I’ve heard the hype. I’ve heard the good and bad of it. I have even helped “skin” a profile on it.

MySpace.

Being a Web designer, people assume that I not only design and build websites, but that my life revolves entirely around the Web. They seem shocked (and appalled) that I don’t have a MySpace, Facebook, or whatever-the-latest-social-site-is account. Prompted partly by that and partly by curiosity, I took the plunge and got a MySpace account.

Less than a few hours after getting it, I got spammy mail from “friends.” Or at least that’s what they claimed to be. One seemed like an “official welcome” from Tom. Tom, by the way, took the liberty of adding himself as my “friend.” I don’t know Tom. And, Tom if you are reading this, nothing personal, but I will add my own friends should I become so inclined.

I also received one that was nothing short of a shameless promotion for a band, begging not only to be heard, but to be my “friend.”

And Kelly, she wanted someone for a serious relationship. To her credit, I noticed that my profile said I was single. I am not. I suppose that was the default setting, which I should have expected since MySpace seems geared toward those who haven’t finished puberty. At least it defaulted to “straight.”

When I did go on, I felt assaulted by the ads. Not just one or two—but dozens—flashing, blinking, and screaming for attention. This set up will give you A.D.D. for sure.

Anyway, less than 48 hours on MySpace, I pulled the plug and cancelled. I can’t wait for the next person to ask me if I have a MySpace account.

It wasn’t really my space anyway. It was theirs.

I have been getting these letters for years—you know, the one that says your domain name is about to expire so renew now or risk being forever lost in cyberspace, blah, blah, blah. I’ll admint they almost got me the first time, but now anything with Domain Registry of America goes straight to the trash, or gets shredded into a thousand pieces, or gets burned—you get the picture.

I am used to it so I don’t give it much thought, but when I got one today I realized how many people I know get these these, too. And, being personalized, with a lot of your domain information on there, it is easy to think it is legit and pay up and be done with it.

Don’t.

Not only are they dubious at best, but they are one of the more expensive registrars. They mention being cheaper, but they base that on information that is way out of date—back when Network Solutions had a monopoly. In Web-time that is ancient history.

Even if they were the low-cost leader, I still wouldn’t think of transferring to them. If they use scam-like tactics to get your business, there is no telling what they will do once they have control of your domain and everything associated with it like your website and email.

If you want more information about this particular scam, Google for “Domain Registry of America Scam” and read until your heart’s content. If you want, check out the official word from the Federal Trade Commission.

I write these post with churches, ministries and non-profit organizations in mind. That means I make a few assumptions about you if you are reading this.

1. I assume that you don’t have unlimited time.
2. I assume that you don’t have unlimited personnel.
3. I assume that you don’t have unlimited funds.

If you do, skip this article. For that matter, skip anything I have to say. You should be paying someone to tell you things.

Still here? Good. Without getting into the whole Mac vs. PC thing—yet—if you use a PC you have most likely at some time been frustrated with it. Rampant viruses. Crashes. Spyware. And the list goes on.

So does Windoze just go to work the moment you install it, seeking out every possible way to cripple and destroy itself? In its defense—no. Think back to (or imagine) pre-internet days. The only way a virus was going to get on your computer was if you computer was on a local area network or you inserted a contaminated disk into it. Hence, the birth of antivirus software that took forever to scan a floppy disk every time you inserted it.

Then came the internet. Now those nasty critters could invade you PC through email, downloads and hackers. So in addition to your antivirus software, you now need a firewall and a host of other defenses.

There isn’t a magic cure-all (I am biting my tonge since I mentioned I won’t get into the Mac vs. PC thing), but here is one simple thing that you can do. Switch web browsers. Dump Internet Explorer. Why? Go to Google or the search engine of your choice and search for security, Firefox vs. Internet Explorer for several articles that go into far more detail than I care to do here.

In adddition to the overwhelming security reasons to swtich, there are a number of others, with the most important being—it works. A web browser is supposed to do just that—allow you to browse, or view, the web. There are many industry standards that are there to make sure the sites work across multiple browsers. And they do, with one glaring exception—Internet Explorer. Most web developers would quickly write it off except for the fact that about 80% of the general market will view web sites with it.

You may have never even realized that Internet Explorer doesn’t work. That is because web designers and developers like myself spend hours making sure sites do work. We hack code and create work-arounds to satisfy Internet Explorer’s unique code cravings.

OK, I think that’s enough. Any more and it is going to sound like a sales pitch—which, it technically could never be since it is not about a sale at all. Firefox is FREE. Zip. Nada. Zilch.

So what are you waitingfor? Get Firefox Here.