That Web Man

Talking of domain names, one of the best things about my US-based hosts and the .coms I can register with them is the speed with which I can go from ideas to sites.

I use DreamHost in the States. Even on their cheapest hosting plans, they allow me to register multiple domain names and host multiple sites. Through my control panel, I simply register the domain(s), set up the site hosting and then to make things even easier, have them install WordPress with a new MySQL database. I did this with this site yesterday: start to finish was less than an hour. I also did this with a client web site a few weeks ago: start to finish including a fancy photo lightbox and site banner image was a few hours.

The ‘problem’ comes with .co.uk domain names that take hours to get registered (and also cannot be registered ‘anonymously’ or by proxy) and even longer to get propagated across the Internet.

So yes, I thoroughly recommend DreamHost and all the features that come with it:

Oh and if you click that image and proceed to set up a new account, you can have $50 off a year’s hosting fee if you quote the promo code “THATWEBMAN”.

Instant web presence for anyone. It’s the future and it’s here now.

One thing that surprised me when I chose to set up this blog was the availability of both the .com domain name for such generic terms. thatwebguy.com had already been taken, as had thatwebdesigner.com but I could have had thatwebdesignerbloke.com if I’d wanted it.

Mind you, I was lucky enough to get a couple of released early domain names before: blogged-in.com and blogged-on.com.

I billed a client back in November for some site updates during October and for the renewal of his two domain names (a .com and a .co.uk) together with another year’s web hosting.

This was due for payment a week later…

Now this client has a history of being a slow payer. The company I use to host his domains and site – I am a reseller rather than paying for the necessary infrastructure myself – has to wait for me to pay them too, so they now don’t renew domain names until I have paid, billing me a month before they are due for renewal and these days looking for payment on invoice.

So by today, my invoice was already three weeks overdue for payment and I got an e-mail from the hosting company telling me they’d had an e-mail from him over the weekend as some e-mails to him had bounced. Hardly surprising, given that the .com had expired a week ago and the .co.uk four days ago.

I popped him an e-mail this morning to tell him what was going on and then at 6.00pm tonight got an irate phone call from him demanding I renew them! It was apparently my fault for not reminding him.

I politely pointed out that the invoice states what the payment terms are and gives both cheque and BACS payment details. I also pointed out that the covering e-mail gives a date when payment should be made by, just in case people can’t work out when “today plus seven days” is.

Clients, eh?