Gawkwire: Web Hosting and Internet News Resource

The Whir Temporarily falls to Hackers

2008-06-30T12:35:00-04:00

When will it end? Even secure and notable websites such as thewhir.com can be vulnerable to hackers nowadays. As of 3:30 PM Central Time, clicking any link at the popular web resource site, will get you a quick redirect to www.jukez.com and lots of headaches for visitors.

Evan Kamlet, www.Host4Yourself.com says it is possibly an SQL injection and cleaning up this problem is limited to only a few options.

Kamlet says "It is most likely an insecure script and if luck is on your side, no root access was gained. First, disable the web service and any database servers and do some forensics. It is important to first plug the hole.
Search logs for strange SQL following a GET request: index.php?page=1;UNION%20INSERT.. etc. UNION, INSERT, DELETE SQL commands generally should not be showing up in your GET requests.

Then, restore from a backup or do a mass find and replace within your database only once you are SURE you found the entrance point.. Obviously, there can be other causes of these defacements such as shell commands being executed in a similar manner in order to rewrite scripts, create SQL injections, or to invoke code injections into the scripts themselves."

Sharon Koifman, VP Marketing for Applicure considers "It's related to the fact that hosting companies don't really protect individual applications and Individual shared hosting clients. The only way to prevent something like this from happening is to change the standard of the entire industry security on the application level."

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/the_whir_falls_to_hackers.html

The Planet Completes SAS 70 Type II Audit

2008-06-30T10:40:00-04:00

HOUSTON, TX – The Planet, the world’s largest privately held dedicated hosting company, today announced it has successfully completed the Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70 (SAS 70) Type II audit. Developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the widely recognized auditing standard represents that The Planet has been through a rigorous evaluation of its internal processes and controls through an independent third-party auditor.

In its audit, The Planet covered controls and processes for its six world-class data centers; enterprise-class network, data center operations; customer provisioning systems; physical and environmental security; problem management and resolution through its customer portal; and organization and administration of its human resources department.

"Hosting providers that want to offer meaningful IT services to larger enterprises see SAS 70 as the means of both meeting Sarbanes-Oxley auditing requirements, while reassuring IT decision makers that their processes, facilities and staff are capable of providing true enterprise-grade services," said Daniel Golding, vice president and research director for Tier1 Research.

“As companies turn to us for managing their complex IT infrastructures, they want third-party assurances that their mission-critical data is safeguarded,” said Jeff Lowenberg, vice president of facilities for The Planet. “We evaluated a wide swath of processes to demonstrate our commitment to the integrity and compliance of our controls and processes. There’s no better evaluation to provide customers with transparency into our operations.”

To conduct the audit, the company retained the services of Weaver & Tidwell, L.L.P. Based in Fort Worth, Texas, the firm is ranked among the top 100 certified public accounting firms in the nation.
About The Planet
The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 22,000 small- and medium-size businesses and 6.7 million Web sites worldwide. By offering the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class support, backed by state-of-the-art facilities and unmatched network connectivity, The Planet helps turn information technology into a powerful competitive advantage that enables customers to successfully grow their businesses. For additional information, visit www.theplanet.com

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/the_planet_completes_sas_70_type_ii_audit.html

ICANN and IANA Sites Hacked, Redirected

2008-06-30T00:32:00-04:00

Wired - By David Kravets - Jun 28, 2008

Two of the world's most important internet regulatory web sites - ICANN and IANA -- were hijacked and briefly redirected Friday to another site that screamed this message: "You think that you control the domains but you don't! Everybody knows wrong. We control the domains including ICANN! Don't you believe us?"

A group that monitors internet defacement credited the 20-minute hijacking to a Turkish group calling itself "NetDevilz,"... More » http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/icann-and-iana.html

http://www.gawkwire.com/domains/icann_and_iana_sites_hacked.html

NetSuite Appoints New Chief Marketing Officer

2008-06-27T10:38:00-04:00

San Mateo, Calif. - NetSuite Inc., a leading vendor of on-demand, integrated business management software suites for the mid-market enterprise and divisions of large companies, today announced that David Downing, a global technology marketing executive with more than 25 years of experience, has been named NetSuite's new Chief Marketing Officer. In this role, Downing will be charged with overseeing all of NetSuite's worldwide marketing initiatives; driving awareness and adoption of NetSuite's Accounting/ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and Ecommerce software suites; and spearheading marketing initiatives aimed at moving NetSuite up market to meet the needs of mid-market enterprises.

David Downing"David's extensive experience in developing innovative sales and marketing strategies for premier technology companies will help our team as we continue to move forward with our mid-market expansion," said Zach Nelson, CEO of NetSuite.

Downing's leadership skills and innovative marketing strategies have been employed at some of the technology industry's leading enterprise software organizations, including Adobe, Oracle, Informatica and SAP. Before joining NetSuite, Downing was Vice President of Marketing at venture-backed MetaLINCS, acquired by Seagate Technology, in December 2007. Previously, Downing worked at SAP where he was an integral part of the team building support for SAP NetWeaver among independent software vendors (ISVs) and the venture capital community. As the vice president of marketing at Informatica, Downing was a key member of the management team that built that company into a worldwide leader in data integration and business intelligence, which included a successful IPO in 1999.

"NetSuite has built a formidable business by delivering the industry's first and only on-demand, integrated business management software suites that now serves thousands of companies in the SMB market that depend on NetSuite daily to run their critical business processes," said Downing. "We believe that the next huge opportunity for NetSuite and its technology is further up-stream, serving mid-market enterprises and divisions of large organizations who are choking on the cost and complexity of on-premise solutions. I can't think of a more exciting marketing assignment than to be part of the team charged with establishing NetSuite as the dominant supplier to the mid-market."

For more information about NetSuite Inc., please visit www.netsuite.com.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_design/netsuite_appoints_new_chief_marketing_officer.html

Facebook Outage Affects Multiple Countries

2008-06-26T01:17:00-04:00

The social networking site Facebook suffered a period of short outages yesterday. A spokesman told the BBC that the outage was not thought to have affected every country, but Netcraft found the site to be unavailable from all of its performance collectors, located in London, Pennsylvania, San Jose, Phoenix, New York, Virginia and Italy.

Facebook's popularity has continued to grow and is now the 33rd most visited site by users of the Netcraft toolbar. Originally called "The Facebook", the company renamed itself after purchasing the domain facebook.com in 2005 for $200,000. By October 2007, Microsoft announced that it had bought a 1.6% share in Facebook for $246 million.

For complete details vist Netcraft at http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2008/06/26/facebook_outage_affects_multiple_countries.html

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/facebook_outage_affects_multiple_countries.html

Sitemasher Launches Comic, Illustrates Website Pains

2008-06-26T00:55:00-04:00

Vancouver, BC - Sitemasher takes a novel approach in debunking the myth that building and managing websites has to be painful by spoofing traditional methods in its comic strip "Web of Pain," officially launched this week.

Meet Sam, Ned, Vinny and Zoe, four characters who are in constant conflict trying to get websites built, running, and updated … yesterday! ... replicating an all-too-common scenario that plays itself out in companies worldwide on a regular basis.

When he began formulating the idea for the Vancouver start-up company, Phil Calvin, chief technical officer, decided that implementing and owning a website shouldn't have to be so hard, and he set out to solve that dilemma with the Sitemasher product.

The comic strip is a way of addressing common frustrations website designers, developers, and owners experience as they spend days, weeks, months, and in some cases years building and maintaining websites. The characters of "Web of Pain" embody the day-to-day obstacles that occur when building and managing websites.

"Through our 'Web of Pain' characters, we try to convey the pain of all the individuals involved in the website lifecycle….from the website builder struggling to produce better websites faster and less expensively to website owners trying get the most of their IT investment," said Ron Moravek, chief executive officer.

Sitemasher will be updated with new comic strips biweekly with the intent of not only giving people a chuckle when they identify with the four stereotypical characters, but also driving potential customers to Sitemasher's website to try the pre-release version of Sitemasher or simply sign up to receive future comic strips.

Asked why Sitemasher went with a subtle marketing approach versus a more traditional style, Nicole Denil, vice president of Sales and Marketing commented, "We wanted to make solving website pain pertinent yet fun. Most people can relate to the pain around building or owning websites, so we wanted to make those pains come to life through our characters."

This subtle marketing method has caught on. Microsoft and IBM have taken similar approaches, with their focus less on technology and more on the people who use the products. "With the landscape changing on how people engage in technology, more decision-making power lies in the hands of the people who actually use the software," Denil said. "Not only does our cast of characters act in the strip, but they are now part of the Sitemasher crew … we consult with their personas even while we build our product."

The comic feed has different ways for the user to subscribe; via an RSS feed, a comic widget that is embeddable into multiple platforms such as MySpace, Blogger, TypePad, WordPress, iGoogle, LiveJournal, Tagged, Multiply, Freewebs, Netvibes or a widget available via Facebook's application directory.

Sitemasher is asking readers to submit real-life web pain stories that could be used for future episodes and they can win prizes.

To view or sign up to receive the "Web of Pain" comic, visit www.sitemasher.com/comic/ .

The comic strip launch closely follows Sitemasher being chosen by Microsoft for its Blue Sky Innovation , which recognizes leading innovation developed on a Microsoft-based platform. Sitemasher was elected from more than 100 submissions by independent software vendors (ISV) across the country, recognized for its unique SaaS-based delivery model, broad market appeal and its integrated web offering. ISVs were judged on the unique use of technology, the real-life challenge they are solving and the market potential.

About Sitemasher
Established in 2007, Sitemasher is a SaaS-based platform for building, managing, and optimizing sophisticated websites. Phil Calvin, chief technical officer, began developing Sitemasher in 2005. He was intent on transcending traditional website building platforms and Web content management system (CMS) solutions by providing an integrated, search-engine friendly platform to address the entire website lifecycle. Ron Moravek, chief executive officer, joined the new corporation in August 2007 along with Curtis Terry, chief financial officer and chief operating officer for Sitemasher, both from Electronic Arts, Canada. Eric Dorgelo, vice president of development, joined the team from Rockwell. Nicole Denil joined Sitemasher from Microsoft Corporation. Eric Carlson became the sole venture capitalist and partner in December.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_design/sitemasher_launches_comic_strip.html

Host.net to Acquire WV Fiber

2008-06-26T10:39:00-04:00

BOCA RATON, Fla. - Host.net, a leading provider of colocation, network transport and transit services, announced today that it has agreed to acquire WV Fiber, a global IP transit and MPLS transport company based in Nashville, Tennessee.

The acquisition combines a top 30 network service provider with a leading provider of managed data and voice services in the Southeast United States.

WV Fiber’s impressive list of clients include top tier cable, regional local exchange carriers, universities, Internet service providers and content providers. WV Fiber’s multi-national IP transit backbone exchanges in excess of 150Gbps and interconnects with an impressive number of settlement free interconnection relationships throughout the United States and Europe.

"The infrastructure and operations of the WV Fiber network that we are acquiring provide a major inflection point for our company," said Jeffrey Davis, Host.net’s Co-Founder & CEO. "The acquisition of the WV Fiber network will provide Host.net with an immediate and significant base of recurring and growing contract revenues in the carrier and wholesale markets.

"This transaction is the perfect opportunity for both companies whose assets, customer base, and highly experienced staff will be instrumental in propelling the organization to new levels," said Tom Turner, Chairman of WV Fiber. "We’re excited to become part of the highly respected Host.net organization.”

"We are thrilled about the impact the acquisition of WV Fiber will have on Host.net,” says Randy Epstein, Host.net’s Co-Founder and Chief Integration Officer.

The transaction is scheduled to close on or before July 10th.

About Host.net
Founded in 1996, Host.net is a national communications and information services company, and is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. The company operates a large diverse national fiber-optic based Internet, MPLS and layer 2 backbone, delivered to its customers utilizing a vast number of last-mile options. The company also operates over 16,000 square feet of enterprise-class colocation space in South Florida and provides other vital network services including Disaster Recovery office space, Managed VoIP, and Managed Network Security. To learn more about Host.net, please log on to www.host.net.

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/host_net_to_acquire_wv_fiber.html

eBridge to exhibit and participate in marketing panel at HostingCon 2008

2008-06-26T10:33:00-04:00

eBridge Marketing Solutions is a leading provider of Internet marketing solutions for web advertisers, publishers including hosting companies. Those solutions include SEO, strategic planning, business brokering, marketing design and development, and more.

HostingCon is a cross-platform conference and trade show aimed at hosting company owners, sales, marketing and technical managers and investors. While other hosting conferences tend to focus on a specific hosting platform or technology, HostingCon is much broader in scope.

“We’re a long-time supporter of HostingCon,” says eBridge president Hartland Ross. “We like it because it is cross-platform and because it emphasizes business development, as well as hosting technologies. When clients ask us which shows to exhibit at, we always refer them to HostingCon. This year we felt it was time to take our own advice and exhibit there, too.”

Ross adds: “This is a good opportunity for us to meet clients – some of whom we’ve only ever met on the phone – and also meet potential new clients. We also have a new marketing partnership program and HostingCon will be a great place to introduce it.”

The new eBridge partnership program helps companies diversify their client-services portfolios by offering a broad range of marketing services – either through referrals to eBridge, or directly, as a private labeled arrangement.

This year’s HostingCon features tracks on marketing, business growth, technology and leadership. Ross will also be taking part in the marketing panel that opens the conference.

HostingCon 2008 will be held July 28 – 30 at Navy Pier, in Chicago. The eBridge booth will be #619.

For more information about eBridge Marketing Solutions, visit www.ebridgemarketingsolutions.com

http://www.gawkwire.com/events_html/ebridge_to_exhibit_at_hostingcon_2008.html

The Planet Begins Construction on Dallas Data Center Expansion

2008-06-24T15:20:00-04:00

HOUSTON, TX – The Planet, the world’s largest privately held dedicated hosting company, today announced the expansion of its Dallas D6 data center. The addition will add 12,000 square feet to the company’s operations, bringing The Planet’s total data center footprint to 167,000 square feet. The company expects the new data center to open in November.

The new space will feature an enhanced energy-efficient design that utilizes improved measures to completely separate hot and cold air. The company expects to improve the data center’s “coefficient of efficiency” to approximately 1.5. The coefficient of efficiency is an EPA- and Uptime Institute-recognized measurement of the total power necessary to operate a data center divided by its critical power, which is the energy required to operate its computers. An “ideal” ranking is 1.6.
The enhanced energy-efficient measures include extending the returns of the computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units through the ceiling and utilizing the space above the ceiling as a return air path. By using CPI (Chatsworth Products Inc.) ducted exhaust cabinets in the new phase, The Planet is taking the next steps beyond traditional “hot aisle-cold aisle” setups to completely isolate the hot and cold air in the data center.

“As energy costs continue to climb, operating our data centers at peak performance is absolutely critical, both to our company and to our customers,” said The Planet’s Vice President of Facilities Jeff Lowenberg. “Our goal is to use best practices and a practical approach to optimize our operations.”

The company operates six world-class data centers, with four located in Dallas and two in Houston.

http://www.gawkwire.com/events_html/the_planet_dallas_data_center.html

WebaZilla Opens Web Hosting and Collocation Dallas Datacenter

2008-06-24T05:14:00-04:00

Dallas, TX - Leading Web hosting company WebaZilla announces the opening of its Dallas, Texas, datacenter. WebaZilla has expanded its business to the United States to meet demand and ensure its customers receive quality hosting and collocation services. The company also has two datacenters in the Netherlands.

“Years of experience and knowledge were used to build WebaZilla’s new hosting network,” says Alexei Goubarev of WebaZilla. “The new Dallas datacenter allows WebaZilla to deliver the best performance possible to customers around the world.”

WebaZilla selected its Dallas location to enable a maximum amount of users to access resources at a high speed of data transfer. The Dallas network is based on the new Cisco 7609S platform, one of the most powerful platforms on the market.

WebaZilla’s network traffic is provided by some of the biggest bandwidth providers, including Level3, Above.net, TeliaSonera, Cogentco, KPN, Globalcrossing and Teleglobe. Based on personal practice and motivation theory, WebaZilla uses the best equipment from famous producers in the world market, such as Cisco, Dell, Western-Digital, Supermicro, 3Com, Seagate, APC and R&M. All WebaZilla servers and network equipment is protected by a conditioning system that maintains the necessary temperature, humidity and cleanliness for the entire datacenter.

Hosting with WebaZilla offers many advantages, including a no-break power supply, a flexible backup copying on separate servers, and instant recovery of necessary data, so clients are always protected. In addition, all services on WebaZilla servers are closely monitored for quality functioning with the help of a special monitoring system based on complex soft hardware. WebaZilla clients receive guaranteed no-break servers functioning, as well as a software system that includes constantly updated service and network traffic data.

For more information about WebaZilla, its Web hosting and collocation services, or for information about the company’s new datacenter in Dallas, Texas, visit www.WebaZilla.com.

http://www.gawkwire.com/events_html/webazilla_opens_datacenter.html

DiscountASP.NET Launches SQL 2008 Hosting Beta Program

2008-06-24T05:12:00-04:00

Pasadena, CA - Innovative windows hosting leader, DiscountASP.NET, announces the launch of a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 hosting beta program available to all DiscountASP.NET customers at no additional cost. Customers can enable their free SQL 2008 hosting beta account through their control panel.

"Under the SQL 2008 Go Live program, we are giving our customers a free SQL 2008 beta database account for testing purposes," said Takeshi Eto, VP Marketing at DiscountASP.NET. "The beta program provides our customers with the opportunity to get a jumpstart in testing SQL 2008 in a live hosted environment before its official release."

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is a major update to its enterprise database product and is currently in RC0 release. Although no launch date has been officially stated, the final release of SQL Server 2008 is said to be slated for Q3 2008.

For developers, some of the new SQL 2008 features include new data types, such as date/time data types and geospatial data types. In addition, Language Integrated Query (LINQ), integrated full text search, sparse columns, and large user-defined types are improvements that will help drive next-generation data-centric applications.

To learn more about Microsoft SQL 2008, visit http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/discountasp_net_launches_sql_2008_hosting_beta_program.html

Apple, Dell and Others in Infringement Suit

2008-06-24T05:04:00-04:00

SEATTLE - Typhoon Touch Technologies, Inc.(www.typhoontouchtech.com), owner of foundational intellectual property in the area of portable touch-screen computing, announced today that it has significantly expanded its patent infringement suit commenced in December 2007 against Dell, Inc. by adding Apple Inc. and the following additional defendants via amended complaint: Fujitsu Computer Systems Corporation; Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc.; Lenovo (United States) Inc.; Panasonic Corporation of North America; HTC America, Inc.; Palm, Inc.; Samsung Electronics America, Inc.; Nokia Inc.; and LG Electronics USA, Inc.

“The addition of these defendants is a further step in protecting Typhoon’s IP from being unfairly exploited. Hopefully, the world of potential infringers will take notice that it is the Company’s intent to aggressively protect its intellectual property,” stated Craig Weiner, Esq., from the law firm of Hofheimer, Gartlir & Gross LLP in New York City, Director of Legal Affairs and Licensing for Typhoon. “As alleged in the amended complaint, Typhoon believes that numerous defendants are selling and/or offering for sale -- what could be millions of devices -- which may infringe Typhoon’s patents.”

Typhoon Touch Technologies and its licensee and co-plaintiff, Nova Mobility Systems, Inc., previously reached an out-of-court settlement with Motion Computing, Inc. and recently completed a settlement with Electrovaya Inc., wherein Electrovaya recognized the validity of Typhoon’s patents at issue in the litigation, acknowledged infringement of one or more of the patent claims and made an undisclosed royalty payment of at least 20% on past and future sales of its Scribbler Tablet PC’s in the United States.

In the last month, Typhoon withdrew from preliminary settlement talks with defendant Sand Dune Ventures (Tabletkiosk). The Action, which seeks damages for lost profits as well as a permanent injunction from continued infringing activity by the defendants, is pending in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, Case No. 6:07-cv-546. The Action was filed on behalf of the Plaintiffs by Blank Rome LLP and shall proceed against both Sand Dune (Tabletkiosk) and the other remaining defendants.

Typhoon’s complaint alleges that defendants have infringed and continue to infringe its U.S. Patent No. 5,379,057 (“the ‘057 patent”) issued January 3, 1995 and entitled “Portable Computer with Touch Screen and Computer System Employing Same,” and U.S. Patent No. 5,675,362 (“the ‘362 patent”) issued October 7, 1997 and entitled “Portable Computer with Touch Screen and Computing System Employing Same,” through various actions including the manufacturing, selling, offering for sale, and/or importing of a variety of portable computer products, including but not limited to tablet PCs, slate PCs, handheld PCs, personal digital assistants (PDAs), ultra mobile PCs (UMPCs), smart phones, and/or other products covered by the patents-in-suit.

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/apple_dell_and_others_in_infringement_suit.html

Verio Forms New Marketing & Communications Team

2008-06-24T15:01:00-04:00

CENTENNIAL, Colo.- Verio, a leading provider of online business solutions, including hosting, application, and managed services, today announced that Wendy St. Clair Pearson has joined the company as senior director of marketing and communications and Kenneth Giffin has joined as director of marketing. Pearson and Giffin will work from the company’s corporate headquarter in Centennial, CO., and will lead the relaunch of Verio’s global marketing strategy.

"As the online business sector continues to grow and evolve, Verio is working to become the provider that small businesses everywhere turn to for guidance implementing smart and scalable web-based business applications," said Steve Renda, Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Verio. ”Wendy and Ken bring outstanding leadership and experience in web based business solutions that support the expansion of Verio’s hosting and SaaS initiatives worldwide.”

With more than 15 years of strategic marketing experience in the business-to business, hosting and technology arena, Wendy Pearson will immediately assume responsibility for all aspects of Verio’s marketing and communications initiatives, leveraging her expertise to further establish the company as a global leader in hosting, applications and managed services for small and midsized businesses.

Pearson joins Verio from Breakthrough Management Group International, (BMGI) a global Lean Six Sigma consulting firm, where she led the company’s marketing, branding and communications efforts since 2003. Prior to BMGI, she served as director of marketing and communications for hosting and colocation provider ViaWest, and as marketing manager at Rocky Mountain Internet, solidifying her expertise in marketing communications for the online business solutions industry. Pearson holds a Bachelor of Science, Journalism, from the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado.

In his role at Verio, Ken Giffin will use his more than 15 years of B2B and technology marketing experience to further enhance Verio’s new team. As director of marketing, Giffin will hold overall marketing responsibility for the Via Verio reseller program and leading the company’s product marketing.

Giffin joins Verio from Quark, where he served as vice president of marketing. Prior to Quark, he held several marketing leadership positions in General Electric’s Access Distribution division, involving corporation marketing and communications, customer loyalty and demand generation. As an expert in developing high-performance programs and teams, Giffin has helped companies such as 3Com, American Express and Sun Microsystems navigate significant global, distribution, technology, and marketing changes. Giffin has a BA in Journalism/Business from Indiana University, Bloomington and a MA in Integrated Marketing Communications from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/verio_forms_new_marketing.html

Lunarpages Offers $775 in Bonus Rewards

2008-06-23T16:32:00-04:00

Lunarpages Web Hosting, provider of affordable and reliable website solutions for personal users, bloggers, and small to enterprise businesses, announced today a new addition to their web hosting plans – a software and services bundle valued at $775. This software and webmaster services bundle is completely free to all new and existing Lunarpages customers!

Lunarpages has partnered with ten successful companies to offer solutions that will please every customer. They are giving away free with every hosting account full registered versions of Parallels Workstation, WinSettings, an award winning Windows security software from FileStream that helps you gain maximum performance from your PC; Photo TurboBackup, a very popular backup software also from FileStream, which easily backs up your photos and saves them in various formats; two editions of The Logo Creator’s logo design software; 2 months free with RatePoint; 3 months free subscription to Visitorville, the website statistics program that’s Sims meets stats; 15 DNS level accounts from Gafana to offer 100% accurate spam and virus protection; DMXReady’s Contact Us Manager to update your contact forms effortlessly from anywhere in the world; 3 months free of SiteScout; $100 free advertising from LinkWorth; $20 free advertising from BidVertiser!

“We’ve chosen to partner with some of the biggest and best companies in the world, and this is just the beginning!” said Amy Armitage, Director of Lunarpages Business Development. “In the coming months, we will be adding more, so stay tuned!”

“Lunarpages again demonstrates their leadership position in the hosting industry”, said Soeren von Varchmin, VP of SaaS at Parallels. “We’re pleased to partner with Lunarpages to offer users Parallels’ industry-leading desktop virtualization products such as Parallels Desktop for Mac and Parallels Workstation”

"I've been an entirely satisfied customer of Lunarpages for years, and know firsthand how great their service and support is,” said founder and self-appointed Mayor of Visitorville, Robert Savage. “It was only natural that I would want to partner with such a great organization. This is going to be wonderful!"

"In working with Lunarpages, I've learned that they are a fantastic company run by genuine people who truly care about their customers,” said found of Gafana, Gabriel Afana. “Our offer includes our 100% accurate spam solution, virus protection, consolidation of multiple email addresses into one place, public calendar with txt message and telephone reminders, auto-updating address book, media storage/sharing, and much more. This package is valued at $125 but in staying true to their commitment to their customers, Lunarpages has arranged to have this service provided for free.”

“We are extremely excited to have Lunarpages join us as a partner!" said Tom Serani, Vice President of Worldwide Sales, RatePoint. "Lunarpages’ commitment to offering the RatePoint offering is another clear sign that merchants are looking for powerful customer feedback solutions and additional ways to connect with their customers.”

“I think it says a lot about a company that actively seeks for additional value to extend to their customers,” said CEO of LinkWorth, Ron Wikcer. “For customers, after finding the perfect hosting company, the next logical step is marketing your site. LinkWorth has agreed to help all Lunarpages customers get off to the right start with a $100 advertising credit.”

"It was a pleasure partnering with Lunarpages and we are thrilled to offer their customers their first boost of traffic for free using the BidVertiser $20 advertising credit", said Shahar Jacobi, CEO of BidVertiser. "Best of all, this credit does not require any initial deposit. Setting up a website is not enough and you have to drive targeted traffic to it - Lunarpages now gives their customers a way to do it for free."

Lunarpages is currently offering their award-winning Basic Hosting Plan for $4.95/month, which includes Free Domain Name, Unlimited Emails, Ecommerce & Blog Software, and more. Add that intense discount to this new software bundle worth over $775 and you have a web hosting value that cannot be beat.

“I've been online selling my software since 1998 and had countless hosting providers over the past 10 years,” said CEO and Founder of The Logo Creator, Marc Sylvester. “All of them lacked certain things I wanted and specific things I needed. I was lucky enough to finally find Lunarpages, where they provide incredible customer support, easy to use back end tools, and my hosting plan is the fastest I've ever had. What I really like about them is their personal touch to everything. I'm proud to offer my software to all Lunarpages members. We're all family - and it really feels that way.”

For more information on this new software bundle available exclusively from Lunarpages, visit http://www.lunarpages.com/free-bonus.php

About Lunarpages Web Hosting: Lunarpages Web Hosting, based in California and serving over 150,000 customers in over 200 countries, offers affordable, award-winning Linux and Windows personal, small business, VPS and dedicated Web Hosting Solution.. Lunarpages has the staff, patience and high service levels expected to assist their webmaster community to easily and quickly build and maintain a website that is customized to their individual needs. They are consistently rated the most dependable, responsive, and recommended web host.

For more information please visit http://www.lunarpages.com

http://www.gawkwire.com/promotions/241.html

ServerBeach YouTube Farewell

2008-06-23T01:57:00-04:00

When you have a slow news day, you always fall back to the archives for juciy items. This video was produced Jan 2008 after YouTube was aquired by Google and pulled their accounts from ServerBeach. Tough a little redundant, it has some entertaing moments.

http://www.gawkwire.com/video_tv/serverbeach_youtube_farewell.html

FreeBSD Technologies in New Firefox 3 Browser

2008-06-23T00:54:00-04:00

Boulder, CO - Mozilla this week released the highly anticipated Firefox 3 browser. The FreeBSD Project congratulates the Mozilla project on a multi-year effort that culminated in a product that is both faster and more secure than its predecessors, with innovative new features. Several important features of the Firefox browser were incorporated from technologies adopted from the FreeBSD project. Technology from the FreeBSD project has a long history of being used inside other open source projects such as Firefox.

One of the FreeBSD technologies used by Firefox 3 is the new memory allocator, "jemalloc'', which was written by FreeBSD developer Jason Evans for the FreeBSD 7 operating system. jemalloc is a fast, efficient memory allocator with excellent performance on multiprocessor machines. Though already a part of the FreeBSD 7 operating system, the Mozilla project has chosen to also incorporate it directly inside the Firefox 3 browser to improve memory performance and reduce memory use on other operating systems with legacy memory allocators.

According to the blog of Firefox developer Stuart Parmenter, "Our automated tests on Windows Vista showed a 22% drop in memory usage when we turned jemalloc on." Commenting on the Linux version of the browser, he wrote, "We saw a good performance increase and a drop in memory."

Another FreeBSD technology used by Firefox is the "bsdiff'' binary patch system written by Colin Percival as part of the FreeBSD Update mechanism for updating the FreeBSD operating system. By using bsdiff, Firefox is able to dramatically reduce the size of its software updates, meaning faster downloads for end users. In addition to being used by FreeBSD and Firefox, bsdiff is used by Apple to distribute updates to the OS X operating system.

The FreeBSD operating system is supporting Firefox in other ways, too. FreeBSD was integral in delivering Firefox software into the hands of users through its association with the Internet Systems Consortium (ISC), which operates one of the Mozilla project's primary download mirrors, mozilla.isc.org.

ISC is a long-time supporter of the FreeBSD project, and FreeBSD 7 powers the mirror that withstood a sustained download rate of a gigabit per second, during peak download periods throughout Firefox's world record breaking "Download Day."

"ISC saw four times the normal volume of downloads from the mozilla.isc.org site during Download Day," said Peter Losher, Hosted@ISC Programme manager. "As usual, FreeBSD proved to be a rock-solid platform enabling us to deliver content without incident."

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/freebsd_firefox_3_browser.html

New ShoePhone, the Walk of the Town

2008-06-22T14:24:00-04:00

Fremont, Calif. - While other spies hide their cameras and surveillance devices in pens, cigarette cases and lighters, Maxwell Smart cleverly hides a telephone in his shoe. Soon, the most famous prop in television history will come to life if Matt Potts, founder and president of ArchPortTM Shoes, has his way.

Taking things one "step" at a time, Potts has incorporated a wallet feature into his company's ArchPorts -- sandals and athletic shoes named for the wallet's arch location in the sole, and port-like look. The concept is new and "radically innovative," according to Potts, who came up with the idea back in 1989 while playing tennis. He was later driven to file a patent while working out and recognizing the need for an unobtrusive place to store and access valuables. "It's just not comfortable to carry stuff in your pockets, especially a wallet," says Potts. His patent issued in the year 2000, and implementations of his patent are now available on the market through ArchPort and other branded footwear. More innovative applications of his patent are expected to reach the market in coming years -- including a cell phone footwear concept.

Currently, the ArchPort's removable cartridge is designed to carry cash, several credit card-sized items and at least one key. A cell phone product is in development that meets the criteria to be integrated into the shoe's sole, though Potts says "there are some challenges to partnering with a company that can meet all of the criteria necessary to incorporate a phone into the sole. However, some cell phones are now durable enough to handle the impact (i.e. Casio, GZ One), and cell phones are getting smaller and more resilient, characteristics necessary to employ the concept in footwear."

Looking ahead, Potts envisions using the ArchPort concept for Global Positioning Systems (GPS) transceivers, computer data, remote controls, wireless MP3 players, battery modules, heaters and other gadgets placed in platform shoes, skateboarding shoes and other types of footwear. "The patent covers many potential configurations using the ArchPort cartridge," says Potts.

Innovation aside, ArchPort's footwear are just plain comfortable and functional. They retail for as little as $44.95 and are available nationwide through Shoebuy.com, Hammacher Schlemmer, QVC, and ArchPort.com. Check also with a local retailer for availability.

ArchPort Shoes were recently mentioned in the Qantas In Flight Magazine, and have been seen on Good Morning America, Maxim Magazine, the AAA Via Magazine and other major network shows, magazines and newspaper articles. The ArchPort product was also a winner of Invent Now America in 2004, and was featured in Inventors Digest Magazine twice.

http://www.archport.com

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/new_shoe_phone.html

SecureMac Security Advisory for Apple OS X

2008-06-20T10:33:00-04:00

Las Vegas, NV - SecureMac has discovered multiple variants of a new Trojan horse in the wild that affects Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5. The Trojan horse is currently being distributed from a hacker website, where discussion has taken place on distributing the Trojan horse through iChat and Limewire.

President Nicholas Raba stated, "The increased number of threats, security advisories, and security updates is an indication that Mac users must pay attention to computer security issues. As Apple's market share continues to grow, so will security research and hack attempts against OS X".

The Trojan horse runs hidden on the system, and allows a malicious user complete remote access to the system, can transmit system and user passwords, and can avoid detection by opening ports in the firewall and turning off system logging. Additionally, the AppleScript.THT Trojan horse can log keystrokes, take pictures with the built-in Apple iSight camera, take screenshots, and turn on file sharing. The Trojan horse exploits a recently discovered vulnerability with the Apple Remote Desktop Agent, which allows it to run as root.

The Trojan is distributed as either a compiled AppleScript, called ASthtv05 (60 KB in size), or as an application bundle called AStht_v06 (3.1 MB in size). The user must download and open the Trojan horse in order to become infected. Once the Trojan horse is running, it will move itself into the /Library/Caches/ folder, and add itself to the System Login Items.

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/securemac_security_advisory_for_apple_os_x.html

CloudCamp San Francisco to Forecast Future of Cloud Computing

2008-06-20T10:21:00-04:00

San Francisco, CA - The agenda has been announced for CloudCamp San Francisco, the first in a series of community-driven "unconferences" on cloud computing, to be held Tuesday, June 24, 2008 from 5-11 p.m. at 835 Market Street, Suite 700, San Francisco, California. Well over 200 cloud computing enthusiasts, practitioners and visionaries are expected to attend the event, which was formed in order to provide a common ground for the introduction and advancement of cloud computing.

Agenda
CloudCamp SF will follow the popular "Open Space" format, which encourages an open exchange between presenters and participants. Attendees may propose and lead sessions on any area of interest to them. In addition, CloudCamp will feature "Lightening Talks" in which presenters expound on topics of interest in dense five-minute bolts. To submit speaking proposals and ideas please visit the CloudCamp web site to post your ideas, or contact program chairs Dave Nielsen or Sebastien Stadil (details below).

Following the camp, CloudBash -- the CloudCamp Party -- will be held from 9:30 to 11 p.m. CloudBash will feature a live DJ and an open bar serving the signature CloudCamp cocktail to be unveiled at the event.

Additional agenda details:
    Networking - 5 p.m.
    Opening Remarks - 5:30 p.m.
    Overview of Agenda and Format - 5:40 p.m.
    CloudCamp Lightening Talks - 6 p.m.
    Attendee-Driven Session Breakouts - 6:30 p.m.
    Closing Remarks - 9 p.m.
    Party - 9:30 p.m. - 11 p.m.

Sponsors
As a community-supported gathering, we rely entirely on volunteers to organize the event and corporate sponsors to underwrite its costs.

CloudCamp San Francisco corporate sponsors include Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Dell, Joyent, 3Tera, Appistry, CohesiveFT, Elastra, Enomaly, GoGrid, JumpBox, Nirvanix, RightScale and SnapLogic.

Media sponsors include GigaOm, InfoQ, O'Reilly and SD Forum.

Registration
Attending CloudCamp SF is both free and fun. Space is limited, so please visit http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/759667 to register.

CloudCamp Around the Web
For additional information on CloudCamp, please visit cloudcamp.com. CloudCamp can also be found in various places around the Web:

CloudCamp on Facebook
CloudCamp on Twitter
CloudCamp on FriendFeed
Cloud Computing Google Group (Mailing List)

Contacts
Media:

Sam Charrington, 415-727-1850, sam -at- appistry.com, Twitter: samcharrington
Sara Dornsife, 512-297-4600, sara.dornsife -at- sun.com, Twitter: sarad

Sponsorships:

Reuven Cohen, ruv -at- enomaly.com, Twitter: ruv
Jesse Silver, jesse.silver -at- sun.com, Twitter: silverguru

Program:

Dave Nielsen, dnielsen -at- gmail.com, Twitter: davenielsen
Sebastien Stadil, s.stadil -at- gmail.com

About CloudCamp
CloudCamp was formed in 2008 in order to provide a common ground for the introduction and advancement of cloud computing. Through a series of local CloudCamp events, attendees can exchange ideas, knowledge and information in a creative and supporting environment, advancing the current state of cloud computing and related technologies.

http://www.gawkwire.com/events_html/cloudcamp_san_francisco.html

HostingCon 2008 Features Microsoft Keynote Speaker

2008-06-20T00:11:00-04:00

Chicago – Interjuncture Corp. today announced that Mark Rogers, Director of Cloud Services at Microsoft Corp., will deliver one of the keynote addresses at the upcoming HostingCon 2008 tradeshow and conference. HostingCon 2008 will be held July 28-30, 2008 at the historic Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois.

The emergence of the Web as a business and consumer platform presents many new possibilities for the hosting industry, as well as a new set of challenges. While hosted services providers are rightly concerned with a new competitive landscape that includes Microsoft and others, cloud services hold the key to a bright future. Rogers spends his time talking to the industry about the choice between on-premise software and cloud services, and the important factors to consider when determining and investing in models for software and services.

"Hosting providers are contemplating the challenges and opportunities cloud computing represents,” Rogers said. “At HostingCon 2008, I look forward to sharing the exciting technology developments taking place, and initiating a dialogue about the potential concerns and opportunities for hosting service providers.”

In addition to Rogers’ keynote address, HostingCon 2008’s conference program will contain a number of sessions discussing cloud computing and its impact on hosted services providers. Attendees will be able to learn how to help their customers feel comfortable with cloud services, how software as a service and open source software work together and how to employ virtualization in your infrastructure.

“HostingCon 2008 will be a great place to learn about how cloud services will impact your hosted services business and how you can take advantage of those trends,” said George A. Roberts IV, Executive Director of HostingCon 2008. “It will also be a wonderful opportunity to network with others in the industry and get their thoughts and ideas on how they’re transforming their businesses to thrive in a cloud services future.”

More information and online registration for HostingCon 2008 is available at http://www.hostingcon.com/2008/

http://www.gawkwire.com/events_html/hostingcon_2008_features_microsoft_keynote_speaker.html

SPAM Costs Colorado Man $6 Million

2008-06-19T00:37:00-04:00

In a judgment by a court-appointed arbitrator, Scott Richter of Westminster, Colorado, must pay $4.8 million in damages and $1.2 million in legal fees for sending out more than 100 million spam messages daily to MySpace users during August 2006. While promoting a website called Consumerpromotionscenter.com, Richter used phished MySpace accounts to assail users and overwhelm an ill-equipped staff at MySpace to deal with such security problems.

Steven Richter, father of Scott Richter and president of Media Breakaway has agreed to the arbitration and “plans to pay the money he awarded and not appeal it.”

According to records, this is not the first time Richter has been accused of spamming and had judgments against him. In 2005, Richter other company had to pay Microsoft $7 million for similar charges.

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/spam_costs_colorado_man_6_million.html

EvoSwitch Announces Opening of Newly Expanded Green Data Center

2008-06-19T00:20:00-04:00

Amsterdam – EvoSwitch (http://www.evoswitch.com), a Dutch carrier-neutral and CO2-neutral Data Center, today announced that is has completed the expansion of its Amsterdam based Data Center. The expansion is the culmination of successfully selling out the first phase of their data center and continued strong demand for rack space. The new rack space consumes even less power and offers an increased – green – power capacity with 5 up to as much as 20 kW.

The 2,000 square meters of additional floor surface at EvoSwitch comes right on time. ‘A lot of interest has been shown in our green data center in the past year,' says Laurens Rosenthal, Innovation Manager at EvoSwitch. ‘As a result, we were nearing our maximum capacity. Fortunately the expansion means that we have ample space again to serve our customers.’

Data Center Investment: 9 million euros
Developing the 2000 m2 of additional space at the EvoSwitch data center is a capital-intensive exercise. EvoSwitch has invested as much as 9 million euros in building the second phase – creating 2000 m2 of floor surface in addition to the 2000 m2 that are already available. ‘The investment has allowed us to ensure that the new EvoSwitch spaces are of a more efficient design,’ explains Laurens Rosenthal. ‘In the first phase, we had to deal with a number of technological constraints due to the existing infrastructure of the building. These constraints did not exist in the second phase, allowing us to use even more efficient technologies.’

Data Center Netherlands
One of the reasons for the increased efficiency was the use of more advanced cooling technologies than were implemented in the first EvoSwitch building phase. In both cases Free Cooling was used. This is a cooling concept that uses outside air instead of compressors, but the technology used here has been improved. ‘We installed new Free Coolers on the roof. They have a higher capacity but with less resistance,’ says Rosenthal. ‘We expect to be able to further increase our current energy-saving rate of more than 20 percent. In time, the spaces completed in the first phase will benefit as well.’

The new cooling system has an average year EER of 9. The EER or Energy Efficiency Ratio represents the ratio between the cooling energy and the energy required to generate the cooling energy. The higher the EER, the better.

Cheap Data Center
With the second phase, EvoSwitch's energy-saving rate is expected to increase even further. ‘We were able to realize a 20% saving in the first phase,’ explains Rosenthal. ‘The second phase will increase the total saving in terms of power consumption at EvoSwitch.’

EvoSwitch is a member of the Green Grid. This group has developed a method to indicate the degree to which a specific data center’s operations can be considered energy-efficient and green. The method is called Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE). The PUE value can range from 1 to 3, and the closer you are the 1, the greener the data center. ‘Worldwide, several market parties believe that a value of 1.6 is the best you can achieve. But our calculations show that we can realize an even lower PUE. This is extremely efficient and therefore environmentally friendly,’ says Rosenthal.

High Density Hosting
The 19-inch racks in the new spaces have a higher (green) power capacity per rack, thereby enabling medium and high density hosting. According to Rosenthal many market parties – including a number of big companies – have already shown a lot of interest. 'A cooling capacity of 5 kW on average for a 19-inch rack is already fairly high,’ explains Rosenthal. ‘It means that the commonly offered power and cooling capacity in the market are doubled. Some market parties need this capacity for medium density hosting – and we are now able to deliver it. And we can also offer high density now, up to as much as 20kW per rack.’

Energy Capacity Data Center: 20 MVA
In the second phase, the number of 2.5 MVA transformers was doubled from two to four. The data center also took two new UPSs into production, each with a capacity of 2 MVA. In addition to the two existing 1.5 MVA emergency power generators, another eight – including a double back-up series – have been installed. EvoSwitch also recently doubled its power capacity from 10 MVA (Mega Volt Ampere) to 20 MVA, which represents about 20 million Watts. As a result, ample power capacity is available for the current 4000 m2 of floor surface.

19-inch Racks
Because building a data center is a capital-intensive exercise, EvoSwitch is being delivered in a series of consecutive phases. The new 2000 m2 of additional floor surface represent the 2nd phase. The 3rd phase of EvoSwitch is expected to start towards the end of 2008. ‘There is a lot of interest in the green data center,' says Rosenthal. ‘If the number of new customers continues to grow as it has in the past year, I expect we will be able to start building the 3rd phase towards the end of the year, as we originally planned.’

About EvoSwitch
EvoSwitch (http://www.evoswitch.com) is a carrier-neutral, green (CO2-neutral) data center. The site in the Amsterdam area has a surface of more than 9,000 square meters, allowing companies to install their IT infrastructure in a safe location. The data center has a total capacity of 20 Megawatts. With this power capacity, EvoSwitch can guarantee its customers that it will have ample power available at all times. EvoSwitch has 30 employees, which include engineers who manage customer equipment both actively and proactively. EvoSwitch is fully climate-neutral. Together with the Climate Neutral Group, we invest in global projects to restore the CO2 balance in the atmosphere (http://www.climateneutralgroup.com). Companies that install their equipment at EvoSwitch are allowed to show, on their websites, that they use a climate-neutral data center via the logos in the partner program The Green Fan (http://www.thegreenfan.com).

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/evoswitch_announces_opening_of_newly_expanded_green_data_center.html

Deluxe to Acquire Hostopia.com

2008-06-19T10:12:00-04:00

ST. PAUL, Minn. and MISSISSAUGA, Ontario - Deluxe Corporation and Hostopia.com Inc. today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement for Deluxe to acquire Hostopia, a leading provider of web services that enable small and medium-sized businesses to establish and maintain an Internet presence. Deluxe will acquire Hostopia in an all-cash transaction that values Hostopia at approximately C$124 million. Under terms of the Merger Agreement, Deluxe will pay C$10.55 in cash for each outstanding Hostopia common share. Subject to a final accounting allocation of the purchase price, the acquisition is not expected to have a significant impact to Deluxe's earnings and operating cash flow for fiscal 2008.

"We are very excited with the prospect of providing Hostopia's industry-leading, private-label web services to our small business customers and collectively growing our product and service offerings as we move forward together," said Lee Schram, Chief Executive Officer of Deluxe. "Hostopia has grown top line revenue in excess of 20 percent in each of the last three years. While we have substantial knowledge and expertise in selling to the small business market, we believe that Hostopia's ability to attract new customers and provide additional services to that market will increase the power of our offerings. This acquisition is in line with our long-term strategy of broadening the products and services we offer to small businesses to manage, promote and grow their businesses. We also believe that the transaction will offer significant value to our shareholders as we continue to introduce growing products and services with recurring revenue streams."

Colin Campbell, Chief Executive Officer of Hostopia, said, "After careful consideration, the Hostopia Board of Directors has unanimously approved this transaction with Deluxe. We believe the transaction delivers outstanding value to the Hostopia stockholders. Deluxe and Hostopia have many similarities, including a desire to help small businesses grow and promote their businesses. Our customers will benefit from augmented product and service offerings which include small business logo design, print-on-demand services and e-mail marketing, all of which have demonstrated demand from small businesses. In addition, Deluxe brings access to new channels for Hostopia including direct mail to small businesses and sales through financial institutions. We look forward to providing web-hosting capabilities to small businesses as a significant component of the services that Deluxe offers to those businesses."

The transaction, which has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies, is structured as a merger under applicable law. It will require the approval of Hostopia stockholders holding a majority of the outstanding Hostopia common shares at a special meeting to be called to consider the transaction. Hostopia stockholders holding in aggregate approximately 35% of the issued and outstanding shares of Hostopia common stock have agreed to vote their Hostopia common shares in favor of the transaction as long as the merger agreement is in effect, pursuant to a voting agreement with Deluxe. The transaction is also subject to certain other customary closing conditions. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2008.

About Deluxe Corporation

Deluxe Corporation, through its industry-leading businesses and brands, helps financial institutions and small businesses better manage, promote, and grow their businesses. Deluxe uses direct marketing, distributors, and a North American sales force to provide a wide range of customized products and services: personalized printed items (checks, forms, business cards, stationery, greeting cards, labels, and retail packaging supplies), promotional products and merchandising materials, fraud prevention services, and customer retention programs. Deluxe also sells personalized checks and accessories directly to consumers. For more information about Deluxe Corporation, visit http://www.Deluxe.com.

About Hostopia.com Inc.

Hostopia.com Inc. is a leading provider of web services that enable small and medium-sized businesses to establish and maintain an Internet presence. Hostopia's customers are communication services providers, including telecommunication carriers, cable companies, internet service providers, domain registrars, and web hosting service providers. Hostopia's customers purchase its web services on a wholesale basis and resell these services under their own brands to small and medium-sized businesses. Hostopia provides customers with the technology, infrastructure, and support services to enable them to offer web services, while saving them research and development as well as capital and operating costs typically associated with the design, development, and delivery of web services.

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/230.html

NetDepot Deploys Top Layer Networks IPS 5500

2008-06-18T07:56:00-04:00

NetDepot was founded by the owners of GNAX.net to offer a cost effective alternative to their popular managed server line provided by tranxactglobal.com. With more than 14 years in the industry, GNAX is trusted by thousands of customers that span almost every country in the world. They include the smallest one-man shops all the way up to multi-billion dollar corporations. Clients represent many different areas of business and government as well including - hosting, online gaming, banking, large universities and schools, software and computer services, and manufacturing companies.

NetDepot aims to be a low-cost / high-quality provider of hosting infrastructure and utility computing by managing its computer and backbone operations efficiently and not spending money on items outside of core infrastructure – the costs that are often passed through to the customer by other providers. The company is profitable and has relatively little debt, unlike most hosting companies out there, enabling NetDepot to provide reliable support and operation of customers’ key equipment and sites.

Hosting and data center environments have unique security requirements and face threats that go beyond those found in enterprise networks and infrastructure. As many companies rely on the outsourced servers and connectivity provided by a hosting company to conduct business, a unique combination of high-performance networks and staunch security is critical to creating a successful hosting business. NetDepot keeps a keen eye on infrastructure enhancements that provide real value to its customers. As it sought to bolster its security capabilities because of network performance that was being impacted by malicious traffic, NetDepot engaged in a competitive review of intrusion prevention systems on the market. The company evaluated the solutions using the following criteria: performance, reliability, and accuracy of threat prevention.

All Systems are Not Created Equal; All Vendors Aren’t Willing to Go that Extra Mile
Jeff Hinkle, president of NetDepot, and his team began evaluating a list of intrusion prevention products in late 2006. He spent months testing products and having conversations with vendors about their core capabilities and how they’d deal with the specific threats that NetDepot and the hosting industry are concerned about. After a competitive review of products from McAfee, Cisco, 3Com TippingPoint and Top Layer Networks, NetDepot selected Top Layer Networks’ IPS 5500 for deployment into its environment.

NetDepot chose Top Layer because of its ability to handle a wide variety of threats, from undesired access, malicious content and rate-based DDoS attacks, in a single solution while protecting his applications and infrastructure from zero day threats. In addition, Top Layer Networks’ team demonstrated its commitment to customers by continuously working with the NetDepot team to develop specialized protection mechanisms that addressed the unique threats that NetDepot faces as a data center – before signing a Purchase Order.

Top Layer and NetDepot’s team worked hand-in-hand to develop and test a bevy of innovative protection mechanisms unique to NetDepot’s environment, bringing enhanced protection beyond the robust out-of-the-box capabilities inherent in the award-winning IPS 5500 – a combination head-and-shoulders above the competition. Today, NetDepot’s team works closely with the Top Layer Networks team to dissect new threats as they emerge in the hosting industry to leverage the extensive protection capabilities of the IPS 5500 with the flexibility to augment the appliance in real-time, providing leading-edge protections optimized for NetDepot’s architecture. Combined with this intimate approach to customer collaboration, Top Layer’s IPS 5500 has demonstrated the right set of security features that are optimal for a hosting environment and the hands-on know-how and commitment to get the job done.

“When we ran our evaluation of the intrusion prevention systems, many vendors had a broad swath of features and capabilities, but we have specific security threats that we’re concerned with on a daily basis,” added Hinkle.

Rigorously Tested, Demonstrably Approved
Jeff Hinkle and his NetDepot team were methodical and patient as they evaluated this strategic infrastructure investment. Once the testing phase was completed, Top Layer and NetDepot then came to terms on pricing and parameters of the relationship. According to Hinkle, “Top Layer’s flexibility to work with us was key to the decision to go with them and the IPS 5500 solution.”

Specifically, as a hosting provider, NetDepot is concerned with three primary areas that the IPS 5500 helps protect against:
1.         PHP & SQL injection attacks: which target customer servers, propagating malware, victimizing our customers’ customers and creating botnets;
2.         File Inspection: Top Layer’s ability to do file scrubbing on specific files being uploaded across the network satisfied a key concern for NetDepot and those operating in a hosting environment;
3.         Optimizing network bandwidth and application utilization

NetDepot has deployed several IPS 5500 appliances operating inline within its network, and delivers the levels of performance and quality of protection from threats that are critical as an infrastructure provider.

What about My Needs?
“Top Layer developed specific protection mechanisms to protect our Linux and Unix infrastructure – common systems used in the hosting business – while other intrusion prevention solutions we considered were too focused on Windows and related virus protection,” added Hinkle. “Unfortunately, the focus of most intrusion prevention system vendors is to protect Windows-based systems, and often overlooks the specific needs of those of us in the hosting sector. We were relieved to finally find a vendor like Top Layer Networks that could help NetDepot not only protect against the more common Windows-based threats, but also cater to the Unix-based and Linux-based menaces that threaten our infrastructure on a daily basis.”

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/netdepot_deploys_top_layer_networks_ips_5500.html

ViUX Systems Features SmarterMail for its Customers

2008-06-18T07:54:00-04:00

Phoenix, AZ – ViUX Systems, Inc. announced today the complete adoption of SmarterMail 5.x Enterprise Edition across its line of dedicated, virtual, and shared hosting services. The Web hosting, Software as a Service (SaaS), and Internet solution company will further offer SmarterMail 5.x as a hosted business-class email alternative to Microsoft Exchange™. SmarterMail 5.x, created by SmarterTools, Inc., is a feature rich Windows mail server that brings the power of enterprise-level functionality to hosting environments and businesses through the convenience of a richly-rendered Web interface.

“SmarterMail is the perfect solution for our customers who require advanced collaboration, synchronization, and security,” said J.T. Smith, Managing Director at ViUX Systems. “We are excited to be one of a select few SmarterTools partners who can offer SmarterMail leased licenses to end users, businesses, and other Web hosts with convenient monthly payments. The use of SmarterMail 5.x in all of our service options gives us a cost effective way to provide premium services to our customers.”

SmarterMail is the cost effective Microsoft Exchange™ alternative providing enhanced security measures such as intrusion detection, robust anti-virus, and 99% anti-spam. It is scalable and easy to manage while offering extensive reporting, throttling, real-time performance dashboards, and much more. SmarterMail features an industry leading events architecture that allows for automation and customizable notifications.

“ViUX has over 10 years experience providing Software as a Service (SaaS) to its growing number of customers around the world - establishing a solid reputation as a leader in Web hosting,” said Jeff Hardy, Vice President of Business Operations for SmarterTools. “The inclusion of SmarterMail as a ViUX technology solution will allow their customers to enjoy a leading service product through a unique leasing program.”

About SmarterTools, Inc.
Founded in 2003, SmarterTools, Inc. is an information technology-management software company based in Phoenix, Arizona. SmarterTools builds a Windows Mail Server, Customer Service Software, and Web Log Analytics reporting tool that simplify and automate the day-to-day IT operations of businesses and hosting environments in over 100 countries. Additional information about SmarterTools Inc. and the SmarterTools product line is available at the Company Web site: www.smartertools.com

About ViUX Systems, Inc.
ViUX Systems, Inc. is a privately held North Carolina corporation whose mission is to provide individuals and businesses of all types and sizes with the technology services and Web/Internet systems required to offer their products and services to the world. For more information, visit ViUX.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/viux_systems_features_smartermail_for_its_customers.html

China Antitrust Investigation Targets Microsoft

2008-06-18T12:40:00-04:00

Under a new law coming into effect in China, their government is considering suing Microsoft over the cost of their software products.

According to sources, Microsoft Windows costs $149-290 per license, while the total cost of a pc to operate the software is significantly cheaper. This has sparked a suit under the anti-monopoly law passed last year requiring the Chinese companies not to be purchased by companies from other countries or establish monopolies that represent a national security to their own country.

The law comes into effect on August 1 and other such suits are expected to follow.

In the meantime, Microsoft has stated that they are unaware of any investigation by companies from China.

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/227.html

groupSPARK Named 2008 Microsoft Partner of the Year

2008-06-18T11:36:00-04:00

BURLINGTON, Massachusetts – groupSPARK, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and the leading provider of private label hosted software services including Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, today announced that it has been named by Microsoft as its 2008 Partner of the Year in the Advanced Infrastructure Solutions, Hosting Solutions category.

The Microsoft Partner of the Year Award recognizes partners in a number of categories who are industry leaders and have a proven track record of developing and delivering to their customers best-of-breed, comprehensive Microsoft-based solutions to help them achieve outstanding business success.

groupSPARK was chosen for this prestigious award from a pool of over 2,000 entrants worldwide. The selection as the top Hosting Solutions Partner was based on the company’s demonstration of both technical and business marketing innovation. Its integration of Microsoft technology such as Microsoft Exchange Server, Windows SharePoint Services and Dynamics CRM with proprietary, industry leading automation tools enables groupSPARK resellers to go to market more quickly and cost effectively with a full suite of private label hosted services under their own brands.

“We are pleased to see groupSPARK present reselling partners with increased opportunity to deliver richer applications and the power of choice,” said Robert Deshaies, Vice President, U.S. Partner Group, Microsoft Corp. “Partners of any size can now offer hosted Microsoft Exchange Server based on groupSPARK’s service in as little as 30 minutes to customers using their own brand, domain, and corporate look-and-feel.”

“We are exceptionally honored to be selected from among thousands of Microsoft partners to receive the 2008 Microsoft Partner of the Year award in the advanced infrastructure solutions, hosting solutions category,” said Ravi Agarwal, founder and Senior Executive Officer of groupSPARK, a mindSHIFT company. “We are delighted that Microsoft has publicly recognized our proven success as the leading provider of private label SaaS applications – worldwide.”

groupSPARK’s industry leading Private Label Application Delivery (PLAD) platform enables resellers to offer hosted Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 completely under the resellers’ brand. This technology is the only one in the industry that allows for complete private label functionality, including every URL seen by the end customer. This unique private label capability enables them to go to market in a significantly shorter amount of time - 30 minutes - incurring significantly less deployment expenses and allowing them to increase customer retention and monthly recurring revenue. Couple that with outstanding customer service delivered via live 24 x 7 U.S.-based technical support and groupSPARK provides an unmatched hosted services solution to its reseller partners.

About groupSPARK
Located in Burlington, Massachusetts, groupSPARK, a mindSHIFT company, is the leading provider of SaaS services, such as Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services v3.0, and Dynamics CRM, completely private labeled and resold by partners as a part of their own product offerings, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in development and support costs.

Its partners utilize groupSPARK’s turnkey private label platform to provide hosted services to their users in minutes. Partners address scalability and uptime concerns by leveraging groupSPARK's 100% uptime SLA, live 24x7 U.S.-based support and proactive hardware and software monitoring capabilities. For additional information, visit www.groupSPARK.com.

http://www.gawkwire.com/reviews/226.html

Secure, High-Tech Data Center Coming to Columbus

2008-06-18T01:10:00-04:00

COLUMBUS, Ind. - Columbus-based engine research and development firm Analytical Engineering, Inc. (AEI) announced today it has established a new sister company here that will create a secure, high-tech data center and 25 new jobs.

Operating under the company name of Data Cave, Inc., the company will invest more than $7 million to construct a two-story 78,000-square-foot high-security data center adjacent to Analytical Engineering's facility in southern Columbus.

"Creating an environment that attracts new job-creating investment from Hoosier companies and from businesses around the world is essential to Indiana's economic success. Analytical Engineering's decision to start Data Cave and invest in Indiana is an indication that the environment we have created is working," said Governor Mitch Daniels.

Data Cave will begin construction of the new reinforced data storage center in July and will begin hiring information technology technicians to maintain the center's servers and network infrastructure later this year.

The new center, which will serve as an off-site secure electronic data storage center for businesses around the globe, will employ high-tech tools such as biometric hand scanner access, redundant fiber optic connectivity, supplemental power protection and a reinforced exterior to protect customers' data from threats ranging from hackers to Mother Nature.

"Data Cave is a natural expansion of many of our core competencies into a growing market," said Caleb Tennis, president of Data Cave. "Locating this facility in Indiana adjacent to our sister company just makes sense. By doing so, we are able to build the infrastructure of the facility at a lower cost than many other locations and have access to our current mix of highly talented professionals. Those competitive advantages, coupled with the training programs and credits provided by the state and local community, will provide us a great pool of resources to grow this new business."

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation offered Data Cave up to $225,000 in performance-based tax credits and up to $36,500 in training grants based on the company's job creation plans. The state will also provide the city of Columbus with a grant of up to $50,000 to offset the cost of extending fiber optic connectivity to the site. Columbus will provide the company with property tax abatement and extend fiber optic connectivity to the new data center.

"Data Cave is a company for the future starting today," said Mayor Fred Armstrong. "Columbus is on the map for technology companies. We look forward to working with Data Cave today and into the future."

The announcement of Data Cave's decision to establish its operations in Columbus comes less than a month after Columbus-based LHP Technologies and Chinese-owned manufacturer Techtop announced a joint venture that will bring a new manufacturing and distribution center to the south central Indiana city, creating more than 60 new jobs.

About Data Cave
Data Cave is a state-of-the-art-computer data center designed with the needs of its high-tech and high-performance clients in mind. When operational, the company's 78,000-square-foot data center will offer a high level of security, redundancy, and availability for mission critical computer applications. For more information about Data Cave, call 812.376.6472 ext. 261 or visit www.thedatacave.com.

About IEDC
Created by Governor Mitch Daniels in 2005 to replace the former Department of Commerce, the Indiana Economic Development Corporation is governed by a 12-member board chaired by Governor Daniels. Indiana Secretary of Commerce Nathan Feltman serves as the chief executive officer of the IEDC. Since Daniels created the IEDC, the state has posted three consecutive years of record-breaking job creation. For more information about IEDC, visit www.iedc.in.gov.

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/225.html

Pinnacle Cart Releases New Software âˆ’ Pinnacle Cart 360

2008-06-18T10:37:00-04:00

Phoenix, AZ - Pinnacle Cart today announced the launch of their latest ecommerce software solution, Pinnacle Cart 360. This version capitalizes on the already robust application by improving administrative functionality, enabling gift certificate purchasing, integrating product zoom and magnify capabilities, providing encrypted credit card storage, among others.

"Pinnacle Cart 360 had been designed from a marketing perspective and is specifically targeted for merchants focused on cost effectively deploying and managing a successful web-based business," says Craig Fox, vice president of marketing and product development. "This latest release will improve merchants' ability to increase not only the number of sales but also the average order amount per sale."

With this latest release, Pinnacle Cart has also achieved GOLD certification from Parallels (formally SWSoft) using the Application Packaging Standard (APS) packaging format. This format has been designed to help implement the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business model and allows hosting companies using Parallels products to distribute Pinnacle Cart directly to their customers with no up-front investment.

"With this latest version, Pinnacle Cart is poised to capture a larger share of the online shopping cart market," says Mike Auger, president of Pinnacle Cart. "Pinnacle Cart 360 dramatically improves functionality for existing customers while also providing substantial advantages over competitive products for those looking to establish an ecommerce presence."

For more information on Pinnacle Cart 360 and to download a product brochure, visit http://www.pinnaclecart.com.

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/224.html

Microsoft Announces Acquisition of Navic Networks

2008-06-18T10:34:00-04:00

REDMOND, Wash. - Microsoft Corp. today announced the acquisition of Navic Networks, a leading provider of television advertising solutions. Navic's technologies include sophisticated campaign management tools that use relevant data to optimize the delivery and placement of targeted interactive television media and through Admira provide a unified ad network for targeting audiences across television advertising inventory. With the addition of Navic solutions, Microsoft's comprehensive advertising platform will be able to facilitate enhanced digital advertising across online and offline environments.

"Television media represents the largest percentage of advertisers and agencies' media budget today," said Brian McAndrews, senior vice president of the Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group at Microsoft. "Together, Navic and Microsoft will deliver addressable television advertising solutions to help our partners better manage media spend by increasing advertiser reach and ROI, and maximizing publisher yield on television advertising."

Together, Microsoft and Navic plan to consult and work with the key constituents in the television advertising industry to better understand how its campaign management and advertising platforms for digital television can help advertisers, content owners and distributors maximize yield and achieve their media objectives.

"Viewers across North America are engaging with relevant advertising and interacting with their TVs in ways never before possible. Joining forces with Microsoft will enable our common vision of addressable television advertising solutions to continue to flourish and better meet the needs of our industry partners," said Chet Kanojia, CEO of Navic Networks. "While our current business relationships will continue to grow, we look forward to extending our technology into a vast array of new markets and software solutions."

With this acquisition, Navic Networks becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft and will join Microsoft's Advertiser and Publisher Solutions (APS) Group, the group responsible for Microsoft's comprehensive advertising platform that spans all digital media including television and video advertising. The APS Group includes Atlas, a pioneer of Video-On-Demand advertising solutions.

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/223.html

Exabytes Partners with SmarterTools

2008-06-16T23:26:00-04:00

Exabytes Partners with SmarterTools

Exabytes Network Pvt Ltd, the top web hosting company in Malaysia announced that they have recently become official partners with SmarterTools, the IT management software company that offers solution to everyday business operations.

The company reported that as a qualified SmarterTool’s Resellers & Bundle Partners, their customers are entitled to get Smartermail Pro which offers up to 50 domains to 250 Users, SmarterStats Pro 3.x for 50 Sites, and SmarterTrack Pro 3.x with 2 agents, all of which are valued at $747 and given out at no cost at all whenever they subscribe to Exabytes Windows Dedicated Server plan. Exabytes Windows Dedicated Server plan is exclusively designed for smart customers who would like more control of their server. This plan helps reduce space consumption and provides users with more space for data storage. Hence, once customers subscribe to this smart plan, they will be sent the three SmarterTools bundled license of which they will own for good. However, they will need to activate their account with SmarterTools before any of the licenses can be activated. The company also added that these valuable licenses could help companies in starting up their business in the effort to increase their market.
When asked the reason for Exabytes to become partners with SmarterTools, CEO Chan Kee Siak said, “SmarterTools speaks for its name. It is indeed a smart and popular web application software, used by many web hosting providers, internet service providers, even small business. It helps automate and simplify the daily operation of business, making it just the right tool for any company to manage their businesses.

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/222.html

Time Warner Telecom to Present at Investor Conference

2008-06-16T01:50:00-04:00

LITTLETON, Colo. - Time Warner Telecom Inc., a leading provider of managed voice, Internet and data networking solutions for businesses, will present at the following conference:

Wachovia 18th Annual Equity Conference
Nantucket, MA, Tuesday June 24th @ 9:30am (EDT)
Speakers: Larissa Herda, Chairman, CEO and President
Mark Peters, EVP and CFO
Michael Rouleau, SVP, Business Development and Strategy

The presentation will be webcast. Please visit http://www.twtelecom.com/, "Investor Relations" to listen to the webcast and access the conference materials.

http://www.gawkwire.com/events_html/218.html

HostMySite.com Data Center Awarded Strategic Grant

2008-06-16T11:40:00-04:00

Dover, Del. - Governor Ruth Ann Minner and HostMySite.com Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Lou Honick announced today that the Internet technology company will continue to expand its operations in Delaware, creating 75 new high-wage jobs over the next three years. The expansion comes after a move into a new international corporate headquarters in Newark, Delaware earlier this year.

''HostMySite.com's confidence in the state of Delaware and our partnership with the company is a testament to my Administration's dedication to growing our technology-based industries,'' said Governor Ruth Ann Minner. ''I am extremely pleased that HostMySite.com continues to choose Delaware as the perfect location to expand.''
The Delaware Economic Development Office awarded HostMySite.com a Strategic Fund Grant in the amount of $274,000 for the purchase of three new generators required for the company's data center expansion. HostMySite.com is a leading hosting provider, delivering highly scalable hosting solutions including managed hosting, dedicated hosting, virtual private servers, and shared hosting. The investment will generate an additional economic impact of $3.5 million, bringing the company's total economic impact to more than $16.5 million annually.

''At the Delaware Economic Development Office, part of our job is to recognize entrepreneurial efforts and assist gazelle firms like HostMySite.com become more successful,'' said Judy McKinney-Cherry, director of DEDO. ''As a company that has already experienced exceptional growth, HostMySite.com is expected to provide a significant return on investment for the State.''

HostMySite.com.com was founded in 1997. Today, HostMySite.com.com has grown from a two-man operation to one of the top web hosting companies, serving more than 60,000 customers in 130 countries. When HostMySite.com applied for the Strategic Fund Grant, the company employed 165 professionals. Just a few months later, they now employ 250 professionals. It is recognized by Delaware Today as one of the 'Great Places to Work' and by INC. 500 lists as one of the fastest growing privately held companies in the United States.

''HostMySite.com is honored to be recognized by Governor Minner for our contribution to the Delaware economy,'' said Lou Honick, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of HostMySite.com. ''It is a tribute to the entire HostMySite.com team who has worked to grow our operations exponentially over the past few years. Judy McKinney-Cherry and her staff at DEDO have created a great win-win situation with this investment in future job growth for the state. We applaud her efforts and look forward to continued economic expansion.''

In the past year, HostMySite.com.com has provided customers with an upgraded call center, a new hosting control panel, and the build out of an additional state-of-the-art data center. Last week, the company also announced it was acquired by Wachovia Capital Partners, the private equity investing arm of Wachovia Corporation, the fourth largest bank holding company in the U.S. With the backing of a strong financial partner, the company will continue to grow as a leading managed web hosting company.

About DEDO
The Delaware Economic Development Office is an executive state of Delaware agency responsible for attracting new investors and businesses to the state, promoting the expansion of existing industry, assisting small and minority-owned businesses, promoting and developing tourism and creating new and improved employment opportunities for all citizens of the State. For more information, visit dedo.delaware.gov.

About HostMySite.com
With a combination of sophisticated hosting technology and applied business knowledge, HostMySite.com.com provides individuals, small businesses, and large corporations with affordable managed dedicated servers, VPS, and shared web hosting solutions.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/217.html

Yahoo! Announces Microsoft Talks Have Concluded

2008-06-16T11:32:00-04:00

SUNNYVALE, Calif. - Yahoo! Inc., a leading global Internet company, today announced that discussions with Microsoft regarding a potential transaction -- whether for an acquisition of all of Yahoo! or a partial acquisition -- have concluded. The conclusion of discussions follows numerous meetings and conversations with Microsoft regarding a number of transaction alternatives, including a meeting between Yahoo! and Microsoft on June 8th in which Chairman Roy Bostock and other independent Board members from Yahoo! participated. At that meeting, Microsoft representatives stated unequivocally that Microsoft is not interested in pursuing an acquisition of all of Yahoo!, even at the price range it had previously suggested.

With respect to an acquisition of Yahoo!'s search business alone that Microsoft had proposed, Yahoo!'s Board of Directors has determined, after careful evaluation, that such a transaction would not be consistent with the company's view of the converging search and display marketplaces, would leave the company without an independent search business that it views as critical to its strategic future and would not be in the best interests of Yahoo! stockholders.

Yahoo! remains focused on maximizing value for stockholders by continuing to execute on its strategy of being the "starting point" for the most consumers on the Internet and a "must buy" for advertisers. The online advertising industry is projected to grow from $40 billion in 2007 to approximately $75 billion in 2010 and the company believes it has the right assets, strategic plan, Board of Directors and management team to capitalize on this growth opportunity.

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/216.html

SnapNames Live Auction at Domainer Meeting Paris June 20

2008-06-16T11:29:00-04:00

PORTLAND, OR – Domain name aftermarket expert SnapNames.com, an Oversee.net company, made available today the initial list of premium names in a live and extended online auction at the EuroDNS Domainer Meeting in Paris, France.

The SnapNames Live™ auction will take place Friday, June 20 from 2 – 7 p.m. CEST (8 a.m. to 1 p.m. EDT) at Le Méridien Montparnasse Hotel in Paris, and will include the following names:

Hotels.eu                                               RockMusik.de                           Biathlon.com
Servicio.com                                          Nombre.com                              Europeans.com
EuropeRealEstate.info                            Husband.com                            Wife.com
Holland.net                                            Rainbows.com                           Chocolate.net
Gouda.com                                            555.mobi                                   Silver.net
Garden.info                                            Italian.net                                  Debt.de
Provence.com                                        Denmark.net                              Meeting.eu
SoccerScores.com                                 SEO.mobi                                 Denmark.net
Marcela.com                                          USSR.com                                Clubs.de
Cats.fr                                                   Organic.info                               Catholic.eu
Disease.es                                            Motors.be                                  CheapTicket.de
Reisebüros.de                                        Paris.es                                     London.es
Senora.com                                           Koran.com                                 Loire.com
UsedGuitars.com                                   Europe.biz                                 Jackpot.com
Aftermarket.com                                    Havarti.com                                 EuropeBiz.com
GoatCheese.com

A complete auction catalog and the latest inventory updates are available at http://liveauctions.snapnames.com/details?auction_id=191.

Multiple Bidding Opportunities and Methods Available

Domainer Meeting Paris attendees are automatically eligible to attend the private live auction. Bidders not attending can bid online through SnapNames Live™, an integrated auction platform developed by SnapNames®. Bidders may also submit an absentee bid form to the auctioneer or sign up for telephone proxy bidding. There will also be an extended online auction concurrent with the live event in Paris. The online auction begins June 20 and ends June 26, 2008.

To learn more about bidding options for this event and to see a complete list of rules and procedures, visit the Domain Auction page on the SnapNames website at http://liveauctions.snapnames.com/details?auction_id=191. You may also call (800) 688-6311.

Domainer Meeting

Domainer Meeting Paris is a global event for domain name investors, industry governance representatives, registrars, and registries. For more information, visit www.domainermeeting.com.

Listen to the Auction Live!
The Live Auction will also be broadcasted live on WebmasterRadio.FM, the premier free online radio network focused on the B2B marketplace. Tune in and use the chat room at http://www.webmasterradio.fm.

http://www.gawkwire.com/domains/215.html

SSL Vulnerable to OpenSSL Flaw on Debian

2008-06-16T01:25:00-04:00

Netcraft's June SSL Survey has found that a significant number of SSL certificates are affected by the Debian OpenSSL vulnerability, including Extended Validation SSL certificates and certificates belonging to banks.

The vulnerable certificates afford opportunities to create deceptive sites which use apparently valid SSL certificates, giving the user the impression that the site belongs to the certified organisation. In the case of EV certificates, browsers will also turn the address bar green, even though the certificate may be cloned.

From an attacker's point of view, the main limitation is that the browser will warn the user if the certificate common name does not match the name used by the user to access the site, so the attacker would need to affect the user's network or the DNS results to get a completely seamless attack.

For more information by Netcraft, visit http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2008/06/12/ssl_certificates_vulnerable_to_openssl_flaw_on_debian.html

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/214.html

First Australian Web Site to Auction ".au" Domain Names

2008-06-16T11:17:00-04:00

Sydney, Australia - The launch on 1st June 2008 of the domain name auction Web site Domainshed provides an online marketplace for buyers and sellers of .au domain names.

The creators of Domain Shed have been active in the online industry for more than 10 years. When designing the site, the team was aware of the immediate need for such an online venue. Users are interested in watching bidding trends and how much is being offered for each domain name.

The CEO of Domain Shed, Goran Simunovic, believes the Domain Shed Web site will allow anyone to have insight into the current .au domain name marketplace. "As well as providing a tool for the sale of .au names, the Web site also works to enable potential buyers and sellers to get the gist of movements within the marketplace," Simunovic says.

Other big names in the industry tend to agree as to the likelihood of an upcoming boom in .au domain names. Greg Platt, Chief Financial Officer for Gold Coast-based company, Dark Blue Sea, believes that the auDA rule change could see prices for .au domain names skyrocket. Chris Disspain, head of auDA, says, "I expect we will see an active market... With more than a million .au names registered, it is safe to assume that some, at least, will have a significant market value."

Currently www.domainshed.com.au offers two ways in which a domain name auction can be listed on the Web site. The first is a free listing with a commission paid when the domain name is sold. The second involves a nominal set fee per listing (no commission). All domain names are categorised into relevant sections, including Finance, Travel, Business, Sport, etc. Visitors to the site are able to browse each listing, however to list or bid on a name, users must register first. The Web site places emphasis on security by verifying all details of registrants.

Domain Shed is currently engaging in active partnerships with other companies involved with the .au domain names market.

The Domain Shed Web site may prove to be an invaluable tool for those in the .au marketplace. It will also be an interesting venue for those simply curious as to whether the anticipated boom eventuates. For additional information on the Domain Shed Web site, contact Goran Simunovic, or visit Domainshed.

http://www.gawkwire.com/domains/213.html

Jivox Closes $10.7 Million Series A Financing

2008-06-16T10:56:00-04:00

San Mateo, CA - Jivox, the first self-service online video advertising platform for local businesses, today announced that it has closed a $10.7 million Series A round of financing led by Opus Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm. New investor Helion Venture Partners, an India-focused venture fund, also participated in the round, along with Jivox's existing investors. The funds will be used to continue development of the Jivox online video advertising platform, as well as to expand the company's sales and marketing efforts.

The Jivox online video ad platform enables smaller and local businesses to harness the power of online video advertising by reducing the cost and complexity of developing and placing online video ads. Since its launch in March 2008, Jivox has seen broad adoption of its self-service online video ad platform by advertisers in a wide variety of industries, including travel sites, financial and real estate services, transportation companies and restaurants. Jivox has also gained significant traction with publishers, who are eager to monetize the content on their sites and tap into a huge pool of smaller advertisers that would otherwise be confined to banner or search ads. The Jivox Video Network now reaches more than 40 million viewers.

Jivox was founded in 2007 by Diaz Nesamoney, the visionary entrepreneur behind Informatica (Nasdaq: INFA) and Celequest (acquired in 2007 by Cognos).

"Online video advertising is the fastest growing segment of digital online marketing, but the cost of creating and placing video ads threatened to keep this medium beyond the reach of most smaller and local businesses. Jivox makes it easy for both advertisers and publishers to begin taking advantage of online video advertising. The tremendous momentum Jivox has seen since launching just a few months ago demonstrates the strong demand for this type of service," said Diaz Nesamoney, founder and CEO of Jivox. "We're very pleased to be working with Opus Capital and Helion Venture Partners, both of whom have great track records of backing successful online ventures."

"Jivox has done an outstanding job proving its concept, gaining a large group of satisfied advertisers and building its network. The traction Jivox has gained in just a few months is a testament to the significant online video ad market opportunity as well as the strength of the Jivox team," said Ken Elefant, general partner, Opus Capital.

"Jivox has built a solid base of advertisers and publishers in the U.S. as well as in India, where the rapid increase in Internet penetration is further paving the way for innovative technology products and services such as Jivox's," said Ashish Gupta, Managing Director, Helion Ventures Pvt. Ltd. "We look forward to working with Jivox as it accelerates its growth in this market."

About Jivox
Jivox, the self-service online video advertising platform for local businesses, gives smaller and local advertisers access to online video advertising by making it easy to create, target and deliver online video ads. The Jivox platform combines a self-service video ad creation tool, proprietary targeting technology, and a growing network of publishers to offer advertisers a complete, do-it-yourself service for online video advertising. Jivox is a privately held company headquartered in San Mateo, Calif. For more information about Jivox, please visit www.jivox.com.

About Helion Venture Partners
Helion Venture Partners is a multi-stage, India-focused venture fund with $350 million under management. The fund invests in businesses that are either technology-powered or catering to the Indian consumer services space. The focus sectors of investment include - outsourcing, internet, mobile, technology products, retail services, education and financial services. The fund's investors are well-respected Global institutions including top tier University endowment funds, Foundations and family offices. The fund and its portfolio companies are advised by an experienced and industry renowned team of professionals based in India which include Sanjeev Aggarwal, Ashish Gupta, Kanwaljit Singh and Rahul Chandra.

About Opus Capital
Opus Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm with more than $1 billion capital under management, investing in committed, high integrity entrepreneurs building early-stage technology companies. The team has participated in the successful outcomes of more than 80 companies (including 50 IPOs) in the U.S. and in Israel including AirGate PCS, Electronics for Imaging, FedEx, Genesys, Harmonic, Informatica, Precept Software and Vantive. Opus Capital is headquartered on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California. For more information, visit www.opuscapital.com.

http://www.gawkwire.com/video_tv/212.html

Canada's Going Green "Big Time"

2008-06-11T09:34:00-04:00

KELOWNA, BC and MONTREAL - IBM has signed an agreement to help build a $ CDN 75 million, 150,000 square foot "green" data center in the heart of British Columbia with gigaCENTER Services Corporation, in partnership with RackForce Networks.

The new facility called gigaCENTER Services Corp will be among the most efficient and "greenest" large-scale data centers in Canada. It is being developed using IBM's modular approach and will include power and cooling capabilities to support a variety of technologies from high-density blade servers to mainframes.

"We are building a data center with IBM in a safe and secure location to respond to growing issues about natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods," said Tim Dufour, CEO of both RackForce and gigaCENTER. "This center will support the latest technologies using 'green' hydro-generated power and the most efficient, environmentally friendly design. The IBM design is calculated at a Power Usage Effectiveness rating of 1.38, which will mean our facility will be among the most efficient in the industry."

IBM products and services will be delivered over the three-year construction, with the first phase scheduled to open in December 2008. When completed, the facility will support 70,000 square feet of raised-floor data center space and create jobs for up to 100 employees.

Customers of the new center will be able to rent space in increments as small as one cabinet, up to dedicated cages and private rooms. The center will provide facilities to support on demand server capacity services and Business Continuity and Resiliency Services, delivered through RackForce and IBM Global Services.

"A year ago when IBM launched Project Big Green, one of its goals was to help identify ways to optimize data center usage and reduce energy consumption needs," said Steve Sams, IBM vice president, Global Site and Facilities Services. "This new data center is an example of this initiative. By offering 'green' colocation and data center services, gigaCENTER and IBM will enable enterprises to meet their corporate and IT environmental goals."

About RackForce
RackForce is a leading provider of green data center infrastructure and network services from its strategically located facilities in the heart of British Columbia, Canada. Through its superior data center design, automated systems and virtualization expertise it provides highly reliable On Demand servers, colocation and connectivity to a worldwide customer base.

About gigaCENTER
gigaCenter Services Corporation is a leader in the design, construction and operation of premium green data centers engineered to support the rigorous computing demands of today and the future. gigaCENTER will provide power and cooling capabilities to support a variety of technologies including high density blade servers, virtualized server clusters and mainframes.

About IBM
For more information about IBM, go to www.ibm.com.

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/208.html

360 Enterprises INC. Acquires HybridSEM.COM

2008-06-10T13:34:00-04:00

360 Enterprises Inc, parent company of TextLinkBrokers.com and SponsoredReviews.com, is pleased to announce the acquisition of HybridSEM.com. The acquisition reinforces 360 Enterprises' rapidly growing leadership in the Internet Marketing space and strengthens 360's brands as the industry's leading organic marketing companies. 360's CEO, Troy Ireland, states, "the acquisition of HybridSEM's Social Media and on-page SEO expertise will provide a wealth of opportunities for 360's clients to increase their visibility on the web". Ireland says 360's business model requires them to aggressively acquire the top talent in the industry.

HybridSEM.com owner, Joe Whyte says his company is a great fit with 360 Enterprises. "Access to 360's resources allows HybridSEM.com to scale our services from a niche market to a massive market. I am proud and excited to be working with such talented and energetic industry leaders who share the same innovative vision." 360 Enterprises is keyed up to offer HybridSEM's video marketing, link bait, on-page SEO and social media services to its ever-increasing portfolio of services. Other recent additions to their portfolio include advanced PPC services and custom widget development available to corporate clients.

360 Enterprises CEO, Troy Ireland says, "Joe brings excitement and creativity to the table. As Director of SMO / SEO for 360, Joe is already adding significant value to our bottom-line. Combining forces with HybridSEM.com will bring our reputation management, viral marketing and lead generation services to new levels for the brand conscious consumer." HybridSEM's local geo-targeted SEO integration into TextLinkBrokers.com's corporate-level SEO program will allow 360 to expand its SEO services into the small-to-mid markets. "This is an exciting time for the thousands of clients that request on-page search engine optimization from us each year."

Whyte has over six years experience achieving results for Internet Fortune 1000 companies and many consider him a pioneer in social media, event and video marketing. Furthermore, he is an experienced software developer and journalist with published work on searchmarketingstandard.com, websitemagazine.com and pingzine.com among others.

Textlinkbrokers.com, which is an industry leader in Link Building and SponsoredReviews.com, which is an industry leader in Blog Reviews are global companies servicing the needs of professional SEM agencies and website owners that require the highest quality and most innovative results oriented organic marketing services available. 360's staff of 60+ professionals spanning 4 continents allows them to service clients on a consultative, strategic level found nowhere else in their market verticals. 360 Enterprises Inc. maintains its headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona.

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/204.html

Opening Keynote at HostingCon 2008 by Serguei Beloussov

2008-06-10T13:30:00-04:00

Chicago – Interjuncture Corp. today announced that Sergeui Beloussov, Chairman and CEO of Parallels, Inc., will deliver the opening keynote address at the upcoming HostingCon 2008 tradeshow and conference. HostingCon 2008 will be held July 28-30, 2008 at the historic Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois.

The hosting market has matured and continues to grow and present new opportunities such as the adoption of Software as a Service. Parallels is partnering with hosting providers and ISVs to facilitate an ecosystem which will better serve customers and increase service provider revenues. Serguei Beloussov will discuss the need to automate, virtualize, and standardize in order to deliver optimized computing for hosted services providers that is critical for enabling service providers to profit from and adapt to changes in the hosting market.

“HostingCon 2008 will be a great place to learn how to optimize your hosted services business through automation, virtualization and standardization,” said George A. Roberts IV, Executive Director of HostingCon 2008. “It will also be a great time to meet with your peers and find out how they’re implementing these technologies in their business.”

In addition to the keynote address by Serguei Beloussov, HostingCon 2008’s conference program will contain a number of sessions discussing cloud computing and its impact on hosted services providers. Attendees will be able to learn how to help their customers feel comfortable with cloud services, how software as a service and open source software work together and how to employ virtualization in your infrastructure.

More information on HostingCon 2008 is available at http://www.hostingcon.com/2008/. Early bird registration pricing is available until June 13, 2008 when you register online.

About HostingCon 2008

HostingCon is the definitive conference and tradeshow for the hosted services industry. HostingCon 2008 will be held July 28-30, 2008 at Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois. Hosted services professionals around the world gather to learn more about the industry, network with their peers and vendors, and help grow their business. HostingCon is produced by Interjuncture Corp., a Crystal Lake, Illinois-based producer of technology-related tradeshows, conferences and events.

The HostingCon 2008 website is located at http://www.hostingcon.com/ and is the best source for the most up to date information on the conference program, exhibitors, and special events.

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DiscountASP.NET Adopts SmarterStats for its Customer Base

2008-06-10T11:48:00-04:00

Phoenix, AZ – DiscountASP.NET, a leader in advanced ASP.NET hosting, proudly announces the availability of SmarterStats Web Log Analytics reporting for all DiscountASP.NET customers. SmarterStats provides an in-depth understanding of keywords and visitor navigation trends with on-demand Website statistics, custom reports, data mining, geographic mapping, and much more.

“With software giants such as Microsoft and Google acquiring DeepMetrix and Urchin, we needed an analytics solution that would fulfill our needs, without exposing our customer’s data to third parties,” said Takeshi Eto, Vice President of Marketing at DiscountASP.NET. “The robust features of SmarterStats coupled with our positive experience with the SmarterMail Windows mail server convinced us that SmarterStats is the best solution for DiscountASP.”

SmarterStats is the perfect application for hosting companies and Webmasters that want to cost-effectively deliver relevant, accurate, and detailed statistics to their customers. It provides customers with the ability to measure their Website performance and marketing results without requiring them to spend time and money putting scripts and code in their sites like some competing solutions (e.g., Google Analytics). SmarterStats also has several installation configurations which measure statistics across multiple Windows and Linux servers on local or remote networks, all from one central SmarterStats server.

“DiscountASP.NET has a sterling reputation in the ASP.NET development community as a high quality and feature-rich hosting environment for hosted applications and Web sites,” said Jeff Hardy, Vice President of Business Operations for SmarterTools. “The addition of SmarterStats to the DiscountASP.NET lineup will help them bring an extra level of service and functionality to their loyal customers.”

About SmarterTools Inc.
Founded in 2003, SmarterTools Inc. is an information technology-management software company based in Phoenix, Arizona. SmarterTools builds a Windows Mail Server, Customer Service Software, and Web Log Analytics reporting tool that simplify and automate the day-to-day IT operations of businesses and hosting environments in over 100 countries. Additional information about SmarterTools Inc. and the SmarterTools product line is available at the Company Web site: www.smartertools.com

About DiscountASP.NET
DiscountASP.NET is an innovative leader in Microsoft Windows-based shared hosting, focused on providing the best value in ASP.NET and SQL database hosting. A Microsoft Gold Certified partner, DiscountASP.NET was one of the first hosts to launch Windows 2008 hosting, and ASP.NET 3.5 hosting supporting LINQ and ASP.NET AJAX hosting. Through strong word-of-mouth and their commitment to ASP.NET and SQL technology, DiscountASP.NET has become the choice for affordable enterprise-class ASP.NET web hosting. For more information, visit DiscountASP.NET.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/202.html

Microsoft Goes After Software Pirates

2008-06-10T11:17:00-04:00

REDMOND, Wash. - As part of its ongoing efforts to protect its customers and partners from the risks of pirated and counterfeit software, Microsoft Corp. today announced the filing of 21 lawsuits in federal court in 14 states against resellers allegedly engaging in the sale of pirated software, including some alleged repeat offenders. Microsoft also called attention to several resources available to help consumers to ensure they are getting genuine software, including the (800) RU-LEGIT (785-3448) hot line and online validation tools at http://www.microsoft.com/genuine. In the cases announced today, many of the companies identified in the suits are alleged to have misled customers by repeatedly distributing unlicensed copies of Microsoft software pre-installed on the PCs that they sold. Some of these companies continued with their illegal business practices even after settling previous lawsuits with Microsoft.

Pirates often dupe consumers into buying unlicensed or non-genuine software through hard-disk loading, which is the practice of installing unlicensed software onto a PC and then selling the computer to unsuspecting consumers. In many cases customers who have been sold unlicensed hard-disk loaded computer systems do not receive manuals or the original media, although the resellers often charge them the full price. Many customers do not realize that the software pre-installed on the computer systems they purchased is not legitimate until they perform a check through the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) or Office Genuine Advantage (OGA) online validation tools, which are provided by Microsoft to assist consumers in verifying the legitimacy of their software.

Evidence for some of these cases stemmed from direct customer reports to Microsoft's anti-piracy hot line, (800) RU-LEGIT, as well as from reports received through the WGA online validation tool. Microsoft's investigators received two such leads resulting in today's filing of lawsuits against Computer Center in Encino, Calif., and Delta Computers in Pine Bluff, Ark.

Microsoft is also hearing from its partner community. "Knowing Microsoft is targeting resellers of illegal software in my area gives me one less thing to worry about," said Tim Loney, president and CEO of Solutions Information Systems, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and Small Business Specialist in Houston. "When the economy is struggling, it is difficult to focus on adding value to your customers when other organizations are using unfair practices to gain an advantage, especially when it comes to pricing of software."

This Is Not the First Time
Companies identified in eight of the lawsuits announced today are not new to illegal software sales allegations. Microsoft previously filed and settled lawsuits, which alleged the sale of infringing software, including versions of Microsoft Windows and Office, with these same dealers. Despite the filing of the previous actions, these companies have continued to sell infringing software, putting their customers at risk.

"These legal actions are about protecting Microsoft's customers from falling victim to some dealers who operate a business model of peddling pirated and counterfeit software," said Sharon Cates, attorney at Microsoft. "Some companies previously involved in these lawsuits have discontinued their illegal business practices; others have not. The cases announced today are indicative of the need to ensure that dealers cease their illegal activity so that customers can be sure that they purchase genuine, fully licensed software."

Buyer Beware: What to Watch For and What to Do
Microsoft's customers should also be on the lookout. Piracy and counterfeiting are problems that impact customers and honest businesses both in the U.S. and across the globe. This is especially true for the software industry, and it is important for consumers to be aware of the problem.

Microsoft is committed to ensuring that its customers can obtain genuine, fully licensed Microsoft software in good faith by empowering them through its anti-piracy education programs and technology solutions to make sure they get what they pay for. One such program is helping Microsoft customers validate their software online and avoid situations where they may be defrauded. The WGA and OGA online validation tools allow customers to verify that their copy of software is genuine and fully licensed. If customers learn that they may have non-genuine software, the validation tools will provide an opportunity for the customer to report the source of the software, and customers may even be eligible to receive a genuine replacement copy.

As part of its Genuine Software Initiative, Microsoft also provides a wealth of resources for consumers who are considering a new software purchase. On its Web site dedicated to distinguishing genuine, properly licensed software from pirated software, http://www.howtotell.com/, Microsoft provides visual clues to look for, as well as other tips to avoid purchasing counterfeit software. In addition, the Web site provides information to help consumers ensure the software they purchased is properly licensed. This is just another of the many tools that Microsoft provides to its customers to ensure that they receive the full value of genuine software.

New Study Highlights Software Piracy Rates
The cases announced today are part of an ongoing challenge that Microsoft is continuing to address. In fact, according to the fifth annual global PC software piracy study, which was released in May by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), more than one-third of PCs around the world are unlicensed or contain pirated or counterfeit software. In the U.S., the piracy rate in 2007 was 20 percent, a one-point decrease from 2006. However, in that same time period, the economic losses from piracy increased from $7.2 billion in 2006 to more than $8 billion in 2007. Microsoft continues to evaluate ways to fight piracy and counterfeiting in an effort to protect its customers and partners.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

For more information about the fifth annual global PC software piracy study by the BSA: Visit http://www.bsa.org/globalstudy.

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/201.html

The Planet Appoints Walters as GM, Storage & Backup

2008-06-08T16:12:00-04:00

HOUSTON, TX – The Planet, the world’s largest privately held dedicated hosting company, today announced the appointment of Robert Walters to lead its newly formed storage and backup business unit. He will be responsible for leading strategy and developing new product lines to extend the company’s portfolio. Walters reports to Steve Kahan, vice president of marketing and product management. He joins The Planet from Rackspace.

“With the growth of online businesses, there are both e-commerce requirements and legal obligations for having strong backup and storage products,” said Kahan. “Rob Walters brings significant experience to The Planet, along with important industry knowledge. His experience with some of the most highly regarded companies in the technology and hosting arena is a tremendous benefit to our company.”

Walters has held a series of increasingly responsible roles in the technology industry. He served as director of product management with Rackspace where he was responsible for the strategy and delivery of its managed hosting product portfolio, as well as refining product roadmaps to support the company’s product strategies.

Prior to Rackspace, he was a senior product manager with Hewlett-Packard. In this role, he was responsible for the entire lifecycle of three products in its application management offering, along with analytics and virtualization management initiatives for the OpenView line. Walters also worked with EMC Corporation as a product manager in its product strategy group. Additional experience includes work with American Express, where he was a team manager and lead software specialist on its global enterprise systems management team.

Walters earned an M.B.A. from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, with an emphasis in high-tech marketing. He attended the University of London, where he received a M.S. in computing science, and the University of Westminster where he graduated with a B.S. in life science.

About The Planet
The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 22,000 small- and medium-size businesses and 6.7 million Web sites worldwide. By offering the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class support, backed by state-of-the-art facilities and unmatched network connectivity, The Planet helps turn information technology into a powerful competitive advantage that enables customers to successfully grow their businesses. For additional information, visit www.theplanet.com

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/199.html

Hosting.Com Becomes Green Energy Champion

2008-06-09T11:39:00-04:00

LOUISVILLE, KY - Hosting.Com has become the first "Green Energy Champion" with Louisville Gas and Electric, an E.ON company, offsetting more than 1,500 tons of carbon emissions annually.

Demonstrating their intent to lead the commercial sector in green initiatives, Hosting.Com, a web hosting and co-location services company, is purchasing 208 Green Energy blocks -- 1,000 kilowatt hours each -- monthly for the next 12 months. To put that in perspective, that is equivalent to planting approximately 1,310 acres of trees, or removing 304 cars from the road.

Nationally, data centers consume up to 1.5 percent of all energy consumption. "We believe it is our social and business responsibility to offset our carbon emissions. Our industry is one that must take a close look at its energy consumption and the impact it will have on the environment," said Darren King, CEO of Hosting.Com.

King added, "We hope to set the industry standard on environmental stewardship. To that end, we have built one of the greenest data centers in the country, virtualized our server environments to optimize usage and output, and set up a program to reimburse all employees that participate in such programs."

LG&E and Kentucky Utilities Company's Green Energy program provides for the growth and development of renewable energy including that of the Mother Ann Lee Hydroelectric Plant, located on the Kentucky River near Harrodsburg, Ky. LG&E and KU residential and small business customers can participate for as little as $5 per month, or in larger purchases of $5 blocks. Commercial customers, such as Hosting.Com, can purchase blocks for as little as $13 per month.

Each $13 block supports 1,000 kWh of Kentucky area renewable energy. All green energy purchases are voluntary and in addition to the regular bill amount.

"Hosting.Com is our first industrial customer to completely offset its annual carbon emissions. They've also done this in their California and Boston offices, and we are pleased they've chosen to take part in the LG&E program," said John P. Malloy, Vice President of Energy Delivery, Retail Business, for E.ON U.S., parent company of LG&E.

More than 500 customers are currently enrolled in LG&E and KU's Green Energy program. Interested customers can enroll in the program -- and calculate the environmental benefit of their purchase in terms of carbon emissions reduced each month -- by visiting www.eon-us.com/green.

"Going green is not about buzzwords, it is making sustainable and environmentally-conscious decisions that will impact our existing clients and future generations of clients," said King.

About E.ON U.S.

E.ON U.S., headquartered in Louisville, Ky., is a subsidiary of E.ON A.G., the world's largest investor-owned energy services provider. E.ON U.S. is a diversified energy services company that owns and operates Louisville Gas and Electric Company, a regulated utility that serves 326,000 natural gas and 401,000 electric customers in Louisville and 16 surrounding counties, and Kentucky Utilities Company, a regulated electric utility in Lexington, Ky., that serves 536,000 customers in 77 Kentucky counties and five counties in Virginia.

About Hosting.Com

Since 1996, Hosting.Com, the First Name in Hosting, has provided award-winning dedicated hosting, managed hosting, colocation, disaster recovery and business continuance services to a global customer base demanding a high level of security, reliability and responsiveness. Hosting.Com monitors, manages, and enhances the web based platforms of Web 2.0 companies, software as a service providers (SaaS), content distribution networks (CDN), and medium to large enterprises whose web presence is crucial and high availability mandatory. Hosting.Com currently owns and operates its proprietary content delivery grid (CDG) via data center facilities in Louisville, Kentucky; Irvine, California; San Francisco, California; and Boston, Massachusetts. For more information, please visit www.hosting.com or call the company at 800-446-7627.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/198.html

SmarterTrack Software Integrated into Parallels APS

2008-06-09T11:27:00-04:00

Phoenix, AZ – SmarterTools, Inc.—a leading developer of Web-based, enterprise-class applications for businesses and hosting environments—is proud to announce the integration of its SmarterTrack Customer Service Software into the Application Packaging Standard (APS) Catalog being enabled by Parallels. The APS Catalog is a repository for a broad range of applications that will help Parallels Hosting Provider customers offer business applications, like SmarterTrack, to the enterprise, SMBs, and end users.
SmarterTrack provides all the features and functionality of a robust Help Desk, Ticket System, Live Chat, Cost Analysis, Data Mining, Knowledge Base, and Reporting software applications delivered within one elegant web interface. Coupled with its unique ability to automate and extend to external databases and applications, SmarterTrack can effectively replace multiple applications and services, such as Live Person [LPSN], Bold Chat, Sales Force CRM [CRM], Kayako, Cerberus, and many more—saving time, overhead, and integration costs.

“SmarterTrack will give Parallels customers and partners the ability to access a truly world-class Customer Service solution for the first time through the APS system,” said Jeff Hardy, Vice President of Business Operations for SmarterTools. “We are proud to have SmarterTrack customer service software associated with Parallels and APS.”

APS was developed by Parallels to simplify the integration of web applications into hosting environments. The standard packaging format allows software developed by independent software vendors (ISVs) to be distributed by service providers. APS-certified applications can be easily integrated in hosting platforms that also conform to this standard.

“SmarterTools is well-known for providing innovative and reliable software to hosting companies and businesses all over the world,” said Soeren von Varchmin, Vice President of SaaS and Service Providers International for Parallels. “SmarterTrack’s flexible installation architecture—with Dedicated, VPS, and Shared Server configurations—makes it an ideal fit for distributing the APS packaged application through our control panel products.”

About SmarterTools Inc.
Founded in 2003, SmarterTools Inc. is an information technology-management software company based in Phoenix, Arizona. SmarterTools builds a Windows Mail Server, Customer Service Software , and Web Log Analytics reporting tool that simplify and automate the day-to-day IT operations of businesses and hosting environments in over 100 countries. Additional information about SmarterTools Inc. and the SmarterTools product line is available at the Company Web site.

About Parallels - Optimized Computing
Parallels 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. For more information, please visit www.parallels.com.

Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/197.html

Global Collection Of Premium Domain Name Auction Goes Live

2008-06-09T09:45:00-04:00

Los Angeles, CA - Noted Los Angeles photographer Fernando Escovar is auctioning off what may be the world's largest collection of premium domain name portfolio valued at $1.5 million. The portfolio contains 1500 English, Spanish, technology, TV and geo-centric domain names including premium Las Vegas names.

The auction goes live on eBay at 9 a.m. on June 10, 2008 and will run for 30 days. Ten percent of the auction's proceeds will be donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation®, the world's largest wish-granting charity in the world.

According to Escovar, these domain names represent highly coveted Internet real estate. "In the game Monopoly, the person with the most properties usually wins. In this virtual age, whoever owns a list of highly valued and trafficked domain names owns the internet," Escovar explains. "In this portfolio, the virtual world closely reflects the real world," Escovar says, noting that approximately 80 towers are currently under construction in Las Vegas. "The portfolio includes highly desirable names such as LasVegasTowers.com, LasVegasTower.com, Share-Holder.com, Comision.com, Vegasi.com and ReportTV.com, which should be of great interest to real estate investors and developers."

The online auction is targeting individuals or groups who will buy the portfolio in one lot. Brokers are welcome, with commission terms to be discussed on an individual basis. The domain names will not be sold separately, as the portfolio will not be broken up. Escovar notes that because the portfolio contains a large quantity of Spanish domain names, he has been receiving some pre-sale interest from international buyers.

About Fernando Escovar:
Born in Los Angeles of Colombian descent, Fernando Escovar is one of Hollywood's premiere celebrity photographers with a client list that includes David Beckham, Eva Longoria, Carmen Electra, Eva Mendes, Pamela Anderson, Traci Bingham, Lisa Guerrero, Brooke Burke, Tom Green, and George Lopez. Escovar studied fashion design at Otis-Parsons College of Art and Design in Los Angeles and went on to establish his own photography studio. In addition to celebrity portraits, Escovar's work includes shooting for magazines such as Las Vegas, Player, Silver and Fairways and Greens, and numerous videos. He has been featured on TLC, NBC Nightly News, KCAL 9 and Steel Dreams TV. Escovar is currently in development for his own reality TV show, based on his adventures in photography. Online at http://www.fotographer.com.

About the Make-A-Wish Foundation®:
The Make-A-Wish Foundation® is the nation's largest wish-granting organization. Since 1980, the Make-A-Wish Foundation® has given hope, strength and joy to children with life-threatening medical conditions through its wish-granting work. The Foundation's mission reflects the life-changing impact that a Make-A-Wish® experience has on children, families, referral sources, donors, sponsors, and entire communities. Find out how you can share the power of a wish at http://www.wish.org.

http://www.gawkwire.com/domains/196.html

Level 3 Advertising Distribution Sells for $129 Million

2008-06-06T00:51:00-04:00

BROOMFIELD, Colo. - Level 3 Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:LVLT) today announced that it has completed the sale of the advertising distribution business of Vyvx LLC, to DG FastChannel, Inc. Level 3 has retained ownership of Vyvx and its core broadcast business, including all of the Vyvx Services Broadcast Business' content distribution capabilities.

Level 3 received gross proceeds at closing of approximately $129 million in cash. The purchase price is subject to customary working capital and certain other post-closing price adjustments.

For more information, visit http://www.level3.com/.

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/192.html

Comodo Firewall Pro Named in Top 10 Free Security Programs

2008-06-06T10:48:00-04:00

Jersey City, NJ - Comodo, a global leader in Identity and Trust Assurance Management solutions, announced today that Firewall Pro was named one of the Top 10 Essential (and free) Security Downloads For Windows by Computerworld.com. The May 28, 2008 article recommends ten essential security downloads that are free and that "can protect your privacy and security." This is the second time in the past few months that ComputerWorld has recognized Comodo Firewall Pro as one of the best available free firewall solutions.

The article, written by Preston Gralla, said, "there are plenty of free firewalls out there, but my favorite is Comodo Firewall Pro, which provides top-notch protection from both inbound and outbound threats." With Comodo Firewall Pro, inbound and outbound files are stopped at the firewall, and the user is prompted to allow or block the file before proceeding.

The article continued, "It offers other types of protection as well, including what it calls Defense+, which keeps you safe in several ways, including locking down certain files and folders so that they can't be altered." When in Defense+ mode, the user can specify files and folders that cannot be altered, ultimately preserving a computer's system health.

"The trusted Internet is something that we are committed to," said Melih Abdulhayoglu, CEO and Chief Security Architect of Comodo. "We prove that commitment by offering best-in-class solutions that are free."

For additional information on Comodo - Creating Trust Online™ visit http://www.comodo.com

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/191.html

Register.com and Snapnames.com Renew Exclusive Agreement

2008-06-06T10:45:00-04:00

LOS ANGELES, CA & NEW YORK, NY – SnapNames®, an Oversee.net™ company and the world’s largest source of expired and deleting domain names, and Register.com, a leading provider of domain registration and web services for small business, today announced the renewal of their exclusive agreement. Under the terms of the deal, domain names registered with Register.com but surrendered by their previous registrants are made available exclusively on the SnapNames auction platform at www.snapnames.com.

“We’ve been a long-standing partner with SnapNames for aftermarket services,” said Register.com CEO Larry Kutscher. “SnapNames was the first company to offer an organized aftermarket platform for buying and selling domain names. It consistently provides excellent service to its partners and customers and has a great reputation for transparency and performance. Because of these factors, we wanted to continue that productive relationship.”

Since its founding in 2000 and with its acquisition by Oversee.net last year, SnapNames has focused on expanding its leadership position in the domain name aftermarket. Through SnapNames, thousands of names are made available to buyers every day at multiple price points. Its service is used by companies, individuals, investors and brand owners to secure valuable Internet real estate.

Monte Cahn, recently named as head of Oversee’s Aftermarket business unit, hailed the agreement as another building block in Oversee’s plan to be the industry’s premier service provider. “Register.com has been on the forefront of bringing small business brands to life through a broad selection of website design and services,” Cahn said. “It’s a privilege to partner with such a well-known and respected brand.”

Oversee’s Aftermarket [Division] includes SnapNames and Moniker.com®, a leading registrar and domain asset management services company.

About Oversee.net
Founded in 2000 by Lawrence Ng and Fred Hsu, Oversee.net is a technology-driven online marketing solutions company, with two primary divisions – Oversee Domain Services and Oversee Marketing Services. Headquartered in Los Angeles with offices in Portland, Oregon, and Pompano Beach, Florida, the company has over 250 employees. Some of Oversee’s key brands include SnapNames®, DomainSponsor™, Moniker®, LowFares.com™ and Low.com™. To learn more, please visit http://www.oversee.net.

About SnapNames
Founded in 2000, SnapNames operates the largest auction of expired and deleting domain names. Partnering with the world's largest and best-known registrars and service providers, SnapNames uses its innovative, patent-pending technology to give its customers exclusive first access to the world's largest inventory of high-traffic, brand-able and investment-grade domain names every day. SnapNames is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oversee.net. For more information, visit www.snapnames.com.

About Register.com
Register.com provides all the essential tools a business needs to build and manage their online presence. Leveraging ten years of experience in the domain business with over two and a half million domain names under management, Register.com has built a reputation as a leading provider of global domain name registration, web design and management services. Through an expanding, broad selection of website design and management solutions, Register.com enables small businesses and organizations to create a dynamic web presence without the need for extensive technical knowledge or resources. Register.com offers customers quick and user-friendly registration and a wide array of web site design services from do-it-yourself tools to fully customized offerings; all backed by expert 24 x 7 online and toll-free phone customer support.

http://www.gawkwire.com/domains/190.html

Search Engine Industry Leaders Sponsor Pay Per Click Summit

2008-06-06T10:43:00-04:00

Pay Per Click Summit, the premier internet marketing workshop thanks search engine marketing industry leaders who sponsored PPC Summit San Francisco on May 19-20 held at the Marriott Airport. The two day event was entirely focused on internet marketing expert strategies to maximize online sales, and included more than 20 educational sessions covering best practices for online businesses implementing their search engine marketing (SEM) strategy. More than 150 internet marketers and business professionals gathered to learn from expert trainers and network with peers and sponsors including: Microsoft, Business.com, Context Web, Google, Engine Ready and BidHero/Lyris.

"We are delighted with the continued broad show of support from leaders in the search engine marketing industry and would like to extend a special thanks to our sponsors and presenters who were so helpful in sharing their top SEM secrets and strategies," said Mary O'Brien, PPC Summit CEO. "Our attendees walked away with an amazing competitive advantage after learning about the latest solutions, tips and trends provided by our sponsors and expert trainers," explains O'Brien.

Sponsors have the opportunity to meet with a very committed group of participants who are eager to learn about SEM solutions and technologies. "ContextWeb's involvement with PPC Summit demonstrates our commitment to educating marketers about content based advertising opportunities. We were able to introduce the ADSDAQ Ad Exchange's new advertiser self service system to an engaged group of attendees and in a high quality learning environment,"said Jay Sears, EVP, Strategic Products & Business Development of ContextWeb, Inc. and its ADSDAQ Ad Exchange.

PPC Summit is a one-stop shop for online businesses looking to improve their search marketing return on investment (ROI). It's the ideal educational venue to learn, network, share ideas and gain a greater understanding of search engine marketing developments and best practices. The workshop presents internet marketing specialists speaking on how to increase profits with pay per click (ppc) and other online advertising strategies. Sessions cover all aspects of managing ppc advertising campaigns--quality score, keyword strategies, web sites and landing page design, search engine optimization (SEO), analytic reporting, click fraud and other hot topics.

The next Pay Per Click (PPC) Summit is coming to Los Angeles September 25-26. Attendees should register early as these workshops sell out fast and a limited number of participants are invited. For more information, please go to http://www.ppcsummit.com/overview.html?PRW9.

http://www.gawkwire.com/seo_sem/189.html

IHOST, LLC to Sponsor OpenForce '08 Connect in Orlando

2008-06-06T10:40:00-04:00

Westlake, OH - IHOST, LLC, provider of affordable DotNetNuke hosting services, announced today it is sponsoring and will appear at the OpenForce '08 Connect conference on June 8 in Orlando, FL.

Created and hosted by local DotNetNuke users, the daylong event will feature seven DNN-focused sessions, capped by a keynote address from the co-founders of the DotNetNuke Corporation.

"We are thrilled to present our DNN hosting services at OpenForce," says IHOST, LLC president Slavic Kozyuk. "We feel DNN technology will change the face of the web on a global scale. Think of it as a set of Legos, where instead of reinventing the wheel, you can build your own solution using pre-fabricated modules."

IHOST is sponsoring the event to underscore its long-term commitment to the DotNetNuke community and active participation in supporting and promoting DNN as an affordable online publishing and ecommerce platform for the SMB space.

"DNN allows sites to be future-proof," says Kozyuk. "A small business may start off with a basic website and later decide to add e-commerce. Using DNN, this is simply a matter of adding the appropriate module."

IHOST encourages its current customers, DNN enthusiasts, and newcomers alike to visit OpenForce '08 to interact with fellow community members and learn the latest on this cutting-edge platform.

Find event details at:
http://www.openforce08.com/

http://www.gawkwire.com/events_html/188.html

Railo Goes Open Source on JBoss.org

2008-06-06T10:39:00-04:00

Zurich, Switzerland - Swiss software company Railo announced today plans to release an open source version of the Railo CFML engine hosted at JBoss.org, the website of the leading provider of open source Java middleware. This will provide developers with a top-quality CFML engine available for free under the LGPL license. The open source version of Railo will be launched in late 2008, and will be available for download from the JBoss.org community website.

"JBoss has been a driving force behind the open source ecosystem built around the Java platform and in legitimizing open source Java middleware in the enterprise," said Railo CEO Gert Franz. "We believe that having JBoss.org as a community partner will dramatically increase the adoption and use of CFML in the enterprise market."

CFML (ColdFusion Markup Language) is a programming language that allows for rapid creation of high performance, scalable web applications. Railo is a CFML engine that converts CFML code into executable Java byte code which can be deployed and run on any standard Java Servlet engine. This provides programmers the productivity gains of CFML development with the performance and scalability of the Java server environment.

As part of the partnership with Railo, the JBoss.org community will be working on several enhancements to provide CFML developers tag-based access to JBoss core functionalities, including JBoss Cache and Messaging.

Sacha Labourey, CTO at JBoss added, "The JBoss.org community has repeatedly proven to be a powerful launch-pad for propelling exciting and innovative technologies into mainstream adoption."

About Railo Technologies
Railo Technologies GmbH, creators of the Railo CFML engine, is located in Bern, Switzerland. Railo is used by several well known companies around the world including Apple, Warner Bros., IDG, Peta, Spiegel and many more. Learn more about Railo.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_design/187.html

John J. Swift Joins Webnames.ca Inc. Board of Directors

2008-06-05T10:40:00-04:00

Vancouver, British Columbia - Webnames.ca® Inc. today announced that John J. Swift has been appointed to the Board of Directors of Webnames.ca. John is a lawyer in Vancouver, British Columbia, with an independent practice centered on organizing, financing and advising knowledge-based businesses, and on technology transfer from public institutions and universities.

Having served as Counsel to Microtel Pacific Research Ltd., NCompass Labs, Apparent Networks Inc., CellFor Inc., as a Director of BioFoture Fund and as Counsel to and as a Director of NeuroMed Pharmaceuticals Inc., Ultrasonix Medical Corporation, Connotative Intelligence Corporation and Spark Integration Inc., John brings extensive knowledge and experience to Webnames.ca.

"Webnames.ca will benefit greatly from his diversity of knowledge as we continue to grow and build out our service offering. Our entire team is excited to have him onboard," said Stephen Smith, Webnames.ca President.

Previously, John served as Principle Secretary and Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister of Canada and to the Leader of the Opposition and as Executive Assistant to the Minister of Finance. John currently serves as Chairman of Kinexus Bioinformatics and of the Central City Foundation.

About Webnames.ca® Inc.
Webnames.ca Inc. is Canada's original and most experienced domain registrar. A spin-off from the Internet pioneers who founded the .CA domain in 1987, Webnames.ca is 100 per cent Canadian owned and operated. In addition to domain registration and corporate domain management, Webnames.ca offers a growing list of Internet services. Webnames.ca's reliability is complemented by state-of-the-art systems and online tools which help customers get the most from their Internet presence. For more information, visit www.webnames.ca.

http://www.gawkwire.com/domains/186.html

EstHost, Inc: Telepat Electronic Wallet Management Applied

2008-06-05T10:37:00-04:00

EstHost, Inc (http://www.esthost.com), a US-based hosting provider enables Telepat electronic wallet as a new management option for WebMoney payment system. Telepat is a widely known electronic money transfer system which is popular for its instant and reliable payments transferring services. From now on EstHost, Inc customers can manage their virtual payment operations simply with mobile or desk phone.

EstHost, Inc invites everyone to enjoy the advantages of innovative business management opportunities offered by Telepat creators. Customers can choose between two interfaces to manage their funds - interactive voice response (IVR) if a customer uses desk phone, and WebMoney Keeper Mobile (WebMoney analogue) if using mobile phone. With either of them, customers are able to perform any operations with electronic wallets, including money transfers receipts from other clients, payments for goods and services, settling accounts with partners, adding money to customer's electronic wallet or exchanging received funds for cash.

EstHost, Inc clients are served top quality hosting services. Visiting http://www.esthost.com is the greatest way to take full advantage of hosting services provided by EstHost, Inc. Every service offered by EstHost, Inc development team is represented in details on company's webpage. EstHost, Inc takes the responsibility for providing hosting services of highest quality for dedicated servers, virtual dedicated servers, virtual hosting and domains management services. At EstHost, Inc, there is a suitable plan for everyone, as the company has taken care of meeting its customers' needs and created the best combination of price and quality.

To complete the list of online business services solutions EstHost, Inc management team is glad to introduce EstDomains, Inc (http://estdomains.com), the most reliable, US-based domain name Registrar. Promoting the widely known domain name extensions, EstDomains, Inc offers its customers the cheapest registration services for more than twelve domain name zones. Detailed information related to domain name registration, renewal and mail forwarding services is available at: http://estdomains.com.

EstHost, Inc, along with Bakler, a project that is working in the area of traffic monetization also offers services for those who are interested in benefiting financially from their domain names. Great offers concerning domain name market can be found at http://www.bakler.com.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/185.html

Yidio.com Launches Online Video Search Engine

2008-06-04T14:27:00-04:00

San Diego, CA - With the launch of Yidio.com, searching for online videos has become much easier. Yidio.com combines over 200 million videos from every online video source around the world.

Through the website Yidio.com, users have the ability to search for any video based on topic, category, or source. Videos offered on Yidio.com range from full TV shows to full movies, celebrity gossip, sports, and music videos.

With Yidio.com constantly updating videos from YouTube, ESPN, FOX and HBO, online video enthusiasts have no need to look elsewhere for their video fix. The sleek design organizes videos in an easy viewing manner while providing users with the greatest amount of video content.

"It was our goal with Yidio.com to provide an all-in-one solution for users to find and watch any video on the internet quickly and easily," said Brandon Eatros, CEO and co-founder. "We wanted to simplify the lives of our users while producing a value-added service that would be beneficial to everyone."

Yidio.com has a unique feature that automatically detects user location and displays local news instantly. Users can change their location and radius which allows local video of their choice to be displayed upon return. Yidio.com is the first to market with localization technology for videos and it has proven to be hugely successful among users.

Adding to the long list of features, users have the ability to earn money by building customized playlists with videos of their choice. In case 200 million videos is not enough, Yidio.com has added over 3400 free online arcade games to play.

Yidio.com is the second website released by 2ten Media LLC that is focused on simplifying the internet experience. Their first website, SportSnipe.com, was launched 8-months ago and combines sports news from over 4,000 sources. "With information being in such abundance, hyper-aggregation is the future," said Adam Eatros, President and co-founder. "Look for great things to come from 2ten Media."

To search, watch, and save videos from around the world, visit Yidio.com.

http://www.gawkwire.com/video_tv/184.html

Yahoo Responds to Employee Threats

2008-06-05T10:22:00-04:00

SUNNYVALE, Calif - Yahoo! Inc., a leading global Internet company, today sent the following letter to Carl C. Icahn in response to his letter dated June 4, 2008:

      Dear Carl:

We are in receipt of your letter of June 4th and take issue with its content.

Your letter seriously misrepresents and manipulates the facts regarding the recent events pertaining to Microsoft and Yahoo!. You rely on, as "facts," a series of unsubstantiated allegations from a complaint filed in a Delaware court which grossly misstate the very clear record and position established by the Yahoo! Board. Let me elaborate:

You make reference to our employee retention plan but you significantly mischaracterize its purpose and its effect. In fact, you refer to it as a "Poison Pill" which could not be further from the truth. To set the record straight, the employee retention program is designed to protect the Company's assets and value during a time of uncertainty. The claim that the plan gives each of Yahoo!'s employees "the right to quit his or her job and pocket generous termination benefits at any time during the two years following a takeover..." is just plain wrong. In fact, our plan has a "double trigger" which means that in order for an employee to be eligible for benefits under our plan, there would need to be a change of control AND the employee would need to be terminated "Without Cause" or resign for "Good Reason." That means that in contrast to your assertions, an employee who simply quits his or her job would receive nothing under our plan.


The retention plan is intended to help us preserve and enhance shareholder value by allowing Yahoo! to continue to attract and retain the industry's best talent, and to allow employees to stay focused on implementing Yahoo!'s business strategy. In fact, the plan was adopted in order to protect the value of Yahoo! in anticipation of a possible acquisition by Microsoft which would have resulted in a lengthy regulatory review and a significant period of uncertainty for our employees. In adopting this plan, we believe Yahoo! did the right thing for its employees and its shareholders alike.

This plan was fully disclosed at the time of its adoption and should be no surprise to anyone at this point. It was disseminated to employees, publicly filed and extensively covered by the media. Significantly, as you note, Microsoft had indicated that it was prepared to spend $1.5 billion on retention incentives indicating that they too recognized that the retention of Yahoo! employees would have been critical if there had been an acquisition.

Finally, you significantly misrepresent the events of the recent past. Notably, you accuse us of turning down a $40 per share offer and "sabotaging" a $33 per share offer. Again, this is patently untrue. Yahoo!'s Board of Directors has at all times been focused on maximizing shareholder value. As has been well documented, Yahoo! has engaged in thorough discussions with Microsoft over a series of months culminating in Microsoft's decision to walk away from a potential acquisition of Yahoo!. Throughout this process, which has included an exploration of multiple strategic alternatives with multiple parties, the Board has repeatedly stated that it is open to any transaction, including a sale to Microsoft, as long as it is in the best interests of shareholders.

You seem to be under the impression that somehow Microsoft will come back to the negotiating table for a full acquisition of Yahoo!. This is puzzling as I know you are aware that we have reached out to Microsoft proactively and met with them many times in the last several weeks. During this period, their message to us and to the markets has been and remains that they are not interested in pursuing a full acquisition of Yahoo!.

Conspicuously absent from your letter is any credible plan for Yahoo! other than a repetition of your insistence that the Company should sell itself to Microsoft. Indeed, your stated view that "the only way to salvage Yahoo! in the long if not short run is to merge with Microsoft" demonstrates that you have no other plan and causes one to wonder what exactly would happen to our Company if you and your nominees were to take control of Yahoo!.

Sincerely,

Roy Bostock
Chairman of the Board

About Yahoo! Inc.

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/183.html

VIZIO Comments on MPEG-2 Lawsuit By Electronics Competitors

2008-06-05T10:19:00-04:00

IRVINE, Calif. - VIZIO, the fastest growing brand of flat panel HDTVs in North America, announced today that it is aware of a suit filed June 2, 2008 in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan by several electronics company competitors alleging that VIZIO failed to enter into a licensing agreement for MPEG-2 video compression technology.

VIZIO's suppliers have licenses for the MPEG-2 patents, and VIZIO believes that these licenses extend to VIZIO's products. VIZIO has notified its suppliers of the lawsuit and expects full support and cooperation by them in the defense of the lawsuit. Accordingly, VIZIO does not believe that the suit will have a material adverse impact on VIZIO's business.

VIZIO is working to resolve this matter with the plaintiffs and its suppliers, and it intends to defend its legal rights with vigor.

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/182.html

Wachovia Capital Partners Acquires HostMySite, Inc.

2008-06-04T16:55:00-04:00

Newark, Delaware - Wachovia Capital Partners (WCP) announced today that it has acquired HostMySite, Inc. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. HostMySite.com is a leading hosting provider, delivering highly scalable hosting solutions including managed hosting, dedicated hosting, virtual private servers, and shared hosting. Wachovia Capital Partners partnered with experienced industry executives Art Zeile and Joel Daly earlier this year with a goal of acquiring and building a leading managed hosting company. With this acquisition, the executives will assume the roles of CEO and COO of the company.

Lou Honick and Neil Heuer founded HostMySite.com in 1997. With over 250 employees, 4,000 servers and state of the art datacenter facilities, the founders have built a highly successful business with a strong service culture. Following the transaction, Lou Honick will become the Chief Strategy Officer.

''With greater access to financial capital, HostMySite.com will continue as a leader in our industry. We believe that we have great prospects for growth and can further expand our reputation for quality of service, deep expertise, and solid execution,'' said Mr. Honick. ''We value the breadth of industry experience that Wachovia Capital Partners brings to the table having invested in hosting services companies for over a decade. We believe in this market and our opportunities are significantly enhanced with the backing of a strong financial partner.''

Art Zeile and Joel Daly were the founders of Inflow, an IT services company managing 14 datacenters, which was sold to SunGard Availability Services in 2005. Wachovia Capital Partners was the first and largest investor in Inflow. ''We are incredibly proud of what Lou Honick and Neil Heuer have created. The culture of HostMySite.com is one of intense focus on the customer. Customer satisfaction will remain our top priority,'' stated Art Zeile.

HostMySite.com was advised in this transaction by DH Capital.

To learn more about HostMySite.com and its managed web hosting services, please visit: www.HostMySite.com.

About HostMySite.com
HostMySite.com was founded by partners Lou Honick and Neil Heuer in 1997. The foundation of the culture at HostMySite.com is a top-down commitment to complete customer satisfaction. HostMySite.com provides individuals, small businesses, and large corporations with dedicated hosting, VPS hosting, and ASP.NET hosting, supported by 24x7x365 live support through toll-free telephone, email, and live online chat.

About Wachovia Capital Partners
Wachovia Capital Partners is the private equity investing arm of Wachovia Corporation, the fourth largest bank holding company in the U.S. Since the group's inception in 1988, WCP has invested in excess of $3.5 billion of private equity capital on behalf of Wachovia. WCP's current investment portfolio is comprised of 43 companies. WCP is making this investment from WCP II, L.P., a $1.8 billion fund.

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/181.html

Firefox gets Hotter in July

2008-06-04T01:14:00-04:00

As reported by Net Applications, Mozilla Corp’s Firefox browser has a possible target of 20% of the browser market-share by July 2008. Setting a record for open-source browsers, Firefox has reported a 18.6% share during the month of May and is climbing.

With Microsoft’s Internet Explorer clearing dominating the field, other browsers such as Opera (0.7%) and Safari (6.3%) contend with Firefox for parts of the market.

Complete statistics can be found at http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=1

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/180.html

Yahoo â€“ Microsoft; Today They May, Tomorrow They May Not

2008-06-04T10:28:00-04:00

Various Industry news outlets are reporting that Yahoo Inc President Sue Decker admits that talks with Microsoft are continuing and that “There are many ways” working with Microsoft can be beneficial.

Yahoo has been discussing various options with Microsoft and others such as Google.

Decker will be appearing on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” at 9AM PDT later today and may shed more light on the situation.

For more information on CNBC’s Power Lunch, visit http://www.cnbc.com/id/15838342

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/179.html

DiscountASP.NET Launches SQL 2008 Hosting Private Beta Program

2008-06-04T10:08:00-04:00

Pasadena, CA - Windows hosting leader, DiscountASP.NET, announces the launch of an invite-only SQL 2008 hosting private beta program. The private beta program provides select customer members an opportunity to test SQL 2008 in a live hosted environment and provide valuable feedback.

"Under the SQL 2008 Go Live program, we are currently inviting customers who are active in the ASP.NET Community to participate in a SQL 2008 hosting private beta. We hope to get early feedback to help us get closer to finalizing our production SQL 2008 hosting offer." said Takeshi Eto, VP Marketing at DiscountASP.NET. "We also plan to open up SQL 2008 beta hosting for all our customers in a few weeks."

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is a major update to its enterprise database product and is currently in CTP-6 release. Although no launch date has been officially stated, the final release of SQL Server 2008 is said to be slated for Q3 2008. For developers, new SQL 2008 features include new data types, such as geospatial data types and date/time data types. In addition, Language Integrated Query (LINQ), integrated full text search, sparse columns, and large user-defined types are improvements that help build next-generation data-centric applications.

To learn more about Microsoft SQL 2008, visit http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008

http://www.gawkwire.com/reviews/178.html

Cryptek Launches New SSL VPN Appliance for Service Providers

2008-06-04T10:06:00-04:00

Sterling, VA - Cryptek, Inc., a leading innovator of secure information sharing and information assurance products and solutions, today announced the debut of the ION™ SA500 Service Access Point, the first drop-in SSL VPN remote service delivery appliance. Purpose-built for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and equipment manufacturers, the ION SA500 offers an easy-to-use, highly affordable alternative to traditional VPN solutions by delivering drop-in remote management of IT and voice equipment via the Internet. The ION SA500 debuts today at INNUA's Global Connect 2008 in Grapevine, Texas.

The ION SA500 appliance leverages SSL VPN and proprietary SnapNAT™ technology to dynamically and securely link service providers to managed systems located at customer sites. Service providers centrally administer these systems using ION PRIISMS, an Internet-accessible management system. The ION SA500 seamlessly integrates managed systems with the service provider's Network Operations Center (NOC) tools, allowing service providers to easily leverage backend systems and proprietary tools when servicing Customer Premise Equipment (CPE). By vastly simplifying connectivity and leveraging automation, the ION SA500 allows service providers to offer revenue-generating remote services on a wide variety of IT and voice systems, while reducing the overall cost of service delivery.

"With the ION SA500 Service Access Point, Cryptek has raised the bar in terms of remote managed services," said Bill Anderson, CEO of Cryptek, "ION SA500 delivers the capabilities of a high-end SSL VPN appliance with unmatched affordability and easy implementation. By leveraging the ION SA500, service providers can aggressively pursue the booming small-to-medium business (SMB) managed services market."

The ION SA500 Service Access Point will be showcased in booth #204 at INNUA's Global Connect 2008, the annual conference sponsored by the International Nortel Users Association. Nearly 3,000 participants are expected to attend the four-day conference, which will be held June 1-4, 2008 at the Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine, Texas.

Visit http://www.ion-networks.com/ionsa500 for more information on the ION SA500 Service Access Point.

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/177.html

Acer Presents New Digital Device

2008-06-03T10:18:00-04:00

TAIPEI, Taiwan & SAN JOSE, Calif. - Acer, the third largest vendor in the global PC market, today presented the Aspire one, an all-new communication device designed to make online activities fast, simple and cool.

The Aspire one is a brand new product which, despite its size, is not just another notebook: it’s a stylish all-new digital device designed to deliver continuous access to the internet no matter where you are.

The Aspire one is something that can go everywhere and opens the door to new and unexplored areas of the online world. For this reason it was important to reduce weight and dimensions.

The result is a masterpiece of technological simplicity with an intuitive and specifically optimized software interface to support connectivity needs. At just 9.8-inches x 6.7-inches x 1.14-inches and weighing a little more than two pounds, the Aspire one is not only extremely compact (smaller than an average office diary) but offers numerous connectivity possibilities, a full and easy-to-use software application suite and battery life of up to six hours1.

Get connected

Small and smart, the Aspire one can go anywhere and keeps users connected everywhere. The Aspire one comes standard with 802.11b/g WiFi built-in for easy access to available wireless networks and in the future may be specified with 3G2 wireless technology for even greater online freedom. In addition, Acer Signal Up technology ensures maximum quality and stability to the wireless signal.

Let’s get organized

The Aspire one is great for getting things done: whether checking email, managing online accounts or chatting with friends, the Aspire one offers a simple, intuitive Linux3 interface that clearly organizes everything needed to surf the Internet, work or simply have fun. The pre-installed software is separated by functions and presented in four distinct areas on the screen – Connect, Works, Fun and Files – making it so simple it’s difficult to get confused.

Ergonomics and reduced dimensions do not mean the view isn’t spectacular: the Aspire one has an 8.9-inch CrystalBrite LED backlit display with a resolution of 1024x600 pixels. Integrated in the top of the screen is the unique Acer CrystalEye webcam for live video streaming, video chats and conferences.

Choose your Style

The Aspire one uses color to combine connectivity with inimitable style. Initially available in blue and white, the range of colors available for the Aspire one will be expanded later this year with two new soft, warm tones: brown and pink.

The four colors – sapphire blue, seashell white, golden brown and coral pink – give the Aspire one an individual and quite distinctive look and feel that matches the style and personality of its owner.

Bits & bytes for data freedom

The Aspire one is equipped with Intel® Atom™ processor, Linpus™ Linux® Lite or Windows XP® Home, and comes with 512MB or 1GB of RAM memory installed.

There are two alternatives for data storage: a NAND flash module of 8GB or an 80GB4 internal HDD. In addition the Aspire one reads five different types of memory card – Secure Digital, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, xD-Picture Card – for absolute data freedom.

To increase storage capacity, the Aspire one features the unique Smart File Manager, a simple solution that instantly and seamlessly merges extra storage from any SD card inserted in the second SD card slot into the memory available to the user.

Simple, Sophisticated Software

Acer has improved the user experience by designing a friendly, easy-to-use and comprehensive interface utilizing a more natural approach to screen layout and functionality, which simplifies interaction between users and the Aspire one. The Linpus™ Linux® Lite version is the result, guiding and accompanying even novice users through the Internet in an intuitive, “virus-safe” and super-responsive Linux environment.

The Aspire one features the one Mail software suite that lets users manage up to six email accounts with a single application interface, including office accounts. A small icon to the right of the message quickly and clearly shows the appropriate mail account. Nothing could be simpler to replace push e-mail services without using a corporate server.

The Aspire one uses Messenger for Instant Messaging, an application that allows users to simultaneously access Skype, Microsoft Messenger and various other instant messaging services. The software can be used with the integrated video camera for instant video-chats and video conferences.

The Aspire one series comes preinstalled with Linpus™ Linux® Lite version or Windows XP® Home. Additional software such as OpenOffice 2.3, one Mail, Messenger, Acer eRecovery Management, Acer Launch Manager, Adobe® Reader®, McAfee® Internet Security Suite, Microsoft® Office Trial 2007 are also installed5.

Pricing and Availability

The new Aspire one will be available in early Q3 through Acer authorized resellers and selected retailers throughout North America, with pricing beginning at US$379.

The Aspire one comes with a standard one-year parts and labor warranty, which includes concurrent International Traveler’s Coverage that can be extended to three years with the Acer Advantage service that also covers accidental damage to the notebook. Additionally, all Acer notebooks are backed by toll-free service and support.

About Acer America

Since its founding in 1976, Acer has constantly pursued the goal of breaking the barriers between people and technology. Focused on marketing its brand-name IT products around the globe, Acer ranks as the world’s No. 3 vendor for total PCs and No. 2 for notebooks, with the fastest growth among the top-five players. A profitable and sustainable Channel Business Model is instrumental to Acer’s continued growth, while the successful mergers of Gateway and Packard Bell complete the company’s global footprint by strengthening its presence in the U.S., and enhancing its strong position in Europe. Acer Inc. employs 5,000 people worldwide. Estimated revenue for 2007 is US $14.07 billion. For more information, please visit www.acer.com/us.

http://www.gawkwire.com/reviews/175.html

Softlayer Packs Green, Eliminates Waste

2008-06-03T09:53:00-04:00

Dallas, TX – SoftLayer received its first delivery of servers under a new server packaging program that reduces packing materials by 80-percent. The program was created through several months of close collaboration between SoftLayer and its server manufacturer, Supermicro.

“From the shipment of our first server in 2006, SoftLayer has actively recycled all its data center materials. But with our rate of growth, it was essential we do even more,” stated Joshua Rushe, Vice President of Operations at SoftLayer. “We looked for a way to go beyond recycling and reduce the production of unnecessary material. We hope this program sets a new industry standard that will help reduce the total environmental impact of data centers worldwide.”

SoftLayer’s reduced packaging program provides multiple environmental benefits. It eliminates more than 8 pounds of packing material per server, as well as the shipment of user manuals and unnecessary components, thereby greatly reducing the volume of materials produced or recycled. Moreover, these measures reduce the total shipping “footprint,” enabling the same sized shipping containers to carry more units and reducing the amount of fuel consumed and carbon emissions produced when shipping.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that recycling one ton of cardboard and paper products leads to saving:
• 17 trees
• 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space
• 360 gallons of water
• 100 gallons of gasoline
• 60 pounds of air pollutants
• 10,401 kilowatts of electricity
The savings from eliminating the initial production of the cardboard is even more dramatic.

Based on these figures, SoftLayer’s new program will save over 750 trees per year. “But this is only the beginning,” said Mr. Rushe. “We continue working with key partners like Supermicro to create more ways to make data center operations as environmentally efficient as possible.

About SoftLayer Technologies
Headquartered in Plano, Texas, SoftLayer delivers next-generation web hosting and on-demand data center services on a global basis from facilities located in Dallas, TX; Seattle, WA; and Washington, DC. 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. For more information please visit www.softlayer.com or call 866.398.7638.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/174.html

Hosting Website Relaunched by HostMySite.com

2008-06-02T11:09:00-04:00

Newark, DE - Customer-focused web hosting firm, HostMySite.com, has relaunched its website at: http://www.HostMySite.com with a strong emphasis on managed dedicated servers and VPS hosting. The website is the culmination of several months of effort involving both internal and outsourced design talent and writers.

The website also introduces a new tagline for the HostMySite.com brand: 'Service Defined'. The 'Service Defined' tagline encompasses the deep commitment that HostMySite.com has developed for 100% customer satisfaction. One can read about this service philosophy as outlined by HostMySite.com CEO, Lou Honick, at: http://www.hostmysite.com/servicedefined. The 'Service Defined' theme is also evident in the presented customer testimonials, which confirm the strategic value in maintaining the highest levels of customer service and support.

The new HostMySite.com website presents web hosting solutions to four key audience segments: personal website creators, professional developers and designers, small business website owners, and those needing enterprise level hosting solutions. The site also builds on the strong markets that HostMySite.com has served in managed dedicated servers and VPS hosting. The managed dedicated section of the website have been updated to present a complete online datacenter tour, vastly increased detail on the dedicated server offerings at HostMySite.com and tools for determining which dedicated server solutions best match a customer's needs. To view the new dedicated server section of the HostMySite.com website please visit: http://www.hostmysite.com/dedicatedservershosting/.

The website development project was a true team effort involving every functional area within HostMySite.com. Tom Shebest, Creative Director at HostMySite.com described the website development process, ''Our development time was reduced by implementing the Agile project management process, which ensures tasks are completed correctly and on time. HTML and CSS production time was reduced significantly by implementing a CSS framework that allowed us to rapidly move from wireframes to complete webpages. The combination of these factors allowed the design team to spend the majority of development time improving the HostMySite.com experience for our customers.''

Consistent with the customer-centric approach at HostMySite.com, the company included more content to highlight current customer success stories. The main page of the website focuses on testimonials from current HostMySite.com customers. The 'Customer Stories' section of site features various customers who convey their experiences with HostMySite.com. To see these customer stories, please view: http://www.hostmysite.com/stories/.

HostMySite.com was founded by partners Lou Honick and Neil Heuer in 1997. The foundation of the culture at HostMySite.com is a top-down commitment to complete customer satisfaction. HostMySite.com provides individuals, small businesses, and large corporations with affordable dedicated servers, VPS hosting, and ColdFusion hosting, supported by 24x7x365 live support through toll-free telephone, email, and live online chat.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/170.html

Online Advertising Technology Company to Present at Search Marketing Expo

2008-06-02T11:05:00-04:00

Columbus, OH - ClearSaleing Inc., an online advertising technology company, has announced that Chief Innovation Officer, Adam Goldberg, will be presenting at the Search Marketing Expo Advanced in Seattle.

Internet Marketers that address these challenges first will enjoy a strategic advantage over their competition and will realize the tremendous impact that online advertising can have for their company.
For his presentation at SMX Seattle, Goldberg will be a speaker for the session, 'Closing The Loop: Are You Tracking Every Lead?' Goldberg will speak to the many challenges that search engine marketer's face with tracking leads in an organized and efficient manner, in order to optimize their online advertising performance. The session will cover topics ranging from tracking and properly valuing all ads that contribute to and influence a purchase, to integrating your online advertising analytics platform with your CRM system, so you can close the loop between individual ads and specific leads and between specific leads and actual sales.

"There are tried and true online advertising technologies and strategies that address the unique challenges that lead generation companies (Internet Marketers) face," Goldberg said. "Internet Marketers that address these challenges first will enjoy a strategic advantage over their competition and will realize the tremendous impact that online advertising can have for their company."

Goldberg, a former Google executive, experienced firsthand the overwhelming challenges that advertisers face in terms of managing, analyzing and optimizing their online advertising campaigns while at Google. Goldberg realized that technology could solve many of the challenges that search engine marketers and online advertisers were facing. He decided to take his ideas and start a business named ClearSaleing, Inc. Goldberg, along with his partners, raised financing and developed an advertising analytics platform that is used by several Fortune 1,000 companies, as well as over a dozen members of the Internet Retailer 500.

SMX Advanced: Seattle will be held June third through fourth. For more information visit http://searchmarketingexpo.com/advanced.

http://www.gawkwire.com/seo_sem/169.html