Amar Reddy

Cesar is extremely hyper, but in a good way. He makes any visitor to the house feel very welcome.

I took this picture on my blackberry.

I have been collecting good domains for the past several years. I usually buy them at 1&1 or GoDaddy. 1&1 used to be very cheap for buying all the Top Level Domains (TLDs). Their prices went up by a $1 as Verisign increased the wholesale price for the registrars by that amount. To register a .com at 1&1, it costs about $6.99. Godaddy charges about the same. These are great bargains considering that Network Solutions still charges $35.00 to register a damn domain name. I guess some companies never change with times, competition, or reality. When it comes to good domain name registrars, 1&1 and GoDaddy are the industry leaders in price, service, and features. Don’t fall for cheap sale offers from run of the mill domain registrars out there. Believe me, there are too many of them and it is not always easy to separate the good from the bad. RegisterFly was one such company that is thankfully not in business anymore.

I prefer to use 1&1 for my domain name registrations and renewals because they don’t charge extra for keeping my identity private. They give you the option to keep your domain registration information private. You can turn this privacy feature On or Off without much effort. Their domain management dashboard makes it easy to manage this feature at any time before and after the registration process. GoDaddy, on the other hand, charges extra for this privacy feature, and in my opinion, it’s a total waste of your hard earned dollars to pay for this feature with any registrar. GoDaddy also makes it complicated to manage your privacy feature because they require you to create a new domain proxy account for each individual domain name separately. Lately, they have a solution to consolidate all the privacy accounts with them into one account. The new process still needs you to tackle a few unnecessary steps that add no real value, except complexity. If you don’t plan to keep your registration info private, then Godaddy is a good choice too.

Godaddy has great customer service and most of their domain reps know what you are talking about. You can always save more by searching for coupon codes on the web before registering or ordering domain name services with GoDaddy. Also, subscribe for their special offers e-mailing list. The domain cancellation/non-renewal process with 1&1 is a little complicated and very confusing. I initially suspected them of trying to play games, but upon following their abnormal process, I am convinced that their cancellation process was just poorly conceived. When you run into issues with 1&1 with their cancellation process, just be patient and follow the instructions, and you will figure it out. One feature I really like about 1&1 is the their billing process. They don’t charge your credit card every time you register a new domain name. They consolidate your registrations for a given month and then bill/charge you once per month. This removes clutter on your credit card statements and also helps you keep your domain registration bills together. This billing feature is especially useful for bulk domainers and companies.

Always keep your domain name registration account separate from your hosting accounts. Don’t make the mistake of tying your domain names with a web hosting plan, as you will run into unforeseen issues. I had some expensive lessons over the years because I overlooked the issues that come with keeping domain registration and hosting together.

Daniel Day-Lewis gave it his all in the bland role of Mr.Plainview in There Will Be Blood. There isn’t much of a story to talk about. This movie mainly circles around Oil drilling in early 20th century along with a half-cooked plot diversion about early evangelical christians . The movie seriously lacks any coherent characters and just like the protagonist’s name, it’s very plain, bland, and boring. The climax scene is a true stinker. PTA never made pretentious movies before this one. His movies were coherent and super-layered, but this one is truly an exception. The title of this movie should seriously be, “There Will Be Boredom”. If you want to see decent acting, you can watch it. But, I seriously recommend that you wait for the DVD. If you haven’t seen the Coen Brothers’ latest movie, “No County For Old Men“, please go see it ASAP. You can thank me later. That movie was extraordinary with a story, screenplay, and action that will blow your mind. I am not exaggerating one bit. I think it is the best movie of 2007, and it may very likely be the best movie of this decade.

It seems to me that most of the people who comment at the gazillion sites scattered on the net never bother to actually see the movies they are commenting about. I notice a huge herd mentality among the users of the endless web2.0 sites. Most of them seem to comment just for the fucking sake of doing it. Ignoranuses with their half-assed understanding of Google and its PageRank, always seem to be motivated to write some junk with their site link thrown in somewhere for sure. And, when you have professionals employed for $4/hr by hype creating machines(Marketing Companies) polluting the web, the best way to not be influenced is to pay no mind to the ever present generic/useless comments on most sites . I know I will, at least, from now onwards.