GoDaddy Refugees: hover, namecheap, name, etc

Posted by: on Dec 26, 2011 | No Comments

GoDaddy’s reprehensible: misogynistic advertising, elephant-killing cartoon villain CEO, difficult interface designed to confuse, and of course SOPA support. They’re the evil credit card company of the domain industry, full of tricks n’ traps. And don’t let the eleventh-hour SOPA change of heart deter you: it’s time to switch. (That last minute SOPA change of heart somehow makes it worse, and then there’s this.)

I’ve used name, namecheap, and hover. They’re all more than adequate, although I’ve found hover to my favorite. It’s not the cheapest, but they’re close enough and they’ll save you the funny business, sport an intuitive interface and forgo tricks n’ traps.

Save yourself a few bucks — a few Hover coupons:

  • 20EB24BM4PO (save 17%)
  • SOPA (save 10%)

Pro tip!

Enter your new DNS settings as soon as you initiate the transfer rather than waiting to afterwards. This insures against possible downtime.

No, you shouldn’t buy an Epson printer

Posted by: on Dec 4, 2011 | No Comments

Been true for years, but always surprised more don’t know this:

HP, Canon, and Lexmark all put print-heads inside their ink cartridges. Each time you swap an ink cartridge (which costs 50% of the printers’ price, I know), you get a nice shiny new print head. If the old one were clogged, it’s thrown out and you go on about your day.

Epson’s ink-jet heads are included with the printer. They clog. A lot. And they’re very difficult to get clean. And the “clean print heads” cycle is an excellent way to make all your expensive ink disappear without unclogging the heads. This is one of those idiotic design decisions that Epson has married itself to because it’s “distinguishing,” but it’s disguising in the sense that it’s awful, horrible and useless. And it’s been that way for years.

Higher-end Epsons fair better. I have a R1900 I’m quite fond of which doesn’t experience this problem. Take note: they could fix it, but you need to buy like 2 printers a year, right?

Already got an Epson? Set yourself a repeating calendar reminder to print something at least once a week — this should help at least stave off the inevitable perma-clog for a bit longer.

Good thing printers only cost like $50 these days.