Dot cat domain extension (.Cat) was recently approved by ICANN, the authority responsible for granting or not granting top level domains names. Contrary to what non domain name watcher might think, .cat domain was not approved for cat lovers to be able to create personalised websites such as molly.cat for their feline friends, but its a domain name extension created for Catalonia and Catalan speaking communities. The newly created .cat domains is expected to go live from January 2006. The approval of .cat domains sets several new precedence; In the past, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) usually assign two letter suffix o countries, for example .uk for United Kingdom, .de for Germany and .se for Spain, so assigning three letter .cat domain name extension to Catalonia bucks the previous trends. It is also unusual for a region within a country to be granted its own domains extension but Catalonia which is a region within Spain was granted .cat though the whole of Spain already us the domain extension .es. Granting .cat to Catalonia is the equivalent of granting England, Scotland , Wales or Northern Ireland its own domains extension, come to think of it, its not a bad idea, I will be the first to register temi.eng should .eng extension be granted to England

Eurid has finally began accepting applications for the much awaited Sunrise Phase 1 on the 7th of December 2005. This first phase which will last till the 6th of February is meant only for Public Bodies and Holders of Registered Trademark. This will then be followed by the Sunrise Phase 2 from 7th of February to the 6th of April. This second phase is also reserved for other prior rights holders protected under their national law after which registration is thrown open to all on the basis of “first ask first get” I must commend Eurid for a job well done. The expected bombardment of their servers by registrars jostling to submit their clients’ registration request was easily accommodated by their system. They showed that they have learnt from the past mistakes made by previous registries such as .uk and .de for the United Kingdom and Germany respectively on their first day of trading by ensuring that they allocated more than enough resources to cope with the demands that goes with such a day. Many people have wondered if another top level domain name for Europe is needed when each country within the European Union already has their own, such as .uk for the United Kingdom and .fr for France. However, if there was no point in creating it, I am sure that it would not have gone beyond the deliberation stage of the European Union Parliament nor would it have created the excitement it did beyond that stage. As it is, the extension .eu domains are already being registered, and soon you will start coming across them.

So I finally have my own personal blog!  cool. Apart from the me too factor of blogging, I wonder what else I can do with this baby. I know, I will just fill it with useless trivial about boring life of bloggers like most blogs do but I could also make it interesting and use it a useful tool, okay that is for the future but for now, I will just be boring like most other bloggers and tell you what my dog got up to during the festive seasons apart from constantly begging for turkey.

He went into the recycle bin and try to lick my kipplins exceedingly delicious mince pies and he got his head stuck in the box, it was interesting when he came to show me his new Mr. Kiplin looks.