Dedicated Server Security Firms, Entensys, BrightCloud, Form Integrated Alliance

Paris, France - (The Hosting News) - April 11, 2008 - Hosted security services firm, BrightCloud, Inc., and software vendor and developer of Internet connection sharing products, Entensys, have begun a joint technology partnership to integrate the BrightCloud services into UserGate Security server.

Designed as a complete Internet Sharing software solution for protected Internet access, the BrightCloud Service will be integrated into the UserGate Proxy so that customers can implement web filtering as part of the proxy solution.

Alexander Levchenko, President of Entensys noted, ''The integration of the hosted BrightCloud Service with UserGate server provides users with a state of the art web filtering experience for managing their Internet access. This technology partnership shows our commitment to providing our users with a great user experience built upon superior technology covering maximum of existing Internet websites.''

Browsing the web, users will be able to implement acceptable internet usage policies appropriate for them. The web page request is handed off to the BrightCloud Service and the BrightCloud Master Database to determine the category of the website, and the integrated UserGate policy engine implement the appropriate policy.

Quinn Curtis, CEO of BrightCloud remarked, ''We are very pleased to announce this technology partnership. UserGate is a very successful product in the marketplace, and a perfect fit for the BrightCloud solution. Combining the Entensys product with the hosted BrightCloud Services provides UserGate customers with the security and peace of mind that they are being protected by the next generation of web filtering.''

The integrated hosted BrightCloud Service enables UserGate customers to protect themselves from websites that have been compromised as well as to enhance productivity by limiting access to non-productive resources, reduce exposure to legal liability, maximize IT resources by managing access to peer to peer websites, or IM or other internet communication websites. The BrightCloud Master Database, contains over 125 million sites, as well as supports multiple categories and confidence scores for each site. It also provides coverage of the major languages and others, including German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Russian, Ukrainian and Armenian.

Entensys Corporation is an international software vendor and developer of Internet connection sharing products, the provider of the popular UserGate Internet security server.

BrightCloud, Inc. is building the next generation web filtering database. BrightCloud provides security vendors with hosted security services that extend the value propositions of web filtering across the internet's Long Tail, which includes both the most popular sites as well as those sites less frequently visited, but visited nonetheless.

To learn more about Entensys, please visit: www.entensys.com.

For more information about BrightCloud, Inc., please visit: www.brightcloud.com.

Managed Hosting Contest from PEER 1, Awards Big Room Studios

Vancouver, British Columbia - (The Hosting News) - April 14, 2008 - Provider of online IT infrastructure, PEER 1, has released the winner of its Growing Pains Free Hosting Contest, with a prize of 12 months of free managed hosting, valued at over $2,400.

Tim Mateosian, co-founder of Big Room Studios, has won a managed hosting server, which includes 1 TB of monthly data transfer and bi-weekly vulnerability scans. The open contest received more than 1,000 online entries from viewers of the premier episode of ''Growing Pains,'' the company's humorous video-short series.

Rajan Sodhi, Vice President of marketing at PEER 1 noted, ''The best thing about this contest is that it truly helps Tim solve his IT 'growing pains' and expand his business. Business and tech managers go through many IT challenges as their online demands grow. Sharing their stories in entertaining ways can help others navigate the complexities of running an online business.''

Headquartered in Portland, Maine, Big Room Studios specializes in offering combined online services, which primarily include web and print design, web development and IT support and consulting. Started in 2002 by Mateosian and his brother, the company now has clients throughout North America and the UK. Mateosian has been a PEER 1 customer for nearly six years and has worked in the hosting industry for more than 10 years. He has always loved computers and technology and started in the industry as a hosting reseller. The business grew to include advanced web solutions when his brother, a talented programmer, joined and created a web framework for the firm. PEER 1's self- managed hosting is the ideal solution for this kind of programming, since the Mateosian brothers require more control over the server environment in order to run their web solutions.

Mr. Mateosian added, ''I am excited about winning the managed hosting contest. This is extremely good timing since our company is growing quickly and we were planning on expanding anyway. And I have never won anything before."

PEER 1 will be holding a new contest, calling for contestants to create and upload their own "growing pains" video, in conjunction with the upcoming second episode of ''Growing Pains'' due out in May.

PEER 1, an IT infrastructure provider, believes in the limitless opportunity of the Internet and the business growth and continuity it provides for its more than 9,000 customers. PEER 1 delivers highly scalable managed hosting and co-location solutions to ensure customers' online presence is always fast, always available. Since 1999, PEER 1 has grown to include data centers and network points of presence in 17 major cities across North America and Europe. Serving a variety of companies, PEER 1 offers solutions that grow through every stage of web commerce, regardless of company size. The company's headquarters are in Vancouver, Canada and the stock is traded on the TSX Venture exchange under the symbol PIX.

To learn more about Big Room Sudios, please visit: www.bigroomstudios.com.

For more information about PEER 1, please visit: www.peer1.com.

Ensim Web Hosting Application Firm's Unify, Chosen by YouSAAS

Santa Clara, California - (The Hosting News) - April 15, 2008 - Management software for unified communications and collaborative infrastructure, and web hosting application firm, Ensim Corporation's Unify, has been selected by YouSAAS, for its mature support of Microsoft Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC).

In addition, Unify was selected for its extensibility, allowing the company and its network of ISVs and resellers to integrate any application with the Unify platform and deliver it as a service. YouSAAS offers small and medium-sized enterprises with a full range of services, including Hosted Exchange 2007, SharePoint, Mobility services with BlackBerry and Windows Mobile, MS Dynamics CRM 4.0, Web Hosting and Terminal Services.

Arnaud Hacquart, President of YouSAAS noted, ''As more ISVs look to deliver their applications in a hosted environment, YouSAAS offers the quickest time to market and to revenue. We pride ourselves on our ability to streamline the process of delivering SaaS solutions so that our ISVs and resellers can focus on what they do best. Ensim's Unify and its SDK allow us to deliver on this promise.''

Ensim Unify was developed to give service providers and third-party ISVs the ability to plug in application managers and easily control the provisioning of new hosting services. With more than a dozen pre-integrated service managers for hosted applications, Unify allows service providers to quickly launch a complete set of hosted services. This enables service providers and ISVs to rapidly create, deliver and bundle revenue-generating hosted services, with the added advantage of integrating new applications at any time.

Francois Depayras, Vice President of marketing and alliances at Ensim Corporation remarked, ''By giving service providers, ISVs and application integrators the ability to build connectors between virtually any third-party application and the Ensim Unify platform, we allow our customers to go to market quickly with the services they need today, while ensuring they have the tools necessary to grow their business and accommodate their customers' future needs. Using our sophisticated SDK, YouSAAS can add to its SaaS offerings as needed to deliver a full range of applications to its ISV and reseller customers.''

The Unify SaaS SDK is available to all qualified customers currently using Unify.

Founded in 2006, YouSAAS is a global Software as a Service provider that offers ISVs and resellers a shared platform for SaaS solutions. Covering all necessary actions from key success factors study to being live, with a high-availability infrastructure, know-how and easy deployment plan, YouSAAS makes it possible for software companies to get their software online and offers their clients real SaaS-solutions through the Internet. As a Microsoft SaaS Incubation Center, YouSAAS works with most of the leading international ISVs and Partners - Ensim, Microsoft, Legato, Citrix, Axios Systems, Frontrange, OCC Software, Kayentis, and provides services to more than 20,000 end-users.

Founded in 1998, Ensim Corporation is a provider of management software for unified communications and collaboration infrastructure. Ensim products are used by service providers and enterprises worldwide to accelerate and enable deployment of integrated solutions, simplify and automate secure management of complex environments, and increase user and IT productivity. Ensim is Microsoft Gold Certified, and maintains strategic partnerships with many leading infrastructure vendors including Research In Motion (BlackBerry), Hewlett-Packard, Accenture, Siemens and BroadSoft. For more information, contact Ensim at 1-877-693-6746 or 1-408-496-3700 outside the United States.

For more information about YouSAAS, please visit: www.yousaas.com.

To learn more about Unify, please visit: www.ensim.com/products/unify/Saas.

For more information about Ensim, please visit: www.ensim.com.

Dedicated Server Provider, FastServers.net, Combined with Layered Technologies

Plano, Texas - (The Hosting News) - April 16, 2008 - The Chicago based managed hosting company, FastServers.net, will be acquired by on demand IT infrastructure provider, Layered Technologies. Financial transaction information of the deal was not released.

Jack Finlayson, Chief Executive Officer of Layered Technologies noted, ''Thousands of clients rely on the exceptional service offerings of FastServers.net, and the combination of the two companies will expand the range of offerings and provide additional scale for client growth. We look forward to bringing these two exceptionally talented teams together to service our customers and meet the demands of the high growth hosting industry.''

The acquisition will combine the expertise of FastServers.net in managed dedicated hosting with Layered Technologies' leading Grid and unmanaged offerings. The combination of Layered Technologies and FastServers will offer a new range of superior services significantly benefiting customers.

Ian Andrusyk, President and CEO of FastServers.Net remarked, ''With Layered Technologies and FastServers.net working together, business owners will view their managed service provider as a valued, long-term partner that helps manage IT infrastructure.''

Layered Technologies will begin immediate integration of the two companies' operations, product development, distribution and customer support organizations to ensure a smooth transition and immediate value for customers, employees and partners. Combined, the company will serve over 6,000 clients.

Layered Technologies enables customers to forego capital expenses and save on operating costs while focusing on core business issues. Clients range from leading-edge Web 2.0 startups, successful mid-sized enterprises and some the world's largest consultancy and integration firms.

FastServers.Net features managed dedicated servers combined with exclusive DEFCON Management Services. FastServers.Net provides full server monitoring and recovery, patches and upgrades, advanced technical support, and enhanced security features. By partnering with leading vendors such as Microsoft, Red Hat, cPanel, Plesk, HELM, InterNAP, Urchin, and others, FastServers.Net's goal is to deliver solutions for all organizations.

Based in Frisco Texas, Layered Technologies, Inc. is one of the five largest global providers of on-demand hosting and utility computing solutions, providing dedicated, partially managed server hosting solutions primarily for the small and medium-sized enterprise SME market. They provide customers with the highest quality technology, infrastructure and support services that enable them to operate servers at secure Tier III/IV data centers, while saving them the capital and operating costs typically associated with purchasing and maintaining their own servers at co-location facilities. Layered Technologies servers and associated network facilities are used by customers to host a variety of Internet-enabled applications, including content and e-commerce Web sites, software as a service (''SaaS'') offerings, online multiplayer games, shared Web site hosting services, and streaming multimedia content distribution and delivery, among other applications.

To learn more about FastServers, please visit: www.fastservers.net.

For more information about Layered Technologies, please visit: www.layeredtech.com.

Web Hosting Solutions Firm, R1Soft, to Exhibit at MySQL Conference and Expo

Houston, Texas - (The Hosting News) - April 11, 2008 - Developer of near-continuous data protection products for Linux and Windows, R1Soft, will showcase its products and True Granular Restore technology at this year's MySQL Conference and Expo, to be held April 14-17 in Santa Clara, California.

At the largest gathering of MySQL developers, users, and database administrators. This year's show provides an opportunity for R1Soft to educate the MySQL community about its Continuous Data Protection software for MySQL database servers. R1Soft's database backup technology, True Granular Restore, is the first of its kind for MySQL, allowing developers and administrators the ability to restore individual tables to original or alternate locations using an easy-to-use web interface.

David Wartell, Vice President of R1Soft, a division of BBS Technologies remarked, ''Since we introduced our MySQL CDP product, we have seen a rapid adoption from administrators tasked with maintaining mission critical MySQL environments. The usual reaction we hear is , 'Wow! Someone finally solved the MySQL backup problem. While other vendors were sitting around waiting for a new MySQL backup API, we developed a new Linux device driver to facilitate near-Continuous point-in-time MySQL backups. I look forward to interacting with database users at this year's conference.''

R1Soft's MySQL data protection product is the only product capable of MySQL hot backups for both MyISAM and InnoDB table types. The technology provides a complete server backup and allows databases to be backed up as often as every 15 minutes, without interrupting or slowing down a busy production database in any way.

Mr. Wartell will host a conference session at the show titled, ''MySQL Backups Go near-Continuous.'' He will discuss the changes to MySQL data protection, including current MySQL backup technologies, the coming MySQL backup API, and the future of MySQL backup and restore.

R1Soft will be at booth #509 on the floor of the exhibit hall, where it will offer a variety of promotional materials and run its popular prize wheel. Attendees have the chance to win one of many floor prizes, including CDP Starter packs, t-shirts, penguins, and cash.

The 2008 MySQL Conference and Expo brings over 1,600 open source and database enthusiasts together to harness the power of MySQL and celebrate the huge MySQL ecosystem. Peers and experts from a wide variety of companies and countries will gather at the MySQL Conference and Expo, to discuss and learn from some of the leading visionaries in the open source world.

The largest gathering of MySQL developers, users, and DBAs worldwide, the event reflects MySQL's wide-ranging appeal and capabilities. The open atmosphere of the MySQL Conference and Expo helps IT professionals and community members to create the best database applications, tools, and software through expert instruction, hands-on tutorials, readily available MySQL developers, and guru business advice. Users gain the knowledge they need to rapidly build solid applications with MySQL that scale with the enterprise.

Founded in 2003, R1Soft is a provider of disk-based backup solutions. The company's customer list includes some of the world's largest hosting providers. R1soft products provide Continuous Data Protection (CDP) for over 85,000 mission-critical Linux and Windows servers worldwide. In November, 2007 R1Soft was acquired by BBS Technologies, Inc.

To learn more about the conference, please visit: http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2008.

For more information about R1Soft and Continuous Data Protection, please visit: www.r1soft.com.

Dedicated Server, Data Center Firm, Rack-Soft, Deploys Multi-Tenant DNS Update

Wilmington, Delaware - (The Hosting News) - April 14, 2008 - Server management and data center administration facilitator, Rack-Soft, has launched its latest release of multi-tenant DNS management software, the new 4PSA DNS Manager.

The release is based on the new Rack-Soft's development framework and comes with over 80 additional features. Developed as a server level application that delivers DNS hosting consolidation and automation to service providers and businesses, 4PSA DNS Manager centralizes domain zone records from any hosting server, based on any control panel or operating system, in order to increase manageability and to create a single, fail redundant DNS infrastructure.

Bogdan Carstoiu, General Manager at Rack-Soft noted, ''4PSA DNS Manager 3 was redesigned to fulfill the complex demands providers face today. The new version helps our customers increase infrastructure redundancy and automate all DNS related operations. Not only that the new framework offers a strong foundation for future developments, but it also improves the product speed and makes it scale better. Rack-Soft also changed the licensing agreement for 4PSA DNS Manager, allowing anyone to use it with up to ten DNS zones for free.''

4PSA DNS Manager operates without any administrator intervention and allows customers to use the regular hosting control panel to manage DNS zones, so the provider can organize the DNS infrastructure without any impact on end users. The software also provides a full featured web based interface that is used by system administrators for configuration purposes or by DNS customers to manage their DNS zones and settings.

The application enables hosting providers, Internet service providers, and Data Centers to automate DNS infrastructure management and allows end users to manage DNS zones in a perfectly controlled, highly available environment. 4PSA DNS Manager 3 provides many new features, including classless zone delegation, support for non-continuous reverse zones, SOA record replication, integrated configuration backup, and more control options. The new version comes with a web services API that can be used by third parties to access and control product features remotely.

4PSA DNS Manager is available for Linux operating systems in a wide range of formats, including ISO image, VMware image, and Virtuozzo/OpenVZ templates. The product can be downloaded for free and can be used with up to ten DNS zones. Commercial licenses start from US $249 and include 12 months of technical support.

Rack-Soft is a developer and integrator of software solutions for the server market, utilized by ISP, HSP, small and medium businesses. Rack-Soft products are developed to simplify server management, data center administration, and voice communications. Rack-Soft implements CMM (Capability Maturity Model) in order to maximize software reliability.

To learn more, please visit: www.4psa.com.

SoftLayer Dedicated Web Hosting Provider, Supports MMO Guildsites Online Gaming

Dallas, Texas - (The Hosting News) - April 15, 2008 - On-demand hosting services and virtual data center provider for the small to medium enterprise (SME), SoftLayer, was chosen to be the hosting service for MMO Guildsites, a Toronto based web site design and hosting company.

MMO Guildsites assists the massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) guilds, to create feature-rich sites for its membership.

George Karidis, Chief Strategy Officer for SoftLayer noted, ''We're excited to be MMO Guildsites' solution of choice. They have an exceptional offering. And we're proud of our role in the online gaming industry. We are an established leader in the segment, with a strong and growing customer base. Clearly, our level of performance and connectivity, as well as our interconnected facilities from coast to coast, have made us an ideal resource for the industry.''

Founded in 2006, MMO Guildsites differentiates itself from competitors with premium site-building features, including: - an easy-to-use site design tool with an advanced AJAX interface - a visual theming tool with a library of 80 professionally designed themes - innovative add-ins that integrate game activity into the guild sites The company has grown to host more than 700 sites for guilds based around the world, representing major game titles including World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, and EverQuest.

As the company grew, MMO Guildsites struggled with finding a provider that offered the winning combination of network reliability, hardware and services to ensure positive experiences for itself - and its expanding customer base. MMO Guildsites turned to SoftLayer for the level of performance and stability necessary to accommodate its growing technology needs. They chose SoftLayer's quad processor multi-core platform and use secure, out-of-band management through VPN for full control of their environment, enabled by SoftLayer's industry-leading network topology. Additionally, SoftLayer's proprietary customer portal lets the company easily track its customers' traffic and usage.

Mr. Kardis added, ''SoftLayer's commitment to innovation and service allows our customers to constantly evolve. We are pleased to be part of MMO Guildsites' continuing success.''

Headquartered in Plano, Texas, SoftLayer provides next-generation web hosting and on-demand datacenter services on a global basis from facilities located in Dallas, TX and Seattle, WA. Utilizing proprietary management tools coupled with the industry's first network-within-a-network topology, the company delivers unprecedented power and control to securely manage IT environments while providing unparalleled scalability.

To learn more about SoftLayer, please visit: www.softlayer.com.

Web Hosting Products and Services Firm, Sitestar, Acquires N2 The Net Customers

Lynchburg, Virginia - (The Hosting News) - April 16, 2008 - Residential and business Internet access, web hosting products and services firm, Sitestar Corporation, has acquired the Internet access customer base and assets of Tennessee's N2 The Net firm.

The acquisition closely follows the Company's recent purchase of Comcation and is the second transaction in what Sitestar expects to be a year of increased deal flow and growth in new, opportunistic market segments.

Frank R. Erhartic, Jr., CEO for Sitestar noted, ''N2 The Net's narrowband and broadband customer base fits squarely into Sitestar's acquisition sweet-spot where our economies of scale and value-added service offerings enable us to generate stronger margins and retain customers longer than smaller ISPs can. We are encouraged by our progress so far in 2008 and anticipate closing more opportunities by leveraging our increased cash flow to capitalize upon the current economic climate.''

N2 The Net customers can look forward to an easy transition, access to additional services such as Surfboost Web Accelerator as well as other benefits including advanced spam filtering, extremely reliable network uptime and extended support hours, along with Sitestar's friendly, personal support.

Mr. Erhartic added, ''We welcome the former N2 The Net customers to Sitestar and pledge to deliver outstanding service and support.''

Sitestar is an Internet and computer solutions provider that offers narrow-band (dial-up) services and broadband Internet access services (ISDN, DSL, satellite, cable and wireless), web hosting and design, and other value-added services including web acceleration, spam and virus filtering as well as spyware protection. Headquartered in Lynchburg, Virginia, Sitestar maintains multiple sites of operation and provides services to customers throughout the U.S. and Canada, with concentrations of customers in the Mid-Atlantic and Rocky Mountain regions in the U.S. and in Ontario, Canada.

To learn more, please visit: www.sitestar.com.

Digiweb, Web Hosting, Data Center Services Firm, Acquires Novara Hosting Service

Dublin, Ireland - (The Hosting News) - April 11, 2008 - Web hosting and broadband, telecom provider, Digiweb, has acquired veteran web hosting services firm, Novara, as well as its host.ie and register.ie brands.

The deal is the first consolidation in Irish web host market in 10 years. Award winning web hoster and domain registrar Novara operate under the trade names host.ie and register.ie and add over eight years of intensive industry experience in the Irish webhosting market to Digiweb's existing specialist hosting team and datacentre services.

Dan King, Hosting and Managed Infrastructure Manager with Digiweb noted, ''Our drive to bring better services and value to the Irish hosting market has been further strengthened by the acquisition of Novara. We're absolutely thrilled to welcome Novara's experienced and knowledgeable team to Digiweb, and look forward to supporting existing Novara customers with the same expert team and top service they already enjoy, and offering them now a single solution provider for their hosting, datacentre, broadband and telecoms needs.''

The Irish hosting industry has been fragmented for some time and this represents the first major acquisition and consolidation in the Irish market in 10 years. Digiweb's re-entry into the hosting market in 2006 has seen them capture significant market share and high profile customers, hosted from their custom-built datacentre in Blanchardstown. Digiweb has also reported that it is eyeing further acquisitions in hosting and voice in Ireland and the UK regions.

Eoin Costello, Founder and Managing Director of Novara remarked, ''Novara customers and staff will benefit hugely from Digiweb's proven commitment to the Irish hosting industry. Digiweb's determination to become the number one provider in the Irish hosting market, there being a wholly owned Irish business with strong customer service and business growth as a focus, made them the obvious choice as the best long term home to our customers. We know that they will be well looked after.''

Digiweb Ltd is one of Ireland's leading Telecoms and Internet Services Providers, offering Wireless and Fixed Broadband, Telephony, and Web Hosting services. Digiweb is 100% Irish owned and run, and currently employ 155 staff in Dublin, Dundalk, Waterford and Limerick. Digiweb was the 2007 Irish Telecommunications Company of the Year, and 2007 Irish ICT Company of the Year, and has been ranked by Deloitte in the Top 3 fastest growing companies in Ireland for each of the last 3 years. Digiweb has also been ranked within the Top 100 companies by Deloitte for the past 3 years in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Digiweb is a provider in the Irish broadband market having established an extensive wholly owned telecoms network across the country. The company also services clients throughout Ireland and Europe for Web Hosting, Data Centre Services, and Satellite Broadband, and is currently developing wireless networks in a number of northern European countries.

To learn more, please visit: www2.digiweb.ie.

Web Hosting Provider, Sun, Highlights New Networking Resources Platform

San Francisco, California - (The Hosting News) - April 15, 2008 - Technology firm and web hosting provider, Sun Microsystems, Inc., recently revealed a research and development project, intended to provide a hosting platform for delivering Internet-based services.

Project Caroline was on the agenda of a Sun Labs Open House which took place at Sun offices in Menlo Park, California. The platform comprises a programmatically configurable pool of virtualized compute, storage, and networking resources, according to Sun. The Project Caroline Web page states that the project is designed to serve an emerging market of small and medium-sized SaaS providers.

According to information released by the company: ''Anticipating needs driven by new SaaS business models and processes, Project Caroline helps SaaS providers develop services rapidly using high-level programming languages like the Java programming language, Ruby, Python, and Perl to update in-production services frequently and to automatically flex their use of platform resources to match changing runtime demands.''

Services can programmatically allocate, monitor, and control virtualized compute, storage, and networking resources via Project Caroline. Interfaces are featured for managing platform resources. Developers can build services that update and flex platform resources usage. Project Caroline resources are exposed via high-level abstractions, including virtual machines, networks, and network-accessible file systems and databases. A horizontally scaled pool of distributed resources is presented as a single system to provide developers with a unified platform for allocating and controlling resources.

Also on the Open House agenda were e OMS, pertaining to a royalty-free media system; Project Live, approaching software distribution and configuration by combining the firmware model with customization; and the Lively Kernel project for Web programming. Other agenda items included: Project Wonderland, an open-source toolkit for building 3D virtual worlds for business and education collaboration; Project Darkstar, which is a gaming server; and Project MiRTLE (Mixed Reality Teaching and Learning Environment).

Sun began offering web hosting services, based upon the Solaris 10 Operating System, and Sun systems and storage, through a partnership with Joyent and NaviSite. The offer is available for eligible U.S. based members of the Sun Startup Essentials program, designed to help early-stage companies get to market more quickly on Sun's enterprise- class technologies at a cost that fits their needs to conserve cash.

The hosting requirements of Web 2.0 and Internet Services startups typically differ from those of traditionally established companies, due to their increased need to grow and expand services with fluctuating customer demands. Sun is working closely with Joyent and NaviSite to help address these requirements and is now able to offer these emerging companies all the advantages of the extremely flexible and scalable Solaris 10 OS based infrastructure.

In addition to offering deeply discounted servers, storage and services to Web 2.0 and early-stage companies, the Sun Startup Essentials program also offers free technical advice via email and access to free software, such as Apache, MySQL and Perl (AMP), Ruby on Rails optimized to run on the Solaris 10 OS. The program also offers eligible companies the option of reduced price web hosting services through Sun partners including Joyent, Layered Technologies and NaviSite.

Joyent and NaviSite are using Solaris Container virtualization technology, part of the Solaris 10 OS, the most advanced OS on the planet, to deliver the secure and high-performance infrastructure to help deploy next-generation web applications that can scale based on demand. Sun's partners also provide value-add services to manage and monitor their hosted environments. With highly flexible hosting offerings, customers can choose to start with a small capacity and grow flexibly as their business and community grows.

The Sun Startup Essentials program is designed to help eligible U.S. based startup companies get to market faster while conserving cash. The program offers its members a range of discounted Sun products and services, including its award-winning Sun Fire x64 servers and Sun Fire servers with CoolThreads technology, and Sun's select StorageTek line of products, including modular disk arrays, NAS and tape storage products.

In addition to offering products and services to eligible U.S. based members, Sun also is offering free technical advice via email and access to free software such as Apache, MySQL and Perl (AMP) optimized to run on the Solaris 10 OS. Program members can also select the web hosting infrastructure from Sun partners based on Sun technologies along with services they need, in case they choose not to build and operate the infrastructure themselves. Sun develops technologies designed to power comprehensive markets, in more than 100 countries.

To learn more about Sun's web hosting program, please visit: www.sun.com/startupessentials.

For more information about Sun, please visit: http://sun.com.

Why You Must Own Your Own Domain Name

This is a guest post from Xavier Lanier, publisher of Notebooks.com and a strong believer in getting the right domain name for yourself and your online business.

If you don't own 'yourname'.com, stop reading this and head over to your favorite domain registrar and buy it. If you don't someone else eventually will and may even turn it into a web site dedicated to making fun of you with a naked puppet.

That might sound outlandish, but that's exactly what's happened to Shel Israel - a blogging expert, co-author of Naked Conversations and host of a video show over at FastCompany.TV.

Shel is new to the video format, and New York blogger Loren Feldman had some harsh words about the new show. Loren stepped it up his criticism by publishing videos of a naked puppet 'Shel Israel.'

To make matters worse, Loren registered ShelIsrael.com, which is now home to the videos of the Shel Israel sock puppet. While Shel still needs sponsors for his FastCompany.TV show, ShelIsrael.com and the puppet has a sponsor after a few short days.

I'm not going to pass judgment on the quality of either bloggers' videos, motives or expertise, but not owning your own domain is really bad move. Even if you don't plan on using 'yourname.com' in the near (or distant) future, owning it is cheap insurance against a debacle like this. If you have some cash to spare or you're even mildly famous/controversial you should also look into buying the rest of the TLD's that include your name (.net,.org, etc.).

Understandably, Shel was upset and he's sounded off on his blog and on twitter about the situation. Shel got really defensive and sounded off on twitter and his blog, but came to this conclusion:

I did investigate the law, and on the surface of it, it appears that Loren is in his legal rights and there is nothing I can do about it, without a major legal effort, which I have neither time nor inclination to pursue. I lose. Loren gets to keep the site. If Loren were a decent sort, could call as you suggest, and ask him to take down the content and turn the site over to me at cost. I doubt that action would be successful.

What comes out of this is probably a victory for GoDaddy and other domain registrants. I imagine there’s a whole lot of people registering their names these days, because now–like me–they understand what malicious people can do.

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Managed Hosting Services Provider, Attenda, to Host New SAP System

London, United Kingdom - (The Hosting News) - April 16, 2008 - Web hosting managed services company, Attenda Limited, has been engaged to host the new SAP system for Smythson, through a five year management infrastructure contract.

Martin Wildsmith, commercial director, Smythson noted, ''We selected to work in partnership with Attenda because of their credentials, their track record and their flexibility. They have the unique capability to assist us through managing this change in our strategic IT systems, and to extend the depth and breadth of our limited internal SAP resource.''

Attenda is providing a fully managed service for the new SAP infrastructure in the initial phase of a major project to review and replace the current IT systems and business processes at Smythson.

Established in 1887 and the holder of three Royal Warrants, Smythson is internationally renowned for its elegant range of leather goods, travel and writing accessories and bespoke stationery. Exquisite quality, timeless design and traditional British craftsmanship have made Smythson the choice of British and European royal families and a number of international celebrities, as well as leaders in the arts, business and politics. Smythson recently opened their second US store in Beverly Hills.

The service includes taking operational responsibility and management of the SAP system up to and including the SAP Basis layer, in a secure and robust environment. The solution includes the full extent of back office applications from Financials, ERP, warehousing and procurement through to sales, telesales and CRM. Recently re-accredited as SAP Hosting Partner, Attenda has proven expertise in the operational management of SAP and a continued investment in delivering highly available and secure SAP managed services.

Attenda has built a team of highly skilled, highly motivated and fully certified engineers providing 24 x 7 operational support to its clients. Attenda?s partnership with SAP provides clients with access to the very latest SAP NetWeaver platform and new evolving enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA) and business process technologies, plus the availability of an extended network of SAP technical specialists and business consultants.

Attenda Managed Services company, manages vital applications that businesses relies upon to function effectively, allowing for selective outsourcing of IT operations. Attenda manages, secures and optimises the performance of applications, irrespective of the physical location of the infrastructure. With over 5 years' investment into Attenda M.O., Attenda's operations platform, the company provides the people, process and technology to deliver high service levels, at a cost that is amortised across Attenda's client base - currently 134 of the UK's leading companies. The company has acquired substantial financial backing, the industry's leading accreditations and a portfolio of clients including bmi, Christian Aid, easyCar, Microsoft, NHS, Princes, St. James's Place and Travelodge.

Attenda is both ISO9001 and ISO27001 accredited, an HP SP Signature Partner, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, a SAP Adaptive IT Hosting Provider, a SunTone accredited managed service provider and an Accredited Catalist Supplier. Attenda is one of only seven companies to have been ranked in the UK's Sunday Times ARM Tech Track 100 for three consecutive years and was voted 2007 Best Managed Services Provider by Data Centre Europe Awards 2007.

To learn more, please visit: www.attenda.de.

The Planet Dedicated Server Web Host, Receives Corporate Relocation Award

Houston, Texas - (The Hosting News) - April 14, 2008 - Privately held dedicated web hosting company, The Planet, has received the Landmark '08 award for ''Best Corporate Headquarters Relocation,'' for opening its Bayou Place headquarters in December 2007.

Consolidating its offices in downtown Houston from two locations in north Houston, the Planet was nominated for the award by its real estate brokers, Jackson and Cooksey Ltd.

Douglas J. Erwin, Chairman and CEO of The Planet noted, ''When we evaluated new locations for our headquarters, our goal was to find a creative, open space that would provide an environment where our employees would enjoy coming to work everyday. The Planet's Bayou Place provided the exact footprint we envisioned. It had been vacant for almost 20 years and offered an open floor plan with untold possibilities. The team of experts who helped us, including our own internal facilities organization, was committed to our vision of excellence. It takes teamwork to make this vision a reality, and they all delivered. When potential employees interview, they see our commitment to an extraordinary workplace.''

Sponsored by the Houston Business Journal, The Planet earned first prize in the category against competition from far larger projects and companies. Nominee finalists included Bechtel Equipment's regional headquarters and the Reed Hycalog world headquarters and technology center.

Andy Iversen, Senior Vice President of Jackson and Cooksey remarked, ''It takes tremendous vision to take long-term vacant space and create a new corporate headquarters. The Planet's Doug Erwin told us he had always wanted to create an office environment in an airplane hangar, and this was a close match. The project is one of the most creative we've had an opportunity to represent.''

A broad range of companies partnered with The Planet to create its new headquarters location. Following is a partial list:

Developer: The Cordish Company, represented by Taylor Gray
Real Estate Brokers: Jackson and Cooksey Ltd. brokers included Senior Vice Presidents Andy Iversen and John Beach, and Senior Associate Anthony Squillante
Architect: Kendall/Heaton Associates' Jory Alexander led the design and architectural team
Contractor: D.E. Harvey Builders, represented by Rusty Gorman, Eric Lowe, Charles Gates and Javier Escalona

Ultimately, The Planet endeavors to provide:

• High levels of network capacity and speed to deliver peak performance
• Instant scalability to handle even the largest spikes in network traffic
• Parallel, redundant, multi-tiered network routing and switching architecture to assure reliability and stability
• Multiple layer network security that prevents Delayed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks from harming businesses
• Knowledgeable experts with a passion for excellence and a commitment to operate the best networks in the business

The Planet is a leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting over 22,000 small and medium size businesses and 6.7 million web sites worldwide, using the best choice of servers, software tools and support, backed by enhanced facilities and network connectivity.

For more information about The Planet, please visit: www.theplanet.com.

Server Intellect Web Hosting Company, Premieres Affiliate Partner Program

Orlando, Florida - (The Hosting News) - April 14, 2008 - A new custom developed Affiliate Partner Program, has premiered at advanced Windows-based, Microsoft Certified, shared, virtual private server (VPS) and dedicated web hosting solutions firm, Server Intellect.

Designed to allow partners to earn commissions for referring purchasing customers, the Affiliate Program was designed by the company's in-house development team, and includes extensive features, such as drill down sales reporting to analyze details of each sale, Referring URL, IP Address and Browser UserAgent, complete sales and click statistics with historical reports, campaign management with page specific redirects, and extended length 365 day cookie tracking.

Eric Pratt, President and CEO of Server Intellect noted, ''Server Intellect has spent years building our world recognized brand and we have a solid reputation for high quality web hosting services. By capitalizing on our strong reputation and competitive pricing, Affiliate Partners can now reap the rewards of our years of hard work. Whether you are an experienced webmaster with resource sites, a development firm with clients who are in need of web hosting services or someone who simply knows others that may be interested in our products; you can now earn a substantial income by partnering with Server Intellect.''

The Server Intellect Affiliate Program also includes an extensive collection of hosted graphics to promote Server Intellect coupled with an HTML Link Generation system allowing for easy Copy and Paste code with link and campaign codes already imbedded.

Mr. Pratt added, ''For years our customers and independent web promoters have been asking to partner with Server Intellect, and I am very proud to finally offer this opportunity to the world. This is an incredible development for our entire team and I am highly confident in the long-term success of this new program.''

Affiliate Partners may earn up to $75.00 by simply referring purchasing customers to the Server Intellect website. Affiliates have the option of receiving a check payment each month or Server Intellect service credit.

In March, Server Intellect debuted Microsoft Windows Server 2008 on its entire line of managed Windows dedicated servers. Windows Server 2008 was released by Microsoft just last week. Server Intellect has become one of the first Windows web hosts and Microsoft Gold Certified Partners to offer Windows Server 2008 (formerly codename Longhorn) on its dedicated servers. The updated operating system represents the most substantial upgrade of the Windows Server product line since Windows 2000 was released eight years ago.

The new operating system includes many upgrades and additions to web, security and virtualization technologies, including the newly implemented Hyper-V. The operating system also includes major expansions to Active Directory, Terminal Services, and introduces the long-awaited Windows PowerShell.

Windows Server 2008 is available in multiple editions to support the varying server needs of businesses of all sizes. Server Intellect will offer two main versions of Windows Server 2008, the Web Edition and Datacenter Edition. The web addition is offered on all dedicated servers at no additional charge, and the Datacenter Edition starts at $50/monthly. A full listing of differences between the two versions is available on Server Intellect's web site.

A subsidiary of Client Intellect, Inc., Server Intellect is a provider of advanced Windows-based Shared, VPS, Application, and Dedicated Web hosting solutions. The company was founded in 2003 and is located in Orlando, Florida.

To learn more about the Server Intellect affiliate program, please visit: www.serverintellect.com/affiliates.

For more information about Server Intellect, please visit: www.serverintellect.com.

Cobweb Web Hosting Provider, to Upgrade, with Parallels Automation

Renton, Washington - (The Hosting News) - April 16, 2008 - Server virtualization firm, Parallels, has been deployed by provider of hosting services in Europe, Cobweb, as the first service provider to use Parallels Automation with the hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.

Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels noted, ''We are pleased that Cobweb is using the full potential of our Parallels Automation solution to centrally manage a wide variety of hosting services. This deployment demonstrates how Parallels Open Platform is helping service providers deliver advanced business applications using the software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery model.''

Developed as a fully integrated customer relationship management (CRM) system, Cobweb has purchased the Parallels Automation solution to automate the delivery of several new hosting offerings and service bundles. Parallels Automation for Dynamics CRM allows service providers to go-to-market quickly by providing a complete back-office infrastructure for online ordering, service plan management, billing and payments, and more. Using a single login, service providers can deliver integrated offerings that include multiple services such as hosted Microsoft Exchange, hosted Windows SharePoint Services and hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Dan Germain, Chief Technical Officer of Cobweb remarked, ''Using Parallels Automation, Cobweb can manage a wide variety of hosted offerings from a single, centralized system and can create unique service bundles using Microsoft Exchange, Windows SharePoint Services, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, ZANTAZ Email Archiving and shared web hosting. Parallels Automation connects the underlying technical services together in a manner that delivers real business benefits and solutions to our customers.''

Parallels Automation for Dynamics CRM includes pre-defined deployments, installation services and marketing support for service providers that want to deploy hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Pricing includes a one-time implementation fee and monthly licensing fees based on active users.

The Parallels Open Platform enables hosting with Parallels virtualization and automation technology through integration with a wide range of third-party applications and systems. The Application Packaging Standard (APS), a key element of the platform, is used by independent software vendors (ISVs) and service providers to seamlessly integrate applications to offer to the more than 10 million businesses and individuals that use Parallels products.

Cobweb is one of Europe's leading providers of hosted Microsoft Exchange services since 1996. Cobweb is ISO27001 and ISO9001 accredited, and is a Microsoft Gold Partner with five core competencies. The company offers managed services including Hosted Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint with mobile and archival solutions, web and SaaS hosting, and white-label hosting for reseller and referral partners.

Parallels (formerly SWsoft) is a worldwide leader in virtualization and automation software that optimizes computing for consumers, businesses, and service providers across all major hardware, operating systems, and virtualization platforms. Founded in 1999, Parallels is a fast-growing company with 900 employees in North America, Europe, and Asia.

To learn more about Cobweb, please visit: www.cobweb.com.

For more information about Parallels, please visit: www.parallels.com.

Web Hosting Partner Program from R1Soft, Gains Future Hosting

Novi, Michigan - (The Hosting News) - April 15, 2008 - Web hosting and Internet solutions company, Future Hosting, LLC, serving small to medium sized businesses internationally, has joined disk-based backup solutions provider, R1Soft's Hosting Partner Program.

Future Hosting, the company that developed Server Doctor, also released Future Protect in January, as a custom tailored data protection service. It allows users, even if their Web site is hosted with another provider, to tap into the company's geographically dispersed servers, so data can be backed up in multiple locations around the world. Data is backed up every six hours and stored encrypted at a Future Hosting backup location in North America or Europe.

Vik Patel, CEO and President of Future Hosting noted, ''We have been working with R1Soft for a number of months, and we have been thrilled with the flexibility and reliability of their data protection software. Joining the R1Soft Hosting Partner Program is the next natural step as we continue to pursue more aggressive implementation of our award-winning Future Protect data protection service. We see R1Soft as a long term partner of our company, and we look forward to utilizing their innovative software to provide an added level of protection for our customers.''

By joining the R1Soft Hosting Partner Program, Future Hosting will be able to implement and promote its innovative backup service more quickly. It will also have access to volume licensing discounts on R1Soft software, savings it can pass on to customers.

David Wartell, Vice President of R1Soft, a division of BBS Technologies remarked, ''Future Hosting has proven its dedication to customer service and innovation, and we are happy to welcome them into our Hosting Partner Program. Our Hosting Partner Program creates an avenue for successful providers like Future Hosting to leverage new technology to benefit existing customers and create an incentive for prospective customers.''

Founded in 2003, R1Soft is a provider of disk-based backup solutions. The company's customer list includes some of the world's largest hosting providers. R1soft products provide Continuous Data Protection (CDP) for over 85,000 mission-critical Linux and Windows servers worldwide. In November, 2007 R1Soft was acquired by BBS Technologies, Inc.

Founded in 2001, Future Hosting is privately held Internet Solutions provider specializing in managed hosting, including both Dedicated Servers and Virtual Private Servers. The company has developed competitive pricing models, and offers a 3-hour Service Level Agreement. Future Hosting is based in Livonia, Michigan.

For more information about R1Soft, please visit: www.r1soft.com.

To learn more about Future Hosting, please visit: www.futurehosting.biz.

For more information about Future Protect, please visit http://futurehosting.biz/futureprotect.htm.

To learn more about Future Hosting, please visit: www.futurehosting.biz.

Striving to be (Below) Average...

Google Analytics came out with a novel benchmarking feature which compares your site’s performance to other websites in your field. You can see this benchmark data ONLY IF you are willing to aggregate your data into the pool of anonymized data.

The best sites in your industry probably are not using Google Analytics, and those who do are probably not benchmarking against average, so you are essentially benchmarking your site against a random sample of the bottom half of your industry. I guess such a measurement has purpose, unfortunately I fail to see it.

I hope that while so many people are out smelling the flowers, someone is taking the time to plant some. - Herbert Rappaport

More: continued here

Google's killer API has been released

This post has been contributed by Ask Wiki via CBN
Google's killer API is here.. officially its launched. This API could go ahead to become the most in demand tool for thousands of third party websites. So whats so appealingly about this API ?
Well this API will enable trusted 3rd party sites to access your Google contact information without asking you to provide your login information. Have you ever been on a web-site that asked you for your Google username and password so that it can import your Gmail contact list? Did you think twice before giving out that information there.. hmm thats what millions of people online have thought to themselves "why is this new site I'm on asking me for my Gmail username and password? When will there be a secure API for me to pass those contacts along without giving up my password?" So here it is.

So next time Facebook, Plaxo, or another service wants to import your Gmail, Google Calendar, or Google Talk contacts you might not have to give up your email password. The API uses the Google Data protocol which is based on AtomPub (the same standard that Microsoft is now adopting). All contacts feeds are private and apps can use either the Google Client Authentication API or the Google Web Auth API for authenticating.

So now developers can now write an application that will allow you to synchronize your Outlook and Google contacts. The Contacts API allows developers to create, read, update, and delete contacts using the Google Data protocol, based on AtomPub

Source: Official Google Blog

Apple Becomes A Religion, No Longer Just A Cult: Steve Jobs

This video, I guess is appropriate after recent coverage of Steve Jobs by Fortune. It wrote simultaneously about Apple being most admired company and whats wrong with Steve Jobs!!

Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) Beta 1 Available for Download

This post has been contributed by ReadersZone via CBN

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) Beta 1 is available for download. it’s a new version of Microsoft browser.This new version has some significant improvements as compare to previous version of the Internet Explorer.

• Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and layout
• Programming model performance.
• Reliability usability.
• Service integration.

There are a lot of new feature that has been added in Internet Explore 8.

Activities : Activities are contextual services to quickly access a service from any web page. Users typically copy and paste from one web page to another. Internet Explorer 8 Activities make this common pattern easier to do.

WebSlices : WebSlices is a new feature for web sites to connect to their users by subscribing to content directly within a web page. WebSlices behave just like feeds where clients can subscribe to get updates and notify the user of changes.

 

Favorites Bar: In Internet Explorer 7, the Links bar provided users with one-click access to their favorite sites. The Links bar has undergone a complete makeover for Internet Explorer 8. It has been renamed the Favorites bar to enable users to associate this bar as a place to put and easily access all their favorite web content such as links, feeds, WebSlices and even Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.

 

 

 

Automatic Crash Recovery:Automatic Crash Recovery (ACR) is a feature of Windows®Internet Explorer® 8 that can help to prevent the loss of work and productivity in the unlikely event of the browser crashing or hanging. The ACR feature takes advantage of the Loosely-Coupled Internet Explorer feature to provide new crash recovery capabilities, such as tab recovery, which will minimize interruptions to users’ browsing sessions.

 

Improved Phishing Filter:Internet Explorer 7 introduced the Phishing Filter, a feature which helps warn users when they visit a Phishing site. Phishing sites spoof a trusted legitimate site, with the goal of stealing the user’s personal or financial information. For Internet Explorer 8, we are building on the success of the Phishing Filter with a more comprehensive feature called the “Safety Filter.”

Internet Explorer 8 can be installed on Microsoft Windows Vista® Service Pack 1 (SP1), Windows Vista, Windows XP® Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows Server® 2008 and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2). Downloads are available from the following locations:

• Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008
• Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Windows Vista x64 Edition and Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition
• Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Window XP SP2
• Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Windows Server 2003 SP2
• Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Windows Server 2003 SP2 x64 Edition and Windows XP SP2 Pro x64 Edition

All the information given above is taken from Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 Web site.

TestFreaks: Electronics And Gadget Reviews

This post has been contributed by TechPark via CBN

Generally whenever I buy any gadget, I tend to check up reviews from friends and on internet. Today I came across a web site called TestFreaks, which will be helpful whenever you plan to buy digital camera, camcorder, gaming consoles, mobile phone or any other electronics gadget.

TestFreaks aggregate all possible information about a particular product like manufacturer description, specifications, expert and user reviews, ratings and including deals on the rates. Other good thing about this site is its video review for each and every product. Every time when we see a product in advertisement or in a poster it resembles different from real so in that case video review of each product would help a buyer understand the product.

For example, if you are thinking to purchase a new digital camera but you can’t decide which one is the right one for you? Just check out the Digital Cameras category on the site, you will find expert reviews, buyers reviews, video reviews for every product as well as links to site that sell the that product for the lowest price.

There are many categories of gadgets available like Camcorders, Mobile phones, Digital cameras, Dvd players/recorders, Home Cinema Systems, Monitors, Mp3-players, Multi-functional printers, Nintendo Wii Games, Playstation Games, Printers, Projectors, Xbox 360 Games.

There is also an excellent Discussion Forum available for ‘Geeky discussions about Consumer Electronics’.

Watch ALL YouTube videos on your mobile device

This post has been contributed by TheTechpedia via CBN

Youtube is popular site for internet users and users can watch millions of videos in youtube but videos at youtube can also be viewed on your mobile device which means you can have fun of watching videos at youtube anywhere(office,home or outing).You dont need to go through a long process to watch videos in your mobile device.

YouTube now has enhanced sharing and uploading features, new partners, and better browsing for your mobile appliance.

 

Access millions of YouTube videos on your mobile phone

 

• Browse and search videos while on the go
• Watch favorite videos, rate, comment, and much more

It’s easy to upload!

• Create a mobile profile
• Upload your video via MMS

 There are Two different ways to watch! Videos at youtube in your mobile device.

Go to m.youtube.com on your phoneDownload the app (beta)*

Available for Nokia’s N73, E65, N95, 6120c, 6110n and Sony Ericsson’s k800i and w880i.

Heineken Launches Viral ‘Star Final’ Campaign

This post has been contributed by ViralBlog via CBN

Heineken is doing great brand and sponsorship activation with it’s Star Final campaign. The 360 campaign is fuelled by an online campaign, a viral video, social media optimization, an interactive game and a buzz toolkit.

Football fans all over the world are invited to take part in Heineken’s exciting Star Final competition to celebrate the UEFA Champions League. The online game lets fans ‘kick’ a personalised football from Iceland to South Africa. The people who get their football there fastest, will have a chance to join Heineken in South Africa to watch the UEFA Champions League Moscow Final 2008 under the stars!

As sponsor of the UEFA Champions League, Heineken knows how popular this Grand Prize will be. The UEFA Champions League is the most highly regarded international club football competition in the world. It is enjoyed by millions of passionate, proud fans from Asia to Africa, and from Europe to South America. That’s why Heineken is bringing the game alive with an online game that people all over the world can play.

The fact that Heineken really understands the power of social media, is proven by this Buzz Toolkit, that facilitates bloggers and social influentials in a smart way.

Heineken’s Star Final campaign, site, game and viral videos are created by creative agency Fabrique. Viral tracking is done by ViralTracker and social media optimization by LaComunidad.

Lenovo ThinkPad: Can it be a threat to MacBook Air?

This post has been contributed by AskWiki via CBN

Lenovo ThinkPad X300 could now be the world's next thinnest laptop. Lenovo ThinkPad X300 comes with dimensions of (WDH) 12.5 x 9.1 x 0.73 inches and weighs 2.93 pounds. Where as Apple MacBook Air, measures 0.16-0.76 inch, (0.4-1.94 cm) high by 12.8 inches (32.5 cm) by 8.94 inches (22.7 cm).

The X300 gets up to 10 hours of battery life on one charge. It has a 1.2-gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a 64-gigabyte solid-state drive that uses flash memory. The X300 has three USB ports, as well as a headphone jack, Ethernet jack and an optional slim DVD burner. There is also built-in Wi-Fi and an integrated camera and microphone.

MacBook Air is powered by 1.6GHz or 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, with 4 MB on-chip shared L2 cache running at full processor speed and uses an 800MHz front side bus. Lenovo X300 comes with the standard Microsoft windows XP or Vista professional operating system. MacBook Air's installed software include Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard (includes Time Machine, Quick Look, Spaces, Spotlight, Dashboard, Mail, iChat, Safari, Address Book, QuickTime, iCal, DVD Player, Photo Booth, Front Row, Xcode Developer Tools).

The price for X300 ranges between $2,550 to just under $3,000. Mac Book Air base model is priced at $1,799 and goes up to $3100 based on the configuration.

 

How to watch Higher Resolution Videos in Youtube

This post has been contributed by TheTechpedia via CBN

The words YouTube and “high-resolution” have never really fit well in the same sentence. YouTube has always greatly limited the resolution of their videos to conserve on bandwidth, but going forward that may not always be the case. As it turns out there is a little something that you can add on to the end of a YouTube URL to have it play a high-resolution version of the same video.

YouTube started to test higher quality videos. If you append &fmt=6 to the URL of a YouTube video, you should get better quality videos. Note that this only works for a small number of videos.

Here’s an example of video that’s available both in the regular version (320×240) and in a higher quality encoding (448×336). The audio is now encoded at a sample rate of 44100 Hz, up from 22050 Hz. As you can see in the screenshots below, the right image is clearer and more detailed.

While this increase of resolution might seem minor, for the example above YouTube’s re-encoded FLV file is more than twice bigger than the old one (from 9 MB to 22 MB), so it will load much slower.

If you append &fmt=18, YouTube downloads the video as a MP4 (H264 with AAC audio), encoded at 480×360. Here’s the same video encoded as MP4.

You can use Greasemonkey script that automatically adds the magic parameter for you.

HP researches way to make Labs pay

Hewlett-Packard is one of the eldest statesmen in the computer community, a fact which bred the HP 3000 community's success with MPE/iX and the PA-RISC hardware. There was a time when HP took regular risks with basic research, the kind which does not always pay off in products. Computing was once driven by basic research to make leaps in technical ability.

Those risks are now rare among the major vendors of the computer community, but HP seems willing to steer its science toward enterprise computing more than it has in its recent past. Tomorrow the vendor announces a revival of HP Labs, the legendary research arm that created marvels such as cutting-edge ink technology and the chip designs which launched the HP 3000's current generation, as well as the latest HP Integrity servers.

HP Labs is one of few basic research groups still standing on the 21st Century computer landscape. IBM still operates the Almaden Research Center. Xerox's PARC center closed many years ago. HP Labs celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2006. Its Bristol, England arm extended HP's prowess in storage devices back when the HP 3000 was peaking at its largest installed base. Precision Architecture Reduced Instruction Set Computing — PA-RISC — grew up in the HP Labs.

The Labs need to be more product-oriented to survive the current bottom-line management scrutiny at HP. Projects which move to products are important to HP's migrating HP 3000 customers. Hewlett-Packard once relied on innovation first and standards second to capture and keep its customers. Some migrating customers who choose HP need assurance that the vendor will do more than the best possible integration of components for Industry Standard Servers. ISS provides the growth in HP's Business Critical Systems unit. But it's the Integrity line of RISC systems — which use HP's innovation of Itanium architecture — that must bolster the future HP-UX.

The revival of the Labs could be a sign that HP remains willing to keep up the innovation that an HP Unix platform is going to need. Without that kind of built-here-first engineering, HP's customers have to hunt harder for reasons to keep using solutions that lock users in HP's technology. CEO Mark Hurd is hosting tomorrow's event, a signal that Hewlett-Packard is willing to give its scientists room to run up bills, spending aimed at delivering knockout computing choices.

The Labs are now being run by Prith Banerjee, who left his post as dean of the college of engineering at the University of Illinois last summer. While the 46-year-old has earned scientific awards since those days when HP's RISC first became a product, Banerjee is said to have an eye on keeping the Labs pointed toward product-based research.

Soon-to-market products would be an innovation in the Labs. On the home page of the Labs' Web site, the group is promoting a science-fiction innovation: Painless injections using an HP skin patch. HP extended its printer designs several years ago to be able to create human skin with micro-needles that deliver smart doses of drugs. It's an alternative safer than being stuck with a needle, HP says, as well as a better skin patch which Irish firm Crospon hopes to sell by 2010.

The HP 3000 customers who stick with HP will want something less organic for their computing, of course. When HP introduced Banerjee as the Labs director, the vendor said his research interests "are in parallel and distributed computing, compilers, and VLSI computer-aided design."

All that sounds much closer to what the 3000 customer needs when choosing HP-UX and Integrity servers. Strong compilers are still crucial to the RISC computing process. Of course, as Labs director Banerjee won't be doing this work himself. But reports say that he's shelving some projects in the Labs in the reorganization that leads to tomorrow's revamp announcement. Pushing smart skin underneath the needs of a computer company would seem to flow from such shelving.

Banerjee has his own history of entrepreneur practices. In 2000 he founded AccelChip, a developer of software for building digital-signal processing (DSP) systems, which was sold in 2006 year to Xilinx. HP 3000 customers may remember that former HP business computing chief Wim Roelandts became Xilinx CEO after leaving HP.

The Labs still has some impact to deliver for the customer sticking with HP's computing. Recent projects cover developing computer chip circuitry to the atomic scale, software to automate data centers, and a utility computing center, where customers can get computing power based on changing needs.

OpenMPE seats two new directors

Candidates Alan Tibbetts of Strobe Data and Walter Murray of the California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation have become new members of the OpenMPE board of directors, while the four incumbent directors who also ran earned a return to their seats. Except for Tibbetts, who will finish out the final year of retiring director Paul Edwards' term, all will serve for two years.

Seven volunteers ran for the six open seats in the election of HP 3000 advocates. OpenMPE has been dedicated to the continued lifespan of the HP 3000 since the group's inception more than six years ago. Keith Wadsworth of Orbit Software raised awareness and pragmatic viewpoints in his campaign, but fell short in the voting between Feb. 11 and Feb. 29.

Six seats were open in this year's election because of the retirement of long-time director Edwards. Incumbent directors all won back another two years of volunteering, a period which will nearly coincide with the end of HP's involvement in the 3000 market. But in the 2006 elections that was also the belief — when volunteers ran for their posts which were expiring this year.

OpenMPE secretary Donna Hofmeister released the vote totals about an hour ago to the OpenMPE mailing list and HP 3000 newsgroup:

Donna Hofmeister    82
Tracy Johnson    77
Walter Murray    70
Alan Tibbetts    67
Matt Perdue        71
John Wolff        70
Keith Wadsworth    43

In spite of the fact that the HP 3000 community is now more than six years beyond HP's exit-the-market announcement, the election drew 89 ballots, an increase of more than 40 percent from last year's voting. More important, the voting attracts new members to OpenMPE.

Organization chairman Birket Foster says that OpenMPE's impact goes well beyond the number of members. "You have to consider the number of systems represented, as well as the size of customer." In its earliest years, the advocacy group began with 125 companies, including "one major aircraft manufacturer," Foster added.

Murray, who worked in HP's 3000 language labs on COBOL II before leaving the company, is an end-user OpenMPE director, still a minority in the nine-member board. John Wolff, Tracy Johnson and Chuck Ciesinski are also end-user/customer volunteers; Wolff and Johnson were re-elected this year. Hofmeister, whose current job is at Long's Drug, and Matt Perdue also returned to the board in this year's voting.

Johnson, Hofmeister, Wadsworth and Perdue all responded to the NewsWire's candidate questions, which we posed on Feb. 21. All of this year's board nominees posted candidate statements at the OpenMPE 2008 election Web page for candidate bios. The page remains online today.

Tibbetts served on the OpenMPE board in the past, a term which ended last year. His employer Strobe Data announced an HP 3000 emulator project in 2004, a long-term effort for which Strobe has set no timetable for release. Emulation of HP 3000 hardware will become a viable option for a vendor only in years to come, according to Strobe's founder Willard West.

Wadsworth made a case for changes to the 3000 community in a February statement, calling out HP for what he sees as a mixed message from the vendor — focused on the Right To Use (RTU) licenses.

We all know the platform was killed six months [after HP's promise to support it in 2001], and therefore users and third-party application providers began developing new business strategies and plans for the remaining life of MPE.

Yet today many of us find ourselves very puzzled. On one hand HP keeps insisting (for over six years now) that the MPE platform is being made obsolete. On the other hand HP seems to be handling MPE as on ongoing business offering with a future by again extending product support and the RTU policy scheme.

Calling for a Constitutional Convention

PBS's Bill Moyer's 12/21/07 interview with Sanford Levinson: TRANSCRIPT

TESTIMONY OF SANFORD LEVINSON,
BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE,
JANUARY 27, 2004

Levinson's BLOG

Levinson's book (Aug. '06): Our Undemocratic Constitution

Our Democracy Deficit
Our institutions are not promoting self-government.
The Constitution flaws:
-Presidents who do not win the majority of the popular vote.
-Gives WY the same number of senators as CA, with 70 times the population.
-Enables the president to overrule both houses of Congress simply on political grounds.
-Enables Congress to build a bridge to nowhere.
-Allows Supreme Court justices to serve as long as they want and time their departure to influence their own choice on who succeeds them.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

George Washington himself who wrote that "[t]he warmest friends and the best supporters the Constitution has do not contend that it is free from imperfections." Fortunately, when inevitable imperfections do manifest themselves, "there is a Constitutional door open. The People (for it is with them to Judge) can, as they will have the advantage of experience on their Side, decide with as much propriety on the alterations and amendment which are necessary." Should the point not already be clear enough, Washington went on to say that "I do not think we are more inspired, have more wisdom, or possess more virtue, than those who will come after us."

Contegix Managed Hosting Provider, Engages Hyperic Flexible Monitoring

San Francisco, California - (The Hosting News) - March 27, 2008 - Managed hosting provider, Contegix, has deployed Hyperic Inc.'s HQ Enterprise open source management system solution, across its entire infrastructure.

Contegix services a broad array of technology with rigorous service level agreements (SLAs). In the eight months since deployment, Hyperic HQ has become a strategic advantage forthe company, helping its customers go beyond keeping their systems up and running to actually improving application performance.

Matthew Porter, CEO of Contegix noted, ''We were immediately impressed with Hyperic's Auto-Discovery feature. The product installed with the capability to immediately find and monitor more than 70 technologies, providing us with instant monitoring for the majority of our key applications - even those that spanned virtualized resources. Equally important to us was Hyperic's high level of support. The team has been with us every step of the way- they've been a true partner.''

In the competitive managed hosting market, what sets Contegix apart is its customer service - the company offers all the needed equipment and infrastructure in addition to managing the data center and operating system. Customers get 24/7/365 access to Contegix's Level Three engineers, a 30-minute hardware replacement SLA, and complete systems monitoring. Since its launch in 2003, Contegix's reputation for excellence has helped it grow by 10 percent a month every month. Today, Contegix powers more than 37,000 managed resources.

To maintain its customer service record and meet its SLAs alongside its explosive growth, Contegix needed a solution that would give them a deeper understanding of its customers' systems and enable them to solve problems fast. In the spring of 2007 they turned to Hyperic.

Hyperic HQ is designed to allow Contegix to manage its infrastructure from an application rather than hardware-centric view. Contegix managed applications can span a generous spectrum of technology and can include a moving set of physical and virtual components. Hyperic's holistic perspective across technology enables the Contegix operations team to quickly identify and correctly diagnose application-level problems early, reducing the mean-time-to-recovery (MTTR) and helping them to beat their SLAs. Additionally, Contegix has given the majority of its staff access to Hyperic - from engineering and support all the way to sales.

Javier Soltero, CEO of Hyperic remarked, ''Contegix's high customer service demands, diverse infrastructure and high growth rate, create one of the most difficult management challenges in the tech sector. Hyperic HQ was designed from the ground up to help customers like Contegix continue to meet the changing demands of their customers without wasting unnecessary resources to keep their IT infrastructure up and running.''

Hyperic's ease-of-use, detail and historical metrics provide strategic benefits for Contegix. The company uses Hyperic HQ Enterprise to manage its internal infrastructure and using role-based access control extends visibility to its customers so that they too can use the data to improve their applications. By sharing access, Contegix proactively involves the customer to help monitor trends in their hosted applications and identify issues early. With customers for whom a minute of downtime translates into a loss of $10,000 dollars or more, this can mean significant savings.

Mr. Porter added, ''We never expected to give access to a systems monitoring tool to our sales team. But because Hyperic is so easy to use and gives sales a unique perspective into customer usage trends, it actually allows them to advise individual customers on how to modify their applications to more effectively accomplished business goals. Access to Hyperic has substantially raised an already high bar in customer satisfaction.''

Other key features of Hyperic HQ Enterprise include its task automation and sophisticated alerting capabilities, which have helped Contegix focus administrators on exceptions and solving problems by greatly streamlining management tasks. Since its deployment, these efficiencies have contributed to Contegix maintaining the same headcount of support staff despite accelerating growth. Contegix continues to expand its use of Hyperic and plans to extend its deployment to its third data center when it goes online in early 2008.

Contegix offers clients its Beyond Managed Hosting(TM) service, comprehensive management solutions on a simple, monthly fee plan. The solution includes a variety of managed services that range from setting up server hardware, installing the operating system, deploying the software in an optimal configuration to managing licensing, maintenance renewals and wide ranging support.

Hyperic provides open source web infrastructure management software that reduces the workload for operations teams at the world's biggest web companies, including CNET Networks, hi5 Networks, Dice, Contegix, and more. Its award-winning Hyperic HQ software auto-discovers and updates asset inventory and allows operations teams to perform cross-platform monitoring, diagnostics and control from a remote, web-based console, helping them more quickly pinpoint, correct, and prevent problems at every major layer - including hardware, networks, virtualization and applications. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Hyperic is a private company funded by Accel Partners and Benchmark Capital.

To learn more about Contegix, please visit: http://contegix.com.

Site w/ relatively static homepage, blog on /blog, categories on /blog/category/xxx, archives on /blog/archives/... possible?

I'm trying to pick my CMS. I've worked with Wordpress in the past, but am finding it can't quite do what I want. I have downloaded drupal and installed and have been poking around and reading some of the handbook, but it is less intuitive than Wordpress (to me a least).

So, my question before I get too deep is in it is whether I can build a single-user site with the following attributes using drupal (6.x):

homepage (shows some relatively static info, latest blog post titles, other things)
blog:
blog homepage should be on domain.com/blog
blog categories accessible from domain.com/blog/category/categoryname
blog archive index accessible from domain.com/blog/archives
other pages as needed on domain.com/pagename

and, very important for me, the ability to have some non-drupal content accessible from urls like domain.com/directoryname, where directoryname is the name of a directory of static non-drupal content i already have and want/need to leave as is.

Is this possible with drupal?

If so, any suggestions for places to start would be appreciated. I found a tutorial on building a single-user blog site, but it appears to be for an old version of drupal.

The Desktop Computer Revolution

Get to know all the main features of a desktop computer, and the points that may work as a checklist to help you make a good purchase.

Read Full Article Here: http://www.articlesbase.com/hardware-articles/the-desktop-computer-revolution-365207.html

Yet another "Can Drupal do this?" post.

Hello,
Drupal n00b here. Did some searching, and didn't find a direct answer. But I see lots of "Can Drupal do this?" posts, so I assume that this is the place to ask...

Here's what I want to do:
Main page of my site, say mydomain.org/ has publicly accessible stuff, mostly general information, announcements, etc. Probably only a couple of people would be able to change anything. Most users would not log in, and would have re-only access.

Linked from there would be a "Members" area. To see anything at all, users would need to log in. This area would have blogs, forums, whatever. So people might be able to post to some stuff here.

With the Users, Rolls, Groups in Drupal, can I set up something like this? Any pointers on how to do it?

My web host offers Drupal via Fantastico install, so I'll probably just install it and start playing, but it would be nice to have a little direction before I get going. Which brings up another question. If I install Drupal for testing, at mydomain.org/drupal, leaving my current site in place, can I later move it to root of mydomain.org/ when I'm ready to go live with it?

Thanks in advance for any info.
Jeff.

Zugriffsregeln für IP-Bereiche

Hallo,

kann man mit Drupal Benutzergruppen nach IP-Bereichen festlegen?
Ich will, dass Nutzer, die aus unserem internen Netz kommen andere Bereiche sehen und Funktionen nutzen können als solche, die von draußen kommen.
So sollen sich z.B. nur Nutzer aus dem Firmennetz anmelden können. Und nur Nutzer aus dem internen Netz sollen die Editierfunktion in einem Wiki nutzen können, die Nutzer aus dem Internet sollen das Wiki aber trotzdem einsehen können. Ist das irgendwie mit verhältnismäßigem Aufwand möglich?
Mit einer .htaccess-Datei dürfte das ja eher nicht gehen, da ja z.B. das Wiki von allen genutzt werden soll und sich nur die Rechte unterscheiden sollen.

Dazu muss ich noch ergänzen, dass wir einen bestimmten IP-Bereich mit ein paar hundert Adressen haben. Jeder PC ist mit einer eigenen, dauerhaften, Adresse im Netz. Kann man vllt auch irgendwas mit dem Rechnernamen machen? Da ist für alle nach dem Muster xxxxx.firmax.de aufgebaut.

Für Lösungsansätze wäre ich sehr dankbar.

Gruß

More Keys to Affiliate Marketing Success

Being successful in the world of online affiliate marketing isn't easy. There isn't one single trick, idea or suggestion that will exponentially increase your sales. To be successful, you have to implement several different ideas for the best possible results. Here are just three more tips you can use to become a minor success without a ton of work.

1. Use a separate web page for each product you're trying to sell. Seeing too many products on one page can be overwhelming for potential customers. If everything is lumped together, they can't focus on just one product and they might click to a different company's page that's easier to use. Customer reviews and testimonials are also great assets for any product you're trying to sell.

2. Offer something free to people who visit your website. This doesn't mean that you should give away a car for every 1,000th visitor. But offering a weekly newsletter or a free e-book is a great way to bring more attention to your services without spending a penny. When visiting your website, customers are either going to buy something or they're not. Increase the chances of their remaining on your website by giving them a reason to stay and come back.

3. Know your target audience and appeal to it. It’s fairly useless to try to sell wheelchairs if the majority of your website visitors are twenty- or thirty-somethings. By continuously adding relevant and unique content that interests your target audience, you can ensure more people from that group will visit your site. Remember, about one percent of your visitors will buy from your website. The more people you attract, the more likely you'll have a higher number of sales.

Wordpress 2.5 FAQ - A Must Read For All Wordpress Users!

Like most of you wordpress users, we also moved to Wordpress 2.5 on the same day it was released.

I know you like its cool interface and new features, but there are many things that has been changed drastically or completely removed from Wordpress 2.5. While most of these changes may not affect many wordpress users but if you come across them later, you will surely get confused. So better go through this Wordpress 2.5 FAQ, even if you have no questions about it at this time.

Here I am putting what helped me personally..

• In my post about moving to wordpress 2.5, I have mentioned, "…Left-aligning of admin pages leaves hell lot of white space on wide-screen monitors…". Thanks to this FAQ, I come to know about Viper007bond’s Remove Max Width Plugin. I haven’t tried it yet!
• Also the option to enable/disable Gzip compression gave me hard time while using a caching plugin which I don’t use anymore. Anyway that option has been removed!
• Also I was not aware of the fact that reverting back to Wordpress 2.3.3, if something goes wrong, won’t be easy!

Link: Wordpress 2.5 FAQ

Further Reading…

• We are now on Wordpress 2.5 (Final)
• Blogger To Wordpress Redirection Plugin with 1-to-1 Mapping Between Old and New Blog Posts!
• Getting ready for Wordpress 2.3! List of Compatible Plugins!
• How to get list of plugins installed on any wordpress blog!
• [Screencast] Wordpress 2.5 RC2 Video Demo - Dashboard

Why Won't John McCain Sign G.I. Bill? (watch and learn)

(from BraveNewFilms)

Faced with unprecedented filibusters, the only way to ensure Senate passage of the GI Bill is to get 60 co-sponsors. So far, John McCain has refused. The same McCain who insists he supports our troops. The same McCain who is voting lockstep with the Bush Administration (who have also resisted this bill)."

Sign the petition demanding John McCain sign on as co-sponsor to The Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act (S.22 & H.R. 2702).

 

Le Mode Plan de Microsoft Word

Mode Plan Numérotation des Titres et Sous-Titres Table Des Matières Index

Saved By: Jeunium | View Details | Give Thanks

Tags: Microsoft Word, Word

Black screen when pc wakes up

I have no other monitors but will try the F keys next wake with blank screen.

"Lawr" wrote:

> I had this problem ONCE for some reason, and pressing the right keys to
> switch between monitor displays worked for me. On my HP Dv6000 its the
> function key with F4 to switch monitor displays, like when you plug in a
> lead to show the laptop screen on the TV. Strange that this happened to me
> once, and fixed it with this.
>
> "gregrocker" <gregrocker@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:76CE8E17-A5E9-4D7E-84CA-0AB9C70A97AA@microsoft.com...
> > Hi when I wake up my eMachine t5234 by hitting return, it only displays a
> > black screen. I know the monitor is on because when I turn off/on the
> > power
> > switch it displays the Acer logo but then goes black again. I have to
> > restart my computer using the power button and then it displays properly.
> > It
> > was previously waking up fine. Any known fix?
>

IE Standards Conformance

T.L. wrote:
> Dear Microsoft people,
>
> please, I am begging you, please make the Internet Explorer conform to all
> the WC3 standards soon.
> Up to now your browser is still giving me a huge headache every time I
> develop a new web page.
> It's very (very!) frustrating that 50% of all development time for an
> arbitrary html page is lost making this page work on IE after it already
> works on all the other browsers out there.
> Just to get the point right: I develop it once and it works on all the
> browsers just like that, except on the IE. And for the IE I have to
> practically redevelop it and confuse all my clean code.
>
> This has to stop somewhere. I am begging you.

I agree that IE should comply with standards, but my experience is that
far less than 50% of my time must be spent making current versions of IE
render pages reasonably: 5% or less, and much of that time is coping
with IE 5.

Also, even if IE8 were to comply 100% today, people will continue to use
older versions for several years at least, so a standards-compliant IE8
will not create instant nirvana.

7 Questions to Ask When Hiring a Roofing Contractor

When looking to fix the roof, it's important to know who you're dealing with before they bring out the ladder.

Read Full Article Here: http://www.articlesbase.com/home-improvement-articles/7-questions-to-ask-when-hiring-a-roofing-contractor-375404.html

Customer Feedback Drives Product Offerings

New product ideas come from everywhere—customers, vendors, sales teams, competitive pressures, government regulations…you get the idea. Your product dreams are often bigger than your ability to productize and bring them to market. There is a proven way to see through the clutter and prioritize the winners: Listen to your customers.

At Intermedia, we help Web hosts, MSPs and other IT service providers bring their customers’ demands for better email, Web mail, wireless email and lightweight business applications to market. We prioritize new features and products based on real customer problems articulated to us. It sounds obvious, but too many companies launch new products and features that are not solving even a single problem for their customers. The product, and in some cases the company, are doomed to slow growth and failure since the market messaging never strikes a tone with a customer.

What drives Intermedia? Customer feedback about their business challenges. Two business problems we are asked to repeatedly assist with are productivity and security—primary issues that all businesses struggle with today. Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo and AIM are great tools for communicating with others. We all use them, but using them at the office is becoming an issue for many businesses. From productivity problems to security problems to intellectual property leaks, public IM access at work is a problem.

After listening to our customers’ frequent requests, we recently launched a secure instant messaging solution based on Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007. This product idea was driven directly from our customers and is driving rapid adoption of this new service. In the end, this product will be successful because we are solving fundamental business problems with secure, business centric, instant messaging.

Wimpy CNET May Appeal JANA Director Ruling

A Delaware court ruled that CNET's hostile invaders--JANA & Co--can put 7 board members up for election after all. (That's why the stock is up today: Shareholders were suddenly filled with hope.) CNET had tried to quash this attempt at shareholder democracy by arguing that it violated the company's by-laws.

So what will CNET do now? Consider an appeal. Why? Because God forbid the company's new owners should be allowed to try to get current management fired.

If JANA should prevail, meanwhile, CNET's management intends to try to persuade shareholders that it is doing a good job and shoudn't be fired. And thank goodness for that.

If CNET's management wants to persuade us that they actually have shareholder interests in mind instead of their own, they'll go ahead and let JANA put up its director slate. Thus far, the company's responses to JANA's actions have been, well, wimpy. If Neil Ashe is the right guy, he should get up there and demonstrate that--not hind behind some by-law technicality.

Marketing Your Home Business From A Variety Of Methods

Many home business owners find their best success comes from a variety of marketing methods used in combination with one another.

Read Full Article Here: http://www.articlesbase.com/home-business-articles/marketing-your-home-business-from-a-variety-of-methods-375402.html