Some people are really keen on collecting domain names, some even make a profitable enterprise out of it, others don’t get what all the fuss is about. Back in the day when I was looking to start up this blog I was looking for a domain - well initially I had it on a free domain but when that collapsed I realised I needed two things, firstly web space that wasn’t subject to the whim of an individual offering a freebie - so really a paid service, but more important my own domain name so that if I did, or was forced to, change web space providers then I wouldn’t have to start again with a new domain name somewhere.

Looking around at other people’s canal related blogs I saw many were www.nbboatname .com or .co.uk etc, so I considered www.nbsilhouette.com though others went for dropping the nb, such as grannybuttons.com, but unfortunately someone had pipped me to the post of www.silhouette.com or .co.uk. Though really people might find silhouette hard to spell correctly(sounds but some people do), so on a whim I thought “I wonder what generic canal related names are still available?” as this might prove more likely that random people could stumble across the site (other than me name dropping on several forums (hmm -ums isn’t usually the plural of an -um word, but that’s another issue) which may not always be welcome) and found, somewhat astoundingly, that narrowboat.org.uk was still available. I doubt it narrowboat.com will ever forget to be re-registered, but I’m happy with my dot-org-dot-uk.

However, I wonder if I’ve fluked it again…. Ol’ grannybuttons has been pondering short URL’s, as I previously commented on but non-memorable short URL’s or domains are of limited use. The idea of registering boat numbers, will give you a domain that’s likely to be unregistered, but could also be one that’s easily forgot by that other boater you’ve just passed who you mentioned it to! You could try http://www.80at.com/ or http://www.8oat.com/ if someone hadn’t got there first (how dare they not even use it for a proper site!!). Anyway, what I was going to say was granny’s post got me thinking a “what if …” and I really expected to be disappointed, but was pleasantly surprised to see no one had registered the domain that popped in my head.

W hat domain is that? Ooo you’ll have to wait as it takes 24 hours to complete the registration! Apparently?

Well, that didn’t take long, and I’ve got a new short URL … http://nboat.tk though I guess it needs visiting several times to keep it (or pay for it!). I could have had a character shorter, but “nboat” seems recognisable as “narrowboat”.

Mind you, http://gbut.tk is still free if a certain other blogger is interested

IF anyone wants a free domain, go to http://freedomains.nboat.tk, you can have them add free too (they are optional), you just need 25 visitors over 90 days to keep it active.

Over at GrannyButtons powerblog, Andrew has beenlooking at short URL redirections and got

www.grannybuttons.com = http://short.to/89

Hmm, well there seem to be a few short redirection domains out there. http://is.gd so 5 as opposed to 8 characters in the full domain. So giving it a go I get …

http://www.narrowboat.org.uk/ = http://is.gd/1GFz

though a longer final part means I only just pip granny’s at 10 characters to the 11 of his. Though is.gd isn’t the shortest domain, there is also http://w.cx which is only 4 characters. Giving this a try I get …

http://w.cx/c7ecd0

which unfortunately is 11 characters.

 So I wonder if I can get shorter ones??

Looking at the website for Stage6, the DivX video site, they’ve closed it down, so looks like Youtube and Blip.tv for my video’s now

I have been using Dr.DivX the free open source software to create the final versions of my Time Lapse Cruise videos to upload to stage6.com. Now whilst there is a DivX Pro out there I never bothered buying it, since Dr.DivX is fine. It normally costs $20, but for a limited time the folks at DivX are giving it away free! So if you’ve ever wanted to convert and compress video’s into DivX format easily with Divx Pro, you may as well get it for free now. I often use XviD for encoding, but I can’t find any of those tools that allow you to encode from WMV files.

For a limited time, Divx is offering a complimentary download of their Divx Pro software, which consists of both a converter and the Codec. The converter includes an easy to use drag-and-drop feature to make your conversion time simpler. This software is definitely a useful one to have available.

It is currently not mentioned when this free download ends, so if you are interested, make it quick. Versions are available for windows and macs.

Youtube isn’t a great site for having my time lapse videos on, so having a look at blip.tv.

I’ve set up http://narrowboat.blip.tv  and guess its now a matter of putting stuff up again.