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Filed under: Internet, Commercial, VoIP

Subscriptions make great presents - Holiday Gift Guide

Skype Pro
The holiday shopping season is upon us, and if you're trying to think up a few good gift ideas for your geeky or not so geeky friends and family, we're here to help. Over the next few days we'll be bringing you a number of suggestions for Download Squad style gifts.

To kick things off, I wanted to talk about a gift idea for the computer user who doesn't really need any new software: subscriptions. Nothing says I love you like a year's worth of unlimited domestic VoIP phone calls, or the security of knowing your files are securely backed up to an offsite storage space. Well, maybe not nothing, but certainly few things. Here are a few ideas for subscription based services you might want to buy for your loved ones. Feel free to add your own ideas or argue with my choice of services in the comments.

Skype

Skype provides a free way for Windows, Mac, and Linux users to make free voice or video calls to one another. But you can also buy credit or monthly subscriptions to make calls to regular telephones. You can also purchase a phone number that people can call to ring you on Skype.

Prices range from a few cents a minute for domestic calls, to $9.95 a month for unlimited international calls. For less than $36 a year you can buy a plan that will allow users to make unlimited domestic calls in the US and Canada. $60 a year will get you a SkypeIn phone number. If you purchase both an unlimited calling plan and a SkypeIn number, the price is even lower. And there are a ton of other options available.

Skype isn't the only game in town. You might also want to check out Gizmo5 or newcomer VoxOx.

Read more →

Filed under: Internet

ICANN loosens domain name rules, .SQUAD coming soon?

Network SolutionsAs expected, the international body that oversees internet domain names has voted to change the way top-level domains work. Right now there are only about 200 top level domains, with some of the most widespread being .com, .net, .org, and .edu. But under the rules adopted by ICANN today, companies or individuals will be able to register top line domains using pretty much any string of characters.

For example, why settle for www.downloadquad.com when you could have www.download.squad? The advantage to the new system is that it will be much easier to snag the domain you really want. The down side is that most web surfers tend to think in .com. It's already hard enough to remember whether you need to type in .com, .net, or .org. It could be much harder to find the page you're looking for if there are literally millions of options.

Of course, it's not like just anybody is going to go out and register a new top-level domain. The application fee will be upwards of $100,000. And even if we do wind up with 2000 or even 2,000,000 top-level domains instead of 200, odds are it'll still be easy enough to find the sites you're looking for thanks to these nifty things called search engines.

ICANN has also approved the use of Arabic and Cyrillic scripts for top-level domains.

Filed under: Internet, Web services

Discover clev.er domain nam.es with DomainFinder

DomainFinder

Jealous of folks who have managed to snag international domain names consisting of nothing but their names? Engadget founder Peter Rojas has roj.as. And WordPress founder Matt Mullenwag has ma.tt. But unless you have an encyclopedic knowledge of domain naming conventions, you might have a hard time coming up with a domain name for your name.

DomainFinder can help. Just enter your name or any other phrase you like, and the web site will spit out possible domain names. You can't currently register your name through the site, or even figure out what country has the rights to a domain. But once you've found the domain name of your dreams, figuring out how to buy it shouldn't be too hard. Unless someone else has already registered downlo.ad.

[via Digital Inspiration]

Filed under: Internet, Search

Get your .ASIA domains today, before it doesn't matter anymore

ICANN Asia
Starting today anyone can sign up for a domain name ending in .ASIA on a first come, first served basis. For the past month or so, DotAsia, the organization overseeing the new top level domain was accepting registrations on a limited basis.

But that .ASIA domain might not be as valuable as you'd think. Well, sure, first of all, it's going to take a while before anyone even thinks of typing .ASIA into their browser's location bar. Nothing beats .COM for that right now. But blogger Cabel Maxfield Sasser also noticed an interesting trend during a recent trip to Japan. Many companies aren't advertising their URLs anymore. Instead, they're providing keywords that you can type into a search box to find their company.

It makes sense. After all, most of the good, easy to remember domain names were sold years ago. Sure, you could post your incredibly long URL on an ad in the subway, but what are the odds that people will remember it when they get home? If you're pretty confident in your search engine optimization techniques (or if you've paid for placement), why not advertise a keyword or two? But if the trend does take off, it means that we might all start placing a lot less importance on domain names in the future.

[via LifeRocks 2.0 and Boing Boing]

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

View more Time Wasters

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