HM2K

If you have domains with TuCows OpenSRS you may be faced with this error when you try and set custom name servers on your domain through the OpenSRS manage interface:

Unable to update nameservers: Nameserver [ns2.example.co.uk] doesn’t exist at the registry.

Especially if you’ve recently set a new glue up.

In the OpenSRS domain manager it says:

** IMPORTANT: Before adding additional name servers to your configuration, you should be sure that the name server has setup correctly. 24 – 48 hours after you submit a request for an additional name server, it will be in the rotation for authoritative lookups and if it is not setup correctly, your site will take a long time to resolve when visitors try to find you.

You can ignore this for now, here’s what you need to do first…

You, or your admin who has access to the OpenSRS reseller interface needs to find the page in there entitled “Add Nameserver to All Foreign Registries” as per these instructions:

Add Nameserver to All Foreign Registries
This interface allows you to add Registered Nameservers to all of the Registries to which the OpenSRS system is connected. If you want to use a COM/NET/ORG nameserver (default.opensrs.net) on a .BIZ domain, you have to first add it to the “foreign” .BIZ Registry using this option. The reason for this is because each Registry keeps a database of “registered nameservers”, and new nameservers at “foreign” registries need to be explicitly added before they can be used to resolve domains in that TLD. Use this interface when you get the error “Unable to add nameservers: Command failed: unable to verify existence of nameserver” when trying to add a foreign nameserver to a domain.

To add a nameserver to all foreign registries

1. In the Domain Management section of the RWI, click Add Nameserver to All Foreign Registries.
2. In the Nameserver text box, enter the nameserver.
3. Click Add Nameserver.

Once you do that you should see a message that says:

.com registry: Successfully added
.asia registry: Successfully added
.xxx registry: Successfully added
.com.au registry: Successfully added
.biz registry: Successfully added
.bz registry: Successfully added
.ca registry: Successfully added
.cc registry: Successfully added
.com.cn registry: Successfully added
.co registry: Successfully added
.in registry: Successfully added
.info registry: Successfully added
.es registry: Successfully added
.me registry: Successfully added
.mobi registry: Successfully added
.name registry: Successfully added
.nl registry: Successfully added
.org registry: Successfully added
.tv registry: Successfully added
.us registry: Successfully added
.ws registry: Successfully added
.pro registry: Successfully added

Or similar.

Now we give it 24-48 hours, then you can set custom name servers on your domain via the OpenSRS manage interface.

Many years back I began investigating anti email spam in the UK as a way to defend against the amount amount of email spam we were receiving to certain email addresses.

The reason this email address was getting so much spam is because it was harvested by a website spider bot, as the email address was placed on company website by the previous webmaster.

DO NOT put your email address or any email addresses directly on your website, instead use a form.

Back then there was only examples of support for US, but very little support in the UK.

One thing I did find was the Office Of Fair Trading Spam Tips but they were not very useful, the JunkBusters.com website has some nice tips on “junk email“, if only something existed like this for the UK.

I discovered that in the US you can send your junk/spam email to [email protected] and they will pursue law enforcement actions against people sending the emails.

After I read the NEW RULES ON EMAIL MARKETING article, I figured I could issue a complaint with the Information Commissioner via this form.

Update: In 2010 the BBC offered an article entitled: “How can I stop getting spam emails?” which seems to offer sufficient advice, there’s also a whole heap of resources in the Dmoz “email spam” directory.

PageRank is dead, long live PageRank.

As we said recently, there’s been lots of speculation as to whether PageRank is dead or not. It isn’t, just Google are moving the goals a bit. Basically, they don’t want you to focus on PageRank but it’s still massively important to them.

All this talk of dead, reminds me of the Monty Python dead parrot sketch, only in this case, it isn’t dead. An anti-dead-parrot if you will.

So what’s with all the news about PageRank being dead? Google just changed their code, that’s all…

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently a list of “bad words” were made available through Google’s new website which asks: “What do you love?” (wdyl.com).

So, perhaps I was a bit hasty writing off WhoisX.

The list of profanities was discovered in the Javascript on the website, however Google reacted quickly and switched this to a URL lookup instead of a Javascript one therefore keeping the list away from prying eyes.

However, what this does mean is now we have an API to play with: Read the rest of this entry »

WhoisX is a domain name lookup service, similar to the whois service provided by “domain tools”, but ours was primarily for UK domain names.

It began as a small project to help people check whether a domain was available or not. When a domain was available the visitor was linked to a place they could buy the domain.

Read the rest of this entry »