Wilson Ng started helping the family business since 9 years old. Since then, he had dreamt to be a successful entrepreneur, one who starts great businesses  ( he has started 7) from scratch with insight, guts and initiative. He keeps his focus on growing the business by creating value-- not on politics, or wasteful distractions. He brings the same focus to community service, teaching, life and family.

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Pls. check out my new compilation in easy-to-read format the selected business articles of enduring value here.

	Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Domain Name Hijack  (techdrivenlife)   (selected articles in bizdrivenlife compiled) I just went through an issue that I think more people should know about.    As you may know, there are many companies that register a lot of domain names, and sometimes it is very difficult to keep track.  But domain names are normally paid for every year, and you have to renew it to keep it. Sometimes, if you are not careful, you let the domain name expire.  But on other times, you may also forget.  It did happened to us as well.  One of the domain names expired.  When we found out a few days later because the web site was not registering or could not be accessed, we hastily tried to register.  To our dismay, it could not be found anymore, and before long, we found out that somebody has registered it! Of course, they cannot use our domain name, so what is the purpose for them to register what is ours?  Of course to make money.  There are companies that do nothing but scour around the internet trying to get data on which domain name expired-- and there are many domain names that expire because the owner forgot to renew it.  These people will then try to look at the website -- if the website has a lot of activities, or if the internet site is comprehensive, and looks important, what they will do is they will try to register and divert your domain name. Then when the owner finds out, they will be asked to contact these companies.  These companies will then demand a huge amount of money to have the domain name sold back to the original owners.  Sometimes, it can be from few hundreds to a few thousand dollars.  This is almost like blackmarket scalping.  But these companies purportedly are legitimate and performing a function -- after all, they do offer you a chance to get your domain back, albeit at a high price.   They say if they were not there, and somebody else took it, then the owner will have no more remedy to get it back even if he is willing to pay high money. Would anybody care to comment on this?   10:18:53 PM     comment []   trackback []

Blogging as a Tool  (techdrivenlife)   (selected articles in bizdrivenlife compiled) In many ways, blogging has changed the way I work a lot, and as I looked at my counter in UserLand now, it is 18 days before my first anniversary in blogging.  In some ways, I have learned more about how the internet works at a deeper level, and have a better idea on how the internet can help business. The last few weeks have been hectic, as in addition to putting up a blog site for my wife, and my company, I have also put up a community blog site now to promote our city.  But before that, what is so significant about blogging? The point about blogging is that numerous bloggers and tech forums have changed the way that we gather information.   For instance, when I was new to blogging, I was looking for a blogging tool.  I did not do my research well.  I went into Radio Userland's website, and they claim to be a pioneer in blogging, and it was founded by Dave Winer, a pioneer in blogs and RSS.  So I signed up.  Later, I began to understood that Userland was actually a not very significant player in blogging with market share of less than 3%.  They pioneered, but they have not been able to maintain their leadership position.  Had I bothered to check on numerous forums, I would have known that.  Now I am stucked with a tool that in many ways is not optimal, or have been keeping up. The point is that companies keep websites, but people don't trust company websites very well for information anymore.  I have used 7 Nokia phones over the last 14 years, and I don't recall once visiting the Nokia website other than looking for downloads or patches.  Even as a Microsoft partner, I don't log in too much to Microsoft's site.  But I do subscribe into a lot of their other sites and forums.  How about you?  If you wanted to buy a new HP notebook, where do you get the market information to make the purchasing decision?  In the various blogs and forums? from comparison sites?  Or from the official websites? That was one of the reasons that while I asked our webmasters to maintain our 'official' site, we have to reach out on other means to have a better touch with customers as I did note that visits to our websites was not necessarily growing, or even declining.  Blogging is one of the most significant ways you can get your customers ' to be involved' and to keep coming back. Our new company site, and the community blog site uses WordPress.  If you haven't tried it, you should.  I looked for a tool that was flexible ( after so many months, I know the features this time on what I was looking) , that would allow multiple authors ( and thus the submission and approval of drafts), as well as an open ended way to add new things -- new themes, new features like comments and statistics, polling and the like, and WordPress delivered very well. Next post, I will talk about Coppermine, a new photo gallery tool that I am finding to be very powerful that I am using to set up a photoblog.     9:05:55 AM     comment []   trackback []

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