Speaking to a friend yesterday, I was reminded of a very simple fact: no-one knows everything that anyone else knows. Hmmm. Perhaps that needs a bit more explaining.

We were discussing how we use our computers and software – including how we decide what to use and how to choose what we buy. So I thought this might be a good idea for a series of computer using related blog posts or articles. Nothing high-brow. So here we go.

My Top Tips For choosing A Computer Mouse

First up: Mice – or should that be ‘mouses’?

Types of Mouse

There are mainly three styles, or methods of moving the cursor around the screen: mouse, trackball, touchpad. There are one or two others (finger mouse, graphics tablet), but let’s keep mainstream for this purpose.

Apart from the fact that using the keyboard is arguably more efficient in many cases (which is not the purpose of this article), you have the option of a mouse - which you move around on your desk using your hand and wrist.; a trackball - which is fairly static on the desk, you move a ball with your thumb or fingers; or a touchpad - found mostly on laptops and netbooks. (Yes, I know Apple are coming out with a new touchy-feely mouse, but I don’t do Apple!) (more…)

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.tk domain name – worth having?

I had an interesting email this morning about registering free domain names with the extension .tk. Don’t go and do it – there are catches. But then this led me to do my usual bit of sleuthing.

As a rule I don’t concern myself with registering all my domains with as many extensions as possible; all that went out with the rubbish ideas years ago. But I was intrigued to find out where .tk hails from. Apparently it is for Tokelau, a territory of New Zeland in the South Pacific just up from Samoa (didn’t know NZ had territories!). I found it on Google maps – good ol’ Google.

But these less common extensions are often used by less reputable ‘people’ – scammers to you and me – and it is always worth reading the small print about how much your ‘free’ domain will cost you after the first year. Personally I wouldn’t go for it – but that’s me. I’m not saying these .tk will have the same fate, just talking generally. It’s certainly a fact that serious/proper/upright businesses need to use the .com, .co.uk extensions – even .info and .biz may be considered by some to be a bit ‘unclean’ – and I do have a couple of those myself and I’m squeaky-clean (I hope).

I then went further down the Wikipedia page (which is just a sales pitch by any other name) and found a whole list of top level extensions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.tk

Country code top-level domains

Active:  .ac  .ad  .ae  .af  .ag  .ai  .al  .am  .an  .ao  .aq  .ar  .as  .at  .au  .aw  .ax  .az  .ba  .bb  .bd  .be  .bf  .bg  .bh  .bi  .bj  .bm  .bn  .bo  .br  .bs  .bt  .bw  .by  .bz  .ca  .cc  .cd  .cf  .cg  .ch  .ci  .ck  .cl  .cm  .cn  .co  .cr  .cu  .cv  .cx  .cy  .cz  .de  .dj  .dk  .dm  .do  .dz  .ec  .ee  .eg  .er  .es  .et  .eu  .fi  .fj  .fk  .fm  .fo  .fr  .ga  .gd  .ge  .gf  .gg  .gh  .gi  .gl  .gm  .gn  .gp  .gq  .gr  .gs  .gt  .gu  .gw  .gy  .hk  .hm  .hn  .hr  .ht  .hu  .id  .ie  .il  .im  .in  .io  .iq  .ir  .is  .it  .je  .jm  .jo  .jp  .ke  .kg  .kh  .ki  .km  .kn  .kp  .kr  .kw  .ky  .kz  .la  .lb  .lc  .li  .lk  .lr  .ls  .lt  .lu  .lv  .ly  .ma  .mc  .md  .me  .mg  .mh  .mk  .ml  .mm  .mn  .mo  .mp  .mq  .mr  .ms  .mt  .mu  .mv  .mw  .mx  .my  .mz  .na  .nc  .ne  .nf  .ng  .ni  .nl  .no  .np  .nr  .nu  .nz  .om  .pa  .pe  .pf  .pg  .ph  .pk  .pl  .pn  .pr  .ps  .pt  .pw  .py  .qa  .re  .ro  .rs  .ru  .rw  .sa  .sb  .sc  .sd  .se  .sg  .sh  .si  .sk  .sl  .sm  .sn  .sr  .st  .su  .sv  .sy  .sz  .tc  .td  .tf  .tg  .th  .tj  .tk  .tl  .tm  .tn  .to  .tr  .tt  .tv  .tw  .tz  .ua  .ug  .uk  .us  .uy  .uz  .va  .vc  .ve  .vg  .vi  .vn  .vu  .wf  .ws  .ye  .za  .zm  .zw

Reserved/unassigned:  .um  .bl  .eh  .mf      (.bleh would be cool!)

Allocated/unused:  .bv  .gb  .pm  .sj  .so  .yt

Proposed Cyrillic:  .??  .??

Phaseout:  .tp  .yu

Deleted/retired:  .bu  .cs  .dd .zr

I always wondered what was happening in the world, so now I know – and so do you.

What I would like is a .fam – for family. Perhaps later.

–Lyn

PS  I am not an affiliate for, nor will I be for .tk anything. It simply piqued my interest.

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