Wine Technology Blog @ WineWeb.com

I just received an email from Network Solutions stating that the domain names I recently searched for are still available and offering me a discount to buy them. I don't remember being logged in when I did those WhoIs searches (even more scary), but maybe I was. Anyway, the point is that Network Solutions (and maybe other domain name registrars) are tracking your WhoIs searches. In case you're not aware, all domain name registrars (Network Solutions, Godaddy, Register.com, etc.) provide a "WhoIs" function for you to see the details of who registered a domain name. It's a fast way to check on a domain name, but if you're looking for new domain names for your business, I'd advise against using that function. I've also heard of people who used WhoIs to look for domain names, only to come back an hour later and find that those domain names were just registered by a reseller.

What to do? If you want to research new domain names, login to your domain name account and use their search function, then be prepared to immediately purchase any domain names that you find.

To support Earth Day, we have purchased carbon offsets equivalent to the carbon dioxide generated by the electricity used to power our web and email servers. You'll notice the "CO2 Neutral" seals that appear throughout the website. Visitors will also see the seal on the shopping cart pages of all wineries and wine merchants that use our e-commerce system.

Purchasing the carbon offsets was easy to do, relatively inexpensive, and we encourage other Internet services companies to explore similar ways to offset their carbon footprint.

We've rebranded our blog as WineTechnologyWorks.com. The focus will be on technology in the wine industry: what works and what doesn't, with an attempt to focus on topics that may evoke (or provoke) discussion. WineWeb has always been focused on providing technology that works and that provides real value to its clients. We constantly see good stuff that we'd like to highlight, as well as items that make us scratch our heads in wonder. We've had that domain name for a while and liked the play on words, so we'll try to put it to good use.

Now if I can force myself to get this stuff from my head to the keyboard...

OK, so this isn't directly about wine, but sometimes a news item is just so amazing that I have to comment on it. The news was that Satyam, one of the large Indian software companies, had been misstating their revenues and cash. Having spent nearly 10 years directly competing with Satyam for outsourcing projects and having spent almost 10 years as a CPA with one of the Big 4 accounting firms, I feel qualified to comment on this.

The company reported a cash balance of 53 billion rupees (about 1 billion US$), when in fact they had only 3 billion rupees in the bank. It seems that a white lie made several years ago just kept growing until it was out of control, and they had to come clean. What's amazing here is that PriceWaterhouseCoopers missed it in their audits (and no, I used to work for Deloitte). I don't have to pull out one of my CPA textbooks to remember that verifying cash is one of the most basic auditing tasks. How do you miss a billion dollars?? Heads will roll at PWC, partners will be shot (or maybe should be). What a mess!

What's sad it that this situation will likely tarnish all Indian software companies. I'm a firm believer in leveraging a global workforce to provide value, quality and competitiveness in any industry. In my own industry, I've not been surprised at a company having to layoff many people after bragging about spenging $100/hour to develop a software application. Those economics just aren't sustainable in these times.

So, to happier times, and a Happy New Year. Cheers!

It' s been three days since Google released their web browser, Chrome. I attempted to do all my work yesterday using Chrome to see how it would perform and to see if it had all the features that I use in a typical day. I usually have numerous browser windows open as I setup new websites and test out new functionality on the website, so it was working hard all day.

Overall, I was pleased. I liked the minimalist interface and the address bar that is used for bookmarks, recent pages and search queries. I thought it was as fast as Firefox 3, both of which blow past Internet Explorer. Our point-of-sale application was faster running under Chrome than Firefox, probably due to Google's new Javascript routines, as the POS contains a lot of Javascript and AJAX. Chrome can make a web application run as a desktop application similar to Firefox's Prism product, which provides a very minimalist interface and more speed. I did have to load Firefox once because of a quirk with a form field, and I had to load IE once, only to see if IE was doing anything weird in rendering a new website design.

There's a lot of cool stuff under the hood that translate into improved security and performance. So, if you're still using IE, you now have two better browser choices in Chrome and Firefox. Happy downloading.

Recently we learned of a wine-related website that had been hacked at a particularily bad time (not that there is a good time to be hacked). While we sympathize with them on the effort required to get their site back up, we were a bit concerned as their site was running the ColdFusion software like ours. After some research, we're able to rest a bit easier.

The hack was a cross-site scripting attack, where someone adds malicious database code to a URL or a web form field. If the web program that processes the data expects an ID field in which to access the database, doesn't validate that it's just an ID field, and passes the entire field to the database access routine, then bad things can happen. Luckily our websites have several layers of protection to not allow this to happen to us.

We've noticed lately an increase in the frequency and sophistication of attempted attacks to our websites, but have considered them an annoyance to our schedule, as we typically alert the hacker's ISP of the attempted hack. Good programming practices and keeping up-to-date on server software is always a good defense.

I was pondering our point-of-sale application and thinking about the upcoming Family Winemaker's tasting event. A winery could take a laptop with a broadband Internet card and could use our POS application to take orders in real-time. No more paper order forms with illegible handwriting. They could even attach a magnetic card reader to a USB port and swipe credit cards -- all quite cool.

Now, for those wineries worried about table space and wine spilling on your laptop, here's an even more high-tech idea -- use your iPhone as a point-of-sale terminal. Being web-based, the WineWeb point-of-sale application can run on an iPhone.

My appologies if this sounds like a sales pitch, but imagine the possibilities. The concept that point-of-sale equals tasting room is gone. Now a winery can sell wine, event reservations and wine clubs whereever they happen to be. Cool stuff to ponder.

OK, I admit this may be a bit of a stretch, but since this blog is about technology and wine, here goes.

News was released today that scientists have discovered more about the origins and functions of the Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient mechanical "computer" that dates to the 1st century B.C. Since its discovery by divers around 1900, much has been speculated about this advanced technology. Now, in addition to tracking astronomical events in the solar system, the researchers found that one of the dials was dedicated to tracking the 4 year cycle of the ancient Olympiad games. The month names on the 19 year calendar have now been determined to be Corinithian, which provides evidence as to its origin. Interesting stuff -- more details at the research project website.

Since wine has been a part of Greek culture for over 4,000 years, the chances are good that the ship carrying the Antikythera Mechanism was also carrying wine. While the sailors may have relied on the Mechanism for navigation, they very likely didn't require a "computer" to sell their wine in other locations. My how times have changed. Now, in our "advanced technology culture" we don't require a computer to travel from one state to another, but we need one to figure out how and where we can get wine from a winery to a person in another state, given the ever-changing laws restricting the free trade of wine.

So the question of the day: Has civilization progressed in this area in the past 2,000 years?