This probably sounds silly, but since I work from a laptop, one of my bigger annoyances is going to hook up my Macbook to a printer and scanner to print agreements, sign them, and then scan them back to my computer (yeah, I should get a wireless device for it but that’s not the point).   It’s not that big of a deal but it’s one of those stupid, little annoyances. A friend of mine introduced me to a new Adobe online service that will virtually eliminate this.

Adobe’s Electronic Signature is a free, Internet based service that allows parties to an agreement to share and sign the agreement online. Users simply upload an agreement (only pdfs are accepted), enter the email address of the other parties, post a due date for the signatures, select a signature profile, and hit submit. The user has the option of choosing a standard signature, or the user can upload an image of an actual signature to make it more authentic.

Once the user has finished his part of the agreement, the other parties are notified and receive an email to access the agreement online. The must click the link furnished by Adobe to access the agreement. Once there, they are unable to alter the agreement, and the service leaves a note on all pages to show that all parties read and acknowledge each page. The other parties then check off their electronic signatures and the agreement is executed.

It’s an easier way to get important documents signed online without having to worry about scanners and fax machines.

A few months back, a friend of mine posted an interesting request on her Facebook page. She asked if anyone had the contact information for three different artists, as she was thinking about commissioning a piece of art for the cover of her music album.

I did a bit of historical domain research, and lo and behold, I found what appeared to be a personal (AOL) email address from when one artist had first registered her domain name around 2001. My friend was then able to get in touch with this artist to make a request rather than having to go through other channels to get in touch with her.

Many people don’t consider the privacy issues when using their email address to initially register a domain name. Also, many people don’t really have the need to remain private until they “hit it big” and can change their contact information later.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind if you contact people using archived Whois records. The first thing is that it’s quite likely that an older email address, especially if it’s free, will no longer be used years later.   More importantly, however, is the likelihood that the person you are attempting to contact will not appreciate being contacted, so be wise about when you use this and to whom. If you have something to offer them, there’s a better chance you’ll get an answer.

I made a $2,500 offer for a domain name the other day via email, and immediately after hitting send, the email was returned to me as undeliverable.   I did a bit of research, and I found that the domain name used for that email address (but not the domain name I want to buy) had expired and was available for anyone to register.

Technically, I could now register the expired domain name, set up an email forwarder for the Whois email on record, hit “forgot password” at the domain registrar, and use the password reset to take over that company’s domain account. I could then transfer the domain name I want to buy (and all other names in the account) to my domain account.

Domain registrars seem to send an annoying amount of “Annual Whois Update” emails, but it’s important to keep your Whois records accurate and updated. Not only is it useful so you can receive email inquiries (like my $2,500 opening offer) but you can also make sure your domain names aren’t transferred without your authorization.

Taking over the company’s domain account (and/or domain names) would amount to theft (illegal), and I certainly would never do this, but it’s something you need to think about with your own domain names because there are a lot of people who wouldn’t even think twice about doing this and quickly selling the domain names. Now I just need to do a bit more research to get in touch with this company so I can buy its domain name!