That Smith » Site News

Finding a use for thatsmith.net

Chad — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:56:23 +0000

In 2006, not long after I registered thatsmith.com, I grabbed thatsmith.net as well because it was free and I couldn’t think of a reason not to. Now, more than two years later, I still haven’t found a real use for the domain and it drives me nuts because it’s just sitting there. This is where you come in…

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

The original purpose of thatsmith.com was to provide information on me and Laura’s wedding, and thatsmith.net was for the rest of our family to use to communicate online. My family liked the idea, but eventually forgot about it and it never got used.

WordPress MU is currently installed in the event anyone wants to create a blog, but all traffic redirects to my twitter account. Occasionally there are circumstances where I don’t want a potential employer to get curious and find all my ramblings, so I sometimes use thatsmith.net for e-mail.

Another blog is definitely out of the question because I don’t have time, but I wouldn’t mind having a place where I can showcase my past work and current projects. Your thoughts are welcome and votes on what you think it should be used for are appreciated. Comment if you think of something that isn’t listed.

Update: 10 Aug 2009

I decided to let thatsmith.net expire when it came up for renewal a few days ago. I now have smithfam.net for my family to use and did not see any reason to keep another unused, unsellable domain. My portfolio and professional work are spread across thatsmith.com, mktgdept.com, posttopic.com, and a few other sites.

New domains for .me

Chad — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 03:39:10 +0000

If you followed my twitter updates yesterday, you would know I too was one of the victims of the GoDaddy .me failure.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with what happened, a while back GoDaddy reached an agreement with Montenegro (country) which allowed them to sell Montenegro’s domain ending to anyone. .ME’s went on sale yesterday at 10am exclusively through GoDaddy, and myself and thousands of others rushed to get the good ones.

According to GoDaddy, I successfully registered (and paid hundreds of dollars for) several awesome domains such as:

RESU.ME
SPONSOR.ME
AWESO.ME
TXT.ME
INCO.ME
INBOX.ME
PROFILE.ME

The only problem is so did hundreds of others. Try searching Google for the names to see what I mean. In short, their systems became so overloaded they had no way of telling who the rightful owner was, so they ended up putting all the good ones in auctions instead.

I did manage to pick up and keep at least one really good name though – NOSPAM.me. I picked this one because I knew there were already thousands of people registering on sites using nospam.me as a fake address to protect them from spam. Believe me though, there is nothing fake about these addresses. In fact, because of it I now have access to many, many accounts across the interweb.

I will be turning this domain into a new project in the coming weeks, as well as publicizing a few others Laura and I have been working on. We are dropping two of our domains in September though. More on that later. For now, go see the new Kaden pictures on BEER dad.

Brief Site Outage

Chad — Tue, 27 May 2008 02:27:32 +0000

Our websites took a short break over the weekend while I made some structural changes to make them easier to maintain.

Previously we ran each of our blogs on its own database and its own installation of WordPress (the world’s greatest open source blogging system) which was working just fine, but took a ton of time to update anytime a new version or plugin came around.

Our current system has our 15ish sites running from one install that only needs to be updated in one place. It’s scalable too and looks the exact same to the unkeen eye. Now it should also be easier to share new posts from all the sites without a lot of copying and pasting.

Until I get that part running, read about my coffee beer and beer tasting party over on BEER dad. There are also new pictures of me, Laura, and the baby.

Newest Members of That Smith family

Chad — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 22:49:29 +0000

Laura and I are pleased to announce the newest members of That Smith family.

Members as in plural, and I’m not talking about the baby.

Over the past few weeks Laura and I have been working on new websites.

If you are familiar with the name miniwanker, you’d probably be surprised to hear I brought that domain back from the dead.

It’s not one of the new sites, but is where I complain about crap in order to keep my sanity. It’s a lot like mumbling inappropriate/inaudible stuff through speakers at drive-thru windows then saying you’re trying to make up your mind, except on a blog.

The new ones are domains we created or purchased earlier this year but haven’t put to good use until now. The new additions to our family of sites are:

Baby Smith – [baby.thatsmith.com]

Laura wanted a site/blog dedicated to everything about the baby and we weren’t able to purchase his name (made an offer, but no luck), so this is where the site is for now.

She writes on it every other day or so about what the baby is doing and eating, and how the pregnancy is coming along. It might sound pretty boring, but most formerly pregnant people I know keep a journal for their babies as well.

ProGreeting – [progreeting.com]

ProGreeting is a site I made back in September when I wrote about new business ideas and one I came up with to make money on the side. I never shared the idea and ended up having to drop it because I switched jobs. That’s the kind of thing you can read about on ProGreeting.

I don’t have many opportunities to write for any of the sites because Laura only lets me do it when I’m at work on weekends, but ProGreeting is where where I write about small business failures. I got to know several at my old job, and currently have two half-written articles about them to finish for this weekend and next.

BEERdad – [beerdad.com]

I bought beerdad.com a few months ago because I saw the domain was expiring and figured it would be a good purchase. Then in November I started the new hobby I hinted at in my summary of 2007. If you haven’t guessed or tried any yet, that hobby is brewing beer.

So far I’ve made one batch (56 bottles) of premium beer and kind of wrote about it on the site. I plan to make another batch and write more after I finish the first one. BEERdad will also be where I occasionally write my take on parenting. Cheesey I know, but I couldn’t let such a nice domain name to go to waste. The previous owner bought it in 2001 and had a coming soon message on it the entire time.

Ski Wichita – [www.skiwichita.com]

The last new site I’ve been working on is Ski Wichita, and when I say working on, I mean give just enough content to go public.

It may be a funny domain to have because for Wichita, but I registered it a few weeks ago because the front page of the Wichita Eagle says we might get a man-made ski area in the near future. Something similar to Snow Creek or the indoor area being built by the speedway.

At the time I had an offer to register a free domain, so I decided to register Ski Wichita. If an area is built in Wichita I will put ads on it and work out a deal with local vendors. Or, if plans fall through, I can always use it for travel information.

Either way, because of how search engines rank sites, I should have the first result for skiing in Wichita in no time. Most search engines currently give higher rankings to sites that have been around longer too.

Those are the new additions to our family. As always, the other members are listed at the bottom of www.thatsmith.com and on thatsmith.net.

What is ProGreeting?

Chad — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 22:59:38 +0000

Believe it or not, ProGreeting is the result of a business plan not carefully thought out. We all make occasional mistakes when it comes to planning (some of them larger and more costly than others). This one happened to cost me $6.

The initial idea for ProGreeting was simple. At the time I worked for a company that leased office space to small businesses. There were a lot of businesses and owners that lacked the elementary professionalism other businesses have (small things that every business student learns or already knows), so my goal was simply to help them out.

I began ProGreeting during the summer before it even had a name. Several of my employer’s clients commended my professionalism and commented on compliments they received about my voice. (I spent a lot of time answering their phones.) When I was not assisting our clients I was helping their clients, and came to find that several of them had been using less than consumer-worthy greetings on their voice messages.

If you know me, you would already know I have worked in broadcasting in the past, so I offered to re-record the voice mail greetings of some of our clients at no cost. To others, I offered to do so for $5. I had several takers, and got back the money I spent on my initial investment, but unfortunately failed to consider two important questions.

What am I going to do with a website (progreeting.com) if I only have the time and ability to target a small, localized market?
What will happen to the business (and website) when I no longer work for the employer?

Many failed entrepreneurs I know once had big visions. Clearly I could have told myself, this will be the next big thing, and attempt to sell my service to the world, but that’s not what I wanted to accomplish. I saw a small need, knew of a solution, and charged myself with the task of starting a business that would generate at least $10 in revenue. Professional broadcasters charge hundreds of dollars for the same thing! Where I went wrong was promotion.

Not every business needs a website, and just because you have a website, it doesn’t mean you’re in business.

ProGreeting, or Chad’s Professional Voice Mail Greeting Recording Service (it wouldn’t have mattered what I called it), was growing just fine through word of mouth promotion. You use a website if you want to reach other locations, or promote your business in search engines, but I had no reason to. Plus, how many people in Wichita do you think search for professional voice greetings for small businesses? How many people even think they need such a service?

The people I dealt with didn’t even know they were giving potential clients an unprofessional impression, so the best way to sell my service was by talking to them. Then once I reach the point where everyone has a ProGreeting (yeah right), I could ask for referrals. No website needed, and an extra $6 in the bank.

The second thing I did wrong was I didn’t have an escape plan. I loved my job (working for the employer) but because of the income, I didn’t want to stay there forever. I started ProGreeting to cater to the needs of those specific clients, but had nothing up my sleeve for when I found a new job. I left that job a few months ago and have been sitting on the investment since.

My mistake was spending $6 on a domain for a business that didn’t need one. Because of it, I now have a new place to write about small businesses. Welcome to ProGreeting.

Hooray for cool air!

Chad — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 01:41:45 +0000

It looks like my numerous calls to the apartment’s weekend answering service paid off because our air conditioner was fixed and sitting at a cool 78°F when I got home Sunday. This means the ferrets and kitten came home today from their vet clinic vacation.

I have been busy the past week working on our other websites, and moved our hosting over to GoDaddy so we no longer have to keep our computer on all the time. As I mentioned Saturday, I remade the Jane’s Daycare website and Open Mike Music karaoke website, and Laura changed the theme on Tato Stories so go check them out. She has a new address for the site which is http://www.tatostories.com/ and has a story scheduled to post tomorrow at Noon.

If I didn’t mention it already, Christen (Laura’s friend who was staying with us for the summer) moved back to Lawrence on Friday so we might go visit her tomorrow. The first piece of financial discussions I keep promising is on its way.

Going Offline

Chad — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 03:33:49 +0000

We are moving so the server will be going offline tomorrow morning and will be down until Tuesday.

Smooth navigator

Chad — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 23:23:29 +0000

A lot of people are visiting specifically for wedding information so I’ve made some changes to the site to make the ride a little less bumpy.

From now until the wedding I will keep all posts that aren’t urgent or related to the wedding in the sideblog.

To quickly access posts on the wedding click here or where it says “Wedding” under categories. You can restrict posts to any specific category by doing this.

To read the most recent posts, including those that don’t relate to the wedding, check out the archive for the most recent month or year.

If you use a feed reader you can also read our entries without even coming to the site. Click here to feed all recent entries or here for those on the wedding.

Finished with server changes

Chad — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 06:23:49 +0000

After deciding last night not to switch to Linux, I began making the same changes on the current server that I was trying to accomplish on Linux, and guess what… I’ve done it!

All of the changes are some that everyone can easily notice. First, when you visit our site at http://www.thatsmith.com/ you will continue to see thatsmith.com in the address bar rather than seeing our IP address. The same goes for the other sites I host which you can find at the bottom of these pages.

Next, I set up an e-mail server so my new e-mail address is chad@thatsmith.com. My mom has jane@janesdaycare.com and my dad has mike@openmikemusic.com. Now any kind person who would like an e-mail address @miniwanker.com, or one of the other names mentioned, can have one for free. How exciting. I also set up access to webmail at mail.thatsmith.com and so on.

Finally the some bugs were fixed in the WordPress script (this blogging thing) so hopefully it will run faster for everyone.

There hasn’t been a whole lot going on this week other than me messing around on the site and Laura working on stuff for the wedding. The ferrets got the rest of their new cage on Monday, I will start working this Tuesday, and my last day of summer classes is next Friday.