Q: I got my cell phone number about seven years ago. The problem is that the previous owner’s name and my phone number figure prominently on a charitable organization’s website, and I have been getting calls for that organization for years. I just called all of the numbers on the site, and all are either not working, or not associated with that organization. Is there any way I can find out where the website is hosted and who to contact about getting my phone number removed?

A: That sounds like it’s a very frustrating problem, Eileen, but luckily there is something you can try: a WhoIs search. A WhoIs search is a way of retrieving the domain name contact information from the registrar, and using that to find the web host.

Image credit: Sean Birch

Now, that probably just sounded like a bunch of tech gobbledygook, so let us take a moment to explain a couple of things. A domain name is the name that serves as the website’s address (for example, “deemable.com” is the domain name for our site). A registrar is basically a company that a person would buy a domain name from. In the process of selling a domain name, the registrar would take a buyer’s contact information (including their name, business address, email address and phone number) and store it all in a publicly accessible database. A WhoIs search will allow you to search through that database.

There are a lot of websites that offer WhoIs search tools, but two of the most reliable ones are networksolutions.com/whois and whois.domaintools.com. Enter the domain name of the website you’re trying to find information for, and you’ll get a large chunk of text which includes addresses and phone numbers for the people managing that site. Then it’s time to start calling and sending emails, Eileen.

Assuming, that is, that the information from the registrar is up to date. With a small charitable organization like the one you’re talking about, you might run the risk of that info being outdated. If this is the case, you can attempt to find the web hosting company for the website (the company that keeps the website on their actual physical servers) and ask for their assistance. Sometimes the registrar and the web host for a website are the same company, but this is not always true. Unfortunately, when they are two different companies, finding the web host can be less straightforward than finding the domain name owner. This might require professional help.

If all of that wasn’t tricky enough to manage, there is no guarantee that the people who own and run the website will remove your phone number from the site when you actually get in touch with them. If they ignore you or refuse to help, you only other option may be legal action. That’s why we would recommend asking really nicely, Eileen.

It often seems like our personal information is completely out of our control on the Internet, but it’s usually possible to manage what’s out there if you stay calm and be patient.

Q: I used to have a link to my email on my desktop, but somehow it got deleted. Now I search for my email on MSN. My son says I’m doing things the long way. To be honest I don’t know much about the web and I get a little bit overwhelmed every time I open Internet Explorer. Any advice?

A: Deep breaths, Kevin! It’s going to be okay. We’re here to help.

The good news is that you are definitely not alone here. We talk to people all the time who can’t figure out how to get from Point A to Point B on their browser. When you open Internet Explorer you may see up to three different fields where you can type things. You know you want to go to a specific website, but where do you type it in?

What you want to do is type the URL into the address bar. URL stands for “Uniform Resource Locator,” which is just the formal name for a web address. For example, www.google.com and deemable.com are both URLs. Either way, they usually look like “www.nameofthewebsite.com”.

Now here’s a secret: 99% of the time you can leave off the “www”. You don’t have to type “www.google.com”, you can just type “google.com” and your browser will figure out the rest.

The place you want to type it is not the search bar of the website that is your home page. That will search for any web page that references the name of the website. Granted, the web page itself will probably be the first search result, but you’re adding an extra step. You want to type the web address, or URL, into the address bar, which is above the web page. You can identify it because it will have the address of the current page, usually prefixed by “http://”/ or “https://”/ (incidentally, you don’t have to type “http://”/ either, because your browser will fill that in as well).

Telling the difference between a search box and your address bar can sometimes be a challenge, especially if you’re new to surfing the Internet.

There are a couple of things to be aware of. First, you may or may not have another field at the top of your browser that is for searching. Typing the web address into that field is just the same as if you went to Yahoo or Google or Bing and searched for the web address there. It’s for searching, not for navigating directly to a website.

The other thing to be aware of is that in newer browsers the address field can also do web searches. So if you type “facebook.com” you will be taken directly to Facebook, but if you type in “books of faces” it will search for “books of faces” on your preferred search engine.

So, Kevin, try typing the URL for your email site into the address bar and hitting enter. Once you’re there, don’t forget that you can bookmark websites that you use frequently. Look for a star icon up at the top of your browser and click that. That will add your email to a list of favorite websites. Once you do that, you won’t have to type anything – your email will always be just a click away.

On this week’s episode Ray and Tom take their first live call in the studio, and it’s Ray’s mom! (Why does everyone try a Your Mom joke? What is this the 90s?) Also, Tom and Ray help Dean find a new laptop battery, Jennifer find her lost BlackBerry Bold 9900 and Playbook, and help Kevin figure out how to get to his email.

#43 How Tom Met Ray’s Mother

DRAFT TRANSCRIPT

RAY: From WJCT studios in Jacksonville, Florida, I’m Ray Hollister,

TOM: I’m Tom Braun,

RAY: and this is Deemable Tech, tech help worth listening to.

RAY: This week’s episode of the Deemable Tech podcast is brought to you by A Small Orange, Homegrown Hosting. A refreshingly different approach to web hosting. On the web at a small orange dot com.

And, by audible.com – Deemable Tech listeners can get a FREE audiobook download at audibletrial.com/Deemable Over 100,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle or mp3 player.

TOM: Got a question about your computer, smart phone, tablet or the Internet? Give us a call us at One Eight Eight Eight, Nine Seven Two, Nine Eight Six Eight, or send us an email at questions@deemable.com.

RAY: Today on Deemable Tech, we’re answering your questions about replacing a laptop battery

TOM: finding a lost BlackBerry,

RAY: And, Angel’s not here tonight!

TOM: But first, we have a call coming in, Ray.

RAY: From who, Tom?

TOM: It’s from YOUR MOM.

RAY: OK, seriously, Tom, that’s not funny. And we’ve already done that joke on the show before. Jeez!

TOM: No really! It is you’re mom! She’s waiting on hold.

RAY: Oh Hey Mom! You’re on Deemable Tech, what’s your question?

RAY’S MOM: “I’m starting a business making jewelry like necklaces and earrings. I want to sell them online. Will you make me a website?”

RAY: Nope. We don’t do website development, even for you Mom.

RAY’S MOM: OK, well if you won’t make a website for me, what should I do? How can I sell them online?

RAY: There’s a few options: eBay, Craigslist, Etsy, ArtFire and a bunch of other Etsy knock offs.

Craigslist- Free, but expectation is to only do business locally so you have to meet people in person.

Ebay, don’t pay until you buy, auction style often drives prices low because it’s a buyers market.

Etsy. Go where the shoppers are.

Remember you can get a URL and direct it to your Etsy page, so you could get SerenityNook.com and direct it to your Etsy Page.

Dean asked: Where’s a good place to get a replacement battery for my Dell laptop? It’s Model number PP31L.

RAY: OK, so that’s a Dell Studio 1735/1737.

Generally, I would start with the manufacturer to get a baseline price, and then I would check out a couple of other sites for comparison.

http://www.amazon.com/

http://www.newegg.com/

http://www.tigerdirect.com/

http://www.batteriesplus.com/

I looked on Dell’s website, and they had two different batteries for that model, one was about $110, the other was about $150. Obviously, the more expensive one was the better one that lasts longer.

Online I found them going for anywhere between $40 -120.

If you just want to find the cheapest replacement battery that you can fine, go to Google and just type in Dell studio 1735 battery and look at the shopping results. That will give you a breakdown of pretty much every battery that’s out there for the Dell studio 1735 or 1737. And then you can sort it by cheapest to most expensive or most relevant or any way you want to.

What you want to keep in mind though is quality and customer service. If you buy a battery from some website in some foreign country that has no customer service number, but you get a cheap deal on the battery, you can expect that you’re probably not going to get any service if the battery breaks down a month after you buy it. Sometimes it’s worth buying something that’s more expensive, but you know it’s going to last, or if it doesn’t you know the company that sold to you is going to replace it for you.

Jennifer wrote in: I listened to your segment this morning on WJCT about protecting the iPad & iPhone. I have the Blackberry Bold 9900 & Blackberry Playbook 64gb tablet. I would like a recommendation for apps to protect, lock down & secure the Blackberry Bold & Blackberry Playbook tablet. Thanks for all your help!

RAY: Well first of all thanks for email Jennifer. Second of all, sorry it took so long to get back to you. Looks like it’s in this email back in April, and it looks like We must’ve missed placed your email. So, sorry about that!

I had to go back and find out which radio segment you were talking about, and I found out it was the one about finding a lost iPhone.

Unfortunately BlackBerry did not have a built-in feature like Find my iPhone until BlackBerry 10. BlackBerry does make an app though that you can download for the BlackBerry Bold 9900 called BlackBerry Protect. It’s free, and it lets you do basically everything that Find my iPhone does. It will let you locate it, lock it, make it ring loud, put a message on the screen, and wipe it if you need to. You can even back up your data remotely before you wipe it.

Now, for your BlackBerry playbook, Oh! You’re the one who bought a BlackBerry playbook. I was wondering who that was.

The BlackBerry Playbook is an odd duck because it is the only device that runs the operating system it runs. And when blackberry puts out new tablets (whenever that is) they probably are not going to run that version of the operating system either. They’re probably going to run BlackBerry 10.

And that is why BlackBerry Protect does not work on the BlackBerry Playbook, even though it is built into BlackBerry 10.

Thanks for all your questions, and keep them coming. Call us at our toll-free number, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email at questions@deemable.com. Also, subscribe to the show! Search for Deemable Tech on iTunes or point your favorite podcast app to dmbl.co/pod.

Our producer is Sean Birch. Thanks to Robert Snyder for Video Production Assistance, and to Jo El Snyder for helping us out with the phones. I’m Ray Hollister, I’m Tom Braun, and this is Deemable Tech. Thanks for listening. Have a great week.