Notes for myself and anyone else who runs into this problem…

I was checking yum for updates on one of my Plesk servers and did yum update caching-nameserver … Bad move. It blew away the Plesk named.conf file and killed named on the box.

Here’s what you need to do to get it back:

1. First remove the rpms: yum remove caching-nameserver

2. Next, re-install the default file: cp /var/named/run-root/etc/named.conf.default /var/named/run-root/etc/named.conf

3. Now create a little shell script (found the info here and here), call it dns_rebuild.sh and run that script.
4. Lastly restart named with service named restart and you should be good to go.

Sounds easy now but that took 2 hours… Hopefully this note will save someone an hour!

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Via Dave Winer: NASDAQ is the First U.S. Stock Exchange to Facilitate Free, Universal Access to Real-time Stock Data:

The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:NDAQ) today announced that The NASDAQ Stock Market (NASDAQ(r)) has launched a new service that places free real-time market data in the hands of millions of individual investors. With “NASDAQ Last Sale,” NASDAQ becomes the first U.S. stock exchange to facilitate universal, free access to real-time stock quotes — or the last quoted price — together with CNBC, Google, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network and Xignite.

“This is an important, and in many ways, overdue development in the U.S. securities markets,” stated Adena Friedman, Executive Vice President, NASDAQ OMX. “With universal access to the Internet and the real-time nature of the web, investors need real time data, and now they don’t have to pay for it, thanks to CNBC, Google, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network and Xignite.”

“This service underscores CNBC’s mission to deliver news and market data that is fast, accurate, actionable and unbiased,” said Scott Drake, Vice President, CNBC Digital. “CNBC has always provided its television audience with the best real-time market data. Previously, NASDAQ quotes had been operating under a 15 minute delay on the web. As of today, that is no longer the case. CNBC.com and CNBC mobile users will have access to real-time NASDAQ quotes, no matter what platform they use or where they are in the world.”

“Providing real-time market data on Google Finance is an important step forward in delivering useful information to our users that will help them make more informed and timely financial decisions,” said Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience at Google. “Historically, real-time financial information has been out of reach for most consumers without access to brokerage accounts or subscription fees. We are pleased to be making this information freely available to all of our users on Google Finance, and other Google search properties.”

“Our millions of users expect and receive the most insightful news and analysis across business and finance, and now they won’t have to wait for 15 or 20 minutes after the market opens to find out how news is affecting their portfolios,” said Gordon McLeod, president of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, which will offer the new service on WSJ.com, MarketWatch.com and Barrons.com. “We’re also providing real-time pre- and post-market activity, which will allow us to immediately show, for example, how a company’s pre-market earnings announcement is affecting the stock. Offering the best real-time data available is a benefit that will enable even better decisions, both personal and professional.”

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• SEOmoz | Know Your Playing Field: The Real Top 100 Domains
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• APIs and Developer Platforms: A Discussion on the Pros and Cons – ReadWriteWeb
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APIs and Developer Platforms: A Discussion on the Pros and Cons – ReadWriteWeb: The API is the frictionless means for any two web-based services to interact and share data and capabilities.

From SEOmoz | Know Your Playing Field: The Real Top 100 Domains:

• 60% of the top 25 domains are controlled by an elite six.
• 43% of the top 100 domains are controlled by an elite dozen.
• Together this elite dozen drives more than 1.3 billion monthly unique visits.

A must read… FYI, the list of top 100 domains is available here:

• CSV
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• NUMBERS

Got an email from Google today about how you can avoid phishing, which is defined by Wikipedia as “an attempt to criminally and fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.”

Here are the tips offered in the Google email:

• Don’t reply to or click on links in emails that ask for personal, financial, or account information.
• Check the message headers. The From: address and the Return-path should reference the same source.
• Instead of clicking the links in emails, go to the websites directly by typing the web address into your browser, cut and paste or use bookmarks.
• If on a secure page, look for “https” at the begging of the URL and the padlock icon in the browser.
• Keep your computer’s antivirus, spyware, browser, and security patches up to date and regularly run system scans.
• Review your accounts regularly and check for unauthorized activity.
• Use a browser that has a phishing filter (Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Opera).

A related article by Walter Mossberg was also published at WSJ today, How to Avoid Cons That Can Lead To Identity Theft.

Charlene Li on social networks’ value in a recession: …it means all those me-too, social-network with a twist startups who don’t have a monetization plan, or whose plan is dependent on traffic=advertising, are in trouble. This is social media — media being defined as ways to turn traffic into advertising. Not a good place to be sitting in a recession, when marketers are looking for scale and interaction and persuasion, not just impressions.