Tweet

By: Ben Lucier on May 3rd, 2011
Posted in: General, Inside OpenSRS
Tags: Peter Tattam, Trumpet Winsock
Comments: 5

Before Microsoft had the good sense to build Internet support into its Windows operating system, there was Peter Tattam and his software, Trumpet Winsock.

Personally, I don’t think of myself as being old enough to talk about how tough we had it during the “old days”, but man, the Internet sure was a different place 17 years ago.

At the risk of offending the technical veterans with some elementary details, Winsock (a mashup of the words Windows + socket) equipped the Microsoft Windows operating system with the ability to ‘speak’ the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). Back in the “olden” days of 1995, Windows computers were often not even connected to the local office network, never mind the globally-connected Internet.

The Trumpet Winsock software was distributed under a shareware, “try before you buy” license, which means you could use it on a trial basis, but after the period expired, you were legally required to pay for it. The problem was that people rarely paid for the software after the trial period ended.

Trumpet Winsock was hugely popular in the days of Windows 3.1, mostly due to the inclusion of the software in many popular computer magazines and distribution by Internet Service Providers. The wide distribution channel these magazines offered should have been a good thing for Tattam Software; Internet users signed up by the hundreds, and then thousands, and then hundreds of thousands. But ultimately, although they used the software, many Internet users didn’t care or didn’t bother to register (and pay) for it.

In the end, Peter and his company received very little financial compensation for what many would agree was software that enabled a connection to a global network that has positively impacted the lives of millions.

At Tucows / OpenSRS, at our very core, we believe the Internet is the greatest agent for positive change the world has ever seen. Trumpet Winsock accelerated Internet adoption during a time when Microsoft failed to offer Internet connectivity in the OS. So, earlier this week, we wanted to thank Mr. Tattam by recognizing his efforts with Trumpet Winsock by way of a small corporate donation.

If you’re a former Trumpet Winsock user, we’d love it if you would also take a moment to thank Mr. Tattam for his hard work and dedication in building one of the most popular on-ramps to the greatest resource the world has ever seen. Donations are accepted via Paypal at the thanksfortrumpetwinsock.com website.

Tweet

By: Ben Lucier on May 1st, 2011
Posted in: Inside OpenSRS
Tags: BMO Vancouver Marathon, James Koole, OpenSRS Staff
Comments: 3

James' early morning start line at the BMO Vancouver Marathon, May 1.

It’s the weekend of your 40th birthday, how do you spend it? If you’re James Koole, communications lead for Tucows, you fly yourself to Vancouver, BC to participate in the BMO Vancouver Marathon!

The passion that James has for running reminds me that we should take more opportunities to share some stories about the kind of people we spend the majority of our waking hours with.

James is our communications lead at Tucows / OpenSRS. This means that he writes the majority of the things our resellers read on the website, and the e-mails you receive in your inbox. When he gets back from Vancouver, he’ll probably even correct some grammar and spelling mistakes on this very post.

He’ll also ask me why I wrote this post. He’s a modest fellow and doesn’t like to brag. He hates the spotlight. I have an answered prepared for him though: “James, if you don’t want the spotlight on you, then you should ease up a bit on your level of awesome, mkay?”

At Tucows, we have the opportunity to work with some of the brightest minds in the industry. But for a company to think about its human capital purely from a professional skillset, would surely be a mistake. After all, experts say that having passion for things out side of work is critical for a happy work / life balance. They did say that, right?

Hammering out code, programming routers, and configuring servers are a big part of what we do. But the downtime is just as important. I haven’t taken a formal count, but if I held out my arms in a group of Tucowsers and quickly spun myself around, I will be not only dizzy, but I will have smacked a couple of marathoners, a lot of cyclists, some rock climbers, kickboxers, soccer players, and even snowboarders; I’m also sure that by Monday, I’ll have colleagues reminding me of other sports active within the company.

So while James competes against himself in a grueling 42 kilometer race, fighting against the blisters, the shin splints and the fatigue, I’m going to gush a little bit about his commitment to his passion, as I sip coffee from the comfort of my front porch, and try to convince myself that I should go for a bike ride after I finish this post.

Happy Birthday James, and good luck on your run! We’re all cheering for you, and some of us are even a little envious of your commitment to your passion.

Tweet

By: Le Quan on March 30th, 2011
Posted in: Inside OpenSRS, Partners and Resellers
Tags: CIRA
Comments: 8

Yesterday, small and medium size businesses (SMBs) in Canada got a gift from Google to jump start their business presence online. Hosted by Kevin O’Leary of Dragon’s Den at the historical Fermenting Cellar, in the Distillery district in Toronto, Canada, SMBs can now get a website & .CA domain for free as part of the “Canada Get your Business online” (GYBO) initiative.

Partnering with Yola inc., CIRA, The Globe and Mail, Rogers, Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and Silver Lining Ltd, Google wants to shrink the gap between SMBs lack of online presence and their customers who are using the internet to find them. “Over the next year, we hope to help 100,000 Canadian businesses build websites and reach customers online” says Chris O’Neill, Managing Director Google Canada.

According to Google, there are over 2 million SMBs in Canada, and close to half have no presence online. These rock stars of the Canadian economy need the help to be where their customers are looking for them and this initiative gets them one step closer.

As someone who has been in online marketing for over 11 years, I am extremely excited to see the GYBO.ca program launched. SMBs struggle with lack of time, resources, amongst other challenges of starting a business and this initiative helps them conquer one important challenge, and that is an online web presence, with a price tag of FREE. We work with many SMBs, as our resellers do, and can relate to the challenges, so having a program that is focused on helping SMBs is fantastic.

Congratulations to Google, Yola, CIRA and the other partners who are giving small and medium businesses in Canada a leg up! Also, a special Thank you to Rogers for drawing my name to win a Blackberry Torch!

If you’d like more information, go to www.gybo.ca

Tweet

By: OpenSRS Team on June 2nd, 2010
Posted in: General, Inside OpenSRS
Tags: Hackathon, RHoK
Comments: 0

Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) is a global collective between Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, NASA and the World Bank. They are hosting a global hackathon on Saturday, June 4 – Sunday, June 5, 2010. Events take place in cities around the world including Nairobi, Jakarta, Sydney, Washington DC and San Paolo.

If you are in one of these cities, we encourage you to join the hackathon. There are great discussions about hosting and how to collaborate on a global scale. The sign up for each city is on the RHoK website. The global event will also be streamed live–watch the official RHOK twitter account for these details.

Software developers, usability experts, emergency planners, technologists, social media knowledge workers, project managers, NGOs and university professors will meet in each of the cities to crowdsource open source solutions to very real humanitarian problems. There are seven main projects ranging building SMS applications to report amputee needs, near real-time UAV imagery processing to creating a people finder application. We also expect some awesome incubator discussions. When you get such diverse, innovative minds in a room, great things are bound to happen.

RHOK invited Crisis Commons to provide problem definitions for the global hackathon. I’ve blogged about CrisisCommons in the past–they are a global network of volunteers who use creative problem solving and open technologies to help people and communities in times and places of crisis.

I’m on my way to Sydney as we speak to participate as a core Crisis Commons volunteer and project liaison.

Tweet

By: Ben Lucier on April 16th, 2010
Posted in: Inside OpenSRS
Tags:
Comments: 0

A couple weeks back we reached a significant milestone: our ten millionth domain name under management. One of the ways we celebrated was by commissioning the Designer Cookie to create something special for us: the OpenSRS 10,000,000 domain sugar cookie!

Each member of the Tucows’ team were given one of these celebratory sugar cookies and they were an immediate hit. Many staff (even the hungry ones), preferred to display their trophy on their desks, despite tauntings from their fellow colleagues about the deliciousness of the pastry.

We learned shortly after distributing the cookies that one of the staff had put his cookie up for auction on eBay, offering to match the winning bid with the proceeds going to the Coast to Coast Against Cancer children’s charity.

We had a fun time posting eBay questions about the cookie and having our colleague answer them, but I don’t think any of us here at OpenSRS would have guessed the final selling price for one sugar cookie would have reached $127.50!

After the auction was over, the losing bidder offered to purchase HALF the cookie for the auction price, bringing the total amount to $510 (after matching). We just couldn’t bear to have the cookie split in two, so another staff member has agreed to donate their cookie to the cause.

The winner of this limited edition trophy, was Andrew Allemann from domainnamewire.com who has a thorough recap, along with the humorous questions (and answers) asked during the auction.

Special thanks to Andrew, and the rest of the auction bidders for surprising us with your generosity!

—

OpenSRS Bakes Cookies Into Its Product Lineup
First Transaction Benefits Coast to Coast Against Cancer Foundation

Toronto – April 16 – Tucows Inc. today announced that it has embarked on an expansion of its OpenSRS service offering to include cookies. The company’s first such cookie transaction was completed on April 15th, 2010, with the successful sale of an OpenSRS cookie by eBay auction. The final selling price of the limited edition, commemorative cookie was $127.50. Prior to the closing of that transaction, a second buyer came forward and thanks to some fast work in the Tucows kitchen, a second cookie sale was brokered. A matching fund pushed the total money raised to over $500.

Net proceeds from the sale of the cookies will be donated to The Coast to Coast Against Cancer Foundation, a Canadian charitable organization which Tucows has been a supporter of for many years.

Coast to Coast is Canada’s only national charity devoted to fighting childhood cancer. Coast To Coast Against Cancer ensures 100% of receiptable funds raised go toward improving the survival rate and quality of life of children (and their families) impacted by cancer. Learn more at http://www.coasttocoastagainstcancer.org.

Elliot Noss, President and CEO, Tucows Inc, noted that the company is always looking to tap into new growth areas that take advantage of the depth and breadth of talents within the company.

“It’s so important for a company to understand and revisit its core competencies,” said Noss. “What do we do well? What are our assets? We have 10 million domain names under management. We have 10,000 resellers. Fine. Good. But we also have a kitchen full of mixing bowls and spoons. We have a 24-hour convenience store a half a block away that sells flour and eggs. Cookies were a natural product extension for us.”

Ross Rader, General Manager at Hover, Tucows’ retail division, spearheaded the cookie sale initiative within Tucows.

“We’re thrilled to have our first cookie sale completed,” said Rader. “And we’re especially pleased that Coast to Coast, and the kids they help, will be the real benefactor of this new auction expansion.”

The charity auction continues a tradition at Tucows to give back to the community. “It’s really a win-win-win setup for everyone involved. Coast to Coast gets the cash, we get a warm and fuzzy feeling inside, and the buyer can enjoy a yummy cookie knowing they’ve helped some special kids who are battling cancer,” said Rader.

The winning bidder was identified as Andrew Allemann, who runs DomainNameWire.com, the leading blog for the domain name industry. “I had to win this auction. This isn’t some reg fee name. This is a premium, category-killer for sure,” Allemann said in a blog posting revealing himself as the auction winner.

The cookie sale is just one of a number of fundraising inititives planned for 2010. Along with the Coast to Coast Against Cancer Foundation, Tucows supports other worthy causes including Creative Commons, Little Geeks Foundation, One Web Day, Parkdale Community Health Centre and others.

About Tucows

Tucows is a global Internet services company. OpenSRS manages over ten million domain names and millions of email boxes through a reseller network of over 10,000 web hosts and ISPs. Hover is the easiest way for individuals and small businesses to manage their domain names and email addresses. YummyNames owns premium domain names that generate revenue through advertising or resale. Butterscotch.com is an online video network building on the foundation of Tucows.com. More information can be found at http://tucowsinc.com.

This news release may contain forward looking statements. The cookies may contain nuts, or other allergens.

- 30 -