Our company has been casually blogging for some time so now we have a good feel for what our customers like to see in this format. When our new website is released our blog will become a focal point of our site and a source for quality content on web hosting and applications. Company blogs will become more important in the next few years so you should start one now if you haven't already. While your business may already be well established, and perhaps even have a community forum with a good number of members, a blog can only further the connection with your customers. If you maintain quality posts on a regular basis, you'll really bag this new way of improving your public relations.

I have words of warning before you begin. I do see mistakes in existing company blogs out there, there are a few things that I believe should not be discussed. One of them is talking too much about your own products and services. That is what your website is for. No one wants to spend time reading about your services elsewhere only to see oddly placed sales pitches in the blog. It just doesn't fit. Your blog is a chance to point out something else about your company that is important but perhaps rarely noticed. You have to keep that in mind and be sure not to waste this opportunity. 

You should also be sure to keep things as serious as possible no matter how fun you're feeling that day. (We all have those days when the idea seemed like a good one but later turned out to just be off the wall.) The company blog is a reflection of your business. So unless you are going for silly and wacky, try to keep things consistent. There is a time for humor in many situations, but you have to control the impression that visitors will receive after reading your blog. After reading only a few posts, a visitor will have developed an image of your company and its vision. Make sure that image is the one you want.

With your goals and image in mind, the question now is: who in your company is going to create these posts? You may want to discuss the new blog idea with your staff to uncover who could work well together for developing content and then the writing process could be handled separately. Having a quality blog is definitely a challenge and really should not be the responsibility of only one person. There is a way for any team to accomplish making a blog a success for your business.

And now I'm off to hopefully start taking my own advice!

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Web hosting is still a relatively new market and its concept remains unknown to many. Walk down any street and ask a few people what web hosting means and you'll receive a variety of unsure answers. Because of that alone, you can imagine that the pool of web-host-worthy applicants to a tech job is small. Some believe that there will be a shortage of tech skilled workers in the next ten years, but I don't see it this way. Imagine the children growing up in the now flourishing Web 3.0 world. They grew up watching movies on a laptop in their room, they'll never know anything else. Netflix. Vonage. iPods. I am sure many of these children will choose to go into the IT field. Everything that we have grown accustomed to, or were forced to change, will be completely natural and inspiring for them. 

As for the present time in the hosting field, our collective results vary. Many entry-level employees at web hosting companies may only have call center backgrounds. Some of them may have websites of their own but were never sure of how web hosting really worked. Depending on how fast they learn and their initiative, these new "apprentices" can eventually be leaders and loyal members of your team. 

How many of your own employees previously worked in the hosting industry and how many are currently under apprenticeship? If you can say that everyone in your staff has hosting experience, your cherry picking may cause you to miss out on bright team players.

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While email spam is battled with relentless focus, web spam becomes more powerful while we aren't watching. By "web spam" I am referring to the type of spam that is posted on blogs, comment sections or forums. Because we have been so barraged with unwanted messages from bots, many sophisticated plugins and scripts have been developed. The Akismet web service blocks nearly all of the common bot-posted spam (online casinos, pharmacy links) and does its job so well, you may be lucky enough to only receive one bogus comment or trackback every few months. Akismet can be implemented into many applications which receive submitted content such as forums, wikis, contact forms and blogs.

So we finally have adequate protection available for these kinds of annoyances. The new arising problem is the spammers are realizing their success rates are dropping. If the bots can't get into our forums and blogs, then who can? Only real human eyes. In the past few months I have witnessed a definite increase in the amount of spam being posted by real people behind their smeared monitors. Unless these posters are directly benefiting from the spam they spew, they must be "employed" by the head spammers. The good part of this is that spammers' pockets are now being emptied. While their bot-operation failure rate climbs as we build more walls, they are reluctantly spending their own money to recoup losses.

The new breed of web spammers aren't just posting about their regular reduced-price selection of watches and illegal software. Now they are even targeting web hosting. It's a bit scary to think that some seedy host start-ups out there are recruiting this underground advertising. Luckily most of the big forums or high traffic blogs are quick to catch their posts and remove them fast. Now that we're back to fighting the old fashioned way, hopefully we'll show them what we've got.

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Senator Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens (Alaska) along with Senator Olympia Snowe (Maine) introduced the Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act this week. The problem is they are honestly in need of phishing education.

The APCPA just doesn't make much sense. First, phishing is already illegal. Second, phishing is going to continue happening no matter how many laws there are. The root of the problem has to be addressed. Blanketing more laws over existing ones is not helping. Third, there is a section in this bill about domain name Whois privacy. This has nothing to do with stopping phishing either. From the pages of the act:

(9) Phishing operators utilize deceptive domain names for their schemes. They routinely register domain names that mimic the addresses of well-known online merchants, and then set up websites that can fool consumers into releasing personal and financial information.

That is hardly the most popular method of phishing. Phishing most often happens within "cracked" directories on existing websites owned by innocent people. If a phish is reported, the data center which hosts the website is notified. This is because IP addresses do not lie. The person who owns the domain name has nothing to do with the phish (at least in a direct way) and they have every right to keep their details private if they want. Phishers are not in a habit of registering "bankofamericaaccountlogin.com" and buying hosting every day, that opens them up to being found easily. So the idea of possibly disallowing private domain registration is a foolish and definitely unfair to domain owners. (Disclaimer: I do believe businesses should have their details listed, but private citizens should have a choice.)

With all of the phish attention lately, I am ready to start a website with the real story of how the series of tubes is really being compromised. 

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I received what you might call unsolicited mail from the post office. It arrived addressed to Postal Customer and in bold was the title "Identity theft prevention tips."

If the majority of receivers do open these letters, this project will have very good results. Educating the public about phishing and identity theft online is hard enough so any outside help is really a good idea. The letter inside reads:

 "Enclosed is a brochure that provides you with helpful tips, phone numbers, websites, and steps you can take to deter, detect and defend yourself against identity theft. Please take the time to read through it and follow the advice. Sincerely, John E. Potter, Postmaster General."

The brochure itself is produced by the FTC and is actually the best brochure I've read yet. Most organizations are definitely becoming more savvy about these issues so explanations and solutions are more detailed than ever.

The problem with phishing is still rampant but ever since we implemented our anti-phishing redirect page a lot of other companies are following with the same. Our page had 4,083 visits in January alone due to the scams we have had to disable, mainly on dedicated servers. This is a huge improvement since my last post about the redirection page. I think this is because I continue to believe that the key to solving phishing really lies in educating dedicated server customers. The freedom we allow them should really be considered a danger and treated as such. Dedicated server hosts can still give customers the control they seek but they have to give them guidelines with it.

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It's the first month of 2008 and you know what that means. Instead of naming off goals to lose weight, stop smoking, eat organic, and run every morning at 6:30 A.M. what about our tech resolutions? Here's my list for you.

10.  Organize: If you never clean out old directories and files from your servers, what better time than now to get started? Go through your website error logs to clean up files which no longer exist but are still requested, change graphics that may have old dates or other inaccuracies, give your web presence an overall spot check and you will be amazed at how inspired you'll become during the process. As you go along you'll get new ideas of what new features should be added to your site. Do a spot check and brainstorm each month this year and you'll have the most organized and easy to use website ever for your customers. (And how about cleaning up your own desktop? Sheesh... look at all of those icons.)

9.  Apologize: Let's admit that we made mistakes last year. Did you not announce a few things that happened with your company? Did you postpone a feature for too long? If your hosting company has a blog, why not make a post that simply says you are sorry for the downfalls of the previous year and you are committed to setting everything right in 2008. 

8.  Ask: Through polls, blogs, forums and newsletters, ask your customers more questions. Get to know them and see what they think is missing from your services. In this process you will see what they do value the most already and you can work on completing the picture this year. 

7. Give: You do not have to give an iPod away with each dedicated server order, but give back to your customers more this year and show them that you appreciate them. Have contests and giveaways to connect your customers and reward them at the same time. 

6.  Focus: As the day goes by, it's easy to lose track of your ideas, especially when issues pop up with servers or customer situations. Even though we proclaim to be the geekiest of the geeks, it is not a bad idea to keep a notebook or organizer around and actually use a pen sometimes! I have personally found that writing down notes on paper and crossing them off is better than a text file. It's easy for a little text file to get lost behind thirty other windows (which seem to get all of the attention). The paper is always there by your mousepad and you will constantly be reminded it's there. Or, maybe get one of these:

ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/01/iriver_ebook...

5.  Listen: This goes along with "Ask" but sometimes you have to focus more on hearing what people have to say instead of injecting your own comments. You may miss something important if you are too immediately concerned with what you think about it. Let's say a customer is upset and has sent you a long ticket which makes you feel terrible, do not think of the ways they may be wrong, think of the ways in which they are truly right. Act upon it patiently and in the future, proactively.

4. Progress: Take a look at the features you offer. What have you changed or added in the past two years? In the past year? If you cannot make a list of at least 10 major changes/additions, then it is time to rethink your offerings and create excitement this year.

3. Help: Do you ever find yourself sending a customer a link to a blog post or tutorials site for help with a question? Sure that's the great part about the wealth of information the Internet makes available to us, but you should also create a massive amount of resources on your own site. Not only would this help your customers in-house,  it can also improve your own search engine rankings.

2. Lead: Your customers largely depend on you so this year become your own tech warrior. Be on the lookout for the next big thing, the next best applications, and your customers will benefit like never before. And they'll appreciate your hard work and dedication for bringing them the best new services and features.

1. Relax: It is hard to pull ourselves away from the computer (or stop carrying the laptop everywhere) but if you do not take the time to sit and read a book, take a walk in the park, all to have some quiet time in your mind, you may miss a revolutionary thought. You know, they can pop up at the strangest times! Let all of your experience quietly guide the way into something wonderful for your company in 2008. 

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There is a new world of do-it-yourself hosting on the horizon. I have noticed that new homes built in the past few years nearly always have a particular feature: structured wiring. This separate "foundation" which centralizes different cabling in your home is now standard in blueprints. This will become the norm and finding a data panel in the closet will become as normal as finding a television in the living room. But now we are not only limited to high definition television, being spoiled with higher speeds while surfing the web, remote controls that master everything from the lights to lawn sprinklers, or refrigerators that can order more groceries. Now we can host sites from our living room.

In the past two weeks there has been a lot of talk about the new Windows Home Server. Will this finally begin to crack open the once hard shell of hosting from home? Do you think hosting from home will remain at its current lull or will this trend actually speed up in the next few years? Will the "do-it-yourselfers" continue to find ways to remain independent or will they miss the customer service aspect of web hosting and the ideas they can gain from industry knowledge? And with Fiber To The Home (FTTH) service expanding rapidly, should old-fashioned web hosts be afraid?

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Lately all of the top news stories are about security breaches, hacking, and "net terrorism" in general. Many cases that even revolve around intellectual property rights have security and legal flavors mixed in. In fact, I am enrolled in an online cybersecurity course which is demanding a lot of my time alongside mandatory duties with work. I want to be the best I can be in this field and not let any of you (or theWHIR) down so I thank you all so much for your patience with me. I promise that I have a lot of juicy conversations from this field up my sleeve. So again, thank you and I'll be blogging soon.

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You may remember my recent blog about our network's anti-phishing page. Basically, when we find a compromised account on a server, we apply a redirection on any phish content (dimenoc.com/antiphish) rather than just disabling the page from view. Ray, one of our lead abuse administrators, analyzed the web stats for our phishing redirect page. In only four months over 11,000 unique IP addresses have hit the page. Can you believe it? Some of those visitors may not have fell for the scams (had they still been online), but for the rest: this amount of visits is startling. I was not expecting so many hits! I thought the Internet community was largely around this curve. There is obviously a lot of teaching yet to be done.

I am very pleased that those Internet users have been saved by our actions. Hopefully many of them will never click such links again and help others to understand the same. This redirection method may be one of our last chances to educate, at least where "phish spam" is concerned.

Our overall experience with this has truly inspired me so I will be writing further about this topic in my next post. Feel free to comment with your thoughts and any ideas.

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You know that I feel data center responsibility is very important, my past blog posts reflect that. I may be most familiar with the world of cPanel servers, but overall the ideals of security are the same for all data centers. No matter the types of servers we're hosting, we have to guide our customers in keeping their systems clean and up to date. In order to gauge our collective success I am always seeking articles that discuss if hosts are doing a good job administrating their customers. The latest press release from StopBadware.org has really turned up the heat in this topic. They released the findings of a data study which collected information on the hosts of spyware and malware distributors. The most disturbing fact revealed was that nearly 11,000 sites at iPower were reported to host some form of badware. This does not mean that all of the sites still exist on their network, but it's an alarming number to collect in the first place. EIG will have a lot of work to do, if they choose?

"Web hackers and badware distributors are constantly finding new ways to work around the safeguards that are put in place to protect consumers," Palfrey said in a press release. "Web hosting providers must do their part to stay ahead of the curve and help keep the Web sites they host safe from malicious attacks."

To our credit, it truly is a hard job to stay ahead of that all important curve. This is especially so when it comes to dedicated server clients. They can configure their servers however they would like and their choices aren't always the best ones. Then we guide them, one by one, when issues come up on their servers from port scans to spamming. Then with each report of malicious activity that we receive from third parties, we have to ask ourselves is this happening on any other server with this configuration? If so, plans must be made to counteract the issue to prevent it from happening again.

I think companies are also capable of attracting a certain type of client. If you make your stance on security clear and upfront, you will attract clients that also hold your same values. If you don't have a section of your website devoted to security, it really is time to create one in order to help every type of customer you have (from experienced to not so). Education is the only way we will combat these problems. Hosts have placed focus on topics that have been easier to talk about, from increased storage space to free applications included with plans. Now it is just as important to mention your security plans right along side the marketing speak. And just as Lou Honick so expertly stated in his latest post,

"Make no mistake, customers expect 100% uptime, all of the disk space and bandwidth included with their plans, and enough processing power to do whatever they need with their website. Whether we like it or not, whether it is fair or reasonable, that IS the expectation. And it will continue to be the expectation until we tell customers otherwise, emphatically and clearly."

There is no doubt about it: until we make security as important of a "feature" as everything else we offer, it will not be serious to our customers. We have to make our mission very clear to our client base or we will not progress. In the meantime, what happens now with the companies listed in StopBadware's report? Are they going to begin a mass cleanup or will the sites remain? We are responsible for large "pieces" of the Internet and the actions we take now can make the Internet a better and safer place for the future.

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