At 12:01am today, Facebook began letting you select your own username. That means that you can now have your own name on Facebook like this:

http://www.Facebook.com/bobstovall

instead of those cryptic, long default Facebook URLs.

This makes it much easier for friends to find your Facebook page and is easier to remember for those you give it to.

Now, as you probably realize, many people have the same name on Facebook. And I’ve always recommended grabbing your own name as a domain name. I am just as enthusiastic about grabbing your own name on Facebook.

So if you want your name, you should go get it now.

Here’s how:

Log into Facebook, or click the link below and then login.

Then go to http://www.Facebook.com/username

Once you are there, it will suggest a variety of names. That doesn’t mean they are the only ones available, so click on the ‘more’ link and it will let you
select a different name. For example I picked bobstovall instead
of bob.stovall or bstovall, but you can pick any variation that’s available. There is a button to check availability of the name you choose.

Don’t hesitate of you could miss getting your own name. Go to:
http://www.Facebook.com/username
now and get your own name while you can.

Originally published on June 14, 2009 on BobStovall.com

We will not be in the office on Friday, June 6, 2009. We will return on Monday, June 8.

We will be picking up email over the weekend, so if you have an emergency, please email, use the OrangeCat.net Support system, or call my cell phone number at 859-319-4444.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you on Monday.

There are a few ways we can keep in contact with all of our customers efficiently. This blog, with it’s automailer is the primary one. We use it to publish info of interest to our customers or important updates or information.

This morning’s email upgrade is a great example of how this tool can work - or not work. When I discovered at 8:00 AM this morning that there had been a problem with the system-wide email upgrade, I made the pre-requisite phone calls and posted the information.

If you happened to go to this website, you were aware of what was causing the email problems and when you might expect service to be restored.

The problem is that most of you are subscribed to these blog updates using an email address that uses one of our mail servers. So no mail, no news.

Now that our email service has returned to normal (fun getting those 100 back-logged emails all at once, huh?), I have a suggestion that might help you stay informed should another service outage effect our email systems. It is one that my provider uses for similar reasons.

Just subscribe to this blog’s post notification system using an email address that is not on our mail systems. Most of you probably have a GMail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Comcast, Verizon or other email address as well as your primary one. Use it to subscribe to the notifications and we will be able to send you a message if our systems are down for some reason.

We don’t send many messages using this system so you won’t have another email address swamped with messages.

Click here to subscribe using an alternate email address

If the screen says “You may manage your subscription options from your profile” instead of showing the subscription form, try logging out in the Meta section in the left column: