie producer character in The Godfather enjoyed waking up with his horse's head in his bed.

At My Wick's End

OK, I think I've offended enough folks for one column. I would, I suppose, have gotten further in life if I were more circumspect. But I'm constrained by my belief in the ancient Chinese proverb:

He who sacrifices his conscience to ambition burns a picture to obtain the ashes.