Another day, another letter from “Domain Renewal Group” sent to our house, warning that one of my domain names (my main work one) will expire on April 10th 2010. Apart from the fact that it’s a wee bit early to renew (I’d prefer to keep my cash in the bank as long as possible, TYVM), they charge an outrageous £20 for a single year. One & One charge me £8.99, so we’re looking at a 122% increase, yet they don’t host the web site or email, they just redirect these to ones I supply myself.
A pretty poor offer, yet their modus operandi seems to be:
- Do a whois lookup for the billing contact for a domain that will expire in the next N months (N seems to be getting larger)
- Send a letter on good quality paper to this address, vague enough to confuse a non-technical person.
- Take their ridiculous cut for not doing very much.
- Profit!
There’s more information over here about their dodgy practices. People are even implying that they won’t provide the basic service they claim, but I can’t comment on that since I’ll never use their service.
Parasites.
Dear Pete, I found you records of events great. I wonder could you do me a huge favour and check the ASU Certificate and see if my grand fathers name is on it or his brother. Their names are John and Thomas Nolan. I am trying but failing miserable to trace my granddad John Nolan. The state have records of Thomas but they seem to have lost granddads, even though I have his discharge book, his rifle no, his kilmainham detention records for 1922. I know John Nolan was in the 4th Battaion of the Dublin Brigade in 1916, they do not have in in ‘their records’. I would really appreciate your help. By the way a Happy New Year to you and your family. Kind Regards
Janice Nolan.
Hi Janice – I’ve had a quick look and the only Nolan I can find is a George Nolan. I _think_ this particular certificate only mentions the members of the HQ ASU, no doubt the other ASUs have their own versions, but I’ve no idea who might keep records of them.
The’s a mention of a Thomas Nolan in the Dublin Castle Special Branch files. I don’t have a copy but you can see who was being watched in the list of names here:
http://www.eneclann.ie/acatalog/TourENEC015.html
I’m think of buying a copy of these files for the record. The normally charge €40 but they have a winter sale on, so I might just go ahead. If I find anything I’ll drop you a line if that’s OK.