Joel on Software

2000/09/18

Register.com and URL forwarding

A good friend, looking for a CTO job in NYC, called me to ask what I thought about register.com. He sort of thought that because "www.JoelOnSoftware.com" has a big ad for register.com on the bottom, that I was affiliated with them in some way.

Actually, the correct URL for Joel on Software is supposed to be "joel.editthispage.com", where I sure as heck don't have any ads for register.com.

But I wanted to reserve the domain name "JoelOnSoftware.com" for when I get rich and can afford to host it myself. So I used register.com to register the new domain name, and then used register.com's "free" URL redirection service.

And that's the problem: their free redirection service frames your site with a big fat ad. Lame.

For now, I've added a little bit of Javascript to get rid of the ad that they put up... but it still flashes briefly. Now I'm kind of hoping that people mistakenly believe that if you use register.com, your web page will have a big register.com ad. That would teach them to sneak their nasty ads in where they don't belong!

Cobalt Qube

We've set up a Cobalt Qube for Fog Creek. It's doing a nice job as a web server, email server, CVS server, firewall, NAT, and a few other things I haven't figured out yet. All told, we got all this stuff running with about 3 hours of work between us... compared to several days of work when I set up the same thing for myself on a new Linux box at home.

When the Qube came out about a year ago at $999, they bragged about how it "doesn't need a keyboard and monitor" and therefore can be a lot cheaper than a PC running Linux. Well, this thing is still $999, now a heck of a lot more expensive than the equivalent PC, and I'm sure it's still selling like hotcakes... know why? It's because of the software. Software adds value faster than it adds cost. Prediction: Cobalt will outsource all the hardware stuff and become a pure software company.

College students: my company has paid summer internships in New York City, including free housing, free lunch, and the chance to develop software people will really use, with great mentors on interesting projects. Don't miss this chance of a lifetime. We only have a few spaces and they always go fast, so apply today.

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You’re reading Joel on Software, stuffed with years and years of completely raving mad articles about software development, managing software teams, designing user interfaces, running successful software companies, and rubber duckies.

About the author.

I’m Joel Spolsky, founder of Fog Creek Software, a New York company that proves that you can treat programmers well and still be highly profitable. Programmers get private offices, free lunch, and work 40 hours a week. Customers only pay for software if they’re delighted. We make FogBugz, an enlightened project management system designed to help great teams develop brilliant software, and Fog Creek Copilot, which makes remote desktop access easy.