Complete

Domain Name Registrars

Description & Info: 

New option, new registrar reselling through Drak.net's provider: http://www.domainspricedright.com/ Nope, bad:

This afternoon, WildWest Domains (GoDaddy) refused to cancel us at the end of our billing period for the services in June, and instead canceled as of that very moment. "Domains Priced Right" is GoDaddy. It's their reseller account that they merge people into after their reseller account is "abandoned".

Apparently, they were not all that enthusiastic regarding the reason we were leaving.

It was quite an...ah... enlightening conversation. :)

No, I think it was vindictive - We paid $229.00 for the super reseller thingy a year, so they kept $40 of the money we directly paid them and nuked the service early. Then we got around $100 a month in commission because we had quite a number of folks on there, and we priced it pretty low since that was the purpose of getting the Interface, and they'll keep that couple of hundred dollars as well.

Yeppers, all in all, pretty unethical, but not unexpected considering their reputation. They're a hard sell, shove it down your throat, our way or the highway kind of company, and it's pretty well known that ceasing to do business with them is not really something that they like.

So, $250 lost, lesson learned, and I know what registrar I won't recommend to anyone. :)

Current domain name registrar:

1&1 ~$6/year but I don't think they extend a year when you transfer in? In any case, the price is to draw people in and get them to buy cheap, but terrible, hosting services. Just doesn't seem sustainable...

Best Bets

From going through the "list of ICANN accredited registrars" in alphabetical order:

  • BlueRazor ~$7.25 -- they don't do bulk management/discounts at this time
  • Second Tier from ICANN list:
    • FoxEdge.com ~$7
    • Answerable - tried, terrible control panel, ~$6.99 (looks like a reseller)

Note: tons on the iCANN list are fronts for snapdomains and Namescout.

Other Options

Investigated and Unsuitable

  • GKG.net - no services whatsoever, forwarding or even assigning DNS records costs extra. "Host elsewhere" is allegedly free, so this may be an option for VPS hosted sites where we manage the nameserver.
  • ResellOne (Everyone's Internet) ~$6.50 -- put down a huge deposit to get that rate, and their interface, the technology on their own site, was so bad I wouldn't trust them with a dime.

Tried and Evil

  • Active-Domain
  • Getting evil: DomainSite.com

Do it ourselves

  1. Figure out what's involved
  2. Get ICANN accredited
  3. Promote the development of open source registrar software
Author(s): 
by Benjamin Melançon
Posted on Fri, 2007-01-19 14:12
in

Allow people to upload user pictures during registration

Key words and phrases: 
Upload user picture during registration add image upload to new user form image picture user picture registration Drupal user picture on registration user picture upload Drupal upload picture registration form register with avatar
Description & Info: 

Well that's annoying.

Spend a good chunk of time creating a module to address a need, return to the thread that's been discussing it since 2006 June to post your efforts and discover it's just been updated to report that the module has been around since 2007 November.

by Benjamin Melançon
Posted on Fri, 2008-09-05 08:35
in

4GB SD card in a Nikon D50 does not work

Key words and phrases: 
Nikon D50 secure digital card CHA
Description & Info: 

"THIS CARD CANNOT BE USED"

I cursed the card that I picked up cheap at instead of my camera

apologies to Taiwan... the 4GB SD card (Secure Digital High Capacity Memory Card) from Taiwan, and more recently Abacus 24-7 didn't work 'cause the Nikon D50 only accepts up to 2GB. Blast.

by Benjamin Melançon
Posted on Tue, 2008-09-02 18:08
in

Print a full Drupal database table for debugging a site

Key words and phrases: 
drupal function show database table
Description & Info: 

To display an entire database table from your Drupal site's DB, this script (while quite un-Drupal) got me there quickly:

http://drupal.org/node/45361

Nancy W. did a whole far more Drupalish rewrite of it – http://drupal.org/node/205347 – and included it in her site documentation module.

by Benjamin Melançon
Posted on Thu, 2008-08-21 06:10
in

Switch users in Drupal without logging out for development

Key words and phrases: 
drupal user switcher drupal user quick change impersonate masquerade Drupal fake user role
Description & Info: 

Ways to switch users in a Drupal site without logging out:

http://drupal.org/project/masquerade

http://drupal.org/project/impersonate

From code, not for development:
Safely Impersonating Another User
http://drupal.org/node/218104

by Benjamin Melançon
Posted on Fri, 2008-08-15 00:07
in

Panels2 and Organic Groups

Key words and phrases: 
panels2 panels 2 drupal organic groups og OG config configuration setup set up how to configure module
Description & Info: 

So you want to use drupal's Organic Groups module and Panels2 because you've heard through the grapevine that really slick and useful things can be done with the combo..

Well, here's what one of the experts has to say about it --> http://www.tejasa.com/node/160

highly recommended and very useful...

do it!

Where in the theme are the tabs printed / giving tabs to admins only

Key words and phrases: 
Drupal tabs local tasks where printed by theme? phptemplate_variables page phptemplate node page tabs give tabs to admins only
Description & Info: 

On giving View, Edit, Revision, etc. tabs to administrators only.

In Drupal, tabs are not printed by the node, but by the page. On the one hand, since views and administrative pages and anything else you can think of can have tabs, this makes sense. But on the other hand every node can have

by Benjamin Melançon
Posted on Thu, 2008-08-14 06:06
in

Open external URLs in a new window

Key words and phrases: 
open external URL in new window or tab external link check
Description & Info: 

Personally and professionally I think links should open in the same tab, but some clients insist on opening external links in new tabs.

<?php
/**
* Override theme_menu_item_link
* http://api.drupal.org/api/function/theme_menu_item_link/5
*/
function phptemplate_menu_item_link($item, $link_item) {
// make external links open in new windows

Harry Slaughter joins WorkHabit

Harry Slaughter of DevBee (in fact, all of DevBee) announces he's going full time with WorkHabit. I've liked following him blog about Drupal and web work and I hope to see him help WorkHabit follow through on some of their more ambitious announced contributions to the open source community... I can identify with that!

by Benjamin Melançon
Posted on Sun, 2008-08-10 00:11
in