Monday, 26 October 2009

Registering a Slovenian (.si) domain name

When setting up a Slovenian (.si) domain name, you can check the DNS setup with this tool on
zrd.arnes.si/dnstool/index-en.html , the slovenian NIC.

When working correctly, the results should be:

DNS PREDELEGATION PROCEDURE:


-------------------------
Automatically is being checked:

  • domain name registration
  • number of NS records
  • values in SOA record
  • consistency of SOA and NS records
  • authority of given nameservers
  • activity of email address in SOA record



DNS checking is based on following standards and recommendations:



Lines in report that start with:


  • OK: are messages about successful tests
  • INFO: are informative messages
  • WARN: are messages about potentially problematic settings
  • ERROR: are error messages



ERROR: line is usually followed by a group of INFO: lines that describe possible reasons for errors.



Note: Messages describing errors can be repeated in predelegation process
if checkings are performed in different phases of the process.



If you notice domain name repeatedly in error messages, for example:


INFO: Primary MX record for domain.si: 10 mail.domain.si.domain.si


this means you forgot to put an '.' at the end of the record, which results in default addition of local domain.



Whole procedure and possible error reasons can be found below.

For additional information about domain delegation, please contact your registrar.





WARN: Domain name xxxx.si already has following DNS records:


xxx.si. 86400 IN NS ns1.xxx.com.
xxx.si. 86400 IN NS ns2.xxx.com.

INFO: Testing if domain name pocenileti.si is registered
OK: Domain pocenileti.si is registered


INFO: Checking SOA record for pocenileti.si on ns3.vuelosbaratos.net
INFO: SOA record for pocenileti.si on ns3.vuelosbaratos.net:
xxx.si ; domain
xxx.xxx.ie ; email
604800 ; expire
10800 ; minimum
ns1.xxx.net ; origin
10800 ; refresh
3600 ; retry
2009102601 ; serial
OK: SOA zapis za pocenileti.si na domenskem strežniku xxx.si obstaja


INFO: Checking NS records for pocenileti.si on ns3.xxx.net

INFO: NS records for xxx.si on ns3.xxx.net are:
ns1.xxx.net, ns3.xx.net
INFO: Computer ns3.xxx.net has IP numbers: 85.xxx.3.133
INFO: Computer ns1.xxx.net has IP numbers: 86.xxx.98.194
OK: NS records are OK


INFO: Checking values in SOA record

INFO: Primary nameserver change ns3.xxx.net -> ns1.xxx.net
WARN: Refresh time (10800) is not in the zone of recommended values [28800-86400]
WARN: Minimum TTL time (10800) is not in the zone of recommended values [86400-432000]
OK: SOA record is OK


INFO: Checking if email in SOA record is active

INFO: MX record xxx.ie with preference 20 on fallback001.xxx-concepts.nl
INFO: MX record xxx.ie with preference 10 on mail.xxxx.ie
INFO: MX record xxx.ie with preference 30 on fallback002.xxx-concepts.nl
INFO: Primary MX record for xxx.ie: 10 mail.xxx.ie
OK: Email address xxx@xxx.ie on 65.182.xxx.78 is probably active.


INFO: Checking consistency of NS and SOA records

OK: NS records for xxx.si on 85.xxx.3.133(ns3.xxx.net) and ns1.xxx.net(86.109.98.194) are the same
OK: SOA records for xxx.si on 85.xxx.3.133(ns3.xxx.net) and ns1.xxx.net(86.109.98.194) are the same
OK: NS and SOA records are the same on all nameservers
OK: Nameservers for xxx.si on 86.xxx.98.194 are the same as nameservers in registry.


THE END OF PREDELEGATION DNS CHECK FOR DOMAIN NAME pocenileti.si



OK: Domena xxx.si ustreza kriterijem za vpis v DNS.

Thursday, 22 October 2009

Namecheap downtime

During the maintenance communication with the registry will be unavailable affecting new registrations, renewals, and transfers.

Starting at 6 PM PT on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 until Saturday, October 24th at 2 AM PT, namecheap will be conducting maintenance on our database and datacenter. As a result communication with the registry will be unavailable affecting new registrations, renewals, and transfers.

The following services will not be affected and will continue to be fully operational:

- DNS will resolve normally - although operational through this downtime, any changes to DNS settings may be delayed intermittently for a period of up to 24 hours from the start of the maintenance period
- All web hosting services will work normally
- Email will send and receive normally
- Email and URL forwarding will operate normally

Namecheap anticipate the maintenance will only last up to eight hours.

Wednesday, 16 September 2009

Calculating Pagerank with matricies



Google pagerank is calculated as a function of how many pages link to you, and how many pages link to the pages that link to the pages that link to you, and so on.

Evidence suggests that this pagerank is calculated by google using Matrix calculations, not least, because it would be much faster to calculate.

Here is how it is done.

Imagine six web pages, that interlink as shown
(See image Left)

From this, we create a 6x6 matrix, where the rows represent pages, and the columns represent links to other pages.

A "Link" is a Matrix cell in the format 1/x where x is the total number of out-links from that page. So 1/2 means that there are 2 out-links.


This is the Matrix shown in Fractions (above). This needs to be converted to decimals, so I can feed it into Wolfram alpha for the calculations:
{{0,0.5,0.5,0,0,0},
{0,0,0,0,0,0},
{0.33,0.33,0,0,0.33,0},
{0,0,0,0,0.5,0.5},
{0,0,0,0.5,0,0.5},
{0,0,0,1,0,0}}

To calculate the pagerank, we need to pre-multiply it by a matrix {1,1,1,1,1,1} known as the Pagerank Vector.




This then yields the result:



Which shows, in relative importance, which page would be deemed most important, in this case "1.5" which is Page 4.

Wednesday, 2 September 2009

Namecheap affiliate program

Namecheap's new affiliate program

And here's their prices:

biz $9.69/yr
bz $28.88/yr
ca $15.95/yr
cc $28.88/yr
cm $104.99/yr
cn $28.88/yr
co.uk $8.88/yr
com $9.69/yr
com.cn $28.88/yr
de $17.88/yr
eu $11.44/yr
in $21.00/yr
info $2.98/yr
me $21.98/yr
mobi $7.99/yr
net $9.69/yr
net.cn $28.88/yr
nu $28.88/yr
org $9.69/yr
org.cn $28.88/yr
org.uk $8.88/yr
tv $17.99/yr
us $8.88/yr
ws $28.88/yr

Tuesday, 4 August 2009

Price comparison for .gr (Greek) domain names

Shopping around for a .GR (Greek) domain name, I came up with the following prices

Papaki.gr - 20 Euros / 2 Years
Pointer.gr - 17 euros / 2 years
dnhost.gr - 17.85 euros / 2 years
domains.gr - 23.68 euros / 2 years
hyperhosting.gr - 19.04 euros / 2 years
aws.gr - 20 euros / 2 years
EuroDNS - 35 Euros / 2 years

The two cheapest, Pointer.gr and dnhost.gr don't have an english version, however, many common words are in english, but to be honest, I prefer to pay an extra 2 euros, to be more comfortable that I don't have to rely on Google Translate to deal with tech. Support.

A few second level domains are emerging in Greece, such as the common .com.gr, .net.gr, .org.gr, and the less common .co.gr, and the newly promoted .aws.gr

In Greece, the Greek alphabet is used rather than the latin alphabet, so IDN domains are rising in popularity, but it is still possible to transliterate words from Greek to Latin.

Thursday, 23 July 2009

Free SMS to the Isle of Man


FreebieSMS.IM
Free SMS to the Isle of Man

This site allows people to send free SMS messages to the Isle of Man's Manx Telecom network, and every other UK network, for Irish mobile phone networks please click the link above.

If you want to want to put this on your own website, we also have an Affiliate Program

Supporting React OS

React OS, is a alpha-stage Operating System designed to become an open-source equivalent of the Windows Operating system.

Open Merchant Account Ltd, the company behind Free Name Servers, is a proud sponsor of their development efforts.

Currently FreeNameServers.co.uk is hosted on a Windows Machine with a Linux DNS back-end. But it would be hoped to move the entire platform to Linux, to save on hosting Fees. Since the platform relies heavily on the .NET platform, and other Microsoft only technologies, such as SQL server.

It is hoped, that in the future ReactOS will be the solution to our hosting platform, and provide the cheap scalability that is required for today's websites.

We urge other companies to follow suit, and provide similar donations to React OS.