www - microsoft?

[Redboy]

Why/how is it that when I enter http://www/ (in Firebird) I get forwarded on to http://www.microsoft.com/ ? How did they manage to get this working?

[OutThere]

For some reason when I do that in Safari it takes me to a page where my Router/DSL Modem yells at me about the page being denied access...

[MatMistake]

I end up with www.www.com (http://www.www.com/) if I do that
and thats using opera 7.23 for windows

[ExoticFish]

weird, when i go there from work with safari i go to my works website

[tomf87]

Do you have search domains setup in your IP config?

Go to Terminal or 'cmd' if you're on Windows, and do:

nslookup www

[Sparky's]

I have Road Runner and use Safari so guess where I get taken to....

[MarkCollette]

Why/how is it that when I enter http://www/ (in Firebird) I get forwarded on to http://www.microsoft.com/ ? How did they manage to get this working?

Basically, www is not a valid top level domain (TLD), so the DNS that your ISP provides you have made a local host entry to make www resolve to www.microsoft.com. Usually this is done with a CNAME record.

This is the same mechanism that allows ISPs to tell you to just put "mail" as your mail server, instead of "mail.isp.com". I'm just surprised that www doesn't go to their own web site, as is the usual.

[Westside guy]

You can set your own defaults (in OS X or Linux) by manually editing /etc/resolv.conf. In my case, I like to be able to connect to machines on our department's domain (ee.washington.edu) or the university's domain (u.washington.edu) without typing a fully qualified domain name. So I've manually created the following file:


$ cat /etc/resolv.conf
search ee.washington.edu u.washington.edu
nameserver 128.95.120.1
nameserver 128.95.196.1
nameserver 192.168.0.1


A lot of my work involves ssh'ing into machines, but this affects any sort of internet connection (Web, FTP, etc.).

Note that by default this file gets filled in with values picked up from your ISP's DHCP server, as was already mentioned.

[ingenious]

i get nothing, but of course, why should i? In this part of the US, all there is are mom and pop ISPs who are down all of the time and dont know what they are doing.... :D

[rendezvouscp]

For some reason when I do that in Safari it takes me to a page where my Router/DSL Modem yells at me about the page being denied access...

In Safari, I get www.www.com, even though I too have an access denied page by my isp. Weird.
–Chase

[glosterseagul]

Safari can’t open the page “http://www/” because it can’t find the server “www”.

[cosman2001]

it takes me to my ISP homepage. Adelphia

[crapday]

in safari I'm taken to www.www.com. :p