What the heck happened....?
Over the past 36 hours I have been deluged with calls and emails wondering what the heck happened to Streams online and it's parent company Big Gold Dog.Com. For all 3 people who inquired, here is the answer. The answer can be summed up easily in two words. Network Solutions. You who are web literattzi will know exactly what I mean without further explanation. For those who are not web geek inclined here's how it works.
To have, hold and own a web domain [Dot.Com] you must register with a company authorized to allot web addresses and assign IP numbers. Every domain, be it .net .com .org .tv or .edu is assigned a unique set of numbers. Its IP address. This web address i.e. domain, must be renewed periodically with a monetary payment to the registrar who does no work for this payment, but will jerk your website off the air if not paid. This, in the past, has been through a company separate from the "hosting" company. Network Solutions was the original government sponsored clearing house for this function. After the web became a more mundane everyday place, and because Network Solutions [NetSol] had a monopoly the authorization to allot IP addresses was given to many more private providers. However, I conjecture that NetSol still maintains the bulk of registrations and therefore the records of individual domains. My origininal registrations had to go through them, and were still there.
The problem is, in my opinion, that NetSol was big, unwieldy and still thought of themselves as a monopoly. And so the service and useablity in a word....sucked. And in the main still does. Which brings us to the 36 hour downtime of Big Gold Dog. Com. The domain expired. Expired without a word of written or email notification to me. The problem was in the notification addressses. I had instructed them to change and update these the last time I went through this process on another website. Like many company's who think of themselves as the only game in town, I suppose they couldn't find the time to update the info I gave them, therefore and to wit, I didn't know the domain was due to expire. I manage 15 different domains and websites for companies and friends in addition to kind of having a somewhat real job, so I don't keep all the expiration dates on the forefront of my brain, what little there is left. The only way I came to realize the domain had expired was by the ERROR message in place of my website, and the fact that several people emailed on another account telling me my biggolddog.com address was being "bounced".
Anyway, all is well now, Streams, Big Gold Dog. Com and all affiliate sites are up and running and the domain email is in service again. I know this however, I'm going to use my free choice as a consumer and transfer all my domains over to my good Aussie friends at my host server Server101.Com. Martial, the owner, and his mates in Australia take good care of me. They send notices when credit cards expire or need updating. They send thank you notes for being their customer. They have instituted a really good workable spam suppression system, they are economical and they're good! And I can count on them to inform me well in advance when one of the domains under my care is about to expire. In other words they take care of their customers.
Over the past 36 hours I have been deluged with calls and emails wondering what the heck happened to Streams online and it's parent company Big Gold Dog.Com. For all 3 people who inquired, here is the answer. The answer can be summed up easily in two words. Network Solutions. You who are web literattzi will know exactly what I mean without further explanation. For those who are not web geek inclined here's how it works.
To have, hold and own a web domain [Dot.Com] you must register with a company authorized to allot web addresses and assign IP numbers. Every domain, be it .net .com .org .tv or .edu is assigned a unique set of numbers. Its IP address. This web address i.e. domain, must be renewed periodically with a monetary payment to the registrar who does no work for this payment, but will jerk your website off the air if not paid. This, in the past, has been through a company separate from the "hosting" company. Network Solutions was the original government sponsored clearing house for this function. After the web became a more mundane everyday place, and because Network Solutions [NetSol] had a monopoly the authorization to allot IP addresses was given to many more private providers. However, I conjecture that NetSol still maintains the bulk of registrations and therefore the records of individual domains. My origininal registrations had to go through them, and were still there.
The problem is, in my opinion, that NetSol was big, unwieldy and still thought of themselves as a monopoly. And so the service and useablity in a word....sucked. And in the main still does. Which brings us to the 36 hour downtime of Big Gold Dog. Com. The domain expired. Expired without a word of written or email notification to me. The problem was in the notification addressses. I had instructed them to change and update these the last time I went through this process on another website. Like many company's who think of themselves as the only game in town, I suppose they couldn't find the time to update the info I gave them, therefore and to wit, I didn't know the domain was due to expire. I manage 15 different domains and websites for companies and friends in addition to kind of having a somewhat real job, so I don't keep all the expiration dates on the forefront of my brain, what little there is left. The only way I came to realize the domain had expired was by the ERROR message in place of my website, and the fact that several people emailed on another account telling me my biggolddog.com address was being "bounced".
Anyway, all is well now, Streams, Big Gold Dog. Com and all affiliate sites are up and running and the domain email is in service again. I know this however, I'm going to use my free choice as a consumer and transfer all my domains over to my good Aussie friends at my host server Server101.Com. Martial, the owner, and his mates in Australia take good care of me. They send notices when credit cards expire or need updating. They send thank you notes for being their customer. They have instituted a really good workable spam suppression system, they are economical and they're good! And I can count on them to inform me well in advance when one of the domains under my care is about to expire. In other words they take care of their customers.
