July 23rd, 2010
Over the years I have registered a lot of domain names. We got into web development about 15 years ago and now there are about 300 url’s on our domain farm. Some good. Some not so good.
I recently went on a “round up” and moved all the domain registrations to a single registrar because it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with renewals.
I chose to use Godaddy.com because their pricing seemed a little lower and they offer hosting services as well.
Now I am reconsidering that decision.
Godaddy.com is the “hands down winner” of the contest for the “most characters per page contest” and they lead the competition by miles in the “most in-your-face upselling contest” as well. It is impossible to complete any sort of transaction at their site without their making dozens of attempts to sell you more products and services, and completing any sort of complicated administrative tasks almost always requires a phone call.
There ought to be some way to turn off all the special offers, deals and contests and choose a simple menu option for the task you came there to get done.
It is past time for Godaddy.com to provide a simple-to-navigate option for customers who know why they came to the site. We can save looking at the Danica Patrick pictures till later.
GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands. Got an alternative to Godaddy.com that you would like to share with our readers? Let us know.
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July 19th, 2010
You know that feeling that you have “a radio in your head” and some song gets stuck there and you can’t stop hearing it? New research on “no battery” electrical devices at Duke University might someday mean that you really would have a radio in your head.
This article caught my eye in yesterday’s New York Times . Matt Reynolds, an electrical engineering professor at Duke, is working on “self-powered” devices that use the radio waves all around us in the atmosphere to power electrical devices. He has founded a company whose first product is a “beeper” built into a hard hat that can warn the wearer when he is too close to a piece of dangerous construction equipment. The amazing thing about this beeper is it needs no external power source (no battery) because it is powered by radio waves.
Equipment on the job site transmits its location and when a wearer of the beeper-equipped hard hat gets too close, a warning buzzer lets him know to watch out. Since the radio waves that provide power for the device are around all the time and free to anything that can utilize them, this device has perpetual power-no battery change required-ever!
Radio waves are all around us in the atmosphere, produced by radio and tv towers, cell phone transmissions, Wi-Fi transmitters and lots of other sources. Professor Reyonolds research and development allows harvesting of the the power from random waves without impacting those transmitted for a specific use.
Major companies like Intel have expressed an interest in this research and exploitation of “random” waves has already proved that they can power some calculators and clocks, replacing a AAA battery.
Someday, your inability to “get that song out of your head” may be complicated by the fact that a radio wave powered device could actually be implanted in your head.
GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.
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July 15th, 2010
Apple has been taking a beating over problems with the antenna of the new iPhone, and it has been interesting to hear the reasons, the excuses, and the solutions regarding this problem.
The most recent (and our favorite) way to solve the issue involves something dear to my heart-gaffers tape. It seems that much of the problem caused by how you hold the new iPhone can be solved by putting a small piece of gaffers tape over the part of the external antenna where you might normally touch the phone. This keeps your hand from interfering with the antenna transmission. (CBS News video of this solution)
Naturally, we are intrigued by the fashion statement that your choice of gaffers tape to stick on your new $300.00 smart phone would make. Pink for Pink. Neon green for Al Green, and, of course, black for Steve Jobs.
I was pretty excited about this potential new market, until I realized that a single roll of gaffers tape would be enough to handle every iPhone in North America.
GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands. Got an iPhone 4. How did you fix yours?
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July 7th, 2010
By the time you reach my age, changing batteries in the remote control (or anything else) usually starts with a search for my reading glasses. If I can put the batteries in the wrong way, I will.
Microsoft (go figure?) has come up with a really elegant and practical solution for this problem. They have designed a battery holder that has both a positive and a negative terminal. This means that no matter how the battery is oriented, it will still work. Genius.
All these combinations are possible
By using this
Microsoft’s Instaload system is compatible with AA, AAA, C, D and CR123 (all the major battery types used in multiples) and it will require only a minor redesign by any manufacturer of a battery powered device that wants to integrate it.
Surprisingly, Microsoft is making this design available under a royalty free license so that any manufacturer can adopt it.
Maybe Microsoft has finally come up with a winner.
GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands. Seen a good idea lately? Share it with us.
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July 6th, 2010
One of the best things about selling on the internet is how easy it is to keep up with your competition. I spend a few minutes every day putting key words and phrases into major search engines to make sure that our products perform well. I always take a little time to take stock of others who sell what we sell while I’m at it.
I never cease to be amazed that a company will pay for an online add and then link the ad to a web page that has nothing to do with the product being advertised. The ad link simply takes you to a “generic” home page for the company and then you must navigate the site to locate what you originally were searching for. After a couple of clicks you give up and go back to the original search page ready to click on some other ad.
An ad served up by a keyword search should take the searcher to a landing page that is specifically about the product for which they are searching. Anything else is simply throwing the ad budget away. You can’t necessarily control what pages Google or Yahoo will serve up in the free listings for search, but you can control the page that links to your ad.
Before spending any more money on keyword driven advertising, make sure that you serve up information relevant to what is being searched for. Dedicated landing pages are what keyword ads are all about.
GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.
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June 15th, 2010
June 12 has come and gone and as of last Saturday, the new FCC law regarding wireless microphones operating in the 700 MHz frequency range is now in effect. This means that anyone using a wireless device (microphone, in ear monitoring system, wireless instrument) operating in this reallocated frequency range is now an outlaw.
Thousands of churches, schools and entertainment venues have not yet replaced their 700 MHz equipment and may think that they don’t have to. The common sentiment seems to be that the FCC doesn’t have the capacity to monitor local use all over the country, so individual users aren’t likely to be found out.
The point that these scofflaws are overlooking is that there is someone with much greater interest in their wireless mic use than the FCC and this will make enforcing the new law a whole lot easier.
The major telecommunications companies that paid billions for the right to exclusive use of this spectrum are the ones that are going to make the law work. They can simply report trespassers to the FCC and then stand back and let the government do the dirty work.
Since companies like AT&T and Verizon have nationwide presence in thousands of communities, they will be able to quickly identify those users who operate now illegal 700MHz devices and force the FCC to take action. Since the auction price was so high, those who now control access to this part of the broadcast spectrum will probably show little patience with those who don’t upgrade and replace their equipment.
Fines will be steep, particularly since the FCC can make a case that unauthorized use of these devices can potentially endanger the public. One of the uses for the reallocated spectrum is for public safety broadcasts and wireless devices that potentially interfere with that sort of communication will have serious consequences.
GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands. More information about this subject is at wirelessmic.net.
Tags: Pro Sound
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May 14th, 2010
Duct tape has moved into prime time recently, thanks to some shows on the popular television program Mythbusters. The Mythbusters are testing the limits of duct tape strength by doing things like taping a car to a pole (who hasn’t wanted to do that at least once?) .
Their most recent adventure is building a duct tape bridge, a potentially death defying project. The episode aired May 12 and you can watch it online.
While it’s unlikely that any viewer would actually build a duct tape bridge fifty feet up in the air (it took over 200 rolls of tape), this high profile promotion of the strength of duct tape might lead someone to take on a less challenging but possibly just as dangerous project.
One of the many things that the show fails to point out is that there are many different strengths of duct tape and some of the tapes most easily obtained are the ones with the least strength (and the lowest cost). Failure to understand what these specifications related to strength mean could make a project like one you see on television turn out with very different results if you do it yourself with the wrong tape.
As long time sellers of duct tape (25 years and counting), we are always happy to see this lowly product get good publicity. We don’t, however, believe that all publicity is good publicity. It’s one thing to make a prom dress from duct tape and quote another to trust your safety to a product you know only generically as “duct tape”.
This Mythbusters episode has generated some interesting discussion in the physics community (real science!) about duct tape. If you’re interested in following up, click here.
If you’re interested in the different specifications that are used to measure and compare duct tapes, take a look at this.
GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands. Bringing duct tape to the masses since 1986!
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May 12th, 2010
I got a “cold” call for a web developer yesterday who wanted to know if my company had a website. I’m not sure exactly what struck me as funny about the call, but asking if a business has a web site seemed sort of like asking if business had a telephone. It seem inconceivable that there are still viable businesses that don’t have a web presence.
The real point I am hoping to make here is it seems almost as odd to me that a business might have only one web site. We’ve got about twenty, and some days that hardly seems like enough.
With the cost of domain registration below $10 and offers left and right for “free” hosting, there is no reason to limit the way potential customers might stumble across your company.
Our strategy has been to take the different names of the products we sell and simply add the prefix “buy” in front of the name. For example, we sell tape at buytape.com, batteries at buybattery.com, etc., but both domains link back to our primary domain.
Even with the scarcity of good domain names, combining something you sell or do with a “call to action” prefix or suffix can often generate a memorable domain name that is still unclaimed. A search at any number of domain registration websites can quickly help you define this technique.
A small but informative site that deals with only one component of your business can link back to your primary site in a way that leads prospects to where you would like them to end up.
These specialized content sites are very attractive to search engines as well, so you might be able to gain an advantage over your competition by addressing a very narrow niche.
Next time someone asks you if your business has a website, tell them “No, we don’t have a website. We’ve got a dozen!”.
GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands. Got a good web development strategy? Share it with us.
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April 29th, 2010
The ongoing discussion regarding the FCC’s new ruling on wireless mic frequencies seems to have left out a really important group of products and users that are impacted by this ruling.
Wireless intercom, ” in ear” wireless monitors (IEM,s), wireless instrument transmitters and IFB’s (interupptable feedback units), all have been designed and marketed for operation in the 800 MHz frequency range. They will all be impacted and will have to be replaced, even though they are not specifically listed in the FCC ruling, if they transmit on the newly restricted frequencies.
The technology that makes UHF wireless mics possible has found lots of other uses within the entertainment production industry. The stage performer with a wireless mic in hand is likely to also be wearing a set of wireless in-ear monitors which may well be also operating in the 800MHz range. The same goes for a guitar player using a wireless rig. He may well have a wireless mic, in-ear monitors and a wireless instrument transmitter in use all at the same time.
Wireless intercom has allowed technicians to roam production spaces without being tethered to a cable. The most popular systems now in use operate in the same frequency range as wireless microphones.
Finally IFB’s (the small ear pieces you see in a television anchor’s ear) are also impacted. These devices allow the director or producer to speak directly to on-air talent. In order to allow the weatherman to move about the tv set freely, these devices need to be wireless.
If you use any of these devices, you’ll need to check the frequencies (it should be stamped directly on the transmitter and receiver). You may well be replacing more than just your wireless mics.
GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands. Join our discussion on wireless mic issues here.
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April 8th, 2010
This week’s decision by a federal appeals court that said that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has no power to regulate how large internet service providers manage networks has got me rethinking my opinion about net neutrality.
Net neutrality is the concept that says all traffic should move across the internet at the same speed and that those who actually own the networks (the large telcom companies in most cases) should not be able to favor one sort of traffic over another . The internet service providers in this case (AT&T and Comcast) argued that they should be able to slow down the movement of large files when network speed was impeded. The court agreed with them, essentially telling the FCC that it had no power to regulate the internet.
Now, I’m no fan of large telecom companies (particularly AT&T) but I have to admit that their argument resonates with me. Those who argued (unsuccessfully) that the federal government should exercise control over data movement are ignoring a long standing precedent related to one of the most highly regulated infrastructures in the country.
I’m talking about highways.
I used to own a fleet of trucks and once a year I dutifully wrote a really big check to register my vehicles with the state dept. of transportation. The cost of registering each vehicle was based on its weight, the theory being “the bigger the truck the more wear and tear there is to highways and bridges”. I paid another tax every time I bought fuel-larger trucks burned more diesel fuel and thus paid more of a tax called “highway use”.
The FCC’s argument seemed to say that the telecoms should not be able to do something that federal and state government had been doing for decades.
It would seem that this argument deserves consideration in the net neutrality discussion. The government does not actually own the internet infrastructure, but the argument still is relevant. Those who make the most of the internet-transferring the largest files and the most data-would be charged the most.
The owners of the internet infrastructure don’t want to regulate what is actually being transmitted. What they really want to be able to do is charge more to those who use their infrastructure the most.
It’s an argument worth considering.
GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.
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