terrellm's comments

What if one of your examples was the original filename and the account holder renamed it to something less obvious such as cat.jpg?

The two subdomains (technews and primaries) both have the same IP of 70.32.92.201, a MediaTemple IP. TechCrunch used to host at Media Temple according to DomainTools Hosting History. There is probably an A record in the DNS pointing those subdomains to those specific IPs.

The IPs have just been recycled and are being used by MediaTemple hosting customer.

Sort of backwards to my company Cattlesoft where we prefer our employees to already have their own cows before coming to work for us.

We develop software for the cattle industry and have had far better luck with hiring people who own cattle or grew up on a ranch as they better relate to our customers.

Of course hiring someone who has their own cattle herd means they can't easily pick up and move to our location so we all work from our own ranches and keep in contact via Campfire and Skype.

NameCheap is a great one. Also you can usually Google around and find a Godaddy coupon for a cheap transfer in and sometimes even discount renewals.

I'd definitely recommend keeping your hosting separate from your domain registrar. Let the hosting companies host websites and the registrars register domains. I've yet to see an all-in-one solution that is both the best registrar and best web host.

I wonder how much of the popularity is because popularity was perhaps a goal of some of the NodeJS advocates. Recently I stumbled on http://nodejs-vs-ror.nodejitsu.com, which in the source at https://github.com/mmalecki/nodejs-vs-ror/blob/master/public... seems to imply beating Rails follow count was a goal. I'm not sure where I found the link but probably here on HN.

I guess someone in the Rails community could create a similar project and say "OK guys everyone go follow Rails on GitHub."

I have no issue with the technique as businesses do this all the time... encouraging customers to Like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, etc. Perhaps this a hacker version of social media marketing... who needs Facebook likes, let's get Github followers.

I've been in technology for 15 years. In that time I went from QA to networking/IT to independent software development. Along the way I learned how to run a business, optimize my websites for search engines, create persuasive marketing copy, and a lot more. With each new skill I acquired, I have one or more friends who I attribute to helping me along the way. I could not have done it without them.

You definitely are the company you keep, both in your friends as well as with your spouse/significant other.

I just subscribed to show support, too. There's no doubt that I'll get $9 worth of benefit out of the Pro screencasts and updates.

The amazing thing about RailsCasts are how great they are at helping developers through sticking points. I can't count the number of times that I've gone straight to RailsCasts and looked for a tutorial on a particular gem or how to accomplish a certain task (nested forms, multiple edit, etc). It sure beats the alternative of Googling and Stack Overflowing for 2-3x the time.

I have not used them yet but I've had several people recommend http://www.elegantbanners.com/. Their sample work seems nice and banners start at $20, so it may be worth a gamble.

The most effective way of removing feral hogs is by trapping since you can catch multiple animals at a time. Shoot one and the others scatter.

Feral hog meat, unlike typical pork, is a deep red and can have a wild-game taste. It makes for great sausage and barbecuing but you wouldn't necessarily want a ham sandwich everyday in your lunch.

Many outfitters charge both the hunter for the opportunity to hunt and the farmer for the removal service.

As a hacker who lives and codes from his ranch in Texas that has problems with feral hogs, I give this two thumbs up!

One thing to add for those not familiar with feral hogs... these animals are a non-native species and highly invasive. They can have at least 4-6 piglets at a time, 3 litters a year. They damage crop and farmland, carry disease, and compete with native wildlife for food.

If you make "cow food", you probably want CattleFeed.com instead of CowFood.com or CowFoodOnline.com. A cow is a female bovine while cattle is one or more bovines of any gender. Not being picky... I'm a HN'er who makes his living writing software and running e-commerce stores for the cattle industry :D

As patio mentioned, there is the exact match bonus where your domain (com/net/org) matches the query exactly. Also, an exact match domain tends to lead to anchor text (inbound links) with the keyword. So the one-two punch of an EMD (exact match domain + keyword-rich anchor text) is extremely helpful.

One word of caution with EMDs... I bought an EMD CattleTags.com for an e-commerce store and have had to work on my branding to encourage people to link to me as "Cattle Tags Online" or "Cattle Tags Store" rather than "CattleTags.com" which isn't as desirable.

Congrats on the purchase. A good .com domain definitely enhances credibility outside of the startup world over a domain hack.

This domain sounded familiar and I see where it recently sold for $115,000 to an "non-profit startup".

The seller shared his story in the comments at http://www.thedomains.com/2011/06/30/domain-investor-brian-w... (scroll down to July 25). It's interesting to see that while the buyers claimed to be a "math educational non-profit startup", the seller was skeptical of the story.

FYI this article is from November 2008

Perhaps they are hoping you will reply to the email message so they can grab your email and add it to their spam lists?

I have it happen a lot on some of my e-commerce sites.

Not an acquisition deal as in "signing the contract this week" like with Skype but rather a deal for the opportunity to match an offer in the event that another company wants to acquire Nvidia.

From the article:

The deal gives Microsoft the exclusive right to match any offer for 30% or more of Nvidia's outstanding shares by a third-party." The agreement appears to be over 10 years old, dating back to the time of the contract for the GPU of the original X-Box.

Maybe they cut the scene where the other village were wearing Pittsburgh Steelers Super Bowl XLV Champions t-shirts. A tacky hat still blocks the sun better than no hat.

I'm not Patrick but I'll still reply since you posted it here on HN and I've used similar techniques to rank my software programs.

1) Exact Match Domain bonus: When your domain is a non-hyphnenated .com, .net, and .org, Google gives it a bonus as the domain is often highly relevant to the given keyword. This is why you often see undeveloped domains sell for such high prices.

2) Targeted Anchor Text: Since his product is called "Appointment Reminder", people will use that phrase in the link.

3) Quality, relevant links: Checking out Open Site Explorer (http://www.opensiteexplorer.org), you can see that he has some quality and relevant links.

4) Modest search volume: According to the Google AdWords Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal), there are about 720 searches a month for the exact term "appointment reminder" and 6,600 searches using the phrase.

Yes, but I can switch companies when I'm not happy with my current company or don't like their policies. Also, my AT&T phone can call my friend's Verizon phone.

The course is titled "Introduction to Computer Applications", so I'm not sure how it's "the worst course ever". Where I went to school, 101 classes were for non-majors who needed a credit from a particular college or department.

There are a lot of people who can't create calculations in a spreadsheet (as phirephly mentioned) or organize information into a simple database. Without having these basic skills, an individual is at a significant disadvantage when they enter the workforce.

As far as Office 2007 goes, sure Office 2010 has been out for a little while but universities teach using the versions of the software available in the computer labs... perhaps WVU hasn't upgraded yet.