In this tutorial we will be moving domains…

From: Dotster.com (the Old Registrar, Current Registrar, or Outbound Registrar)
To: GoDaddy.com (the New Registrar, or Inbound Registrar)

Don’t get me wrong – both GoDaddy and Dotster are terrific Registrars. There’s no hard feelings here, I’m just consolidating accounts to GoDaddy to save a little money and take advantage of their TotalDNS service, which usually costs extra at other registrars.

Note that if you are transferring from or to different domain name registrars, your process will be similar overall, but the sample screenshots and link names will obviously be different for you.

Overview

The registrar transfer process hinges on a basic email verification process. In a nutshell, the new registrar sends Email #1 (containing a Transaction ID and a Security Code) to the administrative contact on file at the current registrar. You login to the current registrar and generate an Authorization Code, which is sent via Email #2 to the administrative contact on file. Assuming your email is on file as the administrative contact, you’ll receive these two emails within a few minutes. You then login to your account at the new registrar, and initiate the transfer process by entering the transfer Transaction ID & Security Code, and finally, the authorization Code from the current registrar. Once all 3 codes have been entered, your domain should be migrated to the new registrar within 72 hours.

The Process

Before you begin, login to your current registrar and update your domain name contacts. The critical contact record you will want to update is the administrative contact. Domain Registrar Transfers are accomplished by emailing the administrative contact email address. If you cannot access the email account listed and need to make updates, do this step 24 hours prior to initiating the registrar transfer.

1. At GoDaddy, purchase your domain name as a transfer registration. GoDaddy also has a nice interface to do bulk transfers, but – trust me on this – do domain transfers one at a time or it gets extremely confusing.
   
2. At GoDaddy, login to your account, and go to My Account -> Domains -> Pending Transfers
   
3. At GoDaddy, on the Pending Transfers page in the domain management area, click on the domain you want to work with. If you’re transferring multiple domains at once, you can see the status of each domain’s transfer process here.
   
4. At GoDaddy, click the Reinitiate button. This poorly-labeled button is the one that actually sends the Transaction ID and Security Code email to the Administrative Contact on file at the current registrar.
   
5. Now create a new browser tab and login to your domain management account at your current registrar. In my case this is Dotster.
6. At Dotster, unlock your domain for transfers at the current registrar. This is done on the main account list screen by checking the domain, picking ‘Unlock these domains - to allow transfers’ from the dropdown, and clicking the Manage Domains button.
   
7. Once Dotster says OK - Unlocked, go back to the domain management page and scroll to the bottom. Click the link that says ‘Request Authorization Code’
   
8. Next, check your email. If you’re not the administrative contact on the domain you’re trying to transfer, have the person who is forward you any emails they receive from GoDaddy or Dotster.
   
9. You will receive Email #1 from GoDaddy. It is from transfers@godaddy.com and lists the Domain Name, the Transaction ID and a Security Code.
   
10. You will receive Email #2 from Dotster. It is from auto@dotster.com. It contains your Domain Transfer Authorization Code.
    
11. Go Back to your GoDaddy account and prepare to initiate the transfer. You’ll need the Transaction ID, Security Code (from GoDaddy) and Authorization Code (from Dotster) handy.
12. At GoDaddy, check the checkbox next to the domain listed under Pending Transfers, and click the black Authorize button, and pick ‘Begin Transfer Authorization’ from the dropdown underneath it.
    
13. Enter the Transaction ID and Security Code (from Email #1) and click Next.
    
14. On the confirmation page with your domain name shown, pick the Authorize button and click Next.
    
15. On the Authorization page, paste the Authorization Code (from Email #2) and click Finish. Click OK to the final confirmation.
    
16. Now, just wait 72 hours and you should be good to go with your domains at GoDaddy. Note, you’ll receive at least one additional email (a transfer notification courtesy) from GoDaddy, during this process. You can ignore this email as it has no information pertinent to the actual process.
17. After a few days, log in to your GoDaddy account and re-visit the Pending Domain Transfers page. Once all the approval codes have been entered & registered (steps 1 - 15 above) you’ll need to finalize the transfer in the GoDaddy interface.

AdWords-style PPC + YouTube Promoted Video + YouTube Site Takeover = Big Impact.

It’s not as inexpensive as Google AdWords, but this combination can deliver an extremely creative message to an enormous captive audience in real time.

In the same way that you can target searches on Google with pay-per-click advertising, you can now put your message in front of millions of YouTube video searches daily, too. Bid on the terms related to your video, and with enough space on your credit card you can show up as often as the search terms are entered. Promoted videos show up on the right-hand side of the YouTube search results.

How does YouTube Promoted Video work? You be the judge...

Here’s where it starts getting fun. Take over your video’s landing page with a custom skin, and it’s like having a flare gun and bullhorn at Sunday mass…

Learn more about YouTube Promoted Video and how to customize your YouTube Channel at Mashable.

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Next I see this:

Interested, I click Report to see what anonymous statistics it collected.

In addition to a ton of other stuff, it says:

System Uptime: 53599109180380 nanoseconds

Hmmm, I wonder… How long is that?

This is a perfect example of what Wolfram Alpha is perfect for.

Sure, you enter the search term like…

53599109180380 nanoseconds in hours

…into Google, to take advantage of a hidden feature called Google Calculator.

As exciting as it may seem to use Google for a calculator, wait until you check out Wolfram Alpha, a knowledge engine that uses natural language search to give you a wealth of information about your search term.

Here’s what you get when you search for 53599109180380 nanoseconds on WolframAlpha.com.

…plus a whole lot more interesting things, too, like the distance light can travel during that time.

If that doesn’t get you going, check out this Wolfram Alpha overview screencast.

Thanks to Alan for sharing this great link!

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If you have a Mac and aren’t using spaces for multi-tasking, you’re missing out on one of the great features of modern OSen. Encapsulation.

Even novice computer users understand that a computer can run more than one program at once. Using many apps simultaneously is called Multitasking. For example, you can edit your vector artwork in Illustrator, import the .ai file into Photoshop and apply effects to it, and use the PSD in an InDesign layout. You can run all 3 programs at once, and edits are instantly available in the other softwares when saving. As a web developer, I’m routinely running multiple browsers, an IDE (I use NetBeans and Dreamweaver), a text editor (on PC I use UltraEdit and TextMate on Mac), plus Photoshop if I have to work on any design elements.

Well, multi-tasking is one thing. But are you getting the most out of your 8GB of RAM and quad-core processor? Encapsulation, such as provided by Apple Spaces, takes it one step further and makes staying organized and more efficient easier than ever.

If you’ve ever spent any time on a laptop after using a dual screen setup, you’ve gotten really friendly with Alt-Tab (application switching) and Control-Tab (tab switching in one browser, or window switching in applications like Photoshop or Microsoft Word).

As a platform-agnostic PC-at-work / Mac-at-home kinda guy, I always think it’s great when Apple takes a killer feature from the PC world (the reverse applies, too, though less often) and makes it better. For the longest time on Mac, I yearned for an easy way to switch between applications like you could on a PC.

Keyboard Shortcuts to Switch Between Applications on Windows

To switch between running programs on Windows PC try these steps:

1. Hold down the Alt key,
2. and then press the Tab key,
3. and press the Tab key to cycle forward through running apps,
4. or hold the Shift key and press Tab to cycle backward,
5. and let go of the Alt key to use the selected App

Go ahead. Launch a few programs and practice. It sounds more complicated than it is and will become second nature to you in no time.

Anyway, at some point in the past, Apple adopted this feature for OS X… and made it even better.

Keyboard Shortcuts for switching between running applications on a Mac

On a Mac, to switch between applications, you need to:

1. Hold down the Command key,
2. and then press the Tab key,
3. and press the Tab key to cycle forward through running apps,
4. or hold the Shift key and press the Tab key to cycle backward,
5. and let go of the Command key to switch to the highlighted app,
6. Or, while still holding the Command key, hover your mouse over any app you want to switch to before letting go of the Command key.

Just by adding that single OR at the end, Apple made a fantastic productivity tool exceptional.

For the record, on a Mac, from the running app, you can choose [Application name Menu] -> Hide [Application name] or [Application name menu] -> Hide Others… which applies to the running applications. And you can also option-click on the finder (background application) when you have an application open in the foreground to instantly hide the foreground application. And of course there’s the yellow minimize icon that stuffs the app into a spring-loaded folder in the dock, but I digress.

Now, for the frosting on the cake.

What are Apple Spaces?

Imagine having 4 or 8 Macs instead of one. Would you be more productive if had 4 Macs and you could switch between them instantly? Apple Spaces lets you have the appearance of several virtual machines (all copies of your Mac). What’s cool about spaces is now you can run a couple of different browsers in one space, iTunes in another space, and your web development tools in a third space, and all your design apps in a fourth space. This keeps all those floating palettes and application windows more organized and is a great new way to gain even more productivity. By utilizing Spaces, you’ll spend less time application switching because each Space contains its own list of programs assigned to that space. And all those seconds can really add up, especially if you’re on deadline.

1. Enable Spaces by going to  -> System Preferences -> Exposé and Spaces
2. Then, to activate Spaces, press fn+F8.
3. With the Space selector activated, you can drag apps from one space to another,
4. and to switch between Spaces, you can use Ctrl-Right-Arrow and Ctrl-Left-Arrow to move between spaces,
5. or to instantly go to a space, hold Ctrl and type the number corresponding to the space, for example, Ctrl-2 instantly switches to the second space.

Give that a try, Mac guy. If you don’t think Spaces and application switching is useful, you’re wasting time and missing out on the full potential of a modern computer’s power.

References
macworld.com
discussions.apple.com

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