I received a couple of very help replies and that was excellent (thanks!).
Since then I've been reading more about Namecoin. Some of the information which I've read was thought-provoking and some of it indicated that (these are my words) Namecoin is over and that study or interest, if there is any, in Namecoin should probably be limited to learning from it's mistakes.
Anyways, i'm still interested. Moreover, I'm not just interested in only learning from the mistakes that Namecoin has purportedly made in the past. I want to keep an open mind and be objective.
About 14 days ago I download the Namecoin Qt Client. However, I've been having trouble synchronizing the network. I believe that when I started I was 156 weeks behind and now 149 weeks.
I can remember when I first download Bitcoin's blockchain that it took a number of days but I don't remember it taking 2 weeks.
I also want to note here that I am out-of-town for work and that the WiFi signal that I'm using might be interfering with synchronizing Namecoin. (I've also had intermittent trouble with uTorrent as well since I've been here.)
At any rate one of my objectives was to register a .bit domain so I found a site called DomainCoin.net and for a fee of of 0.002 BTC bitcoin it appears (?) that I was able to register nandibear.bit
I probably shouldn't have went through the 3rd party but I figured that some brave (or foolish) noob needs to try out DomainCoin.net and later share their thoughts with others. So I did it -
Some worries that I have include, though are not limited to, the following:
(1) If you use the Namecoin Qt Client (it must be synchronized, of course) to register a .bit domain it only costs 0.005 Namecoin
If you register a .bit domain through DomainCoin.net it costs 0.002 Bitcoin
I can't find an online converter calculator which will do Namecoin to Bitcoin but I believe that 0.005 Namecoin is equal to approximately 0.0000023052 BTC Bitcoin
In other words, I paid a tremendously higher price using this 3rd party called Domaincoin.net
(2) Can my .bit domain be stolen by DomainCoin.net if they really wanted to do it? It seems like this might be possible but I don't have definitive proof.
All of the foregoing are just simple notes from a simple noob. Feel free to comment if you like.
I'll be adding more soon