2009 January | The Gremlins Umbrella Authority

Word of the week: Spontaneous

January 29, 2009 | Written by -GRUMBA- | Topic: Word of the Week | Comments (0)

Spontaneous

Most people know what this word means, however for those who do not…
From Wikipedia: “Spontaneous means a self-generated event, typically requiring no outside influence or help.”

This word relates in a serious way to business, or at least MY business. I define being spontaneous as ‘doing something without proper thought and/or due diligence’. That definition makes it sound as though spontaneity cannot in anyway be a good thing. Incorrect.

Being spontaneous is essentially an attribute which allows you to make decisions that are more risky without consideration as to the downsides. It can go wrong, but when it goes right, it usually goes very right.

I previously made a rash statement as such:
“Spontaneity is Life, ergo if you are not spontaneous, you have no life.”

That is is no way intended to offend, because even if you are not aware of it, near everyone is spontaneous some of the time.
I suppose to summarize spontaneity, and its association with greatness I feel I should list:

Spontaneous combustion

Spontaneous generation

Spontaneous human combustion

Spontaneous Music Ensemble

Those statements refer to amazing phenomena. However spontaneity is often confused with idiocy. Dont think you can go out, and make rash decisions here, there, and everywhere. Spontaneity can not be taught.

Website management when out of the country.

January 26, 2009 | Written by -GRUMBA- | Topic: My Views | Comments (4)

I am currently working vigorously on the development of a variety of my domain names, and a few business models. I was considering the growth, and the futures of these websites, and it dawned on me that in two months I am leaving the country. I will be away from home for 4 months, and although I will have my laptop I am unsure if/how much access I will have to the Internet.

Now many of my websites are run manually, not because I am too lazy to automate them, but rather because some features can NOT be automated. One of my websites is a business through which I offer a service. The service is of high quality because it is manual, and because time is invested in the product which the customer receives. Another requires weekly if not daily updating with new content. On top of this there is the fact that bugs are inevitable. If a bug appears what will my visitors do..?

Now I am going around the world. I intend to be extremely busy: sight seeing; thrill seeking; travelling; drinking; If I do get any spare time: in evenings; on flights; or on the train; then I will most likely be sleeping. My time will be extremely limited, and to be honest given the cost of such a trip, I want to enjoy every minute of it doing something ‘different’.

My thinking is as follows: if my websites are popular and busy by the time I leave, then clearly it would be worthwhile paying someone to maintain them for me.
If they are not, do I simply leave them, let them rot, and then work on them again when I return, or do I again pay someone to maintain them.

I am venturing into marketing, and advertising websites. I have always felt that I have a real knack for website development. I thus have no interest in spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars advertising my websites, just to leave them for four months.
This I feel is an interesting problem, and one which I am sure more than likely affects many of us. If you run a multi billion dollar corporation, it is easy, and financially viable to employ someone to do your job in such a situation. Sadly however I do not.. yet.

I was thinking that you could base a business model in itself around offering support services to businesses whilst staff are on hiatus and/or holiday. Im sure such businesses do exist, and are successful BUT If your business is web based (as mine is), and is such that any individual can easily and effectively take over, then in my opinion you do not have a great business! Businesses need to be unique and of real quality/complexity to be successful.

At this point you may be thinking that if I have so much faith in my business, then I should be prepared to go against the odds to manage it myself at all times. True, but I also have faith in my character, and I feel weighing up my position that thinking about this NOW rather than later will turn out to be an extremely wise and worthwhile decision, which could be make or break for my business.

N.B No need to worry: I have every intention of maintaining this blog with a travel log, and I will continue to check my email as often as is possible. My point is simply that my Internet access will be significantly less than normal

Should you use your contacts?

January 22, 2009 | Written by -GRUMBA- | Topic: My Views | Comments (0)

In the current economic climate, jobs are extremely hard to come by. People are being sacked left, right, and center. Others are being forced to work 3 day weeks. Consumer spending is down, money is not worth what it was, and thus noone is motivated to spend.

I was in a position whereby I had no job, and was just lounging around at home doing nothing. This was not ideal because:

a) When you have been sitting at home for a week doing nothing, it gets quite tedious and boring.
b) I need money.

Off I went to the various pubs around where I live looking for a job. Not the greatest pay, but very social, and enjoyable. Unfortunately I had no luck. I tried various other places again with no joy.
I was thus in a position whereby I wanted to work, but simply could not.

Now my father happens to have a variety of contacts at a local business. A couple of simple processes, a formal application and interview, and I had a job. It is not the best job, and it is only 3 days a week, but a job none the less.

During my time at this particular job, I have worked in an office environment with a great bunch of people. Conversation ranges from ‘Who sings that’ (on the radio), ‘Have you heard about foot binding?’ etc
One discussion was about abuse of the system: people getting work experience simply because their parents worked there, people getting jobs because they had contacts etc. Little did they know I had done exactly that.

I did not mention this fact, but considered it. My viewpoint is everyone has contacts of some sort. Why shouldn’t we use our contacts. The difference between success, and failure in business can be contacts, so why should it be any different for personal circumstances. It figures that somewhere along the line, someone has had to do something to make that contact, and thus they can reap the rewards.

Likewise, recently I required 2 tickets to watch the Hong Kong sevens. Given that there were no public British companies/contacts offering tickets alone, I realized I would have to pay a ridiculous premium or get in touch with someone IN Hong Kong. I did the latter, via a contact who I have previously dealt with on DNForum. Two tickets are now on there way for a reasonable price.
Had I not had this contact I would be in a very difficult position, but I did. I made the contact, and have now got something out of that.

Now I am in the UK. If you make an effort to commune with me, if you do business with me, if you help me, then I may be a new contact for you.
Networking is vital in business, and life in general. Don’t take it lightly. Meet new people, discuss business opportunities, and grow your network. It may seem pointless at the time, but you don’t know when or why you might suddenly need a contact with a particular knowledge, or living in a particular place.

So in answer to the question, Yes ! Of course you should use your contacts. What is more you should actively try to make more contacts. You wont regret it.

Word of the Week: Narcissism

January 19, 2009 | Written by -GRUMBA- | Topic: Word of the Week | Comments (0)

This blog post is the beginning of a new GUA.com regular feature: Word Of The Week.
I appreciate that other websites have words of the day/week, but they seem to never feature ‘good’ words, nor do they explain them in an interesting, and provocative way.

This will be a regular appearance on the GUA.com blog, such that I feel it disserves its own category !
The general premise, and idea for this section comes from my need, and thirst for knowledge. When I hear a word which sounds complex, or simply interesting, I make it my perogative to find out exactly what the word means. I am now going to share my findings with you!

The category will be entitled ‘Word of the week’, simply because my intention is not to fill this blog with loads of words, and their definitions. I want to leave room for other stuff too I do however reserve the right to post new words whenever I feel

Now to the first Word of the Week:

Narcissism
Wikipedia states: ‘Narcissism describes the trait of excessive self-love, based on self-image or ego.’

The roots of the word come from Narcissus, a Greek youth, who rejected a nymph named Echo.
Now call me old fashioned, but you would have to be a fool to not ‘get with’ a nymph for a start. Add in the fact that she is called Echo… this guy really must have been an idiot.

Now definitions of Narcissism vary: some state that it is simply self admiration; others suggest that it is this actually a psychological disorder. Under the assumption of the latter, I am in no position to abuse a disorder which the person has no control over. Unfortunate as it is however, Narcisists can negatively impact the psych and views of others.

Narcisism also apparently extends to a ’sexual’ love of oneself. My feeling on this is that it is wierd full stop. If you are so egoistic about your own image, surely you should be able to find a partner? But then again maybe narcisists do not want to find a partner, perhaps they only want themselves.

Before I investigated Narcissism, I associated it with arrogance. Now I am aware of the differences. Arrogance, is thinking/exagerrating your own self worth, and can be associated with wealth, education, or looks. Narcissism is generally specific to looks, and a love of yourself. Arrogance is often a symptom of Narcissism. Either way both are undesireable traits.

All the same, the next time someone calls you a Narcisist, you can point out that actually you are not (assuming you are not), and then go on to explain exactly what the word means: this should put them in their place, and give you a bit of an ego boost. Hopefully not sufficient a boost to turn you into what you describe.

Best of luck with your new knowledge of such a complex word !

How do you view money?

January 18, 2009 | Written by -GRUMBA- | Topic: My Views | Comments (0)

I was considering this question a few days ago, and thought it sufficiently interesting to be the topic of a blog post.

Money is the universal term for currency which can be exchanged for products, or services (at least that is my definition). Money, and its usage however is not that simple.

I feel there are two generalized uses of money:

Personal
When you go shopping to buy food for your family, in no respect are you investing to make financial gain. Yes you are investing in your families health, but unless you are looking far down the line in terms of what money making opportunities good health presents…. just… no.

When you buy a computer game, a car, or a conservatory, you are giving money in exchange for a product which is for your own personal pleasure rather than financial gain. Yes you can sell your car down the line, but you will more than likely not make a profit, and even if you were to, it is highly unlikely that you invested that money intending to make money.

Investment
Buying stock in a company with the intention of profiting from rises in the value of the company, premium bonds, domain name investment, forex etc. These are examples of investment. In my opinion the best way to define investment is with examples: in general I define it as the intention of gaining more money than you initially had through various legal means.

Now logically the above two ‘uses’ interlink with one another. If you have to buy a new computer game, you can sell a domain name to fund it. Likewise if you want to invest in premium bonds, you can spend your personal money to do so.

Now the above is common knowledge. Most people understand what Investment is, I was simply trying to set the scene ‘per se’.

All my business and investment is based online. I separate it from my personal money with the reality/virtual divide. When it comes to personal spending I am always extremely reluctant, and timid with money. I have no financial problems, or worries at the moment, but given that I intend to travel around the world, and then go to university for 3 years, now is the time I should be actively thinking about my financial future.

When it comes to online investment, I know what I am doing. I have more online worth than offline. I try new things, I make mistakes, but it doesn’t bother me too much. I am therefore reluctant to withdraw my online funds simply because investment is more fun, is exhilarating, and is better than having money sitting around.
My viewpoint is that if I have earned x thousand dollars I should reinvest it such that I can earn a further x thousand dollars. Withdrawing it would simply be withdrawing opportunities.

Recently I played around with typo traffic domains. I invested some serious moola with no success. The tasting fees alone were in the hundreds of dollars. Not ideal, but better than losing thousands.
On the flip side I myself recently did some personal spending, and did buy a game. It cost me £60 whereas the previous week it was on sale at £50. I was really annoyed, and very reluctant to buy it. Again, when booking a bus ticket for my gap year I was quoted a cost of £210. The next day “the sale had ended”, and the price was £240. I was again, extremely reluctant. In this case I did not buy the ticket. What struck me was that when money is a physical entity which you can hold, it is far more difficult to spend it when compared to some digits on a screen.

Another thing that niggles me is paypal. When I do want to withdraw money, paypal extorts me on exchange rates. Statements such as ‘The current exchange rate is x’ flash all over the screen, when a simple check of the Internet shows that this is not true. A withdrawal of £1,000 has a £40 loss based on exchange rates discrepancies !
Given that it is crossing the virtual/reality boundary, this simply isn’t acceptable to me. If I am not happy losing £10 on a game purchase, then I obviously wont be happy losing £40 on.. nothing !

I have a day job, and I earn a reasonable wage. This is the money I spend on personal things. The money I have invested in assets is significantly more than this. It could simply be a relativity thing. $100 when you have thousands is not significant, whereas $100 when you only have $600 is.

So how do I view money. My view is one of personal/investment schizophrenia. I have two completely different personalities, and attitudes when it comes to the real world, as opposed to e-investment. How do YOU view money? Comment, and let me know.

Data. How valuable is it?

January 14, 2009 | Written by -GRUMBA- | Topic: My Views | Comments (0)

It has hit the news on many an occasion recently about top secret data being left on trains here in the UK. It was a major fiasco, and the publicity around it was amazing. Thousands and thousands of personal details of British citizens were left on a disc. We can only hope that whoever has it is not malicious, and evil, because the disc title could very easily be ‘Identity Theft 101′.

Data comes in many forms, and data can pretty much be anything. In the modern day and age, most data is based on or around technology. I myself work directly with data. I have to convert data in paper form to data in an electronic form, and I get paid for this !

There is a significant market for data. Companies go around collating and collecting data, and it can be an amazing marketting tool well worth paying for. If for example you are trying to sell cars in the current climate, it would be well worth getting ahold of a list of people without a car, who are looking for cars, and only contacting them. I am not sure of the legalities of doing such a thing, but if it is allowed, think of the money saved from simply not contacting people who clearly will not be interested.

The domain whois database is the subject of much debate. Should it be public, should you have to pay for access etc. The Domain Whois Lookup service offered by GUA.com is the engine behind our Domain Name History tool. Without data our history tool is pretty pointless. I am intending to do a large volume of whois searches so that our history service actually has some data. So far people do not seem interested or motivated to use the tool BECAUSE of its lack of data.

On the subject of domain names. I make money from domain names. They are vital for websites. Having a good domain is one of the most important factors in developing a website. If the whois database were not public, the business would be destroyed. No-one would know who owned what, and a state of disarray would ensue.

Namebio.com is a resource I use regulalry. It contains data of past domain sales, and has earned/saved me a lot of money. I was in an auction for predator.net, and it was namebios previous sales data that informed me that my original valuation was insane.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, a sale I created at dnforum cost me thousands of dollars because my buyer proceeded to scan google for data about the domain, and found that I had offered it for significantly less in the past.

Now data is a very loose term. If you write a word document, that is data. If you write on a piece of paper, that is data. Even fingerprints can be considered data. Data is present, and is used in most aspects of everything we do. When you spend hours on a speech, and windows crashes you are devestated, I have even known people to cry in such situations.

In answer to the question, data is VERY valuable. Look at the facts ! Perhaps even look at data as to how much data has sold for?
What we need to watch out for is that we keep data in the right hands, otherwise data can be a killer.

GUA Domain Tools, and DIU.net

January 11, 2009 | Written by -GRUMBA- | Topic: My Developments | Comments (0)

I am happy, and proud to be able to release to you, the public, the first batch of GUA Domain Tools.

These tools constitute a variety of scripts which help in the management, research, and purchase of domain names.

GUA Domain Portfolio Management.

This tool is aimed at those with a large volume of domains, at a variety of different registrars.

It allows you to copy and paste a list of your domain names. You can then ‘collect’ the data: creation, expiration, nameservers etc on the click of a button.

This tool, in NO way connects to any registrars, and you thus cannot change settings on domain names through this tool. Rather it serves as a panel through which you can see details on your domain names in a simple, and efficient manner. Then if necessary you can logon to your respective registrar and modify the domain.

This tool allows you to categorize your portfolio, and filter it by a variety of different criteria: registrar, age, expiration etc. It also provides visual representations of the makeup of your portfolio, as well as individual domain views.

Individual Domain Management.

This tool is a module of the main portfolio manager. It collects vital data relating to your domain, for example: Google backlinks, Alexa rank, and Technorai rating. Using a specially designed algorithm it also displays an estimated value for your domain.
The individual panel, contains a graphing suite. This allows you to plot graphs to monitor anything relating to your domain. Perhaps you can plot the offers you have received over time, the revenue over time, and so on.

Finally a few simple, but useful tools are integrated, such as a notes section, and a profit calculator. How often do you forget to add renewal fees to your sales prices, simply because you forgot!

Domain Whois Lookup

The GUA Whois lookup service, although not a completely original concept, is applied in a different way, and is free !

At this current time the service only works well with .com, and .net domain extensions. It queries the whois database, collects data, cleans it, and outputs it to your browser. Importantly, the service highlights the 3 most important aspects of a whois result: the creation/expiration dates, the nameservers, and the emails! All emails are modified to prevent spam bots, so no need to worry.

One of the revolutionary aspects of this service however is the ‘Whois archive’. When you do a whois query, we archive it. Thus when a domain is sold, you will be able to look at archived history to see previous owners.

This service thus in a sense relies on you doing whois queries (however we ask that you do not hound the servers of our host, and the whois database with queries). Over time this service will become more useful , as more data is collected.

What-They-Own

This service expands on the whois lookup tool. Based on archived whois data, this allows you to see other domains owned by a particular individual, or business, on the click of a button.

Say you are negotiating a deal with an individual. You are aware they own some high quality domains, but are not sure exactly what they are…. Well you can use this tool, and it will provide you with a list!

Nameserver Check

Another expansion on the whois lookup tool, this tool allows you to see domain names which are hosted on a particular nameserver. Run a hosting service, and want to see how many people you host.. use this (although you should really know anyway )!

Domain Extractor
This tool allows you to extract the domain names from a chunk of text. The data that a registrar displays to you is often very ‘busy’. Not many registrars simply provide a list of your domain names. This tool allows you to copy any chunk of text, be it a web page or your registrar account, and it will extract all the domains contained within. It then presents the domains as a list, AND in comma delimited format for usage with the variety of software and services available on the web.

Advanced Lists
This expands on the Domain Extractor tool. If you have a list of sold domains pending transfer, and a list of all the domains in your registrar account, you can use this tool to remove the domains contained in one chunk of text from the second chunk of text. Brilliant if someone wants a list of domains you have for sale, but you are unsure because many have already been sold…

and finally (for now at least), I am proud to release a tool which in essence is seperate from GUA.com but will in the future integrate: Domain Investment Updates, DIU.net !

Domain Investment Updates (DIU.net)
This website has been in production for a pretty long time, as you can hopefully imagine. Yesterday, I was made aware that domaining, a resource that I myself have used was becoming a paid service.
Now I actually contacted Francois, the owner a few weeks back, about a potential partnership, and advertising. I did not receive a response. I am quite glad I did not receive a response.
I have been trying to come up with ideas for tools constantly, and not once did the ‘Domain Blog Aggregator’ occur to me. Hearing this news, I thought bingo !

DIU.net does exactly that. It collates the posts of 7 top domaining blogs on one easy to view, well designed, clean, concise, and elegant page. This means you can keep up to date with all the happenings in the industry without clicking a thing.
One thing that annoyed me about domaining was the required registration to read other peoples work. DIU requires no registration at all. One feature that domaining doesn’t offer is the ‘Tags’ feature which may have seen on other websites. This allows you to view old, and new posts relating to certain keywords, be it WIPOs, sales, or conferences.

The real question now is: Which are you going to set as your homepage, GUA.com or DIU.net?

All questions, comments, and suggestions will be gladly heard, and are appreciated.
Best of Luck.

How do you write a blog?

January 10, 2009 | Written by -GRUMBA- | Topic: My Views | Comments (0)

This post is the first of my ‘General Musings’. It relates to the ‘business’ of blog writing.

The Gremlins Umbrella Authority is my first, and only blog. I can thus safely say that I have absolutely no experience with writing, and marketing a blog: I actually have no experience marketing any kind of website, and thus I have no authority on which I make my comments. The below are simply my ideas and opinions.

It has been a week since my last blog post, a large gap In my honest opinion, if I intend to keep readers interested. Fortunately this is a one off, as I have been completing development on the GUA domain tools. So my first rule of blog writing: consistent, new posts.

Before writing this post, I was looking through previous posts, thinking surely I did not write that. Some of my posts seem incoherent, some contained obvious spelling errors, and some read like a 4 year old childs first novel. I thought while my reader base is limited, I may as well go and fix these ‘errors’, however as you may have noticed I have not.
Why you might ask? Simple: My second rule, do not change a post EVER. Once posted feel free to add additions, but do not change any of the original content. For a start it may affect the meaning of any posted comments, and the more obvious reason it ruins what I term ‘blogger progression’. Some blogs are interesting to read simply on the basis of seeing how the blogger has changed, or advanced over time.

Thirdly is content. I would like to think that MY blog would be of interest to readers because it is randomly consistent. My blog can, and will vary on subject matter, I have stated that on many an occasion. I will discuss domain names, development, the internet BUT also economics, general business, money etc etc. The above listed subjects vary quite a lot but are consistent generally. I am not talking about domain names one day, and turtles another.

Finally adverts. Adverts are annoying full stop. Don’t bombard your posts with adverts. One, two max, no more. Place them conveniently, and blend them nicely. Simple.

Over and Out.

How will GUA.com be funded?

January 1, 2009 | Written by -GRUMBA- | Topic: My Developments | Comments (1)

That is a really simple question to answer. We will get you using our service, and then drop a ridiculous payment requirement onto you ! No, of course we wont. I am only kidding.

An extremely large announcement will be being made within the next day or so. It thus figures that this post should be made prior. The announcement to follow will bring with it an influx of traffic, and in an ideal world will continue to do so. We hope the site will grow, and that every domainer will use our tools daily.

If this is the case, great ! We have produced these tools for free because we want to help. I would however state, that at this point, regardless of our want to help others, it is also nice to get a bit of pocket change, and who knows how much it will cost to actually keep this site up.

I know people do not like them, but GUA.com and DIU.net will both contain adverts. These will not be annoying, pointless, hounding adverts, rather adverts to relevant, quality, hand selected websites, tools, and software. For example, we intend to advertise SEDO, Afternic, our awesome host Lunarpages, Godaddy, and Moniker to name but a few.

What we ask from our users is as follows. If you intend to use a service, say SEDO.. dont just type SEDO.com into your browser, rather click an advert from GUA.com. We are not endorsing click fraud, rather stating if you see an ad, and want to use that service click it. Keep the middle man in place, and help us out !

We intend to put nice looking, simple adverts on our sites in positions which do not affect your viewing pleasure.

Our other money maker is as follows. If you are utilizing our masspay generator script, you will see a checkbox underneath the form. Click this, and it adds another line to your masspay file. This line tells paypal to send $2 to us, on top of the payment you are making.
$2 is an extremely small sum of money we feel, and given the amount of man hours that have gone into the production of this website alone, surely you would agree that we deserve it…

That is it. Other than that, this site, and DIU.net are both going to be 100% free for ever. We would sooner close the site down, than charge a thing for a service, and let me tell you now we have NO intention if ever shutting shop.

Thanks for your support. It will be worth the wait.