That Web Man

Another firm – using the same spam providers as Mustard Design – are now joining in.

Twats!

Yes, these spammers are at it again:

“At Emailmovers we specialise in helping our customers to make more sales. The secret is the way we append extra B2B email addresses to your customer database

“For a limited period we will process one of your lists free and tell you how many named, personal B2B email addresses we could add – all in the correct company formats! It’s an unbeatable offer using our state-of-the-art technology. And the results could amaze you

“It’s quick, simple – and no hidden charges. Promise.

“To get started, just reply to this email or contact me direct on 01723 800034. For more details or a copy of our email append brochure, just Click Here

“With best wishes for better marketing,

“Jim Raine
Senior Email Data Consultant”

Let’s hope their customer lists are opt-in … unlike this bunch of spammers’ one.

Surely a new record? Three spam e-mails already today from Mustard Design Limited, who suggest that “e-Marketing” (i.e. sending UCE):

“builds relationships, loyalty and trust”.

ORLY?

I made the mistake of turning back on an e-mail address that’s used to receive important stuff from a website and lo and behold there’s another Spam from annas@metparties.com – they’ve been spamming various e-mail addresses of mine for years now; clearly Val Ndabai, its founder, isn’t too worried about the source of the e-mails it spams or about the niceties of UCE directives.

They’re now using I-Promoter to send the spams too.

Or spammers.

They say:

“As a leading UK mailing list company, The UK Data Company prides itself on providing targeted mailing list solutions that satisfy the specific mailing list requirements of each individual client.

We specialise in compiling bespoke UK and International mailing lists for accurate and pro-active direct mail marketing, telemarketing, fax and email marketing campaigns.”

Well good for you! Nothing about compiling lists that actually comply with English and EU law then.

So let’s hope that sales@ukdata.biz or simong@ukdata.biz don’t get too much spam themselves. No doubt that spam would also come from other members of the good old DMA.

After all, they claim in one of their recent spams that:

“The UK Data Company is registered with the DMA – List Warranty Register and Data Protection”

I recently had cause to renew some .co.uk domain names that were originally registered a while back with Soho UK. The site associated with those domain names uses the matching .com addresses also registered at the time and moved to another US-based host some time ago.

So the .co.uk renewal rates whilst not too expensive with Soho UK are not as cheap as they could be and all that is needed are simple redirects to the .com sites. It therefore makes sense to transfer the .co.uk domain names to a cheaper registrar.

Now with other registrars/hosts we’ve used for .co.uk domain names, we either ring them up and ask them to set the IPSTAG to another supplier or we do it ourselves through a control panel, in both cases at no cost.

But Soho UK? No:

• CO.UK, .ORG.UK, ME.UK and .LTD.UK can only be transferred by using the Nominet on-line service.There is a charge (currently GBP 11.75) for each domain name.
• You would change an IPSTAG for a domain name if you wanted to transfer control of your domain name to another domain name registrar or Nominet member. If you wish to host your domain name with another hosting company all you need to do is change the nameserver addresses to theirs, just as you would if your domain ended in .com.
• Nominet are the non profit UK Government appointed body which control UK domains. Since 2007 Nominet have been aggressively promoting their on-line website directly to domain owners. Encouraging owners to manage their domain names directly with Nominet. This meens that if you wish to change the IPSTAG or other contact details for your domain name you need to log on to the Registrant Online Services section of the Nominet website. The Nominet website can be found here:www.nic.uk

ORLY?

No. This is what Nominet say:

“If you want to change your registrar, you should first of all contact your current registrar. Your current registrar will be able to make this change for you and it may be at no additional cost…

“If your registrar is unable or unwilling to make this change for you, we can help. You can use this service to move your domain name(s) from your current registrar to another. Please be aware that by using this service it does not cancel any contractual agreement(s) you may have with your current registrar.

“During this process you will be asked for the new registrar’s unique identifier, which is also known as the tag. For example, NOMINET. If you do not know the tag you would like to move your domains to, there will be a search facility to help you find it later on in the process.

“This service will cost you £11.50 including VAT.”

Somewhat different, eh? No aggressive promotion there: more like Soho UK being unwilling for some reason…

Well it had to happen sooner or later. Google has now launched its own web browser, called Chrome.

Having downloaded it earlier today and now used it on a cellular connection, I can say it’s very promising, although it looks a little too stripped down for my liking – I’d also like to be able to change its look as I can presently with both Firefox and Opera.

Its one main benefit over Internet Explorer is that it doesn’t stall and crash as Internet Explorer does with monotonous regularity on both of my Tablet PCs.

Sadly Facebook doesn’t want to know:

You are using an incompatible web browser.

Sorry, we’re not cool enough to support your browser. Please keep it real with one of the following browsers:

• Firefox
• Opera
• Safari
• Microsoft Internet Explorer
• Flock

Ah well.

Well, well. As I reported here, the Number 10 website is a WordPress site. An almighty row has now broken out because their web designers apparently started with a theme written by someone else – as is common with WordPress themes – and despite making the site look completely different to the theme, many people have latched onto the Creative Commons licence requirements and how they should have given an attribution to the original theme designer.

I think that would definitely apply if the site now looked like the original theme, but it doesn’t so just how much of the original work remains? It’s a tricky issue.

Well, well, well.

I’ve been developing some client sites using WordPress for a CMS and its ability to be updated from wherever, whenever. It’s a very mature product now and being so widely used there are a number of developers working on various plug-ins and widgets to extend its functionality.

So yesterday I saw a brief news item about the new website for the Prime Minister – Number10.gov.uk – and immediately thought how much it looked like a WordPress site … and lo and behold it is.

It looks as though my decision to do this sort of thing a couple of years back was a good one and is now something I can pass on as being recommended by the Government!

Oh dearie, dearie me!

The developers of Firefox decided to make a bit of a splash when they release Firefox version 3 by announcing they were going to try to make it into the record books for the largest number of software downloads in 24 hours. To this end, they set up a website at http://www.spreadfirefox.com to announce “Firefox Day” as 17 June 2008.

The first thing that went wrong was that 17 June 2008 starts at different times in different timezones so for those whose 17th started when it was still 16th in San Francisco, they were left wondering where they could download the software until a helpful staffer stated that “Firefox Day” and the record attempt would start at 10.00am PDT (or 6.00pm UK BST).

Now I am not sure what exactly happened at 9.00am PDT – whether people at other browser software providers in the same timezone all started repeatedly hitting F5 on the various Firefox sites, maybe? - but since that time, all the Firefox sites have been reporting errors: too many MySQL connections at the Spread Firefox site and Http/1.1 Service Unavailable errors at the Get Firefox site.

What an unmitigated PR disaster for them!