Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category

1and1 have something of a reputation of making it difficult to transfer domains away from them and rightly so as no matter how much you look around their website, you’ll not find how to do it.

It’s actually fairly easy once you find the site that you need to do it from.

1. login to your 1and1 account and unlock the domains that you want to transfer (you’ll find the unlock option on clicking the info tab on your domain management screen);
2. it’s a good idea to change the name servers at this point to point to those of your new hosting service and, of course, to upload your site to it’s new location if you’ve not done that already;
3. if you’re using whois privacy you’ll need to disable that before proceeding; 
4. register the domain with your new registrar and acknowlodge the request when you receive the e-mail (this is sent to the e-mail address recorded for your domain so check that it’s correct by looking up the domain on whois);
5. go to the 1and1 contracts site and cancel the parts of the contract referring to the domains that you want to transfer (set the cancellation options to “as soon as possible” and “on “change provider”;
6. acknowledge the e-mail that 1and1 will now send you.

OK, so it’s a bit convuluted but once you know the address of the 1and1 contracts site at least you can do it.

How long does it take? It’ll take you about 15 minutes to work through all that plus a few minutes per additional domain. The transfer itself can take anything from a few hours to several days.

Normally speaking you need to book travel well in advance to get the bargain prices but that’s strictly true only for the very peak of the peak periods and outside that there are often unexpected bargains around if you know where and how to look.

What about the location? Well, if you’re not especially set on a particular destination then you can get really serious bargains. For instance, everyone who goes to Denmark goes to Copenhagen but what about Aarhus? It’s equally cute but often a lot cheaper than it’s more famous neighbour. For that matter, what about a city break not to the “Ryanair city” but to the city that the plane actually lands in? For instance, their “Barcelona” is actually Girona. Not as famous nor as large as Barcelona but there’s still enough to satisfy a short citybreak.

Flights prices are the most volatile and therefore they need the most work to really save money. Thinking of a weekend break? Well, lots of people do so the thing to do to save money is to book what they’re not. On a typical route, people will be flying a little more in one direction on some days than in others. Weekend breaks to Paris are very popular for instance therefore the flight prices on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings from London to Paris are high as they are coming back from Paris on the Sunday evening. The key here is to book a trip that’s less popular such as a week in Paris but starting on Sunday evening and finishing on Friday night ie the opposite of what most people do.

Hotels are easier to deal with in most cases as hotel reservation systems aren’t nearly so sophisticated as those of the airlines. This means that the prices are, in general, more stable and there’s a lot less load management going on behind the scenes. However, that doesn’t mean that there’s no load management going on, just that it’s less visible. So, you may be able to get a lower price by booking via one of the last minute booking sites (no, not LastMinute.com: in spite of the name, they’re not really geared up to truly last minute travel). Likewise doing what other people aren’t is a sure way to save money so in city break destinations, stay a little further out and you’ll find the prices a lot lower.

Insurance? Most people buy whatever policy the airline or travel agent is selling. This generates a lot of commission but rarely gets you a good deal. Much better instead to get an annual policy so you’re all set for those unplanned short breaks.

Anyway, give a bit of thought to your next short notice break and you may find that it can be had a whole lot cheaper than you expected.

I’ve been moving my domains away from their previous host and now have all the easy ones moved over.

Stage two is starting as you read this and involves re-registering the domains with the new registrar.

The snag is that there’s obviously a period when things are in limbo between the two so the idea is to reduce the extent of that as far as possible. You can pretty much eliminate that limbo stage if you take care in the move and do it in three parts.

1. setup the domain on the new hosting service and load all the HTML, databases and whatnot (add a little note to yourself on the homepage of the domain to the effect that it’s on the new host);
2. login to the old registrar and set the name servers to point to the new host;
3. initiate the domain transfer to the new registrar and setup the nameservers to point to the new host.

If you follow the three steps, the transfer should be seamless which is why in step one it’s handy to add a note to the homepage so that you know the transfer has happened.

I say, “should be” seamless because, of course, chances are that the software on the new hosting service isn’t exactly the same as on the old one. Typically, I get caught out by my use of globals in PHP and I nearly always forget to set the relevant option which has somewhat peculiar effects on the sites. To avoid this, it’s best to have a test domain which you can try out on the new host before moving over the live sites.

It’s been far too long since I was at a rodeo.

Last time around was pre-digital so I’d love to get back in the equivalent of the infield to get some great photos for the site. Up close is definitely the way to go if you’re heading for a rodeo as otherwise you really miss out on the upclose action. It’s totally different from a ballgame where back a bit is often better as you can see the overall movements of the game; for a rodeo it’s very much an up close and personal experience so that’s the place where you need to be.

I could easily be talked into some Houston Rodeo Tickets as it’s quite a serious rodeo (some events are a little too laid back) and there’s lots to do in the surrounding area too in case the family tire of the rodeo. This particular one also packs in a concert after the rodeo itself is finished for the day with the country music that you’d expect to hear but also artists from rock hip hop and latino music too.

It’s best to book early for these things as the best tickets go surprisingly quickly even in a large venue such as they have at Houston.

Airline charges are such a ripoff these days, aren’t they?

I’ve just booked a flight where the flight charge was EUR 3 yet the plane ticket actually cost EUR 24 courtesy of the basic charges. And that’s not even including the EUR 9 that the checked luggage is charged!

OK, I can accept that taxes are the bulk of that and in some ways it’s good to see it separated out. The snag is, of course, that the airlines get blamed for the tax charges rather than the government who see it as an easy way to collect money and appear environmentally friendly at the same time.

But what about the EUR 6 “processing fee”? How come that’s a separate charge from the ticket itself? After all, presumably they wouldn’t let you fly if they’d not “processed” you, would they? How come, for that matter, it costs EUR 6 per person when the passenger is the person typing up all the information?

Of course in some ways we’re all to blame for this business of separating out of the charges. Psychologically, we’d rather see a headline price of EUR 3 than the real charge of EUR 30. It is incredibly misleading though.