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To no one’s surprise, Google has killed yet another popular service.  To the dismay of many, that service was Google Domains; see https://9to5google.com/2023/06/15/google-domains-squarespace/.  Google Domains was popular because it was inexpensive, simple to manage, no-frills, no-BS.  Google Domains did not charge extra for private WHOIS, which kept us from getting offers to submit our domain to over 300 search engines, or fake “renewal” scams.  This made it great for all those projects “I’ll get to one day”.  No communication was sent by either Google or Squarespace, everyone found out via news stories.  The news broke on June 15, I registered domains on June 12 and there was no indication of a sale.  Since Squarespace’s prices are almost 2x what Google Domains charges, and its business model is selling website builders, this has left a lot of people looking for a good alternative.  Cloudflare gets mentioned because of its price and trust in the technical community.

Since a few of my domains are actually live and pointing to things being used, the prospect of switching a registrar brings a little nervousness.  It’s just DNS, nothing ever happens because of that…  Fortunately, I have a few domains for projects I’ll get to one day, so I can test with those.

I recommend doing this with two browser windows open, one for Cloudflare and one for Google Domains, since there is a little back-and-forth.

Step 0: Prechecks!  Can you transfer your domain?  Do you have a Cloudflare account?

The first thing to note is, you can’t transfer a domain within 60 days of registration (this is an ICANN rule).  Also, your registration needs to be more than 15 days from expiration, so start the process before then or you’ll need to renew, then transfer.  Cloudflare also does not support all the extensions Google does, notably .dev (although they are working in supporting .dev, and should be ready by the end of the summer).  I did not check .zip.

You’ll need a Cloudflare account.  If you don’t have one, create an account and make sure you do the email verification.  You can’t transfer a domain to Cloudflare until you have verified your email.  This took me less than 5 minutes overall.

As part of the process, you need to change your nameservers to Cloudflare.  This involves DNS propagation and make take up to 24 hours.  I have a couple side things on shared hosting, and am using their nameservers, so this is the part which worries me the most.  If you’re using a shared host’s nameservers, check their documentation before switching anything, to make sure you don’t need some extra configuration in the host’s setup also.

Cloudflare’s documentation for transferring is at https://developers.cloudflare.com/registrar/get-started/transfer-domain-to-cloudflare/.

Several of my domains are used only to forward traffic to a far less glamorous URL, usually a registration site for an event, which I have to change 3-4 times per year.  Cloudflare does support URL forwarding, not as elegantly as Google Domains. You can set this up after my Step 2 below.  Cloudflare’s documentation is at https://developers.cloudflare.com/support/page-rules/configuring-url-forwarding-or-redirects-with-page-rules/.  That being said, I’d do a transfer between events when the forwarding URL isn’t being used.

Step 1: Unlocking Domains in Google Domains

Log into Google Domains, select the domain you want to transfer, click on Registration Settings, then scroll down to the Domain Registration section.  By default, Google locked domains from being transferred, so you need to unlock it.  In a future step you’ll need a transfer code, this is also where you find that.

Step 2: Transfer DNS to Cloudflare

Before you transfer the domain registration, you first transfer DNS to Cloudflare.  Log into your account, and on the Websites page, click one of the “Add site” buttons.  This will start the setup process.

The first step is to choose the DNS plan we want to use.  I love places that have free plans for all my hobby projects, so that’s what I’m starting with.

IMPORTANT!!  Cloudflare then scans your domain’s DNS entries and gives you an opportunity to confirm them.  It’s a good idea to compare the imported records to your configuration.  You can also add records, so this is a good time to add a DKIM since GMail is starting to check those (see https://support.google.com/a/answer/174124?hl=en).

As I said above, this is where you actually transfer DNS to Cloudflare’s nameservers.  If you’re on a shared host, double check if you need any additional configuration in your website host when using external nameservers.  Bare minimum you’ll need to visit your host to switch the nameserver list.

If you’re using your domain to forward traffic to another URL, you can now set up the forwarding in Cloudflare to hopefully avoid traffic interruptions.  Cloudflare’s documentation is at https://developers.cloudflare.com/support/page-rules/configuring-url-forwarding-or-redirects-with-page-rules/.

Step 3: Switch Nameservers

If you’re using Google’s nameservers, go back to Google Domains and visit the DNS page.  There is an almost invisible set of tabs at the top of the page, you need to click “Custom name servers”.

Add the nameservers Cloudflare told you to use, and click the “Switch to these settings” link in the yellow alert bar.

Once you see this, you’re done.

Google’s documentation for this process is at https://support.google.com/domains/answer/3290309.

Every shared host has a different control panel, so you’re kind of on your own for this part.  Look up their docs.

Step 4: Turn Off DNSSEC

Regardless of whose nameservers you’re using, you need to turn off DNSSEC.  This is back in Google Domains, on the DNS page.

Click “Unpublish records” and you’re done with that.

Step 5: Check Nameservers (and wait, probably)

Go back to Cloudflare and click the “Check nameservers” button, and wait for the confirmation email.  Despite the note that it may take a few hours, it only took about 10 minutes.

Step 6: While You Wait, Check Payment Info

While we’re waiting, check your payment information.  If you set up a new account (like I did), you need to have a valid credit card on file in order to transfer a domain.  There is a transfer fee, but this also adds a year to your registration (with some exceptions, read the page).

Step 7: Initiate Transfer

After you receive your confirmation email that the nameservers have been updated, log back in to Google Domains and Cloudflare.  In Cloudflare, go to Domain Registration >> Transfer Domains, and select the domain you want to transfer, then click Confirm Domains.

Go back to Google Domains, and perform the following steps:

If you did not unlock the domain earlier, go to Registration Settings and turn off the domain lock.

Get the auth code.  You’ll have to re-authenticate to Google, and the code will be in a popup window. 

Copy the transfer code and paste it into the box in Cloudflare.

Add your registration details, and click the “Confirm and Finalize Transfer” button.  These might be auto-filled if you turned off Privacy Protection, but I wasn’t going to risk exposing my contact information to  DNS harvester bot.

In addition to the confirmation page, Cloudflare will send you an email confirming your intent and that you have been charged.

Within a few minutes, Google Domains will send an email for you to approve the transfer.  Click that button to open a pop-up in Google Domains, then click the Transfer link.

A few minutes later, you’ll get an email from Cloudflare confirming the transfer is complete.

Step 8: Turn DNSSEC Back On

In Cloudflare, choose your domain from the list of Websites, then go to DNS >> Settings, and click the Enable DNSSEC button.

I consider the release of Windows RT to the consumer market to be one of the worst decisions Microsoft has made in recent years, and I have an $853MM writedown to back me up.  RT shipped primarily on a Surface RT, which isn’t an attractive personal device—it’s small, relatively costly, difficult to connect to the usual suite of peripherals and doesn’t sit well in your lap.  Additionally, here was a version of Windows which wouldn’t run any previous Windows program.  Consumers were used to getting a new computer with a new version of Windows and simply reinstalling their favorite old greeting card maker or photo editor.  Months later, when Windows 8 was released, confusion multiplied—now there were two versions of Windows—a “right one” and a “wrong one”, and your average consumer couldn’t tell the difference by looking.  Consumers literally needed someone with technical knowledge to tell the devices apart.  Add to that an a store which had few desirable apps and it’s no wonder interest was really low for RT.  The release of the Surface 3 running only Windows 8 puts the future of RT into greater doubt.

Having said that, RT could still be one of the greatest versions of Windows of all time.  How?  Improve the concept of enterprise application stores, and make RT the next Windows Embedded.  It’s not as crazy as it sounds.  I’ve helped manage installations of WinTerms for sales teams, and hundreds of handheld and lift mount devices in multiple warehouses, and this idea is a bit of a dream come true.

Windows 8 ships with a hard-coded attachment to the Microsoft store.  Make it simpler for enterprises to set up their own internal app store, and control the store setting via group policy.  Enterprises could easily distribute their in-house apps, or those supplied by ERP/WMS/etc vendors to the issued devices.  At a previous employer—a warehousing company—we had to manage hundreds of devices in multiple warehouses around the country.  We had to have someone onsite manually dock each one, and we had to go through a complicated set of steps to update the wimpy onboard apps.  If we could have posted an updated app on our internal store and have every device update itself automatically in seconds, that would have been a dream come true.  Intermec and Symbol should be all over this idea.

Take this one step further.  Remember the fires in Tesla Model S?  A software fix to correct how the car rides at freeway speed was downloaded to all the Model Ss.  Now imagine Ford replacing Sync with RT, and being able to do the same for control or entertainment systems.  Speaking of entertainment systems. keep the linkage to the movies and music stores so movies can be downloaded while parked at a McDonald’s.  The capabilities in RT would put Ford years ahead of its competitors in regards to onboard systems.  This could be extended into on-board systems for trucks as well.

Take this one more step.  Imagine battlefield updates to combat systems, downloaded via AWACs or properly equipped drones from a secure DOD app store.  It’s not too far-fetched.

Vehicles and warehouse equipment alone offers the potential of millions of devices running RT.  By looking at RT as a new Windows Embedded, Microsoft thinks big by thinking small.

Thanks to everyone who attended! You can download the slides handout at The Data Bath Handout.

If you’re a SlideShare fan, you can find these same slides at http://www.slideshare.net/rjdudley/the-data-bath.

Additional references for the SimMetrics library are at the end, but the main reference for installing into SQL Server is Beyond SoundEx-Functions for Fuzzy Searching in MS SQL Server. All the algorithms have great entries in Wikipedia.

Two “lives” ago, I led the team of enterprise developers.  We did everything from the data warehouse/BI to LOB apps to systems integration.  It was good times, we kept busy.  It is an amazing company, small with people but with big revenues and big needs.  As our trading partners and services grew, we needed to significantly upgrade our EDI capabilities, including AS2.  After several months of evaluating solutions, we settled on BizTalk, because it was very flexible with EDI mapping, could multicast documents (which we needed to do), and would handle other types of messaging as well (we had a requirement for XML between several systems).  We settled on BizTalk 2009, which as it turned out had its share of issues and limitations we found out later.

One of the limitations of BizTalk’s AS2 connector is that it had to run on the same machine as BizTalk (I don’t know if this has changed or not).  This meant either having a second license of BizTalk just for AS2 (cost prohibitive), putting a production server in the DMZ (stupid) or poking a hole into our internal network (over the network admin’s dead body).  Time to find a new, simple, cost-effective solution.

This time the decision was significantly easier.  We looked at a number of options, from hosted solutions to AS2 apps, but /n software’s AS2 Connector was exactly what we needed (they moved the current version of the connector to their RSS Bus product line, so don’t panic since the company brands don’t match).  Just to clarify, /n software’s EDI integrator is a component for building your own AS2 solutions.  The AS2 Connector is a pre-built application with most or all of the functionality you need–this is what fit the bill for us.

In a nutshell, here’s what we did:

1. Installed the AS2 Connector on a web server in our DMZ.  Since we had several web servers already, and AS2 is pretty low bandwidth, nothing additional was required here besides the SSL certificate.  Setup and config was insanely easy on our IIS box.

2. The version we used dropped all the AS2 files into one folder. To make it easy for BizTalk’s processing rules, we needed to sort them by trading partner.  The connector did have the ability to call a batch file after a receive was complete.  We wrote a PowerShell script (called by a BAT file) to read the ISA line, and move the files to a folder named for the trading partner ID.  We also had T and P folders, based on the test indicator.  This was back in 2009–I think the current version does this now without needing a “sorting hat” script.

3. On that same web server, we had a TFTP server set up.  We secured it to only accept connections from a particular IP (corresponding to our BizTalk server), and had a specific firewall route exclusive for the BizTalk server into the DMZ.

4. We scheduled BizTalk to check the folders every few minutes.  One of the downsides to this approach is that you lose BizTalk’s file system watcher capabilities.  BizTalk picked up the files via FTP and processed them per the rules we had configured.

What we ended up with was a very flexible system that was easy to expand as we brought on new trading partners, and we could meet all kinds of crazy new requirements.  We actually started to become the go-to integration partner because of how fast we could adapt to changes and the processing we could do on the received information.

Of huge importance for a couple of our trading partners we brought on later was having a Drummond Certified solution.  Fortunately, the AS2 Connector was (and still is) Drummond certified.

Something to remember that AS2 is not EDI–AS2 is just a way of transferring files.  You can send nearly any file type via AS2.

Uh oh…

The CAPTCHA security system that Yahoo, and many other email service providers adopt to prevent spam, may not be secure, according to Russian security researchers. The researchers claim to have found a way in which the security system can be compromised. This would result in a huge increase in spam coming from yahoo and other email accounts.

Full story at http://internetcommunications.tmcnet.com/topics/broadband-mobile/articles/18772-yahoos-captcha-brokenis-spam-tsunami-the-offing.htm