The wife and I have decided that for Christmas we are going to give each other the gift of blog freedom and facelifts!  Yeah, that might sound lame, but we are also trying out this saving money for a baby thing.  So what we are planning on doing is taking our blogs off of the WordPress.com site and start using the WordPress.org self hosting software.  We don’t really know what we are doing, but we know that we will have more control over our blogs which is a good thing!

What I understand right now is that I have to have the ability to host on my domain.  Check.  What we are giving each other for Christmas is the gift of doing this without the dumb ads from GoDaddy.  So now if there are ads on the page it will be because we chose for them to be there.  But there are a few things that I don’t understand.

• Does self hosting HAVE to happen through the place you purchased the domain name?
• Will I be able to work on my new blog template without it changing up my page or will I have to basically shut down the blog while I work on it?
• Where is a good place to get really good WordPress templates for free or cheap?

Help!

GoDaddy.com, a website hosting service, has allowed disgusting websites to continue vicious attacks against Larry Sinclair and many others. They are now allowing copyright infringement of Larry Sinclair’s new book, “Barack Obama & Larry Sinclair, Cocaine, Sex, Lies & Murder?”. Larry Sinclair has corresponded with GoDaddy on numerous occassions and informed them of the illegal activity. GoDaddy.com has no excuse for taking no action.

Is the management of GoDaddy.com so entrenched with, so in bed with the Obama camp that they ignore the laws of this country. If they are, that makes sense. It is consistent with the policies and attitudes of Barack Obama.

GoDaddy.com, please respond with what actions you intend to take. If you do not do the responsible thing and obey the law, the public will respond accordingly. I have had multiple GoDaddy accounts before. I will not have another.

Are there any attorneys in Arizona that would like to help Sinclair with this matter?

You are watching the Obama camp act out their Nazi and Orwellian strategies.

This can happen to you. 

Fellow bloggers and citizens, help me get this story out.

Wells

I’m in a desperate situation right now with regards to getting my self-hosted WordPress blog up and running. The last time I mentioned that I got it, I realized soon enough that it isn’t working the way I expected it to be. I was only able to make the marcuscanblog.com domain work but not the whole WordPress.org admin page; I discovered my mistake when I was about to install a nuffnang ad and while I was following their instruction on how to post their banner, I noticed that I’m not in the right WordPress admin dashboard – it doesn’t have a script editor.

Since then I was busy submitting complaint tickets to GoDaddy and it wasn’t the promptness (it normally takes 24 hours) of the reply that bothers me but the quality of each reply – most of it were more like a clue rather than a direct solution instruction. Later on after figuring out what the agents from GoDaddy were talking about, I was able to post the nuffnang ads. One down, more to go.

Worse than GoDaddy’s is WordPress.org support forum’s response – which is what makes me really disappointed being a fan and advocate of WordPress.COM. For reasons that I cannot understand, the threads that I’ve started haven’t been answered no matter how I repost it. And in my desire to solve the problem on my own, I did everything that I thought can possibly fix the 500 – Internal Server Error, an error that came next and that has left me clueless for more than two weeks already.

This one appears every time I import my dot com xml file.

So I guess it’s about time that I describe on my own blog what I’ve done so far.

The first time I subscribed and got my GoDaddy account, I had the WordPress 2.7.1 application installed automatically through their Hosting Connection page.

This is where one can automatically install the WordPress application.

After that, however, just when I thought that all is well, I kept on encountering the 500 – Internal Server Error and I was thinking that it must have something to do with one of the scripts that may have been corrupted during the installation process. It was then that I decided to do the tedious manual installation as detailed in WordPress.org’s Codex page. Surprisingly, at one point of this manual process I got interested and had my first time to use an FTP client application – FileZilla (I discovered that this one is very easy to use and I highly recommend it to transfer bulk of files). 

An FTP client that is user-friendly.

My WordPress version 2.7.1 manual installation became a success…or so I think. Soon to my dismay though, I learned that it doesn’t solve the Internal Server Error which is now beginning to be a total nightmare. It still exists every time I import my WordPress.com XML file through my marcuscanblog.com admin page and no matter how I repeat the whole process, it just doesn’t make any favorable progress.

This case is becoming hopeless, and I had to switch back to my free URL – crisn.wordpress.com – but I’m not yet about to give up. However, until when I’d be able resolve it, I don’t have any clue. Hopefully, someone dropping by my site and happens to see this blog can give his piece of advice.

Mood: 5/10 Honks!

You may have noticed it already that either clicking on or typing the URL crisn.wordpress.com will now direct you to marcuscanblog.com. That’s because exactly seven days after I signed up for GoDaddy.com’s web hosting service, my domain marcuscanblog.com is now finally live.

I must admit that it wasn’t as easy as what WordPress and GoDaddy is trying to make it appear. But despite all the trouble, I don’t regret the encounter as I learned a lot from 1-week of waiting and tweaking game. For someone like me who’s a newbie when it comes to this stuff, it was everything but fun – well, at first. Most of the time it was quite frustrating to see server errors, alien database parameter settings and a useless website appearing in front of you. It was likewise a test of patience as I had to deal with the dragging response phase from the web host’s support agents.

Anyway, for the benefit of those wanting to have their own domain soon for identity’s sake, here’s some advice (more applicable if you’re planning to have GoDaddy as the web host):

1. Make sure you’ve decided what blogging platform you’ll adapt. This may after all was where all my problems started. That’s because while I purely enjoyed WordPress, I tried having Blogger just so I can have nuffnang ads on my site. Then to personalize my nuffang profile I bought a domain via Blogger.

   Later on though, I find it hard to maintain both sites that I decided that it has just to be WordPress. Period. But the intention to still have my own domain through this blog provider eventually got me into signing up with GoDaddy.com as being one of WordPress’ compatible hosts.

2. If you have the same case mentioned in # 1, then one of the things you have to do is to direct that domain’s IP to your new account. This IP will be sent to your email right after you have set up your GoDaddy account.
3. Ignore any other instructions on WordPress.org’s Codex page as you’ll just be intimidated by a long list of steps which I discovered, after several trial and errors, will all be handled by GoDaddy anyway.
4. Likewise, never mind downloading the WordPress application separately (to your PC) as this will just confuse you more. By accessing GoDaddys’ hosting control panel and clicking WordPress through the Your Application will direct you to a WordPress link and it will be installed from there.
5. Install WordPress ONLY after things such as IIS version is set (I learned that WordPress is not compatible with version 6), domain ownership has been verified and correct IP address and nameservers have been set.
6. Lastly, make sure that you record every original parameter setting just in case you need to go back to it. It is also worth making a list of domain, database usernames and passwords for obvious reasons.
   

There’s a cliché that says, “all’s well that ends well” and that maybe true indeed in this case. The problems I had encountered switching from WordPress.com to WordPress.org are nothing compared to the benefits of using this blogging platform. As experienced from my previous test of several other blog providers, WordPress is by far the only one that suits my blogging needs. Happy blogging days are here again. I guess…

***

Isn’t it amusing? The day my work ends is the day when my own domain went live. Isn’t this what they call opportunity? We’ll know.

Mood: 3/10 Honks! (believe it or not)

The WordPress.org installation that is supposed to take me five minutes has unfortunately reached its fifth day. The other day I was so excited when the browser loading status bar past half-full without displaying the 404 error but soon enough all the excitement dissipated when I saw that instead of the expected WordPress log-in window, what appeared was one line of Chinese characters. Well, thank you for that GoDaddy but I neither speak nor even understand Chinese.

Looks easy, huh? Well, it's not...trust me.

Anyway, so as not put to waste every effort (and the USD 83 subscription) I’ve spent already with this ambitious migration, I’m now considering this as a challenge with the end goal of making my own domain work as soon as I can. Looking at the bright side, however, the only consolation that I can find here is that at least I now have something to make myself busy in the next few days by importing and exporting files, looking for new themes, and most likely tweaking some settings that best fit my new site, plus some other related things that may come along. Well then again, that all depends if the good people of GoDaddy.com will soon find a way to fix the server error which started 24 hours ago.

***

On top of this blog migration, I will be also occupied with doing a video for some people whom I’ve previously worked with and who will still be working at Intel Philippines. I actually thought at first that they have ditched the idea of having this video or (worse) of having me to do this for them. Surprisingly, while I was already preparing myself for the imminent last day in office, they called a meeting on Monday to discuss all about it.

Needless to say, but once again I became so excited since it has been quite sometime since I made one. In fact, I was so eager to do it that despite having the option to skip work yesterday, I went to work mainly because of it. I now can’t wait to get all the materials (photos, videos, etc) that I’ll need.

Mood: 2/10 Honks!

Since I have finally decided to migrate from Blogger to WordPress, I’m now transferring some posts which I made exclusive in my blogspot account. Good thing there are just four posts for now and luckily these are just short ones.

These posts will belong to a new category which I will call Out of the Blue posts. This category will basically contain brief posts which may be short reviews, photos with short captions, product comments, TV ads review, light bulb moments, etcetera.

As of this moment I’m still trying to figure out how to work around GoDaddy.com as I’m having some difficulty installing WordPress 2.7.1 which is supposed to be done in jiffy as documented in WordPress.Org’s 5-minute installation handy guide.

I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong, although the possibility is high, but I’m now dealing with something alien. Right now my mind is crammed with things like MySQL, PhP.net and other database and web hosting-related stuffs. I’m up to the challenge for several compelling reasons like making sure that I don’t waste the USD83.82 I paid to get this web host.

I also have sent an email to GoDaddy’s customer support team. And the weird thing about it is that something in me is trying to make me dial their 1-800 number out of curiosity if their customer service agent follows the inbound call flow. Hmmm, it seems like today’s customer service training is still haunting me, huh. Well, I’d like to get even now. “Hello, thank you for calling GoDaddy.com. This is Mr. Smith, how may I help you?” Better be ready Mr. Smith, I’m gonna be an irate caller. Hahaha. Just kidding.

***

Just yesterday, I also added another category called Learning and this one will be about training, seminars, studies and other similar things related to my continuous quest to learn.

Mood: 2/10 Honks!

Ok, so I have been trying to figure all this out for the past week.  There are two different ways to do WordPress.  The easy way is just going to wordpress.com and signing up for a blog.  The hard(er) way is to go to wordpress.org and download the files to have your own self hosted blog.  I have done the easy way since I started blogging on WordPress.  I want to try the hard way.  

Well, after many fatal attempts to make it work, I have finally succeeded in figuring it all out.  Great!  Now what?  Well, now I have found out that you not only have to own the domain (mine is brookjames.com) but you also have to be able to host there too.  I used GoDaddy.com to purchase my domain.  Fortunately they have free hosting!  Woo!  

Unfortunately that excitement was short lived.  As soon as I got all the self hosting WordPress stuff figured out I found out that GoDaddy is a punk and the free hosting they give you is free…but they tag on an awful looking header onto the page with their ad.  Awesome.  So now I can have a sweet looking blog with whatever template or layout that I want (which you can’t do when you blog the easy way with WordPress), but the page looks stupid because of the crappy header from GoDaddy!  Could they not have been nice to us and let it be a footer?  Grrr.

I always thought I was pretty good with computers (but not quite a computer nerd), but this has been a complete learning experience from the start!  I didn’t have a clue!  I just hope I can figure it out if I ever try to do it again!  So does anyone out there know of a good web hosting place?  I would prefer a really cheap one.  GoDaddy wants to charge me about $5 a month to get rid of their ads.  Is it even possible to use a different hosting place with a domain purchased from GoDaddy?

No this picture has nothing to do with web hosting.  I have no idea what a good web hosting picture would look like.  So here.  This will do.  Now look at the picture again and say awwwww!

*note to reader’s. This post can also be found under the Pages portion of the site under the title Sixteen Percent

I am a 30 year old somewhat pudgy definitely balding male. Most people look at me and see just a “normal dude” who like sports, gambling, girls (women now that I’m 30 right?), video games and music. I rock some tats, got a few piercings, like to spend money and have done some pretty cool stuff in my life. I spent 7 years, 4 months and 22 days in the Army (who’s counting?) and I am very fortunate to be in the position I am in. I have made good decisions, bad decisions, and I have learned a great deal from all of my experiences.

What is not”normal” about me, something that I hid for the first 20 years of my life, is the fact that I was sexually abuse by another male family member for 7 years during my childhood.

I will attempt to put into perspective my life as a male survivor, and what it took for me to transition from sexual abuse victim to male survivor. I have stories galore. I love pop culture and most of my memories revolve around something pop cultureish or sports. So if you’re expecting me to be a level 64 Halo enthusiast with a 135% kill rate who lives in my Mom’s basement and has nothing better to do than write, wrong blog. Part of my “allure” is that I am hellabusy (Nor Cal word) which provides me with the tools to write about how the experiences of day to day life are affected by the abuse of the past.

What I will do is share my story and my life. Sometimes sad. Sometimes funny. Sometimes non sense. But for those who are in my boat, they understand more than you think, and for those who haven’t been down our road, some of the topics might be uncomfortable. And that is a good thing. Colin Cowherd once said, “When speech makes you uncomfortable, it’s working”.

And we need this to work. There are resources out there to help victims, help survivors and help the family and friends of those affected by sexual abuse. 1 in 6 boys will be molested by the age of 16 and 1 in 2 girls by the age of 16. 1 in 6 females in their lifetime and 1 in 33 males in their lifetime will be sexually assaulted. Think about that. Think about it. Seriously…

Why Sixteen Percent? Long story short. I needed my own website so I went to GoDaddy and bought www.sixteenpercent.com, sixteenpercent.org and sixteenpercent.net. I now have a forum where I do not have to answer for my strong opinions. I am allowed to be me. (This website is still hosted by WordPress.com)

I started writing in August and I have received nothing but the greatest praise from friends and from strangers who have become friends. Male and female survivors have found my blog and left the nicest words of support and encouragement. I will not delete the old blog site and it will be there if you would like to find the “old school” columns. There are 65 or so of them.

My plan is to slowly integrate a lot of my old posts and columns onto Sixteen Percent as I slowly shut down the old site. There was so much positive feedback and great thoughts that I can never let those go. Some of the posts will always be my babies. I could have uploaded all posts and comments onto Sixteen Percent, but it was time for a fresh beginning. As I move forward, I would like to keep my posts between 500-2000 words. I want them to be an easy read for all of you (and an easier edit for me).

Gone are the 8000 word diatribes and gone are the posts that aren’t anything but headline grabbers. Gone are the posts that come out with undirected spiteful negativity and in are the posts shedding a positive light out of a negative situation. I am here for a specific purpose. There are snippets of greatness and Grand Canyons of ADHD in many of the old posts. It will take me time, but I will get them for you so you don’t have to go back to the old site. I will do better and you deserve better.

So Sixteen Percent. 1 in 6 males are sexually abused by the age of 16. That’s me. I fit that category. I’m sixteen percent. (1 divided by six. I googled the answer!) I was a statistic. Male survivors are my purpose but all survivors are my love. We, victims of sexual abuse, all share similar thoughts and life experiences. It’s quite surreal when we share stories.

So I’m taking my life back. I want a website dedicated to my story, but more importantly, to help others realize they are not alone. I will provide anecdotes from my life as well as abuse resources, links to blogs from other survivors and my biggest goal, raising $10,000 in 10 years for RAINN. I will host online fundraisers to reach across the globe. Soon I will roll out some local fundraisers here in Austin.

I was at a job interview the other day, and the interviewer asked me a question, She said, “Donnie, if you could do anything in life, what would it be?”

“Well”, I said, “if I was in a position where financially I didn’t have to worry about my day to day living expenses, I would love to help run a non-profit and run camps and fundraisers and be the voice for my cause.”

My Mom always told me I could do anything I wanted to, I just had to put my mind to it. Well, I am going to get the word out about RAINN, I am going to pimp 1in6 and Male Survivor til my hearts content. I am going to be a part of Survivor’s Swindon (Name soon to be changed) United States Conference in 2010. (All of those organizations can be found under my Abuse Resources link)

We need voices, we need volunteers. Next time you’re at school, or at a bar, standing in PT formation, or at the lake, do the math in your head. 1 out of every 2 females you see and 1 out of every 6 males…sexually abused. “We” deal with it; all we ask is that you try to understand it.Donnie D. is Sixteen Percent, and chances are someone close to you is as well.

Educate, promote awareness and (selfless plug) donate to a great cause. Maybe one day, when I become rich and famous, I’ll be able to hold camps and have big fund-raising events sponsored by Red Bull. Until then, I am a staff of one, and RAINN, 1in6, Male Survivor, Survivor’s Swindon and a host of others have large organizations run by trained professionals with a slew of resources and people to IM or chat with over the phone.

If you want to know more about me, check out the 2nd column on the main page. There’s a poem (This is me*), a tid bit about my RAINNMaker page and a snippet about Sixteen Percent. I also have multiple ways for you to contact me. I have become a social networking whore and can be reached on just about any platform. My Social Networking links can be found in the 3rd column.

Thank you,

Donnie D.

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Last check: 24 April 2009

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The time has come! I decided that it was time to claim my own domain and move the blog over to Benobriensmith.com. It was a fairly simple move to make and I certainly encourage other bloggers out there to secure their own domain as well.

I happened to use Godaddy.com to register the domain. I found a promo code on the net and ended up only paying $7.95 (instead of the original total of $10.19) to register a single dot com domain. The whole process took about 30 minutes from the point of deciding that I was finally going to register the domain to the point where I could visit the page and my blog was where it should be. 

I only ran across a single snafu; I had to read a simple how-to blog post on pointing my WordPress blog to my domain location because I hadn’t altered the “nameservers” on my domain to agree with WordPress. 

If you’re a blog subscriber, don’t forget to change your subscription over to http://www.benobriensmith.com

On Monday, JR Motorsports announced the plans for its No. 5 Nationwide Series entry for the remainder of the 20009 season.

The No. 5 Chevy will be split among team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr, all-time series wins leader Mark Martin, Ryan Newman, Tony Stewart, and Scott Wimmer.

Jr will drive at Texas Motor Speedway in April, Talladega Superspeedway in April, Lowe’s Motor Speedway in May, Daytona International Speedway in July and Atlanta Motor Speedway in Sept. in Chevys that will be sponsored by Fastenal, Godaddy.com, and Unilever.

Martin will drive the Chevy at Richmond International Raceway in May with Lipton as a sponsor. Tony Stewart will drive at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Oct. with Delphi as a sponsor. Stewart already has one victory in the series this season, winning the Camping World 300 at Daytona in a Hendrick Motorsports Chevy.

Newman will drive the No. 5 Fastenal Chevy in four races: Dover International Speedway in May, Chicagoland Speedway in July, Michigan International Speedway in Aug., and Kansas Speedway in Oct.

Wimmer will also pilot the No. 5 Fastenal Chevy for six races: Darlington Raceway in May, The Milwaukee Mile in June, O’Reilly Raceway Park in July, Iowa Speedway in Aug., Bristol Motor Speedway in Aug., and Richmond International Raceway in Sept.

Wimmer said in a JR Motorsports press release:

I am really excited to be associated with JR Motorsports and a great sponsor like Fastenal. I will be running at tracks that have been good for me in the past and look forward to my first event with JR Motorsports at Darlington in May. Hopefully, we can get the Fastenal car in the Winners Circle.

The announcement leaves two races without a named driver — the road-course events at Watkins Glen and Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, both in Aug. Drivers for those races will be announced at a later date. Last season, Ron Fellows drove the No. 5 GoDaddy.com Chevy to victory in the NAPA Auto Parts 200 presented by Dodge at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, so he may be considered for that race.

Earnhardt Jr. drove at Watkins Glen last year, presumably to get more experience at road courses, so he may take one of those races.

Also, anytime you mention road courses, you have to mention Boris Said’s name. He could also be considered.

Earnhardt Jr said:

This No. 5 team carries a strong tradition and a lot of expectations, and we are fortunate to attract such quality talent to help carry on that tradition. We had a similar set-up with this team last year, and we were able to go to Victory Lane twice. Obviously with this driver line-up, there’s no reason we can’t exceed last year’s win total.

You know the old riddle about whether or not a tree falling in a forest makes a sound if no one’s around to hear it? Well, much the same can be said about websites. Even if you build the most state-of-the-art website around, ultimately it won’t do any good if your customers can’t find it. Luckily, there are several free and effective tools out there that make increasing your website’s visibility a relatively simple process.

What is SEO, anyway?
More than likely, even if you’re completely new to the wonderful world of websites, you’ve heard the term SEO. SEO stands for “search engine optimization” and is a more technical way of referring to how easily the big search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN pick up your site.

Search engine optimization is primarily based on how smoothly and prominently the appropriate keywords for your product are placed within your website text and tags. Basically, you want to make sure that when a potential customer Googles property management companies or apartment rentals in your area, your site is as far to the top of Google’s search results as possible.

Keywords are the key to your success.
Helpful (and, even better, free!) tools can help you figure out exactly what those keywords are. Google’s Keyword Tool is a great, easy-to-use resource that will help you easily identify the best words and phrases for drawing traffic to your site. Just enter in a relevant term (for example, “rental listing”) and Google’s program will provide you with a list of related words, showing you how frequently they’re searched both on average and within the past month.

You can also do a Google Keyword search by website. Just type in the name of your website (or a successful competitor’s site) and Google will suggest keywords based on site content. Again, each listing will also include search stats. In addition to Google’s Keyword Tool, you can also try Wordtracker’s keyword program, which provides results for a database of 330 million terms.

Incorporating SEO content on your site.
Now that you have your keywords, it’s time to incorporate them into your site copy. For best results, Million Dollar Website author Lori Culwell recommends including at least one of your top ten most frequently searched keywords in every title, headline, and paragraph of your website. This means you will not only want to keep a list of the keywords you found on Google and Wordtracker close by at all times, but also that you should run these searches every month or so to make sure your website remains up-to-date with web surfers’ searching habits.

A final word of warning on keyword integration: Search engines are trained to pick up on “keyword stuffing,” so haphazardly cramming as many keywords onto your site as possible just won’t cut it. You want to be sure you actually weave keywords into your web content in as natural a manner as possible. If you’re really ambitious, you can up your SEO content by including these keywords not only in your copy, but also in your page title descriptions, links, and tags. To test your site’s keyword density (basically how keyword-friendly it is), run a free site scan at KeyWordDensity.com or Webjectives.com.

Paying for clicks (PPC advertising).
If you want to invest a little bit of money in advertising you site, you may also want to consider signing up for a pay-per-click (PPC program). Essentially PPC advertising means that you pay a designated amount every time a visitor enters your website by clicking on an ad on another site.

The most prominent PPC advertising providers are Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing. A PPC program will either provide an ad link to your company’s site at the top of their search results page (under a heading like “sponsored links” or “sponsored ads”) or place an ad and link for your site on network websites or blogs that contain designated keywords.

It’s critical to note that you determine the keywords that will lead users to your site … yet another reason to be thorough and up-to-date with your keyword research.

Getting on the search engines.
It won’t surprise most to hear that a Google presence can be the difference between your website’s success or failure. Websites do not automatically appear in Google searches—be sure to register your site with Google by clicking here. You should also know that just registering your site doesn’t guarantee it will appear in Google’s search results; they have the right to accept or decline it. With that in mind, as important as Google registration is, you should not submit your site for review until you have done some keyword SEO work on it.

For maximum visibility, you’ll also want to register your site with Yahoo and MSN. If you want the large network of smaller search engines out there to pick up your site, you’ll need to register with them as well. Because this can be an extremely time-consuming process, you may want to consider paying a small fee to GoDaddy.com’s Traffic Blazer program, which will save you time by taking care of these registrations for you.

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I slept early last night because I had one bottle of beer to go with a pizza and a bit of pasta in Pizza Hut with my wife and baby. It’s been quite some time since we ate at this pizza shop due to several reasons and one of it of course is for austerity measures sake. And with my body getting used to having brandy in the evening, which is supposed to be stronger than beer, was surprised (or more likely delighted) when some malt and yeast brew entered its system – thus, the untimely drowsiness.

Anyway, I woke up very early once again after my body clock sensed that I’ve already had 6 hours of sleep and was probably reminding me that I skipped my online session last night. Well, just like how my wife reminds me if I’m done with my surfing, followed by a smirk on her face.

While feeling lazy, sleepy and clicking aimlessly on anything with a hyperlink, I was directed from WordPress.org to one of its suggested webhost and then finally to Godaddy.com’s blog. Upon reaching it, I looked for their FAQs but then again my disobedient mouse led me to the rightmost corner of the site with the following info:

Bob’s 16 Rules:

Once, my stubbornness and resistance to advice has made me a not-so-fan of self-help books including personal rules. But for a couple of years now I have opened my mind to read, listen and at least learn something out of it especially those coming from successful people who have walked the talk like this founder and CEO of GoDaddy.com. And after reading his 16 rules I can’t help but agree to all of it – my favorites however are rule numbers 6, 7, 13 and 16. You go Daddy!

Mood: 3/10 Honks!

Since our last post discussed creating company websites, we thought these links to hosts, domain name registrars, and site builders might help you get your site started off on the right foot.

• Infamous for their Super Bowl ads, GoDaddy.com is a top choice for many first-timer site builders.
• Provided through FatCow.com, MiniMoo plans start at just $5 per year; this includes domain name and hosting.
• RackSpace.com offers managed hosting, cloud hosting, and email hosting.
• For instant gratification, choose a do-it-yourself package from Register.com and you’ll have a website in just minutes.
• OLM.net offers hosting services specifically tailored to businesses.



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I’ve been working on this website thing for my mom since last Wednesday. She needs one for her new business, where she runs neighborhood pools throughout the summer and winterize them during that respective season. I’ve never built a website from scratch and done the whole registering a domain, hosting, publishing thing. The best I’ve been able to do is blogging and .Macs one-button publishing, so this is an adventure. It took less than 24 hours to get the domain registered and get the site hosted. Then the problems came. I thought that you had to first host before using godaddy’s included website designer, Website Tonight. Once I talked to support and read some stuff online, I figured out that the site offers three hosting options: Hosting, Website Tonight, or For Sale/First Web Page. It was confusing to me to have an option called hosting in the hosting section, but thats just me. It all sorta makes sense to me now. Anyways after I switched the domain from Hosting to Website Tonight, I found that the Website Tonight web-site builder was lacking much. After reading online some I found out that I could use my iWeb app to create my pages and load them on to godaddy’s servers if I set the domain’s hosting option as, you guessed it Hosting… the first one I had selected. So now I’m working on mom’s website in iWeb and hoping it all uploads as I’m thinking it should. I have found an easy program (at least it is reviewed that way by other users who have iWeb and godaddy.com accounts) for loading the ftp files, “Easy iWeb Publisher”. Check out my work in a few days… www.clearwaterpoolmgmt.com.

Later

Company websites have quickly become less of an option and more of a necessity. While advertising available units on highly-trafficked websites like Craigslist and Yahoo is a good step in the right direction—and certainly something you should continue doing even after you have your own website—it doesn’t provide your company with the kind of visibility a website offers.

Particularly in more trying economic times in which consumers are looking for the best deal available and providers are fighting for business, marketing is essential. And building a company website is one of the most effective ways to get a jump on marketing. Best of all, building a website is a lot easier and less expensive than you think (yup, you read that right).

But remember, there’s a lot of web traffic out there and investing any amount of time and money in a site that will never be seen is a waste of your resources. Over the next three weeks we’ll walk you through the three elements that will make or break your website: building a website that works, getting your site noticed, and using web tools that will tell you exactly who is—and perhaps even more importantly, who is not—looking at your site.

And now … let the website building begin!

1. Purchase a domain name.
You’ll want to begin by purchasing your domain name (essentially, your website address). This can be done in just a few minutes at sites like GoDaddy.com, Yahoo, and Register.com. Just type in your desired address to see if it’s available, make your purchase (this usually costs between $10 and $15), and you’re set. Website addresses should always be as simple as possible; you want potential visitors to easily remember the address in the time it takes them to get to a computer.

Most companies use their company name as their site address. You may also want to consider seeing if there are more generic names available that web surfers may just intuitively visit, thus increasing your traffic. For example, if you live in Burlington, you might see if something like BurlingtonRents.com or BurlingtonApartments.com is available (note that you can have more than one web address leading to a single site).

2. Find a host.
Some domain name providers also offer web hosting services. If yours does not, you’ll need to find a separate company that does. Essentially, a web host is a company that makes your website available on the internet. Web hosting prices vary depending upon how big your site is (i.e., how many pages and files you include), and what sort of options you want included in your hosting package. Along with domain names, GoDaddy.com also offers a variety of hosting services. You can also try Yahoo or 20m.com. There are a ton of options out there, and a Google search should help you identify the best fit for your company.

3. Create your content.
Now it’s time to create your website content. Decide what information you want to include, being sure to keep your language simple and to-the-point. Your site doesn’t necessarily need a lot of pages (and, in many cases, less is more), but you do need to think carefully about what information users will be looking for and make sure it’s all online and easy to find. Also be sure your website copy is spell-checked and proofread before your site goes live.

4. Build your site.
If you’re new to web development, you’ll likely find it easiest to build your site with the help of readily available content management systems (CMS) and website templates. A CMS lets you build web pages using an intuitive, WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor in which the content displayed during the editing process appears very similar to the final output. Translation? If you’re comfortable using Word, you’ll be comfortable using a CMS. In the past few years, such templates have become far more sophisticated, allowing users to enjoy the ease of using a simple program while still creating a visually appealing, unique-looking site. A Google search will turn up many options for content management systems and site templates, and you can also refer to GoDaddy.com or Yahoo once again. If you’re a Mac user, the iWeb application is also very user-friendly. Once you’ve selected the right template for your business, insert your content and you’re in e-business!

In just four steps, you now have the most time-consuming part of the process taken care of. Next week, we’ll take a look at how to get customers to your site and keep them interested with search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click advertising (PPC).

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Godaddy Promo Code List for March 2009 (Working coupon codes for GoDaddy.com)
Last check: 23 March 2009

Godaddy Promo Code List for April 2009 (Working coupon codes for GoDaddy.com)

Godaddy promo offer: Save $8.00 on .ME domains
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The following is my latest update on my two previous posts regarding GoDaddy.com’s possible unethical European domain name expiration and renewal procedures.

Since my last update here, I have had numerous email exchanges with an executive from GoDaddy.com, trying to amicably negotiate with GoDaddy.com in regard to their European domain name unethical expiration, renewal, and cancellation procedure. And, after numerous email exchanges, GoDaddy.com finally agreed to give me back, two of my domain names, Rentersq.co.uk, and Tipmart.co.uk, by renewing them for additional two years at no cost to me. But there are other .DE domain names that I have lost because of their renewal procedure.

The way GoDaddy.com registers and manages European domain names, such as .co.uk, .de, etc., it’s like having a retail store that you own and manage, and your livelihood depends on your retail store’s revenue. However, your retail store’s landlord, who after you’ve signed a one-year lease, always comes to your store, once a year, at least 60 – 90 days before the end of your lease agreement, asking you to pay for the lease term, and if you decide to wait until the actual due date of your lease agreement, then your landlord instantly locks up your retail store, closes it down, and redirects your customers to the landlord’s store elsewhere, leaving you to lose business as your customers are redirected elsewhere.

And, that’s exactly how GoDaddy.com operates when coming to registering and managing the European domain names as I have it explained here. Also, you may want to read here what other customers are saying about similar problem with GoDaddy.com.

I have written to GoDaddy.com several times, but with no amicable solution. And some of my requests are for GoDaddy;

- To instantly change its policies and procedures for its European domain names’ expiration procedures, invoicing and renewal process, and not to ever redirect expiring domain names for any customer to the GoDaddy’s parking pages with paid advertisement.

- To stop cancelling domain names from its customers account prior to the actual expiration dates.

- To adopt similar industry domain name expiration and renewal standard such as that of Yahoo! Domains’ expiration and renewal procedure, that GoDaddy must only cancel any domain name from any user’s account only after the actual expiration due date. And if for any reason whatsoever, that GoDaddy.com is unable to do so, then it must stop registering European domain names, directly or indirectly.

- Not to deactivate, cancel and then forward or redirect any expiring or expired domain names for any customer to any of the GoDaddy’s parking page with or without any paid and or sponsored advertisement.

- To publicly announce, by whatever form of written public announcement, such as a press release or posting on GoDaddy’s official blog, that GoDaddy.com has agreed to make changes to GoDaddy’s Universal Terms of Services in regard to its expiration, invoicing, and renewal procedures for the European Domain Names, and that GoDaddy will no longer cancel and redirect expiring or expired domain names to GoDaddy’s parking pages with paid or sponsored advertisement.

- To offer a discount price of $9.99 per each European Domain name for any and all of GoDaddy’s past and current customers, who may want to purchase any new European domain name through GoDaddy.com.

I have a long list and I am still collecting names of those, anyone, past or current customer of GoDaddy.com, who have been affected by GoDaddy.com’s European Domain Names’ expiration and renewal procedure as explained above for a possible class action against GoDaddy.com. So, please get in touch with me the soonest.

Me Playing in Literal Mud

Over the past three weeks I have intentionally been expanding my Digital Dirt.  An active and healthy digital footprint, like your sex life, can help you in many ways.  First, it helps get the the “good” Dirt about you higher in search results.  Second, it allows you to have some sense of control over the information that is out there on you.   Active creation of your digital footprint is the only way you can actually “control” your Dirt, for your passive digital footprint the best you can do is manage it. 

What I have done:

I started a Twitter account.  In the past three weeks I have only Twitted (I think that is the/a verb) three times.  I am struggling to fit Twitter into my daily online behavior.  I am constantly on Facebook, my iGoogle page, LinkedIn, and various blogs (this one included), but I can’t seem to find time to obsessively Twit.  Oh well…  Maybe when I’m done with grad school and I have more free time.

A bigger step: I have registered two domain names: dannypetre.com and danielpetre.com.  Since I am relatively remedial at building a website I have been consulting The Site Wizard for guidance.  A very helpful site that walks you through step-by-step from selecting domain names, to selecting a web host, and finally the actual design of the site.  I will keep everyone posted on when my site goes live.  Hopefully within the next week.  I used GoDaddy to register my domains and they have been very helpful, but their site usability is trash.  I let them know that when they made their follow-up call this morning.

So, what should I include on my website?  Recommendations are welcome!

What is Website Hosting?

Website hosting is a service of renting space, which is also known as bandwidth, which provides a “gateway” for you to access the World Wide Web.

If you are a cheapskate, there is free hosting that is usually sponsored with advertisements, which makes your site look “cheesy”. Then there is paid website hosting, which provides you a domain name(“website name”) and complete control over your web site.

LET’S GET READY TO RUMMMMBBBBBLEEE!!!

It’s Godaddy vs. Hostgator for the Website Hosting Championship.

The following list represents some of the features that Godaddy’s Deluxe Plan offers:

500 Email Accounts
150 Gb disk space
1500 Gb monthly data transfer
Unlimited Web sites
Unlimited Domain names
Unlimited Email Forwarding
Live Online Help Desk

Godaddy has a special deal(5%) for FIRST time customers, where the cost is $6.64/month for a 12 month hosting plan.  Otherwise, if you decided upon to have month to month hosting, the cost would be $6.99/month.
The following list represents some of the features that HostGator Baby Croc Plan offers:

Unlimited Email Accounts
Unlimited disk space
Unlimited Gb monthly data transfer
Unlimited Web sites
Unlimited Domain names
Unlimited Email Forwarding
Unlimited Autoresponders
Live Online Help Desk

Hostgator’s Baby Croc hosting package has a cost of $7.95/month.

CONCLUSION

Godaddy has all the fancy commericials with hot chicks, I would think that COSTS money to produce.  I bet you can’t guess who pays for that? 

Hostgator ONLY provides month to month website hosting with no long term contracts.  Godaddy provides both month to month and long term hosting, but tries to use discounts to entice people to sign up for the long term contract.  I never did or never will like that kind of appraoch, I don’t know about how you feel.

Where Hostgator has the edge over Godaddy is the following:

Unlimited disk space
Unlimited Gb monthly data transfer
Unlimited Autoresponders

If you are looking for the BEST choice, go to Hostgator and sign up for the Baby Croc hosting package for $7.95/month.

i am a sports purist. i hate big games if only because of all the drama and pageantry.  i don’t see the point of pre-game, half-time, and post-game concerts.  i find the need for having half of the former players and every photographer in the u.s. at midfield for the coin toss asinine.  i loathe the crowd that is brought on to the field to jump around for the concert-dejour in hopes that i’ll be fooled into thinking that i am at a concert instead of a football game.  generally speaking, i just can’t stand anything that consumes your attention and detracts from the significance of the game.  i understand that the nfl does all of this to try to bring and capture the attention of those who otherwise would not care about the game.  i understand that there are millions that watch the game just for everything else besides the game.  i also understand that i’m never going to be able to change it, but i just want a game.  give me a good game (and i got one this year!).  if the millions that would rather be at a broadway show don’t watch it, so what?  it’s a football game.  if they don’t want to watch it, fine.  they don’t have to.

rant aside, there is one non-football aspect to the super bowl i enjoy:  the commercials.  before i go on i have to be clear about something.  commercial time is time to go to the bathroom or reload my plate/bowl/drink.  as great as the super bowl commercials are, they still take a backseat to gluttony (and that’s what dvr and hulu.com are for).  assuming my bladder is relatively empty and my plate is full, i truly enjoy most commercials.  the last several years have had a few good ones and a few bad ones.  this year was no exception.  my thoughts on some of the individual commercials follow.

top three:

1.  bud light – swedish conan.  quite simply, anything with conan is destined to be hilarious.

2.  pepsi max – “i’m good.”  pain is funny.  pain several times is several times funnier.

3a. monster.com – moose desk.  the guy is sitting in between the moose’s legs.  hilarious.

3b. e-trade – baby with the golden pipes.  the baby pretty funny.  add another baby and use the phrase “golden pipes” and you’re in business.  good stuff.

the bz honorable mention (in no particular order):

• doritos – crystal ball.  kudos to my fellow hoosiers who made it.
• bridgestone – moon car on blocks.
• nbc – lmao.

now for the commericals that were failures in my eyes:

• castrol – grease monkeys.  i just don’t get it.  it wasn’t funny.  i’ve watched it several times and it’s just not funny.
• coke commercials.  i thought these were mildly clever at best, but not overly entertaining or relevant.  a guy napping on a spring/summer day while bugs take his coke bottle airing while the midwest is stuck under a foot of snow and ice and most of the country is very cold.  it just doesn’t seem like the right time to air a summer time ad.
• godaddy.com.  okay.  here’s the deal.  danica patrick is NOT hot!  she’s not.  period.  end of discussion.  here’s why people are sometimes fooled into thinking she’s hot.  sandwich her in between aj foyt iv and tony kanaan and yeah she looks pretty good.  but sandwich her in between heidi klum and marisa miller and she’s just another pretender.

pick the hot one and danica gets picked every time (except by mrs. foyt iv and mrs. kanaan)

pick the hot one and danica never gets picked.  ever.

danica is not hot.  please go daddy (and sports illustrated and the irl), stop trying to make her hot.