Make Magazine

By Jerry Pournelle

April 24, 2006

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I have mentioned this one before, but it's worth reminding you: If you have any skill at gadgetry, or even interest in such things, O'Reilly's Make is the magazine/book series for you. There are projects ranging from toys to the serious. Volume 6 has instructions on how to convert your Prius to let it be charged from an external electric power source. I am not convinced I'd undertake that task from the instructions in Make, but it's certainly a good way to estimate the difficulty involved.

Most, if not all, the projects are reports from those who have done them. There are also book reports, product reviews, and general articles; the latter are, to me, the least interesting features.

Even if you never build any of the projects, I find it hard to believe you won't find this more than worth the price of subscription; and if you do undertake one of them, it will certainly save you money. Recommended.

You Can't Say We Weren't Warned

I use and recommend GoDaddy for domain registration. Alex uses GoDaddy.com for registering his client's domains, and recently missed a renewal deadline. Here's his sobering if obvious report:

I have no one to blame but myself. GoDaddy sends you nag-o-grams, starting 90 days before the domain renewal deadline, and with increasing frequency as you near it. There's also a short grace period after the actual expiry.

I called GoDaddy's customer support about a week after the grace period had expired, too late to fish it out of purgatory without penalty. The lady on the phone was perfectly nice, but there was no way I could renew for the original $17 price. My options were: (1) Pay $85 to GoDaddy to, essentially, buy it back from them or (2) wait until the auction for the domain happened, hope no one overbid me, and then maybe get it back, a mere 45 days after expiration. Since GoDaddy had automatically grabbed the domain name for themselves, I couldn't just transfer it to a different registrar, at least not quickly and certainly.

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