Re: UKNM: NetNames Forwarding

[azeem azhar, lists]

At 6:28 pm +0100 21/6/99, Sam Michel wrote:

>Out of interest...a friend of mine registered a domain name with NetNames

>and used their systems to forward web browsers onto to some free web space

>where he's going to host a couple of pages.

>

>He checked the code and noticed that when viewing the page source, a

>frameset appeared where there hadn't been any before. So, basically

>NetNames have added a zero sized frame to my friend's website, presumably

>to track how many times this page is being accessed. It struck me as very

>big brother ...and well, it's seems questionable to me, to track this

>information.

>

>On top of that, it automatically adds a framset to a page, which doesn't

>need one, which brings a host of compatibility issues into play.

>

>This strike anyone else as odd? I can understand wishing to track this type

>of information for marketing and demographic purposes, but this seems to

>be taking things a long way. Anyone know if other domain name

>companies with this service use a similar technique?


Or it could just be that its much easier to enable Web forwarding with a

permanent URL this way.


There are three approaches:


1. Create the zero-size frame, this way the URL remains www.myurl.com (even

though the underlying links on that page have a URI format similar to the

one listed below)


2. Do a refresh or redirect to the destination web site, the url will

change from www.myurl.com to

www.mycheapwebhostingcompany.com/~fivequidamonthhosting/me/


3. Muck around with the DNS, pointing www.myurl.com to an IP number with a

Web site. The server you're dealing with needs to either (1) have a virtual

server attached to that IP number (2) no how to translate www.myurl.com to

the right filespace.


1 and 2 are just much easier (and are what come.to etc provide).


3 requires configuration on both the (1) netnames side (2) server hosting side.


expediency, rather than big brother, my guess.


If your friend wants to avoid this, he'll probably need to find someone who

provides (3) easily. A firm like Instant Web (www.instant-web.net) where I

host my servers does this.


a


p.s. there was a time when demon web space worked oddly. Even though you

received a web address of www.<nodename>.demon.co.uk with its own IP

number, you couldn't actually map www.myurl.com to that IP number; it

didn't work. Instead you had to do a redirect per (2) above to

www.<nodename>.demon.co.uk thus exposing yourself as a free web space user.

(Unless I was doing something really wrong).



azeem azhar 			| www http://azeem.azhar.co.uk/

tel 07958 544 593 		| icq 315460

fax 0207 691 0464		| pgp http://azeem.azhar.co.uk/pgp/


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