Review of DNSMadeEasy (Problems Upon a Failed Renewal)

This is my account of a problem I ran into with DNSMadeEasy.  TL;DR: there seems to be a technical glitch they failed to address, and now I don’t use them.

Wrike – My Project Management Tool of Choice

Wrike.com is an awesome, awesome project management tool.  Blogging to pass on the love.

Why is it awesome?  Because it is light, makes no assumptions about my workflow, and is simple and intuitive.  Consists of tasks, arranged in folders (one-to-many), with dependencies (Gantt charts), integrated with email allowing for easy discussions and notifications, and time tracking to boot.  Currently, I use Wrike at JoMI along with FairSetup (my other project) allowing everyone on the team to, once a week, quickly review our activity and self-report on accomplishments/time allocation, which leads to short-cycle calibration within the team.

So far, Wrike has been particularly good at helping with the following:

• workflow management – when I have a multi-step workflow, easy to track progress
• prioritization – when people get overloaded, I am able to prioritize their (and my) attention
• memory – things no longer get lost
• rapport – making sure that we are all on the same page. This last one deserves more attention…

 

Windows 8 – Leaping into… Badassness

After seeing the really badass Win8 plug, I made the leap: my X200 is now running Win8…  not without trepidation (thank you Mr. Fitzpatrick for teaching me how to do forensic backups – much appreciated).

First impressions.  How the f do you shut this thing down?  Oh…  Settings…  that totally makes sense!  Unless you are not supposed to shut this thing down.  Ever.

First thing you need to learn not to miss the start menu: Win-Q.  Trust me.

Moving over to BitBucket – Quick HowTo

Moved my repos over to BitBucket – unlimited repos for up to 5 users for free.  Love GitHub, but this post converted me.  To save noobs (like self) time in moving over:

1.  Import your GitHub repo using the BitBucket Import function

2.  Go to your directory see where you are connected:

git remote -v

3.  Switch over to the new repo (StackOverflow):

git remote set-url origin git@bitbucket.org:USERNAME/REPO

And you are done.

How to create a 2-column template page on the TwentyEleven theme in WordPress

Spent a bunch of time looking for a solution – hopefully this will save someone some time…  Just don’t forget to modify the page name in the following script: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/child-page-template-sidebar-below-content

Keyboard Shortcut to Delete a Page in OneNote

Funny…  I had to look around quite a bit online to find how to delete a page in OneNote using a keyboard shortcut.  It’s CTRL-SHIFT-A to select the entire page, and then just DEL.

Wish MSFT had it in their shortcut help.

How to fix Paypal Delivery Issues with Google Groups

So I recently discovered (the hard way) that if you set up a group on Google Apps to receive and distribute emails from Paypal (like if you want to have sales@yourdomain.com for instance), this will not work.  In fact, the email never gets delivered to the destination and just disappears into the ether.  After a call with Paypal and a post on a Google Apps support forum, I’ve set up DKIM and it worked.

This, given that Google and Paypal compete, is super-shady.  Why didn’t it get delivered into my spam mailbox at least?  Google, very disappointed in you.

Setting up remote access for SQL Server

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/914277#method1

Found this quite useful.

Quesiton: What do you use to register domain names?

Everyone, need advice.  What do you use to register domain names?  I used to use mydomain.com, but their purchasing process is ridiculous – it automatically adds crap to your cart that are a real pain in the ass to remove (things that you’ve been searching for).  Then I tried 1and1.com, but they just have a really clunky interface.  What’s a good, simple, straightforward, cheap registrar?

NameCheap free DNS resolver is down due to DDOS

Ugh…  great…  The NameCheap free name servers/DNS servers (also called FreeDNS servers) are down due to a DDOS attack.  Status of the issue can be tracked at http://status.namecheap.com.

Now, this is not the first time I’ve had to deal with it.  MyDomain name servers were down earlier this year (link).  Since this is not the first time dealing with this, immediately added backup name servers so that I am using both MyDomain and NameCheap servers, but that doesn’t make it any less unpleasant.  Especially feeling stupid for not having had backup DNS servers set after the last outage.

The upsetting thing is that one of my domain names is actually registered with NameCheap and that one seems to be resolving just fine.  I wonder if I am being unreasonable in expecting their free offering to have the same reliability as their paid offering given the nature of the product.

Update: Beracah suggested that www.dnsmadeeasy.com guarantees 100% uptime.  Switching there…  he also says it improves access time.