Monthly Archives: May 2008

Liberalization of .pt domains

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Registering a .pt domain sucks big time — its expensive (20 euros, about 3 times more expensive then .com) and complicated. If you do not have a registered trademark or its not your enterprise name, then forget it – it is impossible. Of course if you are a public entity with such name, than you may have it, but i will just skip this rules part, because in a common case that all does not make any sense. Also, because of such rules you could not actually sell any domain, which from one side stop the cybersquatters but from the other side if FCCN would rule the internet, then everyone would go to amazon.on.sapo.pt and ebay.iol.pt at best. I always lived in the countries where domains are free to register, and i do not see any reason why in Portugal it should be any different. And no, i do not like the com.pt domains at all, though i know some people who has such domains and i did site for such domains, but why should someone need .com.pt, when .pt is still available ?

If you have a business or want to start on in Portugal, or you are thinking about starting any online community — start with registering a trademark (think time and money), and only after your have all the papers you may initiate the register process. The FCCN — the authority, responsible for the internet promised last year to open the registration on the 1st of May 2008.

A lot of people started pre-registering .pt domains paying some money to the clever internet providers. Of course when the time came, FCCN announced that they would delay the liberalization for an undefined period of time, which was not such a big surprise remembering the history of the .pt domains. I was one of those who while being close to register a couple of .pt domains decided to give it “some time”, or in other words to wait and see. Well, it was worth of not doing anything, and for sure i wont enter in any such scheme involving FCCN anymore.

I am angry on the stupid attitude of the FCCN, the liberalization of the .pt domains in Portugal would help the development of the internet, and by preventing the liberalization they only help those who have enough money and time to register a trade mark or found a firm, but in the big sense preventing portuguese internet from growing. I just think that this attitude is completely stupid.

Microsoft still fights for Yahoo

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In the recent news one thing that should be noted, is that Microsoft after announcing that they do not want to buy Yahoo anymore, and that does not correspond their interest at all have announced that they are looking into forming an alliance with Yahoo. Is it me or does anyone here the world famous microsoft “3E tactics” — embrace, extend and extinguish ?

My point of view is that we do not need less sharks (big enterprises), but much more of them — more big fishes in the business, means more real concurrence and better products and prices. If someone wants less options, than more merges is your area. I hope that they will fail, as well as the Google will fail to do any kind of merge with Yahoo – i may like or dislike them, being a client of Yahoo for more then 10 years, but i want them to continue to be an important player on the scene. This way the internet will only get better.

Randy Pausch

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Randy Pausch is a well known professor at Carnegie Melon University, working on 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. This project is called Alice, and EA has already announced that they are helping with the creation of the third version of this project by giving the characters from their game “The Sims”.

Randy Pausch has pancreatic cancer and was given just a couple of months to live, and thats where he has shown a character by giving his “Last Lecture” to his students. In his last lecture he is talking about different subjects, but mostly about the time which is quite finite for all of us. I urge everyone to take a look at the videos on his page, they are quite emotional and inspiring, his “time management” lecture is an instant classic. You might disagree with some of the things that he is presenting, but it is quite a way of managing the time.

There has been a lot of things written about him, a number of television stations have made interviews and specials. He is quite an impressive person, he is doing all this public things at the moment as a way of leaving a message for his 3 kids. I feel that he is a very special person capable of inspiring those who are around him, and watching his videos leaves me quite an inspired for doing better things in this live

I have learned about him some time ago, and by now i have seen all the videos that i could find on the internet and i am waiting for his book, which should arrive next week.