Author Archives: Arjen Lentz

The domain scam – repeat performances

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This time it’s .CO, that’s actually Colombia but some domain registrar smartypants have decided that it’s the new “truly global” domain for companies. This, like .biz .mobi and all the others, is utter bollocks and the main people profiting are the domain registrars – although in this case I hope that Colombia at least will get something out of it.

Why is it a scam? Let’s analyse.

  • If you already have a .com etc you’d rather not have someone else own the .co, so there’s incentive for you to buy it. This incentive is extra strong if you own the trademark, because you are obliged to defend the trademark or lose it. So if someone else gets the domain you’d need to fight them – so it’s simpler to just register the domain yourself. Gain? Nothing. Just “no potential loss”, at a cost.
  • If you can’t get the .com or national domain of a name you might want to get the .co. That is, if the name isn’t trademarked. But does it make sense? Will people be able to find you rather than whoever else owns domains using that name? Unless the others are just domain hogs or dormant sites, you choose to fight for google juice.
  • If you grab the .co of a name that is trademarked, you’re just opening a can of worms and in the best case still fighting for google juice. Why bother?
  • You’re a Colombian company mainly focused on the national market. Well now you’re messed, because all these “globals” are eating up your namespace – supply&demand predicts that the price you pay for your domain names will go up. Sure some people will make a buck *selling* their existing .co, but in pure numbers most will be new and thus flow out of the country rather than in.

It’s a bit late to stop this, but it’s so very very bad.

Paying for an award/prize nomination

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Sound kinda wrong? I reckon it is. But it’s how some Australian ICT awards work, such as http://www.iawards2010.com.au (AIIA)

This turns it into a “buy a marketing opportunity” rather than a genuine recognition of achievement. Why would a bootstrapped/Upstarta type business spend money on such things? So you get nominations from bigger organisations and others who somehow feel they have money to burn. I think that’s a rather bad pre-selection mechanism.

Interestingly, the QLD ICT Awards (ACS, http://mlaa.com.au/QldIctAwards/Nominations.htm – fabulously bad URL design by the way) used to cost for most categories, but now displays information that there’s no cost to nominate in any category. Attending the gala dinner still costs.

That’s clearly an improvement, but with all the sponsors I don’t see why winners shouldn’t just get a freebie to the gala as part of their prize? That would make it inclusive – because again, a bootstrapped company will have to seriously consider those costs and assess actual value – it’s a bit of an indulgence, even with the networking opportunity (and there’s plenty of other opportunities for effective networking, that don’t cost).

Brisbane RepRap getting built!

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The Brisbane RepRap is (finally) getting built. One of the “shareholders” has found himself having abundant time for a bit, and is tacking the job in the Hackerspace Brisbane location. See James Churchill’s blog for progress reports and photos.

The group that owns this RepRap kit has a Google group – feel free to join if you’re interested!

Towards B20

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The previous tank of petrol was half B20 so that’s effectively 10% biodiesel (assuming it’s mixed). I’d noticed the car appeared to have (even) more juice, and come refill time I’m now at 6.3L/100km and that’s with most trips just across town and me behaving rather sporty (learning more about the gears).

With the refill the tank is now nearly all B20, and boy can you notice… it has even higher torque in any gear. In 1st it now pretty much races up my steep driveway without me touching the accelerator – previously it’d just hang or crawl gently. The effective range of all gears has thus increased at least on the bottom end, which is actually very handy in some busy traffic situations.

So I’m expecting the milage to rise further just on the basis of running on almost all B20 now. The stuff clearly has more energy (that’s a known fact but it’s fun to see it in action) so I’m basically getting more for the same price – unlike E10 petrol which actually gives people lower milage.

On that note though… with refuelling at the FreedomFuels bowser, I’m not making use of my Coles or Woollies petrol vouchers. So I suppose that’s “costing” me 4c/L, other than that the diesel price is pretty much the same ($1.225/L lately in this area, and for some reason diesel seems to not be subject to the weekly petrol price cycle so it’s pretty stable throughout the week).

First bushwalk with BBW

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That’s the Brisbane Bushwalkers Club which has existed for a long time, Picnic Pete introduced me to ’em. Done bushwalks before of course, with Phoebe also, but it’s interesting to be in a group with some very experienced people, and also with other kids (including of about Phoebe’s age). Today it was raining, we climbed rocks, went off a path, got part soaked, and Phoebe loved it all!

I think we have another winner there, which is good because one of the plans is to go to the snow in September. I’m not a ski fan, but snow is cool plenty of stuff to do.