HOEI

Apple announced this week an advanced preview of some new features that will appear on iPhone 3.0.  These “new” features include the ability to search your iPhone as well as cut-copy-and-paste.  These features which have been found standard on many other PDAs for years will arrive on iPhone later this year.

It is simply amazing how well iPhone has done while missing some very simply features.  Marketing is a powerful tool and the Apple guys have it figured out. There are and have been PDAs on the market for years that do most of the things iPhone advertises plus simple things like cut/paste across applications, searching, sending/receiving SMS (with pictures).

I have been an avid Palm user for years.  I started on the Handspring Visor Deluxe about ten years ago and have progressed through the Treo 650 and 700p in recent years.  Today I use a Palm Centro and love it.  Cut-and-Paste has been a stand a feature on Palm products for years, long before iPhone was conceived.  Palm has also for years offered as standard features many of the cool things iPhone offers like phone, sync with Exchange, camera, video, MP3 player, games, SMS, plus access to a ton of custom applications.

While I will admit that the built-in wifi feature is on iPhone is neat, it seems to breed illegal wifi use.  I know that some people see the use of open wifi as a murky subject, but it is not.  If you do not have permission from the wifi access point owner then you are stealing.  The iPhone is to open wifi as a slim jim or lock pick are to a car doors.   Just because you carry something in your pocket that makes it easy to get in does not mean you have the legal right to do so.  Yes, you can do the same thing with a wifi enabled laptop, but the iPhone makes it way more convenient.  Enough of that soapbox.

The bottom line is that the folks at Apple are the masters of selling an Eskimo and ice cube. In other words, they have mastered the art of selling people something they don’t necessarily “need”, but will certainly help make them more cool.

I am having problems with my home wireless switch/router.  It causes me and my wife to regularly loose Internet connectivity on both wireless and hardwired connections.  A restart of the Linksys WRK54G device immediately solves the problems for all connections without taking any action on any of the clients. So that is the reason why I am searching for a new device.

What I am looking for is a wireless/hardwired router/switch combination.  I like the features of the WRK54G, but it has seen better days as mentioned above.  I am only equipped with 802.11g cards right now and have no desire to upgrade to 802.11n.  Here are a few things that I really like and use on the WRK54G and want to have on my new device:

- At least 4 hardwired 100mb ports
- dynamic DNS interoperaility
- Advanced routing (able to add other IP subnets on private side)
- Lots of wireless security options with some backwards compatability
- MAC filtering
- Port forwarding
- 10/100 uplink to telco modem
- VPN PassThrough

Any advice on new device options would be greatly appreciated.

This domain is ten years old today.  You can see the many phases of HOEI.com on the WayBackMachine.

The MakeUseOf.com domain seems to have been hijacked over the weekend.   The guys over at MakeUseOf.com have set up shop temporarily on a Blogger platform at makeuseof-temporary.blogspot.com. The hosting company (GoDaddy.com) released the domain to someone who was impersonating the owner of the domain.  Here is what Mark from MakeUseOf.com had to say:

“Now it turns out that in order to transfer the domain, Ferank (or someone helping him) called up GoDaddy and impersonated Aibek. At that point he had already access to our account (or at least had enough information to recover the username/pass for the account) and basically said “hi, I’m the owner of MakeUseOf.com, please transfer the domain”. GoDaddy then complied. “

The Real Truth Behind The MakeUseOf.com Domain Crack

The plot has thickened because the hijacker (aka Ali Ferank) has requested a ransom of $2000 for the safe return of the MakeUseOf.com domain name.

What I would do if I woke up in Mark and Aibek’s shoes:

1) I recommend that the MakeUseOf.com team go over and take a swim in the ICANN registrar transfer policies to determine what pressure can be placed on GoDaddy.com to take some responsibility for what happened.

2) I would get Google involved since the  person currently holding the registration is using Goggle as the email host provider.

The following shows the current WhoIs for MakeuseOf.com:

Registrant Contact:
DomainsGame LLC
Ali Ferank

Alhana baghas nara St
Dubai, NA 85445
AE

Administrative Contact:
DomainsGame LLC
Ali Ferank ()
+1.5544415212
Fax: +1.5555555555
Alhana baghas nara St
Dubai, NA 85445
AE

A quick nslookup for the MX record for the email domain listed in the registration information shows that DomainsGame.org is using Goggle as a host for email services.

> domainsgame.org
Server:  vnsc-pri.sys.gtei.net
Address:  4.2.2.1

Non-authoritative answer:
domainsgame.org MX preference = 30, mail exchanger = aspmx3.googlemail.com
domainsgame.org MX preference = 30, mail exchanger = aspmx4.googlemail.com
domainsgame.org MX preference = 30, mail exchanger = aspmx5.googlemail.com
domainsgame.org MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = aspmx.l.google.com
domainsgame.org MX preference = 20, mail exchanger = alt1.aspmx.l.google.com
domainsgame.org MX preference = 20, mail exchanger = alt2.aspmx.l.google.com
domainsgame.org MX preference = 30, mail exchanger = aspmx2.googlemail.com
>

3) I would give these guys at Moniker Privacy Services a call to see who registered DomainsGame.org.

A WhoIs on the DomainsGame.org domain shows it registered to:

Admin ID:MONIKER1571241
Admin Name:Moniker Privacy Services
Admin Organization:Moniker Privacy Services
Admin Street1:20 SW 27th Ave.
Admin Street2:Suite 201
Admin City:Pompano Beach
Admin State/Province:FL
Admin Postal Code:33069
Admin Country:US
Admin Phone:+1.9549848445
Admin FAX:+1.9549699155
Admin Email:

4) I would not assume this to be an international issue just because the person gave a Dubai snailmail address.

Conclusion

In the meantime GoDaddy has told the MakeUseOf team to realax in a bowl of legal stew.  GoDaddy is obviously trying to determine their liability in this matter before taking too much action.  Lets hope that GoDaddy is not one of the registrars described in the Wikipedia explanation of Domain Hijacking and Domain Theft.

“However, it is well documented that some registrars will admit no fault in accepting the forged credentials and will refuse to correct the record until forced by legal action. In many of these cases, justice is not done and the hijacker retains control of the domain. The victims of such theft often do not have the resources or willingness to invest the effort necessary to regain control of their domain, which may require a lawsuit or a lengthy and time-consuming arbitration process, especially if the hijacker and victim are in different countries.”

GoDaddy.com has a chance to avoid more of the “GoGaddy Sucks” articcles if they handle this correctly.

• GT Goodies – Blogging Idol 2: Grill’n Time has been entered into the Blogging Idol 2 com.. http://tinyurl.com/6czfax #

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One of my other blogs (Grill’n Time) has been entered into the Blogging Idol 2 competition that is produced by Daniel Scocco over at Daily Blog Tips. The competition will run through the month of November 2008 and offers a great incentive for me to revive this blog.  There are over $4500 in cash and prizes up for grabs from the following sponsors:

• A lifetime subscription to Keyword Country (worth $2,000)
• An annual subscription to the Trackur corporate edition (worth $1,000)
• $300 courtesy of Sponsored Reviews
• $300 courtesy of BidVertiser
• $300 courtesy of TNX
• $100 from Daily Blog Tips
• $300 in text links from Text-Link-Ads
• A 3-month subscription to the SEO Book Training Program (worth $300)

You can help me win by subscribing to my Grill’n Time RSS feed by clicking HERE. There will be some design changes tot his blog along with some great new tasty treats from the Osborne Family Kitchen like:

• Southern Sweet Tea
• Homemade Popcorn that taste just like the movie theatre
• What to do with leftover homemade biscuits
• Some great new grilling ideas
• And much more

You can also help me win this competition by sending your friends over to check out Grill’n Time.