Christian Ross

Interesting read on our future and the conflicts in the Middle East

A letter to the President-elect from a Middle East realist

Pretty clear statements on how they feel about our help/influence. What it doesn’t do is instill confidence in our ability to ‘win’ any war over there.

Reconciling your debts, the alternatives.

Who needs cash to pay your bills when you can draw pretty pictures? Classic interaction. Read all the way down.

http://www.27bslash6.com/overdue.html

via Cameron

FireFox tops 20%

In geeky-web related news FireFox, the should-be-your-browser-of-choice, just topped 20% in browser market share worldwide. May not seem like a whole lot but that’s 1/5 users are now browsing happy. This is a good thing in my line of work.

Free coffee

Just scored free coffee from @starbucks for voting. I know that doesn’t sound like much since the entire nation was offered the same opportunity but I actually acquired a decaf Mocha for myself and a Pumpkin Spice Latte for my lady. I tipped the barista nicely and promised a return visit.

Decided to skip out on the free tattoo removal and other voting perks.

Am I a domain squatter?

Note: If you haven’t read my rant on domain squatters, you might want to catch up

Argument reasons FOR me being a domain squatter:

• I made money by selling 4 domains I had owned since 2005.
• I searched the Internet looking for the candidates I thought best suited for them
• I emailed 4 separate businesses with my offer
• I spent 3 years building them into a first place ranking in Google

Reasons AGAINST:

• They were used for a legitimate business/website
• I only made $75 total on the sale of all 4 (this doesn’t really absolve me but it does show that I wasn’t out to price gouge)
• They were set to expire in 10 days and they would have then gone back to the open market
• Within 3 minutes of my emails going out, I received a response and an offer to purchase them all

Your thoughts? Am I a domain squatter or was this a legitimate business transaction?

Also worth following up on, I contacted the person in previous domain squatting post about acquiring said domain and it is not for sale. I suppose that releases him from the lowly level that he was thought of as a domain squatter but it doesn’t release him from the fact that I’d still rather place blame on him than myself. It’s the American way.

Now go vote.

EDIT: It should be noted that the business in question is no longer doing business. The owner passed away over a year ago and I decided against running them out for sale right after the fact. It should also be noted that I am thankful that both Texas and Virginia decided they needed towns named Roanoke. Anyone doing business outside of a town of the same name wouldn’t have had much use for them.