It’s more like 100,000 restraunts that do the serving but that’s besides the point. Catching up on my reading this morning I spotted an article by Marsha Walton, a Reporter with CNN.

Seems that the Web Universe has not hit 100,000. That’s right, one hundred million web sites.

Marsha points out that Blogging, like I’m doing now, small businesses, and I would add the wonderful products we now have to make websites easy to design for even for those with very little technical knowledge.

“The bottom line is it’s much easier to create a Web site nowadays, and it’s much easier to make money with a Web site,” said Miller. Well we’ve been proving that at Ultranet Domains for quite a while now.

“So will a URL someday be as common as a birth name ad a Social Security number?” Like an bright young 5th grader I’m thinking, Please, Please, call on me, I say with my hand in air and bottom coming off the chair. I know the answer, and it is “Yes.” Matter of fact I’m going to step out on a limb here and make a prediction. The URL will either completely or almost practically the phone number in the future.

“And in both the business world and the social scene, a Web site is now an identifier almost as common as a phone number or an e-mail address.” Oops, got so excited on the first read of your article that I forgot you actually brought that up Marsha. Well as one member of the choir preaching to the other I’ll say that this miracle won’t take a lot of faith or an extended lifetime to see. It’s much closer than you think.

I made a prediction back in the early nineties that one day, our phone, and extra phone for dialup (remember, early nineties,) our fax, our cable TV, would all be coming over a single cable into our homes. And we really did know about the potential for high speed communications back then…I told anyone that would listen to me that one day you wouldn’t have all these seperate boxes for each way we communicate. That there would be just that one piece of wire.

Ultranet Domains is proud to announce that we now offer Domain Name Appraisals.

As demonstrated in the previous blog entry you can see that there is a lot of potential value in a domain name. An appraisal is a way of quantifying the value of a domain name.

Domain Name Appriasals come in two flavors; Express appraisals and Certified appraisals.

Express Appraisals are exactly as the name implies. They are somewhat automated. There’s an evaluation of the domain name based on criteria and factors that rank it against other domain names. Your express appraisal is available in 2 hours or less and is available through a link to a secure web page where the results can be viewed and shared with a third party.

The Certified Domain Appraisals are a more in depth analysis consisting of all the automated factors in express appraisals plus:

* A review by our industry experts, who consider market trends and other qualitative/abstract industry factors that may affect your domain name value.
* You’ll receive your results in 2 business days or less.
* Your appraisal is displayed via a secure Web page where you can share results with third parties if you choose.

For more information about Domain Appraisals click here.

The old saying in marketing circles that “Sex Sells” was never more true than last week when the domain name www.sex.com sold for $14 Million Dollars! The highest price ever paid in the domain resale market.

January 20, 2006 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Gary Kremen, owner of the valuable Sex.com domain name, reportedly sold the name he registered in 1994 to Boston-based firm Escom for $14 million on Wednesday.

To Read the entire article just click this link: http://www.thewhir.com/marketwatch/012006_Sex_com_Sold_for_14_Million.cfm

Well, at Ultranet Domains, we don’t claim to be experts on selling sex, but we are experts on domain name registrations, transfers, web site hosting and promotion. And more and more of our customers are getting into the speculative domain registration market. This is where you buy a domain name hoping to resale it to someone else for more money in the future. Fortunes have been made in the stock market, real estate, antiques, and now domain names. Here’s a small list of actual sales occurring over the past 30 days:

Inventus.com 10,000 USD

gds.se 1,150 EUR

Recycling.com 300,000 USD

Songs.ch 1,000 EUR

Mathematics.com 150,000 USD

WebDiets.com 1,750 USD

Jews.us 25,000 USD

Piercing.in 1,950 EUR

SeachAgent.com 7,000 USD

LowBudget.nl 1,000 EUR

CheapGifts.com 90,000 USD

ShopUnits.com 2,000 EUR

Well this kind of domain name resale value looks pretty sexy. And to honor the highest price ever paid for a domain name, we’re offering our lowest price ever. Through the end of January we’re offering unlimited domain name registrations for $1.99 with the purchase of any non-domain product. And all of our domain registrations and renewals come with our award winning spam free web based email system, a $9.95 value for free.

Learn more about our sexy domain deal by visiting this special link: https://www.securepaynet.net/gdshop/registrar/search.asp?prog_id=tefogal&ci=1775&se=%2B

Members of the Southeast Texas Hike & Bike Coalition would like for you to know that we’re working on an information sharing resource to benefit the entire cycling community in Southeast Texas, Southwest Louisiana, and beyond.

It is our intention to create an information portal that is open to all cyclists in our community regardless of why you ride, how fast or slow you ride, when you ride, what you ride, who you ride with, or who sold you your ride.

This site will allow any registered user to add information to an events calendar, hold discussions and participate in message boards, upload pictures into a photo album, submit articles, ride announcements, maps, pretty much any content you can think of that would interest fellow cyclists.

It’s far from complete but with folks starting to train for the MS-150, and so many other awsome rides just weeks away, we thought it best to go ahead and invite the community to use it. We sincerely hope it will be valuable for posting training rides and helping groups get together.

And a special Thank You is in order for Rick Beaulieu. Rick has done an excellent job populating the events calendar with the rides he is aware of. I know we all appreciate the time Rick puts in and the quality and enthusiasm behind every contribution he makes.

But we all have information to share, and this is a central place we can do it. Spread the word. Email the url to your friends that may not be on this list. Help us get the word out to the Tri-Club, The Jolly Rogers, any group you can think of to let them know that there’s a new resource available to all for promoting cycling activities in our region.

The url for the website is www.HikeNbike.info and it has links from the the SETHBC main site at www.funtrails.com that link straight into the ride calendar.

Thanks, and have a great day!
Todd Fogal
SETHBC Board Member

MSN Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and similar types of widely-used (and free) e-mail accounts are popular and easy to set up. However, despite their popularity, such e-mail accounts present their users with a number of inconveniences; inconveniences that can be avoided with our robust, versatile and richly featured personalized e-mail accounts.

Users of MSN Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and similar types of e-mail accounts may have to deal with any of the following types of inconveniences and annoyances:

With mass-market e-mail accounts, including MSN Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail users share their e-mail domains (e.g., “@hotmail.com,” “@msn.com,” or “.yahoo.com”) with millions of other users, which makes it impossible to create a truly unique e-mail identity for you and/or your business.

With mass-market e-mail accounts, including MSN Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail users share their e-mail domains (e.g., “@hotmail.com,” “@msn.com,” or “.yahoo.com”) with millions of other users, which makes it impossible to create a truly unique e-mail identity for you and/or your business.

Users of Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, etc. are frequently being pestered with unwanted and intrusive on-page advertisements. Ad placement is one of the main reasons that these providers can offer their services for free.
Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail users are more likely than most other e-mail users to be blitzed with electronic spam.

Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail networks are prone to attacks by phishers, pharmers, hackers, crackers and other cyber crooks who attempt to steal sensitive information or plant e-mail worms, Trojan Horses and other malware.

Online merchants might refuse your order. Much Internet fraud âEUR" the vast majority, in fact âEUR" is associated with mass-market e-mail accounts, such as Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail. Some merchants simply refuse to accept orders that originate from them.

You might lose your account if you do not use it within a certain time. Sure, that is not a big deal if you use it only for casual, occasional contacts. But it is crucial if you used it to register at Web sites, for example. If there are problems with your account and your e-mail address is expired, you’re out of luck.

It is next to impossible to get an e-mail address that is easily useable, let alone memorable. Because of the large amount of users that share these domains, the risk of selecting an e-mail address that is already taken is very high. There are simply too many variations in circulation. In many cases, users are forced to find an alternative address as addresses like “myname@msn.com,” “myname@hotmail.com,” or “myname@yahoo.com” may well be unavailable.

Some of these e-mail accounts may include unwanted advertising insertions in your outgoing e-mail. Do you really want to be advertising an e-mail provider’s promotions when you are applying for a job, or registering a complaint, or communicating with friends?

Because users of Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail accounts share their Internet domains with millions of other users across the Web, they run the risk of having their e-mail addresses accidentally blacklisted by recipients that decide to block entire domains from their inboxes, rather than just specific e-mail addresses. Such blanket blacklistings thus may hurt users that aren’t guilty of spamming or any other netiquette breaches.

The Best Alternative

The best alternative to the inconveniences of Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, and similar e-mail accounts is to sign up for one of our personalized e-mail accounts, which allow you to pick the exact e-mail address you want, including your own personal domain name that you may use for your Web site, as well as your e-mail account. All of our e-mail accounts are 100 percent ad-free and include generous disk space, Webmail access, as well as state-of-the-art anti-spam and anti-phishing technology.

A personalized e-mail account enables you to create your very own, instantly recognizable e-mail address âEUR" e.g., “myname@mydomainname.com.” As well, if you sign up for a multi-mailbox e-mail account, you will be able to create multiple e-mail addresses for your domain name. If you are running an e-business âEUR" or any other type of business, personalized e-mail accounts allow you to use your company name as your e-mail domain, which allows customers, business partners and other recipients to immediately recognize your incoming e-mail messages’ origin. The generic “@msn.com,” “@hotmail.com” and “@yahoo.com” domains do not provide e-mail senders and recipients with this convenience.

A personalized e-mail account further ensures that no one will mistakenly put you on their e-mail blacklists as part of blanket blacklistings of entire domains. Thus: You are unlikely to be blacklisted unless you actually do distribute spam or have made yourself or your communication unwanted somehow. In short, a personalized e-mail account âEUR" unlike the free accounts offered by MSN, Yahoo!, et al âEUR" allows you build a distinctive, unique Web presence for yourself or your business. As well, a personalized e-mail account will shield you from the spam barrages Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail users are forced to live with.

So, if you are relying on MSN Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or a similar e-mail account, it’s time to reconsider. We recommend selecting one of our robust, unique, personalized e-mail accounts that work with and promote YOUR domain name, not some search engines.

Click the following link for more information about Ultranet Domains Email Accounts.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

We want to take a few minutes to wish each and every one of you a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! We know that 2005 was rough on a lot of us, some more than others! But in so many ways we were truly BLESSED! Hurricane Rita took a turn before coming ashore, plus her wind speeds slowed down, that was really a blessing for those of us in Southeast Texas, of course it made it worse for our friends in Southwest Louisiana. Many of us were blessed to have little to no damage. While unfortunately, there were others who lost everything. Hopefully those of us who suffered little damage will pull together to help those who lost!

I believe that Southeast Texas will make a strong comeback. It may take awhile, but it will comeback.

Again, have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Search engines want to return website that are relevant to the keywords that their users enter. That means that you must make sure that your website is such a high quality site. There are three main factors that make a website a high quality website:

Your website should have a lot of content. If your website consists of one or two pages or just a few pictures then it will be very difficult to get high search engine rankings. Search engines also aren’t interested in the 982nd eBay affiliate page. It’s important that your web page has great content. If that content can only be found on your website then that is even better.

You must make sure that search engines can parse your web pages. Make sure that your HTML code is clean and that search engines can easily find out what your web pages are about. Cluttered HTML code and web pages that have been ‘optimized’ for dozens of keywords often prevent high rankings. Focus on one or two keywords per web page. It’s better that a web page is highly relevant to one or two keywords than somewhat relevant to a lot of keywords.

Your website must have good incoming links. Links from centralized link farms and link exchange systems don’t work. You should make sure that the web sites that link to you are at least loosely related to your web site. The more related websites link to your site, the better.

All of this requires work and effort on your part. Your web site is an important part of your business that requires the same attention as other parts of your business. The sooner you treat search engine optimization as an important investment for your web site success the sooner you’ll get great results.

It’s a disgrace to think that as hard as we all work to make things on the internet just work properly and conviently that there’s a force of scum sucking bottom feeding no talent hacks that take pleasure in causing you computer pain. I’m talking about the dirty little snot nosed dung for brains computer expert wanna be’s that plague the internet with the stinky computer coded trash that is right on par with the self glorifying self deluding ideals of taliban terrorists and should be treated as such. In case you’re missing my point let me just say, I don’t like Viruses or the people that write them.

And as we all should know by now most of them come in from email. If you’re like me you’re running at least one anti-virus program, maybe two at the same time. We’re the box I’m typing this on runs both Symantec’s Corporate Edition and AVG Antivirus by Grisoft. Norton (the Symantec Product) has let me down so many times that it just seemed prudent to have a backup. The FREE version of AVG Anti-Virus has bailed me out of too many a customer crisis to be overlooked.

Wouldn’t it be useful to know what really works before your ‘puter gets the bug? Well tonight while stumbling through the support forums at Plesk Forums there was a mention of testvirus.org. An email virus scanner checker site (say that 5 times really fast) that really caught my eye. You simply enter the site, type in the email address that you would like to check for virus vulnerabilities and a authorization link is sent to the email address immediately. Once you check your email account and click on the link you are directed back to the virus checker site and that’s when the fun begins.

Now you have a menu of about 20+ nasty virus’ descised in all different ways to bombard your email account with. The virus’ that it sends are harmless but exhibit qualities that the scanner should want to block.

Give it a try and tell us what you think.

Haven’t posted in a few days. Forgive me but every once in a while I’m just slightly too overwhelmed to share my rants and raves. Which brings me to my point.

Those close to me know that I hope to attract people that want easy to use blog sites to my hosting company. That’s partly why I’m working with this new version of Xoops and the WordPress Module called Xpress. More on that later…

I’ve spent a lot of time and effort creating a preseance through reciprocal links programs, strategic adwords and Overture campaigns and all that. But sometimes the simple things elude us. It just occured to me this morning to add a catagory to my links directory for blog sites. Everyone is welcome to post your site in this directory whether a blogging newbie like me or a veteran like, well everyone else.

I’m telling ya, there’s no telling the level of genius we each can achieve with a good nights sleep and a decent cup of coffee. I’d be happy to have either one right now!

The votes are in, all the hanging chads have been counted, and the winner for the September Xoops Site of the Month is: www.viapontedinona.it

You can learn more about the Xoops Site of the month by clicking here.