blogging

Did GoDaddy's site outage have you questioning how your website lives? The world's largest domain registrar and one of the biggest website hosts, GoDaddy.com was hacked yesterday, causing websites hosted by the company to be down. Even worse: any site whose domain was registered with GoDaddy, even if the host site is elsewhere, was inaccessible.

If the mess has you rethinking your service with GoDaddy or you just want to do some price shopping comparison, then check out these domain alternatives.

There's a lot that goes into starting a website, blog, or small business. Beyond the site's design, one of the top priorities on your to-do list should be picking a domain name. This is how your readers and customers will identify your company and come to find you on the web. The process isn't as daunting at it sounds. Follow these four steps and you'll be on your way to owning your piece of the Internet and growing your website into both a recognizable and profitable brand.

Keep reading for everything you need to know about the naming your domain.

So, you've decided to start a blog. Congratulations! So what now, you ask? Well, there are a few skills and tricks I've learned while blogging here and on other personal blogs, some of which I'll share with you today. Ready to dive in? Let's get started!

• Stick to what you know — It doesn't make much sense to start a blog about vintage cars if you're totally into fashion and beauty. Pick a subject you're passionate about! Not only will it be easier to wax poetic about something you love, but you'll likely come up with lots of great post ideas picked from your everyday life.
• Images go a long way — If you aren't into taking your own images, you can get free photos from stock image sites like Stock.xchng and Flickr, which will help bring your blog to life. Just remember to research, read, and practice proper sourcing practices for each site and photographer. Good news for bloggers wanting to use the OnSugar platform — you'll automatically get access to thousands of Getty images for free! Oh, and if you eventually want to start dabbling in photography, we have lots of tips to help you along.

Read my remaining tips when you read more.

You have been blogging up a storm lately! To reward all of your hard work, why not turn your blog into a book? It's all the rage these days, you know. With Blog2Print, you can pick and choose excerpts from your digital journal to be printed (on actual paper!), and bound into an attractive coffee table tome. Think of it like an old school keepsake!

This would be perfect for a food blogger who posts recipes or restaurant reviews, or even a fashion fiend who takes snapshots of her daily looks. Not just blogs, but you can print Facebook albums or PDF docs as well. Unfortunately, Blog2Print won't print your OnSugar blog, but it does accommodate a few other blogging platforms.

We've all been there — you fall in love, flowers bloom, the sun shines, everything is great . . . until you get that phone call that starts with, "We need to talk." You know what comes next — you're getting dumped. And although breaking up face-to-face may be rough and super emotional, let's get real — there are worse ways to get the bad news. Dating is hard enough to begin with, and tossing our obsession with technology in the mix? Well, it's easy to see where people get confused about what's appropriate dating behavior and what isn't. I've rounded up six situations where technology has bitten us in the backside, and being dumped these ways couldn't be more humiliating. Take this as a lesson: don't let technology be a lame crutch — dump others how you would want to be dumped!

Find out my top six most humiliating ways to get dumped when you read more

Despite the fact that Bill Gates can't use Facebook, he was able to join Twitter last week, and start his own blog to highlight the work he's been doing with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation since stepping down as CEO of Microsoft. As you can imagine, his Twitter account blew up faster than a suggested user list, and is now followed by over 300,000 people. Between his busy tweeting and blogging schedule, Bill sat down for an interview with CNET to talk about his new online presence, saying that tweeting will "keep me up to date."

I have a hard time believing that a guy who has such a great influence on our culture wouldn't somehow be kept in the loop on the newest forms of tech and social media, but one thing I learned (and can totally relate to), is this guy loves his Diet Coke. So much so, that he just had to crack one open in the middle of the segment. So long, Mountain Dew! DC is now the drink of choice for geeks everywhere.

To see Bill Gates talking about Twitter, his blog, and enjoying his Diet Coke, just read more