February 24, 2012

Domain Setup

verabear Interesting stuff, Ramblings and Brain farts 1 Comment

I’ve been feeling good about work lately – I get excited about projects that involve research and troubleshooting, and learning something new, yadda yadda yadda. Before moving to APAC, my call center life was all out tech support. My educational background is nowhere near tech, but it was something I found that I could actually do. Somehow, my mind was wired for it. Funny!

The last time I felt this energized about some product was when we supported this web host solution for small businesses. Everyday was like having to solve a big puzzle, chopped up in smaller parts. As then trainer my favorite job was creating job aids. I especially liked including screen shots. My current project for my two LOBs will involve creating job aids  

When I first learned that product, my experience in blogging with tblog and Bravejournal were useful to me. I could relate to the product. Later on, I also applied what I learned from work when I decided to go on and build a website.

Domain registration was a topic we had to become familiar with, and I appreciate all the information I got there. Supporting that business opened my eyes to how some consumers tend to be careless about specifics and terms of use, and how that can cause problems for your website in the future. Once registered, domains cannot be edited, so choose your domain name wisely. If you don’t provide accurate and up to date information upon sign up, it may cost you your domain in the future.

Unfortunately, I seem to have forgotten all about it when I let my domain Verabear.Com expire on me. I had intended to get the domain released from my then registrar MelbourneIT and moved administration to something I had grown familiar with already – my current host, Dreamhost. By that time, I had already setup this WordPress blog on this domain.

Once you’ve locked in on the domain you wish to register, the next big step is deciding which registrar or reseller to sign up with. Of course, you must check if your domain of choice is still available. My favorite to run searches with are CentralOps.Net and Whois.Net.

A very important tip:

Use an email address that you will always keep. I’d stay away from another domain email address because if I lose that domain, I will lose that email too. If you ever forget your password or login credentials for your domain registrar, you can only prove ownership by accessing links they would send you via the original email address you registered with.

Anyway, I am sleepy and to bed I must go. Should you decide to register a new domain and setup your own website, tell me about it!