I bet you think you already know the answer to this. You would think the answer is very simple. But it’s not.

I run into this situation regularly: I’m talking about a website, while the client is talking about their domain or server or some other aspect of a website, other than the site itself.

This confusion especially pops up when clients want to transfer their hosting and domains to us.

You may think “I don’t need to know this”.

Trust me. You do.

It will save you a lot of headache when it’s time for you to renew web services, or transfer them, or sign up for new ones.

So how about we break this down so you can better understand what’s what?

Your website consists of several parts. These are all separate things, but they are connected.

You have:

• a domain
• a web host/server
• website

Domains
Your domain is your own dot com. For us, it is geekartist.com.

Your domain is purchased through your domain registrar. You may have bought it through your web host. Or, you may not have. Most web hosts, if they do sell domains or manage them, do so through another service. What you pay for your domain, is separate from what you pay for hosting.

Your domain, is just the address of your website. It is not the site itself, any more than your home address is your house. The address is assigned to the home you live in. It is how people find your house. But it is not your house.

Web Host
Your web host is a company that provides a computer, called a server, that your site will live on. Unless you are buying your own virtual private server, or some other situation where you get your own computer, you are likely getting what we call shared hosting. This means your website lives on a computer with hundreds of other websites. In terms of file size, websites are very small. Generally speaking, they don’t take up many computer resources. So we can stick a lot of sites on one computer.

When you sign up with your web host, they will tell you to go to your domain registrar (where you bought your dot com) and change the DNS (or nameservers). Your host will give you the nameservers you need. These are basically streetsigns to the house. They are unique to each web host. So when you change web hosts, you have to change this information. By changing nameservers for your domain, you are telling the world “hey my site lives over here now, not over there”. If you don’t change them or they are incorrect, your site will not pull up, and any email you send through your domain won’t route.

Website
The actual website is a collection of files. It is HTML files and jpg (a type of image) files and any other files you may have (pdfs, videos, and so on). When your web designer, and most other people in this business are talking about your website, this is what we’re referring to. We’re talking about all the files that make up the site.

Just remember that there’s a difference between domain, web host, and website. And your website is not your domain. Your domain registrar may not even be your web host.

Think of your website as a car. And your host as a garage the car is parked in. Your domain is the address the car lives at. And the nameservers are the signposts pointing to the garage.

Wasn’t that easy?

I while ago I got an email from a client. She was smart enough to forward it to me first rather than just act on the email. Based on years of experience online and working as a web professional, I automatically assumed it was a scam. A quick bit of research confirmed it.

Here is what the email she received looked like:

Dear Manager:
We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. On September,10th,2010, We received HUATAI Company’s application that they are registering the name “XXXXXXXXXXXXX” as their Internet Trademark and
“xxxxxxxxxxxxx.cn”,”xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.com.cn” ,”xxxxxxxxxxxxx.asia”domain names etc.,It is China and ASIA domain names.But after auditing we found the brand name been used by your
company. As the domain name registrar in China, it is our duty to notice you, so I am sending you this Email to check.According to the principle in China,your company is the owner of the trademark,In our auditing time we can keep the domain names safe for you firstly, but our audit period is limited, if you object the third party application these domain names and need to protect the brand in china and Asia by yourself, please let the responsible officer contact us as soon as possible. Thank you!
Kind regards
Angela Zhang

Basically, this is just a spam attempt at getting you to buy domains through this company. If you don’t do business in China, then it’s not an issue for you. And personally, I don’t do any business with any organization that uses spam as a means to sell something. To me, that tells me they are either
a. not trustworthy
b. don’t know what they are doing
c. both.

Worst case, they may be hoping you’ll send them information so they can log into your account and take your domain. In other words: a phishing attempt.

One thing you can do to help in case someone does accidentally hand that information out: lock your domain. Your registrar should have this as an option. Basically, it means that if someone tries to transfer your domain away from your registrar, you will get an email with a code and that domain can only be moved if someone enters that code into your account on your domain registrar’s website.

Other common domain scams involve emails that look like they are from your domain registrar, but are not actually from them. The emails may even have logos from a popular domain registrar. If you aren’t sure if it is from your registrar or not, go to your domain registrar’s site, log in, and check for any account messages and check your domain’s expiration date. NOTE: Do not click the link in the email in an attempt to see if that is really from your registrar or not.

Also, not all scammers use email. You may also get phone calls or letters via postal mail about your domain as well.

Learn more about about domain scams:

What is a domain name scam? from Domain Name Scams
10 tips to prevent domain scam/fraud from WebHosting Talk
What’s Dot and What’s Not: Domain Name Registration Scams from the FTC

If you have seen Facebook posts, Tweets, or anything else where you see your friend posted: “I just checked in at Big Daddy’s Java Bar!” or something similar, then you know what I’m talking about. They use FourSquare, GoWalla, and other sites or even the functionality built into Facebook and Twitter.

I see these posts on a regular basis. And other than letting your stalkers know where you are, I’m trying to see the practical purpose for them.

Basically, I wonder if you have ever

• decided to join a friend at the location they shared
• chose to call and ask them to pick up something from the location they are at
• used this to throw a flash-mob zombie surprise party for a friend
• found some other use that has not occurred to me at all

So share the poll far and wide and let’s find out: Has Anyone Ever Made Use of Someone Else’s Check-In?

Last night, my dad sent me a link to an article online. Because he’s got 2 kids that work heavily with technology (my brother is an IT professional), he’s informed enough to know to check with us before taking what he reads about technology as fact. Or getting excited over any “warnings”.

The gem he found came from the Wall Street Journal and was republished by Yahoo Finance. Some poor idjit wrote about cookies.

Some of you may not see the big deal. Some of you may read the article and fall over laughing.

Yes, in 2010, people are still making a big deal about cookies. This was a huge deal back in the ‘90s, when no one really knew what a cookie was. It was all over the news and seemed to pop up every month.

So, what’s a cookie?

I cookie is a text file, or sometimes just info stored in a file in your browser directory, that is passed from a website to your computer. It is a very small amount of information. It generally contains a string of numbers that only makes sense to the web server that gave you the cookie.

The cookie can not run files. It can not take over your computer. It can not cause you to get hacked or your bank account taken over.

To be fair, some sites do use cookies maliciously. If you have antivirus software and update it regularly, and update your browser when new versions come out, they are never a problem.

I’ve been using the Internet for 15 years or so…never had a cookie problem once. In fact, I like my cookies.

Why do you want cookies? (more…)

I’m overdue for another post. Things get hairy when you run a business from home, have infant twins, and the air conditioning goes out. In many parts of the country, that’s not a big deal in May, but in Texas it can be HOT! We have babies and ferrets, so it meant several days of little work, no fun, and no sleep.

Meanwhile, here is a post I originally wrote for DrakNet that was posted April 30, 2010.

I thought I’d share it here for those that may not follow the DrakNet blog and also because this site is basically an extended FAQ covering issues I deal with all the time from clients. Google image search and copyright are recurring themes in my line of work.

I get a lot of images from clients to put on websites. Because I like to educate and protect my clients, I am prone to asking, “Where did you get this from?”

More often than not, the response is: “Google’s free image search”.

Let me clear up a common misconception: the image search on Google is not a repository of free images for everyone. What Google is doing is searching images on other people’s websites and showing those images to you. These are images that are protected by copyright law.

(more…)