So, I used to be a 40-hours-a-week fulltime webhost/site designer a few years ago. You know, the person who does all the coding and file management and such. A worker bee. My company, accordingly, is called TechDonkey.
A week ago I decided to consolidate all my many domain names under one registrar, rather than managing them in five different places. I’d asked for advice, done gobs of research, read reviews until my eyes dazzled, and made a decision. I’d communicated with that new company to make sure my settings wouldn’t suddenly collapse, and then, late at night, sailing forward on old tiredness and a fresh caffeine buzz, opened an account and began the process.
A day later I realized I’d made a terrible mistake.
I had accidentally swoopingly arranged to have all my domain names owned by Elaine@techodnkey.com. TECHODNKEY. Pronounced TECH-O-DiNKY. Aaaaaaaaaaagh! I’ve never typo’d my email address in my life! Why now, when it’s actually important???
So, why not just change the email address back? Well, because ICANN (governing body for domain names) considers *that* a change of ownership and requires confirmation from… you guessed it: elaine@techOdnkey.com .
Okay, I used to be a troubleshooter as well! I can deal with this! Admittedly, there was probably something I could have done through the registrar, but instead of having the embarrassing conversation with the folks at Support, I spent $1.19 CAD at some random, badly-rated-but-cheap-first-year registrar for the domain techOdnkey.com. I connected it to my existing hosting, set a forward on the email, and voila! I can approve my “ownership transfer” back to myself at techDONKEY. Times 20 domain names. Sigh.
So this is what I’ve been doing sporadically for the last three days. One of my domains “arrives” in my account, I edit the techodnkey email address in three places each, and then “transfer ownership” back to TechDonkey. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. While complaining, and randomly startling my wife with shouts of “TECH-O-DNKY! Aaagh!”
This morning my phone rang, and I answered. It was a kind gentleman who said he was from some fancy website design firm.
“We’ve noticed that you have just registered….” –He paused here for a moment before carefully enunciating– “tech-oh-dinkey dot com… and you think you might wish to build a … tech – 0h -dinky… website. My company builds the very best …er…. ma’am? …. ma’am?”