From my experience – GoDaddy is the easiest place to register a domain name. I agree that their interface can be a little confusing but their tech support – and phone support is great and I have always been able to get a quick answer to a question.

Whois.net is a tool that allows you to see who has registered a specfic domain name.

What info do I want to share on the whois.net info page for my domain? That depends – if you are a business – you probably want to include a phone number and email where people can reach you. If you are registering a domain name for a website or blog that you want to keep anonymous – then you might want to keep the who is info private.

From the GoDaddy FAQ:

Can I hide my personal information in the Whois directory?

We must make the contact information you listed for your domain public, per our registrar’s agreement with ICANN (the international governing body of domain names). Using false information violates the registration agreement and leads to the termination of your domain registration.

However, we do offer our private domain registration services to help protect your privacy. You can purchase our private domain registration services, and we will list the Domains By Proxy name, postal address, and phone number on the Whois directory. Although Domains By Proxy is the name on the registration, you retain the full benefits of domain registration. You can:

• Cancel, sell, or transfer your domain registration.
• Revert the registrant listing for your domain registration back to you.
• Renew your domain registration when it expires.
• Designate the nameservers for your domain.
• Resolve claims arising out of a dispute involving your domain registration.

If you don’t want your name, address and contact information to be displayed when you can add private domain registration to your domain name – this usually costs about $10/year. Continue Reading »

Last week I was invited to give a presentation to the Rotary Club in Braddock , PA about social media.  Here is a copy of my power point presentation from the afternoon.

The Braddock Rotary Club meets at the Grandview Golf Club in North Braddock which has a fantasic view of the Edgar Thompson Steel Works and Kennywood Park.  The Grandview Golf Club and Restaurant are open to the public and it is just a 10 minute drive from Pittsburgh.  Thanks to the Braddock Rotary for inviting me to speak and learn more about the rotary club.  Rotary International is one of the largest service organizations and there are rotary  chapters all over the world.

This presentation is pretty basic but I wanted to highlight how using a blog, rss feeds, twitter and other tools can be helpful for learning more about a business or topic and sharing information.

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If you are new to blogging and social media this is where I think you should start. Once you understand syndication, the advantages of blogging and social media will make a lot more sense in how syndication helps you share your story with the rest of the internet loving world.

One of the biggest advantages to blogging and social meadia is syndication. RSS is short for really simple syndication. This is not an easy concept to explain. It took me months to understand what RSS is and why I would want to use it. Once you understand why this is helpful, the rest of these tools will make alot more sense. I have tried to explain RSS many times and I ended up with an extensive powerpoint on why you should care. Then I found this little video. The guys who put this together are amazing. They are able to sum up and explain RSS in 5 short fun filled minutes. I have attended some other presentations on how to get started with social media, other bloggers agree this video is the best place to start.

RSS in Plain English

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