For quite some time I’ve been using GoDaddy as my registrar of choice. They usually have domains for $8.95/yr with occasional $7.95/yr sales. Last week a friend recommended that I check out RegisterFly which has slightly higher normal pricing but includes DNS service. He also mentioned that they often have deals and promos listed at their sister site TheFlyPaper which bring down the pricing. As an example they have domains for $7.99 right now or tansfers for $5.50 both of which are a pretty good deal, especially with the DNS hosting included. It may be something to check out if you’re in the market for a registrar.

Do you know about Captain Midnight? It seems back in 1986 a satellite relay operator got a little bored one night and played some games with the HBO feed, in part because he was upset they had gone encrypted.

It was at 12:32 a.m. Sunday, April 27, that John R. MacDougall pushed the transmit button on his console and turned into Captain Midnight. “That’s when I hit it,” he says. “It was almost like an out-of-body experience. It was like I was there but I wasn’t really there.”

Read the full story at SignalToNoise.Net

I thought I had already posted about this but a quick search of the archives shows I have not. If you’re interested in changing the way Windows users on your network can authenticate but don’t have the resources, time or desire to implement a domain or Active Directory you may want to look at pGina. pGina is an open source project by XPA Systems which also offers pay support for the product.

Using a series of plugins pGina will let Windows users authenticate with a variety of services including, mySQL servers, LDAP directories, PAM, POP3, RADIUS, RSA SecurID, Bluesocket/URI, PAM or even Slashdot. I’ve tried out the software and it works as advertised including the ability to do very basic roaming profiles via a FTP server. Very interesting stuff, especially for a small office or large home situation where you have a number of users and wish to have a single point for authentication but don’t want to go through with a full domain or Active Directory installation.

In a recent announcement VoIP technology company Sipura (recently acquired by Cisco’s Linksys division) announced the new SPA-3000 with 1 port FXS and 1 port FXO capability. Earlier this year competitor Grandstream made a similar announcement so it looks like we have the beginning of a trend on our hands and one which is bound to be good for the Asterisk SOHO community.

In related news Russell Shaw at ZDNET has a blog entry suggesting this very technology could be what Cisco was after when they announced the Sipura purchase. I know I’m certianly interested to see what Cisco/Linksys does with this technology, especially if they start putting “home PBXs” in the Linksys broadband routers!

I was also interested to find the Asterisk Management Portal which is an open source project developed by a Canadian company and looks to be a much easier way to administrate Asterisk servers.

I’ve got a project that’s going to require a basic mass mailing manager. I was going to code it myself but the PHPList software looks like a good alternative.

*Updated link Oct 2 2016*

Two more intersting sites were brought to my attention today. First, the NETI@home project from GeorgiaTech seeks to collect network performance indicators directly from end users. They’ve already completed one data analysis and are preparing to launch a second round and new version of the software in the coming weeks.

Secondly, BlogTorrent is designed to be an easy way to allow web site administrators to share large files with those on their site using the BitTorrent system but with much less fuss than the usual BitTorrent system.