Monthly Archives: January 2011

Using git to Remotely Install Website Updates

There’s a great recipe for this at Using Git to manage a web site. I thought I’d share my version of it, just slightly modified from the original and HostGator-centric. Even if you’re using shared hosting, you may still be able to use git to remotely install updates to your sites.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that HostGator DOES include git in it’s shared hosting packages. You’ll need ssh access for this recipe to work — an extra hoop for HostGator customers using shared hosting.

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Spook Country Review


Just wrapped up reading Spook Country tonight. The ending was a bit of a let down: the contents of the container mundane and the locative-art/WiFi-geohacking totally underplayed.

The most interesting tech in the story centers around the holographic images produced via hacking WiFi signals. Throughout the novel though, this is only delivered as an after-thought. Viewing the holographic art was only possible using specialized visors. I was willing to bet money that the Milgrim character, through the (ab)use of the Rize drug, would be able to view the holograms WITHOUT the use of the visor at some critical point in the story.

I had thought that Milgrim’s captor was part of the government experiment to test the drug and that the mysterious shipping container had within it a mobile installation of the WiFi locative-art. Oh well… guess not! :)

Tagology Bookmarks

Here’s the big reveal of the domain name mentioned in my SnapNames debacle post. It’s TAGOLOGY.com, and the plan is to use Tagology instead of Savory for my personal WordPress-based bookmarking theme.

So, in case your’re wondering what either of those two are… Tagology is a WordPress theme that allows you to bookmark sites much like Delicious.com except that YOU own the database of bookmarks.

Skip over to the Tagology page for more information HERE.

Domain Backorder Snapfu

I bid on an expiring domain at SnapNames for $79. This was the minimum bid. I was the only bidder, but somehow the process went awry and SnapNames failed to acquire the domain from Melbourne IT. The domain would go to pending delete, I was told.

Fast-forward to today. The domain was set to drop. I didn’t want to backorder the domain with SnapNames for fear of my bid showing up in their search results. If there are NO other bidders, I believe you’ve got one hour BEFORE drop time to backorder the name with them. One hour is a long time for your bid to be showing up publicly on their search pages.

(Expired domain bids can be placed just before the closing bell, which is more advantageous…)

Long story short: I got the domain name with SnapNames when it dropped. Here’s what happened: my expired domain bid was flipped to a backorder automatically. Fine. But, my bid of $79 also went with it. The problem is that $59 is the minimum bid for SnapNames backorders. I just paid $20 more than I could have.

Here are some lessons:

  • expired domain bids are flipped to deleting domain backorders keeping the SAME bid amount
  • my backorder NEVER appeared on the public search pages like I had thought they would
  • always bid the MINIMUM amount
  • REMOVE the backorders you no longer want… your tastes and requirements change, don’t get caught!

I’m pretty happy I got the domain though in the end :) I didn’t get too burned. Actually, SnapNames came through, although it would have been nice to receive notifications like “Your expired bid is now a deleted domain backorder and TODAY that domain is dropping”, or something like that…