www.news-gazette.com/news/2007/08/02/ui_begins_effort__to_shift_web_address_
www.news.uiuc.edu/ii/07/0802/domain.html

There’s been scuttlebutt and general disgust in the campus IT professionals about an administration and Office of Public Affairs initative to migrate the campus from uiuc.edu to illinois.edu I think it’s an odd phenomon when websites go from short, concise domains to longer-named ones. We should be pushing for ui.edu (take that Indonesia!) or maybe uofi.edu. (chief.edu and illini.edu and illiniwek.edu are also available, but the NCAA says no. They did say we could keep the name of the state, so Illinois.edu it is!) I guess in this world of bookmarks and web searching rather than typing URLs or email addresses directly, we (the global we) can get away with moving from nwu.edu to northwestern.edu. But, especially given UIUC’s legacy as one of the first Internet schools, it seems sad to give up the short URL. Kinda like how it’s sad to stop using the low numbered (5 or 6 digit) ICQ identifiers. But I guess times change, and we should with them.

As I said, there are lot of people with fire in their britches about this, but I’m somewhat indifferent. Telling someone my email address almost always confuses them in the end. I don’t know what’s so hard about ewe eye ewe see dot eee dee ewe but I think the vowels jumble them up. Now I’ll have to explain to them how to spell illinoissssss…. But I’m also an experienced enough campus IT person to know this initative is probably going to go 10 years by the time they get the transition team hired, plans figured out, and technologies transitioning underway with enough time to transition everything that’s important. uiuc.edu might never die; I don’t think our campus is going to cut over as drastically/quickly as NWU, um, Northwestern, but I think starting this fall we’re going to see a lot more illinois.edu branding. And that’s okay. We can have both for a while.

*shrug* I’m with one of the guys on the uiuc.* newsgroups (guess those’ll have to change too) who said this is finally the straw to break out the personal email from the work/school stuff. I guess I’ll be domain name shopping soon.

(Edit 8/3 12:30pm: added UIUC News Bureau spin spin spin link)

The university has a need for ice cream. Not as much fun as “a need for meat,” but I like ice cream.

www.procure.stateuniv.state.il.us/dsp_notice.cfm?Uni=UIUC&PN=1MCN904

[Added 8/30/07]
Mmmm…. Edy’s

Awarded to:
Vendor: Edy’s Grand Ice Cream, Glendale, IL
Amount: An estimated $125,000
Terms: 9/5/07 to 6/30/08, with 5 one-year renewals
Number of Unsuccessful, Responsive Bidders: 0