It was a Tuesday morning. A gorgeous day in September in New York City. I had an appointment in Manhattan at 10am. Every Tuesday I was seeing a therapist. I was needing someone to talk out my problems with and seek unbiased advice. I was 31 years old and my life was hectic. I had reached a boiling point and my friends and family around me asked that I do something about it. So I sought out therapy. Long term it wasn’t for me and eventually I had resolved my issues but that’s for another story.

My alarm had awoken me. It was very average that day. I showered quick, got dressed, brushed my teeth, and headed toward the subway. Living in Brooklyn and working in Manhattan meant a nearly daily commute of almost an hour each way. In NYC that’s common and normal. I used the time on the train wisely and read books or the newspaper. Sometimes I would listen to music. I even ate on the train. I was never bored. I kept myself occupied.

Delays are common too. NY’ers are immune to hour waits while whatever else is going on is resolved. Anything from police action to sickness can result in long waiting periods. So you must be prepared to be patient. I’m admittedly an impatient person but I’ve grown accustomed to train delays. On this day the delay was different.

I was riding the B train which travels from Coney Island in Brooklyn through Manhattan which was my destination. It stops frequently. I was enjoying my ride but I remember feeling alert. I was anticipating my therapy session and considering how I felt about the last week. When you go to therapy you can’t just walk in without some expectation of what you want to discuss. At $120 an hour you made sure not a minute was wasted.

The train was coming close to leaving Brooklyn. The B train travels at first above ground and then burrows into downtown Brooklyn. As it reaches the river it escalates over the Manhattan Bridge. An ascension into a mecca of building. It’s normally a view I don’t take for granted. I enjoy skyscrapers immensely.

I was born in Minnesota but my fathers side of the family were all born in Brooklyn. My grandparents, uncles, and aunts from that side of the family were almost all in Brooklyn. I had spent entire summers in Brooklyn and it was amazing. I would be taken on tourist rides into Manhattan by my uncles frequently. I also have a single memory when I must have been 4 or 5 and my grandfather took me to the World Trade Center. It was magnificent. Even as a very small child the wonder of these buildings were awe inspiring. They literally reached into the clouds. Standing at their base made one feel the power of humanity. You felt vertigo peering up so far that you almost had to bend over backwards. Few native New Yorkers really appreciated these marvelous achievements. They were for many decades the tallest buildings in the world. And there wasn’t just one. There was two of them.

The Twin Towers. The World Trade Centers. They represented a great deal to me. They represented New York, a memory with my grandfather, and a deep desire to achieve. In a way the WTC inspired me to be more. Even before September 11th I had deep emotional attachments to these structures.

So when I turned 18 and had no direction in my life I made a bold move. I went from St. Paul, Minnesota to New York City. It was not easy. But turning into a man I don’t think ever is. I was on my own for the most part. While I did get some family help early on I was the type of person to want independence. I never wanted to rely on others. Within months I had friends and was working low paying jobs. The first place I looked for a job was inside the World Trade Center. To me it was where I wanted to be. It was the reason I was in NY. I knew there was something there for me.

My work experience wasn’t grand. I had worked at low-end jobs like Taco Bell and a car wash. I had some other restaurant experience too but at 18 you just want a job that pays. Minimum was around $4.25 an hour. So anything above that was great. I applied at many places but nothing really panned out. I was like other young people with few skills. I remember feeling low. Sitting in parks in the afternoon and just walking around without a real clue. But during that time I felt like an explorer. I had this immense city to travel. Every building I stepped into was fantastic. The architecture was grand.

Everyone knows that fast food is the last place you want to work. But after 2 weeks of searching I felt that I had no choice. I knew I could quickly snap up a job hustling burgers if it came down to it. Eventually the decision became clear. A job was more important than my pride. I had seen a very large sign right next to the World Trade Center. It was in a Burger King. So as a shy apprehensive 18 year old skinny white boy from Minnesota I stepped in and became a New Yorker. This job unlike any other shaped my life. It was the worst job I had ever had. It was the best learning experience I could ever get. I had no plans for college and while I had considered it. I never had the support or means to go forward with it. I was at the age of 17 responsible for myself. Who was going to help me? No one.

Working at this Burger King meant 5 days a week of traveling into Manhattan. It meant every day viewing the wonders of the city. The rich business men were aspiring. Who didn’t want to be rich in the 80s? I was miserable and poor. I enjoyed aspects of my job but it was probably the conflicts that taught me most. I was a good worker and quickly rose to management. This didn’t please many who had been working there for much longer than I. But I had ambition and drive. I had the desire for power and the motivation to succeed. Yes it was Burger King but I had stumbled into one of the most successful corporate Burger Kings in the world. It was corporate owned. A flagship store that was often used to test new products. The CEO of BK would stop in and see how things were doing. It was definitely a place to launch a career.

You might feel at this point that I’m giving you too much information. That I’m going off topic. But I’m pointing out my emotional attachment and history to the WTC. It was a center focal point for an important chapter in my life. To this day I can tear up with thoughts of those towers. Of times with friends and growing into my own. Of family like my Uncle Henry who is now passed but took me as a teen into the Trade Center for a view from the observation deck. And my Uncle Robert who loved me and spent a lot of time with me. He took me around like an everyday tourist as I glowed walking between skyscrapers as if they were part of the Grand Canyon.

I can only speak for myself and how the WTC inspired me. But from speaking personally with many who move to NY they had similar feelings. Ironically it was the native NY born citizens that didn’t even seem to notice how great their city truly was. I knew many young people who moved to NY that just loved the city and what it had to offer.

So back to the day of September 11th 2001. So far an uneventful morning and the weather was wonderful. No humidity and not a cloud in the sky. Temperature was great that day.

The B train was finally at the last couple stops in Brooklyn and would soon ascend over the bridge and then descend into a Manhattan tunnel. But something wasn’t going well that morning. The train was stalled. It was taking a very long time to move. We had left the last Brooklyn stop and we should have been over the bridge 20 minutes ago. Not completely unusual for a NYC train but what was unusual was the announcement from the conductor which was something like this “Sorry, we are having some delays. Apparently a plane has hit the World Trade Center and there is a fire.” I remember his voice even now. It was monotone and matter of fact. Almost annoyed even. But I was struck at the oddity of the message itself. There quick words told almost nothing yet said a great deal. A plane had hit the WTC?

It was only a few minutes more that we crawled up the bridge into the morning light to finally see what he was talking about. You can see a fire burning at the top. We had no other information from the conductor and the train would stop and go for another 10-15 minutes. During this time most had gone back to reading their newspapers and drinking their coffee. New Yorkers are a hard bunch to captivate. But my attention didn’t falter. I could not look away. I was perplexed at the site. My first instinct told me this was no accident.

Most in NY were well aware of the dangers of terrorists. We knew that the WTC was attacked in 1993 by Al Qaeda. And while the rest of America ignored Middle East policy the NY population which consisted of global citizens had a firm grasp that tensions were boiling. That America was a target especially NY. An attack wasn’t just probable. It was imminent. So while I watched the Tower burn this was in my mind. I recalled one name and it was Bin Laden. A man at the top of the FBI Most Wanted list.

But I watched and I watched. Minutes passed and the train barely moved. I’d look around stunned that this fire didn’t catch the attention of anyone else in my subway car. I had a very good view as I was in a spot on the side of the train facing the towers and right next to a window. Maybe that was why I was the only guy watching. Maybe that’s why after a time I had seen the second plane coming.

It was like a dream these moments. From the corner of my eye it caught my attention. A very obvious passenger jet airliner. Massive and lumbering in the sky. I can still clearly see it rotating back and forth taking careful aim. I remember the thought of trying to see inside the windows of the plane to catch a glimpse of a person. I could swear I saw shadows but even now I think it might have been my imagination. I had a good few seconds to watch the next horror unfold. It was obvious. This plane was headed toward the second tower. It was aiming and veering. I lifted myself off the seat and these few seconds felt like eternity. This was the moment my life changed.

In an instant it had hit the second tower. I had expected it to crash through and see debris or the signs of a plane coming out the other side. However it disintegrated. It turned into dust right in front of me. It became a fireball. My first thought was, “How many people just died. I’ve just seen people die. There was people in there.”. I was fully standing now and I had screamed loudly, “Oh my God, oh my God” and quickly sat down shivering at what I saw. I can’t tell you if I was speaking out loud now but I was stunned and doing the sign of the cross and continually saying “Oh my God” over and over. My mind could not grasp what I had just witnessed.

Now everyone was standing and looking out the window. But I couldn’t. I sat there with my heart racing while I tried to recover my senses. I suddenly realized how scared I was. I was mortified. I had just witnessed something terrible. People were killed. I knew the towers and I knew planes. I know the potential for hundreds to have died if not thousands. People were working and a full plane can carry hundreds alone. No one could have survived that blast. It was instant death for everyone.

I was so scared at that moment. I was counting the dead. I then quickly realized where I was. In NYC, in an attack, and sitting in a train on a bridge open to the sky. An attack against America was here. Airplanes were falling from the sky. The greater NY area has three very close airports. There is Laguardia, JFK and Newark Airport in New Jersey across the river. Planes were not only common they were consistent. It was every couple minutes one would fly over. You can almost always see one or more in the air. Now every plane was a potential missile aimed at the city. And here I was sitting on a bridge to the city. A possible if not likely target if a full scale attack was happening.

I guess I wasn’t the only one to think this way. Because within seconds of the plane crashing the once slow moving train was suddenly speeding over the bridge. As if we suddenly needed to find a fox hole and gain cover. I had no control and we were sitting ducks. I don’t know what I would have done if that train didn’t move. Thankfully it did.

It was only a few stops until I had reached my job. I was very late for my therapist and in light of this second crash I was now concerned with getting to safety. The city was quickly becoming aware that something was going on.

I had exited the train on 14th street and University Ave. I don’t remembering actually getting off. I only remember walking out of the station and seeing the people standing in the streets gawking down University Ave at the World Trade Center. It was a perfect view from this street. Clearly you could see the towers burn.

It was about half a mile to my store. I had owned a video game store for about 6 years on Saint Marks Place. I also had an office on the block where I was publishing a new game magazine and also trying to run some internet upstarts.

I was walking. I can’t recall if it was fast or slow. I felt numb as if in shock. I couldn’t look up at the towers. I was however watching all the reactions of people. Most simply stared up into the sky. The mass of NYU students who have their own stories of that day probably decided to skip class or leave their breakfast table. It was compelling to watch. The world was turning on their TVs.

I have one very clear memory of that walk. It was two young women. Probably NYU students walking, talking, and laughing. Yes they were laughing. They seemed oblivious and uncaring to the situation. I was very angry and I wanted to smash their smiling faces. I realized I had great anger inside me and continued to walk on more briskly to my destination.

When I arrived at my store I had called my friend and co-worker who was schedule to arrive soon anyways. He was on his way. This was before text messaging and cell phones were common. I had picked up the phone and dialed home. No one answered. I had to speak to someone. I called my best friend in Minnesota. He was awake and watching the television. I relayed my story quickly but for some reason I didn’t feel the need for a long conversation. I told him I was okay and that I loved him with a simple “Love you buddy” and hung up.

I dialed home again. No answer.

My co-worker and actually very good friend had arrived. We watched the TV which normally played video games for customers. We spoke frantically discussing how we didn’t know what to do and how best to proceed. NY was quickly under lock-down. They had closed the bridges, stopped the trains, and blocked off the tunnels. The city was under siege. What was the next move? What was the next attack?

We decided to go to the office which was two building down on the second floor. For a few minutes we went to the roof and saw the towers burning. This was so wrong I thought. It was as if my world had collapsed and the apocalypse had begun. We realized it probably wasn’t safe to be on a roof and honestly I didn’t want to watch the towers burn. I was very concerned about my family and my city.

The next couple hours were a blur. Calling people, talking, and in general trying to figure out what all this meant. We had decided to open. Routine seemed to be the only way to continue the day without going mad. What were we to do? There was nowhere to go.

I finally spoke with my wife. She was fine. I told her I was fine. Our children who went to school a few blocks from our home were fine. We told each other how much we loved one another. Once I figured out how I was getting home I’d call her again.

I called back my best friend in Minnesota from my store. He was watching the TV and I wasn’t. So he relayed to me the news. I was telling him what I felt and what was going on. I guess in a weird way I wanted to speak with someone who was safe outside the city. If something terrible was going to happen I knew he’d be okay and be able to relay my story and tell my loved ones what happened to me. He went quiet for a second. He told me that there was nothing but smoke and that he couldn’t see the tower anymore. All he could see was smoke.

Watching the towers burn for nearly two hours you couldn’t avoid the questions. Will the towers fall? Can they stop the fire? Time was passing and without more attacks. Not that it felt safe but it felt like the immediate attack was over.

All he could see was smoke. Words from him that I didn’t grasp. I asked him, “what do you mean”. We were quiet but stayed on the phone. Eventually he said it, “the tower fell, it’s gone”. And in that instant my hopes of this being resolved were crushed. It was without doubt the other tower would fall too. It was smoking and burning terribly. Where was I? What was I doing? What was going on? Questions to this day I can’t answer. Had you asked me the next day I would not have answered. The World Trade Center was gone. I got off the phone.

The day moved on and I was walking between my store and office. I had walked to the corner to see what was happening in the street and to see downtown. My store was officially in Ground Zero territory. Downtown Manhattan was only a few miles away. A long walk, a short bike ride, or a quick hop in a cab. But this day no cabs, no buses, and no trains. Outside I saw a few black GM SUV driving fast toward downtown. Clearly government vehicles. It felt odd. Then I saw them.

Almost like zombies walking grudgingly from the downtown area. They were covered in debris, soot, and dust. You could see that they too had stories to tell. Witnesses each and every one of them. I couldn’t see emotion. Maybe I was too shocked or embarrassed to look into their faces. Too ashamed that I had no way to help anyone. A real feeling of helplessness came over me. I had compassion for all these people and in that moment we were in this together. My fellow New Yorkers and I couldn’t understand why this was happening to us.

The day went on mainly uneventful and shock turned into numbness and eventually I tired. I was listening to news and figuring out how to get back to Brooklyn. I normally closed at 10pm but as soon as a train was running into Brooklyn I knew I had to get home. All the bridges were closed but around 6 or 7 pm they opened up some tunnels for people to train out of the city. In a weird way it was an evacuation. I along with thousands of others were trapped just wanting to escape this nightmare and hug our loved ones.

I finally was able to catch a train that went not far from my home. It was not my usual train but it was close enough. The train was packed with people and I was forced to stand. The sadness and quiet on the train were insurmountable. It was like funeral home. I felt tears on my face. This was certainly a day on which many shed tears.

Some trains when they hit the boroughs are elevated or nick named “El’s”. The train I was on was an El and had left me off about 20 minute walk to my home. It was dusk but enough light to see far away. The weather was still gorgeous. And Brooklyn felt calm and comforting. Most walked quickly out of the car leaving the station to run home. A few of us looked back. I recall this clearly. The feeling of dread of this long day and the view of a burning city. Lower Manhattan was on fire. The smoke drizzling out for miles. I could not smell the burn but nonetheless I imagined I could. It was a powerful vision of destruction that made me feel destitute. I lingered for a moment.

I was tired from the long day and when I did arrive home I was incredibly grateful to be there. I was safe with my family but the days tragedy was unfolding. My neighbors were ready for war. One in particular walked over asking if I needed a gun. I told him we were okay. Many felt that Muslims were to blame and that a battle could break out at any time. To this day I’m amazed that a certain calm was kept. That riots to capture and kill didn’t happen. But I think many were on guard and just waiting for approval or instructions to take action. Instead our mayor Rudy Guliani spoke calmly and provided comforting words. He could have just as easily pointed a finger and called on New York to take action. Instead being a man of confidence and iron will he kept NY sane that day.

That night I was glued to the news on television. Reports of the days events continued. I was nearly on the edge of my seat with every new story. My wife and I broke into tears a number of times. This was tragedy on a scale we could never foresee. I stayed up very late that night as if the news would give me a conclusion. It never did.

The next day I immediately woke up and turned on the news. Reports were coming in and speculation that it was Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were all over the place. The death toll was rising and some speculated 10,000 killed. People were missing. America was scarred. Our politicians were attempting to console and comfort us.

I had found out that my store was in Ground Zero zone and cut off. There was no way to open and get back to normal. But now what was normal? It felt like NYC would never be the same and for me. It never was. The wife and I discussed leaving right away. But it felt wrong and somehow a resignation to defeat if we did. So we made the decision we would be strong and stay.

It was a couple days until my store reopened. It was slow at first but eventually normalized. But the tourists were gone. 20% of my business was gone almost immediately after 9/11. My new game magazine which I only started to publish now had this huge hurdle to face. How could anyone do anything and not think of the 9/11 tragedy? It was all around us now. The new laws, the speculation on new attacks, the added security and the invasion of Afghanistan that was about to unfold. War was upon us.

The days would pass into weeks but things were different for me and my family. I would break into a full sessions of crying without much enticement. I would wake from horrible nightmares of planes falling from the sky and my family attacked. I now flinched when a bird was in the corner of my vision. I was timid. These were signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I tried to move on with my life but I never really did. Within 4 years my business had dropped in half. My magazine after two years of publishing finally failed. Faced with loads of debt, a failing business, and a growing family I enticed the wife to leave NYC. We sold our house and chose Las Vegas as our destination.

I always say that 9/11 changed my life and it was an event that directly effected me. For many 9/11 was something they saw on the news. Something they have an opinion about. It’s often trivialized by those with no understanding of how that day effected so many. How lives were lost, families destroyed, a city ruined, and a nation challenged.

To this day you can trace the current problems of America to that event. It was a catalyst to our changing position in the world. Is America still great? It just doesn’t feel like it is.

I know some will debate the reasons for that day. Some will debate the events themselves. The conspiracies seem to never end. There is finger pointing at every turn. I myself don’t buy into any of it. It was what it appeared to be. A simple plan by terrorists that exceeded their expectations. And even if you’re not mature enough to believe that you can’t deny that a tragedy did occur that morning. That on 9/11 thousands of Americans died. People who were not soldiers. People that were like you and me.

Over the years I had kept my enthusiasm for getting MyBB.com and on occassion would contact BD about the domain. Yet every time they raised their price until it hit $20k last year. Of course that’s when I began to feel it would never be bought by the project.

Years ago I had contact Chris Boulton,the project owner, and asked if I had his permission to negotiate. He had expressed that I could and he was himself very interested in the domain. We had discussed possibly splitting the price.

Well the years did pass and during those years I continued not only to use MyBB software but also run the #1 third party MyBB support and plugin forum MyBBCentral.com. I’ve  always been happy to give my gratitude to MyBB. I also run the #1 most active MyBB forum which is Alexa 6k now and recieves 20k posts per day.

Then in April 2010 I sent another contact to BD. Oddly they would send me these emails telling me 20% off for a limited time only but most I ignored. $16,000 was still way too high. However this time I shot an email back and gave a brief argument about why BD should sell to me. I recieved a call shortly after. It was a BD sales rep and we spoke for about 5 minutes and I laid down my offer and the situation.

Realistically this domain is good for no one except the MyBB Project. Any Google search for MyBB returns all mybb related pages. Their parked page was about travel and junk that I am sure made for low CTR. I just didn’t see how they could produce income. Their #1 end-user buyer was going to be the MyBB Project and it’s a free open-source project. And anyone else buying the domain could not use it commercially for forum software without MyBB sending a UDRP. So it was a stale-mate for them.

After presenting this logic and doing some name dropping (I know a few people) they began to discuss a reasonable mid $x,xxx price. Now that was a possiblity. I was willing to make a substantial donation and I know Chris was willing to fork over some cash too. My idea was the difference could be made up with donations from members.

So I created this thread: http://community.mybb.com/thread-68353.html

And so it began. All over the MyBB world donation links were setup and within a week we had over $2k in donations. The member goal was $3k and Chris and I would make up the difference.

After we had secured a certain amount of funds I had again contacted the sales rep to make a firm offer. It was lower than his initial range but nothing offensive. He accepted. I contacted Chris who held all the Paypal donations. We were given a purchase link and 48 hours till the discount would expire. Chris immediately made the payment. Within days the domain was transferred and as of today Mybboard.net now redirect to MyBB.com.

This is amazing news for the project. No longer is MyBB on a second rate domain. Even MyBB.net or MyBB.org would be better than MyBBoard.net. It was a confusing and lower than acceptable domain. In comparison how many go to SMF.com only to find after a Google search they are simplemachines.org. To compare other projects like VB and IPB do not have their short .com domains. Only phpbb.com does but now so does MyBB.com and it’s even shorter.

The purchase of MyBB.com imho shows the seriousness of the project and the long term goal of being #1.

The server is a dedicated mysql server with 8gb ram and an Intel quad-core processor. It should be more than enough to handle the size of this DB. The HTTP server has no problems at all. On the sql server the load does hit about 5 during peak moments but it’s normally at 2 which is about 50% CPU usage and that’s fine.

During problem times the sql process spikes to 300% wcpu usage (75%+ of cpu). The table locks are ridiculous and I watch in horror as nothing unlocks them including repairs and flush. I was forced to restart mysql every time it locked up.

So I have been looking at solutions, talking with experts, and speaking with mybb team. I have the busiest mybb forum of them all. Some may have larger databases but mine has the most queries with about 250 per second.

It was suggested that my pipe from the http to the mysql server may be the problem. It was a possibility but imho unlikely.

Eventually I decided to try innodb tables for the 2 main tables that have locked up. They are threads table and the users table. All my tables previously were myisam with the exception of sessions. I alter my sessions table to be heap/memory for increased performance.

In order to change to innodb I had to remove fulltext search in admincp. Then alter the tables in phpmyadmin. I had to actually remove the fulltext index from the threads table as it’s used to index the subject field. I changed it from a full-text index to an ordinary b-tree index. The users table required no such alterations and was easy to convert to innodb.

The reason I wanted innodb is because it supports row level locking. Essentially in myisam every time the table is accessed it locks the entire table. You can imagine with 250 queries per second how locks can be a problem causing delays. With innodb only the actual data row is locked.

Lastly I decided to remove the full-text index from the messages column inside the posts table. It was about 350mb alone and since I won’t be using full-text search I don’t believe I’ll need it. I had not converted the posts table to innodb as it’s not actually updated as often as threads or users.

The threads table is updated with every view with this query:
UPDATE mybb_threads SET views = views+1 WHERE tid=xxx;

The users table is updated constantly from the timeonline function of mybb inside class_sessions. I had altered this function but it had little effect at the time. I’ll most likely undo my changes.

Now onto the results of my innodb and full-text alterations.
Previously mysqld was using regularly 200% wcpu.
After changes mysqld is using 25% wcpu.
Previously server load was 2+
Currently after changes load is .2

This is a 1000% increase in performance and I am hoping resolves my problems. I hope my information has served to help others with active MyBB and performance problems.

While many are understandably visibly upset about recent events I think it’s more constructive to consider how to change it. What we need is some obvious regulation on the industry starting with dropped names. ICANN is useless imho as they seem to not have any enforcement power at all. Places like the ICA concern me because they are suppose to be a domainers lobby group but their interest lie with big business instead of average domainers.

Domain drop auction houses like SnapNames and NameJet need to be shut down. I have always considered their “service” to border on criminal and 100% imho unethical. They have been gaming the domain system for years and milking it for millions of dollars. Everything from TM domains to unscrupulous practices and now shill bidding. Feeding off the expired domains is like digging up the dead for organ transplants. Those that previously owned domains never recieve a dime from the millions made from drops. Even if they had the domain for a decade. I see no reason why drop houses should benefit so immensely when a domain is not renewed. The system is flawed. ICANN has done little to nothing to curb the practice. I would deem this similar also to scalping. Drop houses are not registrars and have no place selling domains in the way they do.

I don’t see why anyone even uses their services or why more domainers don’t stand up and cry about the practice being unethical. Oh, that’s right, many domainers have the ethics of a camel. Before you criticize me for that statement realize I been here for many years reading daily the various actions of fellow domainers. The attitude is “just make money” more than anything else. But this might be a reflection of our society more than domaining.

So let’s get back to my statement about being constructive. I have some possible solutions for you to consider.

• 1. All dropped domains sold have to give a percentage to previous whois owner.
• 2. Have a cap on the sale of any domain based on the original registration year. Maybe $100 for each year it was registered as an example.
• 3. Create a regulatory body with enforcement power. ICANN doesn’t seem to have teeth.
• 4. All dropped domain sales are to be sealed bids. This will prevent shill bidding completely as long as it’s regulated well.
• 5. Allow registries (NetSol) more power over drops and auctions.
• 6. Disallow completely the ability to grab drops en masse by any single entity. This would effectively close down existing drop companies.

On the plus side, let’s give some credit to Snapnames for not covering this up and firing the guy before someone external found out.

It made sense especially to the existing base I had at HF. A couple weeks had passed and some crazy antics had occurred. HF was taken down by a defacement and server exploit. Annoyed and rather frustrated I took the site offline for about 3 days. Eventually HF came back to life but not before I recommitted myself to a new forum. Out of that fiasco Support Forums was born.

It’s weeks after launch now and the site is doing very well. I had promoted it on various sites I own and that I am a member of. Currently SF has 1100 members and 19,000 posts. By all standards that’s very good for a 3 week old site.

I hope to continue to see SF grow and that anyone reading this takes the time to give it a visit.

http://www.supportforums.net

Thank you.

I have not found the exact origins of parking or what the very first company was but parking was born from the need of early domainers that were grabbing up hundreds and thousands of dropped domains.  Dropped domains are ones that have expired and while being released into the registry they are picked up very quickly.  The drop market is very lucritive and I will save some of that discussion for another post.

Domainers started to gather hundreds and thousands of domains.  Finding ways to monetize them was a real challenge.  The possibility of maintaining them all as website wasn’t viable.  The idea of letting them sit and not making any money was near sickening.  It was easy to see all the traffic on some domains as people were typing in generic keywords and terms directly into the navigation bar.  So the trick was to minimize effort and maximize profits.  PPC was a growing segment with Google Adsense leading the way. Parking was born.

In it’s essence parking domains is similar to parking your car. You drive it up to the valet and go to the movies while your car just sits around waiting for your return.   A domain owner only needs to create an account at any number of parking companies and then redirect their DNS to them. The rest is normally handled by them.  You do nothing but collect a percentage of revenue.  How much revenue is split from parking company and domain holder varies greatly but some payout as much as 100% (Bodis) and some as low as single digits.

Most professional domainers deep into parking will expend some time into research and finding great keywords or landing pages.  Keywords are the special words they will associate with the advertising.  An example would be superhost.com and using the keyword “hosting“.  This will pull information from a feed.  A feed is provided by the parking companies advertisers based on a number of factors but the set keyword is the main factor.  Now when you view superhost.com you will get ads based on hosting.  They will be relevent results that will attract a click-thru and both parking company and domain owner will get paid.  Somewhere an advertiser has just helped destroy a good domain.

If you have a negative vibe about my attitude with parking you’re right.   I do have serious reservations about the viability and the need for parking pages.  I have concluded that the negative effects of parking are greater than the positives.

First let’s peek at why parking is good.  Domain owners without an ability to develop quickly have a simple and direct method to advertise.   It’s simple and easy.  Parking pages can benefit surfers by redirecting via the ads to relevent results.  Advertisers have an effective method to reach end-users.

But what’s wrong with all that?  The problem is the same as any undeveloped item.  It will never prosper. Domains and the URL system were not created to be monetized in this way.  Surfers are often given a very generic unappealing web page that in-short are just ads.  It’s trickery.  Surfers are unaware they are giving money to the domain owner by clicking what appears to be a link to a relevent page.  Lastly parked domains are often very good domains that if developed would serve the greater good.

This is why parked pages are like billboards on the highway.  They are nothing but ads as you drive on by.  Inherently there is nothing wrong with that but imagine if you will any prime location being used this way.   It is stagnant. It’s ugly.  There is never an opportunity for development to the average joe.  Any highway property is usually worth a great deal.  The most minimal usage for any property is parking or advertising.  Domainers have found a way to do both on the internet. The experience of the internet is greatly diminished by not allowing great keyword domains that obtain amazing traffic to be developed.  Even domainers that park realize development unlocks the greater potential but for the most part but they can’t realize that potential themselves and expect a bounty of sorts to pass on the domain.

We live in a society of capitalists.  There is greed all around us everyday.  The internet for some years felt different. It was a place where the average joe could make a living and start something creative. Now all the good domains are taken and a great portion of them by domainers with no intention of ever developing.  That is a shame.

Parking companies have experienced a decline in recent years as the economy has slipped.  Some are already fearful that parking is near an end as they have minimal leverage with their feed providers to increase revenue for them.  In fact it’s worse than that.  Google is wise enough to know that the lazy parking crowd isn’t going anywhere and they are in a position to have no choice but take cuts in revenue.  Unlike developers that can choose different methods of income the parking domainer has no choices.  Even if moving to different parking companies most use the same feeds.  The only major differences are the landing pages.

There is a sense of a shakedown in the domainer community.  The top echelon of domainers have become rather quiet lately.  Some have stopped blogging completely stating they are short of time and need to focus.  Is there an underlying message that they are losing revenue?  That’s for you to decide.  Next time you visit a parked page.  Don’t click anything except the close browser window button.  Otherwise you’re helping to feed this machine that is threatening to destroy the potential of the internet.

Here was one persons comment:

Think of the web as a big country. Around the country various cities & towns have sprung up. One of the first was the city of COM. Lovely place, one of the oldest cities & people & businesses starting moving in years ago.

As time went on the city started to get pretty crowded especially around the city centre where the first and best houses & commercial premises were leased out. This demand put pressure on supply so that the cost of living and doing business in this dress circle area became higher & higher so people looked for more affordable areas within COM.

Now let’s take one of the most sought after pieces of real estate in the world. MANHATTAN. Anyone from NYC will now agree with me that he is 100% wrong with his analogy.  People can live 30 minutes away and pay a lot less and have more space. Instead they pay the premium to live in the city. The prices in Manhattan have skyrocketed.  Even in today’s market the real estate there fetches a very high premium.

Let’s take another real world example by using historical data on exactly what has happened with the introduction of new TLD’s.

Since the release of every TLD how has CNO actually done? Suprisingly well. I am sure 8 years ago people thought info would take a chunk away. Then came even more extensions. What has changed? Now they want unlimited extensions! So what. There is nothing to indicate COM will falter because of new extensions no matter what the extension is. The only way CNO’s will get hurt if a new method is used instead of URLs.

Here are the only stats I could find at the time of this writing.  If anyone can find better ones please let me know.

http://www.hosterstats.com/

COM Jan 2004 = 25,999,725
NET Jan 2004 = 4,315,306
ORG Jan 2004 = 2,760,196
INFO Jan 2004 = 1,083,688
BIZ Jan 2004 = 912,827

COM Jan 2008 = 71,533,589
NET Jan 2008 = 10,634,627
ORG Jan 2008 = 6,373,060
INFO Jan 2008 = 4,945,475
BIZ Jan 2008 = 1,901,814

Growth Percentages
====================
COM = 275%
NET = 246%
ORG = 230%
INFO = 456%
BIZ = 208%

INFO stats look good except for one thing. The INFO entry cost is extremely low. Also for 4 out of the last 6 months the amount of deletions are greater than the amount of registrations. As you can see on the chart I created that as you extend further away from COM the less percentage of registrations. It’s a nice pyramid imho. We don’t have enough information about MOBI to include it. At these continued rate of increases you should easily see the pattern that COM is going to continue being dominant as it has in the past.

Requirements:
FTP program (more about this later on)
Web Host
Some files you want to upload

This is fairly simple and there are not many necessary components to uploading via FTP. Let’s first begin with your options.

FTP Programs connects your computer to a network disk or drive in which you may upload files there. There are also a variety of FTP programs that you may use as well. If you have Dreamweaver they have a separate guide as to how to use their FTP.
The most commonly used and among the most popular is File Zilla. You can find it here: http://filezilla-project.org/ its open sourced and free as well. You can get it for all platforms and operating systems too. Download the File Zilla Client for all platforms. Run that and install it as you would for any other program. There is NO viruses at all if you download from http://filezilla-project.org/ and this statement can be authenticated by a few ten to hundred thousand people who use this tool.

On the top of the File Zilla manager there is a text box for Host, Username, Password, and Port number. The host should be your site url. It does not include the http://www. part. Just the site and the .com part.
Sometimes webhosts specify a IP address, if that is the case then enter that set of number along with the dots into that area. The Username and Password should be provided by your webhost. The port number is usually 21 but in the case that you do not know, simply don’t enter it, because File Zilla will detect it automatically. Finally press quick connects and you are in.
In order to upload to a server, navigate to the correct folder in which you want the file to appear in and then navigate to where the file exists on your computer. The left navigation is by default your computer and the navigation on the right is your ftp server files. Right click on the file and press upload.
In some cases if you want to upload more than one file you may left click and drag a blue box across the files you want to upload and then right click them to upload.
Also remember that your webhost may specify a log out time after you have been idle for several minutes or so. This is a security measure and very important to protect against people who want to harm their servers. There are many other security measures such as only allowing you to upload around lets say 10 megabytes of data onto their server for around 5 minutes for one IP address at a time. Or in other cases they may specify that you can only upload a file that is less than the size of X megabytes. These are all security measures taken against hackers and users who want to abuse and crash their servers. You may ask your Web Master to change these settings so that you may upload a larger file. Otherwise there is no way to disable this, even using FTP programs. Any other methods would be deemed illegal.

As for other FTP programs the procedure may vary but they will always ask for the same details of Host, Username, and Password.

Filezilla Left to Right Support

If your webhost has Cpanel installed onto it then that opens up many more alternatives as to uploading files. Cpanel comes with its own file manager and a nifty video tutorial of that. They also give you the option of accessing your web disk via your computer as if it was simply any folder on your computer. I have used this in the past and found it very fast and reliable. First click start, and then navigate to My Computer or Computer. (I am currently on a Vista Computer and it’s on the left hand side) On the top of network you should see a bar which says: “Map Network Drive” or something similar to that. Click it. There should be a popup. On the bottom it should say: “Connect to a website that you can use to store your documents and pictures”. Click that. Then choose a custom network location. This would be the FTP part. Hit next and then it should ask you for the location of that network. It gives you a few examples. Its usually, ftp://ftp.yoursite.com and that ought to work fine. Then it asks you if you want to log on with a username or anonymously. You MUST uncheck anonymous and type in your ftp username that was provided to you by your webhost. Finally when you open your new network folder it should prompt you for your password. Type in your password. You can save your password if you are going to access it frequently or it’s a private computer in which no one else has access to.

That is basically how to work a FTP program and upload files. You may tweak and set your ftp to your settings to make it connect automatically or so. However you must be warned that once a file is deleted, it cannot be recovered. This is not your ordinary desktop with the trash bin on it. Once deleted it’s gone. So usually first thing I do is create a back up of everything before I upload and delete.

]]> http://www.vbum.com/2008/09/filezilla-ftp-tutorial/feed/ 0 http://www.vbum.com/2008/09/trying-to-become-an-alcoholic/ http://www.vbum.com/2008/09/trying-to-become-an-alcoholic/#comments Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:12:24 +0000 admin http://www.vbum.com/?p=23 As a stay at home dad it’s at times very boring.  I have done so many things in life and I realize I have never been a drunk.  I have at times been close.  It’s an achievement that has seemed elusive.  There was always more pressing matters like responsibilities of a job or my previous business in New York City.

So how do I start?  Do I just get drunk as frequently as I can?  Do I start drinking for breakfast?  Lately I been into bloody mary’s and boy those are good. Nice and spicy with that nice vegetabe tomato taste.  I really love them.  I am also a fan of Gin and Tonic which I have been steadily drinking for over a decade. It’s what I consider my fallback drink.  Pretty hard to screw it up at just about any establishment.  My preference is Bombay Sapphire gin.

Doesn't that gin look tasty?

I do drink plenty of beer as well.   I used to be a big fan of imported brews like Amstel Light.  However when I moved to Las Vegas somehow it tasted different.  I suspect all the travel the bottles do changes somehow the flavor.  Just a suspicion but I could totally be wrong.  When I arrived the selection was very domestic and there aren’t too many microbrewery’s like NYC.  So I have lowered the quality and was drinking Bud Light. Yes I realize how low-brow that might seem to you.  I tend to agree.  Oddly now that Budweiser has been sold to a European company does that make Budweiser an imported beer?  I do like the new Bud Light Lime.  It’s not bad at all.  But currently my favorite suds of choice is Coors Light.  I blame a local pub for having the coldest damn beer on tap I have ever had.  Makes the beer just so much better. It’s actually frozen a bit on the top when you get it.  It’s simply awesome.  So many bars just don’t have their kegs cold enough and well, I am not from England so warm beer tastes like piss to me.

So back to my original thought.  How do I become an alcoholic?  You have to be thinking “why would you want that?” and well it’s just a simple answer.  I am bored and I like to experience new things.

I personally use Opera and have for many years now. I would love to espouse the greatness of Opera to you but this post is about Chrome.

My first impression was that it’s fast. It’s actually VERY fast. The program does open quickly on my Windows XP SP2. It has tabs which some believe to be originated with Firefox but reality is that Opera has had tabs since version 4. The tabs are on the top and so is a basic set of controls. Overall the designs is simple and it’s actually appealing. There isn’t much to annoy you. One shortfall is extremely limited options. One can’t tell if that’s because this is beta or if Google intends to make this browser simple and effective.

As expected the browser works very well with Gmail and other Google applications. This is sometimes a shortfall for other browsers as many sites write javascript or other specific code to detect Firefox or Internet Explorer.

Another relatively nice feature is a speed dial similar to Opera’s except that the Chrome one detects your favorite pages automatically and adds them. I find that pretty dang convenient. There is also the memory password saver which no browser is complete without one nowadays. A downloads and history section also exist but at the time of this writing it’s not tested.

One thing I did test was memory usage of Chrome. Below is a screenshot of my results. You can do a similar test yourself by opening up all your browsers with the same sites then in Chrome address bar type “about:memory” which will bring up your computers memory usage. Rather handy feature. As you can see from my image. Opera is the least user of ram and keep in mind Opera has a full email client, torrent client, download manager, and irc client.

Overall I am pleased with Chrome especially as a first day release beta. It’s small, sleek, and fast. It will be a great compliment browser to anyone that surfs. I use multiple browsers quite often just to test and now I have a new one added to my arsenal. Congrats to Google on a fine showing.

You can download Chrome here:  http://www.google.com/chrome