How To Do A Domain Name Registrar Transfer

Transferring your domain name from one registrar to another can be a giant pain in the rump. The process is a bit error prone and rather confusing, mainly because every domain name registrar has a different process and different interface. Plus, it is in each registrars interest to the make the Transfer Out process as cryptic and illogical as possible, since if it fails at any step along the way, they’ll retain ownership of the registry and possibly get another annual rebill out of you.

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.

Read Free Book Online: Thinking In Java

Read the online e-book, Thinking In Java - free!

What is ORM and why should you use it?

I’ve been asking myself this question a bit more lately so I wanted to find some answers. Nowadays, ORM typically stands for Object Relational Mapping, and less commonly, Object Role Modeling, although the two concepts are related. Mainly I am curious about some of the new ORM implementations for Kohana 3, namely Sprig (based on Django) and Jelly.

The first page on this topic can be found over at Stack Overflow.

On the StackOverflow page is a link to this post by Glenn Block on the MSDN blog. I found it a bit surprising that this particular post hadn’t been voted on by any other Stack Overflow members as I found it an insightful and succinct explanation of why you might want to consider using ORM.

I noticed another topic that comes up in relation to ORM is DM, the Domain Model pattern, and DDD, Domain Driven Design. I thought this post entitled DDD - why bother? was an interesting take with a terrific example illustrating the benefits of an ORM system.

This post was inspired by Koes.

Dreamweaver slows me down too

This blog is great. Tons of people expressing the same thing I’ve been feeling lately… Dreamweaver is just slow.

I recently switched from Dreamweaver CS3 on Windows (running under Bootcamp on a Macbook Pro) to Dreamweaver CS4 running under Snow Leopard. I also upgraded from 2GB to 4GB of RAM. Dreamweaver CS4 is almost unusable in Design mode, on longer documents. Maybe I have to run disk utility or something, but sheesh.

I’ve enjoyed using Dreamweaver for many years, but why is it that as computers get faster and faster, Adobe software gets slower and slower?

As I’ve pointed out before, Adobe makes some of the most expensive software out there. Why doesn’t it work better?

Kohana 3 PHP Development Resources

Here is the most current Kohana 3 Documentation.

Here is the Kohana 3 API.

Here is the Kohana 3 Unofficial Wiki.

Here is a link to all posts tagged with KO3 in the KohanaPHP Forums.

Here is a search result for KO3 Models. Models represent the ‘M’ in the MVC software design pattern. Chances are your Models will use a Database backend. Here’s the KO3 Database tutorial.

Here’s a great tutorial on using Views with Kohana 3. Views represent the ‘V’ in the MVC software design pattern. Update: Now there’s 8 Great Kohana 3 Tutorials at DealTaker.

Here is a search result for KO3 Controllers. Controllers represent the ‘C’ in the MVC software design pattern. In order to decide what Controller (and Action) to run, you need to use KO3 Routing.

Once you get the hang of things, you’ll find this KO3 Cheat Sheet comes in very handy, as does this Git Cheat Sheet!

Git for Subversion Users

I just spent a few hours reading up on Git, and have to admit I saw the light. One of the coolest features of Git is that it is distributed and provides an easy way to have a repository made up of smaller sub-repositories (called submodules in Git). Try that with SVN! Why does this matter? What’s so cool about Git? you may be wondering… Well, because the Kohana 3.0 source code is stored in several Git repositories, you can easily checkout the source to a local working copy, including only the modules you want, and also build your application in a local Git repository.

All of the following links are really helpfu.

Git for Subversion users, Part 1: Getting started

Git for Subversion users, Part 2: Taking control

git-svn is a gateway drug

Git Manual

Git User Guide

Guide on using Git with Kohana

Shockwave Breaches Security in a Big Way. Adobe Breaches Etiquette in an even bigger way

Slashdot just reported that the Macromedia Adobe Director Shockwave Player may have security holes affecting millions of systems. Not the popular Flash plugin, but the evil twin that disappeared into the shadows years ago.

This is particularly saddening for a proud former Director and Shockwave developer. If you have the shockwave player installed, just go ahead and dump it.

I cringe as I say that, know that within the last several months, dozens of really smart people people I have known through the Direct-L and have been helped by countless times over the years are dropping like flies, and finding other platforms for multimedia development in an increasingly hyper-connected online world.

Back in the day, way before the Internet, before everyone had a modem, there was multimedia. We’re talking the days of floppy disk mailers and DeBabelizer, LivePicture and hypercard. Learning how to compress graphics for a whole interactive experience in under 800k or 1.4mb. A floppy, then a mini CD, then a CD, then a DVD. Making the most engaging theatrics fit on tiny media was only one end of the spectrum. For years, Director was the de-facto coolest way to build intensely immersive, room-filling, museum quality experiences. With Director you can used to be able to connect monitors for gallery shows and museums and plug in lights and control cameras. As amazing as the best Flash websites are, they pale in comparison to the insane stuff we were doing 5 to 10 years ago with installations, fullscreen video, and the first 3D animation software as it essentially became available to the masses. I remember trying out CoSA AfterEffects 1.0. I beta-tested PhotoShop 1.0. I was already cutting rubylith with an exacto and couldn’t wait for Illustrator 88 to come out. I made some of the best posters with LivePicture, painter, Expression and Kai’s Power Tools.

Anyway, I digress. Reading the Direct-L lately has really sucked. I’ve been debating dropping the subscription for quite a while now, but I somehow enjoy remeniscing as various people describe tasks in Director. Lingo has a quiet elegance to it. It was fun while it lasted.

I’ll break it down for you. Adobe acquired Director (and Flash and Freehand and Fireworks and some other goodies like ColdFusion server) when they bought Macromedia. Since they had their own tools like Illustrator (bye-bye Freehand) and Photoshop (cya Fireworks), Flash’s smaller runtime and fast vector routines made it ultimately the next cool way to, again, make graphics and stuff smaller (remember the floppy disk mailers?), thereby sealing Director’s fate, since it was more meant for making big projects with pristine media quality for CDs and DVDs, multimedia projects that are just much too big for our slow 24kbps dialup.

Here’s the painful irony: Now that the web and internet speeds are catching up to delivering amazing quality HD theater experience we once dreamed of, Adobe has let Director languish for so many years that it barely works, and the best and most evangelistic Director gurus have abandonded it in favor of other tools (particularly for online realtime 3D, really the only reason to still play with Shockwave) that are either supported by their makers or open source.

I really feel for anyone who continued to put their faith in Director and Shockwave over the past few years as Adobe gave you the shaft. It really stings and kills your confidence and enthusiasm for your craft when the tool maker decides to stop making the tool.

Adobe, you have not only breached security and etiquette, you have alienated some of your biggest fans and most ardent supporters.

Speaking of which, I just shelled out nearly a grand for my Adobe Master Collection CS4 upgrade for Mac and when I entered my Adobe Master Collection CS3 Windows Serial Number activation said it was invalid. Thank you, Adobe, for squashing some really cool programs and for my $949 30-day trial.

I think I’m going to download Gimp and use Aviary from now on.

One final note. If you’re not angry at Adobe, maybe you could be angry at Aptana, as some other smart people I know are, for their recent move to stop supporting their PHP plugin. These software companies are really starting to tick me off. But you really can’t blame Aptana for moving (albeit silently) to become the best Rails IDE, it’s a pretty smart move for the small open-source software provider. At least you Aptana users didn’t spend the last 10 years shelling out thousands of dollars to Aptana for your free web development IDE.

Update 2009/11/03: Adobe has released some security fixes. So maybe, if you still use Adobe Director and Shockwave, try the Shockwave Player version 11.5.2.602 update.

jquery image cross fade

I just spent an hour trying to figure out how to make an image cross-fade into another image using the amazing JQuery library.

First I read this post,  and then continued on to part two.

These tutorials are close, but the code was a bit confusing at first, and it didn’t seem that simple to integrate into my site.

Then I found the motherlode:

This single JQuery CrossSlide plug-in is easy to use instantly. It lets you perform slide-in and slide-out transitions with or without transparency fading in between multiple images.

It even emulates the popular Ken Burns effect that is built into iMovie.

Amazing Flash Sites and Flash Resources

It’s quite rare, but every now and then, I stumble on a site that I would mirror if I could. A site that should live for ever.

When it comes to Flash resources, a few come to mind.

The Flash Bestiary is one.

The ActionScript.org forums.

If the FlashDen doesn’t impress you, I don’t know what will.

Tableless Forms using Fieldset, Legend & Label

Here are some great resources on how to avoid using tables for form construction and presentation.

If you have some time, this is a great read. Though it has over 2,000 Diggs, it’s a bit hard to read. It strikes me as ironic that this article is about formatting with CSS… yet the page itself leaves quite a bit to be desired.

Jeff Howden has an easy-to-follow example, and here’s a good article at CSS Drive with some examples.

While I was researching this post, I stumbled across a “Humbling Site” CSSRemix, a site filled with the most amazing example XHTML/CSS sites that are, quite frankly, just jaw dropping.  It immediately reminded me of The FWA (The Flash Website Awards).  A Humbling Site is a site where, when you visit it as a pretty darn good web developer, you are instantly reminded that no matter how good you think you are, there’s always somebody better.