Tag: email

Xanapus.com is NOT for sale

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily Blog5 Comments

xanapus is not for sale

Yesterday morning, July 17th at 7:43 a.m., I got an email from someone in China with the subject “Notice of Internet Intellectual Property” and at first I didn’t know what to make of it.  I thought it was spam that Gmail missed, and I was going to delete it without opening it, but then I thought, I want to know what this says for shits and giggles, so I opened it.  This was the email.

Dear Manager,

(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO,Thanks)

This email is from China domain name registration center, which mainly deal with the domain name registration in China. We received an application from kenpo Ltd on July 15th, 2013. They want to register “xanapus” as their internet keyword and China/Asia (CN/ASIA) domain names. But after checking it, we find this name conflicts with your company. In order to deal with this matter better, so we send you email and confirm whether this company is your distributor or business partner in China or not?.

Best Regards,

Abby Wang

I responded with “Yes, I have owned Xanapus.com since 2002.  It is my personal website.  I am not in China, I am in California USA.”  I gave it no other thought, but I didn’t delete the email.

Later, at 6:37 p.m. I got another email from someone else saying this:

Dear Sirs,

We are Kenpo Ltd based in Chinese office, our company has submitted the “xanapus” as CN domain name and Internet Trademark, we are waiting for Ms. abby’s approval. We hope your company will not object our application, because this name is very important for our products in Chinese market. We don’t want your company to use this name in China, we believe our company will become the legal owner of this name in China. Even though Ms. abby advises us to change another name, we will persist in this name and permanent registration of this name.

Best regards

Ye Yun

Kenpo Ltd

It then occurred to me that perhaps I need to find out the value of my website, you know, for shits and giggles.  I found out that I bought xanapus.com in 2004, not 2002, but still.  I found several websites all giving my website a different value.  One said it was only worth $1 while another website said it was worth $16,500 give or take.

Well, the way I see it is that my website domain name is more important to me than it is to them.  They want to use the name for business purposes, but I have the name for personal purposes.  Xanapus is the name of my Gnome Wizard in EverQuest (image above).  I played that character from 2002 until I believe 2009 when I stopped playing EverQuest, but I still play him from time to time and I never stopped using the name Xanapus.  I created a hobbit named Xanapus in Lord of the Rings Online and I have also created a Xanapus in World of Warcraft and in EverQuest 2, 2 Xanapus’ in EQ2 in fact.  The name Xanapus is like my child and I’m not going to give it up or sell out my child for a mere dollar, or even $16,000.  It’s just not happening.

I am Xanapus everywhere on the internet.  Ebay, Amazon, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Multiply, MySpace, Hulu… you name it, that’s my handle.  Google Xanapus and see how many results you get, it’s all me.  I am so emotionally attached to the name that if I could, I would change my own name to Xanapus.  No last name, just Xanapus.  Not Mike Xanapus, just Xanapus.  I am that dedicated.

I know I shouldn’t have, but I responded to Ye Yun with “Choose another name.”  I would hate to give up my name for a company who will probably go out of business in a year or less and not be able to get that name back.  It’s just not happening.

This actually happened once before.  A couple or few years ago I got an email from a company, I don’t recall which country, but I got an email asking about taking the name away from me and it sort of became threatening just like this one seems to have gotten (where he says “We don’t want your company to use this name in China, we believe our company will become the legal owner of this name in China.”) but I simply ignored them and I never heard from them again.

I have invested way too much in the name, this blog and in my website to give up Xanapus.com.  I won’t give up without a fight.

Oh and by the way, at the end of that email they said “Even though Ms. abby advises us to change another name, we will persist in this name and permanent registration of this name.”  Well, that was the last I heard from them after I said “Choose another name.”  So much for being persistent lol.

Update July 18th, 2013 at 9:41 p.m.:  Got another email from “Abby”.  Apparently, they are being persistent.  What they want is xanapus.cn, xanapus.asia and xanapus.com.cn.  Since I have the right to the word xanapus, I have bragging rights so if I want to register those 3 domains with them I can, but if not, then their clients have that right, as well as internet keywords.  I’m not sure if this is just a scam to get me to buy those domains, or if there really is a company in China who wants to legitimately use those domains.   You know what?  I am not biting.  If they want to register those domains, fine, but they can’t have xanapus.com.  They can’t have Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace (even though I don’t use it), AIM, Amazon, Ebay, and all those other websites.  They can’t have them because they are mine and I will not be threatened and I will not be scammed into paying China for those 3 domain names.  Here is the latest email.

Dear Michel:
Thanks for email. 

Based on your company having no relationship with them, we have suggested they should choose another name to avoid this conflict but they insist on this name as CN/Asia domain names (.asia/.cn/.com.cn) and internet keyword on the internet. In our opinion, maybe they do the similar business as your company and register it to promote his company.
You must know Domain name takes open registration, this is international domain name registration principle. Any companies or individuals have rights to register any domain name and internet keyword which are unregistered. Because your company haven’t registered this name as CN/ASIA domains and internet keyword on the internet, anyone can obtain them by registration. As a domain name registrar, we have no right to dispute their application. However, in order  to avoid this conflict, as the owner of the name or trademark, your company will get the priority to make this registration in our audit period. If you think these domain names are useful for your company and want to prevent anybody from using them, please inform us. We can send an application form and the price list to you and help you register these CN/ASIA domain names (.asia/.cn/.com.cn/) and internet keyword within dispute period.

Kind regards.

Abby Wang

Today I looked into trademarking the name Xanapus, but that’s like $250.  FUCK THAT!  If I trademarked it and any company used the name Xanapus, I could sue them, but I can’t afford $250 on the off chance that that will ever happen.  All I can do is just ignore any future attempts at trying to scam me into buying domain names in China lol.  Look, if you want those specific domains, go for it, but you’re not getting my social networks and you’re not getting .com.  It’s just not going to happen.

After doing a little research, I found out that this is a scam.  http://hosealim.com/2442/domain-name-renewal-scam-from-china/.  I just reported both emails to Gmail as phishing which will most likely block them so I won’t get them again, hopefully.

Google Keyboard

On By Michel McDonaldIn Android, GoogleLeave a comment

google keyboard

I hate to type with my tiny android phone. The keyboard is literally too small for my fat fingers. Naturally it can take me a long time to type out a simple email which I hate because if it takes too long to type something, you forget what you wanted to say in the first place. That’s why I much prefer to type with my computer, but what if I’m not at home and I need to send a text or write an email to someone? In screwed, right?

So I got an email the other day from Google telling me about Google Keyboard for android. I had seen the swiping keyboard before, but it didn’t come with my phone so I forgot about it. I immediately downloaded the Google keyboard and started using it and I actually love it.

Okay, this is what I love about it… If you are typing and your finger doesn’t go on the right letters, for some reason, it already knows what you wanted to type, so the word comes up anyway. If it’s not the right word, there are choices you can choose from. If you didn’t see that you made a mistake, you just tap the wrong word and you can choose the correct word from the list. It’s literally that easy.

I am typing this out with my android phone right now.

Last night I typed out another post called Patriotic keychains and flag lanyard and it literally only took me like 10 minutes to type it out with Google keyboard.

When I need to type something with my phone, I usually use voice recognition, but then people hear me which makes saying what I have to say more difficult because I don’t want everyone knowing my business. This is actually faster than voice, but you still have that option if you need it. I don’t think I will need that anymore.

Just to clarify, they are not paying me to write this post. I just love Google keyboard that much lol.

My Website is Back Up

On By Michel McDonaldIn BlogLeave a comment

I have been in bloggers hell for the last 2 days.  The night before last night I got an email from Blogsvertise saying that a post that I had written (the post before this one) was missing 5 days later.  Well, I clicked the link and sure enough it was missing, along with the rest of my blog and my dashboard too.   I immediately went to my websites control panel to find out what was wrong and that wouldn’t load.  When it did finally load the database page wouldn’t load.

All day yesterday I had been contacting the web host about it and last night the dashboard finally came back online, but the blog itself was still out.  This morning it was the same thing so I emailed them again.  I emailed one of the associates from Blogsvertise to let them know what was going on so they would be patient with me.

This happened to me last year where my database became so corrupt that I couldn’t load anything and I ended up having to start over with a new database which meant I had to start over from scratch.  I had lost all of my comments and I had to go to other websites where my blog posts were are automatically published to.  That was no fun at all, it took me several months and I got so bored with it that I gave up which left a huge hole in 2010 from posts that I never copied back over.

It doesn’t seem as though I have been blogging very much lately because I have been spending so much of my time on Facebook.  I keep saying that I will try to get back to blogging, but it just doesn’t seem to happen.  I will make that same promise again though, perhaps I will blog what I post on Facebook, we’ll see.

“Kill every last gay person” – Ugandan Legislators

On By Michel McDonaldIn Anti-Gay, Petition1 Comment

There is an injustice happening in the world today.  I won’t even try to explain it in my own words because I will probably screw it up, so read this email that Change.org sent me today.

Dear Michel,

Citibank and Barclays could save the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Uganda.

The Ugandan legislature could vote any day on a so-called “Kill the Gays” bill that could result in legalizing the death penalty for any LGBT person in the country. But Citibank and Barclays together have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in Uganda and wield significant influence in the country, just as banking lobbyists wield influence with Congress in the US. If Citibank and Barclays speak out against the “Kill the Gays” bill, Ugandan legislators will take notice in a hurry.

Collin Burton is a Citibank customer — he’s also gay. Collin started a petition on Change.org asking Citibank and Barclays to speak out against the “Kill the Gays” bill. Click here to sign Collin’s petition right now.

Citibank and Barclays are both big supporters of LGBT rights for their own employees, yet they invest money with a government that is threatening to execute LGBT people. “I expect Citibank and Barclays to live up to the values of equality and fairness, not just list them on their websites,” Collin says.

If Citibank and Barclays speak out against the “Kill the Gays” bill, Ugandan legislators will see that they are risking the business relationships that keep their government afloat.

Click here to sign Collin’s petition asking Citibank and Barclays to issue strong statements condemning Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill. The bill could come up for a vote any day, so swift action is essential.

Thanks for being a change-maker,

– Eden and the Change.org team

Does this not sound like a holocaust to you?  They want to exterminate gays just as the Nazi’s exterminated the Jews, Gays, Blacks and anyone who wasn’t what they expected to be the perfect human being.

How can you help by clicking the link above and signing the petition asking Citibank and Barclays to condemn Uganda?  If they threatened to cut ties with them, perhaps Uganda will change their mind.  If they still won’t change their minds at least Citibank and Barclays won’t have blood on their hands by being associated with Uganda knowing they are in bed with the Nazi’s of today.

Please, sign the petition.  You don’t even know how many lives you might save just by clicking a link and signing a petition.  It could be in the thousands or millions even.  If this is allowed to happen in Uganda then perhaps the hate might spread like wildfire and next thing you know other countries will be following suit.

It’s just a shame that Citibank and Barclays, being pro-gay businesses themselves, didn’t just take action on their own.  Why has it come down to a petition on change.org for them to do something?

Glowing Review from Marguerite Labbe

On By Michel McDonaldIn Autobiography, BooksLeave a comment

I woke up this morning and immediately turned on my computer so I could check my email while I ate my breakfast and I came across an email from my favorite author Marguerite Labbe.  She posted a review of my book on her blog and I was so beyond excited because I wasn’t sure how people would feel about reading my book, but apparently it’s good.

Marguerite Labbe is an award-winning M/M author.  She wrote those gay vampire books that I love so much starting with  “My Heart Is Within You.”  I really love to read supernatural fiction, especially when they have vampires, ESPECIALLY when they are gay vampires lol.  She really knows how to capture the raw sexuality of two hot gay men better than I have ever even experienced.  Let’s just say that I had to take several bathroom breaks when I read her book.

MargueriteLabbe.com: Diary of a Gay Nerd by Michel McDonald

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2012

Diary of a Gay Nerd by Michel McDonald

“I’ve had a hard time putting into words how I felt when I read Michel’s memoir.  Many parts struck a chord in me from my own childhood, though I was far luckier than Michel was and I didn’t have the added alienation of being gay.  I’ve known Michel for several years now, ever since he picked up my vampire trilogy and we started talking.  In that time, I’ve found him to be a very kind, passionate and determined man.  After reading his memoir I have to add brave to that as well and not just for what he endured and overcame.  To be able to write something like this, with such unflinching honesty, takes a rare kind of person.  Michel doesn’t gloss over his own mistakes, but puts them out there just as baldly as the abuse he went through.

“I am honored to know such a man and call him my friend.”

How awesome is that?  When I first read her book after buying it from Rainbow eBooks, I knew I had to find her on Twitter and tweet her telling her how awesome her book was.  I was surprised that she responded, but equally surprised that she continued talking to me through Twitter.  We have been talking ever since.  I think Twitter is one of the most amazing online services ever invented.

Thank you Marguerite Labbe for writing this review.  I have added it to the Barnes & Noble website btw.

My CR-48 Brick

On By Michel McDonaldIn CR-482 Comments

In the middle of December of 2010, Google surprised me by sending me an email asking me if I wanted to test a laptop with the new Google Chrome operating system if I sent in bug reports.  Happily I accepted the task and received my free laptop 2 days later.  I was shocked that I actually got it and I did the happy dance.  It’s sometimes mistaken for the pee pee dance, but it was a happy one.  I have had a wonderful year testing out this wonderful toy, but sometimes good things have to come to an end because it’s a brick now.

Ok to clarify, the laptop isn’t broken, it just won’t stay online.  I have it connected through my WiFi network, but as soon as I try to type something, it loses the signal.  The only way to get it back is to reboot.  Rebooting used to help, but now it just won’t stay connected anymore.  It will stay connected for hours, but as soon as I try to type something, it goes offline.  I can watch videos on YouTube, I can browse people’s Facebook page, I can look at any website in the world, I just can’t type anything.

At first when this would happen I would switch over to Verizon 3G, but I only get 100MB free data every month and I have already used 50MB over the last few days every time I want to type something.  At this point it’s just a waste of electricity having it on because if I want to type something, I have to do it on the desktop.

I tried doing research to get it fixed.  I went to the help section and looked at boards and found out that this is happening to a lot of people.  Someone said that Google was in touch with him and sent him an email with a link to a website that has instructions on how to take the laptop apart to re-seat the wifi connection, but I’m afraid I might just make it worse.  I really don’t know if that is the problem because it never gets moved, so there is no reason for anything to be loose in there.  It stays on my desk in the same spot all the time.  I rarely if ever bring it to another room of the house, and when I do pick it up, it’s to dust.  And, it only goes offline when I try to type something, why would it stay online for hours at a time, but then shut off as soon as I try to type something if the problem is that the wifi connection is loose?  I don’t think they are related.

A few of the people say that it’s not a software glitch, that the hardware needs to be re-seated, but that does not seem to make sense in my case.  I think it’s a software glitch and the only thing I can do is wait for Google to put out a new update.  How long will that take?

I have cleared my browsing data, browsing history and emptied the cache.  Before that whenever I would move the mouse it would go offline, so now at least it stays online until I type something.  It has gotten a little better, but not by much.  I deleted the cookies, cleared saved passwords and autofill form data and I deleted all of my files because they were redundant anyway.  I most likely downloaded images for blog posts or to transfer to the micro SD card for my phone.  The remaining files that aren’t on my computer were transferred to a USB flash drive.

I will continue to do research on the matter because I really want my CR-48 back.  I have lived my whole life without it, but I don’t know if I can live without it now.  I know that’s sad, but it is such a cool thing.  For anyone who doesn’t have one, they don’t know how awesome it is so they don’t know what I mean, but trust me, if you had one you’d understand.

I posted on the Google help boards, so hopefully I will hear from someone who can help.  Will update on the matter.

Gay Pride in Bakersfield

On By Michel McDonaldIn gay prideLeave a comment

I had no idea that Bakersfield ever participated in Gay Pride until a week ago when I received an email from the Human Rights Campaign asking me if I wanted to volunteer.

“Of course I want to volunteer” was my first thought.

I got on AIM and told our good friend Venda that I would volunteer if she would volunteer, of course I was going to do it anyway, I just wanted to see if she would do it too lol.

She agreed that she would do it so I sent her the email from HRC so she could sign up.

You know it’s funny, I haven’t been to a gay pride in years.  The first and last time I ever went to gay pride was when I was 23 years old and that was in West Hollywood.  They had a parade and then they had like this fair afterwards with these booths where you walk around from booth to booth getting free stickers and what not.

The reason it has taken me this long is because when I lived in Hollywood, we just never had the money to go anywhere and then we moved here and we just figured that Bakersfield would never have a gay pride.  Well, they do now.

I’ve never volunteered for this kind of thing so I can’t wait for tomorrow.  It’s like Disneyland but the only mice you will find are really bears.

At first I thought I should be worried about protesters but it doesn’t matter, they can suck an egg for all I care.  I’m not even going to waste my time thinking about them or waste any of the fun I’m going to have when I’m handing out whatever it is I will be handing out.

If you are in Bakersfield Saturday October 15th, come see me at Stramler Park between 1-4pm.  I’ll be the bald guy with the glasses.

I Bought My Video Card

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer6 Comments

 

Today is an awesome day because I was finally able to buy my new video card.  I was going to buy it from Tiger Direct but bought it from Amazon instead because of the free shipping.  I was going to buy a cheaper card from Tiger but I went with this one because I’d rather pay a few dollars more and get a better quality video card that might last.

This video card is Sapphire Radeon HD4650 1 GB DDR2 VGA/DVI/HDMI PCI-Express Video Card 100254HDMI and it was $46.99 (from $82, saving me $35.01) with free shipping.  What I didn’t realize when I bought it was that it has a $15 rebate which I am trying to get now online.  I filled out the forms but it brings me to the final page which I have to print but if I can’t turn on my desktop then I can’t print anything so it will have to wait until I get the video card.  They need me to send them a copy of my receipt anyway to prove that I actually bought the video card.  But once I get the rebate (in 2 months time) the video card will have only cost me $31.99 so that’s actually not too bad.  I mean, I have to wait a long time and when I do get it I’ll get a debit card instead of a check but that’s ok I guess.

I chose free shipping which means it will take longer for my order to get to me, the email said that it would take 6-8 days, my estimate delivery dates are August 9th – 13th 2011 so it will be awhile.  The rebate offer is for if I bought the card between 7/18 – 8/15 so I should get it in time to be able to print it out and send it in.

I also bought a 6 foot HDMI cable so that I can hook up my computer to my HDTV.  That way I can watch my web shows on TV full screen the way they were meant to be seen.  Heck, I can even play my game using the TV.  Not that I would but I have the option now.  The HDMI cable was only $5.50.  The reason I wanted to buy it with my order is because if I had bought this from Sears or any other place, I would’ve paid $20-$40 easily.  This  cable even had free shipping with orders $25 and over and since my order was over $25, everything was free to ship.

So, I am very happy about my purchase.  I wanted to stay loyal to Tiger but I also need to get what I need at the price I can afford and not spend that money on shipping fees.  See, I could have paid $29.99 for a video card then $8 to ship it to me.  What would be the point in spending that much money to ship it when I could spend that $8 on a better video card?

I could have gone to the computer store here in town on my bicycle but they are really expensive there.  We bought Darrin a new video card a few months ago and his only has 256mb of DDR memory (not DDR2) and his is an AGP video card.  His was $49.  That was a few months ago.  If a 256 DDR AGP video card is $50 then how much would a 1GB DDR2 PCIe card cost?  Probably $80 or more.  So that’s why I wanted to buy it online.  I’d rather wait a week for it to arrive than have to overspend getting the same or less quality.

The video card that is still in my desktop cost me over $100 from that same computer store.  In fact, I believe it was $125.  That was a Gigabyte Technologies GeForce 7600GS 512MB DDR2 PCIe Dual Link DVI HDTV.  I looked that up online and if I were to buy a new one it would cost $113 but the website I found it on has discontinued it so I can’t even buy a replacement (from that particular site).  I wouldn’t want to though because that dual link DVI thing bugged me every time I booted.  It would tell me it didn’t detect another video card or the dual link or whatever.  Every time I booted…  I didn’t have a 2nd card so naturally it didn’t detect anything.  Why would I have 2 video cards in when I only need 1?

So, it will take about a week to get it.  I’ve gone about 3 weeks without my desktop so I’m pretty sure I can wait another week.  As long as I have my netbook I’m pretty set.  And actually, not having my desktop to keep me busy playing Lord of the Rings Online has gotten me to start reading again so at least something good came out of this video card crashing like it did.

Goodbye Borders

On By Michel McDonaldIn BooksLeave a comment

I have some very sad news about Borders.  It looks as though they are closing their doors forever.  I got an email from them several months ago – Borders Sad Chapter 11 News – which also had a letter in my inbox saying they are closing some stores but not all of them.  Well, things didn’t work out too well for them and now they are closing their doors forever.  Read the letter that I got from them last night by clicking the smaller image.

This is sad news for readers everywhere who have enjoyed visiting Borders over the last 40 years that they have been open.  They are closing their doors because they couldn’t convince any company to help them stay afloat.  I guess everyone has given up on them.

It’s sad though that people have basically abandoned their local book store to buy e-books from the comfort of their home.  But this is the casualty of electronic evolution.  Although not everyone can afford to buy an e-book reader so there are people who still buy books.  Borders doesn’t just sell books though, they sell magazines and toys and cd’s and movies etc.

Today is the first day of the sale so if you still have a Borders near you, go there quickly because they close their doors on July 29th.  You have exactly 1 week from today.  They have a 40% off sale at Borders locations, unfortunately as you can see from the image below that the sale is only in stores and not on their website.

It’s sad that they are closing and I hope that there is a chance that they will still keep a few stores open to keep the Borders name alive.  Who knows for sure until the end of this month when we find out their final fate.

I don’t want to give my final goodbye just yet because anything can happen in a week…

Real Housewives of New Jersey Season 3

On By Michel McDonaldIn TVLeave a comment

I didn’t watch Season 1 of the Real Housewives of New Jersey because I was taking a stand against the real housewives reality shows because I hated the OC housewives.  Once I started watching Season 2 of NJ I loved it and changed my mind about the whole thing.  That’s how good these ladies were, they converted me.

After all of the Danielle drama I decided that season 2 was enough drama for me and that I wouldn’t watch it again.  They have already had a few episodes that I haven’t watched but this morning I got my Hulu email with new shows and episode 1 of the new season of the Real Housewives of New Jersey was in there so I thought what the heck, I’ll check it out.

Edit: In the past it has taken Hulu a few weeks to show the first episode of the Bravo shows so I was wrong, they haven’t had a few episodes already.

I’m not surprised that there would be as much drama as there was but I wasn’t expecting it would come from Teresa’s Brother Joe.  I mean, I don’t know him but I kind of figured that if there was going to be some drama it would have come from his wife, not him.  I mean, the show isn’t about the husbands, it’s about the wives.  It seems like he has hijacked the show on the very first episode and I don’t really care to see the rest of the season because of him.

All he did in the entire episode was bitch and complain like a spoiled little brat about how his sister ignores him.  Oh boo freakin’ hoo, grow up!  He sat at the table at the reception at his baby boys christening whining and complaining about his sister.  It’s your son’s day, not yours or your sisters, give it a rest and enjoy yourself, don’t sit there bitching about your sister when you should be focusing all of your energy on your son.

It’s too bad I won’t be watching it because I really love the Manzo’s and Teresa and Jacqueline and I really would have liked to see them in this new season.  I follow most of them on Twitter, Albie, Chris, Caroline and Teresa, I even follow Danielle lol.  I’ve even tried responding to some of the things that Albie and Chris tweet but have gotten no response which isn’t surprising even though Kyle Richards used to tweet me back all the time but whatever.

So, no more housewives for me, I’m done.  I like some of the people on the show, I just can’t handle the drama emotionally, you know?  It breaks my heart to see these people being verbally and physically abusive with each other.  I know its real life but why does real life have to be so violent?

I think the reason it hurts me so much to watch is because that is how my childhood was and I hated every second of it so I have taken a stand against violence by not inviting it into my life and by watching these violent people on tv, it’s inviting it in and I just have to kick it out.  I still love the people, I just don’t want to see them beat each other up every week.