About

About the Name "irritatedVowel"

The name of the site reflects a desperate attempt to find a unique name for a web site in the internet's saturated .com namespace.  Ever wonder why companies are picking really dumb-sounding names these days?  Well, just try to come up with a name that won't violate a trademark or copyright by sounding like, looking like, or otherwise setting yourself up for a lawsuit.

During the .com boom, I had a different domain name (GroupLynx.com).  One day in the late 90's, I received a resume in my inbox that was obviously not for me.  I looked, and it turned out that someone else had a domain name that was spelled differently than mine (GroupLinx.com), but was phoetically similar.  The person sending the resume sent it to me by mistake.

So being the nice guy I am, I forwarded the resume to its correct destination along with a note that said I received this in error and that they weren't registered when I was.  Here is the email I sent them.  The original email (and resume) was attached :

In response I received back a nicely worded letter from that company that said I was in violation of their pending trademarks and if I didn't give up my domain name, I would be prosecuted etc. It's a bit along the same lines of someone smiling and talking nicely while they threaten you with a big stick.  Here's the first email I received from them after sending the resume along :

(It is important to note at this point that the current owners of the domain "GroupLynx.com" do not appear to be affiliated with the people mentioned here, and the domain "GroupLinx.com" no longer works.)

I know I had my domain before they had theirs. My domain was active and in-use and all my mail came through that domain. My web site had my logo on it and some contact information. It worked just fine, but was spartan.  I'm not sure what the legal definition of an "active" web site is.  Also GroupLynx Solutions was registered with the state of Maryland as a sole proprietership. I had dreams of owning my own company at one point, until I realized just how not worth it it really was (especially if you hate accounting and looking for business). heh.  I had stationary, QuickBooks, two projects - the whole deal. I did simple maintenance (backups, defrag, etc.) on the PCs for a courier company down the street, and wrote a small Medicaid billing app for someone I used to work with in Massachusetts.

However, I had neither the money nor time to get involved in litigation. That's how companies like that work.  Even though they might not have the law on their side, they have the money and resources, and therefore they win in the end.

I later received an email from a nice person at another similar domain (GroupLinks.com) who said they received a threatening letter from the same people and wanted to know how I handled my situation. They didn't cave, and it's just as well, as the boom busted shortly thereafter and as best as I can tell, GroupLinx.com went under.  However, they had to go through considerable pain with arguing lawyers etc.  Definitely not for me.

In the end, Mr Weinstein bought my domain name for $1000. Considering the trouble, if I had decided to keep my sole proprietership, there's no way the $1000 would have even come close to covering the costs of changing names.  During the changeover process, he was definitely not the nicest person.  However, since I was going to drop the whole idea anyway, I was just glad to have it all over.

During that whole process, I educated myself on trademark law and how it works.  It was fairly enlightening.

So, after all that, I gave up on the domain thing for a while.  Later, when I wanted to at least have my own web site, I spent months trying to find a domain name that would work.  Everything I found was similar in spelling, meaning or sound to other domain names or company names. If you have ever wondered why new companies during the late .com era were picking absolutely stupid sounding names, that's why.

After lots of failed attempts at finding a domain that would work, late in the night (well, early in the morning actually) I stumbled across the idea of "irritatedVowel" (an obvious pun on something that is more nasty than funny, heh) and figured no one else in their right mind (and with enough money to sue me) would want any of phonetically similar domain names, so I went and registered it right then.

Initial incarnations of this site had an angry/irritated vowel character, but I got tired of that theme and decided to just treat the name as a name, and not a theme for the web site. Once I did that, the site really took off.

Anway, that's the story behind the name irritatedVowel.com.  Aren't you sorry you asked ;-)  I hold no grudges, and overall it was an educational experience for me.  I hope you can learn something from it as well.

Please feel free to email the webmaster (Pete Brown) at  with any questions, comments, or concerns about this site.

About The Technical Aspects of irritatedVowel.com

irritatedVowel is the site I use to try out all sorts of things in .Net, so if you question why something is the way it is, it may be simply because I wanted to learn a particular technology :-)  It is definitely a development web site.

Here is an old shot of the servers (they have since been replaced with a rack of servers).  The upper-right is the mail server, the bottom is this web server.  The black panel on the wall is my structured wiring center.  I have added additional servers since this photo was taken.  The mail was freely given to me by AIS as it is an old, outdated computer that was just taking up room in the back of the office.  You used to be able to give these to schools as a tax writeoff, but they don't even want them anymore.

Affiliations

This site is not affiliated with CSX or any other railroad. This site is also not affiliated with my employer (Applied Information Sciences, Inc.), or Microsoft. I am, however, allowed to use the CSX and Western Maryland logos on this site by virtue of my executed license agreement with CSX Corporation:

About Pete Brown

I was born and educated in Massachusetts, moved to Maryland from Connecticut in the mid 90s, and currently live near Annapolis with my wife Melissa and son Ben. Since I moved down here, I have been happily employed at  Applied Information Sciences, Inc , as a Lead Systems Architect, proposal author, Project Manager, and general "first guy in" on projects. I started professionally developing and/or designing software in 1992, and despite early forays into PowerBuilder, Borland C++, and Delphi, I have maintained a core focus on Microsoft technologies. Since the early betas and alphas, I have focused almost exclusively on the Microsoft .NET platform. My personal focus is on user interface design and human/computer interaction, so Silverlight is a favorite topic of mine. Mainly for that reason, I prefer RIA / WPF apps, but design html apps when it makes sense for the end users' needs or is required based on outside constraints, whether they be ill-informed or not. :-)

I really started back in 7th grade due to the friendship of Mr Dragon, the teacher who ran the computer lab at Mary E Wells Jr High School in Southbridge. Back then, we actually had recess in 7th grade, and I used to spend the time in there learning how to do things with the Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) VT100 and VT101 CPM machines and the Commodore VIC-20 and the new C64 computers. Sometimes I was able to stay after school and use them as well. While a chunk of the time was definitely spent playing games like 7 Cities of Gold, Ghostbusters, Blue Max, Decathalon and Impossible Mission ("another visitor! Stay a while. Stay forever!"), I also spent time learning Basic and Multiplan on both the C64 and the DEC computers. When I got to High School, the very small computer lab there had Apple II, IIe, II+ and even a single IIGS. I learned Pascal in there from Mrs Russell on those machines. The class back then was a pilot program to teach computers in High School, and I am happy I was a part of it. When I was a sophomore, I got my own computer - a Commodore 128, and spent a lot of time on that programming in basic, touching on CP/M, playing tons of games, and using it with a MIDI adapter to play music on a synthesizer. That computer also had the first GUI I used - GEOS/128.

My interests include reading (mainly Fantasy, Sci-Fi and some Western Maryland Railway history), model railroading (Western Maryland Railway), basic woodworking, CNC machining, birding, digital photography, 3d design and graphics using Rhino and 3ds Max, and of course, programming.

You can reach me via the "webmaster" address at irritatedVowel.com: .  Actual text email addresses in full or mailto links are generally not put on the web pages here simply because that makes it too easy for the spambots to harvest the names.  Sorry for any inconvenience, but blame the spammers.

Other Sites Hosted Here

Also hosted here is Melissa's Sister and Brother in Law's Site McPherson and Company - also designed and maintained by Melissa. Take a peek there if you would like to see some great jewelry.

Here's a photo of Melissa and me - it was cold out that day :-)