Thinking of getting your own website? Not a bad idea. But here’s a really good tip — when you choose your domain name, write it down and read it. Carefully. Make other people read it. Then read it yourself again.
This can’t be stressed enough: Make really you sure your URL says exactly what you think it does. If you slip up, you could end like the following sites who dashed the expectations of their visitors:
- Penisland.com really is only selling pens.
- Whorepresents.com has nothing to do with the world’s oldest profession.
- Expertsexchange.com will not help with transition surgery.
- Speedofart.com does not sell smelly swimwear.
- Molestationnursery.com is really safer than it sounds.
- As is Therapistfinder.com.
- Powergenitalia.com isn’t a site about dirty superhero stories.
- IPanywhere.com isn’t a threat.
(This list is nicked from here, who may have a few more examples.)
No, really, what does your URL say?
~PD
Gamers of a certain age are sure to get misty-eyed at the mention of the old classic Pac-Man. Gaming has come a long way since then, but some things never lose their charm. Thus, when Pac-Man turned 30 on 22 May, Google didn’t miss the chance to doodle about it.
The Pac-Man doodle’s unprecedented popularity has made Google give it a permanent page: Google.com/Pacman. This is a “working” logo, so you could play it and and you could use it to search. Instead of the “I am feeling lucky” page, you get “Insert coin”, but it works the same way.
Go try it out!
~PD
ByteScout Post2Blog is a Windows blog editor supporting WordPress, Typepad, MovableType and more. It lets you compose and directly upload blog posts from your desktop.
It has some interesting features, including a Quick Snippets feature in which "hot keywords" are replaced on the fly by more detailed content. For instance, if I wanted Post2Blog to automatically make the text "Writer’s Log" a link and add a little tagline to it, I just need to specify it in the Tools –> Manage Quick Snippets list.
Apart from that, there are detailed formatting features, as well as options to upload files and images to your blog, to Flickr, ImageShack and via FTP. Post management features are also available. Smilies, code highlighting, spell checker, thesaurus — there’s lots more.
Yes, this post is created using Post2Blog. However, the software was last updated in 2007 and is currently unsupported. The links in the manufacturer’s site lead to a 404 and you must download it from Download.com.
The jury is out on this one. Stay tuned for an update.
~PD
