Dan Rooke’s Blog

Well there has been much discussion since the landrush period for the new .eu TLD began. By all accounts, it appears as though there have been some underhand practices used to register a large number of domains. Even though EURid, the body overseeing registrations, were made aware of loopholes in the system, it appears as though they were and are still unwilling to take action.

The net result of this is that many valuable .eu domains lie in the hands of unscrupulous people who are more likely than not to be Americans. These domains are now being auctioned for ridculous prices. The domain I was after, rooke.eu, doesn’t appear to have fallen victim to this practice although we have yet to see anything published there other than a holding page.

After talks with GoDaddy’s support team, it appears that once they acknowledge that the domain has been registered by another party, they will refund the registration charge I paid. A simple check on the EURid whois database can confirm that! All in all, it’s been a frustrating experience.

For those of you who didn’t know, the .eu TLD was opened for public domain registrations on Friday 7th. I had wanted to get a hold of the rooke.eu domain as I’ve always wanted a Rooke domain. Looking at all of the other major TLDs proved useless as they are all registered for a good few years to come. The newly introduced .eu TLD was a chance to get a reasonable Rooke name. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday, Becca and I visited the lovely village of Nawton between Helmsley and Kirkbymoorside in North Yorkshire. We stayed at Plumpton Court which we thought was an excellent B&B and would definately recommend.

On the Tuesday, I had to busy myself while Becca went for an interview at Ryedale School. I decided to go for a nice drive which I don’t get much chance to do these days. I headed out towards Scarborough stopping at Thornton-le-Dale on the way for some photos.

As you can see, it was a lovely clear and sunny day. The sun was warm but the air temperature was rather cold! Nearing Scarborough I hit some hail and then quite a heavy snow shower (in April!). I got through it fine and ended up sitting just below the castle on the northern tip of the south bay.

After my stop in Scarborough, I headed down the A64 to Malton. On the way getting fuel at a semi-reasonable (relatively) 92.5 pence per litre. In Malton I had a little walk around and got myself some lunch from a family run bakery - very tasty lemon cheesecake! Next stop was Helmsley, a short trip along the B1257.

All in all it was a very pleasant day and a half. It certainly beats being stuck in front of my monitor plugging away at assignments/project! I’d like to head back up and explore some more of the area, perhaps with a better camera next time.

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Yes, I’m back onto my seemingly favourite topic once again - Royal Mail.

I had a failed delivery attempt on Friday where I got a lovely red card informing me I needed to collect an item from the main post office in town. I was a little annoyed because I was in but didn’t hear them knock, but that could well have been my fault. Anyway, went to collect it this morning and it had not been ‘processed’ yet - typical! I find this very irritating and have an alternative solution. Why not drop all of the failed deliveries into the local post office at the end of the round meaning that the items would be available at most a few hours later?! This would save processing at the main post office and be more convenient for people.

This annoyance comes on the day that stamp prices rise to 32 pence for first class and 23 pence for second class. Are we really seeing value for money? Now that the market has been opened to competition, when will we start to see a real alternative?