MakeUseOf » domain names

Keep Your Google Apps Domains Registered To Protect Your Identity

Justin Pot — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 19:31:18 +0000

Do you use Google Apps on your domain for email? Don’t let that domain expire or you could be at serious risk of identity theft. It’s possible that, should your domain expire, all of your old email and any accounts tied to your old email addresses could be easily accessed. This could, in turn, give any would-be hacker simple access to your PayPal, Dropbox or just about any other online account.

London-based entrepreneur, developer and hacker Ben Reyes recently wrote a warning to not let your domain expire with Google Apps, in which he accidentally takes control of a complete stranger’s email. The exact loophole seems mostly closed now, but it’s still a good demonstration of the importance of not letting domains expire if you’ve been using them as a means to confirm your identity.

Wait, What’s Google Apps?

It’s easy to confuse Google Apps among its many offerings. Let’s clarify. Apps is all of Google’s services on your domain. You can use Gmail, Google Docs and much more, using your own website’s name. So instead of your email address being @gmail.com it will be @yourdomain.com.

We at MakeUseOf use Google Apps for our email accounts, so it’s a service we’re familiar with. Be sure to read the MakeUseOf Guide to Google Apps to find out more about how you can make use of Google Apps.

Let a domain with Google Apps expire though, and you’ve lost access to any and all accounts you have at that domain. Email, calendar, docs – all gone.

The Consequences

When a normal Gmail account (any email address @gmail.com or googlemail.com) expires, it is retired. That is to say, no one (not even you) can ever use that account name again. From a security standpoint this is ideal. That’s not the case however, with domain accounts. Due to the way the Internet works, if you let your domain expire, someone else could buy it, and if that domain is in their hands they have the right to use Google Apps on that domain.

If they decide to use that right they could end up with access to your email accounts, your Google documents and more. Or, at least, they could have before Ben wrote the above-linked piece. It seems that Google’s policies have somewhat changed regarding what happens to existing accounts and their user data. With or without such access however, it’s still possible to do what isn’t possible with a normal Gmail account: use an email address which you were using before.

If you’ve been using that email address for, say, Dropbox, the new owner of the domain needs only click the “Forgot Your Password?” button to get into your account and access your Dropbox files.

You get the idea. Someone with access to an old domain of yours could get access to more and more layers of your identity, given enough time. The same principle could be used to access almost any online account.

Keep Your Domain

The easiest solution to this problem is don’t let your domain expire. It typically only costs $10 a year to renew a domain, meaning $100 could keep you secure for ten years. Even if you don’t plan on using a particular domain for much longer the risk of letting it expire once you’ve used it for various services might outweigh the cost of renewing.

Don’t Keep Your Domain

Do you, even after reading this, have no interest at all in renewing a domain you don’t really use anymore? You can still protect yourself.

Delete all Google Apps user accounts on your domain, exporting your data first if you want to keep it. This will prevent future owners of the domain from accessing your email, documents and other Google Apps under any circumstances.
Make sure no services containing personal information, be they PayPal, Dropbox or even Facebook, remain tied to an email address on a domain ready to expire. Change your email address in a given service’s settings or delete the account altogether. Don’t leave a door open for any would-be identity thief.

Conclusion

Of course, this applies just as much to any domain on which you have email accounts as it does to Google Apps. Losing access to a domain you’ve been using for email is a problem unless you prepare for it, so don’t be caught unaware – either keep the domain in your hands or delete any user accounts tied to it.

Search and Uncover Hard To Find Domain Names With DomainSeeker

Ryan Dube — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 23:31:46 +0000

After writing an article about how to control your online identity with a biography website, a commenter made an excellent point. With the explosion of Internet sites and decent domain names getting picked up faster than you can blink, it seems as though there are no good domain names left.

Actually, this isn’t quite the case. There are lots of excellent letter and word combinations that would make for excellent domain names, but coming up with those names can be a real challenge.

Here at MUO, we’ve covered a number of excellent tools to search all domain names that can help with the process, such as Ted’s article listing 6 domain name generators and Saikat’s great article on 10 unusual domain name search tools you can use to come up with ideas. However, not many of these tools cover the two aspects of domain name research in one package – first, coming up with a name and second, finding matching unregistered domains.

Brainstorm Domain Names With Domain Seeker

Domain Seeker is a free software package offered by Springboard, a web services company. I love Domain Seeker because it will take you through the process from brainstorming domain name ideas right through to search all domain names and identifying your final available domain name.

When you first install and run Domain Seeker, you’ll discover a main screen that is segmented into five columns. These columns are high, mid and low profile domains, registered domains and saved domains.

The profile level of a domain is determined by the number of characters in the title. Titles with four or fewer characters are high (very valuable), between five and seven are mid profile, and eight or more are high profile. This is because the fewer characters in the domain name, the better visitors will remember the domain name.

High profile domains are very sought after by webmasters. The software focuses on the .com and .net top level domains (TLD), but if you go into Options -> Settings, you can add additional extensions by enabling them in the Extension table.

For .com and .net domains, DomainSeeker pings internic to determine whether domain names are registered. The software throttles back the ping rate so that you don’t get blocked by the server for excessive queries. If you do get pop-up errors from the server, you can increase the throttle to something higher than 25 milliseconds until the errors go away.

On the main page of DomainSeeker, a dropdown list next to “Search Type” provides the available search types. The ones we’re going to focus on are Browsing, Generating, and the Full Word List.

When you choose the “Browse” option, a new window opens where you can literally browse using several search engines, including some domain search engines like JustDropped or DeletedDomains. As you browse for the keywords that you’re interested in getting a domain for, the software automatically starts generating list of related registered and unregistered domain names.

Back on the main page, if you select the “Generate names” search option, a new search window opens that will help you brainstorm domain names based on the keyword that you’re interested in. This is my favorite tool within this software package, because of the volume of possible domains that the app generates. For example, I typed in “Droid” for examples of domains that I might use for a website about the Droid mobile phone, and the Domain Name Creator generated over 10,000 possibilities!

This is brainstorming at its finest. Domain Seeker then starts analyzing your list of potential domain names and sorts them on the main page under Registered, Low Profile, Mid Profile or High Profile. While landing a high profile domain name is quite rare, there are plenty of valuable mid profile domains to go around.

When you spot any available domain names that you like, just click and drag them into the “Saved Domains” column. Now, if you are starting from scratch and you don’t even know what website you want to create, but instead you’re looking for website ideas, you can choose “Full Word List” from the search type options. This feature will actually run through the entire list of words in the English language and search all available domain names, and then sort them by profile.

This is a very wide-ranging query that will take a very long time to complete, so if you have a more specific idea of the sort of genre that you’re interested in, a better option may be to use the “Custom List” search type. This is a very cool feature that runs through words in a text file and uses those words to conduct searches for available domains.

Existing lists that get installed with the DomainSeeker software include lists like movies, myths, common phrases and even all words in the dictionary. If you don’t see a list that you want, create a text file of your own filled with all of the keywords you can think of, and then save it in the “Wordlists” folder in the DomainSeeker application directory.

The software sifts through the text file, pings the WHOIS server for whether the domain is registered or not, and then sorts any unregistered domains within the appropriate profile column. DomainSeeker is, by far, one of the best desktop applications I’ve seen for brainstorming new website names and checking whether those domains are available.

Have you ever tried DomainSeeker? Do you like the domains that it comes up with? Do you have any domain name search tools that you like better? Share your insight in the comments section below.

Image Credit: Anna Maria Lopez

What Do The URL Domain Extensions Stand For & Why Are They Needed?

Joel Jordon — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 23:30:41 +0000

Before 1983, visiting a host on a network required typing in its IP address. Fortunately, the domain name system (DNS) was invented to allow numerical IP addresses to be identified with domain names. So now, instead of having to remember a long sequence of numbers like 74.125.67.104, you only have to remember Google.com. The definition of a domain extension is the top-level part of a domain name, like .com or .net.

It’s easy to forget that each domain extension is intended to be used for a specific purpose when everyone is using .com for whatever they please. But you might be surprised to find out that a lot of domain extensions have registration restrictions and are still used for their intended purposes.

Or maybe you want to find out which unique domain extensions are unrestricted and can be used along with your killer domain name to make your website stand out. Let’s take a look at the history of domain extensions, which ones are restricted and which ones aren’t, and what specific use each is intended for.

History of Domain Extensions

In 1984, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) established the first six domain extensions: .com, .edu, .gov, .mil, .org, and .net. Shortly after, the first two-character country code domain extensions (like .uk and .us) were established. In 1988, .int was also introduced.

It wasn’t until after the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was created in 1998 that any new domain extensions (besides country code extensions) came into use. ICANN has an agreement with the United States Department of Commerce and now operates IANA.

After an application period, seven new domain extensions were introduced in 2000: .aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .museum, .name, and .pro. Throughout 2005 and 2007, .cat, .jobs, .mobi, .tel, .travel, and .asia were also established.

New domain extensions are sure to come. Just last month, the first “internationalized” domain extensions were established. These internationalized domain extensions are the first to not use Latin characters (three of them use Arabic characters and one uses Cyrillic).

Read on to find out the different categories that domain extensions are grouped under and the specific uses for all of the domain extensions mentioned above.

Types of Domain Extensions

There are two main types of domain extensions: country code and generic (which is further subdivided into sponsored and unsponsored).

Country code extensions are two-character domain extensions for countries, sovereign states, and territories. Many country code extensions have second-level subdomains, like the .co in .co.uk.

Generic domain extensions include all of the other domain extensions, like .com, .edu, and .biz. Sponsored extensions, like .aero, .coop, and .museum, are managed by an organization that is in charge of the policies regarding their registration. Unsponsored extensions are simply managed by ICANN.

All domain extensions are also either restricted or unrestricted. To register a domain name with a restricted domain extension, you have to meet certain requirements. For example, only accredited educational institutions are eligible to register a domain with a .edu extension. Many country code domain extensions are also restricted and can only be registered by citizens or residents of the country that the extension refers to.

Unrestricted domain extensions, like .com, .org, and .net, can be registered by anyone. Some country code domain extensions are unrestricted, which has resulted in the registration of “domain hacks” that create a word using the domain extension. Del.icio.us, for example, uses the United States country code .us to form the word “delicious.”

A List of Specific Uses

Here is an alphabetical list of all generic domain extensions and their specific uses.

.aero ““ Used in the aviation industry.

.asia ““ Used in Asia.

.biz ““ Used by businesses.

.cat ““ Used for Catalan-language websites.

.com ““ Intended for use by commercial entities, but it is unrestricted.

.coop ““ Used by cooperatives.

.edu ““ Used by post-secondary educational institutions.

.gov ““ Used by United States government entities.

.info ““ Intended for use by “informative” websites, but it is unrestricted.

.int ““ Used by international, treaty-based organizations.

.jobs ““ Used by websites dealing with employment.

.mil ““ Used by the United States military.

.mobi ““ Used by websites optimized for access on mobile devices.

.museum ““ Used by museums.

.name ““ Used by individuals.

.net ““ Intended for network infrastructure use, but it is unrestricted.

.org ““ Intended for use by organizations, but it is unrestricted.

.pro ““ Used by licensed professionals, including those in the legal, accounting, and medical professions.

.tel ““ Used to store and publish contact information.

.travel ““ Used by entities in the travel industry.

Conclusion

New domain extensions are constantly being proposed and debated. Many want more geography-based domain extensions like .asia. To that end, domain extensions like .london, .nyc, and .quebec have been proposed.

There has also been widespread support for the domain extension .kids, which would be used by websites designed for children. Contrarily, the .xxx domain extension has just recently been approved after years of debate, and it’s intended to be used by adult entertainment websites in the near future. What domain extensions do you want to see in the future?

Image credit: binsurf

Check The Aviability Of The Domain & Its Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn Accounts with UD.com

Justin Pot — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:30:58 +0000

There was a time, long long ago, when knowing whether a domain name was open or not sufficed for those looking to start a web site. Alas, those days are long gone. In the web’s current incarnation it’s helpful to know the availability of not only a domain but also Twitter, Facebook, eBay and even Flickr accounts.

The problem is that finding a name with a free domain is hard enough, even without having to run a check on every social network and website you hope to also register your brand on. That’s what makes UD.com so nice: it can not only find out if your desired website name is free on several different top level domains but also on a variety of different social networking sites.

Couldn’t Be Simpler

Getting started with the UD.com domain name checker couldn’t possibly be simpler. Just head over to the site and enter the website name you’re looking for into the search bar.

For example, I’m seriously considering starting a site called WhyJustinPotIsSoAwesome. Finding out what sub-domains and websites this name is free on could be useful, so I enter the term into UD.com and see the following:

Okay, using this domain name checker, it looks as if that particular domain is wide open. Surprising; I suppose I don’t have many rabid fans listing reasons I’m awesome on the Internet. Note that I can’t have this name on Twitter or Linked In; the name is too long for those sites.

Searching for a more common term, let’s see the results for MakeUseOf.

As you can see our domain is taken on .com, .net, .org and .info. It’s free on .biz, precious few people use that particular top level domain.

It’s also pointed out that MakeUseOf is taken for Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Naturally we’re on Twitter and Facebook, but our MySpace page is looking as abandoned as MySpace itself.

You get the idea: the site will give you a quick overview of what’s free and what’s not. Why?

Perfect for Brainstorming

So you can think of a name, of course. Where this search engine really shines is that crucial stage in every website’s life: brainstorming the name. You can’t really begin a website until you have a name, and you want to make sure the name you come up with is a good one. But having a good name isn’t enough: you also need to make sure no one else is using that name.

That’s UD.com’s perfect use. Sit down with your team, discuss names you’d like to potentially use and run them through a search. You’ll have a really good idea which names are usable and which names are not by just glancing at the result of a UD.com search.

Of course, once you work out your domain you’re going to need to write quality content if you want readership. Check out Ryan’s article on starting a blog that gets instant traffic to find out how that’s done.

List of Top Level Domains and Services Listed

Domains:

.com
.net
.org
.info
.biz
.mobi
.tel
.name
.tv
.me
.us
.co.uk
.de
.fr
.es
.in
.cn
.jp
.eu
.asia

Websites/Social Networks:

Facebook
Twitter
MySpace
LinkedIn
eBay
Blogger
WordPress
delicious
Flickr
last.fm

Conclusion

This search engine does one thing and does it well, and nothing else is required of it. I intend to use it a lot in the year to come as I pursue my blogging dreams; I hope you find a use for it to.

Do you guys know of a similar or better domain name checker? I love learning from you, so please so share. Also feel free to share any hilarious domains you discover are somehow taken in your searches, because I also love to laugh.

A couple of other MakeUseOf articles you might want to check are 6 Domain Generators To Find That Killer Domain Name and 10 Unusual Domain Name Search Tools to Find Hot Domains.

Picture Credit: UD.com. They sell a full world map with every country’s domain here.

10 Unusual Domain Name Search Tools to Find Hot Domains

Saikat Basu — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 21:30:34 +0000

Do you spend a lot of time conducting a domain name search for your spanking new idea for a website? Or does the domain name come to you like a ‘Eureka’ moment in the shower? Either way, you are off to a good start.

Why is choosing a good domain name important?

Choosing a good domain name starts with memory and ends with search engine optimization; somewhere in between lies branding. Take your most favored sites ““ I bet most of them have easy-to-remember names. Most of them also can be easily typed into the address bar with less chances of a typo. Good domain names are also unique and descriptive. Great domain names, of course, become brands of their own.

So, how do you choose domain names?

When picking domain names, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is critically important. It is a detailed topic; let’s just say that a fitting domain name is the first green light for visitor traffic.

Let’s start by brainstorming on paper. But if your brain is not shifting gears, there are a host of domain name search websites that can help to crank it up. I am not suggesting that you rely on them, but domain name generators take your keywords and can come up with unique word combinations that you wouldn’t have thought about. A lot of them also allow you to lookup the names with the Domain Registrars to see if they are available.

A single domain name search website can give you lots of word combinations to play around with. Let me give you a few more to keep you occupied till you get the right domain name.

NXdom

NXdom has indexed millions of DNS records of expired and unused domain names. You can search by prefix and suffix, and sort the results by length, readability, and popularity. The advanced options help you refine the results by giving you five more criteria to filter the results.

Read more about it in our archives.
Nameboy

Nameboy is a popular domain name search tool that bases its results on a primary word and a secondary word. Nameboy says that its intelligent engine creates name variations from the sound and meaning of the keyword. The feature that I like is that it immediately color codes the results depending on the availability status of the domain name.
Namestation

Namestation comes with a slick interface. With just a few clicks you can enter your suggested keywords and combine them with prefixes and suffixes. Set a minimum and maximum word length and get your domain name results. The application also lets you combine keywords with hundreds of categorized wordlists for a search engine friendly domain name.
123finder.com

123finder gives you four variations of for domain name discovery. The applications are pretty self explanatory ““ Simple Domain Search, Advanced Domain Search, Instant Domain Search, and Keywords from URL. The Keywords from URL tool extracts registered and available domain names from a given URL.
Domize

Domize has a Power Search feature which can search a large combination of terms by entering a comma-separated list of words, letters or numbers. As special functions, it can also list out synonyms or derivatives of a supplied word based on a misspelling. Other functions include listing out words that rhyme with the one you enter. In short, the Power Search feature set gives you many options to play around with a word and whatever can be derived from it.
Domain Exposer

Fill in a keyword and mix it with other word lists to get a combo domain name. You can decide on starting string of characters and also on an ending one. Also, you can set the position of your keyword relative to the chosen group of common words.
Wordoid

Wordoid has a unique way of generating name ideas. Firstly, it can make up words that sound natural, almost natural or hardly natural. Secondly, it can do that in five languages – English, Spanish, French, German and Italian. You can also optionally put your own word somewhere in the Wordoid and limit the unique name to a set number of characters.
PCNames

PCNames is a site which is being updated again after a period of dormancy. It has an AJAX based search engine that displays search results as you type. But what are worth keeping an eye on are the domain tools that you can access from the Tools link at the bottom. As soon as the site gets updated, the tools can be quite handy.
Domain Pigeon

Domain Pigeon is a name index which lists available domain and Twitter names which you can register if they are available. You can apply some sorting options like dates and popularity. Domain Pigeon lists only .com names.

Read more about it in our archives.
DomainTools

Though this site will help you less with a cool name, Domain Tools is a collection of useful tools and domain related search engines that will help you find information behind certain domain names. They have a Whois search that reveals records about the party who registered the domain, a Suggestions search to help you find similar domain names, and a Domain Search which shows you what TLDs of a domain name are available.

Read more about it in our archives.

These ten picks are certainly not that’s all out there. They are just the proverbial tip of the domain name searching iceberg. A few more that we have covered before:

And do check out the one that came before this – 6 Domain Generators To Find That Killer Domain Name

Did these websites help you get around through the domain naming brainstorming sessions? Let us know if you got your cool “˜n hot domain name you wouldn’t have thought up with the pen and paper way.

Image credit: Thomas Hawk

How To Setup A Self-hosted WordPress Blog for Free

Jeffry Thurana — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:00:36 +0000

A blog is a layman-friendly variation of a website, and having a blog is one of the many ways to state your presence in the virtual world. While there are many hassle-free blog services out there that will take care of everything except automatically blog for you – like Blogger and WordPress, nothing can beat a self-hosted blog in the terms of customization and self pride.

The problem is, the process of building your own self-hosted blog is (almost always) not free and is considered complicated. So most newbies will choose the easier path and never give themselves a chance to experiment.

I personally believe that experience is the best teacher (and that you should never consider yourself a cool person if you’ve never tried to “build” a blog).

So, if you are in an adventurous mood right now and willing to take up the challenge, I’ll show you how to easily set up a free WordPress blog site.

Some of you might ask, “Why WordPress?” I could go on and explain how cool it is, how it has grown from a simple blogging platform into an advanced CMS (Content Management System) and still stay simple and free, how you can expand it into virtually everything by adding plugins and themes; but to save you the time, I’ll just go with “Why not?”

Getting your own domain name

The first step in our little project is obtaining a domain name. But with zero budget, you shouldn’t expect to be able to snatch a dot com – or any other popular dots like org, net, name or tv. For this experimental purposes, we’ll go with a less popular but free alternative.

The free service that I always use for quick and free domain names is www.co.cc. This service will provide you with 2 free domain names (with .co.cc suffixes) for personal use. (But that doesn’t mean that you can’t register for more with different email addresses. Wink!)

Visit the site and search for the availability of your chosen domain name(s). I’ve registered buildablog.co.cc for this article so you can’t claim that one.

If your chosen name is available, please check whether it’s available for free because there are names which are not free. Then continue with the registration.

If you’ve been here before, you can log in with your account. Newcomers click “Create an account now“.

After completing the registration process, you need to set up your domain. This step should be done within 48 hours or they will delete the domain. So click the set up button now.

Finding yourself a host

To be able to set up the domain, you need a webhost. So, we’ll postpone the domain set up process for a while and find ourselves a webhost first. I stumbled on a service which provides free webhosting without ads called 000webhost. You won’t get premium features, but 1.5GB of disk space and 100GB of data traffic per month should be sufficient for our project.

Sign up for free hosting with your registered domain name from the previous step, and you’ll get the DNS addresses needed for the domain set up – both in the confirmation email and in the website. Armed with that information, we are ready to go back to our postponed task.

Please note that the host set up process could take a long time (up to 24 hours). So be patient here and refresh the page often.

Setting up the domain

Back at the “Manage Domain” page, choose the number one: “Name Server” option and write down these values:

- Name server 1: ns01.000webhost.com
- Name server 2: ns02.000webhost.com

Then click “Set Up“, and you’ll go into another waiting game.

Installing WordPress

After the host and the DNS settings are active, we can log in to the cPanel to install WordPress. You can log in using your email address and password.

Find the Software section inside the cPanel and choose Fantastico, then select WordPress and provide the admin name with the chosen password. The Fantastico installation script will make the WordPress installation easier by automatically building and linking the database for you.

You have to decide where you want to install WordPress. If you leave the sub-folder blank, then WordPress will be installed in the root folder: your domain name and you can access it using –> http://www.your-domain.co.cc. But if you put name in the sub-folder, then WordPress would be installed in that folder and accessible via http://www.your-domain.co.cc/foldername

Customization and final notes

You can customize your WordPress installation using plugins and themes and upgrade it to the latest build via FTP. The details of the FTP is available in the welcome email and in the cPanel. I won’t go into detail here because discussing that topic would require another one or two more articles.

With all that said and done, I have to emphasize that the free domain name and free hosting service will only go that far: as an experiment tool. If you want to do this seriously, you have to go with the paid service as they will provide you with more necessary bells and whistles.

But let me share one last trick here: you don’t have to settle with the price that web hosting company offer you. You can get a far cheaper price by applying for a web host reseller account. Normally, this kind of account is not opened to the general public and also not free. But I found one which is free for everybody to join called Resellers Panel. (The link will put me as your referrer, but you can go directly to their website if you want)

By applying to become a reseller, not only you can get the cheapest price for domain names and hosting but you could also start your own business by reselling the service with the market price.

Do you use WordPress? Have you tried to install one on the web server? Share your experience using the comment below, and don’t forget to check out our article on installing WordPress locally in your hard drive.

Find Recently Available Or Deleted Domain Names with JustDropped

Karl L. Gechlik — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:00:23 +0000

What do you do when you start a new web project and need a new site name? I know I use a service like GoDaddy or Register.com to do a domain name search to find available domains. Now, close to 2 decades after the Internet gained popularity, all the decent domain names have been taken.

Luckily, I have a resource for you that can conduct a domain name search for those which were recently released or deleted. People forget to renew domains or companies go out of business. With JustDropped, we can which domains have become available in the last day, week or even hour.

The site is very easy to use but it does require registration. But as always, you can check out BugMeNot for a user name and password. If you will be using this service constantly, I suggest registering for your own set of credentials.

Once you are logged in, you will see this on your screen:

As you can see, the search engine has lots of available options. I started with filling in the “Domain should contain” field and put in a word I wanted in my domain name. Then, I chose the check box that says “contains only words”. Next, I made the maximum length 15 characters and then I clicked on the Domain Availability drop-down list.

I like to use Deleted so that I can see what I can buy right now. Choose your extensions that you want to search for, I strictly use .com. So my options looked like this:

Finally, hit the Show The Domains! button at the bottom and you will see the results from the domain name search on screen, like so:

It pulled up a list with more than 2000 items, and that is the maximum number of results displayed. But what I like to do is create a search and then have JustDropped email me a text file with all the names. I can then go through them in Excel. To do this, all you have to do is click this button at the bottom of your results page:

That emails me a list that looks something like this:

To me, this is an invaluable domain name search tool. They even offer some more paid services besides domain searching. But we won’t go into that here. Do you have a free tool you use to help you find domain names? If you do we would love to hear about it in the comments!

Haven’t got a clue for your new domain name? Check out 6 Domain Generators To Find That Killer Domain Name. From our directory, take a look at DomainTyper and BustaName.

Get Free Public Domain Audiobooks From LibriVox

T.J. Mininday — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:01:38 +0000

With the introduction of digital media devices, such as the iPod or Zune, the explosion of online digital content has been nothing short of amazing. It’s soon to become your only source for purchasing music, will one day be the only place to rent and purchase movies and now with sites like Audible, may be the best place to read/listen to a book.

The majority of the employed today, have somewhat of a commute. Whether it be 10 minutes or 45, some type of audio activity is necessary to keep us from falling asleep at the wheel. Audiobooks are slowly becoming an extremely popular option for this and LibriVox brings you a free option to listen to them.

LibriVox is a user driven public domain audiobook library for any and all to listen to. They allow anyone to take any one of the thousands of public domain audiobooks, record their own voice, and distribute for all to listen to. We’ve briefly mentioned LibriVox in 2007, talking about “Joining The User-Generated Content Revolution“, but I thought it needed a little more recognition.

What separates LibriVox from audiobook sites like Audible, is the fact that a majority of the books are read by several different readers, usually by chapter. It makes the book not only unique, but keeps your interest, because you never know what that next reader’s voice is going to sound like. Such as in the below example of Aesop’s Fables, each read by four different people.

As you can see in the above screenshot as well, you have a few different audio formats to choose from, including a lower and higher quality MP3, plus OGG as well. Nothing to sign-up for or register, all audio files can be directly downloaded right from the website.

Librivox allows you to browse to the entire catalog yourself, or use their handy search engine to find what you’re looking for by author, or by title. The interface isn’t all that pretty, but it gets the job done. According to Wikipedia, in March of 2009, the site had 2000+ recorded titles ranging from short fiction stories, to lengthy novels, and even poetry. At last count, there are recordings in 45+ languages.

Some of the more famous titles you might recognize include the 9/11 commission report, Pride and Prejudice, Capital and their most popular title “The Return of Native” by Thomas Hardy. There are even religious titles, including an English version of the Koran, and several reads of the Holy Bible. Just about every genre is covered in their collection.

The other part of Librivox that can keep you entertained, is where you can actually take part in recording your own book. As long as it falls into “Public Domain“, with a audio recording application like Audacity, and a PC microphone or headset, you can delve into recording your own voice for a chapter, or an entire book! They require no prior experience either. As long as your voice is audible, you can volunteer and release your voice to the world.

There really is no other site out there like LibriVox that I could find. There are a few free audiobooks and audiobook sites out there, but none that are driven by you, the everyday reader. It’s very unique in that way, and I know I will one day dive into reading my very own audiobook, and let my voice be heard.

Do you have any free audiobook sites that you like? Do you see yourself recording your very own book one day?

BREAKING: New Gmail Security Flaw. More Domains Get Stolen!

Aibek Esengulov — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 00:58:10 +0000

As many of you already know on November 2nd, MakeUseOf.com’s domain was stolen from us. It took us about 36 hours to get the domain back. As we have pointed out earlier the hacker somehow managed to get access to my Gmail account and from there to our GoDaddy account, unlock the domain and move it to another registrar.

You can see the whole story on our temporary blog makeuseof-temporary.blogspot.com/

I wasn’t planning to publish anything about the incident or cracker (person who steals domains) and how he managed to pull it off unless I was completely sure about it myself. I had a good feeling it was a Gmail security flaw but wanted to confirm it before posting anything about it on MakeUseOf. We love Gmail and giving them bad publicity is not something we would ever want to do.

So why write about this now then?

Several things have happened in the last two days that have made me believe that Gmail has a serious security flaw and everyone should be aware about it. Especially during the times when individuals like Steve Rubel tell you How To Make Gmail Your GateWay To The Web. Now, don’t get me wrong here, Gmail is an AWESOME email program. The best probably. The problem is that it might not be a reliable one when it comes to security. That being said, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be better off with Yahoo or Live Mail.

Incident 1: MakeUseOf.com – November 2nd

When our domain was stolen, we suspected that the hacker used some hole in Gmail but we were not sure about it. Why did I suspect that it was something to do with Gmail? Well for one thing I am rather cautious about security and rarely run anything I am not sure about. I also keep my system up to date and have all essentials including 2 malware monitors, an antivirus and 2 firewalls. I also tend to use strong and unique passwords for every one of my accounts.

The hacker did access my Gmail account and set up some filters there that eventually helped him to get access to our GoDaddy account. What I didn’t know is how he managed to do that. Was it a security hole in Gmail? Or was it a keylogger on my PC? I wasn’t sure about it. After the incident I scanned my system with a number of malware removals and didn’t find anything. I also went through every running process as well. All semed to be clean.

So, I am inclined to believe the problem was with Gmail.

Incident 2: YuMP3.org – November 19th

On November 18′th, I got an email from someone named Edin Osmanbegovic who runs the site yump3.org. (He probably found my email through Google as the incident with MakeUseOf was covered on several popular blogs, many of which included my email ID.) In his email, Edin told me that his domain was stolen and moved to another registrar. I quickly googled the yoump3 and saw that a rather established website was now serving a link farm page (exactly like in our case).

Google (on last index):

YouMP3.org hompage (present):

Here is a copy of the very first email I got from Edin:

Hello,
I have the same problem with my domain.
The domain has transfered from Enom to GoDaDDy.
I have immediately send support ticket regarding that problem.

The whois of new domain owner is :

Name: Amir Emami
Address 1: P.O. Box 1664
City: League City
State: Texas
Zip: 77574
Country: US
Phone: +1.7138937713
Email:

Administrative Contact Information:
Name: Amir Emami
Address 1: P.O. Box 1664
City: League City
State: Texas
Zip: 77574
Country: US
Phone: +1.7138937713
Email:

Technical Contact Information:
Name: Amir Emami
Address 1: P.O. Box 1664
City: League City
State: Texas
Zip: 77574
Country: US
Phone: +1.7138937713
Email:

Email is : webs@domainsgame.org
Yesterday the guy from that email adress had contacted me via Gtalk.
He said that he want 2000$ for the domain.
I need advice please,I have contacted the Enom.

Thank you.

And guess what, it’s the same guy who earlier this month stole MakeUseOf.com. We too were contacted from the same email address: webs@domainsgame.org. Edin also emailed me today and confirmed that the guy also got access to his domain account through his Gmail account. So it’s again Gmail.

In his last email (received today) Edin included a quick recap of the events

I have the history of how he did everything.

On 10th of November I was the owner.
On 13th of November Mark Morphew.
On 18th of November Amir Emami.

He used webs@domainsgame.org on both persons.

I have send yesterday also everythig to Moniker.
They will investigate.

Incident 3: Cucirca.com – November 20th

This last email was the main reason for this post. It came from Florin Cucirka, the owner of cucirca.com. The site has an alexa rank of 7681 and according to Florin receives over 100,000 visits daily.

First email from Florin:

Hi Aibek

I’m in the same situation makeuseof.com got out.

I am Cucirca Florin and my domain www.cucirca.com was
transfered from my godaddy account without my permission.

It seems that the thief knew my gmail password which is odd.
He managed to create some filters to my account.

I’ve attached 2 screenshots.

Can you help me? Give me some details on how I could get
out of this bad dream? I just found today about this and I
don’t think I’m able to sleep tonight.

Thanks in advance.

Florin Cucirca.

I emailed Florin and asked him some details about his domain, whether he contacted GoDaddy and whatever information he got on the domain cracker (term used for domain stealer) guy so far.

Second email from Florin:

The hacker had access to my email account (gmail). The domain was hosted on godaddy.
I used gmail notifier extension on firefox. maybe there is the big bug.
He transfered the domain to register.com

I haven’t talk to the hacker. I want to get it back legally and if there is not other solution maybe i’ll pay him

www.cucirca.com has an Alexa Rank of 7681 and over 100 000 visits daily.

I will attach you 2 screenshots of my gmail account.

joy.hock@gmail.com and in the second screen domain.selln@gmail.com

If you do a google search of domain.selln@gmail.com you will find this:

http://www.domainmagnate.com/2008/08/11/788-domains-stolen-including-yxlcom/

I think someone should stop them.

I emailed undo@godaddy.com and waiting for a reply.

What do you think? Will i get my domain back?

Looks like it’s Gmail again! Here are the partial screenshots from what he sent me:

In Florin’s case the hacker changed ownership of the domain several month ago. The cucirca.com was transfrred from GoDaddy to Register.com. Since the hacker was intercepting his emails and never changed nameservers I assume Florin had no idea that something was wrong. When I asked him how come it took him that long to find out he send me following:

He transfered the domain to his name on 2008-09-05 leaving the nameservers unchanged. That’s why I haven’t noticed that my doomain was stolen until yesterday when a friend of mine did a whois on my domain….

I had no reason to check whois records because the domain was registered over 7 years (until 2013-11-08)

I haven’t received any emails from this person.

And again it seems to be the same guy! Why do I think so? If you check that link that Florin included in one of his emails (i added it below as well) you’ll see that in some other similar incidents (who knows how many more domains he has stolen like this) email address domain.selln@gmail.com was mentioned together with the name ‘Aydin Bolourizadeh’. That same email also appeared in the forward rule in Florin’s Gmail account (see first screenshot).

When MakeUseOf.com was taken from us, the cracker was asking me for 2000$. And when I asked him where and how he wants to get paid, he told me to send money via Western Union to the following address:

Aydin Bolourizadeh
Turkey
Ankara
Cukurca kirkkonaklar mah 3120006954

screenshot from http://www.domainmagnate.com/2008/08/11/788-domains-stolen-including-yxlcom/

I am pretty pretty that it was the same guy in all 3 incidents and probably 788 others mentioned in the above link, including domains such as yxl.com, visitchina.net and visitjapan.net.

When I searched for that address on Google, I also discovered that he owns the following domains (probably stole them as well):

http://whois.domaintools.com/elli.com

http://www.dnforum.com/post252-post-1399775.html

I assume the guy is indeed from Turkey, and is likely to reside somewhere in the following area.

We also know that he uses webs@domainsgame.org as his email. So if we know who stands behind domainsgames.org we might just get one step closer. In fact, he emailed several days ago and asked me to remove all instances of his email from the website and if we don’t comply he would DDOS us.

Here are his exact words:

Hi,
I ask you to remove my email address (webs@domainsgame.org) from your website !
Do it if you want to dont have any problem in the future, Otherwise firstly I’ll start to have the big DDOS on your website and will make it down…
Im very seriuos so remove my email and domainsgame.org name

So, it seems if we can get to the ID behind domainsgame.org we might get our guy and probably uncover many more domains he has stollen. Read more on it below. Now let’s talk about Gmail.

Gmail Vulnerability

Does anyone remember what hapeened with David Airey last year? His domain was stolen too. The story was all over the web.

- WARNING: Google’s GMail security failure leaves my business sabotaged
- Collective effort restores David Airey.com

Both we and David managed to get the domain back. But I am not sure if everyone is as lucky as we are. Unfortunately, registrars won’t really cooperate with you on this unless the story gets some attention. So, I have no doubt there are hundreds of people out there left with no chance but to either give their domain name or pay the guy.

Anyways, back to Gmail.

In his first article David Airey was referring to a Gmail vulnerability that was (if I am not mistaken) mentioned here several months earlier. To sum up:

The victim visits a page while being logged into GMail. Upon execution, the page performs a multipart/form-data POST to one of the GMail interfaces and injects a filter into the victim’s filter list. In the example above, the attacker writes a filter, which simply looks for emails with attachments and forward them to an email of their choice. This filter will automatically transfer all emails matching the rule. Keep in mind that future emails will be forwarded as well. The attack will remain present for as long as the victim has the filter within their filter list, even if the initial vulnerability, which was the cause of the injection, is fixed by Google.

original page: http://www.gnucitizen.org/blog/google-gmail-e-mail-hijack-technique/

Now, the interesting part is that update on the above GNU Citizen link states that vulnerability was fixed before 28 September 2007. But in David’s case, the incident took place in December, 2-3 months later.

So, was the exploit really fixed back then? Or was it a new exploit in David’s case? And most importantly is there a similar security flaw in Gmail NOW?

What should you do now?

(1) Well, my very first advice would be to check your email settings and make sure your email is not compromised. Check fowarding options and filters. Also make sure to disable IMAP if you don’t use it. This also applies to Google Apps accounts.

(2) Change contact email in your sensitive web accounts (paypal, domain registrar etc.) from your primary Gmail account to something else. If you own the website then change the contact email for your host and registrar accounts to some other email. Preferably to something that you aren’t logged in to when browsing web.

(3) Make sure to upgrade your domain to private registration so that your contact details don’t show up on WhoIS searches. If you’re on GoDaddy I’d recommend going with Protected Registration.

(4) Don’t open links in your email if you don’t know the person they are coming from. And if you decide to open the link make sure to log out first.

UPDATE:

I discovered some good articles discussing potential security flaw in response to MakeUseOf’s article:

- Gmail Security Flaw Proof Of Concept
- Comments About This on YCombinator
- (Nov. 26′th) Gmail Security and Recent Phishing Activity [Official Response from Google]

Help Us Catch The Guy!

Apart from above mailing address, we also know that he uses webs@domainsgame.org as his email. So if we find out who now owns the domainsgames.org we might get one step closer. or at the very least return the domains he stole to their respective owners.

Now the thing is the domain name domainsgames.org is protected by Moniker and they hide all the contact info for it.

Domain ID:D154519952-LROR
Domain Name:DOMAINSGAME.ORG
Created On:22-Oct-2008 07:35:56 UTC
Last Updated On:08-Nov-2008 12:11:53 UTC
Expiration Date:22-Oct-2009 07:35:56 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Moniker Online Services Inc. (R145-LROR)
Status:CLIENT DELETE PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED
Status:TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:MONIKER1571241
.
.
.
.
Name Server:NS3.DOMAINSERVICE.COM
Name Server:NS2.DOMAINSERVICE.COM
Name Server:NS1.DOMAINSERVICE.COM
Name Server:NS4.DOMAINSERVICE.COM

I already emailed (so did Edin) them about it and will update you here as soon as I hear something from them.

I also have some requests to following companies that are now providing their services to that individual.

1- To Gmail Team:

When going through header files in several emails it was clear that hacker was using Google Apps. Please look into it. The domain is domainsgame.org. And also please FIX! the Gmail.

2- To GoDaddy.COM & ENOM & Register.COM

First of all, please help Edin and Florin get their domains back. One smart thing to do would be to check the account login IP addresses for all similar reported cases. For instance, both in Edin’s case and ours (not sure about Florin ) the hacker was using 64.72.122.156 IP address. (Which by the way turned out to be a compromised server on Alpha Red Inc.) Or even easier, just lock the domain name and ask the current account holder to prove his identity. Since the hacker was using different identities everywhere it would be impossible for him to do that. It’s in your best interests to ensure that this person is no longer using your services.

3- To Moniker.COM:

Close his account! (that is the one for domainsgame.org). Any additional info or assistance that you can provide will be appreciated.

4- To Domainsponsor.COM

I am not really sure but I think DomainSponsor is the company that monetizes those domains that this guy steals. It happened with MakeUseOf.com and now hapening with YouMP3.org.

5- To PayPal.COM: (Your SUPPORT IS AWFUL)

I am sure they won’t even read this so I’ll just tell you instead. I sent an email to spoof@paypal.com and warned them that the person who stole our domain and blackmailed us earlier was using a.npaypal@gmail.com account (he uses some other accounts as well). I just asked them to look into it. Instead I get an email which has nothing to do with what I said. Basically it’s an email template that was meant to look genuine and sent to the people who got spoofed. C’mon! We are paying 3% commision fee on every transaction, can’t you people provide better customer support?

That’s all I got!

Once again I am deeply sorry for what has happened to Florin and Edin. I trully hope they will get their domains back soon. It’s all in the hands of the respective registrars now. But most importantly, I want to see something get done by big corps (not the customers) to catch that person. I am sure every blogger out there would appreciate that and probably even write about it on his/her blog.

It’s time for CHANGE

best regards
Aibek

image credit: thanks to machine for top ‘Mr Cracker’ image

GmailAssistant – The Ultimate Gmail Notifier

Travis Quinnelly — Fri, 30 May 2008 22:50:15 +0000

GmailAssistant is an amazing little java application that allows you to check multiple Gmail accounts including Gmail for Domains at the same time. GmailAssistant accesses your Google accounts securely using IMAP over SSL. Basically folks, that means that it’s pretty secure!

GmailAssistant allows you to completely customize your notification options. You can choose to have it find all mail, unread in the Inbox, and even mail with specific labels. You can even choose different alert methods…i.e. popup message, chime, blink keyboard LED.

Features

Single-File – GmailAssistant is launched from just one file. All you need to run it is contained in that one executable .jar file.
No Installation – GmailAssistant is packaged into one executable .jar file, which means it runs on any Operating System.
Leave It – GmailAssistant does not modify any system settings in any way. Everything needed for it runs in the .jar file.
Convenience – Always on top, SOCKS proxy, save/load program and account settings in encrypted profiles, automatic profile loading, adjustable mail check frequency, persistent and navigable popup messages
Updates – Easily update GmailAssistant with one click.
License – GNU General Public License version 2.

What it looks like

Here is the GmailAssistant Main form. From this page you can configure your various Gmail accounts.

Listed below is the “Account Form” where you specifiy your specific details for your various Gmail or Gmail for Domains accounts. This is where you’ll also set up the specific privileges about how you want GmailAssistant to notify you and alert you to your accounts.

Last but not least, is the view from the system tray. Here you’ll see the small GmailAssistant icon where it will display your alerts.

(By) Travis is a husband, engineer, entrepreneur, technology swami, visual communicator, WordPress lover and writer in his spare time. You can check out his personal blog at TQuizzle.com.