Presidential Candidate Websites.

Shock and horror came over me as I scanned their websites.  There was stuff all over the place, explosive gradients and backgrounds that simply don’t jive.  Youtube videos are injected in every nook and cranny.  Since both websites are full of crap I don’t fell like reading or watching, I thought that I’d go a step further and do a good ol’ W3C Markup Validation on them.  The results were astounding to say the least.

John McCain: 171 Errors, 46 Warnings (217 problems)
Source: W3C

Barack Obama: 220 Errors, 37 Warnings (257 problems)
Source: W3C

You would think that with the Democratic party doing anything and everything to get Barack all over the media, news, magazines, to the point where I check under my bed at night to make sure he’s not there, they would have made sure his website was W3C compliant.  If he wins, what does that say about their concern for web standards.  It makes his “net neutrality” talks sound like complete crap.  McCain’s site is not much better than Obama’s but the fact is that McCain’s site is better.  Winning is winning.

You’d think that my selection process would be over, but you would be wrong.

VP Candidates.

I went to JoeBiden.com and SarahPalin.com and both were serious let downs.  Biden freeloads off of Obama’s website.  Palin’s website says “This space intentionally left blank.”  Serious disappointment.  Not even a picture of Palin for me to hang up on the wall of my gun locker.  Biden too… dude what’s up with that?  You gotta have Obama carry you through the whole damn election?  Complete rubbish from both the elephant and the ass.

For giggles, I ran ‘em through anyway…

Sarah Palin: 5 Errors, 0 Warnings

Joe Biden: 72 Errors, 29 Warnings

…and let me tell you, I did giggle quite a bit.

Because of how atrocious both VP candidates’ sites are, I won’t be including them in my decision.  Their awfulness cancels each other out.  If you wanted to play a numbers game though, Biden’s piggybacking on Obama’s site does more hurt than good.

The Tie Breaker.

Don’t listen to my drivel.  This blog post is balderdash.  You shouldn’t judge your presidential candidate based on how compliant their website is with W3C standards, even if I am.  When you don’t like either candidate, you need to pick one small issue that you can judge the candidates on go from there.  That’s the tie breaker.  Could be something as lofty as religious beliefs or something as trivial as who has a better choice of neck ties.

Fact of the matter is, you need to go out and vote, no matter how irrational and illogical your selection process might be.

Update

Just tested Change.gov and I’m slightly more impressed.  Seems like since Obama is now president-elect he is able to rocket past anything McCain could ever compose with a WYSIWYG with a cup of coffee.  He has created quite a website that is pretty damn compliant.

Change.gov: 20 Errors, 3 Warning

This makes me feel much better, because the one thing that keeps me up at night is web standards.  Seems like we’re getting much closer to changing.

Over the past ten years, the way that people identify themselves on the internet has changed drastically.  It’s not quite obvious because the change was very gradual and it has not totally affected every area of the internet.  Despite this, it definitely happened.  It’s almost like when your girlfriend asks you if you think she’s lost weight.  It happened so gradually you didn’t notice but when asked – you notice.  There was a time when someone could jump onto IRC and chat with their friends using a username that had varying value.  The username could be thrown away if its reputation faltered and it could be retained if it had meaning and significance to those that interacted with it.

And Then It Happened.

Social networks erupted onto the internet with a force more powerful than any of the trends we’ve seen in the past, on and off the internet.  MySpace.  Facebook.  LinkedIn.  Some forum and IRC elitests refuted the fact that these sites for people by people were extremely valuable and a great way to associate an online identity with yourself.  They claimed that these networks were for teenagers and emo kids.  They made fun of the pictures that people posted all the while, clinging onto their text based chat and personal blogs linked to a screen name.  In the end, the naysayers were defeated and social networks have become a very real force on the internet.  Now, a lot of those that were once against social networks probably have an account or two of their own.

Why Did It Happen?

It’s hard to pinpoint the cause, but one thing is for sure – people by nature are social.  A place to go and share you lives with your friends is immensely attractive to everyone, even if they deny it.  What’s more is, anyone could signup to a social network and begin building their online identity to mirror that of their real world identity.  The need to know HTML and have a geocities or angelfire account became nullified.  Some people still retained their text based identities on IRC channels and forums, but many people (especially those of the internet brats) had decided to get their own account on a social network.

There Was An Incentive Though, Right?

Absolutely.  The problem with screen names and text based communication is that it is nearly impossible to take credit for what has been accomplished.  With the widespread adoption of social networks came the opportunity to take advantage of your reputation to gain love, money, bragging rights, and just generally enhance your social circles.  Those who understand the concepts of branding themselves have been able to utilize social networks for gains across the board.

Hey But Like Anything, There Is A Risk.

This is true of social networking in a big way.  If one is not careful with what it is they associate themselves with on social networks, they can tarnish their reputation at “internet speed.”  A high ranking person in a Fortune 500 company who posts pictures of their half naked and drunk self will surely have repercussions in the work place.  Aside from maintaining some restraint in the content you post, it is also important to keep on top of where your identity is being used and insure that you are in control of it.  It is a real risk that someone might sign up on a social network as you in order to do and say things that ruin your brand or even exploit others using your good name.

Sort Of Like Social Network Identity Theft.

True but it is much easier to do and get away with.  One thing anyone should do, if you value their online reputation, is to run some searches for your name and make sure no one is using it badly.  You should also consider signing up on social networks that you think you might have an interest in at a later date to prevent someone from beating you to it and stealing your name.  These sorts of things don’t happen that frequently but they can happen and might also be a huge hassal to fix.  Your credit record is a bunch of numbers but your reputation is a complex web of people and stories.  Someone introducing poison to that web can be very difficult to repair.

The identity landscape is changing and we’re all participating in its evolution.  Gone are the days of your disposable screen names – now our online identities can be more valuable (and more difficult to repair) than our credit records.  Our next generation of hiring managers are going to be former internet brats and you can be certain that they will weigh your online reputation heavily when you’re looking for a job.  Protecting and enhancing that reputation should be much higher on everyone’s priority list than ever before.

Oh no it doesn’t, you’re just being silly/bragging/etc.

No.  It will happen if it hasn’t already so just shut up and listen.

The Night Before

You’re working on a project, it’s late at night, you can barely function, so you close the lid on your Macbook and go to sleep.  A meer fifteen minutes later and you’re coding again.  How is this possible?  You’re not at your computer anymore.  You’re off in la la land and yet the project you’re working on continues to consume your subconscious.

Suddenly, at 3am, you spring out of bed, open up Textmate, and write in some code, relaunch your application and sometimes it works perfectly, other times the foos and bars don’t line up properly so you start trying to fix it.  Next thing you know it’s 5am and you need to wake up for work in an hour.  Then you get back into bed, angry at yourself for ruining your sleep, and get out of bed an hour later, shower, head into work a complete zombie.

Back in the Office

Good night last night Patrick?  You look like you got trashed last night.  No hair gel?  Wearing your glasses?

Yeah no I was just working on a problem.  Didn’t get much sleep.

Yeah ok buddy.  Catch you later.

And then you space out at your desk like Peter Gibbons and nothing actually gets done until you’ve  had 5-6 cups of coffee and it’s the afternoon already.  Chances are your accomplishments the night before are thrust into the shadows by the total lack of productivity when you’re back in the office the next day.

After the 5:00 Whistle

You arrive home, take a nap, wake up, have dinner, and sit down and start coding.  Vicious cycle isn’t it?  Pretty soon you just become completely consumed in what you’re doing and it ruins you.  You become a mad scientist, only, you’re mad at yourself and you’re spinning your wheels going no where.  Time to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.  What the hell are you doing to yourself Patrick?  You begin to think an addiction to blow would be healthier than this.

The Big Picture

I don’t claim to know everything, but I do claim to know what happens to me.  I can do this because I’m an expert in most things pertaining to myself.  I’m still quite sure that the things that happen to me also happen to others.  What I’m getting at is a lot of people work their brain trying to figure things out and get work done, effectively exercising their brain.  When they try to go to sleep their brain is just chugging away while the rest of your body sits there completely suspended.  Even if you aren’t coding in your sleep, or solving problems that you were thinking about the entire time you were awake, you are still not resting completely.  Between China trying to steal your name, the projects you have at work and in your personal life, getting more followers on twitter, and maintaining all of your real world relationships, it’s a wonder your brain can relax and let you sleep.  If you think about it (not too hard), you quickly realize that sleep starts before you get into your bed.

Sleeping before Sleep

And I’m not talking about napping.  I’m talking about getting your mind off of the thing that’s consuming you.  Perhaps it’s time for a new hobby.  Have too many hobbies?  Maybe you should exercise.  The wonderful thing about exercising is that it helps you feel better mentally and physically.  I started running again and I’m following the Couch to 5k using Robert Ullrey’s Podcasts.  In addition to that, I do my best to make sure that the thing I do before going to bed is not the same thing I’ve been doing all day.  I’ll read the news, some blogs, and maybe go through some email.  Nothing that gives me brain strain.  We sit inside all day under flourescent lights, working on computers.  Doing something the complete opposite on the geek scale rounds you out, makes sure you’re completely tired, and helps you to get a good night’s rest.  This in turn makes you more productive the following day.

It’s not about the hours you spend working on a project, it’s about whether or not you make progress on the project.  When you step up your game, change things up, and round yourself out you can find that you get more work done in much less time.  This in turn allows you to improve your overall quality of life and do other things that you normally would not have time to do.

But Patrick, I have such great breakthroughs in my sleep sometimes.

That’s great.  I have several break throughs in a given day and I don’t look like a party animal alcoholic the next day in the office.  I used to think that having my subconscious do work for my in my sleep was something to brag about, but it’s not.  If you stop it from happening in a positive way then you to will find you’ve just upgraded your life.

The Dilemma

This brings me to the great dilemma one must face when carrying on with a blog – there is an inherent administrative burden by enabling people to post comments on your blog. The biggest problem comes where people spam the hell out of your comments with things like penis enlargers and sexual enhancement products – things that obviously have no business being splashed anywhere. The interruption in my daily routine to remove this rubbish from my blog is seemingly not worth it.

Opening My Eyes…

So I thought about it some more, and looked at things from the same perspective that I wrote the article about Mixx and Digg and I began to realize what a fool I was being for not allowing people to comment.  My focus is on social media and web development.  These are two things that rely on communities to provide input.  I took a step back, fell off my soap box, and realized the only way to fix this was to provide ready access to people for their commenting pleasure.

Bracing For Impact

In any case, I’ve enabled registrations (which I obviously encourage) but I’ve also granted access to not-logged-in comments. I don’t want to deter people from commenting due to a required registration.  I’ll just hope that this new ability is not abused to death by the darkness on the internet and is actually used for constructive feedback and discussion.  If it’s abused and ravaged by spammers then I’ll have to find a solution to that problem when it arrises.

Thank you father dearest.

If you Digg this then you Dugg this.

The typical workflow at Digg is that you go, submit an article, people digg or bury it and if it’s popular and makes it through their algorithm it makes it to the front page.  If you aren’t up for submitting something you can just read the articles, make comments, and digg or bury them.  The comment stream at Digg is really great.  Sure there is a lot of stupid stuff, but the user participation is fantastic.  It’s not uncommon to see a few hundred comments on an article.  Furthermore – you can actually digg or bury the comments.  If people are saying stupid stuff then they can be burried so no one has to look at them.  If you leave a good comment then it can be dugg up so you and everyone else can see what the community is thinking about things today.

More after the jump…

From a general media standpoint, this sort of behavior is extremely valuable.  Not only do you get to see what people care about but you can also see what the majority of people think about a given article.  Since there are so many people on Digg, you can see a huge demographic of people.  The blend of news one gets when they visit the front page ranges from humorous YouTube videos to very serious world news.  This variety means that if you stop by an hour from now there will be more stuff for you to consume, fueling this new found addiction to current “stuff.”  Digg is the drugg dealer and they do it well.

Ok.  Now Let’s Mixx it Up.

Mixx’s approach to the news is very similar to Digg’s.  You submit something, people can vote it up or down, and if it reaches a popularity point then it makes the front page and also appears in the popular section.  This is what people have come to expect from sites like reddit, Digg, and now Mixx.  That’s where the similarities stop though.

When submitting an article you can also fire it off to your followers to alert them that this is something you think they should read.  This is a great way to get tons of up front votes from people you think share your opinion.  To further add to this, there are Mixx communities too.  These communities are often aimed around specific topics, but there are also those like the Mixxing Bowl that provide a fairly even blend of news.  You can also fire off your new submissions to a group and while these people might not be your followers and may even hate your face, they did just get a notification that there is something that they might want to look at.

Mixx’s partnerships with other news outlets enable them to submit stuff to the site fairly rapidly.  This gives those news sites an eye into what people on Mixx care about that they are reporting on.  This sort of thing is pretty valuable but may not be as valuable as something like Digg’s comments… uh oh.  What did I just do?

Round One.  FIGHT!

Mixx and Digg are both plagued by one huge issue – blind voting.  Blind voting is when someone reads your little summary or maybe even just the headline and then votes.  They didn’t read the article – they just voted for some reason.  Maybe because they are dumb heads.  The difference between the communities is that on Digg, people actually write something in the comments about an article.  On Mixx, it’s not uncommon to see an article become popular that no one has even commented on.  Does that mean it just got lucky and received a lot of blind votes?  This sort of trend makes Mixx less valuable to everyone, including the blind voters and especially big media outlets that are trying to get a feel for the public response to their content.  Digg certainly has its fairshare of dumb comments but at least people say something.  This is one of those cases where it’s far better to say something stupid than to keep your mouth shut.  Despite the total lack of comments and gross blind voting, Mixx tends to sway towards a more community oriented site…

Digg Wins.

Round Two.  FIGHT!

In terms of the community aspect of things, Mixx gets it right.  Their communities can greatly enhance the coverage and attention articles get.  Digg has nothing like this short of their new (beta) suggestion system.  Mixx’s groups do a much better job of “suggesting” articles though because the suggestions are coming from the community instead of a random algorithm or a panel of edittors in the Digg offices (wherever they are coming from).  These communities add an extraoridinary amount of value to one’s overall user exerperience on the site though.  If you’re a Mixx user and you’re not in a community then you really should consider joining one.  Communities might be Mixx’s slingshot.  I’m obviously being somewhat extreme here as I don’t think a single feature is going to overthrow Digg.

Mixx Wins.

Round Three…

So people use Digg and Mixx for different reasons and that’s fine.  Mixx has so much potential that is being punched in the balls by the uncaring community that Mixx aims to please.  It’s a shame to see so much in terms of features wasted.  Maybe if Mixx implemented a voting system for comments it would be more attractive to leave a comment rather than simply blind voting.  It’s hard to say.  Digg on the other hand has been rather stale in developments lately and it will be very interesting to see how their new suggestion system plays out in the longer term.  Both sites seem to be aiming down different routes but they could definitely benefit from looking at each other in terms of the user base and features.

Looking Forward.

I do not think that Mixx is going to drag away all of Digg’s users in a single day, but if Digg continues to have problems with their content and begins having rebellions like they did earlier this year then there is a good chance people might stumble over to Mixx and find that they like the features better and just choose to stay there.

Hopefully we have a change in the overall mentality over at Mixx so that there is more participation around articles than simply blind voting.  Whether or not the staff can push through this change or the user base needs to just do it is up to debate.  Something like requiring a higher number of comments for an article to go popular might be a good idea.  Time will tell what direction these sites take though.

Recap

Digg’s user base needs to start using the features it has, comment the hell out of articles, and embrace the community-geared futures so that everyone can benefit.

Digg needs to keep doing what it’s doing and not screw up and piss off the mob.  They could also benefit from some more community-geared features of which they lack today.

Ok So Who Cares?

Well the concern amongst the community right now is that this acquisition went down and it instantly broke any old Summize API requests due to the new URL redirect.  No warning was given and it just kinda happened.  With things starting off in this way, it’s no wonder that the community was feeling a little burned, spewing comments such as “RIP Summize” and other similar statements.  Feeling the heat, Alex Payne asked those following him to @reply with any concerns about the API changes as a consequence of this acquisition (http://twitter.com/al3x/statuses/859262626).  The community eagerly awaits that blog post.

Any Real Reason for Concern?

Looking at things right now?  No.  Twitter has been improving and Summize functions just as it used to (except for the broken API requests and new theme).  There is a great potential for the two services to feed off one another since Summize improved upon Twitter and without Twitter there is no Summize.  There is the obvious concern that having Summize under Twitter control will somehow destroy the great up-time, speed, and reliability of the searching service, but at the same time it might be possible for Twitter to take in the technology used in Summize and adapt it to make the mother service even better.

As a developer that uses Twitter for a number of different things, I hope we see the API for Summize largely untouched and also see the API for twitter enhanced to utilize a lot of the Summize functionality.   This will make developing applications that use Twitter much simpler.  There is an inherent risk though – if this integration does not go smoothly it has the potentional to ruin Summize and also provide Twitter no gain for their $15 million.  Let’s all hope that it works out with a great deal of improvement for everyone.

Alex Payne’s Twitter: here
Search.Twitter Query for Summize: here
Twitter Blog Post on the Aquisition: here

If you haven’t read the previous posting about this nonsense then you should probably do so.  Basically a Chinese company contacted me with some nonsense about someone wanting to buy my name in China and wanted to know if I would allow this.  I said no, and they started trying to convince me to register the names with them… and then this happened…

So I recieved this response back from Carol:

Dear Patrick,

Each company has their own idea,All we can do is to respect your decision.Do you also give up the “Internet brand name” ?Internet brand name is the extension of trademark and brand in the internet world. It decides the stability and activity of keyword in the world of internet.it affect the rank of this keyword in google search engine.After the successful registration, Government will award an electronic certificate, which will prove the validity of using this keyword in the internet.

Best Regards

Carol

At this point I think one should notice that her typing is getting increasingly worse and worse.  Completely unacceptable for someone who audits stuff, and is employed by an organization that is sort of in partnership with the government.  Something stunk.  I decided to look up this internet keyword nonsense and determined it’s a Chinese internet only sort of thing.  It’s similar to AOL’s keyword stuff that they had, except you can buy these and often at a huge premium.  Now if some company wants to buy it and hold onto it at their expense then go ahead.  If you really want to find me you can search for me on the internet and I really don’t need a keyword to help with that.

With my new found knowledge, I decided to play dumb and sent this as a response:

Hello Carol,

I do not give up the “Internet Brand Name.” What is the Government you speak of? Is this the Chinese government or is this something else? It is impossible for me to give up the name “Patrick Tulskie” since it is the name given to me at birth. I can’t suddenly call myself by something else.
Patrick Tulskie
http://www.PatrickTulskie.com

For the sake of space time, I’ll tell you that a few short emails were exchanged where she basically said if I want to protect myself then I’d better purchase this internet keyword.  At this point her typing skills have blown my brain right out the top of my skull with horror.  Not a good way to convince me to seperate from my money.

After I asked her how to protect myself, she replied with this:

Dear Patrick,

Attached dispute application form, pls check.Hope you could fill in it prudently. In order to arrange the work better, you’d better fill in the form and return to us in time.I can always help you in the whole process of the registration.

Following is the procedures:
1. We send the dispute application form to you.
2. You fill in the dispute application form and return it via email (scaned) or fax.
3. We will dispute their application and protect Internet brand name for your company.
4. We’ll send the invoice of payment to you.
5. We will register this Internet brand name after getting the payment proof and award you the electronic certificate.

If you have any questions, contact me freely.

Best Regards

The form that was attached had another company’s name entered into it already and it had some random holding company’s header on it.  It was a radically different company than had even been mentioned in conversation.  Since she basically blew her cover as a reputable company that was trying to help me protect myself from a Chinese internet STD, I decided it was time to get even more silly serious.

Hello Carol,

As I’m sure you well know it’s the 3rd of July here in the US and it’s the day before independence day so most people are on vacation. I cannot send you the dispute form right now since my secretary is on vacation and will not be back until Monday. I would fill it out myself, but I have a disorder where I can only write backwards. If you can read backwards handwriting then I will do it for you, but I don’t think that’s appropriate for an official document.

I do have a question though – how much is it going to cost to buy the name that my parent’s freely gave to me when I was born? Many would regard me as a great person, and I am big in every way, but I do not think my name has significant monetary value to anyone else. It is after all my name. I mean how would you feel if your name was “Carol Burger” and some company comes along and tries to buy the name “Carol Burger” when that is your name that your parents gave to you when you were born? I’m pretty sure you’d do a barrel roll.
Patrick Tulskie
http://www.PatrickTulskie.com

And I never got a response, despite all of my questions.  As of today I see that all of the domains she mentioned in the first email have yet to be taken.  If someone wants to buy them, have at it.  I’m not sure what good the name Patrick Tulskie will be to you, but if you really want them then have at it.

There IS a chance none of the people at this phoney company have seen my blog posts about them and so I might try sending in the form, written in the appropriate fashion just to see what happens.  Comment or hit me on Twitter if you think I should do it.

I know.  I know.  There are plenty of questions going through your head right now upon reading the title of this… How could this possibly happen?  Why do they want some Irish/Polish mixed name?  Don’t they have enough to do with the Olympics this year?  How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie pop?

Well, I’m as bewildered as you are.  Let me start at the beginning since it was only this morning and I am pretty sure I can re-count it.

I woke up to my blackberry going off next to me for an emergency email.  No one sends me emergency emails, with the exception of the Chinese government, so naturally I had a look see.  I skimmed it quickly and determined it could wait until morning because they did not say anything about me needing to wake up immediately and get dressed.

Dear principal,

We are a domain name registration service company in asia,which mainly deal with international company’s in Asia.We have something important need to confirm with you company.On the July 01th, 2008, we received an application formally.One company named “Makerc International Holdings Ltd” wanted to register following domain names:
patricktulskie.asia
patricktulskie.cn
patricktulskie.com.cn
patricktulskie.hk
patricktulskie.info
patricktulskie.net
patricktulskie.net.cn
patricktulskie.org.cn
patricktulskie.tw
and Internet brand name:
Patricktulskie
through our body.
During our auditing procedure we find out that the alleged “Makerc International Holdings Ltd” has no trade mark, Intellectual property, nor patent even similar to that word. we found that the keywords and domain names applied for registration are as same as your company’s name and trademark. one point need you to confirm: whether this alleged “Makerc International Holdings Ltd” is your business partner or distributor in ASIA. if so, we will complete their registration. These days we are dealing with it.
If you are not in charge of this please transfer this email to appropriate dept.In order to deal with this issue better,please let someone who is responsible for trademark or domain name contact me as soon as possible.

Best Regards,

Carol
Auditing Department
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hong Kong Office:
Tel: 00852 8122 6293 (Direct)
Tel: 00852 3059 3057 (Office)
Fax: 00852 3059 3080

Email: Carol@skasia.hk.cn
Web: http://www.skholdingscompanyltd.asia

Confidentiality Notice. This is a letter for confirmation. If the mentioned third party is your business partner or distributor in ASIA please DO NOT reply. We will automatically confirm application from your business partner after this audit procedure. we have to notify you, and our registration organization are not responsible for any dispute questions about trade mark, intellectual property nor patent after they succeed in registration. hope you can understand. thank you.

My initial thoughts were “Hot damn, I’m a principal now.”  Then I went to GoDaddy and bought PatrickTulskie.org and PatrickTulskie.net.  I sat back in my chair and thought to myself “Damn you’re slick aren’t you Patrick?  Yeah you are.”

At this point you probably think it’s unfair that I say the Chinese government was responsible for this but it’s more fun to blame them for it.  Besides, at a later point I was lead to believe that this Carol person was a representative for the Chinese government.  I did not yet realize what they were trying to do, so I replied with this:

Carol,

Thank you for notifying me of this. PatrickTulskie is my name and my business name. Please do not permit this to go through as it would inflict damage on my reputation, and business in addition to confusion for people who view those pages. I’ve had other companies attempt to register my name as domains in an attempt to do “domain squatting” and advertising under my name without my consent.

They are not my business partner nor are they my distributor in Asia. Furthermore, to my knowledge I am the only Patrick Tulskie in the entire world. Please do not permit this transaction. Thank you very much Carol.

Patrick Tulskie
http://www.PatrickTulskie.com

Almost immediately I got a response back that said:

Dear Patrick,

Thanks for your prompt reply.We are a government authorized domain registration organization,During the auditing process, we have found that Makerc International Holdings Ltd is not the owner of “patricktulskie”.We also do not know that company’s detail information,So we ask you to confirm the relationship between you and that company.

If you have no relationship with them. According to our working experience, there are two possibilities:1.Makerc International Holdings Ltd is a domain name investment company, they want to register these names before you and sell back to you to gain profits.2.Makerc International Holdings Ltd is consigned by your competitor to register, let your customers feel confusion.

You know domain name takes open registration, this is international domain name registration principle. So Makerc International Holdings Ltd has right to register it.I think you must know some cases about the domain names grabbed by the third party,we also won’t want to see things happen like this.

As the owner of “patricktulskie”,you will get the priority to register these domain names and keyword.If you think these domian names are important for your company.we can send you a dispute application form and help you to register these domains within dispute period.This is the only way to prevent domain name grab. But If you don’t think their application will affect your company, you can give up.Each company has their own idea,Hope you can give me your decision ASAP.so that we can handle the next step.

Best Regards

Carol

Ah!  So I see!  She’s from the government and she’s looking out for my best interest!  How sweet of her and the Chinese government to be looking out for my ass.  Well, at this point I just kinda want her to go away because it was my last work day of the week and I wanted to get some real work done, so I sent her this:

Hello Carol,

I have no relationship with that company. I have already registered PatrickTulskie.net and PatrickTulskie.org in addition to my flagship PatrickTulskie.com.

They can go ahead and buy whatever is left out there. I am not interested in them and I do not feel that they would be a threat to my business.

Thank you for the notification.
Patrick Tulskie
http://www.PatrickTulskie.com

…and I thought that would be sufficient enough to make her go away.  Alas, no I was wrong.  I didn’t realize she still needed to fill her quota for the month and she wasn’t going to let me go yet.

I’m tired now though and I believe I’ll have to continue the saga tomorrow.  I have more emails to/from her that I need to sift through and pick apart.  Check back soon for the continuation.

There are the other people that dwell on the internet and use it for socializing or a means of communication with people in the outside world. Social networking and building communities and websites with a “screen name” can draw away from what you have actually accomplished and steal away some of the recognition you deserve.

About 10 or 11 years ago I was sitting there at my computer sending emails back and forth between a friend when they suggested I get an AOL Instant Messenger name to chat with instead. I didn’t understand because I thought AOL was a service one had to pay for. Well I decided to check it out, signed up for a screen name, and got to chatting. It was good.

Over the months following that I registered several screen names in an effort to establish what would later become my first online identity. I used yahoo to search for “something you do” and came up with the word “jive”. Since I claimed myself to be the master of everything I do, JiveMasterT was born (where T is the initial of my last name). This name rode with me for probably 9-10 years. I used it to describe myself in an online world in communities, forums, chatrooms, etc. It was me, and I was JiveMasterT. It was a symbiosis. Hard to believe that’s how it happened.

I’ve recently begun operating in larger social environments and developing connections with people in the real world that I’ve met through the internet. It really began to hit home when I was doing the administrator work for WRXModders.com under the name of JiveMasterT and participating on other Subaru forums with that name as well. Local people would get together for a meet up and everyone would refer to me as JiveMaster or Jive and while this was fun at first I just wanted to be know as Patrick. Shortly after that, it dawned on me that if I wanted to put anything from one of the sites I’ve constructed as JiveMasterT on “Patrick Tulskie’s Resume” that it would lose a lot of the impact due to such an unprofessional name. JiveMasterT was taking credit for my work. JMT was no longer in symbiosis… it had become a parasite.

Throughout the past few months I’ve begun killing off JiveMasterT but it hasn’t been easy. So many people know JiveMasterT and they do not know who Patrick Tulskie is. Fair enough, but that’s something I’ll have to overcome with time. JiveMasterT marked a period of growth from my very young days to about March of this year.

In these days of internet anonymity, many people like to have this blanket over their identity. Myself, I’d rather not. It forces me to be more careful about what I say and what I credit to my name, but it also gives someone instant access to find out about my accomplishments and things that I’ve done, built, constructed said, suggested, etc just by searching through google.

As of today I’ve converted what accounts I can salvage and will attempt to be converting more accounts as time goes on. Sure JiveMasterT might live on in some form or another, but his public presence needs to die so Patrick Tulskie can be free.

RIP JiveMasterT 1999-2008