Gawkwire: Web Hosting and Internet News Resource

Surfin’ the Spark!

2010-05-28T08:52:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - I consider myself a social kind of girl, especially online, so when I heard about SocialSpark the name alone was so cool I just HAD to check it out. After I started to surf the Spark, I began to realize there’s a ton of possibilities for bloggers that I really wasn’t even aware could exist.

For example, did you know you can make a good living from blogging? Or, that you can get your blog sponsored by a corporate entity?

Well you can, and that’s where David Chen, Vice President of Business Development for IZEA, comes in. IZEA is a company most well known for PayPerPost.com and RockStartUp.com, both really awesome ventures you should also check out. David was kind enough to answer some questions about their new social network and…some other things as well.

Thanks for chatting with me David. So tell us…what is SocialSpark?
SocialSpark is a marketplace where bloggers and advertisers connect to identify sponsorship opportunities. For bloggers, SocialSpark is a resource to help drive them more traffic and help them earn a higher return on their traffic. Bloggers can “shop” for sponsorship opportunities that fit their site and/or advertisers can target the bloggers directly. For advertisers, SocialSpark is a unique and scalable vehicle for marketing across social media. We offer Sponsored Post (sponsored content) as well as display advertising opportunities.

What is the Solutions Center?
The Solutions Center is a new area within SocialSpark to help our users find information and tools to improve their online experiences. The Solutions Center provides a directory of blogger and advertiser services ranging from web hosting providers, blog publishing tools, to content resources. We also present special offers to our users from select providers.

How can web hosting services benefit from SocialSpark and the Solutions Center?
Many of our users are setting up their blogs for the first time and/or looking to improve the infrastructure of their existing blogs. Web hosting services that support a range of blog publishing tools are a good fit for our users and the Solutions Center. Combined, we can offer a complete solution for their blog hosting and marketing needs.

Interested providers are welcome to contact us here.

In addition, web hosting services can join SocialSpark to match-up with bloggers who can become brand advocates for their web hosting services. You can join SocialSpark for free at http://socialspark.com. Once registered, you can develop free advertiser and blogger profiles and have full access to the SocialSpark suite of services. We also have a sales team to help develop campaigns.

How can web masters benefit from SocialSpark and the Solutions Center?

Whether a web master is just getting started or has been running a website/blog for years, we offer information and services to help them get started, enhance their existing site, and/or generate sponsorship fees.

How do I get in Social Spark and the Solutions Center?
You can access SocialSpark at http://socialspark.com. The Solutions Center is located at http://socialspark.com/solutions_center

Is there a code of ethics your bloggers and advertisers must follow?

Yes. We believe a free and open marketplace fosters the creativity for social marketing opportunities. We also believe participants in social media marketing should be accountable to their users. To maintain the balanced interests of bloggers, advertisers, and users, we’ve established a 4-point set of standards: 100% Audit-able In-Post Disclosure, 100% Transparency, 100% Real Opinions, 100% Search Engine Friendly. You can learn more about our policy here http://socialspark.com/code_of_ethics

How much can you make, just by writing blogs?

The SocialSpark open marketplace sets the value for what a blogger can earn for writing Sponsored Posts by matching advertiser supply with blogger demand. Opportunity pay-outs can range from $5 to $100+ for a Sponsored Post. More involved posts, such as video posts, have higher pay-outs and bloggers have the opportunity to distinguish themselves to earn more. We provide guidelines for how often you can write Sponsored Posts, but we have bloggers earning more than a thousand dollars a month.

What are Blogger Bonuses and how do bloggers get them?

Some advertisers offer a monthly bonus to the blogger that performs best for them. Bloggers have the incentive to create posts that are most appealing to their users and most effective for the advertisers.

What are “props” and “drops”?

Props and drops are way of rating users, blogs, sponsorship opportunities, etc. in SocialSpark. You must be a registered user of SocialSpark in order to give a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down.”

What are your future plans for SocialSpark?

We have a number of exciting new products and features in the works, including building some new tools to enhance targeting. We are also creating some very interesting products to help bloggers better interact with their users and other bloggers. We’ll be making some more announcements soon.
Tell us about the backend of SocialSpark? What platform is it running?

We use Ruby on Rails, Pylons, and a bit of PHP.
How many registered users do you have and what growth have you seen since you started?
We have 170,000+ bloggers and 17,000+ advertisers across the IZEA network and it continues to grow every day.

What is the benefit of installing a SocialSpark widget on your blog?

Bloggers can install the IZEA Toolkit (ITK) on their blog which provides free web statistics, including pageviews, unique visitors, and inbound linking information. The ITK also allows you to determine your IZEARank which makes you eligible for sponsorship opportunities in SocialSpark. You can make your traffic data public/private at your option, but we encourage sharing as much information with the community. The ITK allows you to also serve Blog Sponsorship ads without having to re-design your site. Again, all at the blogger’s option.

How did you come up with the name?

“SocialSpark” captures the essence of what we do: we help bloggers and brands initiate and manage conversations across social media.

Who are the people behind SocialSpark?

There’s an energetic team of almost fifty people helping run SocialSpark. IZEA was founded by Ted Murphy, a serial entrepreneur, with a background in interactive media. Our management team has a diverse set of technology and marketing experience from companies like MySpace, Yahoo!, AOL, American Express, Channel Intelligence, and Westgate Resorts. You can see a documentary of the development of IZEA at http://rockstartup.com

Can doing paid blog posts for advertisers on SocialSpark negatively affect SEO rankings?

SocialSpark is about matching those with content and distribution needs (advertisers) with content creators (bloggers). Sponsored content is intended to be relevant to both users and advertisers. SocialSpark is not an SEO play and we have instituted a policy where we require “no-follow” tags on any paid link. It’s up to each of the search engines to determine how they do that. That said, we’ve worked with the major search engines to develop a policy for SocialSpark that is “friendly” to their policies.

[amy] - Even Matt Cutts references SocialSpark on his blog! Now that is when you know you are a success!!

At the very end of the interview, I took the opportunity to send some props toward SocialSpark. As opposed to some services where paid posts pass PageRank, SocialSpark posts require nofollow so that any paid links don’t pass PageRank. If paid posts respect that requirement from SocialSpark, they’d be within our webmaster guidelines. I’ve noticed once or twice where an advertiser tried to get an extra nofollow’ed link in a SocialSpark post, but when I’ve mentioned those 1-2 examples, IZEA has taken action to correct that. So we’ll continue to keep an eye on things, but I wanted to mention the progress that I saw in SocialSpark.

How do most of your users find out about the service?

We’ve had most of our users find us through referrals. Also, like the rest of our advertisers, we run our own campaigns through Social Spark to create sponsorship opportunities to help get the word out. There are literally thousands of bloggers writing about SocialSpark, so that drives a lot of our traffic. It’s also great to have a chance to speak with industry leaders like yourself.

The SocialSpark mascot reminds us a little of a Treasure Troll doll, with its head on fire. Was this inspired by a childhood trauma or are we reading too much into it?
That’s funny.

If WordPress and Blogger got into a fistfight, who would win?

Blogger in a brawl, WordPress in a cage fight.

Admit it…you watch reality TV (everyone does). Which show is your must see?

Besides Rockstartup, I got a kick out of Bobby G: Adventure Capitalist.

What are three things you do when no one’s looking?

Check email, voicemail, and texts.

[amy] Wow.. I do ALL those things WHEN people are looking ;)

What’s the most exciting road trip you’ve ever been on?

Across the U.S. while a student.

Mac or Windows?

Mac (recent convert)

If you could be a contestant on any game show, which one would it be and why?

Price is Right. Haven’t seen the new show yet, but Drew Carey cracks me up.

If the internet suddenly disappeared, what would you do?
Write more letters.

Thanks David! It was uber cool to find out more about SocialSpark. We can’t wait to see the next innovation IZEA comes up with!

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

ReliaCloud Releases Full Service Cloud Program to Channel Partners

2010-05-28T08:50:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) – ReliaCloud, a national cloud computing infrastructure company, has launched a full channel program centered on their enterprise-class infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud computing offering.

The five year growth outlook for IT cloud services revenue from 2009 to 2013 remains strong, with an annual growth rate of 26% - over six times the rate of traditional IT offerings (IDC, September 2009).

Enterprise and small business IT spending is moving more and more to the cloud due to its easier set up, scalability, flexibility, built-in maintenance and support, and reduced costs for hardware and software maintenance.

ReliaCloud will make the reseller process as easy as possible, by providing a suite of tools that supports their resale process. ReliaCloud has developed a series of programs that maximize the use of their Cloud Storage and Cloud Servers for each of their customer profiles.

Value Added Resellers (VARs) have the ability to bundle ReliaCloud with their existing technical offerings to deliver a combined solution. ReliaCloud partners receive best in class sales and marketing support including marketing collateral, video tutorials and cooperative marketing funds.

While there are similar programs in the market today, the major point of differentiation for ReliaCloud is the customer service aspect. Many partners have suggested that some of the more well know cloud providers don't demonstrate that they understand the support needs of SMB partners. ReliaCloud gives each partner direct access to an assigned channel manager.

“We are excited to launch a program that allows managed service providers the opportunity to expand their business by offering cloud services,” says Brian Stevenson, Vice President of Sales for ReliaCloud. “We expect IT consulting firms and managed service providers to be the driving force of cloud adoption.”
ReliaCloud has 15 years of experience in the data center and hosting business, with an established and diversified client base. Its cloud services are production-ready, with low-cost bandwidth and high-level data security.

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

Hosting.com Launches Cloud Private

2010-05-27T22:48:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Hosting.com has recently launched Cloud Private, adding to its Cloud Hosting portfolio. Cloud Private is a single-tenant, VMware-enabled compute infrastructure that includes licensing, monitoring and management of cloud servers in one or more Hosting.com Cloud Super Sites.

Cloud Private provides customers the highest levels of cloud server security and compliancy with fully managed, flexible, dedicated hardware. Regulatory and compliance demands for single-tenant environments for HIPAA, PCI, SOX and more are addressed with a Cloud Private solution.

Cloud Private customers are ensured their privacy is protected while gaining access to the features inherent to a cloud solution – including self-service management and provisioning via a secure web portal, intelligent load management, automated failover functionality, and the ability to connect to Hosting.com’s public cloud solutions for additional and instant compute resources.

Cloud Private addresses a previous gap in Hosting.com’s Cloud Portfolio – a private cloud solution that is fully managed through Hosting.com’s Customer Portal and Entourage Support team, and is capable of connecting to Hosting.com’s Hybrid Hosting solutions. Hybrid Hosting allows standalone cloud, dedicated and colocation components to run independently or as part of a network.

Hybrid Hosting provides businesses of all sizes with technology and cost benefits formerly reserved for large enterprises with their own datacenters. Hosting.com customers can connect their Cloud Private solution to their internal infrastructure or to Hosting.com’s public clouds to flex their infrastructure during a new project, seasonal spike, or for multi-site disaster recovery.

Craig McLellan, Hosting.com Chief Technology Officer, added, “Our engineering teams work vigorously to deliver multiple cloud hosting solutions to the marketplace for one reason – customer demand. Cloud Private is the fourth addition to our Cloud Portfolio and it is the most significant because it meets existing customer demands such as – datacenter redundancy in multiple Cloud Super Sites, on-demand resource availability in a private, managed cloud, and federation of internal clouds.”

Cloud Private virtual machines are offered with common Windows and Linux operating system options and managed by Hosting.com, reducing a customer’s management and costs associated with payments and maintenance. Additionally, Cloud Private customers receive free 24x7x365 expert Entourage Support.

Hosting.com customers access the secure web-based Customer Portal to manage and provision their Cloud Hosting solutions. The Customer Portal provides the ability to administer and create virtual machines, adjust resources, add services, and view and create alarms. Most modifications made via the Customer Portal are available within minutes. View the Hosting.com Customer Portal Demo.

Download Hosting.com’s recently released Cloud Security Executive Report – How Real Are Cloud Security Concerns – which addresses the concerns associated with Cloud Security and how cloud hosting providers can work with clients to address their concerns and needs.

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

Pear Logic Named As a Top 5 Web Designer

2010-05-28T08:46:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - The best web designers in the industry have been announced by bestwebdesignagencies.com, the independent authority on the best web designing companies, for May 2010. Every applicant seeking to be ranked to analyzed by an independent research team in order to ensure they are truly among the best.

Pear Logic was ranked as a top 5 web designer based upon an internally developed set of evaluation criteria used by the research team. The company's understanding of design concepts and high client satisfaction rating has earned Pear Logic this outstanding recognition.

"At Pear Logic, we use top notch talent to produce quality web designs for our clients. The very foundation of our business model is setup to ensure that our clients get an agency level product at highly competitive rates," said Brian Tsai, Managing Partner of Pear Logic, LLC (http://www.pearlogic.com). He added, "We are constantly looking to add new technologies to our services that have high value for our clients. Right now we are working on developing mobile applications and text messaging solutions to provide them with a total digital presence."

Their focus is to make web design 'simple, not simpler.' Pear Logic approaches projects this way through Google's example. The leading search engine is one of the most complex websites on the internet, and yet it is one of the simplest to use. Pear Logic's goal is to make complex design and development strategies simple for customers. They believe that simplicity and usability are the keys to gaining a following on the internet and because of this every project must be built unique to the needs of the client. In order to best do this, Pear Logic takes on the challenge of understanding every client's business to make sure the development solution meets the business goals of the client.

The hard work that goes on behind the scenes and their clients' satisfaction that has been derived out of the company's efforts has earned Pear Logic the #4 web designer ranking for May 2010. The firm has an eye constantly on the future of where web design is going, and that will help Pear Logic to remain among the best web designing companies in the industry.

bestwebdesignagencies.com (http://www.bestwebdesignagencies.com), the independent authority on the best web designing companies, was established in 2009 in order to find the best web design and development services in the industry. The independent authority assigned a specified research to review each applicant based upon an internally developed set of criteria. A new set of rankings is released each month that is updated based on the new research completed. Even more information is available on the site beyond the independent rankings including a full directory listing, news and information, and much more.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_design/pear_logic_named_as_a_top_5_web_designer.html

Logicalis Opens Next Generation High Density Data Centre

2010-05-27T22:44:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) – International solutions provider, Logicalis, today announced the launch of its 10,000sq.ft high density data centre (HDDC). The Tier 3+ facility, located on the M4 corridor, will provide customers with made-to-measure hosted and managed services to support hyper-virtualised computing, storage and networking technologies, as well as Logicalis’ suite of hybrid Cooperative Enterprise Cloud services.

Tom Kelly, MD of Logicalis UK, comments; “As a trusted partner to many national and international organisations, Logicalis is committed to investing in innovative, enterprise-class IT resources that facilitate and future-proof our customers’ business strategies. This new data centre will allow organisations to exploit a new era of game-changing high density technologies, without financial or operational risk, and in an environment optimised for stability and availability.”

Designed for maximum flexibility, power and environmental efficiency, the HDDC is based on twin data halls both with 2N power design and, uniquely, offers 4, 8, 12 and 32kw rack options throughout, enabling customers to locate low and high density systems together driving convergence and reducing costs. A free air cooling system maximises efficiency, taking advantage of the cooler British climate, and lowering Logicalis’ operational costs as well as the data centre’s carbon footprint.

Located adjacent to Logicalis’ Managed Service Centre (MSC) and development and pre-staging labs, customers are afforded the opportunity to build, test, configure and transition their systems into a live environment, and with direct access to onsite HDDC engineers. The HDDC is supported by Logicalis’ three MSCs, offering customers managed hosting services ranging from Intel virtualisation, through to mainframe and managed business intelligence services.

Simon Daykin, CTO at Logicalis UK, and architect of the HDDC, explains; “With our extensive experience in building enterprise grade data centre infrastructures and solutions, we understand the elements critical to deliver robust, reliable, secure and efficient IT services. Our holistic solution is unparalleled, with the capability to support the most cutting edge data centre solutions including the highest density computing environments.

“Customers don’t want to compromise business reliability, and therefore the co-location of management, development and data centre facilities allows customers to mitigate the risks from rapid deployments, migrations and service construction. They also want to work with a managed hosting provider offering pre-built value added services and, with the investments Logicalis is making in cloud services, customers can choose the ownership and operational model for a data centre that suits their specific business and operational priorities.”

The HDDC is serviced by major carriers, including dark fibre services for customers that need very low latency or high data volume services.

For more information about Logicalis’ HDDC, please visit: www.logicalishddc.co.uk

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

Webmaster Addons for Firefox

2010-05-27T08:22:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - When people ask me what is the best of the best, better than all of the rest tool that I use for my web development and design needs the answer I give them is simple. It is something that we all have at least tried, and I am willing to bet a lot of us already use. I tell them to go get Firefox. There are a plethora of tools, services and extensions for Firefox that just makes a web designer's life (no matter your expertise level) easier.

Firebug
The thing that makes this extension for Firefox a winner is that it gives you the ability to edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and Javascript live in any web page. It never gets in your way because it opens up in a separate window, or as a bar at the bottom of your browser.

Web Developer Toolbar
As the Holy Grail for many web designers who use Firefox, the Web Developer Toolbar has just about every design and editing tool you would ever need all tied into one single toolbar in the browser. It is designed for Firefox, Flock and Seamonkey, and will run on any platform that these browsers support including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

FireFTP
Why have an FTP client and a browser when you can merge the two into one. For people who like to simplify the number of programs they run, this extension is also a must have. Once installing, FireFTP will act as any other regular FTP program would allowing you to FTP into sites with that familiar FTP interface as well as allow you to save FTP address and login details.

FireShot
If you find yourself taking a lot of screen shots for design or even just as something to stick in your blog post, FireShot is your screen capture key on steroids. FireShot allows you to quickly capture and edit web page screen shots and save them out as PNG, JPG or BMP. One more checkmark is you can insert text and graphical annotations.

FoxyProxy
As a replacement to Firefox's proxy configuration, FoxyProxy supercharges your proxy details. Once installed you can ditch the limited interface Mozilla gives you to work with and automatically switch an internet connection across one or more proxy servers based on URL patterns.

IE View
One thing I know designers hate to do is switch from browser to browser to make sure everything looks "just right" while they are working on their digital masterpieces. With IE View installed you can quickly launch pages from Firefox into Internet Explorer. If you want to open a page using just Internet Explorer's engine in a new Firefox tab you might also look at the IE Tab extension.

ColorZilla
Finding the right color and colors that work well together is no easy task. For me the perfect color companion is the ColorZilla extension. It includes a dropper tool to allow you to capture a color from anywhere on a web page. As a bonus, it can also act as a page zoomer and color picker.

Screengrab!
Saving scrolling web documents from top to bottom is a perk that many designers wish they had. When it comes to capturing layouts or saving past work, you no longer have to stitch web sites together that are too big for the screen. You can also resize the space your are capturing so you can save a little or save a lot. The choice is up to you.

HTML Validator
You want your web page to uphold to all the standards, right? The HTML Validator extension adds an icon to your status bar to tell you if your HTML is standards compliant according to the W3C. If you do have an error it will let you know how many so that you can get them fixed up.

YSlow
Using Yahoo's own rules for high performance web sites, YSlow will tell you why your web page might be loading a little slower than you would like for it to. This is handy when trying to figure out the age old debate of is it my network connection that is too slow or is in the multitude of dancing .GIFs I have on the web page.

MeasureIt
Most people would not think that measurements have such an important part to play in the web design and development process. Having a ruler on screen to tell you the pixel height and width of any element is handy to have and is delivered with the MeasureIt extension for Firefox.

SeoQuake
This extension is aimed at helping webmasters determine where certain links stand on the web as far as search engine optimization is concerned. Broken into two parts, the toolbar will give you handy links to find out where any link measures up in SEO juice. The second part adds SEO details to your search results so you can see the same results all layed out for you on each link.

View Source Chart
Everything in the world would be better if it was just color coded. For an example, just look at what View Source Chart does for your web site's source code. It categorizes everything by color to make it easier to understand what goes with what. Don't worry guys, having things all colorized does not make you any less of a man. It just makes you a little more of a colorful coder.

CSSViewer
CSSViewer lets you see what is "under the hood" at your favorite Web sites. Once installed, it provides you with a simple CSS property viewer. Once you get past some of the visual and personal preferences, there is not much I would change. The extension does what it does, and does it well.

There is no doubt that when it comes to the browser wars going on these days that Firefox delivers you more when it comes to helping you be the best you can be. You can find these helpful tools on Mozilla's own web site for all of their themes and extensions, (http://addons.mozilla.org).

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

CoreSite Leases 100% of Phase 1 Santa Clara Data Center Campus

2010-05-27T08:21:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - National data center and peering provider CoreSite announces today Phase I of its Santa Clara data center campus at 2901 Coronado has been fully-leased as a single-customer, private data center. The customer is one of the world’s largest technology companies, headquartered in the Bay Area.

CoreSite’s Santa Clara data center adds eight megawatts of electrical capacity and 50,000 square feet of data center space to the customer’s growing, national, data center footprint. The Santa Clara deployment is the customer’s second with CoreSite and is being built-out in four separate data center rooms. Building construction was completed on April 9, 2010.

CoreSite built 2901 Coronado to LEED Gold certification standards, fitting with the customer’s rigorous energy-efficiency requirements. CoreSite’s Santa Clara data center features air-side economization, 95%-efficient UPS units in a 2-N configuration, and the latest in energy-efficient technologies.

With an additional 12.6 acres at the Santa Clara development site and a site plan for 446,250 square feet of data center space, CoreSite’s portfolio contains a tangible development position in the Santa Clara data center market.

“CoreSite is pleased to have expanded our relationship with this valuable customer in delivering our latest, premier data center development project,” said David Dunn, CoreSite senior vice president of marketing and business development. “Our experienced data center development team enabled us to rapidly deliver a truly world-class data center.”

“CoreSite takes pride in the efficiency, global responsibility and reliability we build into our data centers,” said Billie Haggard, CoreSite’s senior vice president of data centers. “We believe that 2901 Coronado exemplifies CoreSite’s standard of operational excellence and facilities management.”

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/coresite_leases_100_of_phase_1_santa_clara_data_center_campus.html

Marketpath Ranked #1 CMS Developer In The Industry

2010-05-27T08:20:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - The industry's best Web Content Management Systems have been ranked by bestwebdesignagencies.com, the independent authority on the best web designing companies, for May 2010. Numerous applicants were reviewed in order to determine what company was the best.

After extensive evaluation, the independent research team with bestwebdesignagencies.com named Marketpath as the best CMS provider in the industry for May 2010. The company excelled during the evaluation process based upon an internally developed set of evaluation criteria.

"It is our goal to provide the easiest to use, most intuitive web content management system on the market. While we, at Marketpath are continually striving to reach this goal, we believe that Marketpath CMS is the best tool available on the market today. The system allows organizations to manage their web presence and online marketing programs without any technical expertise or resources," said Kevin Kennedy, Chief Marketing Officer for Marketpath (http://www.marketpath.com).

The CMS and web development firm targets small and medium size businesses that do not have the technical resources to efficiently and effectively run their websites and keep them fresh. The company serves each client through three phases. First, Marketpath works closely with each client to identify their business needs and to create an effective website that focuses on usability as well as appeal. The second phase is to train their clients on the content management system, blogging, search engine optimization and how to properly utilize analytics to ensure they are able to get the most out of the website. Then finally, Marketpath provides customer support and services. Although their goal is to produce a product that rarely requires support , Marketpath is ready to assist their customers with any questions or problems that they are having.

Their strong focus on the client and understanding of developing effective content management systems to meet their needs has earned Marketpath the #1 ranking for content management systems for May 2010. In addition to this award, Marketpath was also recently named as a finalist for the prestigious TechPoint Mira Awards as one of the top technology companies in the state of Indiana.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_design/marketpath_ranked_1_cms_developer_in_the_industry.html

Domain Stryker Monthly Access Now Available For As Low As $29.99

2010-05-27T08:18:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - It was officially announced over the weekend that monthly memberships for Domain Stryker exclusive lists are now available at only $29.99. New members will save over 70% on membership fees.

The DomainStryker.com service is the brainchild of Mike Cohen, a successful serial entrepreneur from New York. Mike has been aggressively buying and successfully reselling keyword domains for 8 years now. In late 2009, Mike Cohen and a few select partners / domain industry insiders officially launched their newest venture, DomainStryker.com! An advanced expiring domain lists aggregator and investment platform with 2-click real-time analysis features.

Where is all the data coming from?

Domain Stryker features expiring auction listings data from 9 of the top 10 domain registrars in the world, which means members get a guaranteed shot at acquiring approximately 90% of the most valuable domains that are expired at wholesale auction prices. Domain Stryker aggregates all of the exclusive domain listings from GoDaddy, eNom, Tucows, Network Solutions, Melbourne IT, Wild West Domains, Moniker, DirectI, Dotster, Fabulous, OnlineNic and dozens of other popular and well established registrars.

Why exactly is Domain Stryker unique?

The Domain Stryker system makes domain discovery process quick and easy. It literally takes 30 seconds at most to determine whether any given domain is worthy or not. Our system filters through tens of thousands of domains that are expired and auctioned off daily, including only the best of the best keyword domains, and in a clean and user friendly setup with the latest and most accurate search volumes and PPC data directly from Google.

Mike Cohen, original founder and leading developer of the DomainStryker.com service says "We don’t overload our users with useless data as most aggregators have done over the years in this market… We keep it simple and hope to make the domain discovery experience quick and easy by only including relevant info... At Domain Stryker we only publish the best of the best domains daily in a clean and user friendly setup with the latest and most accurate Google search data to help users identify good expired domains and investment opportunities without having to spend hours in front of the computer looking through random website's outdated statistics!"

Since getting involved with the domain industry full-time in 2004, Mike Cohen has been responsible for some of the most innovative and exciting new service and product offerings in recent years such as DomainMassDevelopment.com which specifically cater to domain professionals as well as up-and-comers in the always evolving multi billion dollar domain industry.

Trial memberships are also available for new members at only $1 for 7 days. Membership access includes 1,000's of listings from SnapNames.com, NameJet.com and GoDaddy.com.

http://www.gawkwire.com/domains/domain_stryker_monthly_access_now_available_for_as_low_as_29_99.html

Mobile VoIP Users to Exceed 100 Million by 2012

2010-05-27T08:16:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - By 2012 over half of mobile VoIP users will reside in North America and Europe.

A new study from Juniper Research has found that Mobile VoIP services will develop significantly faster in developed markets due to the direct correlation between 3G roll outs and the take up of mobile VoIP. This is the case even though mVoIP traffic volumes may eventually be higher in developing markets due in part to the calling patterns of migrant workers, according to the study Mobile Voice Strategies: mVoIP Opportunities & Business Models, 2010-2015.

“By 2012 we expect significant uptake of mobile VoIP in its various different flavours”, says Anthony Cox, Senior Analyst at Juniper Research. “By that date mobile VoIP will be available over both 3G and WiFi networks. We also anticipate that several more traditional operators will have joined 3UK and Verizon in the US and developed relationships with mobile VoIP players such as Skype,” he says.

Further findings include:

- Alliances between mobile VoIP players and traditional operators may provide the best option for today’s incumbent operators to address the advent of mobile VoIP.
- Revenues from the circuit switched voice market will continue to diminish over the next five years, although this will not accelerate.
- A high percentage of Mobile VoIP carried over applications will be via WiFi networks, bypassing operators’ networks altogether. Such traffic will result in some lost revenues, amounting to around $5bn by 2015.

The Mobile Voice report includes an in-depth analysis of the current state of play of the mobile Voice market considering the position of both the incumbent operator and the mobile VoIP new entrant. The report contains five year forecasts for the number of Mobile VoIP Users over 3G networks, the number of mobile VoIP users via alliances, number of mobile VoIP users via applications, number of 4G mobile VoIP users. It also contains the value of traffic associated with all of these categories.

Mobile Voice whitepaper and further details of the study ‘Mobile Voice Strategies: mVoIP Opportunities & Business Models, 2010-2015 can be freely downloaded from www.juniperresearch.com.

Juniper Research provides research and analytical services to the global hi-tech communications sector, providing consultancy, analyst reports and industry commentary.

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/mobile_voip_users_to_exceed_100_million_by_2012.html

Marin Software to Speak at SMX Advanced Seattle 2010

2010-05-27T08:14:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Marin Software has announced that Niraj Shah, director of product marketing, will speak on a panel at SMX Advanced Seattle 2010. Shah will join the panel entitled “The Mad Scientists of Paid Search”. The group will discuss best practices and tips for boosting the performance of paid search campaigns. The panel will be held Wednesday, June 9 from 10:30am to 11:45 am. http://www.gawkwire.com/events_html/marin_software_to_speak_at_smx_advanced_seattle_2010.html

HostV Adds Three Year Billing Cycle and Slashes Prices on VPS

2010-05-26T08:22:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) – HostV announced that it has added a new, unprecedented three year billing cycle option for all of its Virtual Private Servers and Hybrid servers. The prepaid 36-month billing cycle enables customers to lock-in tremendous savings.

Unmanaged Virtual Private Servers now start at just $19.99 per month, which includes 512MB of RAM (recently doubled from 256MB), 50GB of RAID-10 protected storage, an additional 50GB ServerSnapShot™ backup, 1500GB of bandwidth, and a choice of five pre-installed Linux distributions. Managed Virtual Private Servers start at just $29.99 per month for the same array of features.

“We often speak of trying to stay competitive and ahead of the curve with our feature upgrades and price reductions. By adding a three year billing cycle on our already generous plans, we feel we’re going beyond being competitive—we’re becoming trailblazers, and our sales trend indicates the market is responding well to it,” said John Xie, president of Cirtex Corp., HostV parent company.

Hybrid Servers, which come fully managed and combine the power and stability of enterprise-class servers with the cost-savings of virtualization, now start at just $129.99 monthly. The starting plan offers 2048MB of RAM (recently doubled from 1024MB), a whopping 300GB of RAID-10 protected storage, an additional 300GB ServerSnapShot™ backup, and 7500GB of bandwidth.

In addition to the 3 year billing cycle, HostV also introduced a 2 year billing cycle, which incorporates additional savings. Due to the time commitment, the 3 year billing cycle offers clients substantially the most savings.

Earlier this year, HostV introduced Ksplice Uptrack, allowing it to update Linux servers without rebooting. Linux kernel updates are automatically converted into rebootless update packages, and HostV can simply apply the update remotely without causing a disruption or significant performance hit on the server.

To learn more about high performance, Unmanaged Linux VPS hosting from HostV, please visit http://www.hostv.com/linux-vps.shtml.

To learn more about Hybrid servers from HostV, please visit http://www.hostv.com/hybrid.shtml.

To learn more about HostV, please visit http://www.hostv.com

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

CoreLink Data Centers Acquires New Seattle Data Center

2010-05-26T08:21:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Seattle colocation provider, CoreLink Data Centers, LLC, a leading provider of high quality, Tier 3 Data Centers, with co-location facilities in Chicago, Phoenix, Seattle and Las Vegas, announced today, that it has added a second data center to the Seattle market. CoreLink has entered into a long term lease for a 39,000 square foot facility which is currently configured with 13,000 square feet of raised floor. Utilizing 6 MW of total dedicated power, CoreLink will modify the existing infrastructure to bring it up to CoreLink's typical 2N configuration and 150 to 200 watts per square foot of useable UPS power. As is typical of CoreLink designed data centers, the design is flexible to accommodate varying levels of density requirements from low to high density. The completed facility plan delivers up to 25,000 square feet of useable raised floor, providing ample space for expansion for CoreLink’s existing and future customers. The site is in Tukwila, WA and is located adjacent to CoreLink’s existing Seattle colocation facility (SEA01) which is presently 90% occupied. The location is situated close to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport as well as downtown Seattle.

CoreLink also announces the signing of an anchor tenant for their second Seattle colocation facility (SEA02). WTS, the leading provider of hosting, managed disaster recovery, and IT infrastructure services for Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and World products, has entered into a long term agreement to co-locate in the new facility. “We are very pleased to have partnered with CoreLink Data Centers”, said Tom Hughes, WTS CEO. “After an extensive due diligence process, we selected CoreLink for their operational excellence and the quality of the facility infrastructure. We look forward to working with CoreLink in their multiple locations as our needs expand.”

“The demand in the Seattle market is robust and CoreLink has experienced considerable success there over the last two years” said Geoff Hampson, CoreLink CEO. “We have assembled an experienced and proven management, sales and operations team and that investment has continued to pay off as is evidenced by our expansion in Seattle and other markets.”

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

WebmasterWorld Launches Feedback Days

2010-05-26T08:19:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - WebmasterWorld, one of the Internet’s longest established and largest Webmaster and Internet marketing forums, is launching a new program called Feedback Days. The program is devised to enable the WebmasterWorld community help shape the latest site updates, changes and features. The kick-off of Feedback Days commences on May 24 in an announcement made on the site.

Brett Tabke, WebmasterWorld’s Founder, said, “We are on the path to making the first significant changes to the website in over a decade. The template, software, forum format and subject matter, ads, subscriptions and moderation are all options on the table. We feel we can't effectively take on these changes without considerable help and feedback from the WebmasterWorld community."

In order to encourage focus and to direct all WebmasterWorld Members towards the Feedback Days area, certain sections of the site will be temporarily suspended. All 100,000+ members will be contacted over the Feedback Days contributions exercise, which is expected to last up to 14 days.

Participate in Feedback Days at http://www.webmasterworld.com

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

DSPanel Introduces New Mobile Analytics Server for Business Intelligence

2010-05-26T08:18:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - DSPanel recently introduced the Performance Canvas 2.2, as a mobile analytics server. The Mobile BI server offers users mobile access to key business intelligence data wherever they are. The mobile BI server allows users to delve into a business situation as it develops. Workers will no longer be tied to their computer but can access relevant information about a client when they are at a business lunch, in an airport or where ever business takes them.

With the DSPanel Performance Canvas Planning add-on, users can also view forecasting and budgeting information on-the-go. All it takes to have access to key business information is a web enabled device. The mobile functionality runs off a high performance software system powered by the industry's leading OLAP/UDM engine and business intelligence infrastructure.

"We are very excited about what this can do for sales teams on-the-ground. Having access to key client data from a mobile device, means that everybody in the sales team is using the latest projections and figures, and have access to this data where ever they are. It means sales teams are going to be spending longer in the field, doing what they do best, selling products," said Jan Morath, CEO at DSPanel. "What makes this even better is there is less paper going around the office; figures can be uploaded straight onto the server, into a dashboard, scorecard, or mashboard and then sent to the mobile device of choice. The applications for this product reach far beyond the traditional sales force; we see applications in hospitals and other institutions where it is critical to have the most up-to-date information available immediately. The days of chasing down a piece of paper are quickly coming to an end."

Performance Canvas mobile BI server integrates flawlessly into MS SQL Server Analysis Services, as well as SharePoint, SAP, and IBM DB/2. Performance Canvas allows users to work with their data when they want and visualize it how they want, drilling down and searching for information has never been so easy and now with the new mobile BI server, so portable.

For more information and a free demonstration of the mobile BI server, register on the DSPanel website today.

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

Optenet Forms Partnership with Sophos

2010-05-26T08:16:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) – Optenet, a pioneer and global leader of enabling SaaS offerings and delivering “on-premise” security solutions, today announced its global strategic partnership with IT security and data protection firm Sophos.

The strategic partnership sees Sophos’ first-class anti-virus scanning functionality fully integrated into Optenet’s flagship Web and Email security offerings including WebSecure (protection against malware and access to illegal or inappropriate web pages); MailSecure (spam detection and prevention solution); and NetSecure, which integrates all Optenet’s security protections into a single solution (anti-spam, web filtering, anti-virus, anti-phishing, anti-spyware, peer-to-peer and instant messaging).

SophosLabs – the blended intelligence behind all Sophos security technologies, including the malware scanning engine within Optenet email and web solutions – analyses 50,000 new malware samples every day.

As today’s threats are more sophisticated, targeted, and fast-moving, it’s critical to stop malware before a specific detection update can be released. Sophos Genotype® malware detection technology proactively blocks families of malware threats and analyses the behaviour of the code before it executes, therefore protecting users from 90 percent of unknown threats.

“The web has become the biggest breeding ground for malware – every few seconds, legitimate websites are being compromised by cybercriminals looking to host their wares,” said Francisco Martin Abreu, President and CEO at Optenet. “The Internet is an essential means for businesses to research, gather, and promote information via blogs and social networking sites, so it’s imperative that end-users are protected at all times. The integration with Sophos’s proactive malware scanning capabilities complements Optenet’s web security offerings which provide existing and future customers the highest level of protection without impeding their end-users’ browsing experience and productivity.”

“From the early stages of discussions, it was evident to both Sophos and Optenet that there was great potential to integrate our technologies,” said Michael Rogers, Vice President of Global Alliance and OEM at Sophos. “Optenet has extensive experience and knowledge working with ISPs and telecom operators and Sophos has long developed proactive security solutions built specifically for the enterprise. Merging Optenet’s security capabilities with our unique malware protection was a natural fit.” http://www.gawkwire.com/business/optenet_forms_partnership_with_sophos.html

1 in 3 Online Entrepreneurs Over the Age of 50

2010-05-25T08:31:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Almost a third (31%) of online entrepreneurs today are 50 years or older, revealed a national survey of 25,000 business by the small business website company, CityMax.com. Released to mark National Small Business Week, the study also found that the morning newspaper has become almost irrelevant to small business owners, with 48% going online immediately after waking (compared to just 3% reading print news).

“We’ve seen a recent surge in older entrepreneurs making their own websites,” said Dean Gagnon, Chief Evangelist and President at CityMax.com. “To kick off National Small Business Week, we wanted to share our findings on what today’s online entrepreneur is thinking.”

The survey found California to be the most entrepreneurial state online (12.3% of those polled), followed by Texas (8.4%) and Florida (7.0%). Two thirds of online businesses had no paid employees, and two in five generated a household income upwards of $75,000. Surprisingly, half (51%) of online businesses claimed that they were not negatively affected by the past year’s recession.

Other notable trends included the majority of online entrepreneurs foregoing long work hours, in favor of more efficient websites using tactics such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Social media marketing is also currently at the forefront of small business owners’ minds, yet very few are monitoring their online reputations (28%) or have begun any social media campaigns (19%).

For the full survey and more information, visi

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/1_in_3_online_entrepreneurs_over_the_age_of_50.html

GigaOM Announces Structure 2010 LaunchPad Winners

2010-05-25T08:27:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - GigaOM today announced the winners of Structure 2010 LaunchPad, a high-profile competition that recognizes the 11 most promising cloud companies. From the large number of entries just 11 were chosen as winners based on their forward-thinking vision, and sustainable business models.

The winners will present their companies on stage at Structure 2010, the largest and most influential cloud computing conference in the industry, set to take place June 23-24, 2010 in San Francisco. The winners of the LaunchPad competition are:

Benguela - A stealth mode startup company founded by Amazon EC2 veterans
Cloudant - MapReduce based data management with analytics and search
Cloudswitch - Makes enterprise cloud adoption easy by solving key problems
Datameer - The Big Data power of Hadoop made accessible through a spreadsheet interface
Greenqloud - Provider of completely carbon neutral cloud provider
GridCentric - Turns your compute farm into a high-performance, private cloud in seconds
nephosity - Allows non programmers to allocate tasks and workflows on the cloud
Northscale - Provide a simple, fast, schema-free mechanism for storing data objects
Riptano - Apache Cassandra (Facebook's data layer) management software and services
SolidFire - Next-generation block-basedvw storage platform for cloud computing providers and big enterprises
Zettar Inc - Create secure private storage cloud using commodity storage assets

“Cloud computing has become much more than a buzzword – hardware, software, and communications companies are now successfully leveraging the on-demand, Web-based model to deliver sophisticated enterprise-class products and services in the cloud,” says Stacey Higginbotham, Editor of GigaOM. “It was tough to choose just 11 top cloud companies from all the innovative companies that applied, but we’re confident the 11 winners our editors selected are truly the best of the best.”

Structure 2010 is the largest and most influential cloud computing conference, expected to draw over 1,000 attendees at this year’s expanded two-day event. Dozens of leading cloud industry executives and influencers will take the stage at Structure 2010 to share best practices and real-world strategies for embracing cloud technologies to reduce costs, improve efficiencies, and boost performance. Whether you’re an IT professional, or a cloud entrepreneur looking for funding, Structure 2010 is a must-attend event that will connect you with the industry's most innovative thinkers.

Structure 2010 is selling out fast, but tickets are still available. To register for Structure 2010, visit http://events.gigaom.com/structure/10/.

http://www.gawkwire.com/events_html/gigaom_announces_structure_2010_launchpad_winners.html

AvePoint and e-office Deliver Microsoft SharePoint Solutions

2010-05-25T08:26:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - AvePoint has recently partnered with e-office. As a result of the partnership, e-office is now an authorised reseller of AvePoint technologies, and both companies will collaborate extensively to integrate their complementary product offerings and services for customers throughout Western Europe.

"We are very excited to partner with e-office", said Ron Miles, AvePoint's Director of EMEA Sales. "e-office is a top-flight consultancy with a proven track record of delivering successful SharePoint deployments for its customers. Organisations are increasingly utilising SharePoint throughout the Netherlands as their mission-critical information management platform, and have a vital need for the infrastructure management solutions AvePoint provides. As a result of this partnership, they now have a dedicated partner with a comprehensive understanding of SharePoint best practices and AvePoint's solutions."

AvePoint's award-winning DocAve Software Platform is a comprehensive infrastructure management and protection solution for Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies. With a unified, browser-based user interface and a fully distributed architecture, DocAve offers more than 25 independently deployable modules for SharePoint data protection, administration, compliance, migration, reporting and storage optimisation.

e-office, founded in 1991 with headquarters in Houten, Netherlands, specialises in creating an optimal environment for digital professionals. The consultancy implements the latest IBM, Microsoft, Google and mobile technologies to help support the organizational and behavioral change needed to improve work processes. e-office advises organisations on how they can use technology to improve cooperation and work more efficiently, regardless of the time or place.

"More and more companies see the potential of SharePoint as an information management platform", said Johan Eweg, Partner Manager at e-office. "The functionality in SharePoint 2010 compared with previous versions is much more social and more extended, so that professionals can optimise collaboration in projects and documents. As a SharePoint expert, we are always looking for the right solutions that add value to our services. With AvePoint's solutions, we are able to support the customer's migration to SharePoint in a quick and easy way."

To learn more about this partnership, or about the products and services offered by AvePoint and e-office, please visit AvePoint at www.avepoint.co.uk and e-office at www.e-office.com

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/avepoint_and_e-office_deliver_microsoft_sharepoint_solutions.html

N-Series TeraFrame Network Cabinet for the Cisco Nexus 7018 Switch

2010-05-25T08:23:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Chatsworth Products now offers an N-Series TeraFrame Network Cabinet engineered exclusively for the Cisco Nexus 7018 Switch.

The new N-Series TeraFrame Network Cabinet for the Cisco Nexus 7018 Switch is designed and tested to deploy the Cisco Nexus 7000 Series 18-slot switch in a hot aisle/cold aisle layout, while also supporting a mix of patch panels and fiber enclosures above the switch. To meet Cisco’s Nexus 7018 Switch installation requirements, the N-Series TeraFrame provides a wide-framed cabinet solution that supplies vital high-density thermal management, cable management and robust physical support.

Constructed with an integrated Network Switch Exhaust Duct that captures and guides hot exhaust from the side of the switch out the rear of the cabinet, CPI’s N-Series TeraFrame converts side-to-side airflow into a front-to-rear airflow pattern. This modified air path serves as an ideal solution for hot aisle/cold aisle configurations, allows unobstructed airflow and reduces hot air re-circulation within the cabinet, which is critical for maximum switch performance. To further enhance the flow of air and permit easy access to equipment and cabling, the cabinet includes offset removable doors and side panels that provide extra interior space around equipment. In addition, the front and rear double doors are perforated, promoting maximum front-to-rear airflow and use less aisle space than a single door.

Although designed to manage airflow, CPI’s N-Series TeraFrame also features advanced cable management and equipment support solutions. To divide and organize cables by line card, the cabinet includes snap-on plastic T-shaped cable management fingers with openings that align with each rack-mount unit, while full length brush-sealed openings on the top panel allow large quantities of cables to safely enter and exit the cable management space. Equipped with two pair of 19 inch EIA equipment mounting rails and 42U or 45U of vertical mounting space, the cabinet provides heavy-duty front and rear support for equipment.

To match site requirements and simplify installation, the N-Series TeraFrame is available in two heights and three depths, and ships fully assembled and ready to install. For more information about CPI’s new N-Series TeraFrame Network Cabinet for the Cisco Nexus 7018 Switch visit www.chatsworth.com/ciscoteraframe.

http://www.gawkwire.com/reviews/n-series_teraframe_network_cabinet_for_the_cisco_nexus_7018_swit.html

The Enemy of Social Marketing

2010-05-24T08:50:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Like many buzzwords in the marketing arena, social marketing has been both over and under estimated. It has been hyped up beyond all belief as well as being sidelined as not a worth while investment of time and money.

I could spend this article praising social marketing or I could spent it demonizing social marketing. However, if you did a quick Google search I am sure you can find thousands of articles doing either written by authors who are far more passionate about either side than I am.

Now for this column of The Art of War, I will discuss the number one enemy when it comes to failed social marketing campaigns.

Scenario: Walmart’s Flog
What’s what: Walmart had an interesting idea. They would pay someone to get an RV and drive across the country, spending each night in a Walmart parking lot. It’s a good idea for the most part, Walmart parking lots allow you to plug you RV or Semi’s sewage line into their sewage pipes etc, some even have hookups. Again this is to cater to truckers, but RVs can use them too.

Something went wrong though. In fact, something went so wrong, Walmart canceled the RV blog, but before it could be removed from public memory, the fiasco spawned a new term, the flog (fake blog).

Solution: So what went wrong. If they were to make a blog that was suppose to be a true couple, RVing across America they should have made it a true couple RVing across America. If I were to drive cross country and say I stayed at Walmart parking lots to save on money I seriously doubt I would be commenting on how great Walmart was. Or how wonderful the people were, or basically saying anything that would sound like I have an ulterior motive. In fact, more time should have been spent talking about seeing the sights, taking pictures of monuments and national parks, reviewing restaurants I stopped at, the list goes on. I would mention Walmart very briefly.

Why?: Patience. The lack of patience is the number one enemy of a social marketing campaign. If Walmart had started slow, creating believable content (not just believable but real content, I would have actually restaurant reviews and have the couple actually go to landmarks and take pictures), and even had things like, “me and the mrs. will be stopping by Davenport tomorrow evening, come on over and say hi!” It would have been a success.

it would have given useful information
it would have been verified that they are real people
saying where you will stop will increase the likelihood that more people will see you and go to your web site.
all of this would have generated traffic
if the blog had subtle references to Walmart, not big ones mind you, just little tidbits here and there it would have increased Walmarts presence.
The Funny: Does Walmart seriously need any sort of viral/social marketing? Honestly, who hasn’t heard of Walmart and who hasn’t shopped there at least once no matter how sullied they felt afterward.

Bottom Line
If you give people something they can use they will come. As long as you have the patience to cultivate a strong community your social marketing campaign will be a success. You don’t grow a plant by dumping a ton of fertilizer and water on it. You make it grow by giving it what it needs to foster development. Once it matures, like the plant, it will bear fruit.

Happy Hosting!

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

LT SEO Named Best Organic SEO Company In Australia

2010-05-24T08:48:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - topseos.com.au, the independent authority on search vendors, has named the best SEO consulting services in Australia for May 2010. LT SEO was selected as the best organic SEO company in Australia based upon an intense evaluation performed by an experienced team. topseos.com.au evaluated LT SEO based upon an internally developed set of evaluation criteria.

The Australian-based firm was launched in 2008. They initially help their clients to enable analytics on their site and to setup goals regarding unique organic visitors each month, conversion rate to enquiry/sale, dollar revenue of sale and profit margin. They set short term goals with the client that can be delivered within 4-6 months. These goals help their clients to know the progress of the campaign toward reaching their overall goals. If the deliverable is not met within the expected time frame, LT SEO will work for free for up to four months or until the deliverable is met.

"We stake our reputation and profit margins on our results. We focus not just on the return of our clients' advertising dollars. Our goal is to create highly successful businesses online," said Chris Bindley, Sales Manager of LT SEO.

Their continued effort to provide their clients with the best internet marketing services instills high confidence levels on the part of their clients. LT SEO is a gold sponsor for the Online Retailer event this year. This is one of the industry's premier educational events. Based in their core values of evolution, personal integrity, family, passion, creative abundance and giving back, LT SEO has earned the ranking of the best organic SEO company in the industry for May 2010.

The independent authority on search vendors, topseos.com.au, branched off from the United States-based site in 2009 with the goal of identifying and ranking the best internet marketing service providers in Australia. Thousands of applicants are reviewed each month by an assigned research team based upon an internally developed set of evaluation criteria. The team then releases a new set of rankings each month recognizing the best in the industry. In addition to the rankings, you can find a full directory listing of internet marketing service companies, a knowledge zone, news, and much more.

To learn more about the number one organic SEO company, LT SEO, visit their profile at:

http://www.topseos.com.au/lt-seo

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

UNIFI and Interoute Announces Undersea Cable Project

2010-05-24T08:46:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - UNIFI Communications, a leading US-based international carrier, and Interoute Communications, the owner/operator of Europe’s most advanced fiber network, today announced the signing of an agreement whereby Interoute will provide the landing solution in Italy for Albania’s first competitive undersea fiber optic cable, to be constructed as the first phase of UNIFI’s Balkans-Italy Network (“BIN”) project, which is expected to begin providing service in Albania by 1Q2011.

Under the agreement, Interoute is responsible for providing the required facilities and support in Italy to allow UNIFI’s undersea cable to land and connect through Italy to major telecommunications Network Access Points (“NAPs”) located in Milan, Italy and Frankfurt, Germany. Adrian Shatku, President and CEO of UNIFI, explained “We selected Interoute as our landing solution partner because Interoute has a competitive edge in terms of expertise, experience and Europe’s most advanced network. Thanks to its network connections Interoute also gives us the flexibility we need for the future, including the ability to connect with other network operators at the Italian cable landing station and throughout Europe.. With this flexibility, UNIFI can market and sell many types of network services, including wholesale Internet transport at up to Gigabit speeds, all types of other bandwidth services and dark fiber connectivity to Albania from Italy or from other parts of Europe. Naturally, our network will be built using the state-of-the-art fiber optic and Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (‘DWDM’) technologies, providing virtually unlimited bandwidth capability and much needed diversity for Albania and eventually for the entire Balkan region.”

According to UNIFI’s plans, the first phase of BIN aims to provide seamless optical connectivity into Tirana, the capital city of Albania, which is some 40 km inland from the 240 km Adriatic Sea crossing. The next immediate steps for UNIFI will involve finalizing the selection of its undersea cable supplier, and meeting with potential partners that may be interested in modifying the cable configuration to include one or more branching units for expedited future connection of additional cable segments to other countries, such as Montenegro, Greece, or perhaps even Middle Eastern countries across the Mediterranean Sea.

Also as a part of the first phase, UNIFI plans to establish Albania’s first NAP, which will facilitate interconnections among the country’s telecom operators and ISPs, and is expected to become a major telecommunications hub for the Balkan region. To address region-wide market needs, UNIFI plans for subsequent phases of BIN to include development of additional terrestrial connectivity into the neighboring countries — Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro. Such fiber links will stimulate the growth of connectivity into other regional markets such as Bulgaria and Turkey.

“As early as next week, UNIFI expects to begin providing more information about the BIN project to potential customers, including pre-construction bandwidth sales incentives for transport services offerings in Albania,” noted Brian Crawford, Vice President of Business Development for UNIFI.

Gareth Williams, CEO of Interoute, commented “Interoute is proud to be involved in this significant digital step for Albania and Eastern Europe. It is a very exciting time for this region with many rapidly growing telecommunications markets. The extra capacity and resilience provided by this new cable will support new business growth and should encourage investment in Albania and the surrounding countries.” http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/unifi_and_interoute_announces_undersea_cable_project.html

SEOBiz Solutions Ranked Best Canadian Custom Website Designers

2010-05-24T08:40:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - The independent authority on search vendors, canada.topseos.com, has unveiled the best custom website designers in Canada for May 2010. After an extensive evaluation of the professional website designers that applied, SEOBiz Solutions was recognized as the best in Canada based upon internally developed evaluation criteria. The criteria are used by an experienced research team in order to separate the best from the rest.

SEOBiz Solutions, based in Ontario, Canada, began in 2008 offering superior results from custom website designers. The company's top priority is to develop a rapport with their clients and potential clients. They educate, support and offer a willingness to assist their clients along the way to achieve their goals. The company works with small to medium sized companies to help them start their online marketing campaign. The firm is expanding with the upcoming opening of an office in Toronto.

When asked what sets the company apart from their competition, Gursh Sagoo, CEO and Founder of SEOBiz Solutions, said, "SEOBiz Solutions Account Executives are focused and result driven in achieving results for their clients in a fast paced technology driven field. We offer a personal approach with their clients by working together in listening and understanding the clients' needs. At SEOBiz Solutions, we know the importance of client appreciation and building a relationship with them for the long term." Their client focus and high quality of work has earned the company the ranking as the best of professional website designers in Canada.

The independent authority on search vendors, canada.topseos.com, was established in 2009 as a branch of the United States-based site seeking to rank the best SEO company and other internet marketing service providers in Canada. Equipped with an internally developed set of criteria, the research team analyzes each of the thousands of applicants every month to ensure that only the best firms were ranked. In addition to the rankings, visitors to the site can find a full directory listing, the knowledge zone, news and much more.

To learn more about the best of custom website designers in Canada, visit:

http://canada.topseos.com/seobiz-solutions-inc

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

Dennis Yu exposes the latest Facebook spammers

2010-05-19T11:53:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Facebook has taken great pains to shut down the folks who abuse the Facebook advertising platform. Yet, for every 100 spammy ads rejected, one gets through.

And so the spammer has an incentive to submit thousands upon thousands of ads, knowing that some will make it through. Take a look at this scam above:

This ad is running on Facebook. Using WWE’s own logo, it ooks like it's legit, asking you to take a quiz: but it's not WWE. And WWE has no affiliation with these folks, nor do they make any money. Instead, the spammer is posing as the brand, hoping that folks who don't read the fine print will fall for the quiz. To the defense of spammers who will jump and claim that this isn't spam because the $9.99 price is hidden in fine print on the page, or that there are more egregious examples of misleading advertising in the offline world-- I'd offer this:

• Of the folks who had to submit a PIN number to get their quiz results, how many unknowingly got charged?
• How many of them are under 18 years old, which aligns with the WWE demographic of kids?
• How many bills are being paid for by the parent, as opposed to kid who has that phone?
• How much money is that spammer making by running such ads?

Facebook is a place for brand trust, where people go to connect with their real friends and authentic entities that they trust. But it doesn't take much for an idyllic environment to be tarnished by the presence of others who wish to make a quick buck at your expense.

So if you see such ads, please “dislike” them -- hit the X button in the top right corner. With enough dislikes, that ad will get flagged for internal review. Enough disapprovals, and that advertiser's account is shut down.

Of course, the spammer can just create another account with another name and credit card. But at least we're doing our part to prevent there from being a total spamfest on Facebook. When you report such ads, think of it like doing community service.

Now we wait for the spammers to come in and attack...

Dennis Yu is CEO of BlitzLocal, a boutique firm specializing in Facebook marketing. He is an international speaker and author, having presented at HostingCon, SMX East, SMX West, Affiliate Summit, National Public Radio, TechCrunch, Entrepreneur Magazine, and others. You can reach him at dennis@blitzlocal.com.

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

Danger in the internet café?

2010-05-21T08:26:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - There’s a potential threat lurking in your internet café, say University of Calgary computer science researchers. It’s called Typhoid adware and works in similar fashion to Typhoid Mary, the first identified healthy carrier of typhoid fever who spread the disease to dozens of people in the New York area in the early 1900s.

“Our research describes a potential computer security threat and offers some solutions,” says associate professor John Aycock, who co-authored a paper with assistant professor Mea Wang and students Daniel Medeiros Nunes de Castro and Eric Lin. “We’re looking at a different variant of adware – Typhoid adware –which we haven’t seen out there yet, but we believe could be a threat soon.”

Adware is software that sneaks onto computers often when users download things, for example fancy tool bars or free screen savers, and it typically pops up lots and lots of ads. Typhoid adware needs a wireless internet café or other area where users share a non-encrypted wireless connection.

“Typhoid adware is designed for public places where people bring their laptops,” says Aycock. “It’s far more covert, displaying advertisements on computers that don’t have the adware installed, not the ones that do.”

The paper demonstrates how Typhoid adware works as well as presents solutions on how to defend against such attacks. De Castro recently presented it at the EICAR conference in Paris, a conference devoted to IT security.

Typically, adware authors install their software on as many machines as possible. But Typhoid adware comes from another person’s computer and convinces other laptops to communicate with it and not the legitimate access point. Then the Typhoid adware automatically inserts advertisements in videos and web pages on the other computers. Meanwhile, the carrier sips her latté in peace – she sees no advertisements and doesn’t know she is infected ¬– just like symptomless Typhoid Mary.

U of C researchers have come up with a number of defenses against Typhoid adware. One is protecting the content of videos to ensure that what users see comes from the original source. Another is a way to “tell” laptops they are at an Internet café to make them more suspicious of contact from other computers.

“When you go to an Internet café, you tell your computer you are there and it can put up these defenses. Anti-virus companies can do the same thing through software that stops your computer from being misled and re-directed to someone else,” says Aycock.

Why worry about ads? Aycock explains it this way: “Not only are ads annoying but they can also advertise rogue antivirus software that’s harmful to your computer, so ads are in some sense the tip of the iceberg.”

The paper Typhoid Adware can be found: http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~aycock/papers/eicar10.pdf

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

Apptix Launches Hosted Email Defense

2010-05-21T08:25:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Apptix (OSE: APP), the leading provider of hosted Microsoft Exchange email, Microsoft SharePoint, and business VoIP services for businesses worldwide, today announced the availability of two new email security and anti-spam solutions for on-premise email systems: Apptix Email Defense with Continuity and Apptix Perimeter Email Defense. While both products are hosted, they are designed to protect in-house email servers with top-to-bottom spam and virus protection or supplement existing email protection solutions.

“By blocking known spammers and potentially harmful email traffic at the perimeter, Apptix’s new email defense solutions quickly pay for themselves by eliminating up to 80% of spam traffic being delivered to corporate email systems, not to mention protecting the company from devastating email attacks,” said James Bond, Vice President of Product and Software Development for Apptix. “Message continuity ensures employees can maintain email communications if internal email systems are ever down. This is email protection that no company should be without, and the Apptix solutions can be deployed and protecting systems in minutes with no start up or equipment costs.”

Apptix Perimeter Email Defense is designed for businesses looking to supplement or reduce the load on existing on-premise anti-spam solutions and better protect against email attacks such as Directory Harvest Attacks (DHAs) or Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. The service filters inbound IP traffic based on real-time blacklisting to prevent potentially harmful messages from ever reaching the corporate network.

Apptix Email Defense with Continuity is a complete, full-server email security suite. The solution includes the capabilities of Apptix Perimeter Email Defense plus full spam protection policies and message continuity in the event of an outage – planned or not. It protects communications systems through proven spam filters, leading anti-virus engines, content filtering, and fraud detection.

In the event of an outage, ongoing email exchanges are queued securely off-site for up to 60 days and automatically synced with the on-premise system once service is restored. Emails can be sent or received and stored messages accessed via a secure Web portal. This allows employees to continue emailing while IT administrators perform maintenance on in-house systems.

Apptix Email Defense with Continuity starts at $1.95 per month per user, while Apptix Perimeter Email Defense starts at just $1 per month per user. Both products are available now at http://www.apptix.com/email-security/email_defense/.

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

ClickStreamTV supports Open Standards for Online Video

2010-05-21T08:24:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) – ClickStreamTV has recently announced that its video and content management platform supports open web standards for online video.

“First there was Real Player, then Windows Media, Flash technology and now open source standard HTML5 as industry leaders such as Apple and Microsoft have recently noted,” said Kevin Yahl, president of ClickStreamTV. “Due to the constant emergence of new technology, we developed ClickStreamTV with an open source system to ensure that our product was a high-quality, onetime investment that would adapt to future technologies.”

ClickStreamTV, built with open source languages, is able to quickly change its infrastructure to adapt to include new formats for streaming online video. Over the next couple of months, ClickStreamTV will be incorporating HTML5 into the system.

The single system utilizes the proper video formats to deliver video to any online player including Flash and Windows Media; smartphones including iPhones, BlackBerrys and Androids; and other technologies including iPods and iPads.

“We are dedicated to our customers and strive to provide them with a solution to reach their audience regardless of what device they are using to view video,” said Yahl. “Our open system was built to include multiple video formats to provide universal streaming to any computer system, smartphone or media device.”

With ClickStreamTV, video is automatically encoded and stored in multiple formats for delivery to any media system and does not require additional applications for multiple device streaming. ClickStreamTV’s exclusive Speed and System Wizard automatically detects the viewer’s media device and streams the optimum video quality and correct format to the viewer.

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

ProtoTest Announces the Launch of LoadLabs

2010-05-20T08:16:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) – ProtoTest, Denver’s quality assurance gurus, have just announced the launch of LoadLabs – the first and only flat-rate load and performance testing solution (www.LoadLabs.com). LoadLabs represents a completely new way to think about load and performance testing.

“Now, website and online application developers have a real alternative to companies and consultants that don’t offer upfront pricing. So far, that type of fixed-cost solution hasn’t existed. We saw a huge opportunity to create an affordable solution, and we jumped on it,” said Lawrence Nuanez, one of the developers of LoadLabs.

LoadLabs takes the hassle of load testing off your plate and helps deliver improved online app and website performance in the most cost-effective way possible. Other load test services offer price “estimates,” which create a significant barrier to determining the cost-effectiveness of a test. With LoadLabs, that variable has been eliminated.

Tests are done in about a week, and reports provide both top-line and highly detailed information. Retests are also included, so you can make sure your sites and apps work the way they are supposed to before they go live.

“Having detailed results within a week without buying expensive software, and having additional staff at this price point, is simply amazing,” said David Barclay, LoadLabs customer and Director of Technology at Medical Media Holdings.

For more information, visit www.loadlabs.com. http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/prototest_announces_the_launch_of_loadlabs.html

Ipswitch Named One of Best Places to Work in 2010

2010-05-20T08:15:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Ipswitch, Inc., a three-division company that delivers the WhatsUp Gold network management suite, secure file transfer MOVE it software and IMail Server messaging software, today announced it has been named one of the Boston Business Journal’s Best Places to Work in 2010 in the greater Boston area. Ipswitch, Inc. is among 60 companies recognized by the Boston Business Journal for offering employees a comfortable work environment, work-life balance, job satisfaction, advancement opportunities, management compensation and benefits. The winners were chosen from hundreds of nominees in categories for small, large, midsize and emerging companies. Ipswitch, Inc. is one of 20 companies selected in the midsize company category.

“The Network Management Division of Ipswitch, Inc. employs nearly 50 percent of Ipswitch employees and we are very proud to be recognized by the Boston Business Journal as one of the best places work,” said Ennio Carboni, president, Ipswitch, Inc.’s Network Management Division. “We take very seriously the responsibility of recruiting confident, empowered talent and providing a challenging, safe, productive work environment for our employees. Our financial results and this award prove there is truth to our methodology."

This year’s countdown of the 2010 Best Places to Work will be held during a June 11 breakfast event at the Seaport Hotel and World Trade Center in Boston.

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/ipswitch_named_one_of_best_places_to_work_in_2010.html

Logicalis Earns Prestigious 2010 IBM Beacon Award

2010-05-20T08:11:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) – “To an IBM Business Partner, earning a Beacon Award is comparable to an athletic team earning a gold medal at the Olympics. It’s an award that tells the world that we’ve been recognized by IBM as one of its highest performing technology consultants,” says John Iffert, vice president, IBM Solutions, for Logicalis.

Logicalis, an international provider of integrated information and communications technology (ICT) solutions and services, has earned IBM’s prestigious 2010 Beacon Award for the Outstanding Power Systems Solution for Major Markets category. The company will travel to Rome, Italy, to receive its award at the IBM Beacon Awards Recognition Event in mid-May.

“Our Beacon Award winners represent the tremendous power of the IBM Business Partner ecosystem in creating unique client value through our combined capabilities, expertise and offerings," says Rich Hume, general manager, IBM Business Partner and Midmarket Organization. "By winning the Outstanding Power Systems Solution for Major Markets award, Logicalis has demonstrated its ability to deliver innovation to the market and help clients achieve higher value and better business outcomes."

Logicalis is also proud to announce that, as a result of the innovation and value it consistently brings to its clients, the company has also earned three other IBM leadership awards:
• IBM’s 2009 Growth Leadership Award for outstanding year-to-year Systems & Technology Group revenue growth in the over $50 million category
• IBM’s 2009 Business Leadership Award for outstanding business results, skills, and customer satisfaction
• IBM’s 2009 Competitive Leadership Award for significant competitive wins

Setting Logicalis apart from its worthy competitors is the company’s consultative approach to doing business as a whole, and with regard to the prestigious Beacon award, in revitalizing the enterprise data center in particular. Logicalis takes a service-oriented approach to data center technology. As data centers age, they often become increasingly more expensive and difficult to maintain. Logicalis starts by assessing all of the IBM and non-IBM systems, servers, and software installed at the customer’s site, as well as assessing the IT objectives that support the client’s business goals. When doing so makes business sense for the client, Logicalis begins the process of designing and constructing a new data center infrastructure with IBM Power Systems and PowerVM at its heart.

“Logicalis’ consultative approach to the data center is flexible and applies to clients of any size in any industry. Whether the focus is on consolidation, ease of management, business continuity, dynamic allocation of resources, collaboration across internal and external resources, or adherence to open standards, our consultants’ technical expertise allows us to assess the effectiveness of all storage, server and software platforms in a client’s data center, IBM or otherwise, and design a solution that provides an unbeatable total cost of ownership and return on investment,” Iffert says.

 See how Logicalis and IBM provide clients with solutions that economically create simpler, more integrated infrastructures to power innovation here: http://www.us.logicalis.com/our-partners/ibm/ibm-solutions.aspx .

 Find out how Logicalis’ virtualization service helps clients transform their IT departments from a cost center to a competitive advantage here: http://www.us.logicalis.com/solutions-and-services/data-center-services/virtualization.aspx.

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/logicalis_earns_prestigious_2010_ibm_beacon_award.html

MobileNow is Now Perigon Networks

2010-05-19T08:23:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - According to founder Tony Valenti, MobileNow, Inc. has changed its name to Perigon Networks, Inc..

"A perigon is a 360-degree angle, or complete circle," Valenti explained. "Thus, the name Perigon Networks better reflects our company's mission to offer a complete range of DotNetNuke hosting services."

DotNetNuke was founded in 2002 as an open-source Web content management platform for building Web sites and Web applications on Microsoft.NET. Two years later, Tony Valenti founded PowerDNN with only one server and a single customer.

Originally focused completely on hosting, the company offered DotNetNuke hosting with real-time support. Later that year, a major milestone occurred when Valenti set up the second shared hosting server.

The company expanded significantly in 2005 when John Grange joined the team. After meeting with Valenti and hearing about Power DNN's mission and internal infrastructure, John was so intrigued that he started volunteering his time to learn about DotNetNuke and to analyze PowerDNN's business model.

Within months, at Grange's suggestion, PowerDNN expanded its product line to include dedicated servers and virtual servers. Soon after that launch, Grange joined PowerDNN on a full-time basis and took over the majority of PowerDNN's sales management.

PowerDNN has been serving the international DotNetNuke community since 2005. Its focus has been on reaching users in need of high-end services and support, as well as servicing organizations ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies to the federal government.

As the company continues to expand, Valenti and Grange still play major roles in PowerDNN's day-to-day operations. Valenti does hands-on development and training for employees and customers. Grange, now Executive Vice President & COO, still leads the sales team.

"We are always pushing the limits of what our company can do," Valenti said.

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

ControlScan Announces New Senior Business Development Manager

2010-05-19T08:21:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) — ControlScan recently announced that Chris Bucolo has joined the company as senior business development manager.

Over the course of the last two years, ControlScan has built a seasoned business development team to support the demand PCI compliance solutions for small merchants. Bucolo brings 25 years of experience of financial technology and payments industry experience to the team. He has held a variety of senior roles managing business development, program management, operations and relationship management. As senior business development manager at ControlScan, Bucolo will utilize his broad base of experience to develop partnerships with large processors and merchant banks to help their small merchants validate compliance with the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

Bucolo said that one of the reasons he was attracted to the PCI compliance solutions provider was the company’s focus on serving small merchants, which represent a large and growing market that continues to be underserved. “I am a self-professed small merchant advocate,” said Bucolo. “ControlScan’s commitment to helping small merchants achieve PCI compliance is proven by the people, processes and technology employed to make the process easy for these businesses. Working for ControlScan is a natural fit for my experience and my vision on how small merchants should be cared for.”

Prior to ControlScan, Bucolo built and sold his own independent sales organization (ISO), which was one of the first in the country to embrace PCI and sell it as part of its standard merchant offerings. Bucolo saw the need for easy-to-use PCI compliance tools and education for ISOs and small merchants. Bucolo also spent several years as a Vice President at Global Payments where he was charged with building ISO relationships, Telesales and Trade Association program management.

Bucolo joins the company as ControlScan is enjoying rapid customer growth. “I am excited that Chris has joined our team,” said Jethro Felton, executive vice president, business development, ControlScan. “Chris’ work ethic and years of experience in the payments industry will help ControlScan capitalize on its momentum in a period of accelerated growth and beyond.”

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

Econsultancy Announces Future of Digital Marketing Conference

2010-05-19T08:19:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - The world’s leading digital marketing practitioners will gather in London once again to share their knowledge and insight with their marketing peers at Econsultancy’s Future of Digital Marketing conference. Speakers from brands including Sky, Tesco, BT and Auto Trader will share their vision of the future for digital media, along with practical insights into conceiving and executing world-class marketing campaigns.

Econsultancy CEO Ashley Friedlein comments: “The Future of Digital Marketing (FODM to its friends) is all about the emerging ideas and opportunities that will break over the next 6-18 months – far enough out to show significant changes but close enough that you need to act now to prepare”.

The event will be focused around three key topics – mobile, social and data/technology, with confirmed speakers including Gerd Leonard (Media Futures Group), Rowan Gormley (Naked Wines), Maz Nadjm (Sky) and Tom Savigar (The Future Laboratory).

FODM is supported by ExactTarget, the leading on-demand email marketing and one-to-one digital communication platform.

Delegate fees
Econsultancy members (Silver +): £495 + VAT
Standard registration fee: £550 + VAT
Includes full day conference, lunch, materials and evening reception

Find out more and book online at http://econsultancy.com/events/future-of-digital-marketing

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

Hostway Delivers Kick-it Special Offer

2010-05-18T08:10:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) – Hostway Corporation has announced it will deliver “Kick-It”, a campaign to support humanitarian organization Right To Play in developing countries through the sales of Windows Server.

Right To Play is a leading international humanitarian and development organization using the transformative power of sport and play to build essential skills in children and thereby drive social change in communities affected by war, poverty and disease. When Windows Server 2008 is purchased with a hosted server through Hostway Corporation, for a limited time, customers will receive the “Kick-It” special offer of double the RAM and double the bandwidth.

While the world is watching the World Cup in South Africa this summer, you can give children the right to play. Microsoft Corp. and its hosting partner community are working together to support Right To Play’s programs, which use the transformative power of sport and play to build essential life skills for children living in communities affected by war, poverty and disease. When you purchase Windows Server 2008 through Hostway Corporation, Microsoft will donate to Right To Play to support its programs in 23 countries around the world.

“The World Cup is a fantastic platform for international attention and multi-cultural cooperation,” said Todd Benjamin, vice president Enterprise Hosting, Hostway Corporation. “With Microsoft and its hosting community, we hope to harness some of that attention to assist a very worthy world cause and make a significant ongoing impact.”

“Microsoft is pleased to work with partners such as Hostway to help build awareness about Right To Play with the ‘Kick It’ Windows Server promotion,” said Brian Goldfarb, director of the developer platform group at Microsoft. “By building solutions on the Microsoft Web Platform and deploying onto Windows Server via our hosting partners, developers have a great power to change the world, both creatively and practically.”

“Our mission is to use sport and play as a tool to help children build critical life skills, such as self-esteem, respect for oneself and others, tolerance, and teamwork. We believe this is critical to a child’s development and must be fostered in order to create a safer, healthier and more productive society,” said Johann Olav Koss, President and CEO, Right To Play. “Each week, almost 700,000 children attend regular Right To Play programming and special sports events made possible by the contributions of companies such as Microsoft along with its hosting partners.”

http://www.gawkwire.com/promotions/hostway_delivers_kick-it_special_offer.html

Stonesoft introduces StoneGate IPS-1205 Appliance

2010-05-18T08:07:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) – Stonesoft recently introduced StoneGate IPS-1205 appliance, designed to secure gigabit networks. This intrusion prevention system (IPS) appliance protects intranet users and data centre services against advanced attacks while maintaining gigabit network speeds.

The StoneGate IPS-1205 offers internal network users efficient protection against client-side attacks. Unlike traditional attacks that originate from outside the network, client-side attacks are initiated within the organisation’s internal network. When users are browsing infected websites, these attacks come in as responses to internal network user requests. At gigabit network speeds, these threats can cause significant infection and damage across the network.

“The need to protect the network from internal threats and attacks is dire, but so is the need for organisations’ networks to operate at gigabit speeds. With this appliance, Stonesoft is telling organisations that they can finally have both benefits – the highest level of security without sacrificing the speed of traffic across the network,” said Tomi Kononow, Product Manager at Stonesoft.

Advanced IPS Capabilities for Speed of Business

One of the appliance’s advanced IPS capabilities includes protection against malware that may spread from infected USB sticks to laptops and further to internal networks. The IPS limits the damage by preventing the worm from spreading within the internal network, thus giving administrators time to clean the infected machines and patch vulnerable operating systems and applications.

The StoneGate IPS-1205 also gives administrators unprecedented monitoring of network protocols and applications, as well as Web content control capabilities. Malicious network traffic can be blocked automatically and unwanted Web content can be controlled with built-in category-based Web filtering at any network location. Erratic protocol behavior and applications are automatically logged and reported, which significantly shortens troubleshooting time.

Data Center Service Protection

The high-performance StoneGate IPS-1205 appliance offers reliable and cost-efficient protection for data center services. The solution provides virtual patching for servers and services by protecting vulnerable servers awaiting patching within the next available maintenance window. The appliance ensures full-duplex gigabit protection under real-life traffic conditions without putting service availability at risk. The solution also easily scales when bandwidth requirements increase and new servers are added to the data centre.

Appliance photos

Appliance photos are available at http://www.stonesoft.com/en/press_and_media/brand_place/appliance_photos/.

Availability

StoneGate IPS-1205 is available in early June 2010. http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/stonesoft_introduces_stonegate_ips-1205_appliance.html

Webinar: Find Vulnerabilities Before Attackers Do

2010-05-18T08:06:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Today’s cybercriminals are smart. They know that the fastest way to attack your network is with web-based malware that exploits known vulnerabilities in your software and operating systems. You need a defense – but when resources are tight, can you afford the time and expense of managing web security plus a separate vulnerability scanner?

Join us for this webinar to see how to reduce your risk without increasing your costs. The new version of Webroot Web Security Service includes integrated vulnerability scanning and spyware detection. Webroot is the only Web Security Service to include this powerful, extra layer of protection. In less than 15 seconds, the service runs more than 400 vulnerability tests on browsers, operating systems, plug-ins, third-party apps, and more.

In this webinar, we’ll show you how you to:

• Quickly and easily identify known vulnerabilities in your
software, browser and operating system
• Gain visibility into spyware infections
• Schedule vulnerability scans and view results directly
from the Webroot Management Console
• Reduce risk without buying and managing a separate
Web vulnerability scanner

Title:
Webinar Invite: How to Find Vulnerabilities Before Attackers Do

Date:
Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Time:
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM EDT

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP, 2003 Server or 2000

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4.11 (Tiger®) or newer

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/975091640

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

Attenda Delivers Cloud SaaS Platform for Traffic Solutions

2010-05-18T08:05:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) – Attenda Limited has signed a three year contract with Traffic Solutions for the provision of an agile, scalable Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform for the delivery of its Quality Assurance Management System (ITSAM) using a Cloud SaaS model.

Traffic Solutions, founded in 2003, is a specialist in traffic and highway engineering, offering turnkey packages to clients from inception to commissioning. The business is fast growing in the UK, Europe and the Middle East, offering a full range of design services from travel plans, wayfinding, traffic signals, junctions and developer lead schemes, to safety auditing, validations and project management. The company prides itself on innovation and quality, providing its clients with world-leading technologies and products.

The Attenda solution comprises numerous virtual servers within the Attenda Cloud Platform, Attenda RTI, supporting Traffic Solutions’ ITSAM which is used for the storage and approvals management of design and configuration documents for traffic signals, delivered to local authority clients using a Software as a Service (SaaS) model. Attenda is hosting and managing the ITSAM solution which engineers communicate with using PDAs or laptops. The solution leverages Microsoft technologies, available to Traffic Solutions via the Microsoft BizSpark program.

“Attenda is the perfect choice as a service provider for Traffic Solutions. The Attenda RTI Cloud platform provides us with the capability to start small and scale quickly, in line with client demand, whilst avoiding the heavy capex investment in a physical infrastructure solution,” comments Alan Matthews, Director, Technologies at Traffic Solutions.

Attenda has worked closely with Rave Technologies, the application developer, to develop the ITSAM system. The close relationship between Attenda and Rave Technologies provides a seamless service to Traffic Solution’s clients, from hosting and managed services through to application support.

Matthews continues, “We also needed a commercial arrangement that mirrored our business model and Attenda could provide us with the required contract flexibility to enable our costs to scale in line with business growth.”

The SaaS solution is a new venture for Traffic Solutions, targeted at UK local authorities, with the high availability, 24 x 7 service levels that Attenda can provide, being an essential and integral part of the SaaS ITSAM solution delivery. http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/attenda_delivers_cloud_saas_platform_for_traffic_solutions.html

Telekom Austria Launches Parallels Automation

2010-05-18T08:03:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Parallels recently announced at TMForum in Nice that Telekom has launched Parallels Automation including Linux Shared Hosting, Windows Shared Hosting, business-class email hosting and mobility services.

This helps mobilkom austria to combat falling margins in the mobile sector, deliver new cloud-based managed hosting services to small to medium-sized businesses and increase its revenue. Parallels Automation is a cloud services delivery system that allows mobilkom austria to maintain an IT backbone that serves both mobilkom austria and Telekom Austria without any additional staff.

“We needed full Windows and Linux compatibility and a product that was scalable with our business,” said Michael Wetzlmaier, Product Manager for Web Hosting Products, Telekom Austria. “Parallels Automation was the perfect solution for our business and provided a seamless and custom integration into our existing OSS/BSS systems.”

mobilkom austria was facing increased competition and shrinking margins and realized the best way to respond was to evolve its business model from a pure mobile carrier to a company that delivers small business-focused IT services offered from the cloud. Parallels Automation provides the speed and flexibility mobilkom austria needs to profit from these new markets.

"It is great to see Parallels Automation helping a partner offer profitable cloud services to its customers,” said Sergeui Beloussov, CEO of Parallels. "mobilkom austria’s work to widen its technology portfolio is an excellent example of a business managing an intelligent and strategic expansion."

Another reason mobilkom austria selected Parallels Automation is the integration of the Application Packaging Standard (APS) that Parallels adheres to, which enables mobilkom austria to rapidly launch new cloud services as they become available from third-party ISVs.

“We designed an API for our business class email service and Parallels developed the management side of the system to make the integration of the service into the control panel possible,” said Michael Wetzlmaier, Product Manager for Web Hosting Products, Telekom Austria. “This is one reason we decided on Parallels Automation as we knew we were going to be able to integrate our own preferred systems which are used internally and by our external customers.”

Parallels Automation automates the full lifecycle of integrated operations and business system automation for service providers — from service management and provisioning to customer self-service and datacenter management. It decreases the time spent on repetitive administration tasks and system maintenance allowing business to focus on growth and profits.

“The long-term plan is to integrate Parallels Automation further into Telekom Austria's business and for mobilkom austria to leverage it for business growth in new telco divisions that it establishes outside of Austria,” said Wetzlmaier. http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/telekom_austria_launches_parallels_automation.html

Adding Video Marketing to Your Strategy Arsenal

2010-05-11T08:42:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - These are exciting times. Never before has video marketing been so important to an Internet marketer than right now. Video marketing is worldwide and has been growing at a very aggressive pace. Video marketing differs from social media, but is closely related to its brother since a lot of these video sharing sites are… well… social. The social web is growing, and video marketing, although a completely different beast, can still be fueled with social media.

So let’s lay the groundwork for video. Video viewership for videos is HUGE. According to a recent Nielsen press release, they state “An estimated 81 million people, or 63% of the 129 million people who access the Internet via broadband in the US, watch broadband video at home or at work.” The study goes on to say that online video viewership is replacing home television. Also something very interesting that I have found is that globally, China’s 7th most trafficked site is youku.com, a video sharing site in China. YouTube.com is the 3rd most trafficked site in America and the United Kingdom. In Canada, YouTube is the 4th highest trafficked site and the numbers keep going.

There has been some studies done by survey companies that talk about demographics and how much television each generation watches. One was done by IMMI and has some very shocking numbers. The graph below shows some of the stats they found during their survey.

Insert chart here:
http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/immi-tv-generation-age-gender-breakdown.thumbnail.gif

What types of ads do you see in video?
There are four ad types that are typical ad formats. You have in stream linear post and pre roll, in stream non linear (banner ads or tickers during video), in banner video and in text video (both rich media). The most popular form of advertising for video is going to be the pre and post roll ads. This same technique has been picked up by YouTube and Google Adsense. Rich media however is more dynamic and interactive for the user. Success with your advertising is going to be determined by your video, the content within it, and the demographic you are marketing to.

What are typical responses when viewing a video ad?
According to a survey done in France, the response rate is pretty impressive. 20% of people who saw the video ad actually purchased the product, while 55% of the people who viewed the ad visited the brand’s website. So what this tells us is that video does impact consumer behavior, whether it’s a purchase right away, or it’s a purchase at another date.

Optimize for Video: Video Formats: Some of the most common video formats are going to be your standard WMV, .AVI, .MOV, and .MPG.

Size of Videos: Try to keep your videos well under 100MB. Most sites can take a video submission up to 100MB. Some sites have smaller limits. Sites like Megavideo and YouTube have an uploader feature for larger sized videos. The larger videos take a long time to upload to different video sites. If the file is large, most likely the video is large. See Length of Videos below.

Length of Videos: Try to keep your videos anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes long. Videos that go on for longer than 5 minutes are hard to watch. The video demographic is made up of multi-taskers who are doing a lot at once, so creating a video that is 10 minutes long makes it hard for them to pay attention to the entire thing.

Video Syndication: There are many ways to syndicate your videos. For example, Tubemogul, Video Post Robot, and Video Traffic Assistant are some programs to help you do this. However, it’s automated. There is not much control over your submissions, so I would recommend doing this manually for a greater return. Video syndication can have a powerful impact on your views and your search engine rank if done correctly.

SEO for Video: Rankings for search terms using video is relatively pretty easy. For longertail terms it is a very popular application. However, it can also have great impact on more broader terms. When considering meta tags, descriptions and keywords for your video submission, the best way to go about it is to optimize as you typically would a page you would create on your site. This means utilize keyword researching tools, place your main keyword closer to the beginning of your title, and make sure your description includes your main keywords. When you get to the keywords section, unlike standard meta tag optimization, you want to place more keywords into this section as you can. Experiment with geo targeted terms and you should see a lot of success. For a case study on “SEO for Video,” please check out http://www.hybridsem.com/casestudies/spatube/.

Universal Search: Universal search is a display method within Google’s search results that pulls relevant videos, books, reviews, news and blog clippings into the top of Google’s search results relevant to a searcher’s query. By submitting video and then optimizing the video, it is possible to get the video within the universal search, literally beating your competition for the number one slot.

Link Building: Within your descriptions when you submit a video you can insert a link. It’s important to link to your site to help draw traffic and build inbound links to your site.

Video Content: When creating a video, do your research on the community you are marketing to. If you are submitting a video to YouTube, that video idea might be different than if you submitted to collegehumor.com or DailyMotion. Think about your community and what their needs and interests are when creating your videos.

Blending Social Media With Your Videos:
Social media comes into play when you start working with the individual sites you are submitting videos to. When you submit a video to a site, let’s say YouTube, you are provided many tools on the site in order to market that video. I have been doing a video marketing series over at searchenginejournal.com about how to market on specific video sites like YouTube, DailyMotion, break, etc. It’s a great resource and it grows every week. Please check out these blog entries to learn more about marketing on specific sites.

However, there are many ways to share your content with your friends, share your video with social networking sites you belong to, and bookmark your video to your favorite bookmarking services. As a social media marketer you can use these tools and leverage them with your power accounts and contacts in your social networks and social bookmarking friends.

The results that can occur when leveraging social media marketing are fast and effective. Social media spreads like wildfire and if you are able to leverage it correctly, you can get hundreds of thousands of views to your videos very quickly.

Added benefits to leveraging social media with your video submissions is the actual video ranking within the site you submitted it to. Let’s use YouTube as an example. If you are able to increase the views of a video, increase the ratings on a video, comments and favorite’ing on a video, you are granted what is known as “honors.” You have about 48 hours once you have achieved an honor until it is removed from your account. The higher your honors, the higher you are on the site itself. Pushing a video on YouTube can take days and sometimes weeks. If you continue to push, you can make your way all the way up to featured videos or even the home page of YouTube. This can catapult your video views and provide an enormous amount of brand exposure for your product.

Tracking Conversions:
Being held accountable is key. Showing the proverbial footprints in the sand to your clients is an absolute necessity. So how do you show them the results? If you are an Internet marketer or SEO expert, you will be familiar with running ranking reports, but for the video sites you submit to. Another way to measure your success is to utilize a high level analytical system that measures engagement and conversational marketing. We typically take screen shots of the honors we achieve for our clients on YouTube LIVE as they happen. Often times pushing a video or social piece takes constant watch. More advanced ways of conversions are offering a coupon code in your video so when people make a purchase, they enter in the code and that counts for the video.

Video marketing is not something that you should do on a whim. You must consider production costs, marketing costs, and development costs. Make sure you find a team that knows what they are doing. And find one that can do more than just submit your videos, but rather leads the industry on cutting edge marketing. Video is valid for all businesses. Small, medium, and large companies can experience the benefit from video marketing. The technique is still considered cutting edge, but seeing a return on what you are doing is the bright beacon all businesses are seeking. Video marketing is a results-driven marketing technique that more businesses should be exploring and testing.

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

Win $50,000 in Cash and Prizes for Best Idea for a Business, Blog, or Website

2010-05-17T08:57:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Network Solutions® and .CO Internet SAS have launched the "Create your Opportunity" contest where anyone with a great idea for a business, blog or website could win up to $50,000 in cash and web services. Business owners, entrepreneurs and individuals in the U.S. are invited to submit a 60-second video or photo about their big idea, along with a description of the idea and their three favorite proposed .CO domain names at www.pitch.co.

Applicants are encouraged to invite friends, fans and family members to vote for their idea. The 30 ideas with the most votes will be eligible to win the $50,000 grand prize -- $25,000 cash and $25,000 in web services - and the ideal .CO domain name to build their site. There also will be five runners-up who will win a free .CO domain name and $500 cash. The contest is open from May 4, 2010 through June 14, 2010.

"Great things can come from a simple idea and this contest is a fun way to help someone turn their idea into an online reality," said Tim Kelly, CEO of Network Solutions. "The new .CO domain name extension opens up a new branding opportunity for new and existing businesses and this contest will give someone a great start to launching their idea."

An all-star panel of judges from different realms of technology, business and venture capital will review the finalists and select the one grand-prize winner and five runners up. Participants can enter multiple ideas. Winners will be announced June 20, 2010.

"We're building .CO from the ground up with the needs of a new generation of entrepreneurs in mind," said Juan Diego Calle, CEO of .CO Internet. "And the Pitch.co contest is our way of inviting small business owners, bloggers, solopreneurs, online marketers and entrepreneurs of every kind to get to know .CO before we launch to the general public in June -- and inspiring them to turn their big ideas into a reality."

The .CO domain extension is being offered by Network Solutions. .CO offers an immediately recognizable, global branding opportunity for new and existing websites. For more information about .CO domains visit: http://marketing.networksolutions.com/dms/DOM/dotCO/index.php. Currently, .CO domain names are only available to companies with a trademark of national effect. On June 21, 2010 the general public can begin to register domains during the Landrush phase. For contest rules and additional information visit: pitch.co/rules.

http://www.gawkwire.com/promotions/win_50_000_in_cash_and_prizes_for_best_idea_for_a_business_blog_.html

SEO Consult Moves to New Offices to Hooton

2010-05-17T08:55:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - The UK’s premier Search Engine Optimisation and internet marketing agency as voted for by uk.topSEOs.com, SEO Consult, have now moved into their new offices in Hooton, Cheshire.

Due to their impressive growth over the last financial year, SEO Consult have recruited extra staff in all departments to cope with the large influx of clients signing up with for their bespoke search engine optimization services. Still recruiting across all areas of the business to meet with increasing demand, SEO Consult have now completed the move into new, larger offices in the Cheshire area to accommodate the recent workforce additions and prepare for the future.

Situated in the Hooton area of Cheshire, it will allow greater access for potential visiting clients looking to sign up with one of the UK’s leading SEO agencies. Their talented SEO team moved into the new building on Friday 07 May, and their new address is as follows:

SEO Consult
Unit B1, Willow House
Oaklands Office Park
Hooton Road
Hooton
Cheshire
CH66 7NZ
UK

“The move has been coming for a long time now, but we wanted to make sure that everything was 100% ready before we moved into our new home,” commented Matt Bullas, Managing Director of SEO Consult. “The transition has been seamless and we were able to resume normal business again from Monday 10 May. We are delighted with our new home and the new opportunities it can provide for us. We’re still looking to increase staff for all areas of our business and would like to hear from anybody who feels they can offer fresh, exciting ideas to our ever-expanding team.”

To find out more about SEO Consult please visit our website at http://www.seoconsult.co.uk/ or call 0845 205 0292 during office hours.

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

WebmasterRadio.FM's First Conversion Bash a Great Success

2010-05-17T08:50:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - WebmasterRadio.FM, the world’s largest internet radio station in the B2B industry and official radio network for many of the most prestigious internet conferences in the space, hit a grand slam after hosting its first annual ConversionBash party during the Conversion Conference in San Jose, California, May 3-5, 2010. As a community destination, WebmasterRadio.FM is proud to host events that allow everyone to have a life experience in the conference host city.

The sponsors who joined us for the inaugural event were Tealeaf, a renowned CEM solutions provider, and Unica, a leader in Marketing Management software. These companies are true leaders in the industry for supporting conference attendee’s to come together in a fun and inspired environment to down load about the days education and to strengthen relationships within the industry and meet new friends. Through their generous support, all of the guests, VIPs, as well as other key media involved with the conference enjoyed a beach-themed salute to Cinco de Mayo; complete with complimentary margaritas, wine, and musical entertainment spun by a live DJ all night.

“Tim Ash is part of the WebmasterRadio.FM family, it is important for us to support him and his efforts,” said Daron Babin, Co-founder of WebmasterRadio.FM and AffCon2010.com. “We were excited to kick off our newest “Bash” series at the Conversion Conference and look forward to many years to come.”

Hosted at the beautiful Fairmont Hotel, the Conversion Conference spanned three days and offered an Expo hall, 26 dynamic sessions and two pre-conference workshops for attendees interested in learning from the world’s leading authorities how to dramatically increase conversions for their online campaigns. From Headlines & Copywriting That Work, to the Power of Split Testing, every topic that focuses on jumpstarting and mastering conversion was covered. The event marks the first of many for the Conversion Conference series, as they already have another two shows scheduled before the end of this year: Conversion East 2010, October 4-6 in Washington, D.C., and a conference in Hamburg, Germany, October 27-28, 2010.

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

SoftLayer Enables Customers to Leverage Citrix Cloud Solutions

2010-05-14T09:41:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - SoftLayer Technologies®, the innovative on-demand data center services provider will enable customers to take advantage of Citrix Cloud Solutions announced today at Citrix Synergy™ 2010. SoftLayer has partnered with Citrix to host the Virtual Demo Center which demonstrates how these initiatives can be implemented in SoftLayer’s infrastructure-as-a-service model.

Citrix Cloud Solutions are based on an open technology stack with deep interoperability between layers, enabling enterprises to support existing investments including third-party virtualization technologies and tools. A key solution highlighted by the Virtual Demo Center is the Citrix Cloud Solution for On-Demand Demos, which enables companies to leverage cloud computing to dynamically create customer training environments to demonstrate how a product functions.

“The Virtual Demo Center, running on SoftLayer CloudLayer™, shows the value cloud can bring to Independent Software Vendors (ISVs),” said Lance Crosby, CEO of SoftLayer. “Using the Citrix Cloud Solution for On-Demand Demos, SoftLayer can enable ISVs to stand up fully isolated Proof of Concept (PoC) environments on demand without having to burden the sales force, channel, or customers with concerns over provisioning and configuring the PoC hardware and software capacity.”

“SoftLayer’s CloudLayer solution offers a highly effective environment to operate a hosted Citrix deployment,” said Klaus Oestermann, Group VP and GM, Networking and Cloud Product Group, Citrix Systems. “In fact, deploying XenDesktop® PoCs in SoftLayer has been a large contributor to helping Citrix accelerate its market lead in desktop virtualization by allowing partners to instantly demonstrate the value of Citrix solutions to their customers.”

The addition of Citrix Cloud Solutions into the SoftLayer portfolio of cloud-based services increases the value that NetScaler® VPX and XenServer® already provide. Offering its customers application delivery controllers as an on-demand, cloud-based service with NetScaler VPX, SoftLayer can deliver the industry’s best load balancing, application optimization, and “pay-as-you-grow” pricing. Citrix XenServer allows SoftLayer to provide a dynamic server virtualization tool that maximizes efficiency and increases hardware utilization. SoftLayer chose Citrix over other providers such as F5 and VMware® because its technologies provide the lowest TCO and highest level of cloud innovation.

SoftLayer is participating in this year’s Citrix Synergy as a Gold Level Sponsor. Please visit SoftLayer at booth 306 for more information on SoftLayer’s hosted Citrix Cloud Solutions environment. http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/softlayer_enables_customers_to_leverage_citrix_cloud_solutions.html

NetGrey.com is the latest HUB for PHP Hosting

2010-05-14T09:40:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Znet Technologies continues its innovative leap forward and has introduced a new level of web hosting for consumers worldwide: PHP Web Hosting. For those who do not know PHP is one of the most popular scripting language that produces dynamic web pages and it is so easy to create interactive web pages and forms within a website. PHP language is so user-friendly and highly compatible for almost all operating systems including Apache and Windows.

Considering the huge popularity of PHP amongst webmasters and its ability to interact with MySQL databases, ZNET TECHNOLOGIES today announced the launch of NETGREY.COM.

Speaking on the occasion, Munesh Singh, CEO, Znet Technologies Pvt Ltd said, “With the launch of an exclusive website Netgrey.com for PHP users, it is very easy for webmasters and IT professionals to experience feature-packed PHP Web Hosting service set up on the most recent version of the PHP language. Our new range of PHP hosting would be an undisputed leader in the world of server-ended open source scripting.”

Znet Technologies has built an exclusive and very captivating website titled Netgrey.com for its latest hosting service. With this latest variant of web hosting, users will be able to access an extensive range of Pear libraries & PHP modules catering to varied PHP scripts. Key applications supported by latest PHP hosting include cutting edge features as:

- Wordpress, Media Wiki, b2 Evolution & various PHP blog/wiki scripts.
- Joomla, Mambo, Drupal and other types of PHP content management system.
- PHP Online Forums like phpBB, Invision Board, vBulletin, and many other PHP based online forums.
- PHP photo gallery scripts like Coppermine Photo Gallery, Photo Post etc
- PHP templating engines like Smarty PHP template system etc.

The PHP hosting plans give customers variety of options like the following:
- Unlimited Domain Hosting
- Unlimited Disk Space
- Unlimited Data Transfer
- Free Website Builder
- E-commerce Ready http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/netgrey_com_is_the_latest_hub_for_php_hosting.html

New Roaming Technology Turns Wi-Fi into 4G

2010-05-14T09:38:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Swedish startup Anyfi Networks today came out of stealth mode to present Anyfi.net, a Wi-Fi roaming technology they hope will shake up the mobile broadband industry. This new technology lets an Internet service provider offer the same Wi-Fi user experience both at home and on the go.

"Until now Wi-Fi hotspots have been difficult to use and inherently insecure. Our solution works with any Wi-Fi device out of the box and provides fully automatic WPA security" said Björn Smedman, CEO.

The trick is combining Wi-Fi with IP, Internet Protocol, to break the tie between logical network and physical infrastructure, much in the same way as Voice over IP separates your phone service from the physical line.

"You can think of it as Wi-Fi over IP" explained Björn Smedman. "Our cloud based matchmaking service keeps track of each device's favorite network and makes sure it is available from the closest access point. By forwarding the raw Wi-Fi radio traffic over the Internet we can ensure security, even if an attacker is in control of the access point."

According to the company this high level of security is one of the key features making the technology suitable for integration in modems of various types, and this is what makes it potentially disruptive, effectively turning Wi-Fi into a full-blown 4G technology.

"Today only about 1-2% of residential broadband capacity is actually used. The rest just goes to waste. At the same time we are seeing mobile networks brought to their knees under the load of data-hungry devices like the iPhone. If you can guarantee that there is no negative impact whatsoever to the subscriber, why not use some of that spare capacity to offload mobile?" asked Björn Smedman.

Using this reasoning a broadband connection with a Wi-Fi router at the end can be thought of as a building block of sorts and Anyfi.net is the mortar. By combining them, existing infrastructure can be transformed into a radio access network, license-exempt and Wi-Fi compatible. A fixed-line operator with a high density of broadband subscribers in an urban area could become a mobile operator over night by simply upgrading the modem software, something that can be done remotely. But smaller operators could also join together to collectively provide mobile Internet access, with worldwide roaming. http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/new_roaming_technology_turns_wi-fi_into_4g.html

Data Subsystems, Inc. Chooses E-solutions Corporation for the South East USA Data Center

2010-05-14T09:37:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Data Subsystems, Inc. announced that it had chosen E-solutions Corporation for the South East USA Data Center. Being an information technology company Data Subsystems, Inc. focuses on business software development, websites design and development, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, hosting and server administration services. It provides complete enterprise resource planning (ERP) and business solutions including software, installation and integration services with further support. Data Subsystems, Inc. has an experienced team of system administrators that thoroughly choose data centers for the clients’ systems and web site servers, as data centers are the key component of reliable and uninterrupted performance. The company uses multiple centers all over the country to provide the best accessibility to the sites from any part of the United States and it is working on geographically based load balancing system to provide the fastest end-user connectivity with minimal latency time

“We are committed to maximize content delivery performance to the end users of our clients” commented Data Subsystems, Inc. president Alex Shortov, “With modern data centers like E-solutions we can be sure that our systems have robust foundation. We have chosen this data center to become a part of our geographically optimized load balancing system and serve the end users from south east”.

Data Subsystems uses the Tier - 3 E-Solutions state-of-the-art data center that is located in Tampa downtown Park Tower Building at 400 North Tampa Street as a south east collocation facility. The redundant bandwidth of this data center is very reliable and does not have any packet losses. The center has direct connections and BGP sessions with multiple Tier-1 and Tier -2 internet providers including Level3 Communications, Global Crossing, Bright House and FPL. The use of BGP protocol ensures that the traffic is routed through the fastest connection, and if any of the providers has a problem, the traffic will be automatically rerouted to another one. For the power supply the center is connected to two independent power grids for that are protected by parallel N+1 UPC systems able to supply 100% data center power needs. On top of that there are two redundant power generators installed in the building to ensure full redundancy even during long power outages. Each one of these generators alone is powerful enough to satisfy all data center needs. It’s able to sustain 72 hour power outages without any service interruptions. Data center is staffed 24x7x365 with professional technicians that are constantly monitoring the systems, performing vulnerability scans and making sure everything is working smoothly. Data Center Security is also at the top level with integrated surveillance video cameras, security cards and code entries.

“High levels of power redundancy, network connectivity and security measures give this data center an impressive reliability that our clients and end users enjoy” summarized Alex Shortov.

For more information about Data Subsystems, Inc. visit www.datasub.com http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/data_subsystems_inc_chooses_e-solutions_corporation_for_the_sout.html

UK Broadband Access Needs To Catch Up With World

2010-05-14T09:36:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - A leading cable expert is calling out to the Government to accelerate its nationwide broadband roll-out programme before the UK lags even further behind the rest of the world.

Roger Webster, managing director of Nottingham-based Webro Cables & Connectors, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this month, believes the planned investment in the UK broadband infrastructure is a very positive move for the country, but it needs to be pushed forward quickly so it can keep up with the new digital age.

“Now the election has come and gone and we have a new era in Government, we need to drive forward the plans and catch up with the rest of the world, growing the number of households with broadband access,” explained Roger.

“In 2009 there were 466.95 million* broadband customers in the world and only 18,356,000 of those were in the UK. We’re sixth in the world in terms of broadband user figures but we’re behind other thriving countries such as US, Japan and China.

“The funding programme behind the Government’s plan for broadband roll-out is a subject of much debate but wherever that money comes from, the value of the results will undoubtedly outweigh the investment.”

Webro has a 30-year legacy in the coaxial, telecom, security and fibre optic industries. It supplies the top five UK TV and satellite distributors and its coaxial cables are used in many different systems, applications and industries from top hotel chains, caravan sites and high security systems to protect both people and property to the Highways Agency and the London Underground network, for which it is Link-Up certified.

Roger added: “Fibre is a far bigger growth market than was first anticipated and we’re working with companies such as Sky and doing what we can to help push forward this growth in new technology. But we need other companies and the Government to play its part too.

“The development of more new housing and the simultaneous laying of fibre cables are helping to push the country forward in its development of broadband access. However, the country’s slow take up of fibre to date will continue to cause major bottlenecks unless additional investment plans are driven quickly forward.

“The UK is hampered by the legacy of aging copper installations and needs to continue to push out the laying of fibre optic cables to bring super fast broadband to as many homes, schools and businesses as possible. This is especially important with the rise in population of applications such as the BBC iPlayer and social networking.”

Roger concluded: “We’re living in an exciting digital age and the UK should be leading the pack in terms of broadband development and infrastructure.”

For further information about Webro’s cable and connector products, please visit the website at www.webro.com. http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/uk_broadband_access_needs_to_catch_up_with_world.html

Web Site Hosting vs Personal Backup Hosting

2010-05-17T09:02:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - One thing that really grinds the gears of any web host on the block is when customers use their hosting space for miscellaneous material that has no place being there. Your web hosting space is no place for a personal backup. Now why shouldn't you use your web hosting disk space to backup your personal documents and files? It is your space, right? Well yes and no.

To make this an easier idea to wrap your head around, let us say Chuck is going to rent an apartment today. He signs the lease, forks over his cash for the month and starts moving his personal belongings in. Chuck would be your average hosting customer and the landlord would be the web host in question.

The landlord watches on as Chuck takes boxes from his car to his new apartment. Back and forth Chuck goes bringing in his clothes, his personal belongings, his car.

"Chuck, what are you doing?" says the landlord. Chuck stops his car at the front door, steps out and says, "Well, this is my space I rented from you, I thought I had the right to put anything in here I wanted to?". The landlord slaps her forehead with her hand and slowly brings it down to her chin. "No Chuck" says the landlord, "Cars do not belong in apartments. Cars belong in the parking lot."

You see personal belongings like your high school wrestling trophies, your computer, and your collection of assorted meats all belong inside of an apartment. A car, truck or motorcycle all have their own place they belong. It is called a garage or parking lot. Those are better places to put such things and the same could be said in the argument for personal backups in your web hosting account.

Unless otherwise noted most web hosts are in the game of hosting your web site files. Uploading or downloading large chunks of data to and from your hosting account can often cause the server in question to go a little, how do you say, bonkers? You have time out issues, connection problems, server resources and a whole truckload of things to worry about. Not to mention there is no real security there (unless you put it there yourself, and do you trust yourself with being your own security expert?). If these documents are important put them in the hands of somebody who will guarantee you’ll get them backed up right and backed up securely.

So where are some Online places we can store our personal backups? Personally I would go to a company that specializes in this type or service. Three good examples would be:

Carbonite.com - You pay one set fee and you can have an unlimited amount of space to backup your files.

Mozy.com - Pay for a plan size, or use the free service that will give you up to 2GB of disk space.

Amazon.com's Simple Storage Service - With prices as low as 15 cents for a GB a month, might be the best solution.

There are also many more companies out there that specialize in personal storage backup that you can look into and investigate. The important fact to remember is that in web hosting, one size does not fit all so it is better to go with the best tool for the job. Also always read your terms of service and acceptable use policy. Web hosts often spell out what you can and can not do with that hosting account you bought from them in black and white.

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

ResellerClub Launches The Localization Partner Program

2010-05-13T08:47:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - ResellerClub has launched its Localization Partner Program with a huge splash attracting 100s of signups in just a few days.

ResellerClub recently opened up its control panels for translation and is inviting a select set of Resellers to work closely with the team to roll out translations in a host of languages.

With interfaces available in Spanish, Turkish etc., ResellerClub has taken its translation efforts one step further. Adopting a collaborative approach, ResellerClub’s localization program engages Partners from across the globe to work on translations in the language of their choice.

"We've always ensured internationalization of all content in our control panels as we realize the importance and growing demand for content in the customer's native language. This program is geared to harness the experience of our global partners - who better than our Partners can decide the best translations to be used in the system", said Bhavin Turakhia, CEO and Founder of ResellerClub. "Interfaces in their local languages will enable out Partners to re-affirm their commitment to the local markets & attract the right audience to build a sticky customer base. If you want market penetration and service adoption, you have to localize."

A crowd-sourcing initiative with a twist, this program ensures quality translations from users that will benefit the most from it. Resellers get to vote in translations that they’d like to see on their interfaces. Coupled with attractive incentive bundles including domain pricing discounts, upto 50% off on hosting purchases and free ad spots on webhosting.info, this program has set the ball rolling for active participation from the ResellerClub Reseller Community.

ResellerClub is a Directi business and boasts of the most comprehensive Product Portfolio including Domain Registration, advanced Web and Email Hosting, Live Chat services, Ecommerce modules, Website Builder etc available at the most economical pricing existing today. They also provide complete business process automation and a powerful Promo Engine that allows resellers to introduce and pass on promotions, discounts, special packages etc, to their sub-resellers and customers. http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/resellerclub_launches_the_localization_partner_program.html

Russia Brings Cyrillic to Internet’s Top-level Domain Names

2010-05-13T08:46:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Russia is becoming an increasingly important player in the global Internet community according to Rod Beckstrom, ICANN’s President and Chief Executive Officer. Beckstrom made the point earlier today while addressing the opening session of the Russian Internet Governance Forum in Moscow.

“Russia has achieved a major milestone by becoming the first country to be approved for a Cyrillic internationalized domain name,” said Beckstrom. “This means that many of the 96 million Russians not currently online could be among the next billion Internet users.”

The Russian Federation is among the first group of countries to have non-Latin characters used in the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) portion of their Internet addresses – that final segment to the right of the dot. So now instead of having to type dot-rf when writing a Cyrillic address name in their web browsers, Russians will be able to use the Cyrillic character “рф”.

“Internationalized domain names will open the door to those whose primary language is expressed in a non-Latin script, such as Russian speakers who use Cyrillic,” said Beckstrom.

But the Chief Executive said Russia’s successful efforts to bring its primary language to all parts of Internet domain names is only one example of the country’s emergence as a prominent force in the new online world.

Beckstrom commended the Russian government and the Russian Internet community for their “ambitious plans to bring Internet service to the entire country.” He pointed out that while 45 million Russians – 32 percent of the population – had access to the Internet, almost twice that number were not online.

The ICANN leader also praised the Russian government’s participation with global efforts to stem cybersecurity threats. “It is a global challenge of immense proportion that requires a solution at the global level,” said Beckstrom. “Russia and many other countries have come to understand that. With the Russian National Security Council, the U.S. State Department, the European Union, China, India and others, talks on further cooperation in the cyber security field are ongoing.” http://www.gawkwire.com/domains/russia_brings_cyrillic_to_internet_s_top-level_domain_names.html

Commercial Network Services Scores 50% Growth with NYI

2010-05-13T08:44:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Commercial Network Services (CNS) has seen a 50% overall growth, with an additional 30% aggregate growth among its existing customer base, thanks in part to the personalized, real-time support and zero-latency of NYI.

"NYI has been a crucial component of our success," said Barry Bahrami, CEO and Founder, Commercial Network Services. "More than any other provider we’ve worked with, NYI has given us a stable, seamless and extensible platform to expand our business globally to subscribers in more than 120 countries. We could not have achieved such a milestone, at such a strong growth rate, without them."

"CNS is a company that understands the importance of investing in a data services partner that gives customers the best of both worlds: the technical capabilities of a major provider, combined with the personalized attention of private consultancy," said Phillip Koblence, VP Operations, NYI. "CNS' success is a tribute to the collaborative efforts between Barry's team and NYI staff to deliver a solution that perfectly fits their needs. We are proud to be part of what is among the most advanced virtual solutions for traders and developers available on the market today."

CNS has been providing online services since 1995. To find out more, visit www.CommercialNetworkServices.com.

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/commercial_network_services_scores_50_growth_with_nyi.html

NetApp Announces 2010 UK Partner Award Winners

2010-05-13T08:42:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) — NetApp celebrated the success of its UK partners at its fourth annual NetApp Partner Awards Dinner. The event, which took place in London’s Bloomsbury Ballroom, brought together more than 200 guests including 160 partners, and saw winners in ten categories recognised for outstanding achievements over the last twelve months.

Entries were judged by senior management across all areas of the NetApp business including sales, channel, professional services, technical and marketing. The judging process evaluated factors within each award category including new business activity, quality of NetApp deployments, exceptional customer experience and innovation.

Winners:
Outstanding Achievement - UK Partner: b2net
Outstanding Achievement - SI Partner: Fujitsu UK&I Ltd
Best New Partner: ANS Group
Marketing Excellence: ANS Group
Outstanding Achievement - Technical Individual: Ian Garland - Servo
Outstanding Achievement - Sales Individual: Manish Amlani - Majenta Systems
Outstanding Achievement - Virtualisation Partner: b2net
Outstanding Achievement - Professional Services Partner: Alpha
Outstanding Achievement - IBM N Series Partner: Imtech ICT UK Ltd
Outstanding Achievement - Silver Partner – Centralis

Pete Rawden, Regional Director, Channels and General Business UK & Ireland, NetApp said: “The number and quality of entries this year was extremely high and a testament to the excellent group of partners we do business with. It was incredibly difficult to pick winners from such a strong group of partners, but those that did win were set apart by particular aspects such as exemplary partner performance as well as excellent results and a working partnership that’s getting better and stronger or a sales individual with an impressive set of figures for the 2009 financial year.

“We’re thrilled with the depth of expertise of our partner network and are committed to the success of every individual and organisation we work with. We look forward to building on these relationships in the future and helping our partners achieve their business goals.”

Winners of the UK Partner and SI Partner categories are able to display the NetApp Partner Award logo across their companies’ communications and receive additional marketing support. As winners of these categories, b2net and Fujitsu UK&I are considered by NetApp as demonstrating high partner success and best in class achievement. Sponsors of this year’s awards included Arrow ECS, Bell Micro, FastLane, Hammer, IBM UK and VMware.

Dave Allen, UK Managing Director said: “The Partner Awards are an important part of recognising and rewarding the outstanding work our channel partners produce year after year. The channel is the engine that drives our business – we depend on partners to sell and implement our solutions in a way that delivers an outstanding customer experience. It is with immense pride that we congratulate and thank every channel partner and in particular those that have excelled to win this year’s awards.”

Andreas König, Senior Vice President and General Manager, EMEA said: “The channel is an integral part of NetApp’s operations not only in the UK but across EMEA. We are very proud of the success of the UK channel and these awards show how that success is being reflected amongst our partners.”

Discuss this news in the NetApp Community, where you can exchange thoughts and ideas on a variety of topics with our community members. Collaborate with our company, engage in conversation with NetApp leaders and employees, and participate in our passion to go further, faster. Join now at www.netapp.com/uk/communities/. http://www.gawkwire.com/events_html/netapp_announces_2010_uk_partner_award_winners.html

Userlytics Corporation Unveils New Remote Usability Testing Service

2010-05-13T08:41:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) – Userlytics Corporation today unveils its new remote usability testing service. Userlytics is the first online usability testing service that provides the rapid results, and comprehensive reporting that is required to make important development decisions in today’s exceptionally fast-paced development teams. Userlytics combines the power of online testing with the convenience of an immediately available panel of testers to get the actionable feedback needed to optimize user interfaces.

End users of software have an expanding number of choices, and user experience is an increasingly important factor for developers to understand to maintain competitive advantage. The introduction of Agile development methods has had a disruptive effect on design and usability efforts. Userlytics now provides a way to collect usability feedback at a depth and speed that keeps pace with Agile teams. The solution is fast, flexible and affordable.

Groundbreaking Test Results
No other tool provides the comprehensive results delivered by Userlytics. Completed tests include a webcam video recording of testers while they are working on their assigned task, as well as synchronized audio as they “think aloud” throughout the test. The rich navigational details include captures of their clickflow with detailed screenshots and mouse positioning, as well as time on task metrics. Testers provide specific feedback through our contextual commentary tool which anchors bubble comments to specific page locations. There are also answers to the survey type questions you may have included in your task. These details are compiled and available segmented by tester and task component or aggregated across the test, giving a 360° view of individual tester experience. Results from 5 or more independent testers increases confidence that you have uncovered actionable details, and not simply collected anecdotal information.

“With a tester goal designed to take no more than 10 minutes it is easy to review the results – in fact, it is almost like having them sitting there in your office” states Dan Richards, the Product Development Director of Userlytics. “The reports and recordings are powerful tools to get designers, developers and stakeholders to reach common understanding of user experience issues.”

Userlytics requires no site instrumentation in order to complete a test. In fact, the site or software application does not have to be functional. Userlytics works well for testing posted wireframes or low fidelity prototypes. The service requires a functioning URL, or even a wireframe / low fidelity prototype that can be hosted on our secure servers.”

Full Range of Testing
Userlytics tests are conducted remotely. Prototypes, production web sites, web-based applications and even your competitor’s offerings can all be evaluated. Building a test is a snap, even for clients who have no prior experience with usability testing. Select from a wide range of sample tasks and questions or create your own. The choice is yours.

A best practice of a minimum of 5 testers is implemented by the service, and you can select from our panel of testers, or provide your own. Tests are completed in the testers’ natural environment, at locations across the US and UK. Choosing Userlytics testers allows you to select pertinent demographics ensuring you have the correct mix of responses. However you choose your test participants, the invitations, tester incentives, and quality control are all handled by Userlytics making the process simple, quick and safe.

Initial results are often available within one to two hours, while completed tests are ready in most cases in less than 48 hours. Your personal dashboard can be viewed as the results come in, or you can wait until all the testers have completed their tasks. This quick turnaround enables you to have real user feedback in time to make critical decisions, regardless of development method or time constraints.

Web and software designers, developers and user experience professionals use Userlytics to:
* Answer architecture questions at critical junctures in development
* Validate design decisions with a geographically dispersed set of users
* Conduct RITE testing with a wide variety of users
* Share design feedback with skeptical stakeholders
* Build a case to undertake detailed research for areas of concern

Pricing and Availability
The Userlytics service is available now for English language sites.

Individual tests are available directly through Userlytics.com for $299. Each test includes 5 completed test results which have been validated for video and audio quality. Additional testers are available for $47 per tester.
For usability consultants, online marketing agencies or development/design firms who see the Userlytics platform as a way to complement your own services, expand your geographical reach, or address specific needs we would be delighted to hear from you. Please contact us.

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

Allowing Alternate Contacts

2010-05-12T22:56:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) Web sites tend to be managed by a lot of people. They’re important to a lot of businesses, so most of those businesses tend to involve a lot of people in the web site process: marketing people, designers, programmers, and of course, the executives. The pure extent of people involved with managing a given web site presents a problem for the average web host – how to support all of those people.

Many web hosts have a policy of only supporting the designated account holder, but more flexible hosts allow the account holder to designate a series of “alternate contacts,” that is, people authorized to act on behalf of the account holder.

The alternate contacts are pre-authorized to manage the account, ask questions, make changes, and, access records. Some systems even let the main account holder decide exactly what the alternate contacts can and cannot do (i. e. they can only contact support, not change billing options).

The benefit to the customer is apparent: the process of allowing alternate contacts allows more people than just the account holder to securely access and manage the company’s hosting account.

For example, in smaller companies, the “account holder” is often the owner of the company, but chances are that the owner is not involved with the web hosting account on a day-to-day basis. In bigger companies, the actual “account holder” is probably the company itself or maybe an executive within the company. Again, there is a need to have other people manage the account.

While web hosting companies that provide the option to have alternate contacts are saving their “actual” customers time and effort, they are making their own jobs slightly more difficult. With a system that allows alternate contacts, the hosting company has to impress more people than just the account holder.

Depending on the company’s current level of service, this additional communication can either be a blessing or a curse. If the company is skilled enough to provide great service on a consistent basis, it’s an opportunity to show off to even more people. If the company has yet to master customer service and provides terrible service at least some of the time, there are going to be even more people who will eventually be disappointed.

If your company allows your customers to assign alternate contacts (which you should do, especially if you deal with a lot of businesses), try to do these things:

Get in touch with the alternate contact directly. This way, you can explain procedures, answer questions, and help the alternate contact right from the beginning. You should send a welcome email to new alternate contacts in the same way that you send a similar email to new customers. If alternate contacts know what you do and don’t support and how your support organization works right off the bat, the potential of problems occurring down the road is greatly reduced.

Clearly outline what can and cannot be done. Policies regarding what alternate contacts can and cannot do vary greatly from company to company. It is your responsibility to clearly articulate these limitations (if such limitations exist) to any new alternate contacts. That way, the alternate contacts aren’t surprised when you explain that only the primary account holder can authorize what they’re asking you to do.

Treat them just like your customers. Just because the alternate contacts are not paying the bills themselves does not mean that they’re second-class customers. In many cases, the alternate contact has just as much say in whether or not they will be renewing their hosting account next year as the actual account holder does. You never know who the alternate contacts are (it could be the company’s CEO), so be sure to treat all of them just like you treat all of your other customers (which is hopefully great).

Writer's Bio: Douglas Hanna is the Customer Service Editor for Ping! Zine.

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

SoftLayer Provides Infrastructure for Citrix Training

2010-05-12T08:35:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) = SoftLayer Technologies®, the innovative on-demand data center services provider, is providing the infrastructure support for learning labs and live demos of multiple Citrix Cloud Solutions at Citrix Synergy™ 2010. The demos are part of an environment that will provide hands-on training sessions for hundreds of attendees during the conference, showcasing Citrix virtualization and cloud technologies.

Citrix solutions running on SoftLayer infrastructure for the Citrix Synergy 2010 include:

 XenServer®
 XenApp™
 XenDesktop®
 Citrix Provisioning Services™ NetScaler® VPX™

“SoftLayer prides itself on rapidly and cost-effectively giving our customers the server, storage, and networking services they need to run their applications,” said Nathan Day, CTO of SoftLayer. “We utilized this capability to deliver an infrastructure as a service solution for the Citrix Synergy Hands-On Learning Lab.”

SoftLayer is participating in this year’s Citrix Synergy as a Gold Level Sponsor as well as presenting the value of infrastructure as a service. Please visit SoftLayer at booth 306 for more information on SoftLayer’s hosted Citrix environments.

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

Liquid Web Opens Software Development Office in Scottsdale

2010-05-12T08:34:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Web hosting company, Liquid Web Inc continues its incredible growth by opening it's fourth office located in Scottsdale, Arizona. The new Liquid Web Scottsdale office is staffed with eight highly skilled Software Development Engineers with plans to expand to fifteen or more by the end of 2010. The new Scottsdale office enables Liquid Web to better serve it's rapidly expanding west coast customer base by meeting the demands of small and medium sized businesses in that area. Liquid Web is currently hiring for their Scottsdale, Arizona and Lansing, Michigan locations.

2010 has been an exciting year for Liquid Web. In January Liquid Web opened it's third data center, Liquid Web's Cloud Computing World Headquarters. The Liquid Web Cloud Computing World Headquarters is a 90,000 square foot state of the art data center with space for 600 high tech engineers and over 25,000 servers.

This year Liquid Web also launched a proprietary cloud computing technology called "Storm On Demand". Storm On Demand is a cloud computing infrastructure as a service product that allows users to quickly and easily manage Cloud Servers. Storm On Demand is engineered by Liquid Web's staff of Software Development Engineers, many of whom are located in Scottsdale.

Liquid Web is continuing to hire Perl Software Developers, System Administrators and Networking Engineers to work in either the Lansing or Scottsdale locations. Interested parties are encouraged to apply at http://www.liquidweb.com/jobs

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

Ipswitch Hires New Director of Sales Operations

2010-05-12T08:32:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Ipswitch, Inc.'s Network Management Division, the developer of the WhatsUp Gold suite of innovative IT management solutions, today announced it has hired Al James as Director of Sales Operations, a newly created position designed to optimize sales processes and productivity. James, a veteran of the high-tech industry who holds a degree from Northeastern and is also a graduate of Stanford University's Advanced Management College, brings more than 13 years of experience in sales operations and quota attainment to Ipswitch, Inc. Prior to joining the Network Management Division he spent time in sales operations at Monster Worldwide, where he managed the commission process and sales operations for 600 sales representatives.

"We are experiencing double-digit growth with a vast array of new products, people and processes entering our ecosystem. I believe that this kind of growth can be best sustained with efficient process management, especially on the sales side of the house. Within minutes of our opportunistic meeting, I knew I had found my champion in Al. Al's experience, metric-orientation and refusal to accept the status quo will help us drive the next growth phase," said Ennio Carboni, president, Ipswitch, Inc.'s Network Management Division. "Al is an expert problem solver with a comprehensive background who will advance our sales and operational efficiencies and position the company to expand market share in the years to come," Carboni said.

With his extensive experience assessing and managing organizational efficiency, identifying and optimizing growth potential and implementing operational change, James will work with departments across the board at the Network Management Division to attain maximum sales of the WhatsUp Gold IT Management Platform and WhatsUp Event Log Management product lines and to exceed profitability and financial targets.

"I've worked with many companies to successfully streamline operations so that each department can maximize its potential and work together to move the organization to the next milestone," said Al James, director of sales operations, Ipswitch, Inc. Network Management Division. "Ipswitch, Inc.'s Network Management Division has a world-class product that has grown incredibly quickly and is now at a point where bringing together disparate systems and information will help the sales team continue to meet the needs of its customers, as well as to uncover new opportunities," James said.

Prior to his position at Monster Worldwide, James held positions with Blue Dolphin Group, Genuity, Inc. and Wang Labs.

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

Findwise Joins Lucid Imagination Global Partner Program

2010-05-12T08:31:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Findwise, a Scandinavian IT consultancy focused on search-driven Findability solutions utilising enterprise search technology, has expanded its solutions portfolio by joining the Global Partner Program led by Lucid Imagination, the commercial company for Apache Lucene/Solr search technology. This partnership agreement further demonstrates the growing momentum for Apache Lucene/Solr technology in Europe. Findwise has been selected as one of the seven inaugural reseller partners for Lucid Imagination worldwide and will offer Lucid Imagination’s products and support services across Scandinavia.

Findwise enables its customers to reach business goals by maximising the ‘Findability’ of information. Utilising the full potential of enterprise search technology, Findability creates value by enabling easy and secure access to desired information. The open source search technology offered through Lucid Imagination solutions enables Findwise to offer new and innovative search-enabled applications that deliver competitive advantage, scalability and cost economies to end customers. Companies such as The Halland County Council (Sweden), Kretsloppsrådet (The Ecocycle Council from Sweden), and Västra Götalandsregionen (second largest health care organisation in Sweden) have already benefitted from increased usability, functionality and performance of Apache Lucene/Solr.

“As a company specialising in Findability, it was a natural progression to join forces with Lucid Imagination. Our Northern European customers are mainly large, blue chip organisations with complex search demands. Their interest in open source search is growing rapidly; by working with Lucid Imagination we can now guarantee enterprise-class support for Apache Lucene/Solr solutions,” said Helge Legernes, Founding Partner, Findwise.

“Lucid Imagination has invested significant resources to develop local partnerships and grow its customer base in Europe. We are therefore pleased to see a growing interest in the economics and the technological power of the Lucene/Solr enterprise search platform in the region. Findwise brings its unique expertise to the Lucene/Solr marketplace. With a reliable foundation of training, support subscriptions and support from Lucid, our partners can help their customers get competitive advantage from search,” said Eric Gries, CEO, Lucid Imagination.

Findwise is Platinum Sponsor of the Apache Lucene EuroCon 2010 presented by Lucid Imagination. The event takes place 18-21 May 2010 in Prague and is Europe's premier Lucene and Solr user conference. For more information please visit http://lucene-eurocon.org/. http://www.gawkwire.com/web_design/findwise_joins_lucid_imagination_global_partner_program.html

R1Soft Brings Pain Relief to XenServer Backups at Citrix Synergy 2010

2010-05-11T09:42:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) — R1Soft, the developer of Continuous Data Protection® (CDP) for Windows and Linux Xen Virtual Machines, announced today it will exhibit high-performance backup software for Xen at the Citrix Synergy conference to be held May 11-14 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, Calif.

Possibly the biggest challenge for virtualization and Citrix XenServer is storage performance. Xen frequently has multiple operating systems all sharing the same physical disk resources while at the same time pushing file counts across virtual machines into the millions. Typical backup applications that read and copy files cannot keep up with the enormous growth in data size and often present a massive drain on the physical hardware slowing Xen virtual machines down for hours during the backup process.

R1Soft’s CDP software reads data at the block-level bypassing the file system gaining unparalleled efficiency and performance. In addition, it performs most backups using an asynchronous-replication process it calls CDP. Asynchronous replication uses device drivers to know before the backup process exactly which changed blocks or deltas must be read from disk. This process has the result of shrinking most backup windows from hours to minutes while significantly reducing load on storage from the backup process.

R1Soft protects more than 185,000 Windows and Linux servers. Hosting and Cloud service providers have embraced R1Soft’s affordable and highly efficient backup software to protect XenServers for over four years on tens of thousands of servers.

"Everyone is talking about ‘The Cloud’ and more often than not, Cloud translates to Xen. R1Soft is thrilled to be exhibiting at Synergy to bring relief to the backup pain experienced by most XenServers and their users," said David Wartell, founder of R1Soft, a division of BBS Technologies, Inc.

At booth #606, R1Soft will be giving attendees live demos highlighting the new features in their latest Xen backup products. Attendees can also enter the R1Soft Continuous Giveaway for a chance to win an iPad.

For more information about R1Soft, please visit http://www.r1soft.com or call 1-800-956-6198.

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/r1soft_brings_pain_relief_to_xenserver_backups_at_citrix_synergy.html

Creativity Revealed: Discovering the Source of Inspiration

2010-05-12T08:37:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Jeffrey, managing partner of Nonbox Consulting, a consumer insight think tank, spent several years researching the realms of creative thought and the sources of ingenuity. What he found is that while innovation in the workplace can’t be forced, it can be cajoled and enticed into being.

“Trying to be more creative is a sure way to limit your creativeness,” he said. “Instead, look to set up the conditions that allow creativity to flow more freely.”

Here are some of his ideas on how to set the stage that allows creativity to flow.

1. Stay relaxed, stay centered. Remember to breath deeply and diaphragmatically. When the mind is in a heightened emotional state, the inner resources related to creative output are generally not available. By entering a relaxed, almost Jedi-like state, you increase the chances of aligning to your inner brilliance.

2. Eliminate distractions. When you’re looking to enter a creative state and you’re working at your desk, be sure to close your email program and shut off your cell phone. Shut off the ringer on your land phone too. If possible, shut your office door. You’re trying to eliminate some of the endless distractions that continually present themselves.

3. Get out of the office. The corporate culture often assumes that if you’re not in the office, you’re not working. But how many creative ideas come to you while staring at the computer sitting in a cubicle or office? As many creative geniuses have attested, the creative impulse often presents itself while taking a shower, going for a relaxing drive or a quiet walk, reading poetry or a novel—anything that gets the mind to wander. Perhaps there’s a reason why we have heard of great ideas being sketched out on a paper napkin in a coffee shop.

4. Get Moving. Stagnation often hinders ideation. Get your body moving. Take a deep breathe. Smile. Break through stagnation by generating motion in your body.

5. Align to Beauty. Immerse yourself in nature, enchanting music, or any true form of beauty. Beauty uplifts the soul and helps create the conditions for the creative impulse to manifest.

6. Clean the Mental Slate. Be willing to let go of everything you’re doing. Our belief systems and “paradigm blindness” blocks our ability to see things in new ways. Be willing to let go of how things are generally perceived and view the problem from a clean slate.

7. Facilitate Open Dialogue. Most discussions in the boardroom, for example, are more like debates where each person tries to persuade the other to his or her way of seeing things. Quantum physicist David Bohm introduced the idea of “dialoguing” where a group of people willingly let go of their perceived notions and seek to find shared meaning.

8. Maintain a Positive Attitude. Avoid the three words sure to kill creativity and hinder your ability to find new solutions: I don’t know. Saying “I don’t know” to yourself or aloud essentially tells your brain to stop thinking. If you start with the assumption that there is a solution and that you have the inner resources to uncover it, you’ll increase the chances of aligning to the answer.

9. Come From a Place of Humility. Humility is a universal quality of the creative genius. You’ll be hard pressed to find a true genius who takes credit for the creative work he or she produces. Instead, these rare individuals look at themselves as a mere conduit for the creative impulse as opposed to its originator. Most of these geniuses look to some form of a “Higher Power” as the Source of their creative efforts.

10. Be Patient. The Muse often appears at the most unlikely time and place. Stay ready. Stay open. And be patient. The creative impulse is not a personal phenomenon. You’re tapping into a universal field of consciousness that transcends the understanding of the human mind. When the conditions are appropriate, the solution will present itself.

Writer's Bio: Scott Jeffrey is a writer, executive coach, and lifelong student of Truth. He is a managing partner of Nonbox Consulting, a consumer insight think tank that lends its signature ingenuitity to clients like Kohl’s Department Stores, Scheels, LA Lakers and Turner Classic Movies. Scott is also the author Journey to the Impossible: Designing an Extraordinary Life.

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

LogicMonitor Enhances its Hosted Monitoring Service

2010-05-11T08:34:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - LogicMonitor has recently enhanced its flagship LogicMonitor data center monitoring solution, which was set to coincide with its presence at the Citrix Synergy Summit 2010. With the enhancements, LogicMonitor now includes Citrix XenServer monitoring as part of its web-based service, which delivers in-depth monitoring of any virtualized environment, right out of the box, and without any configuration required. Administrators and managers get real-time views into the health and performance of their infrastructure from anywhere, and enjoy the unique benefits of having one unified, comprehensive monitoring solution for all their systems including NetScalers and Citrix XenServer.

“One of the most valuable benefits of LogicMonitor’s Hosted Monitoring solution is that it offers a unified system for monitoring everything, from load balancers to hypervisors to servers to storage gear,” said LogicMonitor CEO Steve Francis. “Rather than relying on multiple different monitoring systems, our clients get everything they need from one place—that’s a serious time and cost-saving benefit, and LogicMonitor is the only solution that offers that capability.”

LogicMonitor allows data center operators to reclaim the hours of tedious work they might spend manually building and maintaining their own monitoring system, and get right to the important work—addressing issues before they escalate into outages. It monitors everything and ensures that everything is up to date, automatically.

Attendees are invited to stop by Booth #608 to check out a demo of LogicMonitor Hosted Monitoring, and those unable to attend the Citrix Synergy Summit can find details regarding LogicMonitor’s support of XenServer here http://www.logicmonitor.com/monitoring/virtualization/citrix-xenserver-monitoring/, and of NetScalers here: http://www.logicmonitor.com/monitoring/monitoring-load-balancers/netscaler-monitoring/, or request a fully supported 14-day free trial that will have them up and running in approximately 20 minutes. The free trial sign-up form is at LogicMonitor.com.

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

“Real Time Digital” Radio Series Premiers on WebmasterRadio.FM

2010-05-11T08:33:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - The hottest trends and topics in digital marketing are up for discussion as interactive marketing agency The JAR Group presents an exclusive six-part radio series on WebmasterRadio.FM entitled “Real Time Digital”.

As digital analysts with The JAR Group, hosts Emily Liedblad and Lauren Garcia stay up-to-date on all the latest online marketing trends and they’re always quick to tweet on a subject, so their conversations they say “should be pretty amusing, hopefully providing new perspectives on what's going on in the digital world.”

should be pretty amusing, hopefully providing new perspectives on what's going on in the digital world.
Each episode will feature “What’s Hot!” in the world of digital marketing, as they offer their take on new digital trends and topics. They will also interview influential and innovative guests to showcase their services and unveil their marketing strategies.

On the premiere episode, scheduled to air Tuesday May 11th at 1pm Eastern, Emily and Lauren speak with Oleg Voss, one of the owners of Schnitzel and Things, speak with Oleg Voss, one of the owners of Schnitzel and Things, voted New York City’s #1 mobile street vendor. Oleg describes the fascination surrounding their concept and how social media has added to their marketing buzz. Peter Shankman, Founder of Help A Reporter Out will also appear on the premiere broadcast.

Real Time Digital will air new episodes every Tuesday at 1pm Eastern and 10am Pacific Time. Catch the archives of these episodes inside the Internet Marketing section of http://www.WebmasterRadio.FM as well as on iTunes and through our mobile platform at http://m.webmasterradio.fm.

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

SEO.com Leaders Named Top 100 Entrepreneurs in Utah

2010-05-11T08:31:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Following SEO.com's rapid growth in 2009, two of its executives – CEO Dave Bascom and Vice President of Marketing Chris Knudsen – have been named to vSpring Capital’s Top 100 Venture Entrepreneurs.

The award recognizes 100 people who are most likely to lead a successful venture in Utah within the next few years. The individuals were voted in by their peers and others in the community. This is Bascom's first v100 award and the fourth for Knudsen.

Not long ago, Bascom started SEO.com in his basement. In just the last year and a half, he led the SEO company to record growth and significantly increased the company's client base, boosted its monthly revenue by more than 300 percent, grew from 12 employees to more than 60, and has established SEO.com as a recognized thought-leader in the search marketing space.

"Bascom is a great leader, and has done an excellent job in growing this company. It's rewarding for both of us to be named together," Knudsen said.

Knudsen was brought on board full time in December after working with SEO.com as a consultant. Since then, he formally established the company's business development strategy and created SEO.com's reseller program. Knudsen also formulized the marketing department's strategy and provided guidance on the reorganization of the company’s sales department.

"Chris's innovative approach and expertise has been very valuable in helping SEO.com reach its potential," Bascom said.

To compliment the company's SEO services, Bascom has brought on experts in pay per click management, social media marketing, conversion optimization and search friendly Web design to give businesses a more rounded strategy to increase website traffic and online sales.

"In this changing landscape, there is one thing businesses need right now," Knudsen said, "and that is to be found online. Millions of people are searching for products every day. As a search marketing firm, we make sure they are found by potential customers – whether that’s through search engines like Google, or social media sites like Facebook and Twitter."

http://www.gawkwire.com/seo_sem/seo_com_leaders_named_top_100_entrepreneurs_in_utah.html

GoDaddy.com.Giving $100Kto Nashville Flood Victims

2010-05-09T18:37:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Late Saturday night, Arizona-based GoDaddy.com CEO & Founder Bob Parsons saw an emotional video about Nashville's devastating floods. Immediately after seeing the touching, and poignantly inspiring amateur video, Parsons sent out a TWEET, pledging $100,000 to help the Nashville community. Here's the video that triggered the donation, http://tinyurl.com/27vzhu7.

While mass media attention has focused on other stories in recent days, such as Arizona's controversial immigration issue, the Nashville tragedy has taken a backseat when it comes to national broadcast coverage. Parsons is hoping the GoDaddy.com donation will inspire other large corporations to step up too.

GoDaddy.com is working to contact Nashville's Salvation Army today to officially arrange the donation for tomorrow.

Back in 2008, when flooding disrupted the lives of people living in northern Iowa, GoDaddy.com, which has offices in Cedar Rapids, gave $100,000 to the Salvation Army there. Earlier this year, GoDaddy.com jumped in to help Hope for Haiti, donating $500,000 within 24-hours of the earthquake.

"When I saw the degree of the devastation in Nashville and realized how the people there are pulling together, on their own, as a community -- I knew Go Daddy had to help," said Parsons.

If you have not seen the video that triggered GoDaddy.com's Nashville donation, check it out here http://tinyurl.com/27vzhu7.

You can donate $10 to help the Salvation Army Relief Efforts by Texting the Word "flood" to 90999 or visit, http://www.uss.salvationarmy.org/uss/www_uss_nashville_ac.nsf.

http://www.gawkwire.com/business/goodaddy_com_giving_100kto_nashville_flood_victims.html

NIX.CZ and CZ.NIC Presented with LINX Awards

2010-05-10T14:03:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - The London Internet Exchange announced that its Conspicuous Contribution Award was recently presented to Ondrej Filip and his colleagues at NIX.CZ and CZ.NIC following their outstanding work on the BIRD route server project.

Route servers are designed to allow multilateral peering across an Internet exchange point (IXP). In LINX's case this means that new members can quickly start exchanging traffic with other members by setting up a single BGP session to the route server. This streamlining of the process can be particularly important to smaller networks that may not have the resources to manage a large number of bilateral peering arrangements.

LINX members and prospective members have been particularly interested in BIRD because of its ability to quickly realise the benefit of a connection to the exchange. Networks can then immediately start to exchange traffic with other members as soon as the LINX connection is live.

BIRD is an open source route server platform which has proved to have been of great benefit to LINX and other European IXPs. It is a fully functional dynamic IP routing daemon primarily targetted for UNIX-like systems.

LINX CEO, John Souter, said: “There's no doubt that BIRD is an important step forward in route server technology and we are very happy with the enhanced reliability it offers us at LINX. Multilateral Peering saves networks a considerable amount of time in peering negotiation because with a single agreement, a network can arrange peering with a group of peers all at once instead of negotiating with each party individually."

Continues…

Mr Souter added: “The Conspicuous Contribution Award is presented to an individual or organisation who have demonstrated a commitment to the development of LINX and to the industry as a whole. This makes it a perfect opportunity for LINX to publicly thank everyone who has worked so hard on the BIRD project.”

BIRD began life as a university project at the Faculty of Math and Physics at Charles University in Prague before going into full development under the support of CZ.NIC Labs at the end of 2008. The BIRD team now consists of Ondrej Filip, Libor Forst, Pavel Machek, Martin Mares and Ondrej Zajicek.

The award was presented to Ondrej Filip by LINX Sales & Marketing Manager, Richard Yule, at the NIX.CZ Working Group in Prague on 10 May 2010.

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

Apple Unveils the iPad Internationally

2010-05-10T09:26:00-04:00

(Vectorwire) - Apple has recently announced that people in Australia, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain and Japan can now pre-order the iPad.

Last week, Apple announced that the iPad will be available in stores on May 28 in nine different countries.

Techcrunch has provided a list of starting prices for each respective country below..

Australia
iPad Wi-Fi – 16GB: A$ 629
iPad Wi-Fi – 32GB: A$ 759
iPad Wi-Fi – 64GB: A$ 879

iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 16GB: A$ 799
iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 32GB: A$ 928
iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 64GB: A$ 1,049

Canada
iPad Wi-Fi – 16GB: $549
iPad Wi-Fi – 32GB: $649
iPad Wi-Fi – 64GB: $749

iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 16GB: $679
iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 32GB: $779
iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 64GB: $879

UK
iPad Wi-Fi – 16GB: £429
iPad Wi-Fi – 32GB: £499
iPad Wi-Fi – 64GB: £599

iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 16GB: £529
iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 32GB: £599
iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 64GB: £699

France
iPad Wi-Fi – 16GB: 499 €
iPad Wi-Fi – 32GB: 599 €
iPad Wi-Fi – 64GB: 699 €

iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 16GB: 599 €
iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 32GB: 699 €
iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 64GB: 799 €

Germany
iPad Wi-Fi – 16GB: 499 €
iPad Wi-Fi – 32GB: 599 €
iPad Wi-Fi – 64GB: 714 €

iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 16GB: 599 €
iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 32GB: 699 €
iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 64GB: 814 €

Italy
iPad Wi-Fi – 16GB: 499 €
iPad Wi-Fi – 32GB: 599 €
iPad Wi-Fi – 64GB: 699 €

iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 16GB: 599 €
iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 32GB: 699 €
iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 64GB: 799 €

Switzerland
iPad Wi-Fi – 16GB: CHF 649
iPad Wi-Fi – 32GB: CHF 779
iPad Wi-Fi – 64GB: CHF 899

iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 16GB: CHF 799
iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 32GB: CHF 929
iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 64GB: CHF 1,049

Spain
iPad Wi-Fi – 16GB: 479 €
iPad Wi-Fi – 32GB: 579 €
iPad Wi-Fi – 64GB: 679 €

iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 16GB: 579 €
iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 32GB: 679 €
iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 64GB: 779 €

Japan
iPad Wi-Fi – 16GB: ￥48,800
iPad Wi-Fi – 32GB: ￥58,800
iPad Wi-Fi – 64GB: ￥68,800

iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 16GB: ￥61,800
iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 32GB: ￥71,800
iPad Wi-Fi + 3G – 64GB: ￥81,800

Writer’s Bio: Vectorwire.com is your source for the latest graphic design, web design, web hosting, and technology news and articles.

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

SoftLayer to Participate in Game Developer Conference Canada

2010-05-10T09:23:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - SoftLayer Technologies announced it will be participating in this year’s Game Developer Conference (GDC) Canada in Vancouver, B.C., May 6-7 at the Vancouver Convention Center. The event will be the second annual GDC Canada, bringing together established studios as well as emerging start-ups.

The Game Developers Conference attracts attendees from all facets of the gaming industry to explore business development strategies and best practices. In 2010 SoftLayer will be a multi-event sponsor of Game Development Conferences in locations including:

 San Francisco, CA
 Vancouver, B.C.
 Austin, TX
 Cologne, Germany

“This event is a perfect fit for us as an infrastructure provider,” said George Karidis, SoftLayer Chief Strategy Officer. “By providing developers with on-demand hardware and robust network resources, we help allow them do what they do best rather than focusing on their hosting or data center environment.”

SoftLayer was recently named Editor’s Choice for Game Servers by Find My Host, an online resource that helps developers make qualified selections from web hosting companies who have undergone an Approved Host program.

For more information on SoftLayer’s game hosting and infrastructure solutions, visit SoftLayer at booth 506 during the event.

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

LabTech Celebrates the Company's Most Successful Month

2010-05-10T09:20:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - LabTech Software has reported an unprecedented increase in sales along with a corresponding expansion of sales, support, and product development staffs following its funding from ConnectWise Capital. In just two months after the investment by ConnectWise Capital, LabTech sees an extraordinary sales growth of 1,000 percent. It has increased its support staff five-fold, its sales staff four-fold, and its product development team three-fold.

“The IT community and ConnectWise partners have voiced their support of the investment and vision with an incredible increase in sales and positive feedback in social media channels and customer surveys,” said Matt Nachtrab, LabTech’s CEO. “The funding from ConnectWise has enabled us to ramp up quickly, making these the most successful months in our company history.”

Recent customer satisfaction surveys of a cross-section of new and long-term LabTech users indicated 95 percent of LabTech partners would repurchase the product. Although many had switched from products like Kaseya, some are new to managed services.

Chris Michalec, president of Parkway Technology Solutions, which serves businesses in Virgina and North Carolina, said “Our focus is on helping small businesses reduce costs and improve productivity. LabTech is integral to being able to monitor and respond to our customers to pinpoint key problems and challenges for their businesses.”

"We are really happy with LabTech. The training and the ease of use to date has made Lab Tech our best purchase as a company," agrees Lee Collison, Senior Network Engineer with the Maryland-based Bay Tech Team.

“All we wanted to do was automate the most mundane aspects of workstation maintenance and monitoring; windows updates, antivirus update statuses and so forth. When we found LabTech and realized we could do so much more, we were able to tailor a much more comprehensive service offering around it,” effused Eric Gould, onsite service specialist for Savage Systems in Putnam, CT. “Now our customers are happier, and our techs are working more efficiently. It's a beautiful thing.”

LabTech’s affordable, agent-based solution quickly transforms solution providers into managed service providers. As the only RMM solution that emulates what technicians do in the field, providers can become NOC technicians in 15 minutes. Partners can purchase the number of agents they need to start, and add as they grow.

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

Econsultancy and Hult Business School Launch MA in Digital Marketing

2010-05-10T09:18:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Digital marketing training group Econsultancy has joined forces with leading international business school Hult to develop a new Master in Digital Marketing programme, starting in September 2010.

Econsultancy will draw from their extensive experience in training marketers for the world’s finest companies (including Google, Dell, Time Warner and Microsoft) to develop a syllabus that delivers practical digital skills and insight with a strong commercial focus, and prepares students for continued learning after graduation.

Dr Stephen Hodges, President of Hult commented: “Econsultancy's reputation as the global source of independent information and training for digital marketing practitioners, along with their experience of running academic programmes, made them the ideal partner”

Craig Hanna, Training Director at Econsultancy said “The launch of this new qualification is an exciting opportunity for Econsultancy to continue to contribute to the digital education of a global audience. The partnership with Hult underpins our commitment to expanding our services internationally, and has provided a platform for us to deliver a world-class qualification for the digital leaders of tomorrow.” http://www.gawkwire.com/business/econsultancy_and_hult_business_school_launch_ma_in_digital_marke.html

Moovin On Up Takes SEO Software to the Next Level

2010-05-07T09:32:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - With MOU Labs now in its second month, the SEO analysis tool offers more than ever to customers looking to track their sites success. Furthermore, support for this cutting edge SEO tool seems to be gaining momentum with new clients signing up at an increasing rate. The in-house designed service offers a unique perspective and range of tools for users SEO needs, and all for a no-commitment price of just £25 a month. MOU Labs is now out of Beta stage and offers the most expansive range of features yet.

MOU Labs was created for the purpose of delivering users the most comprehensive and transparent insight into their SEO campaign available. It gives clients instant access to how their site is performing in search engine rankings for selected keywords, insight into their competitors and many other highly useful features. In making the service so transparent Moovin On Up have delivered their clients better insight than ever before to judge how their site is performing.

Moovin On Up SEO Manager Kevin Gallagher is confident in the quality of tools provided by this software package. “At Moovin On Up we take great pride in our reputation as a leader in search engine optimisation services and are always working to provide our clients with the means to have great success in the ecommerce environment. As a result we make it our mantra to stay ahead of the game in SEO techniques and in this case have set out to supply the next step ourselves. SEO Labs gives clients superb SEO insight and working together with MOU ensures that they can get the high rankings and site traffic they are looking for.”

Formed in 2006, the backbone of Moovin On Up is built around providing excellent customer service. Offering expert SEO, website design and content management systems ensures that businesses who work with Moovin On Up are guaranteed to get the full ecommerce solution that other firms simply can’t provide. With a highly skilled team of SEO specialists and talented web developers, Moovin On Up have become a leader in their market, providing their services to a wide range of clients.
http://www.gawkwire.com/seo_sem/moovin_on_up_takes_seo_software_to_the_next_level.html

I have way too many passwords to manage

2010-05-06T08:28:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - About a month ago I finally came to the realization that I have way too many passwords to manage. I have passwords for work (control panels, servers, mysql, social sites), passwords for home (web mail, shopping sites), passwords for this and passwords for that. What I didn’t have was a good way to manage all these passwords.

Some sort of password management software seemed to be in order. My requirements were pretty simple:

It had to run on a windows PC (Mac/Linux/PDA would be a bonus).
It had to generate strong passwords.
It had to auto-fill log in forms.
Free is best, but I’d settle for inexpensive.
After a bit of searching I came across KeePass www.keepaeingoldss.info . KeePass is pretty straight forward. It creates an encrypted database with AES and you can access all the id’s/passwords in that database by simply supplying a single (hopefully strong) password. The way that I have things setup KeyPass starts when my machine boots and I enter the password to unlock the KeyPass database. After that, all the magic begins.

Getting things going with KeyPass is pretty straight forward. It uses a basic tree structure of groups and sub-groups. You don’t have to setup any groups (there is a general group by default) but it’s probably a good idea to set some up to help keep things organized.

Organization is nice but I’d really like to use the passwords stored in Keepass. KeePass has a wonderful auto-fill in facility. By default you would use Ctl+Alt+A to Auto-fill. If you don’t like that sequence you can change it by selecting Settings, Advanced tab and then “Auto-type” (it’s near the bottom). You can also customize what KeePass will auto-type. By default it’s “{USERNAME}{TAB}{PASSWORD}{ENTER}” but you can customize that also. A really nice feature is that you can customize the auto-type on a per entry basis. Simply add the appropriate text to any entries “Notes” field and it will use that instead of the default (for example Amazon needs two tabs between the username and password so that ends up being “{USERNAME}{TAB}{TAB}{PASSWORD}{ENTER}“).

KeyPass isn’t perfect at guessing which site your on (and therefore which password to use). There are a couple of ways to fix this. Because I primarily use FireFox, the fix was to install a FireFox plugin (Hostname in title Bar be exact). If your not a FireFox user then check out the KeyPass Plugins page. There are many options there that extend KeyPass past it’s out-of-box setup.

If for some reason you can’t use the auto-type feature your not totally out of luck (it just requires a couple of extra keystrokes). You’ll just have to open the entry you need in KeyPass. By default KeePass masks the passwords with asterisk’s but you can simply click the button to the right of the password (the icon is 3 blue dots) and the password will display in clear text.

KeePass also had a couple of “bonus” feature (at least for me). First, you can run KeePass directly from a USB key. This is a perfect solution for me as I tend to work on several different machines and I don’t want to deal with synchronizing the database. The USB version runs directly from the USB key and leaves no footprint on the PC you were using. Secondly there is a BlackBerry version. I have not had a chance to test the Blackberry version but that’s next on my (very long) to-do list.

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

WebHostingClue.com Announces the Best Web Hosting in 2010

2010-05-06T08:23:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - The leading Web Hosting Review Directory, WebHostingClue.com, today announced the final list for their annual best web hosting award. These awards honor the top players in the industry who have consistently provided reliable affordable web hosting solution to their customers with courteous and professional support.

In this year, with increasing attention to environmental responsibility of a company, the review board of the company decide to rate higher for green hosting company if they can provide the close level product and service as what from non-green web hosts. At the same time, they also want to award the web host who would like to allow their customer to request money back at any time instead of just 30-90 days trial period.

“We are proud to honor the web hosting heroes who provide the rich features to their customer and keep systems running stably with professional support. In this year, we also consider their social responsibility together with their product and service. We would like to see more green hosting company in the industry.” said by Sean.Ray, president and CEO of WebHostingClue.com.

The finalists in their respective best web hosting categories are:
1. Best Small Business Hosting - HostGator.com
2. Best Blog Hosting - Bluehost.com
3. Best Drupal Hosting - ANHosting.Com
4. Best Joomla Hosting - HostGator.com
5. Best Cheap Hosting - iPage.com
6. Best VPS Hosting - LiquidWeb.Com
7. Best Managed Server Hosting - HostGator.com
8. Any more...

http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/webhostingclue_com_announces_the_best_web_hosting_in_2010.html

Bull Expands Colocation Footprint with Interxion

2010-05-06T08:23:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Bull, one of Europe's leading IT players, has expanded its equipment housing requirements with Interxion, a leading European provider of carrier-neutral colocation data centres.

Interxion Netherlands currently houses IT equipment for several Bull clients, including DetailResult Services, the shared service centre for retail group Dekamarkt and the “Dirk van den Broek companies”. Bull manages and maintains the IT infrastructure, monitoring it remotely with round-the-clock secure access whenever required. The agreement for additional equipped space includes an option to expand into a second Interxion data centre, ensuring that Bull and its customers can continue their expansion in the coming years, while maintaining consistently high levels of service and availability.

“The outsourcing of infrastructure management is, for many companies, a major move,” said Jeroen Lulof, Sales Manager at Bull Holland. “For these companies IT is of great importance, and they put this critical component in our hands. This means we need trustworthy partners like Interxion – partners that can offer the right levels of service and reliability to us and our clients.”

“We are delighted to expand our relationship with Bull,” said Michel van den Assem, Interxion Netherlands Managing Director. “The extra data centre space will offer 2N UPS power and N+1 cooling, as well as advanced alarm and monitoring systems, supported by the latest high-density power configurations. In addition, in line with Bull’s strong environmental credentials, all power will be generated from renewable energy sources such as wind, biomass, or hydro.” http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/bull_expands_colocation_footprint_with_interxion.html

Wix Publishes New Video Player Widget and Improved Linking Mechanism

2010-05-05T08:51:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Internet users are able to use Wix's no-fuss Flash website builder to customize free web templates, or to build websites entirely from scratch. With an impressively designed GUI interface, Wix allows users to change or add design elements through a drag-and-drop process. This week, Wix.com has released the latest version of its web editor, which was designed to optimize the editing experience when creating a free Flash website. Highlights of this latest version include the ability to create video playlists, and an improved link-building interface.

The new video playlist component will allow Wix users to add multiple videos to their website, which can be browsed in the same player window. This feature will significantly reduce the loading time of Flash websites that include multiple video files. The video playlists will function similarly to music playlists. Both items are found in the Widgets section of Wix's free website maker, under Players. Videos can be uploaded directly from YouTube, 5Min and Metacafe through the video player widget. Adding new videos, rearranging their order and assigning titles is as simple as clicking on the player, and following the clear and minimalized prompts. Menus can easily be added to one's video playlist, creating a stream-lined viewing experience. The playlist menus can be dragged anywhere, and are fully customizable. Users can also customize the playlists themselves with new video skins, and colors.

Another much-anticipated feature included in this latest version, is an improved linking infrastructure. Previously, links were assigned to Wix items through the "Behavior" section of an item's property panel, located at the bottom of the website builder. Wix's latest version makes link assignment much simpler. Clicking on any item with linking abilities – buttons, clip art, shapes, pictures or text - prompts a link icon to appear at in the property panel. From this new and conveniently located "Link" icon, users can direct items within the builder to external URLs, other pages within the user's Wix site, or e-mail addresses.

The CEO of Wix, Avishai Abrahami, comments on the latest in Wix product development: "What makes Wix such a favorite among the website building community, is its devotion to user needs. The improved link mechanism was something we knew our users wanted, and we worked hard to make it easier to access and manage. The video playlist feature reflects the enthusiasm of today's 'YouTube Generation'. Online videos are emerging as powerful marketing tools, and Wix is making it as easy as possible for our users to take full advantage of this trend. We have a very loving relationship with our users, and it is this relationship that makes Wix a highly competitive player in the market of free website design tools."

Wix.com was founded in 2006, and has offices in New York and Tel Aviv. The company is funded by Mangrove Capital Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Benchmark Capital.

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

How to Best Use SQL Server Dynamic Management Views

2010-05-05T08:49:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Idera announced a new webcast titled “Top 10 Most Useful SQL Server Dynamic Management Views (DMVs).” The event takes place Wednesday, May 12, 2010 at 3 p.m. CT, and is hosted by Greg Robidoux, president and founder of Edgewood Solutions, a technology services company delivering services and solutions for Microsoft SQL Server. Robidoux has worked with SQL Server for the past 11 years, authoring numerous articles and speaking at local and national SQL Server events.

With the release of SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008, Microsoft exposed valuable new data elements for SQL Server management which can be accessed via DMVs and Dynamic Management Functions (DMFs). In this webcast we will look at some of the most commonly used DMVs and DMFs and how they can be best put to use in your SQL Server environment.

“We are committed to helping make the jobs of SQL DBAs and developers easier through our products and also the educational content in our webcasts,” said Rick Pleczko, President and CEO of Idera. “Greg Robidoux will help expand attendees’ SQL Server management capabilities by showing what is possible through DMVs.”

For more information or to register for “Top 10 Most Useful SQL Server DMVs,” please visit http://www.idera.com/Events/

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

EPORIA Helps Merchants Compare eCommerce Solutions

2010-05-05T08:47:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - EPORIA eCommerce (eporiaecommerce.com) is a conversion-focused eCommerce provider that helps online merchants take their web presence to the next level. EPORIA announced today the release of a free whitepaper that discloses the methodology to identify eCommerce providers that will bring the most significant value for the company's unique needs - whether or not it's EPORIA.

This whitepaper lays out a 5 step methodology to guide the eCommerce Solution shopping process and to quantify the value of potential solutions.

The goal of this paper is to demystify the experience for every eCommerce solution shopper and enable every business to hone in on the type of solution that will best suit their particular requirements.

The EPORIA staff speaks with many companies who are in the process of shopping for their next eCommerce solution. Recently, as the economy has become more tenuous, a pattern has emerged in the messages from online merchants.

According to EPORIA CEO Doug Adams, there are two overwhelming points that dominate conversations. The first is that it is difficult to distinguish one solution from another and to identify which would be the best fit for their business. “Every provider presents their solution differently,” Adams explains. “eCommerce shoppers become lost in all the features of the solutions. They just want to find a way to compare the contenders, apples to apples.”

The second common message, says Adams, is the fear of regret. The majority of the merchants to whom EPORIA speaks already has an eCommerce website, but seeks a change of provider. This is indicative of a common problem: disappointment in the performance of the website or its ease of management. Many invested in their current system because it promised easy SEO for massive organic traffic, simplified management or increased sales.

“They tell us they’ve been burned,” Adams says. “They don’t want to make the same mistake again but they just don’t know how to be sure they’re making a wise investment this time.”

This new whitepaper takes the pain out of the eCommerce solution comparison shopping process by covering the various sources of value a solution might bring, beyond initial price or sales goals. Rather than touting the prowess of any offering over another, it guides merchants through their own internal preparation, research, and decision making stages.

“We want online merchants to find the eCommerce solution that is the best fit for their business,” Adams states, “whether that solution is EPORIA or not.” In these tight times, EPORIA has set out to do something positive for the tech shopping community at large. This unusual act was spawned by the current financial climate and increasing complexity of eCommerce offerings available now. EPORIA took the initiative to help, by offering this blueprint for the eCommerce solution shopping process.

The five-steps presented in the whitepaper guide eCommerce buyers in selecting their ideal provider. By following these steps, companies are empowered to identify the solutions that will best meet their needs and deliver the highest return on investment for them. In the process, they will likely gain a much deeper understanding of what they truly need in a solution, and how to set their expectations for ROI.

According to Adams, “the right eCommerce provider will help grow the business. No matter what state the economy is in, every company should find significant, quantifiable value in this type of investment.”

Download the free whitepaper, titled “Quantifying the Value of eCommerce Solutions for Your Greatest Return on Investment” from www.eporiaecommerce.com.

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

SEO Company Offers Free Websites

2010-05-05T08:45:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - The tough economy has put a strain on many marketing budgets in the Atlanta metro area. We all know that the economy will not truly begin to recover until there is a recovery in job creation. This in turn relies on a solid small to medium size business recovery. Vayu Media the Atlanta SEO Company may be the answer to a lot of Atlanta metro businesses that are trying to maximize the use of their budgets. The company is working with businesses that want to get their business growing again by offering free website face lifts or full re-design when the business chooses to use Vayu Media’s seo services. This truly creates a win/win situation to the cash strapped businesses that can avoid investments of $5,000-$15,000 in web design and focus on spending their budget on internet marketing campaigns that will grow their revenue again.

“We are challenging the status quo every day. Our goal has always been to be a partner and not just another vendor to our clients. The only way we know how to do this is to put ourselves into their shoes and challenge ourselves to find the best solutions for our clients. This program will help many businesses start growing again in this still challenging business environment,” explained Jennifer Dunphy Vayu Media’s VP of Sales & Marketing.

If you are a business that is interested in Vayu Media’s internet marketing solutions and would like to take advantage of this promotion please contact Jennifer Dunphy: jdunphy (at) vayumedia(dot)com, (404) 547-0949.

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

NaviSite Joins SIIA to Advance Managed Cloud Services

2010-05-04T14:55:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - NaviSite, Inc., today announced it has joined the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) to help foster the continued growth of software-as-a-service (SaaS) and to advance successful software transition from on-premise to cloud deployments. SIIA is the recognized software industry authority and is known for offering members an opportunity to collaborate and partner with leading technology partners to help ISVs develop a growing and prosperous business. NaviSite’s active membership in this organization will help educate ISVs on SaaS and emerging cloud deployment models.

“ISVs face many challenges in their transition to going-to-market with software as a service. NaviSite has dozens of customers who have worked with us to optimize their software architecture, code base, security models, billing and metering methods and more. NaviSite’s team is focused on ensuring our customer’s success; alongside the technical SaaS enablement services we provide assistance with go-to-market strategies, SLA and software license modifications and other business related challenges that many new SaaS providers face.” said Sumeet Sabharwal, SVP Strategic Alliances and SaaS Channel, NaviSite. “Our recent public launch of our application-focused enterprise class Managed Cloud Services offerings are exactly what SaaS providers need that sell their solutions to enterprises. We are confident that that our infrastructure and data center will pass and exceed any type of due-diligence or audits.”

“SIIA and our Software Division are incredibly valuable resources because our members are active. Our success in helping our members make the transition to SaaS and the cloud is most apparent in the breadth of companies that step up to lead the way,” noted Ken Wasch, SIIA President. “Having NaviSite onboard is a big win for our members, especially software companies in the financial, health care, retail verticals because they require an enterprise-class, regulatory compliant suite of managed cloud services like the offerings from NaviSite."

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

Account Management for Profit and Retention

2010-05-04T08:45:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Hosting companies, from goliath’s like The Planet down to one-person value added resellers take note: viewing support issues and account management for your clients as a ‘chore’ or an expense isn’t just a disservice to your clients – it means you’re leaving money on the table. Every web host deals with support tickets, for a variety of reasons: client questions, upgrades, and even a complaint or two on occasion. It is how your team approaches these issues that determine whether or not your interaction with your clients is an asset or a liability to your growing enterprise.

Even if you are a one person reseller company, you need to have access to the tools of the trade: support suites like Cerebrus and Kayako allow you to maintain an organized process for handling support queries. Let’s take this one step further however; using one of the aforementioned applications also allows you to track the support history for each client and even better, track metrics that help you to gauge the performance of your support team’s response.

From a sales perspective, the (hopefully) intimate interaction that you or your staff have with your clients when providing support is a very good vehicle, not only for sales but for fine tuning your product mix as well. If your sales efforts are not inextricably intertwined with your support system now, take note: your competitors are managing sales efforts with their own client bases this way and are increasing their competitive advantage as a result.

Let’s take an example. Say your client, John Doe, setup an account with your company eight months ago. His billing, at the time, was $50 monthly for a shared hosting account. Over the course of the preceding months, he has submitted 10 support tickets for the addition of mail accounts as well as assistance with dealing with SPAM on several occasions. Most recently, John submitted three tickets within the span of 48 hours regarding SPAM related issues and has threatened to cancel his hosting service to boot. For some hosts, gut instinct would be to perhaps issue an apology and offer some sort of compensation in the hopes of retaining John’s business. Not yours however; instead, by trolling through your support system, you find several other clients with the same issue and offer them the value added service of SPAM protection for a nominal monthly fee. BAM! You’ve not only avoided a flat out reduction in the value of your client to your business and the immediate risk of losing his business altogether, but you’ve also increased revenues and increased your value to the client – this increasing the longevity of the relationship.

Exposing your sales force to the daily support requirements of your clients provides the opportunity to provide relevant and timely solutions; what’s more, it opens up a valuable line of communication with your sales team, allowing them to see what is working, what is not from a product mix point of view. The net result of this approach is two fold: increasing your value to the customer and increasing the customer’s value to you. As with life, approaching client support as an exciting opportunity, rather than as a chore to deal will always yield better results.

Writer's Bio: Josh Ewin is VP of Sales & Marketing at DedicatedNOW, a Managed Dedicated Server Provider in New Jersey.

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

Interxion Announces Confidential Submission of Draft Registration

2010-05-04T08:44:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Interxion has announced that it has submitted a draft registration statement on Form F-1 on a confidential basis to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a possible initial public offering of ordinary shares.

The offering is expected to be completed in the second half of 2010, pending regulatory approval and as capital markets conditions permit. The number of shares proposed to be offered and sold and the amount proposed to be raised in the offering have not yet been determined.

This announcement shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities. This announcement is being issued pursuant to and in accordance with Rule 135 under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. http://www.gawkwire.com/business/interxion_announces_confidential_submission_of_draft_registratio.html

Attenda Re-Certified as SAP Hosting Partner

2010-05-04T08:42:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Attenda Limited recently announced it has been re-certified by SAP as an SAP® hosting partner at Advanced level. As a certified SAP hosting partner, this re-accreditation confirms that Attenda fulfils all of the technical audit requirements, together with its business model that meets SAP’s stringent quality parameters, ensuring that its hosted solutions are operated effectively.

With proven expertise in the operational delivery and management of SAP environments, Attenda is delivering a scalable and efficient infrastructure managed services capability across the entire SAP landscape, in response to the growing demand for selective outsourcing and cloud computing services.

Commenting on the latest re-certification, Neil Crew, IT Director at Princes Limited says, “Attenda’s SAP certification recognises the depth and breadth of their SAP systems technical and operational expertise, and processes, adding confidence in our choice in Attenda as our SAP managed service provider. Our partnership with Attenda is helping us to support business growth, by accelerating the pace of development of our SAP solutions and enabling our business to be more agile and responsive to business change.”

The SAP Hosting Partner re-accreditation affirms Attenda’s continued investment in the delivery of highly available and secure SAP managed services, with 24 x 7 operational support for its clients.
“We have secured a growing number of new client wins, and continue to grow the number of SAP partners that embed Attenda within their own propositions, which places us in a strong position to continue to penetrate the mid market with highly differentiated SAP service offerings,” says Simon Hansford, VP Service Strategy & Marketing, Attenda.
Attenda’s SAP services extend from complete SAP managed services, to Cloud SAP subscription services and a range of additional SAP enterprise application services with its SAP partners, including fully hosted SAP Data Archiving, Enterprise Document Management Solutions and Business Intelligence Services.

"Attenda are a key partner for SAP Value Added Resellers who are at the forefront of the exciting new subscription and "Cloud" based hosted solutions from SAP. Chelford Solutions and G3 Global are two examples of partners who have been successful recently in the UK under the Business All-in-One Fast-Start programme” said Robert Furnivall, Director of Channels, SAP UKI.

“Attenda’s SAP recertification reinforces their position as the UK’s leading SAP Hosting provider, further strengthening our business partnership, providing the opportunity to jointly deliver best of breed FastStart SAP subscription services to the mid-market.” says Justin Brading, Managing Director, Chelford SAP Solutions. http://www.gawkwire.com/web_hosting/attenda_re-certified_as_sap_hosting_partner.html

Top Hosting Center Unleashes Cloud cPanel Shared Hosting

2010-05-04T08:41:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Top Hosting Center today unleashed Cloud CPanel Shared Hosting, a cloud hosting plan aimed for web enthusiasts, bloggers, and online marketers, which features the industry-tested CPanel control panel solution to manage cloud hosting.

“This is especially exciting news for people who are looking for cloud hosting plans that use CPanel,” said Eric Vanier, the CEO of Top Hosting Center. “CPanel offers the fastest and most reliable way to manage web hosting. When you couple that with any of our affordable plans, you’ll get the best of both worlds: easy web management and fast cloud hosting.”
CPanel has been well known in the web hosting industry to offer a friendlier graphical user interface and automation tools to simply the process of hosting a website.

Top Hosting Center’s Cloud CPanel Shared Hosting will include rich CPanel add-ons such as Fantastico, where owners can install popular web applications such as WordPress, SMF, phpBB, and many more, in just few clicks. Its front end also offers easy access to most common hosting operations such as setting up mails, FTP accounts, mailing lists, and crontab tasks.

In addition to the new control panel, Top Hosting Center Cloud CPanel Shared takes pride of its outstanding cloud hosting performance. New customers who will sign up for Cloud CPanel Shared will benefit the free R1Soft Data Protection which is bundled to every cloud hosting plan, free website transfer and installation, 24x7 expert cloud hosting support, free domain registration or domain transfer, among others.

Cloud CPanel Shared Hosting is the newest addition to Top Hosting Center’s rich array of cloud hosting products, which were initially launched last February. Top Hosting Center has been traditionally using and continues to offer H-Sphere control panel for its web hosting plans, but the company has recognized that some people prefer the familiarity of CPanel.

“Our customers’ consistent demand to have an easier way to manage their cloud hosting convinced us to offer CPanel,” said Vanier. “And today we’re glad to announce that their requests have been heard.”

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

Surpass Hosting Announces May as ‘Super Mom Month’

2010-05-04T08:39:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Surpass Hosting announced its first-ever tribune to mothers worldwide, naming the month of May ‘Super Mom Month’ and offering a slew of special offers for moms.

The Super Mom Month promotion enables individuals to sign-up with Surpass Hosting to create a new blog about being a mom (or to transfer an existing blog about being a mom to Surpass Hosting) to receive 99 percent off their first month of hosting. Existing Surpass Hosting customers who refer Super Moms to Surpass will also receive a free, 1-month hosting credit as a thank-you.

“May is Super Mom Month – it’s the time each year we can honor and appreciate mothers, for all they do, seen and unseen. We want to reach out to new customers in a fun and exciting way, while still honoring all of our moms. I hope we can start a tradition at Surpass Hosting,” said Kayla Selans, vice president of sales, Surpass Hosting.

The Super Mom Month promotion applies to all shared hosting and reseller hosting plans in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

To learn more about Surpass Hosting, please visit http://www.surpasshosting.com.

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

SoftLayer Expands Network Footprint

2010-05-04T08:37:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - SoftLayer Technologies®, the innovative on-demand data center services provider, has significantly expanded its network through the addition of seven network Points of Presence (PoPs) across the U.S. The extensive buildout is strategically designed to:

 Greatly improve end user experience
 Provide direct or shorter connections for lower latency
 Set a new industry standard in enterprise-grade DNS services
 Increase control over network challenges including suboptimal routing and DDOS attacks
 Lower the company’s cost of network operations into the future

“This may be the most important investment we have made to date. It’s expensive up front, but the future advantages it will bring to our customers and our market position are more than worth it,” said Lance Crosby, SoftLayer Chief Executive Officer. “End user experience has become the ultimate measure of everything we do. Throughout the industry, customers have stopped asking ‘How can we make this work?’ and started asking ‘How can it work faster?’ This is how.”

SoftLayer’s network PoPs now include its three geographically diverse data centers and seven additional cities:

 Atlanta, GA
 Chicago, IL
 Dallas, TX
 Denver, CO
 Los Angeles, CA
 Miami, FL
 New York City, NY
 San Jose, CA
 Seattle, WA
 Washington, D.C

All 10 sites feature the same network service capabilities such as VPN, DNS, and more.

“As infrastructure, platform, and software as a service (IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS) become more and more the norm, we know it’s important for our customers to shorten the distance and quicken the path between their end users and the server. That’s what these PoPs are doing,” said Nathan Day, SoftLayer Chief Technology Officer. “And DNS issues are the top reason for website outages. We want to take that headache off the table forever. DNS should just simply work—it should be an afterthought for our customers.”

SoftLayer has also more than doubled its total network capacity from approximately 300Gbps to more than 1,000Gbps (including public and private ports). The company has even more growth planned for the coming months, including a new corporate headquarters and data center scheduled to open in July, and a pending announcement of its first data center outside North America.

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

EvoSwitch's Amsterdam Data Center to Double in Size

2010-05-03T08:30:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) – EvoSwitch (www.evoswitch.com), located in Amsterdam and recognized as one of the most energy-efficient data centers in the world by the German Ministry of Environmental Affairs, has announced today it will double in size to meet the rapidly rising customer demand for space in the carrier-independent and carbon-neutral data center.

The current 4,200 square meters (45,000 sq. ft.) floor area will be expanded by 5,000 square meters (55,000 sq. ft) of operational floor space, as part of the third phase of its development. Current and future customers will have extensive possibilities for outsourcing their communications and information infrastructures in the highly secure, energy-efficient EvoSwitch data center.

Energy-efficient Data Center: PUE of 1.2
Completion of the 3rd development stage will significantly increase energy savings in the already hyper energy-efficient data center. According to Eric Boonstra, Managing Director of EvoSwitch: “The additional energy savings are the direct result of the deployment of new technologies and the highly innovative configuration of our systems. This will allow us to use Free Cooling, i.e. cooling by using the outdoor temperature, 365 days per year and to keep the energy-wasting compressor completely shut off all year long. The additional growth in customers will also have a positive impact on our energy savings.”

The 3rd stage addition is scheduled to be operational in the third quarter of 2010. The additional 5,000 square meters will accommodate 800 data center racks for companies, governments and non-profit customers to securely house their information and communications infrastructures. The new 19-inch racks will be installed in 25 corridors, utilizing the most advanced Aisle Containment technology. Boonstra noted: “Efficiently managing air flows to minimize energy usage, has substantially lowered our cooling expenses, resulting in substantial savings to EvoSwitch customers. It is a win-win situation for customers and the environment.”

The EvoSwitch data center environment accommodates the infrastructures of many well-known companies, including Wikipedia, Royal Joh. Enschedé, Logica and videogame maker Codemasters. The 3rd development stage will offer current and future customers a wide range of possibilities for expansion in a highly energy-efficient data center environment. A report by the German Federal Ministry of Environmental Affairs recently describes EvoSwitch as one of the eleven most energy-efficient data centers in the world.

EvoSwitch currently has a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) rate of 1.5. Once the third stage has been completed and begin to utilize the new space, calculations indicate a further decrease of the PUE rate to 1.2. Mr. Boonstra: “This is extremely energy-efficient. Traditional data centers have a PUE of 2.0 or more. Thus, after the expansion, EvoSwitch will be using at least 80% less power than a traditional data center.”

Power usage effectiveness (PUE) is a metric used to determine the energy efficiency of a data center. PUE is determined by dividing the amount of power entering a data center by the power used to run the computer infrastructure within it. PUE is therefore expressed as a ratio, with overall efficiency improving as the quotient decreases toward 1. PUE was created by members of the Green Grid, an industry group focused on data center energy efficiency of which EvoSwitch is an early member.

Modular Data Center Structure
The 3rd stage development will be completed quickly due to a revolutionary data center development technique utilizing a modular approach developed by supplier DataXenter (www.dataxenter.com). This method will be used to install various modular data center boxes, each of which will be locally equipped with two 160 kW Uninterruptable Power Supplies (UPS). The 3rd stage will incorporate, as a standard feature, a 2N emergency power supply in each data center box in order to provide customers with the maximum technical assurance possible against power interruption.

EvoSwitch currently uses four 2.5 MVA transformers. Two more transformers will be added during the 3rd stage. Another four emergency power supplies of 1.5 MVA each will be added to the existing ten power supplies.

Additional private suites will be installed during the third stage as well. These are basically miniature versions of a data center, each with fully independent, closed facilities within the secure environment of EvoSwitch for customers requiring the ultimate in control and security for mission critical installations.

Investing in Green Technologies
Mr. Boonstra: “We are already investigating possibilities for further expansion of the EvoSwitch data center to 16,000 square meters (172,000 sq. ft.). I also expect that we will soon be opening new data centers in other locations around the world to meet the global needs of our customers. Many of our customers are looking for the superior qualities of EvoSwitch to meet their worldwide communications and information requirements.”

“Energy efficiency is becoming increasingly important to data center customers,” says Mr. Boonstra. “The reduction in power consumption will minimize the environmental impact of their information and communications infrastructures. Energy rates and therefore the costs of hosting infrastructures will continue to increase. Investing in green technologies is just common sense. It keeps our own energy bill, and our customers’ energy bills affordable.”

EvoSwitch uses its energy savings to pay for investments in green technologies. Mr. Boonstra: “A green data center simply costs more to build than a traditional data center. These energy savings will eliminate the need to pass these extra investment costs on to our customers. This also applies to the renewable energy that we use, and to the EvoSwitch investments in CO2 compensation through our collaboration with the Climate Neutral Group.”

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

Fpweb.net Introduces Hosted SharePoint 2010

2010-05-03T08:28:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Fpweb.net has recently announced the launch of hosted SharePoint 2010. SharePoint 2010 hosting is now available for purchase on their website, weeks before Microsoft’s official May 12th release.

Fpweb.net has over ten years of SharePoint hosting experience and hosts more than l,000,000 users in 80 countries.Recently, Microsoft reached out to Fpweb.net, seeking help in conducting research on their massive SharePoint 2010 offering. Engineers at Fpweb.net spent over 6 months learning SharePoint 2010’s inner workings, even pointing out bugs to experts in Microsoft’s camp.

“My team worked relentlessly on SharePoint 2010 and the day we’ve been anxiously anticipating is finally here,” stated CEO of Fpweb.net, Rob LaMear IV. “This is Microsoft’s biggest release of SharePoint to date and we’re so honored to be first in the world to host it. Many thanks go out to the SharePoint community and to our great customers for helping us get to where we are today.”

Fpweb.net was the first in the world to host SharePoint in 1999. Now, over a decade later, they have several key differentiators that separate their SharePoint 2010 hosting plans from the competition. Fpweb.net offers full server control, Active Directory integration and application level support, features that are not included in offerings from competitors like Microsoft’s SharePoint Online. Hosted SharePoint 2010 from Fpweb.net comes in two flavors; SharePoint 2010 Foundation and SharePoint 2010 Server, with 2010 Foundation plans starting at $49 per month and 2010 Server plans starting at $995 per month.

With more than 1,000,000 users in 80 countries, Fpweb.net is the SharePoint hosting industry leader with over a decade of pure SharePoint experience. Widely known as the SharePoint Hosting Pioneer™, Fpweb.net has an excellent reputation of having the most industry knowledge regarding anything SharePoint. Their unique SharePoint Cloud solutions boast a SuperFast™ network and SAS70 data centers in addition to offering complete server control and add-on SharePoint applications. Trusted by the best, including the US Air Force, DOW Chemical and the American Red Cross, this premiere SharePoint hosting company can cut your I.T. costs by 60% and deploy in just days.

For more information on hosted SharePoint 2010, visit www.fpweb.net or call 866.780.4678.

http://www.gawkwire.com/technology/3504.html

Server Intellect Wins With Service

2010-05-03T08:26:00-04:00

(Gawkwire.com) - Server Intellect, a leader in cloud services, managed dedicated servers, and the global hosting market, was awarded the distinction of Best Dedicated Server Provider of 2009 by HostReview. The HostReview Annual Web Hosting Awards, started in 2006, is one of the most prestigious hosting awards of its kind.

“To celebrate, Server Intellect will give one month of free service to all customers who sign up for a dedicated server during the first two weeks of May 2010! The entire team at Server Intellect is honored to be recognized as one of the Top Dedicated Server providers from hostreview.com,” said Eric Pratt, President and CEO of Server Intellect. “This award further highlights our dedication and commitment to providing outstanding products and services at Server Intellect.”

Server Intellect offers a wide variety of Managed Dedicated Servers and Windows Cloud Hosting Solutions, coupled with unparalleled Customer Support. This latest achievement for Server Intellect, a company that is recognized in the web hosting industry as the pinnacle of quality, service and value, demonstrates their commitment to providing the best hosting experience to its customers all over the world.

“The Best Dedicated Server Package awards showcase those companies that offer outstanding performance and value for dedicated servers. Included in the reviewing process are the prices, service, technology, reliability and overall performance of the hosting company. We are proud to present the Best of 2009 Awards winners who are some of the world's most innovative web hosting companies and have proven to be the leaders with an outstanding contribution to the industry.” – HostReview.com, about the award.

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