Hmm…I kind of thought the dot com dot (insert country code here) was fairly normal. It seems I need to get out more often, virtually speaking. Here in the Philippines, we still use .com.ph for our URLs (unless the site belongs to a government office, educational institution or non-government organization, where the “com” is exchanged for .gov, .edu, and .org respectively).

Anyway, what’s always made me wonder about the .co.uk is the “co” instead of “com”. Could anyone out there tell me?:-D Thanks.

I wonder how the Millennium Technology Prize and Tim B-L receiving it in 2004 was covered in the media in the UK? Anyway, I think it went to the right person.
http://www.millenniumprize.fi/index.php?m=2&s=1&id=16&sm=4

Didn’t a pacific island nation make a mint out of registering a particular [desired] domain name set and then either ‘leasing’ it or selling it? The anecdote is floating around the back of my mind but I can’t bring it into focus. Anyone heard this?

Marketing: “We would like to register our name globally, but our divisions must have their country in local lingo”.
Tech: “So, companydeutschland, companynederland, companyfrance, like that?”
Marketing: “Exactly! Glad you got it in one.”
Tech: “You are really sure about that, we can just go ahead? It will take a while so I want you to be sure. Best confirm by email.”
Marketing: “Sure, sure, wait.. There, I’ve sent you the email.”

I leave you for a moment to consider what happened next, with the vital clues that the company name was Powergen and the problem country (I am willing to bet the tech guys spotted this within seconds, hence the confirmation question) was Italy.

In case you don’t believe me this really happened, here’s the formal WHOIS (which will give you the answer as well):

Domain name: POWERGENITALIA.COM

Administrative Contact:
Powergen Srl, Powergen Srl borri@elledi.it
Via XXV Aprile ,5
Chiusi della Verna, AR 52010
IT
+39.0575-531015 Fax: +39.0575-511891

Ah – tech humour. Understood by a few, but oh so unassailable when it strikes..

just be grateful you don’t have a Cook Islands TLD – http://www.stephenfry.co.ck

And so it was with this post. However, I was surprised to see that the book ‘Weaving The Web’ written by Tim Berners Lee that you recommended was only available second hand from Amazon. I found that to be rather sad. It seems that the last publication date was 2000 and there are no new editions to be had.

Now, I love books in whatever form they take, so a second hand version is fine for me, perhaps even better since I am doing my part in recycling paper. But what a disgrace that whilst the invention is a the equivalent of a mega blockbuster a million times over, relatively few people wish to read and learn how it came into being. I would rather read about Tim Berners Lee or similar any day (or night as it usually is) than Da Linguine Code or whatever that book was called.

Thank you so much for the article and the book recommendation even if it is proving difficult to get hold of.

Funny how New Zealand follows the UK in using co and Australia does the American thing with com.

Is it “Sydney Harbor” or “Sydney Harbour”?