I have now sent my response.

Today I received an email from Joel Lesser at Creative NetVentures, Inc, containing a Cease and Desist Notice from LinksManager.com, referring to my B2 Link Manager. The email says

“it has come to our attention that your unauthorized use of the trademarked name LINK MANAGER on your site (http://zed1.com/b2links/) is too similar to our trademarked name LINKSMANAGER”

The email provides a link to the US Patent and Trademark Office Trademark Applications and Registrations Retrieval service. Wherein you can find details of their registered trademark which is LINKSMANAGER. A search on the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) turns up Asyst Technologies, Inc. who own the trademarked name LINK MANAGER, described as “Computer hardware, namely, serial communications port multiplexes”.
Now my little B2 add-on describes itself as “B2 Link Manager” six times on the B2 Link Manager page which Joel references. There are also eight buttons on the page which very specifically describe it as “B2 Link Manager”, and in the provided HTML I use both Title and Alt tags with the text “B2 Link Manager”.
The email also says

“Because your product manages data in a similar way to how LinksManager manages data”

Well lets just look at that for a minute: From their home page we get:

LinksManager Features
 * No software to download or install
 * Fast, easy setup, or get a free setup from LinksManager support
 * Import your current links pages - no retyping or recoding necessary
 * Full cosmetic control to seamlessly blend your links pages with
   the rest of your website
 * Quickly add, edit, and delete links from your website - no coding or
   FTP necessary
 * Pages can live on our server, or your server
 * Automated Top Link Lists showcase your most popular links 
 * Automated email notifications for every step in the link exchange
   process
 * Reciprocal link checker searches the net to verify that your link
   or banner exists on all websites listed on your links pages
 * Dead link checker identifies and flags dead links listed on your
   links pages
 * Auto link rotator rotates your links nightly to insure equal coverage
   for all of the links on your site
 * Highlight new links with special graphic identifiers
 * Special automation features use LinkPartners.com to find link swap
   partners fast and easy
 * And much more!  Click here for a full feature list 

None of these apply to B2 Link Manager!
If we look at their code of ethics page which describes the “Linksmanager concept” thus:

LinksManager was designed to automate the following tasks:  
 * Manage link categories, including add, modify, and delete
 * Manage links, including add, modify, and delete
 * Rotate links pages alphabetically
 * Check for dead links
 * Check for link reciprocation on other websites
 * Send courtesy emails between webmasters swapping links
 * Search links
 * Import links site name, URL, and description only (LinksManager
   does not import email addresses)
 * Upload links pages automatically the account owner's server
 * Perform visual cosmetic changes to the account owner's links pages
 * Create Top Links Lists to display the most popular links 

Now, B2 Link Manager can do the first two; but none of the others. So I’m a little puzzled as to how “your product manages data in a similar way to how LinksManager manages data”.
Maybe Joel has mistaken me for one of these people.

Just spotted this story: J K Rowling richer than Queen.

“Boy wizard Harry Potter has made author J K Rowling richer than the Queen, according to The Sunday Times Rich List.
The 37-year-old has more than quadrupled her personal fortune in the past two years.
Her £280m makes her the wealthiest woman in showbusiness and Britain’s 122nd richest person – 11 places higher than the Queen. “

That’s an awful lot of money!

Aaargh! I’m still having trouble recreating my zed1.net sites! The DNS is now propagated, but I cannot get subdomains working. Worse I cannot get to the hosting services web site at the moment. their DNS is not working their main website domain does not resolve! Boo hoo, this is becoming painful.
So I’ve spent a couple of hours trying to sort that instead of doing other stuff. 🙁

I notice that Blog Hot Or Not is down at the moment. I’ve turned off the rating pulled from there in the side bar as it was stopping the page loading in a timely manner. I’ve also got my stats counter turned off as zed1.net is still down. Pretty soon there’ll be nothing left 🙂

Yep, this journal has been running for one year today!
In celebration, there is a new section in the left hand sidebar: “A year ago today” which will feature, each day, the posts I made on the same date one year before.
Here’s to the next year.

Having your country’s legislation driven by big business is a very bad thing:
‘Super-DMCA’ fears suppress security research

“A University of Michigan graduate student noted for his research into steganography and honeypots — techniques for concealing messages and detecting hackers, respectively — says he’s been forced to move his research papers and software offshore and prohibit U.S. residents from accessing it, in response to a controversial new state law that makes it a felony to possess software capable of concealing the existence or source of any electronic communication.”

“Taken literally, the law is bad news for businesses like Anonymizer.com and Hushmail — both services cater to privacy-conscious Internet users determined to conceal their place of origin from marketers, or to communicate anonymously. Critics say it would also ban firewalls and NAT boxes, dealing a blow to Internet security. “This statute essentially criminalizes the mere possession of technology,” says Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which opposes the legislation. “

“”It’s very difficult, reading the law, it makes basically everything that I do illegal,” says Provos.”

Link from slashdot