Graphic Design

Yeah but I'm keepin them for myself since I'm workin on starting my own as well.

I watch for the sales
I'm inspired by having domains for my projects.

Godaddy.com (I do not work for them) features various first level domains at great prices - changes every month or two, and the new ones are often less saturated - you can actually find what you want. It's easy and fun to search for available names there, I've found.

Right now they have ".INFO" domains for $2 for the first year ($7 thereafter).

I picked up a few good ".US" domains while those were $5. The ".BIZ" domain is currently $5 there, but I only thought of one I'd want to own.

If you want short names, you're usually out of luck, though if you're patient you can get them (I have several four-letter) as others drop them. I got com/net/org/info for my web business, but it took years and patience.

I wish domain speculation were illegal. Combine that with the idiocy that ICANN only offers a tiny set of first level domains (COM, NET, etc.), creates a huge crimp in our choices for appropriate and creative business names.

Subdomains
Subdomains take the form of a word appended to the beginning of your domain. This is one incentive to have a short domain to begin with.

As a hypothetical example, suppose I had the domain "phallacy.info" (nobody owns this as I write). There are two ways I use to make subdomains (and other methods exist).

I could make a subdomain like "common.phallacy.info". Note how the word "common" is appended.

This can be done through the DNS system at your domain registrar (some are free). But that method takes a couple of days to propagate through the system like a domain itself.

A much more versatile method is to use redirection.net, which is a service that will host your domain on its name server, and then gives you UNLIMITED subdomains that take effect INSTANTLY. This is the only service I have ever found that offers this. Let me know if there is another.

When I'm working with web clients, I can put up a page for them with their name immediately through the redirection control panel. The redirection.net service also does e-mail redirection, unlimited for any domain they host, and it costs only $5/year.

No, I don't work for them either, but I love to pass on great deals for my kindred spirit web designers.

Pixel Perfect
Graphic Design