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What I learned from 20 years of giving domains as Christmas presents

Slide 1: What I learned from 20 years of giving domains as Christmas presents

What I learned from 20 years of giving domains as Christmas presents

[email protected]

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Slide 2: Outline

Outline

  1. My story
  2. What you need to know
  3. What you need to avoid
  4. What to do with it
  5. Dilemmas
  6. What’s new

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Slide 3: My story

My story

  • 1998: www.cuni.cz/~dlukes
  • 2000: bohemica.com
  • 2005: dominiklukes.net
  • 2010: strcprstskrskrk.com
  • 2020: 30 domains later

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Slide 4: Metaphorhacker.net

Metaphorhacker.net

Screenshot of the Metaphor Hacker website, "Hacking Metaphors, Frames and Other Ideas", with its menu (About, Blog on Request, Metaphorhacker), a search box, and a list of posts beginning with "Why I am a feminist: A reading list" by Dominik Lukeš, March 8, 2021.

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Slide 5: Why I own 30 domains

Why I own 30 domains

  • Emails
  • Websites
  • Gifts
  • Creative Writing

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Slide 6: Key concepts people don’t get

Key concepts people don’t get

  • Every web page is a file in a folder on a computer somewhere
  • Every computer on the internet has a unique number (IP Address)
  • Domains are verbal shortcuts

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Slide 7: From a presentation I did in 1998

From a presentation I did in 1998

A 1998 slide in Czech on a spiral-notebook background, titled "Co vám řekne adresa (URL)" ("What does the address (URL) tell you"). It shows http://www.seznam.cz and http://www.microsoft.com with arrows labelled hypertext, organizace, země and doména, and top-level domains .uk, .ru, .sk, .edu, .org and .gov.

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Slide 8: Browsers are HTML file viewers

Browsers are HTML file viewers

A browser window: a tab titled example.html, an address bar showing a path to a file on the local drive, and the page text “This is an HTML file on my drive”.

A file-manager window showing the folder “HTML test” with one file, example.html, a Chrome HTML Document of 56 bytes.

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Slide 9: Web servers are just computers with folders

Web servers are just computers with folders

https://myserver.com/index.html

=

https://myserver.com

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Slide 10: Website address is a link to folders

Website address is a link to folders

https://myserver.com/index.html

=

C://webserver/myservertopfolder/index.html

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Slide 11: Sometime the file is in a database

Sometime the file is in a database

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Roffie-Microphones-Computer-Recording-Conference/dp/B0878VGZZ5/ref=sr_1_5?crid=1TJK0MT6QNWF3&dchild=1&keywords=webcam&qid=1589195310&sprefix=24+in+%2Caps%2C195&sr=8-5

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Slide 12: Sometimes, there’s other information in the link

Sometimes, there’s other information in the link

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Roffie-Microphones-Computer-Recording-Conference/dp/B0878VGZZ5/ref=sr_1_5?crid=1TJK0MT6QNWF3&dchild=1&keywords=webcam&qid=1589195310&sprefix=24+in+%2Caps%2C195&sr=8-5

=

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Roffie-Microphones-Computer-Recording-Conference/dp/B0878VGZZ5

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Slide 13: Top level domains are addresses of computers

Top level domains are addresses of computers

subserver.myserver.com/folderonmyserver/fileonmyserver.html

=

123.56.39.10:576/ folderonmyserver/fileonmyserver.html

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Slide 14: What to know about domains

What to know about domains

  • Buy them via registrars
  • Different TLDs, different prices, different rules
  • Country TLDs are fun but expensive, capricious

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Slide 15: .tv .so .ly .it .co

.tv .so .ly .it .co

Screenshot of a Rest of World article, "Why domain names are the new natural resource", subtitled "Two letters at the end of a web address could be Tuvalu's economic future." by George Siosi Samuels, 15 December 2020, with a colourful illustration of a globe.

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Slide 16: Lessons learned

Lessons learned

  • 10 years is nothing
  • Separate domain and hosting
  • Don’t let them expire
  • Transferring is a pain
  • Always think about moving

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Slide 17: Handy jargon

Handy jargon

  • DNS
  • IP Address
  • MX Record
  • A Name and C Name

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Slide 18: What’s new

What’s new

  • Wordpress Competition
  • Notion as a website host
  • Cloudflare
  • Reclaim Hosting

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Slide 19: Slide 19

  • dominiklukes.net
  • techczech.net
  • metaphorhacker.net
  • researchity.net
  • czechly.com
  • …

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