Mar
22
2010
Well, it seems that my earlier post about the quest for the grail being a never-ending task was a bit near-sighted. My original blog article was basically a relating of my disappointment that the dreams of many youth have been dashed for so many years by no one in particular that didn’t deliver on those dreams. (I know, it’s wordy but that’s ok)
I am happy to report that the dreams of many a child are likely to become a reality later this year. Martin Aircraft Company is slated to start selling to the public a personal “jetpack”. While this is technically not a jetpack it comes close enough to the dream for most. Take a look at the website here: http://martinjetpack.com/ The concept has been talked about for decades. Prototypes made and discarded. I think this one will last…at least for a bit. My faith is restored in the power of dreams. Now if I could just scrape together the $100,000 or so that it will take to by one of the initial models, I will be living the dream.
Mar
15
2010
Happy Birthday .com
25 Years ago today the first .com address was registered. It wasn’t broadcast.com, sex.com, Microsoft.com or any well known address. It was Symbolics.com, the name of the company was…..well it was Symbolics. The domain name changed hands last year and is now something of a trophy domain for a domain investment company (XF.com).
When the .com domains first became available the internet was still restricted to non-commercial use and its users were mostly academic and research centers, there wasn’t a great land rush to secure the “best” domain names that came later.
In 1985, there were 6 domain names registered (source) ;
Note: Some of these companies no longer exist and some of these domain names no longer point at the original locations.
1. 15 Mar 1985 Symbolics.com
2. 24 Apr 1985 BBN.com
3. 24 May 1985 Think.com
4. 11 Jul 1985 MCC.com
5. 30 Sep 1985 DEC.com
6. 07 Nov 1985 Northrop.com
Some big names followed in 1986;
19 Mar 1986 IBM.com
19 Mar 1986 Sun.com
25 Mar 1986 Intel.com
25 Mar 1986 TI.com
25 Apr 1986 ATT.com
Apple first registered Apple.com in 1987 and Microsoft was a later comer to the internet registering Microsoft.com as late as 1991.
Since those days, of registering names that often matched your company name and that you were going to use, domain names have become a big business. Sex.com was sold for an estimate 14 million dollars and is about to go on the auction block again, domain investment companies buy thousands upon thousands of addresses, not because they have a good idea for a website, but because they think someone else might and would be willing to pay for their first choice of domain name.
In the last 25 years we have gone from 1 company having a domain name to most companies and a lot of people owning their own name. What will the naming system look like 25 years from now?
Mar
12
2010
OK, I admit it. I am an NCIS fan. Not really a fanatic, just a fan. Specifically I am a fan of the technical aspects of the TV show. I do have to admit that there are errors made by the writers that leave me wondering certain things such as how did they end up with an IP address with one of the octets numbering in the 400s? Oh well, the writers of the show are not IT gurus, they are writers. I do like the fact that they must do a fair amount of research though. The writers tend to mention such cool things as steganography and AES encryption. All of these things tend to make the show much more believable to someone who is in the business of knowing what those things actually are. I could give examples of television show writing that lacked even a cursory Google search, (I am definitely NOT going to mention any shows by name such as CSI – Miami) but I won’t. Suffice it to say that they do exist, just tune in to your local CBS affiliate at 10:00 PM EST to see one that drives me nuts.
I was going to write an article this month about women in IT and the influences they have had. Well, I did… sort of. I spoke about NCIS in the above paragraph and neglected to mention that the main character whose job it is to deal with all of the “techie” stuff is Abby Sciuto who is played by Pauley Perrette who in real life was working on completing her Masters degree in Criminal Science before her regular job of acting like she had a job in Criminal Science started. I therefore dedicate this blog article to saluting all women who work in IT (or IT related fields) and in particular to Pauley Perrette who makes watching NCIS so enjoyable.
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