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GoDaddy Screws up

I have multiple websites through Dotster and GoDaddy, and typically register with whomever is cheapest, and then jump to a different registrar at renewal time to again keep costs down. I’ve been happy with GoDaddy’s renewal fees, as the registrars usually try to charge you double to renew vs. registering a domain, and GoDaddy usually charges the same price.

However, with paulcutler.org up for renewal, they’ve screwed the pooch pretty bad on this one. A copy of my (fairly nice) email is below, we’ll wait for their response. According to their support website their phone hold time is 17 minutes, and average email response time is 9 hours. As it’s not mission critical as the site is up now, we’ll see how their email response is.

Here’s my email / letter:

Dear GoDaddy Customer Service Representative:

I wanted to make you aware of a problem I had with your service. I visited my domain early this morning (7 a.m. CST) and I received a GoDaddy Parked Domain page. Logging in to my account at GoDaddy, it showed my domain expiring on 1-4-2006.

Unfortunately, my office network blocks webmail, so I was unable to visit Gmail to double check my last email from GoDaddy. I then assume assumed the domain had expired as the GoDaddy account page showed, and GoDaddy had given me a week before parking the domain, as it had worked last night. I then renewed the domain for another 2 years through GoDaddy early this morning.

Upon returning home tonight from work, my domain was working again, and I checked my GoDaddy account and Gmail. Sure enough, I have a receipt from GoDaddy in Gmail showing I renewed this domain on 12-8-2005 for 2 years, and my GoDaddy account now showed my domain was now renewed through 2010.

Please explain to me why my domain was parked when I renewed over a month ago. I feel taken now that I’ve renewed for an additional 2 years on top of my renewal in December and you have even more of my money. I’m extremely disappointed in your level of service, specifically in not displaying my account information correctly.

Sincerely,

Paul Cutler

(email deleted to avoid more spam)

Wisconsin Gets It

Gov. Jim Doyle of Wisconsin signed into law a bill requiring any vendor who provides electronic voting machines must provide the code that runs on those machines.

This, combined with paper copies of the vote you cast for (which Wisconsin also requires) are a must when it comes to electronic voting. Not just to avoid the fraud as seen in Ohio in 2004, or as a check against corrupt CEOs who publicly say they’ll do everything in their power to see an election go a certain way and they also just happen to provide e-voting machines, but the code and paper voting provide trust to the end user that their vote counts.

Learn more about e-voting courtesy of the EFF.

Queen

ESPN has had a banner running for the last few weeks promoting the halftime shows of the BCS College Bowls for their musical acts. One of them has been Queen + Paul Rodgers.

I am huge Queen fan, and really got into them again in 90/91 when they were re-releasing their albums on CD. I had almost completed my collection when Freddie Mercury died in 1991. I’ve had mixed feelings on this whole tour with Paul Rodgers not understanding why Queen would be touring again without their frontman, the legendary Freddie Mercury.

Who was this Paul Rodgers guy? Why was he touring with Queen, and why would Brian May and Co. resurrect Queen with a new lead singer?

Well, it turns out Paul Rodgers was the founder and lead singer for Free, Bad Company, and the Firm. He has an impressive resume. Now knowing his background, I can respect Queen’s decision to tour with him.

Browsing around Queen’s website, I came across their store where they offer their Official Bootlegs. While the collection is still growing, the price is amazing for what you get. For about $9 after translating the currency, you can buy live bootleg albums with up to 30 songs. Encoded in 192k WMA (192k = good, WMA = bad), the price is phenomenal for what you get. I’ll definitely be picking up a few of those in the days to come.

Football!

I love this time of the year – I think I’ve watched a football game every day for the last 10 days. Even the first few bowl games with teams you’ve rarely heard of we’re quite good (and I’m still laughing at George O’Leary).

I was ecstatic to see the Badgers win decisively in Coach Alvarez’s last game. I had been walking around the last few days convinced that what the analysts said was true – Auburn’s defense was going to rip in to Wisconsin, and the Badgers had little chance to win. Was I wrong – the Badgers won, and won big. Forget about the 10.5 point underdog status – Auburn couldn’t get it together all day and the Badgers offense was hot in the first half, and the defense played a heck of a game.

I was shocked to see the Packers fire Mike Sherman today – it wasn’t the $6 million they owe him for the last two years of his contract, it’s the question of who will replace him. In a year where there will be more head coaching vacancies than normal, will there be enough talent to go around? I also question if Ted Thompson is doing it for the right reasons – is Sherman definitely the wrong guy, or is Thompson trying to put his stamp on the team.

Time will tell. This leads me to believe Favre will retire, and is will be interesting to watch the Packers enter the next generation.

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Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Kelly’s due date has come and gone, so we will be welcoming in the New Year any day now with a baby.

Resolutions this year? A few off the top of my head:

  • Finish the basement
  • Clean my closet
  • Build a HTPC
  • Go to Guyfest
  • Get silwenae.net back up and running, including with Jinzora
  • Make a Podcast There’s a ton more, especially basement related, but I’ll just stop there.

My Christmas Present

Kelly got me one of the best gifts I’ve got in a long time, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes Collection.

Weighing at just over 22 pounds, the collection consists of 3 hardcover bound books, with every comic done by Bill Watterson. Kicking off with a 14 page foreword, which was worth it a lone, as Mr. Watterson discusses his love of comics, and touches on why he never granted interviews or went ahead with merchandising.

Each book contains 3 years worth of strips, interspersed with water color paintings that take up a whole page. The comic strips are laid out in order, and the background color of each page is an off-white that really makes the strips stand out. Each page has the dates the comics on the page were originally run.

I love Calvin and Hobbes – not only does it take me back to my childhood, but those strips still make me laugh out loud as I was reading them this weekend. It truely is one of the timeless classics.

The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

Merry Christmas for Linux

The Gstreamer team at Fluendohas licensed the MP3 codec for use on Linux! From the article:

Why are we doing this ? Quite simple. mp3 is a very widespread format, and the fact that Linux could not legally play it out of the box in countries where patents apply is posing a lot of problems for adoption. It is one of the most commonly heard complaints about distros these days. Fluendo still fully supports open formats, and we hope people move to using them. Part of that move is being able to play your legacy formats, where you have no choice over the format. Remember, we are not giving away a free encoder.

What does this mean? That one of the biggest oversights in all Linux distributions has been fixed – Distro’s can bundle in MP3 decoding support out of the box, and not have to worry about patent issues.

Thanks Fluendo!