Really Geeky Stuff

As the owner of a few Internet domain names, I have become accustomed to getting domain-related scam mail.  These scam mailings are crafted to look like invoices, but are in fact merely a ploy to get you to sign up for their “search engine optimization” service.  Like most of my junk mail, this stuff gets ripped up and tossed in the recycle bin.

Earlier this year, I received a new but similarly misleading set of emails.  The emails were related to a couple of my domain names (we’ll call them example.org and example.net).  The messages seemed to be crafted to imply that the sender was the owner of the example.com domain and that the domain was for sale.  Here’s an example:

Domain Sale Notice:

example.com is coming available for sale in a few days.

Since you own the domain example.net, we thought you’d be interested in example.com.

If you do have interest in acquiring example.com, please fill up priority notice form availble

here: <LINK REMOVED>

and we will contact you as soon as the domain is available for purchase.

We look forward to hearing back from you.

Kind regards,

John Timmers
InTrust Domains
4845 A Pearl East Circle
Boulder, CO 80301

No more please: http://<DomainRemoved>/store/unsub/<etc…>

[NOTE:  Above text edited for privacy and readability only.]

My initial reaction was one of excitement.  “It would be nice,” I thought, “to have the whole matched set of domain names.”  A few days later, though, I received the following email:

Our company specializes in acquiring expired domain names to help individuals and businesses protect their brand online.

The domain name EXAMPLE.COM expired recently and we were able to secure it.

We noticed that you own EXAMPLE.ORG and felt that you may be interested in acquiring the .COM version of your existing domain name.

It is available for a one-time fee of only $49.00 USD.

To purchase or learn more, please visit http://<DomainRemoved>/buy.php?domain=example.com

–
Trader Domains, LLC
sales@<DomainRemoved>

I was not pleased about the prospect of spending $50 on a domain.  But wait a minute…  how can two different parties be offering me the same domain name?

A few days later, I received yet another email from Trader Domains.  It was identical to the first except that the price was lowered from $50 to $30.

It turns out that neither company owned the “example.com” domain.  I was able to register it directly from a reputable domain registrar.  That being the case, we can come to the following conclusions

• InTrust Domain’s statement that the domain would be available for purchase “in a few days” was false.
• Trader Domain’s implication that they had “secured” (or procured) the domain name was false.

The claims made by these companies are crafted to mislead consumers.  Buyer beware.

… or Event Log Message + Unrelated KB Article = Fix

When troubleshooting a problem, it has become a fairly safe bet that:

1. You’re not the only person to have the problem.
2. You’re not the first person to have the problem.
3. Someone else has, in fact, already solved the problem.
4. Someone who has solved the problem has also shared the solution.
5. Your friend Google will help you find the solution.

The above is especially true when you have an exact error message.

I encountered a problem recently, however, that did not follow this model.  Perhaps not too many other people had the problem.  Perhaps not many of those people experienced and solved the problem shared their experience online.  Whatever the case I feel compelled to share the problem and solution, if only to seed Google and help some other poor techie who runs into this issue.

Scenario:

The file server for a largish department hangs at random intervals.  When this happens, the server still responds to ping requests.  At the console, a blank desktop (solid blue background, in my case) with a mouse cursor appears.  The mouse moves, but other input doesn’t seem to do anything.  The server service appears to be stopped, as network shares are unavailable.  Remote restart commands (shutdown -r -m \\SERVERNAME) have no affect.  The only successful course of action is to power cycle the server.  After doing this, the server works fine for a while.  There does not appear to be a pattern to the timing of the event, as it would occur in the middle of the day or the middle of the night.

Instances of this problem are characterized by the following event log entry:

Event Type:        Error
Event Source:    Application Error
Event Category:                (100)
Event ID:              1000
Date:                     MM/DD/YYYY
Time:                     HH:MM:SS PM
User:                     N/A
Computer:          <OMITTED>
Description:
Faulting application svchost.exe, version 5.2.3790.3959, faulting module ntdll.dll, version 5.2.3790.3959, fault address 0x00010a5b.

For weeks, I racked my brain, consulted peers, and scoured the web (see points 1-5 above) to no avail.  I ran tons of diagnostics, swapped out memory, updated drivers.  I even tried daily preemptive rebooting.  No luck

Finally, I stumbled upon a Microsoft knowledgebase article entitled
“The Service Host process may stop unexpectedly in Windows Server 2003″ (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932762).  The article does not mention the event log entry above, but the hotfix does appear to have corrected the problem.  The server has been up for months now without unexpected reboots.

Good luck to any of you dealing with this issue, and I hope that I was able to help!