That was the fun and kind of frightening end to a great day of shooting commercials with the Denver Bronco running back, and the video has been a nice elixir to three+ hours of some pretty disappointing Superbowl television ads (How many times during the game did you ask, “They paid $3.5 million for that?).

So why Willis? It all started with a phone call from his agent. She wanted him to be associated with what she’d heard was a popular tech company. We tried to play it cool, but by the time he was scheduled to arrive we had a body painter, a professional camera crew, cranes, jibs and an office at the ready for Willis skits. The hot, new .CO domain pitched in, and we were off…well, almost.

Denver got nailed by a over a foot of snow. Our body painter was trapped in a suburb, the media couldn’t make it, and Willis’ overnight trip from Indianapolis was cancelled. Things were looking bleak, but then Willis managed to get an early flight, the body painter was able to dig her way out of her home, and our Veep of operations got a bunch of pizza.  We were off and running…

The Intro: We Wonder if Willis Will do What We’d Done Previously for .CO

The Fail: We Try to Emulate What GoDaddy Did, but It Just Doesn’t Feel Right

The Recovery: Back to What We Do at Name.com, Good ‘ol Non-Trashy Fun

The Wrap: After a Blizzard, a Stranded Body Painter and Willis’ canceled flight, it was good to have some fun.

Now watch, rate, comment, subscribe. You won’t believe what we’re rolling out next.

Kathy Ciaccarelli! (fireworks)

She owns the gourmet gift shop Sweets N’ Smiles and creates high quality gift baskets, party favors and the best chocolate covered pretzels anywhere.

We know this because she’s really good at selling her wares. When I emailed her the good news about the contest, she replied in perfect promotional form:

Sweet! Now she’s offering a promo code in return for our promo code. We could collapse into promo code spiral ending in a melee of free stuff. Until then, thank you Kathy for the virtual fist bump, and for encouraging great customer service. Please give her some love by visiting her site. It is, after all, almost Valentine’s Day.

And here’s the best part: According to what we’ve tracked as far as entries into the contest, YOUR ODDS ARE FANTASTIC:

ENTER NOW! You’ll be in an exclusive club.

When faced with this question last week Mr. White responded, “Sometimes innovation precedes the need.” This turned the conversation to Twitter, iPads and iPhones. Did you know you needed any of those before they existed?

I’ll be the first to admit that change can be scary. You can greet it by kicking and screaming or you can embrace it, the choice is yours. I’m not arguing that every big brand out there should necessarily embrace new gTLDs, but what I am wondering is what happened to the dreamers? The go-getters who are totally bent and psyched on creating a completely new experience for customers that’s never been seen or experienced before. Where’s the excitement?

A great article by Adrian Kinderis hit my inbox this morning that strikes the same chord, “Remember, all great differentiators are unproven before they are accepted as the norm. Even American industrialist Henry Ford understood this valuable lesson: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Let me be clear, new gTLDs are not for everyone. The application fee alone is $185k, maintenance and renewal fees run around minimum $25k yearly, it’s an extremely technical endeavor and a lot of capital and knowhow are needed up front. Even Name.com, a company that could potentially benefit from new gTLDs, has had its own internal debate about implementing such a massive change.  My only question is of what are we so scared? Why isn’t there more enthusiasm around opening up and unleashing the Internet? It is a wide-open playing field where the opportunity to be an innovator could not be any more clearly presented.

So will you ask for more horses? Or take on the challenge and start dreaming?

Warnings

There are a few warnings that I want to get out of the way before we get started:

• Go to http://aws.amazon.com/ and click the button on the right side of the screen that says “Sign Up Now”.
• If you already have an Amazon account you can login using your current credentials. If not, choose “I am a new user” and click the sign in button to create a new account. You will go through a typical account creation process that should be pretty self explanatory.
• They will ask you for billing information. You will have to enter this information in order to create your free web hosting virtual server. The reason for this is in case you happen to use more than what is allowed for the free tier or use any additional services that do happen to have a fee associated with them.
• After you go through a verification process, I recommend the phone verification method, it will generally take a couple of minutes before you receive an account activation email. Once you receive the email you can go to http://aws.amazon.com/account/ and begin managing your account. Now the real fun begins.

Step Two: Navigate Your Way To The Management Console

• First, make sure you are at http://aws.amazon.com/account/.
• Click on the “Manage Your Account” link. It’s the bottom option on the left. You will probably be asked to login which you can now do using your current Amazon account or the one you just created. From this point forward if you are asked to login again, do it.
• You should now be at the “Manage Your Account” screen and there should be quite a few options shown under “Services You’re Signed Up For”. Ignore all of that and go to the “My Account / Console” drop down on the top right side of the screen and select “AWS Management Console”. Alternatively you can just click here, which we could have done at the beginning of this section but I wanted you to see the “normal” way of getting there. Once all is said and done you should see something resembling this:

Step Three: Firing Up Your Instance

• In the EC2 world your servers are called “instances.” You should currently be at the “AWS Management Console“. On the top there are multiple tabs. The one we are interested in is labeled EC2. Click it.
  
• Since this is a new account you should see a little message telling you that you have no running instances followed by a button that says “Launch Instance”. Click that button.
  
• From the “Request Instance Wizard” choose either “Basic 32-bit Amazon Linux AMI…” or “”Basic 64-bit Amazon Linux AMI…”
• Make sure you have 1 in the “Number of Instances” box and that “Micro…” is selected from the “Instance Type” drop down. You can choose a particular “Availability Zone” if you want but for now it’s easier to just leave it set as “No Preference”. Click the “Continue” button.
  
• Leave everything set to the defaults and click the “Continue” button again.
• To the right of “Name” enter a name for your instance. You can leave this blank but if you ever decide to startup more instances this is a handy way to keep track of them.
• Now things get tricky, you need to create a key pair in order to securely log into your server. You can also use this key pair for other future servers that you may launch in the future. Enter a meaningful name and click “Create & Download your key pair”. Save it to a place where you will not forget it and make sure  you keep it secure. If someone has this key they can log into your instance and do bad things. I’ll leave the actual act of securing the key as an exercise for the reader. For now, lets keep moving and click the “Continue” button.
• A security group is a set of firewall rules for your instance. In our case we want port 22 for SSH and port 80 for HTTP opened up. Port 22 should already be in the set of existing rules that are shown in the blue box:
  
  To add HTTP select “HTTP” from the “Create a new rule” drop down box and then click the “Add Rule” button. Now we can login via SSH and view web pages over port 80. Click the “Continue” button.
• You should now see a confirmation window that shows all of the settings for your shiny new instance. Click the “Launch” button and then click the “Close” button when the next window shows up.
• After being in the “pending” state with a yellow light for a few seconds your instance will eventually show up as being in the “running” state with a green light:
  
  Green light means go, so lets go!

Step Four: Logging Into Your Instance

• Now you have a running EC2 micro instance that should qualify for the free tier of services. Remember though, if you use above and beyond the free usage tier, you will be charged for those services and amounts that do go above. It isn’t much though, so even if you do get charged it’s not too bad.
• Click on your instance in the management console and the bottom of your browser should show some important information about your instance. Find the value labeled “Public DNS”. This is the external hostname of your instance and you will need this to login.
• As stated in the warnings, your instance has a dynamic IP address by default. You can add an “Elastic IP” to make it static but it does cost a small amount of money. There is an “Elastic IP’s” menu option under “Navigation” should you want to play around with this feature.
• Remember that key you downloaded? You’re going to need it now. Depending on whether or not you are on Mac, Windows, or Linux the application you use to login will be different. For Mac and Linux you will probably use SSH and it is probably already installed. If you are on Windows I recommend using PuTTY. For PuTTY on Windows checkout this tutorial on how to setup PuTTY using the EC2 key you downloaded. For SSH simply issue the following command using the path to your key and the IP address or external hostname of your instance:  ssh -i PATH-TO-KEY ec2-user@IP-OR-HOSTNAME
• Beyond what I just wrote I’m going to leave figuring out how to login to your EC2 instance up to the reader. There is a lot of information on the Internet about how to do just that. When you do successfully login you should see something like this:
  

Step Five: Setting Up Your Instance

• I’m assuming that at this point you have successfully logged into your instance. Now we are going to install some basic software for hosting a basic website using the LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) stack.
• From the command line issue the following command: sudo yum -y update; sudo yum -y install httpd php mysql mysql-server This will update the software on your instance and install the basic LAMP stack.
• From the command line issue the following command: sudo /etc/init.d/httpd start; sudo /etc/init.d/mysqld start This will start up the MySQL database and the Apache web server.
• From the command line issue the following command: sudo chkconfig –level 2 httpd on; sudo chkconfig –level 3 httpd on; sudo chkconfig –level 4 httpd on; sudo chkconfig –level 5 httpd on; sudo chkconfig –level 2 mysqld on; sudo chkconfig –level 3 mysqld on; sudo chkconfig –level 4 mysqld on; sudo chkconfig –level 5 mysqld on This will make it so that your web server and database will restart after a reboot.

Now you have an EC2 micro instance running the LAMP stack. Find the external hostname for your instance, enter it into a web browser, and you should see the Apache welcome screen with basic instructions on what you can do next:

You can install WordPress, Drupal, or almost any other PHP based application.

Step Six: Setting Up DNS Via Name.com

• Log into your Name.com account and navigate to the DNS management section for the domain you would like to point to your instance.
• The easiest thing to do is simply create a CNAME record for *.YOURDOMAIN.TLD and just YOURDOMAIN.TLD. Under the “Record Answer” section put the external hostname of your instance for both CNAME records.
• Alternatively you can ping the external hostname, get it’s IP address, and create A records using the IP address as your “Record Answer”. You would want to do this if you have other records on that domain such as MX records for email.
• Properly setup DNS using CNAMEs will look like this under DNS management:
  
• Once your DNS is setup and propagated (usually within 5 – 10 minutes) you will be able to get to your webpage and instance via your domain.

Bonus Stuff

• Want to make it so that you never have to go through all of that again when creating a web hosting instance? Right click on your instance in the AWS Management console and select the “Create Image…” option. This will put it under your “IMAGES” -> “AMI’s” section of the “Navigation” menu. In the future you can simply right click on the image and select “Launch Instance”. If the content of your site rarely changes this could work well for your backup solution. The image will use storage space at Amazon and may incur some nominal fees.
• As we already mentioned the storage on a default instance is volatile. You can use the “Elastic Block Storage” service to create persistant storage. I won’t go into details here but searching for “how to create and mount elastic block storage” on Google will yield all sorts of how to results. You will need to remap your Apache and MySQL configurations as well in order to make that data persistent but for a real world server you will probably want to do just that. The additional storage does have a price but it is more than reasonable.
• If you need to know more remember that Google is your friend.

If we get some requests from you all and these sorts of posts seem popular we may do future articles on how to install various applications and do more using your instance. Should Name.com offer easy one click EC2 instance setup for various web services? Let us know!

On January 12, one of the biggest changes in the history of the Internet will begin to unfold, one that will change the way 2-billion Internet users think of online addresses…and the way that some Colorado organizations and businesses will brand and identify themselves in cyberspace.

On that date, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the non-profit charged with coordinating the global Internet addressing system, will begin taking applications for new Internet address endings. Currently there are 22 generic top-level domains, like the familiar .COM, .NET, .GOV, etc.  Under a new and extremely controversial ICANN program, that number will expand to include just about any word, in just about any language.  Organizations can submit applications for names like .COKE, .ROLEX, .NYC, etc.

For some, the change marks a global branding opportunity, for others it translates into a trademark and intellectual property protection problem. It has become one of the most hotly debated subjects in the Internet’s history, attracting the attention of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee which recently held hearings, and the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology which held hearings last week.

The story is attracting the attention of global news outlets:  

* National Journal * Washington Post * Reuters * BBC * Associated Press

Now we can discuss how it could impact you.

One week before the application window for this new program opens, Denver domain registrar Name.com will host Brad White, ICANN’s Director of Global Media Affairs, to answer local journalists’ questions about this new and controversial program. Please join Mr. White, local media and Internet organizations on Friday, January 6^th for a news conference at 10AM. We’ll be in the Denver Press Club at 1330 Glenarm place, third floor banquet room.

Name.com is a cool, customer-focused domain registrar that provides domains, websites, security and SEO to a growing global audience. Name is located in Cherry Creek at 2500 E. 2^nd Avenue. We have a kegerator. If you’re interested in attending, please email Jared [at] name.com.

Twitter.com/namedotcom      Facebook.com/namedotcom    Youtube.com/namedotcom    Blog.name.com

This all happens because of wildcard DNS records on our name servers that we have set up for the various TLDs we support. If a domain is using our name servers and a given host does not have a record setup for it, it will resolve to our parking page. There are several ways to get rid of this behavior:

1. Remove the name.com name servers from your domain if the TLD allows zero name servers, which most do. This will effectively remove the domain from the root DNS zone and the domain will no longer resolve at all. This will also disable all services on the domain such as email, URL forwarding, etc so this may not be an option for you.
2. Use someone else’s name servers. You are not required to use name.com name servers. There are many third party DNS providers on the Internet and you can also run and operate your own name servers as well. This requires a bit of know how but if you have it this is an option for you. Going this route may also not allow you to use all DNS related name.com services such as URL forwarding, etc.
3. Setup a wildcard record for your domain. This method is probably the one that will work best for most of you. In the DNS management section for your domain, simply setup an A record for *.YOURDOMAIN.TLD and point it to one of your IP addresses. This is good practice anyhow since it will direct traffic to your website when someone mistypes “www” or some other subdomain that you operate. I’m assuming that you already have YOURDOMAIN.TLD pointed as well. If not, create an A record for only YOURDOMAIN.TLD as well so that when someone goes to just your domain they get to your website.Here is a screenshot of a domain properly setup that will no longer resolve to our parking page (click on it to make it bigger):

   

   If you are wanting subdomains to not resolve at all and would like an NXDOMAIN response from DNS, you will need to use one of the first two methods for getting rid of the parking page.

   There is also more information regarding this available on our support FAQ.

1- Make the site much, much easier to use. We’re systematically going through the site page by page, click by click, and making it simpler. You deserve that.

2- Give our current customers lots of new friends, so they can look back and say that all the new guys are just “jumping on the bandwagon” and that “we were customers of Name.com before everyone knew about them.” Hey, it’s cool to be first. We’re going to help make sure the whole world knows how cool you are.

3- Help you. We work hard to make sure we have what you need, but this year we’re taking it to the next level. From video tutorials and guides on every page to educational blog content to 24 hour support (this will be the last half of the year… takes a while to staff!), this is going to be a banner year… for both of us.

That’s why the title of this blog post is “hello world.” In much the same way that those words marked the start of something great, something that would eventually change not only the world but the way we live our daily lives… this year is the start. The start of Name.com making the internet even easier, the start of getting the word out about our legendary support, the start of Name.com as a household name… the start of something great.

hello world… here we come.

Here’s how we’re going to use the Internet to turn up the volume on SOPA.

You can help remind Congress just how bad SOPA is AND support organizations that love the Internet the way it is. Here’s how:

Step 1: Go to this page: http://www.name.com/Help-Stop-SOPA
Step 2: Share our message on Twitter

That’s it. When you do that on December 29th, then we’ll donate 5 cents to the cause of your choice. Just do what you do everyday by sharing on the social webs, and we give money to incredible people who fight the good fight. Now get on it. We’re counting on the power of YOU.

If in addition to tweeting your support you’d like to vote with your feet and move to the home of the world’s greatest support, then use promo code “STOPSOPA” for 10% off your transfers and 40% off our incredible hosting.

For more information on how to transfer then click here.

If you’d like to feel really, really good about your own sense of rhythm, then watch this:

Danny Luksa put together this simple and probably Not-Safe-For-Work illustration of what went down.

Illustrations and jokes aside, what’s important here is that a flawed piece of legislation has lost a major backer. So we’re not going to kick GoDaddy while they’re down. We’re moving forward (with your help, thank you) with our effort to get politicians to back away from this giant, stinking pustule of freedom-pinching poo. Our new promo code is ‘STOPSOPA’.

For those of you determined to transfer, now through the end of the year use the promo code, “STOPSOPA” for 10% off transfer ins (COM, NET, ORG, TV, INFO, IN, US, CO, ME & TEL) and also receive 40% off any of our hosting plans!

For the sake of our support team…

Transfers are typically seamless. However, we understand that your domains aren’t just URLs, but ideas, enclaves of inspiration and money makers. The wait from one registrar to another can be stressful. Here are some things to keep in mind to make your transfer to Name.com go as smoothly as possible:

1. Make sure your domain is unlocked.
2. Turn off your Whois privacy.
3. Make sure your admin email is current (it’s best if it’s the one you use most regularly).
4. Ensure that your Auth (transfer) Code is valid.
5. Watch for the email that our world class customer support will be sending you.
6. Within your Name.com account you’ll see that you can monitor the transfer:

And you can view the status and result of your transfered domains.

7. As long as nothing is changed or disabled by the losing registrar (it rarely is), the DNS entries (and name servers) will not be effected.

Those are some things to look out for with your transfer. Now back to pounding SOPA into the dirt. The Internet is where ideas are born, opinions exchanged and innovation thrives. Name.com, your ICANN-accredited company o’ cool and customer support, is going to do all it can to keep it that way.