Coredump

Seems a bit harsh, but true.

I was looking for a 2.5-inch hard disk online, and visited a few online stores based in Metro Manila. While visiting Octagon, which has a “superstore” in SM Megamall, lo and behold:

What the?! I did a bit of digging (thanks to Google), but apparently, the site is pretty much useless. Oh well, might as well haul my arse off and burn a few fats — it’s just a five-minute walk away from the office anyway.

From TechCrunch: “Verisign, the domain name registry that controls the .com domain (as well as .net and others), just notified its registrars that the wholesale price of .com domains will be raised 7%, from $6/year to $6.42/year.”

Great, that’s all we need right now. Seven percent may not mean much, especially for domainers or speculators who register domains by the bulk, but for those who just want to establish a web presence (sounds so early 21st century), it’s yet another obstacle.

We certainly can’t shift to a ccTLD easily, because the current ccTLD registrar charges $35! (Of course, pricing for CNO (.com, .net, .org) domains are not comparable to ccTLDs because of the sheer volume, but still, I wonder how much DotPH really earns from selling domains.)

The issue here, I think, is that a monopoly can pretty much do anything it wants. Verisign has been given almost carte blanche in increasing domain name prices by 7% yearly, indefinitely. DotPH determines its own pricing scheme as well — not very consumer-friendly, but more targetted for those who get domains wholesale.

I’ve recently decided to get a PLDT WeRoam prepaid account. Unfortunately, when I was about to purchase a wireless card unit in one of their resellers, I found out that they do not carry cards for the ExpressCard slot that my notebook (Dell Inspiron e1505) has.

That left me with the following options to look for:

1. PCMCIA-to-USB adapters.
2. PCMCIA-to-ExpressCard adapters.
3. USB GSM/GPRS/EDGE/HSDPA modem.
4. Another provider (Globe Visibility, which carries the above).

Hay, the woes of going mobile.

Go there. Or view this.

Right…

Looking at the source:

<!-- PR9 since 99. MaDD LoVe to e&o. Peace out. -->