The Bills Family
Doug, Cathie, Jenna, Ashleigh and Shannon

I Got It

By Doug Bills
Tuesday, January 22, 2002

YYYYYYeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssss!

I got it! I was just tinkering around on the web when I thought I might just enter in my name to see where it takes me. So I typed in the URL, http://www.bills.co.nz and, low and behold, what did I see staring me in the face? Nothing... well the

The page cannot be displayed

message anyway :-) That probably meant that nobody had registered the domain name yet. I thought I might try my luck with www.bills.com but that is already taken by a bill paying service. I was expecting that anyway. Come to think of it, I was expecting that for the .co.nz one as well. I thought I had better register it fairly quickly... Um, where do I register it?

Registering A Domain Name
When you want to register a domain name (such as www.bills.co.nz), you have to register the actual name with an organisation that oversees the issuing of domain names and makes sure that a name is issued to only one person or company. The organisation that oversees the .co.nz domain names is Domainz. They charge a one off fee of $30 + GST to start up an account with them and then $44 + GST per year for each domain name.

But wait... there's more
Yes, there's more than just registering to think about - you should decide first what you are going to do with the domain name. If you are going to actually create a site, you have to put it somewhere - have it hosted by somebody. My business site is hosted by NetAccess so I decided to give them a call to see if I could have two domain names hosted by them. The guy who could help me out was on another call so they took my number and said he would call when he had finished...

The next day (today), I was starting to get worried that I might miss out on the domain name so I gave NetAccess another call. Apparently, the guy who could help me was on the phone (does that explain why he didn't phone yesterday? - he must be getting a sore ear by now!). This time I took the option of being put on hold... after five minutes of me listening to the music, they hung up on me. Oh well... a different approach maybe...

In search of a host
I opened up www.searchnz.co.nz to go in search of a place that could register my domain name and maybe host my site. There are heeeaaps of them - all of them providing different services. Some of them provide free parking - this is where they will hold your domain name without there being any site that you have developed. They usually put up a notice on your domain name saying that the site is Coming Soon and some advertising about their services. I used Register Direct to register the domain name (they act like an agent for Domainz) who were offering several free services as well as free parking (until I get my host sorted out):

  • Free Parking
  • Free Domain Transfer
  • Free URL Redirection
  • Free 10 x POP3 (email) Accounts
  • Free Mail Forwarders
  • Free Web Mail Access

    • So what does all that mean?
    Well, I've told you about Parking.
    Free Domain Transfer means that they will not charge you anything if you transfer your domain name to them so they host it. This is where they hope to make their money - hosting your domain name.
    Free URL Redirection means that when someone goes to your URL, they will point them at whatever place you want them to go. This could be useful to me - I could redirect to my business site and so host this family site there also :-)
    Free 10 x POP3 (email) Accounts - this is a bonus! You don't even get this at some places where you pay for hosting! This means that they will act as your email Post Office and send you your email when you request it via your email program. I could have a POP3 account for each of my family members... including the hangers on!
    Free Mail Forwarders means that they will send any email for your address on to any other email address that you choose.
    And Free Web Mail Access means you don't have to use an email program to access your email - you can use a Web browser from any site with internet access in the world - much like you would with your HotMail.

    IMHO this seems to be an exceptionally good deal!

    ...Read Part II

    Doug Bills is founder of AI Environments - a company developing environments having Artificial Intelligence.

    So why would you want to register your name anyway?

    1. Because it's my name (work that one out for yourself)!
    2. Because it's easy for people to remember my website URL.
    3. Because it's a short URL if you have to type it in.
    4. Because it's easy for people to remember my email address (doug@bills.co.nz)
    5. I don't have to have someone elses advertising on my site.
    6. There are other people with the same surname so this domain name becomes a scarce commodity and so has value (I could sell it if I wanted to).
    7. I have an added bonus with my name - it is also a well used noun in the English language. This URL could be used as the site of a bill-paying service. This adds a whole lot more value because more people might want the name :-)

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