We’ve mentioned previously how important it is to keep an eye on the expiry dates of your domain names.
But in case you haven’t got the message yet, here’s a high-profile domain name expiry story to hammer home the point.
As reported by The Register, this time it was the turn of Emirates. The Dubai-based airline managed to let its emirates.com domain name expire earlier this week. As a result, instead of being able to book seats on the enormous new Airbus A380, visitors to the company’s website saw a generic domain name parking page. Oops.
Last week we grabbed the camera, balanced it on a chair (really) and filmed a couple more short videos for our series. If you haven’t caught them before, the idea is to give you an introduction to a subject.
In this one, Matt talks about how to build a horizontal navigation bar for your website using lists and CSS instead of tables. Take a look and please leave a comment to let us know what you think. There are some links to more information beneath the video too.
[Edit: Its been brought to my attention I am describing the <li> tag as a "line". <li> in fact means 'list item', oh well.... (Matt)]
The HTML described above:
Create a div area for your navigation and type in your content
<div id = "nav">
<ul>
<li>Home</li>
<li>Blog</li>
<li>Store</li>
</ul>
</div>
In your CSS file create the rules for the “nav” div <li> tags
#nav li {
text-decoration: none;
display: inline;
margin: 5pt;
padding: 1pt;
text-align: center;
color; blue;
background-color: green;
}
#nav li a:hover {
background-color: red;
} Read the rest of this entry »
123-reg has been recognised by Hitwise as a Top 10 Award winner for April - June 2008.
During this period, 123-reg was one of the most visited websites in the UK in the category of “Computers and Internet - Hosting and Domain Registrations”.
Toybox Lane is an online toyshop built using our ecommerce package. The site has gone for a minimalist approach, letting the products do the talking.
And they do have some great toys, from favourite family board games to proper wooden train sets and dolls houses. Makes you wish you were a kid again … who wants a game of Buckaroo?!
This competition is now closed for new entries and unfortunately any sent through from now on will not be considered for the prize. Thanks to everyone who entered, we will be getting in touch with the winners shortly and the explanations we liked the most will be put up on the blog as well.
Just to let you know, my Gran didn’t even bother to ask this time around which was a relief but a couple of Great Aunts did, and I think they got it!
Back in December, Google announced something new called Knol. It’s a sort of competitor to Wikipedia. They opened it to everyone this week, so now you and I can log on and write about things we know about. Or, I suppose, about things we don’t know about.
Anyway, either someone at Google didn’t do their domain research before naming the service, or did it and decided to ignore what they found. As a result, a Dutch company’s website has benefited from a large amount of unexpected traffic.
That’s right, this Knol sells steamcleaners, and just happens to trade under the domain knol.com. They’ve seen such a spike in visitors that they’ve taken to putting a message on their homepage. Most of it is in Dutch but one sentence stands out:
NOTE: We sell steamcleaning equipment and don’t sell our domain!!
Perhaps Google did put in an offer for the address after all.
There’s more on this story over at The Next Web, including a rundown of what the Dutch text of the company’s message says.
Because Google is such a huge brand, it probably doesn’t need to worry about this too much. Its announcements garner so much attention and its other domains have such high prominence that the service is unlikely to fail because they haven’t secured knol.com.
However, if you’re starting a new business or website, you don’t generally have the luxury of big-brand backing. That means it’s important to do your research and choose a domain carefully, so your website stands out and is easy to find online.
The Scottish family at the centre of a dispute over narnia.mobi has lost control of the domain name following a decision by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).
The dispute was between Richard Saville-Smith, who lives with his family in Edinburgh, and CS Lewis Ltd, which controls the rights to the works of CS Lewis. Saville-Smith says he was planning to let his son use the domain for his email address. Check out our previous posting for full background on the story.
The full text of the WIPO ruling can be found over on the organisation’s website. But in short, the panel ordered Saville-Smith to give control of the domain to CS Lewis Ltd. As the decision explains:
“…the Panel cannot envision any plausible, good faith basis upon which the Respondent [Saville-Smith] could have concluded that he was free to appropriate the Complainant’s [CS Lewis Ltd.] distinctive and widely known NARNIA mark for use as a personal email address…”
The decision has recently been covered on the BBC and Telegraph websites. And just before the decision was reached, Scotland on Sunday published an interesting piece by Gillian Fergusson, wife of Saville-Smith.
A fair decision? Leave a comment and let us know what you think.
We’ve been well and truly upstaged by our business park neighbours this afternoon. While our car park is filled with a mix of humdrum Fords, Vauxhalls and other family cars, next door they’ve got pest control in.
Either there’s a serious infestation in the building, or it’s some sort of promotional stunt. Either way, yes, that really is the Ghostbusters car. Who ya gonna call?
This week we’re profiling a business owner who’s used our ecommerce package to create an online business. Amanda is 33 years old. She told us how about her website and how she started trading online.
What’s your business and why did you start it?
“I have worked in the fashion retail sector for about 13 years, and I now run my online fashion accessory store, Boutique Feet. I decided to trade online because I wanted to start my own business without the cost of overheads like rent and rates. I have loved doing it!
“I use the website to promote my business and sell online. I offer fashion accessories and footwear.”
How much technical knowledge do you have?
“This is my first website and I have very, very little technical knowledge. I am incredibly proud of what i have achieved so far. Read the rest of this entry »
The Rissington Podcast bills itself as a “web-geek version of Gardeners’ Question Time”. This isn’t a genre I’ve stumbled upon before, but presenters Jon Hicks (who, incidentally, designed the Firefox logo) and John Oxton make for an entertaining double act. They deliver quality internet and web design tips alongside irreverent banter and jokes (and some strong language).
It’s a must-hear for our in-house design team. The latest episode covers everything from comics, Lego and mojitos to rock music, telecommuting and Bounty chocolate bars … plus lots of CSS, HTML, design and accessibility tips, of course.
Much of the show is based around listener questions, so if you have a burning query about web design, code or even cheese (yes, really), you can fire a quick email off to the duo and wait to see if they answer your question.
One of the items this week was about choosing web hosting and a domain name registrar. As you can see from their homepage, they mentioned 123-reg during the piece. (Thanks for the plug lads, but next time could you remember it’s 123-reg, not reg-123?)
Anyway, if you haven’t come across them before, you can have a listen now.
We’ve mentioned previously how important it is to keep an eye on the expiry dates of your domain names.
