Disqus - Latest Comments for tinkertim

Re: What the hell happened to professional IT?

tinkertim — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 09:06:20 -0000

Ack, you must have missed the memo:

Most popular operating systems now sell certifications. Real system administrators were bumped up to "integrators", "engineers" or "architects" even though most of us do not have an engineering degree.

Now, anyone who can afford to give Red Hat a few thousand is a "system administrator", not to be confused with a "network administrator" because a "network administrator" greased Cisco, not Red Hat.

Signed,
--Someone who meets your criteria

Re: Challenged

tinkertim — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 05:08:26 -0000

So many *nix system administrators make some fatal assumptions:

1 - Everyone else is a system administrator (or wants to be)
2 - A desktop is just a little server that happens to be running a window manager

Most people just want their goddamn computers and applications to work. Thanks for making this point in a very entertaining way.

Re: Unsavory Domain Tasting – ICANN Starts to Take Action

tinkertim — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 03:50:37 -0000

I'm not quite sure if there is anything that could be done about this in a single act. It is a growing (and festering) problem.

Years in the web hosting industry tell me, at least 4/10 domain registrations are fraudulent, using stolen credit card numbers or phished PayPal accounts. Since these charges are typically small, they might remain undiscovered by the rightful owner of the account or card for 15 - 30 days (depending on when they get their statement). Even with the grace period as-is, hosts and registrars end up eating a significant majority of these domains.

That's a problem for the host and registrar as well as a problem for someone who might want that domain and attempt to register it legally.

I'd be in favor of a 45 day grace period, but release/refunds should have to be accompanied with proof of fraud. Since fraud is one of the biggest factors driving prices higher, this might help a bit.

However, this puts a greater administrative weight on ICANN, as I said, I'm not sure that there is any good solution to the problem.

I see no other sensible reason for 'tasting', either you want the domain or you don't. At least they're (attempting) to address it. I hope that they deal with this a little more efficiently than they dealt with the Registerfly melt down.