Today’s musing is more of a rant…if you don’t like opinionated rants, please skip to the next article.
(Pardon me while I jump up on my soapbox now.)
I’d like to take this opportunity to tell everyone I know that in my opinion Network Solutions (and I use the term "solutions" loosely) is a completely useless excuse for a registrar. I think their company embodies all that is wrong with computing today. They use endless undefined jargon, automate everything, and even their phone support is staffed by non-thinking automatons. Nothing should be so *difficult*.
This opinion is based on my experiences with them over the past month or so. Here’s what happened. I wrote a book in 1999 on PowerPoint 2000. In it I have a sample presentation that demonstrates how you can put a PowerPoint presentation on the web. So we registered a domain name with Network Solutions for the new site. Unfortunately, a few months ago, our Web host had to take the site down, which meant that the accompanying "webmaster" e-mail address went away with it. (With all the various ISPs/Web hosting companies dying, this situation is actually NOT unusual.)
So for the past month, we’ve been trying to get Network Solutions to understand that the old webmaster account is gone, so it can’t be the one used to authorize the change to move the site to a new Web hosting company. I have sent and received approximately 30-40 e-mails back and forth with endless confirmations and changes that can’t be authorized because the "webmaster" account they WANT to exist doesn’t exist.
The worst part is that the e-mails you get from these guys are so cryptic, it’s almost impossible for a normal human being to tell what they actually want you to do. Finally, we found instructions for a convoluted "fax procedure" that lets you prove who you are by faxing over a form with a copy of your driver’s license. I tried three different numbers, which all result in "transmission errors." So 20 faxes to Virginia later, I’m still getting snotty e-mails from Network Solutions telling me that my fax was "illegible" (gee I wonder why).
Wednesday, I made the mistake of actually *calling* Network Solutions. I talked to an individual whose responses were even more cryptic and generic than the horrible e-mails they send out. She claimed that the only thing I could do was go through the "fax procedure." I pointed out 4 or 5 times that I already had and that their fax numbers didn’t work and – by the way — what would I do if I *didn’t* have a fax machine? More useless canned and almost unintelligible responses. A LOT more frustration.
Needless to say, the moral of this story is that if you want to register a Web site domain, I suggest that you do NOT risk losing time, money, or your mind in dealing with Network Solutions. These days, they have lots of competition. For example, for $8.95 you can easily register a domain at www.godaddy.com. It’s a lot less expensive and vastly easier to do.
(Jumping down off soapbox now.)