Domain Surfer

March 14, 2002 7:59 AM

Domain Surfer is just plain cool. I mean... now I can see if a text string appears anywhere in a domain, and the results are clickable (note to the folks who do those awful WHOIS searches: I don't care who registered it, I care whether it's up-and-running!). Anyway, the link is via Rion.nu who, BTW, has some wonderful photographs of the Tribute of Light. And the link to the photographs came via David Gallagher... another fine photographer, not to be confused with that ijit from Oasis.
posted by silusGROK (12 comments total)

Pre-emptive strike: I know that Domain Surfer was mentioned in two previous threads... but both references were oblique, and back in Y2K.
posted by silusGROK at 8:03 AM on March 14, 2002

However, the database hasn't been updated since November 2001. It would be a nice utility otherwise.
posted by rcade at 8:23 AM on March 14, 2002

and it seems to be buggy -- searching "burka" doesn't turn up burkas.net, but search "burkas" does. Oh dear. Was that a self-link? Well, don't go there. Nothing to see, move along...
posted by jburka at 9:07 AM on March 14, 2002

Oh well. It looked like a great resource.

*sigh*

Okay, then... move along, folks: nothing to see here...
posted by silusGROK at 10:09 AM on March 14, 2002

It's a great idea, it would make finding a domain name much easier (I wouldn't have to try multiple domain names and see if they are taken). Unfortunately, the execution is a little flawed.
posted by patrickje at 10:56 AM on March 14, 2002

note to the folks who do those awful WHOIS searches: I don't care who registered it,

What are you talking about "those awful WHOIS searches"??? I'm afraid I don't get what your issue is with WHOIS.
posted by xochi at 11:53 AM on March 14, 2002

Xochi... It's not the WHOIS search, per se, but the folks that use WHOIS queries to do something they weren't intended to do: choose a domain.

WHOIS searches are very useful when you come upon a domain, and you want to know who owns it (and when it expires). WHOIS searches are annoying as hell when they're shoe horned into my domain-buying experience.

I want to be able to search on text strings, then click on those strings to see what the domains have become (are they built-out, are they hopelessly out of date, are they re-directs to newer content, et cetera). If I find a domain that intersts me that isn't currently available, but looks (because I've visited it) like it might be had for a reasonable cost... THEN I want the WHOIS. Not before.

Anyway, that's a lot of talk for a fairly small issue.
posted by silusGROK at 12:55 PM on March 14, 2002

Like the lights. Thought I heard a blurb on the radio here, that a local Edmonton company was/is involved in the tribute lights. I'm travelling here, so have no idea if it was truth, or just morning "grog" on my behalf.
posted by jkaczor at 1:10 PM on March 14, 2002

I liked the link. So sue me. :-)
posted by davidmsc at 2:50 PM on March 14, 2002

David Gallagher is the kid from a WB show called 7th Heaven, the brothers from Oasis are Liam and Noel Gallager. Lightningfield.com's David Gallagher wants to google bomb his name so that his site would be the first result when you search for David Gallagher.
posted by riffola at 7:12 PM on March 14, 2002

How is this any different than whois.net? I've been using that for well over a year just for.
posted by mkn at 8:20 PM on March 14, 2002

Can that hole be any deeper? Man, I feel stupid... all this time, I thought it was the Oasis guy, and not the blond kid from 7th Heaven.

And thanks for the WHOIS link, mkn... I've always used Netsolution and Register.com for the domain look-ups, and theirs suck.
posted by silusGROK at 7:54 AM on March 15, 2002