Re: [Gnumed-devel] Form template footers

[Karsten Hilbert]

On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 08:13:39AM -0800, Jim Busser wrote:

> >> www.gnumed.org
> > 
> > the URL may be fine
> 
> why is it that when a person tries to reach
> 
>       www.site
> 
> vs just
> 
>       site (i.e. without the www)
> 
> they may or may not have success?

Either of two cases can apply:

The site really does not provide a "*www.*site.tld" subdomain.

The network application (browser, mostly) does not think it
a good idea to try www.site.tld when site.tld fails. There's
arguments to either side of that approach.

> Is it a function of their OS and/or browser, or is it a
> function of how the site has been registered somewhere
> (involving or not involving having to register & pay for an
> extra domain)?

Domains are registed by first level below the TLD at the DNS
registrars. It's only when you sub-register a domain from a
domain reseller that you don't have control over the
subdomains.

So:

1)
        We have registered the host-level "gnumed.org" name
        under the ".org" TLD. That way we can control
        www.gnumed.de, wiki.gnumed.de, cvsmonitor.gnumed.de as
        we wish.

2)
        Someone smart, or greedy, or both, likely registered
        "busser.ca" and is now waiting for Jim to come along and
        want to use "jim.busser.ca". At that point they'd offer
        to rent out "jim.busser.ca" to him.

        Oh, wait, it's available:

$> whois busser.ca

Domain name:           busser.ca
Domain status:         AVAIL

% WHOIS look-up made at 2010-01-16 14:12:15 (GMT)
%
% Use of CIRA's WHOIS service is governed by the Terms of Use in its Legal
% Notice, available at http://www.cira.ca/legal-notice/?lang=en 
%
% (c) 2007 Canadian Internet Registration Authority, (http://www.cira.ca/) 

        Don't tell anyone :-)

> Maybe if
> 
>       gnumed.org
> 
> would not always work people would figure out themselves to try www anyway??

The www serves to remind people to type this into a browser.
While technically not quite correct it is both a bit of a
reminder as well as less technically distracting as the
technically fully correct http://www ...

Karsten
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