Im not typically critical of Icann. They have some very bright people on their board and tend to do the right thing most of the time. They saw the troubles and downside of .xxx and were wise enough to refuse to grant the extension. They were instrumental in allowing people other than Network Solutions sell domain names which created competition resulting in lower prices and better service for customers. But this time they dropped the ball.

I am talking about their recent ruling finding that registars (namely Network Solutions) can "front run" domains. What this means is if you go to Network Solutions website and do a search to see if a domain name is available and then dont immediately buy it Network Solutions may choose to hold that name for a short time. So you could search for a name then come back a few hours later to buy it and now it is frozen and you may have to pay a larger premium price for your domain.

There are two basic schools of thought about why they do this. First they want to profit from your desired domain either by charging you more for it or parking it with advertising on it. Second is that it forces you to buy it from them. You cant search on their site then run off and buy it from a discount registar. There have been cases where people search for a domain name at Network Solutions. Then go to register it somewhere else and it is suddenly no longer availible. If they go back to Network Solutions, however, the name can still be registered because Netsol grabbed it once you searched for it. You now have no choice but to pay their price if you want the domain.

ICANN has done their investigation and they have found that there is nothing wrong with this practice. To me it just not right. To me it is like if you went into a store and looked at something then left and came back to buy it an hour later only now they have raised the price on it because they know there was interest in it  and they wont let youto buy that product somewhere else.

Okay, Im ending my rant. Just wanted to let you know. If you are looking for domain look them up at the registar you are going to use to buy them buy them once you find them.

Every webmaster should have at least some basic skills with Photoshop. Using it to retouch your pictures or make yourself some simple logos can save you some serious money and give you a chance to make some cool looking galleries and sites. Here are some nice, easy to follow and well written Photoshop tutorials for you to check out.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/10/adobe-photoshop-tutorials-best-of/ - this is a long list of various photo shop tutorials voted the best of the best in 2007.

http://bluedesignstudios.com/design/tutorials/ - some great tutorials from the guys at Blue Design Studios (these guys are great designers).

http://myjanee.home.insightbb.com/tutorials.htm - some great tutorials showing you how to make some great basic elements.

http://www.marktiarra.com/photoshop/index.html - a little bit of everything from the great Mark Tiarra.

http://psworkshop.net/psworkshop/ - another collection that gives you some of everything.

http://www.pslover.com/ - a full site devoted to nothing but Photoshop tutorials.

http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tutorials.html - some nice advanced techniques on this site as well as general how to stuff and tutorials.

http://www.absolutecross.com/tutorials/photoshop/ - some nice stuff on text effects and special effects.

These tutorials should keep you busy for a while to come. I admit I am not very good with Photoshop and I have managed to knock out some really cool stuff following these tutorials.