Ever wonder how the Internet knows what information to bring up in your web browser when you type in the URL of your favorite website? This is all taken care of through the Domain Name System (DNS).

Each web and email server has a numerical address that serves as the unique address for that machine. The Domain Name System is responsible for maintaining the relationship between this numerical address and the friendly domain name you generally use to connect to web pages and to send email. You can simply type in www.google.com instead of having to remember 209.85.173.103 to do your daily searches.

When you type in a URL, the first thing your computer does is ask a DNS server what the actual numerical address is. Then, you are connected to that address, but still shown the friendly name you typed. Because of this system, there will often be a delay when your website moves to a new server as the Internet learns the new numerical address of your domain name. This is referred to propagation.

All of the servers that are responsible for knowing these addresses are updated on various schedules, some updating more quickly than others. Which server a site visitor is connected to will dictate whether or not they view content on your new server or old one.  While highly detailed, DNS and systems like it keep the Internet an easy, friendly world to navigate.

If you have a website that’s been live to the public for longer than six months, at some time you’ve likely received a seemingly endless stream of email messages marked as “undeliverable” in your inbox. It looks as if someone has been sending tons of SPAM using your email account, and its one of the more unsettling moments in website ownership.

What happened? Through the magic of server technology, it is possible to send email pretending to be from ANY email address without owning, or having access to, that domain. A random spammer can send out thousands of email messages from anyname@yourdomain.com. If you own the chosen domain, you will receive all of the bounces from those emails. This is a very frustrating situation for all of the recipients receiving the SPAM and also the main domain owner, who gets all the bounced emails.

What can you do? Since spammers aren’t actually using your email or server to send these messages, there’s not much you can do to stop them. However, hosting companies are getting better at quickly blocking mail coming from servers that are sending illegitimate email. Once the initial bounce-back subsides, you generally won’t get many more emails since the sending server will have been shut down.

If you ever encounter this situation and have questions, please don’t hesitate to call us here at Wright Strategies so we can help put your mind at rest.

Has this ever happened to you? You get a notice in the mail that some of your domains will expire soon and that you need to call a 1-800 number to make sure you don’t lose your domain. Your domain name is akin to your business name – losing that would cause a never ending stream of problems for you and your company.

What’s really going on: It’s a pretty safe bet that if you are a business on the web, domain registrars won’t choose to communicate with you through regular mail. This is the type of scam used by a few companies to trick you into transferring your domain to them from your current registrar. Their general goal is to get people to call them back for fear of losing their domain.

What you should do: In general, nothing! There is no way for these companies to actually take your domain from you if you don’t contact them. If you like, you can call them to tell them how little you appreciate their tactics, but the simplest thing to do is just shred the letter. Also, you can often use the control panel for your current registrar to hide your personal information (including your mailing address) to prevent these companies from getting your contact info in the first place.

If you ever have any questions about the legitimacy of communications you receive concerning your domain names, please don’t hesitate to ask us to take a look.

As many of you may know, my wife and I just had our first baby and are in the thick of raising a 3 month old, while learning the trials and tribulations of all the gadgetry involved in doing so. Since her arrival, we’ve discovered that according to the baby stores, it takes no fewer than 47 batteries at any given moment to raise a healthy and happy child. The weekly trips to Costco are an all too clear display of how much we love our little daughter, and that we really missed our opportunity to invest heavily in Duracell. We’re rarely without a camera in our pockets to catch the first time she does, well, whatever it is she happens to be doing, because they’re all pretty much firsts!

The amazing part is that while she is entertained for short times by swirling monkeys and flickering lights, it’s no match for the simple times we spend playing with her ourselves, shunning the vibrating bouncies and automatic swings in favor of some good old fashioned peek-a-boo and some drool slathered sing-a-longs. While we want to capture every moment in pictures and videos, we’re missing the feelings and emotions of the moment.

For me, it’s a reminder that for all the joy, excitement and value we find in the technology we depend on to live our lives, it’s important to remember that the simple moments and personal interaction still can’t be beat. The joys from the smiles of a baby can’t always be appreciated through the lens of a camera. And the people we work with and the clients whose lives we make better are where the real happiness of our jobs comes from.

If you’ve looked through our portfolio, you know that here at Wright Strategies, we love Flash! What you may not know is how much goes into our decision on where and how much to include in each page.

When we’re contemplating when to use Flash for a little more pizzazz or for added interactivity, we generally ask the following questions:

1)      Will the addition of a Flash element enhance the user experience?

2)      Can we achieve the same value with a more lightweight approach?

3)      Will the final result be appropriate to the audience?

4)      Can we implement the feature without distracting from the brand or main message of the site?

Judicious use of Flash is what we preach here. When the opportunity presents itself to make a site more enticing, energetic, and fun, we create the best and most effective communication tool to meet the unique needs of our clients, while following the guidelines above.