This space for rent
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The Microft.Com Story - The Official Version
I wanted to get a domain name for me and my family so we didn't
have to keep telling everyone our new addresses every time we changed web
hosting or e-mail or our ISP. So I thought I'd get a domain name, so we could
have our own e-mail "handle" or more than one, or redirect the mail to other
places, we could give out our URL and it would always point to where ever we've
got stuff parked at the moment. Sounds real good and easy, then you get your
domain name - (right after you think one up. I don't know, I was after Mycroft
as a tribute to Robert A. Heinlein, you know from "The Moon is a Harsh
Mistress", but Microft was as close as I could get.) Anyway, you get the domain
and then you get to administer all the e-mail that keeps coming in for people
that used this domain name before, or typed the wrong thing, and it just keeps
on coming.
Eventually, I realized that the majority of the access to my web
page had nothing to do with people wanting to get to my web site (duh!). They
were trying to go somewhere else and misspelled the web address and ended up at
Microft.Com. Evidently, leaving the 'so' out of Microsoft is a pretty common
mistake.
Web hits aren't really a problem. It is all of the email. I had a 'default'
email address at one time, where all email that wasn't addressed to a real
Microft.Com address would wind up. Wow! That was a lot of email! I now have it
turned off, because I couldn't handle that much email in a day if I did nothing
else. People would send emails with 2 or 3 megabyte attachments, trying to get
them to Microsoft. People with questions and/or complaints. I just didn't feel
right letting those emails go unanswered, so now they are bounced back to the
sender to let them know they had mistyped the email address. Another big
problem, was all of the mailing lists people have been signing up for and
typing their own email address incorrectly. Didn't they ever wonder what
happened to the mail they were supposed to get? At first I tried to get all of
the Microft.Com addresses removed from the mailing lists, but the places that
run those mailing lists only care about sending it out, not verifying the email
addresses they use. Now they get nice email bounces. Hopefully someone at those
places actually looks at the bounces in order to keep their database clean.
Somehow I doubt it.
After looking at the error logs for the web site, it dawned on me
that it wasn't only my main web page that was being hit, but the site was
recording hundreds of attempts to get pages that were not here. That is when
the idea for InERT* was born. InERT*
stands for Internet Event
Recycling Technology*.
I wanted some way of turning all of those wasted events into useful work. So
now I use them to process the Microft.Com Reminders. For more information on
Microft.Com Reminders, see the
Reminder Introduction
page. Every time someone requests a page that isn't at this domain,
Microft.Com harnesses the energy of the event to process and send email
reminders. Only Microft.Com, the most miss-hit web site in the world, has that
much miss-hit event energy to waste.
*Internet
Event Recycling
Technology or InERT, is
completely a joke. Any resemblance to any known technology or trade marked
thing is purely a horrendous mistake. We're just kidding. OK? But the Reminders
do work, and it is kind of funny, and, well, they won't let us run cron jobs,
so we made all the miss-hits go to a page that sends out the Reminders. I
thought it was clever.
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Important News for people who think their e-mail address ends in
@Microft.Com
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NEWS FLASH!
Your e-mail address doesn't end with @Microft.Com any more! If you
used to have an e-mail account at Microft.Com, it is no longer available. If
you are trying to contact someone with an old Microft.Com e-mail addresses, I'm
sorry, but I can't help you. Please stop using the Microft.Com domain in your
reply-to: and don't sign up for any more mailing lists with it.
Pretty-Please?
Thanks
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If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or problems,
please email Webmaster@Microft.Com
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