The BCC header, as the name suggests sends the email to the recipients, but unlike TO and CC the other recipients can’t also see who else has been BCC’ed in.

This is obviously very beneficial when sending the same email to many people and for privacy you shouldn’t be disclosing everyone else’s email address.

I recently received an email from T-mobile UK which did exactly this. A mass email to numerous people, and everybody was in the TO. Details include full names, email addresses and even some phone numbers.

Now on Mondays I usually end up in Starbucks for a good couple of hours if not more due to my timetable usually I grab a coffee or two and sit in the corner. But alas today my tweeting and blogging was unexpectedly delayed for sometime as I struggled to connect.

Everything connected fine but I just couldn’t connect to the BTOpenZone login page to authenticate the session. After around 40 minutes, numerous connections and disconnections and even a reboot I twigged what could be the cause. I had configured OpenDNS last week.

It seems the BTOpenZone restricts all IPs & Domains unless its in their whitelist, and it would appear that OpenDNS’s servers aren’t lucky enough to be on the whitelist.

Which is a bit of a pain really, especially considering how popular OpenDNS is that I can’t seem to be able to use my choice of DNS resolution services while using the WiFi, surely they should have OpenDNS IP’s whitelisted?

Today I have again found myself in Starbucks and again, having irritations. Today with YouTube. It would appear YouTube.com has been blocked, nothing on the YouTube.com domain is loading and I can’t see any reason why the connection failure seems to be restricted just to the YouTube. This (as with many things) is rather irritating, particularly as I planned on watching the last few minutes of a talk by Eric Schmidt before heading to college for lessons, alas no. It was not to be.

This is merely a short rant of frustration at my wasted time… Thanks for reading.

So I decided I simply HAVE to do some work, as seem to have an infinite number of deadlines and all seem to be approaching like a heard of angry coyotes.

My solution? Starbucks. I love nothing more than laptop and a Tall filtered coffee with unlimited refills, nothing better right?… Well no. Today I am sat in Starbucks in Swindon and all I can think about isn’t the work I should be doing but how much I am irritated by the situation.  It’s pretty close to my idea of hell, at least when I want to get some work done.

We have crying babies, odd guys rambling off who seem to be intoxicated, gossiping woman, sticky dirty tables, and in places an inch of left over food on the floor. This isn’t my idea of a good work environment and to add insult to injury? The coffee isn’t even that good. It tastes nice and then when I get to those last delicious mouthfuls I choke as there is a load of coffee beans in the bottom. It’s called FILTERED coffee for a reason Starbucks, you are supposed to FILTER it.

Sigh, ok enough ranting… I need to try and get some work done.

I received a rather unexpected call this morning from a nice guy from 123-reg/WebFusion; which took me a little by surprise and it seems they came across my blog and my previous post – Hi guys! – where I ranted discussed how they were less than helpful with regards to my .eu domains and refused to update the .eu technical contact details as requested.

It seems they wanted to explain themselves, so for sake of fairness I naturally felt should share the explanation, and my thoughts on it.

The reason: Apparently they couldn’t update the details was because -wait for it – they didn’t know they could. They claim the .eu tld was fairly new to them and they didn’t know that it was possible to update the technical contact company, hence why I was fobbed off and told it couldn’t be done.

Well, not really. While yes I can appreciate with any new product you do take a little while to fully understand what can and can’t be done and there may be a couple of small misunderstanding which should quickly be learnt and overcome to ensure you can offer the best service to clients.

But – and this is a big but – we also have to consider that 123-reg (child company of WebFusion Ltd) is a multi-million pound company with no doubt hundreds of staff and plenty of experience in this industry and should be competent at launching new tlds, how they work, what can and can’t be done and if you can update the technical contact details. I also have to question how new .eu was to them when I brought my .eu domains, as I don’t remember it being a brand spanking new tld for them and I’d think this is something they should have resolved within a few days, not months.

I also think it is something which should have been looked into promptly once I (and presumably others) began to question it. It took me merely a few days and a handful of emails to get confirmation that its possible and even after requesting direct access to OpenSRS via 123-reg I was ignored or given canned responses.

So if it took me a few days, it should have taken them minutes – being as they are in a lucrative reselling position with Tucows could not confirm this simple fact before launching the domain?… or even during the numerous tickets, some of which I stated that I knew it was possible didn’t prompt someone to look into it further, make the changes and issue an apology back in April/May.

While I really appreciate the phone call and apology – all be it 6 months late – but being syndical I have to be dubious of the intentions as its probably because they have seen how well my previous post is ranking for the terms “123 reg eu” (3rd – 5th result) and how many potential customers are probably reading it.

A phone call and a nice apology and promise that should any more problems arise I can contact them directly via email is great, it is mostly too little too late. Sorry guys.

123-reg was the first company I dealt with with domains, and is where I started with “dansgalaxy.co.uk” – ah memories! Back when I had to use my mums credit card – and no doubt will end up buying a few more cheap domains from them in future, and hey who knows I might even apply to blog for them if the opportunity arises (assuming they don’t hold these posts against me of course!) I just hope they have resolved this and all staff are now aware how to process the change requests quickly and efficiently (as they still don’t seem to allow it via the interface) and in future they learn from this mistake and will improve the support (as in, actually reply to tickets and not use canned responses) and next time I do business with them my view of their support department can be proved wrong and I will be a happy satisfied customer of 123-reg / WebFusion.

BRB: the modern, hip and lazy way of saying Be Right Back. A phrase (or acronym of a phrase) to be used when you are happily talking to someone and just need to nip out or have to quickly do something and won’t be able to talk to them for a few minutes, perhaps you needed to use the toilet, or make yourself a cuppa? – Mine is a milky tea with 1 and half sugars for future reference.

I often wonder if people don’t actually understand the meaning of this, to be right back – at least to my mind – gives a very clear message. I have something I need to do quickly and I will be back talking to you in a moment.

Some people seem to have different ideas, which can be a little irritating when talking to them; particularly the people who seem to have no concept of respect in a conversation. Those who say “BRB” and then a few seconds later go offline, so you think hmm ok fair enough they probably had to restart Windows Live Messenger or something right? I’m sure they will be back in a few minutes and can continue that interesting discussion about the difference between McDonalds and Burger king straws or indeed whichever interesting topic was gripping the moment. You then realise perhaps 15, 20 maybe even 45minutes later that they really didn’t mean BRB. What your buddy actually meant was I have no respect for you and I’m just going to log off and not even say bye. Well thanks, nice to know you care.

Don’t get me wrong I understand people are busy and have things to do, and sometimes I can talk about stuff which really isn’t that interesting, but if I bore you why not change the subject? Why don’t you contribute something? Or if it really is needed that you just can’t put up with me rambling on, just say you have to leave, make your excuses and say goodbye. Is that so hard?

It’s simply common courtesy, if I am making the time to talk to you chances are I to some extent care about you so please, just be nice let me know if you aren’t going to be replying for a little while… I can deal, you have a life, just please. Don’t waste mine waiting for you!

</ RANT>

Just had an unexpected problem with Windows Live Messenger (MSN)… apparently I have too many friends?

This is stupid! I don’t want to have to keep removing one friend to add another!

Today a friend approached me telling me how another host has some fantastic offerings so I checked them out…

Apparently you can get 400GB diskspace, 10TB bandwidth on a shared dual-core with up to 100 other people! I thought this was incredible so naturally I spoke to one of the sales team on how they do this…

So yesterday I had to take a train (because cars out of action) to Portsmouth to see my Nan as she’s just has broadband installed so needed to update her Antiquated old PC with an Ethernet card and run updates as well as buying her a nice little laptop. You know, to get her on the line.

Now the first thing that began to strike me with this was when I began setting up her VirginMedia account when first connected to broadband, while its perfectly simple for myself, and even the average person for an all be it perfectly mobile 60+ yr old its not so easy to work out.

The laptop…

So we went round a few of the shops looking at all the laptops trying to find something which has everything she needs to check her emails, browse onlines and skype with her sister in Tenerife. Now we find a couple but most are priced ridiculously and we eventually settle on a nice little Acer Aspire 5334, 3GB RAM, 320GB hard drive, Dual Core 2Ghz CPU, and of course a nice 1.3Mp web cam and a half decent price at £399. Perfect!

Now by this point we have spoke to a couple of salespeople from each store, most were more than helpful and didn’t force the extras, do you want? .. No. Ok. You know, how it should be? But the last salesman we called over in Currys to actually buy the laptop just could not help himself, and even resorted to some nasty scare tactics. He claimed that if you don’t use a paid Anti-virus like Norton (which is just an extra £59.99!) that you were totally unsecure when shopping online, and those silly little free ones are worth nothing! (even though if you get the right ones they often do a better job than Norton by a long shot!). Of course at this point my Nan who doesn’t know much if anything about computers is looking rather worried, and if it wasn’t for me there to say know could very easily have ended up paying £60 for something she doesn’t really need… because hey… shes going to browse a few sites and not much else and VirginMedia provide some ok protection software for free, and she has me on standby to help if something does go wrong.

Of course he persists with how its needed and its only £8.99/month! I was not happy by the end of this encounter as he has just infuriated me at the bull he tried to use to pressure my Nan and me into buying more than we wanted.

The best bit I found was when he had the cheek to say “From one expert to another” to me while trying to say how to secure the system… Argh.

The whole encounter has made me realise just how much someone who isn’t computer literate can easily end up spending on simply getting online.

Poorly Written Rant OVER!

As they were offering .EU domains for around £1.20 I thought I would grab a few and grab myself a bargain, however I soon ran into problems when I tried to update the contact information for the domains.

As you can see below, for the technical contact on a .EU domain it clearly states that users need to contact support in order to have the Company/Organisation field for the Technical Contact changed.

So, I did as told and opened a ticket with 123-reg to have the detail changed… which they flat out refused to do – Read their reply below.

My Initial Message:

Please change the company on the technical contact from “Webfusion Ltd” to “XDnet Web Services” for the domain xdnet.eu

Thanks,
Dan

123-Reg Support Reply:

Dear Dan,

Thank you for contacting 123-reg on the 01st April 2010.
The technical contact cannot be changed. This information will remain as it is on the domain as we are the technical contact of the domain if you have registered the domain with 123-reg.

If we can be of any further help with regard to this or any other matter, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind Regards

Farhan
123-reg

My Second Reply:

123-reg and/or WebFusion Ltd is NOT the technical contact for my domain. You are the registrar.

I work in web hosting, I am my self a domain reseller and I know how the who is works. Please don’t BS me.

Your own system states that “* For .eu domains, please contact 123-reg support if you need to change the Company Name.” you also have support articles stating the same.

As I am the owner of the domain, and you are the registrar it is your responsibility to update the who is with the information the owner (that’s me) requires.

Please do so.

Regards,
Dan Rodgers
XDnet Web Services

123-reg support Second Reply:

Dear Dan,

Thank you for contacting 123-reg on the 01st April 2010.

I can confirm we can change the ownership details for the domain, however not the technical information unfortunately.

If we can be of any further help with regard to this or any other matter, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind Regards

Faiza
123-reg

Now as you might imagine, while yes the technical contact company is only a small detail, I still found it unacceptable that 123-reg was actively choosing to deny a simple request which I am more than entitled to do as owner of the domain.

I decided I wouldn’t let it rest, so persisted. And it worked.

I thought I would give 123-reg the benefit of the doubt, and thought that perhaps there might be some kind of limitation for changing the Technical Contact Company, so I went straight to the source and contacted the dot EU registry (eurid.eu) which stated:

EURids accredited registrars should be able to make changes under
registrant technical contacts and this can be done without any fees from
EURid.

So, after I established that this wasn’t the Registry, this left one link in the chain to contact – Tucows which is the real registrar behind 123-reg (123-reg are a mere reseller of Tucows).

After a couple of emails to Tucows they went through proceedure of contacting 123-reg about it and requesting the login details for my domain to the central OpenSRS management system. After no response and 123-reg still not replying to my support ticket asking for the login Tucows forced it and sent me the login details themselves.

Which provide me full management of my domain, direct with the registrar! Win!

I decided I would share this little story, both to share my anger at 123-reg’s lack of co-operation in the matter and also to hopefully show other users who may be facing the same problem with 123-reg and their .eu domains a way to have the details on the domains THEY own correct for the owners.

I would also strongly encourage people facing this problems to get in contact with the Tucows Compliance department on compliance [at] opensrs.org who can hopefully help you resolve the problem and eventually gain full management over your domain. Please also drop a comment below as I would love to hear from others facing this problem.

Yes, I am sorry. This is a rant.

Recently I was recommended a site Vision2learn.com and thought I would take a distance learning/online course to build up the CV and gain a useful qualification.

Their website says about how courses are for 16+ etc so thought, great a free course! Apply online, got a huge wad of paper work in the post, after spending almost an hour, reading over and filling in all the registration forms, I called the number to check if I had to fill in one of the forms… and was told the course was only available for 19+… and the call ended pretty quickly after that.

Now me being extremely irritated that not only was I unable to do a course, which according to their website, I see no reason as to why I shouldn’t be able to do, and to have spent my time filling out a ton of paper work, much of it filling in the same thing 40 different times.

And now, it’s 2 days after I emailed them and still no response… and yet they can send me promotional emails telling me to sign up for courses!!!

Bottom line, Vision2learn which is run in connection with Somerset College suck.