Hello there! Here we’re again to provide you with the transparency of our Uptime record in November 2008. As we did in October, our availability was averagely 99.99% as guaranteed. And now, let’s evaluate our uptime in November to keep track on it.

November 2008 Availability Chart

from the record in November, the uptime was tracked in several different services including FTP, HTTP, Email, and MySQL service as done in the previous month.

From the FTP service, we reached 99.99% of uptime and had 0.010% critical time record (downtime) tracked. The downtime recorded was resulted from the regular maintenance scheduled to improve all of our servers.

For the http service (website uptime), availability reached 99.989 out of 100%. There was 0.011% of service outage when there was regular maintenance to improve server performance.

Email service including POP, SMTP, and IMAP reached 99.99% in average for November, with only 0.001% unavailability recorded for regular maintenance.

And our database service even reached 99.992% uptime recorded and just had 0.008 unavailability tracked in the servers averagely from the scheduled maintenance.

Averagely in November, from all services in all servers, the availability of Host Department servers reached 99.989% out of 100%, which is rounded off to 99.99%.

It has been shown that so far, Host Department still meets their uptime guarantee. Well anyway, see you guys next month

~Gabrielle~

Hello everyone! Over these years, Host Department has proven to provide the
best web hosting service for all of you with rock solid network and outstanding
service. We are now here for you to show the transparency of our Uptime Fact.
Average Uptime Record October 2008




Service
% Time OK
% Time Critical


FTP
99.994%
0.006%


HTTP
99.996%
0.004%


MySQL
99.996%
0.004%


SMTP
99.999%
0.001%


POP
100.000%
0.000%


IMAP
100.000%
0.000%




As pictured in the table, in October, Host Department averagely reached
99.994% out of 100% uptime for FTP service. There was only 0.006% critical
time when there was scheduled maintenance and data center migration.

On the other hand, the http service reached out of 99.996% availability and was in
0.004 % critical time in October for the website service. It was because we have scheduled
maintenance resulting in the service outage. 

For email services including SMTP, POP, and IMAP, we were available for 99.999% in average
in October, interpreting that we were passing over our uptime guarantee. 0.001% critical time
was for the regular maintenance.

Our database availabilty, MySQL, reached 99.996% averagely in October with 0.004% critical time
when there was scheduled maintenance and server migration.  

The Point from the Uptime Record
These uptime record is provided for all of our readers so that you can evaluate
 on how we rock on our uptime and we can keep improving our service now and then.
We will continuously update this record in each month in our blog at
http://www.hostdepartment.com/blog

Many have questioned about the importance of a dedicated IP for a website and why if they just use a shared IP. If you are one of them, let me help you make this clearer as “crystal”. Nevertheless, before we move on, shall we begin with the definition first?

Dedicated IP address (also called static IP) means that a website has its own IP address. So this works that either you type in your URL or the IP address number, both will take you to the same domain.

On the other hand, shared IP address means the same IP is shared for multiple websites.  Then, the web servers  will determine which website is being requested by the domain entered in the user’s browser. And if you just type in the IP address, it will bring you only to some kind of generic page instead of the specific site you are requesting.

So What’s the Importance of a Dedicated IP?

Having a dedicated IP is strongly significant, especially, when you have an e-commerce website and have to accept Credit Card payment online that seems too risky if you haven’t ensured the safety. To make it secured, you need to have your own private SSL certificate as a secure e-commerce website must have an SSL certificate to accept credit cards online. And to have private SSL certificate, a dedicated IP is needed. Since you surely do not wish to experience any Credit Card fraud, you will definitely need a dedicated IP.

Another reason to use a dedicated IP is that it is required when you’d like to use anonymous FTP. With anonymous FTP, anyone who uses the FTP software can access files in a special directory of your site. It’s called Anonymous FTP because the user’s name who tries to access remains “anonymous.” Many Web hosting providers require a static IP (dedicated IP) so that the anonymous FTP can function to work properly.

Additionally, what’s better is when your website is inaccessible and you want to access it through FTP or Web browser, you can still do it if you have a dedicated IP even when there is something like domain name propagation periods. You have no need to worry such thing when you use a dedicated IP.

Is There Anything Wrong with Shared IP?

Well actually, there is nothing wrong with shared IP. However, under certain circumstances, using a dedicated IP helps you a little bit more than using a shared IP. For example, when your website shares the same IP address with known spam or adult sites, it may raise a warning flag in search engines. Consequently, some of them may respond by banning the entire IP address from their index.

Of couse, nowadays, search engines are already able to ban anything based on a domain name instead of based on the IP address itself. However, I am sure it is much better that you prepare for precaution by using a dedicated IP for your website. Especially, when your website is a very profitable e-commerce site, which your life and business depend so much on it.

How to Get Dedicated IP?

Most hosts nowadays usually offer dedicated IPs at $2 per dedicated IP to their clients. However, I am gladly telling you that there are hosting companies that already provide free dedicated IPs to their clients. And if you want to save more but get more, I strongly recommend you to get the free ones.

Why do you need to pay for dedicated IPs when you can get them for free?

~Gabrielle Capstick~

Who doesn’t know H-SPHERE? It was released in 1998 by Positive Software, previously owned by Comodo and the ownership has now moved to Parallel since 2007. H-SPHERE represents all the capabilities a Control Panel can do. Many recognize it as the most complete Control Panel of all.

Multi-Server Hosting automation solution

Not all Control Panels support multi server hosting automation in them. However, H-SPHERE doesn’t work the same way. With H-SPHERE, you can have multi server hosting covering both Linux/Unix and Windows platform. When you already support Linux/Unix platform, you have no need to purchase another Control Panel to support Windows. H-SPHERE provides it for you. Additionally, it is also applicable with multiple database servers too, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, MS SQL, ODBC. This will be a perfect solution for you.

Has-Everything-Built-In Control Panel

Another benefit for using H-SPHERE is that you don’t have to bother about using add-ons to complete the features in the Control Panel. H-SPHERE has all the necessary tools built in it - billing system with around 20 payment gateways supported, integrated support center, integrated PHP/MySQL applications, electronic mail system with anti virus plus anti spam filter, and integrated WebMail – covering all you require only with one Control Panel. Forget all the add-ons you may have to add with others.

Multi Language Control Panel (Inbuilt or Integrated)

Originally, H-SPHERE has already built many languages in it - English, Russian, Italian, French, Spanish, Dutch, German, Portuguese(Brazil). You can use which one that suits your mother tongue and you are comfortable with. However, if your desired language is not any of them, you can integrate the one you want in H-SPHERE.

Secure and Reliable Control Panel

You can also define H-SPHERE as a rock solid control panel if you have installed and configured everything properly. If you seem to find it complicated, there is a good server side documentation onsite to assist you . Using H-SPHERE, you will not find bugs in it compared to other Control Panels. It is very stable or more than stable if I may say.

Overall, H-Sphere has proved to perform as the best and the most complete hosting automation. It is not just another control panel. With H-SPHERE, you have the power to do all you can dream of in a single Control Panel.

~Gabrielle~

Yippie!!! Halloween’s around the corner! Get ready for the spooky Halloween, which is believed as the time when the boundaries between the worlds of the living and dead overlapped and the deceased would come back to life and cause some chaos like failed harvest or illnesses. You can celebrate this wonderful occassion with its famous activity, the trick or treat campaign. But don’t worry! We won’t trick you out of your hosting experience with us or do some chaos to your websites. Instead, we’d prefer giving you awesome web hosting deals as a treat for you in Halloween.

No Limit Website Hosting Hotdeal

With our No Limit Hotdeal, enjoy great discounts from 10% to 50% for all of our No Limit Web Hosting plans. Choose the one that suits you best at a very low cost from only $3.95/month for No Limit Website Hotdeal to $6.48/month for No Limit E-Commerce Hotdeal the highest after discounted if you subscribe for an annual payment. Get all the no limit features - domains, storage, bandwidth, MySQL databases, FTP, e-mail accounts - with our no limit plans!

Read more at http://www.hostdepartment.com/webhosting_hotdeal/

Mega Saver Resellers

Searching for a reseller package with generous bandwidth and storage but at a very affordable price? We have the best offer for you. Get a domain-for-life, manageable reseller account and your own reseller specialist! Not only that, all the necessary technologies such as ASP, PHP, PERL, CGI, MySQL, ColdFusion, Domain Aliases, Shell Access are also included. Starting from only $14.03/month, you can start your own web hosting company now!

Read More at http://www.hostdepartment.com/resellerhosting_mega_promo.php

Addfunds Promo with 20% Free Hosting Credit

Hey wait! We still have another offer for you, the Addfunds promo, allowing you to earn extra 20 percent hosting credits when you top-up any amount of money into your account. Either domain purchase or billing cycle extension, you can choose which you’d like to do with the extra credits. How? Use Credit Card as your payment, submit your username or account number to us, and let us know how much you want to add. Then, we’ll do the rest and provide you with the additional 20% hosting credit.

Read more at http://www.hostdepartment.com/earn_webhosting_credits.html

So what else are you waiting for? Have some more fun and treat for your Halloween now with our deals!

Green hosting is our ticket to a more natural and healthy environment. Of course it is! This is a famous statement that we hear nowadays in the hosting industry. Everybody wants to claim themselves as a green host. Why? Being a green host will make people consider them as a noble host, doing well for a better living and environment. However, do you think they are all really a green host? To tell you the truth, there are few types of hosts calling themselves “green”.

Using Wind Power and Solar Energy

The first type of a green host is those who build data center and have servers with wind power and solar energy. They run servers with renewable energy. Also, their offices and servers use biogas, solar, wind, or geothermal energy and they also produce their own energy in house. Even further, some hosts have acquired Renewable Energy Certificate, ensuring they run eco-friendly power for their hosting business. For this one, we can really consider them as a good green host as they really use renewable energy to ensure that they keep the environment safe. Moreover, of course that means a good green hosting costs more expensively than the regular hosting.

Tree Planting

However, not all hosts claiming themselves as green hosts doing those stuffs as it is costly. The second type I will share with you now is those preferring to plant more trees to be considered “green”. Planting a tree to offset your carbon use sounds great; however, is there a real value out of it? Of course it is much cheaper and there is a real value somehow. I call it somehow as growing trees are not in an instance. However, it takes years or decades to really get the good effect. For hosts choosing this way, it seems that they just take the easiest and cheapest way for their own credibility.

My Point?

I am not saying that any of them is a bad idea. On the contrary, I am touched that any of us prefer to show their care to the environment where we live now and later. However, it will be very necessary that we also try to analyze whether they really do good for a better living or just try to get credibility for their own business by taking the simplest way only for them. Just look and feel.

~Gabrielle C~

Last time we have discussed about Horde webmail, one of the most powerful and suitable for great number of emails with large size attachments. Now, I’d like to introduce another popular webmail interface that I’m sure many of you are also familiar with.

Simplicity and light interface are the keys of Squirrelmail, suitable for you who are keen of anything simple. That’s what people keep saying about it, also known as nuts mail. But no need to doubt its capabilities in handling emails! This webmail is famous for its customizable ability, spam assassin setting ability, lightness, and newbie friendly features.

Explore the Amazement behind the Simpleness
Being simple is not always being the least. That is what you can prove in Squirrelmail. Although people have defined it as a light webmail, you can still see its awesome performance. The first of many is that it allows you to customize your preferences. This includes customizing your display - themes, mailbox, and message - with the one suiting your choice best. There are many beautiful themes that you can pick based on your liking.

You can also setup how your mailbox will be displayed. For example, how many messages will be shown in one page view. Also, you can edit how your message will look like according to your likeness. Even better, you are also able to customize personal information, including your displayed name and the signature you’d like to use everytime you send email.

Not only customizable, Squirrelmail is also able to setup spam assassin, a brilliant email filtering system that can identify unsolicited bulk emails and filter them as spams. With this ability in Squirrelmail, it is able to filter and reduce the spam emails in your inbox. You don’t need to bother about getting annoying junk emails again.

Moreover, even if you receive the spam emails, the spammers will not be notified for that since Squirrelmail does not contact the sender unless you want it, meaning that they don’t know if your email address is valid. And no worry for viruses. With Squirrelmail, email viruses will never be automatically opened since there is no downloaded attachment unless the download task is activated or clicked.

As another plus, this webmail is also perfect for its lightness and newbie friendly features. It offers you with simple interface which is very friendly for newbie users. Even when you feel you are slow in understanding the features, you can always find the how to guide from the help link at the top of your SquirrelMail screen, the “Table of Contents” link for any information about SquirrelMail. You will have all you need to know about Squirrelmail and no more confusion.

What’s Next?
Don’t let your emails unaccessible! Now that you have known the great features, it will be wasteful if you don’t take the advantages. Have yourself on your computer and browse your emails with Squirrelmail.

-Gabrielle Capstick-

When emails are very essential for your business, webmail is no longer a new stuff. Using it, you can access your email accounts and grab your emails wherever you are as long as your computer has internet connection and web browser.

Speaking of which, let me introduce you to one of the best, Horde webmail. Horde allows you to manage your emails easily with its rich features and stability. If you go on reading further, you will know how it rocks in its performance and features.

Server Stability
As you may have known, Horde is perfect for its stability when you have a large number of emails and attachments in your account. Let say you already have thousands of emails in your account and many of them have large size file attachments, Horde will not suffer in performance. There is no need anymore to delete any important emails that you may need to re-read in the future.`

Also, You can handle larger attachments and save more emails in your account without hesitating about the server load and speed. And as an additional benefit, Horde also allows you to download a large number of attachment files in zip files, making it easier for you to collect and save your attachments.

Message Filtering (Spam filter)
I bet you are surely unwilling to have your inbox filled with junk emails everyday. To get over this annoying problem, Horde lets you filter your emails into folders and block junk emails by generating filter rules for the incoming mails. You just need to edit the filter rules and set from which address is identified as spams. By using this feature, you will reduce the possibility of getting more junk emails, that is wasting your precious time and taking your attention.

HTML Composition, WYSIWIG editor, and Graphical Emoticons
What is even more interesting with Horde is you can compose your emails with HTML to make it neater and well-managed instead of writing it in plain text form only. And when you don’t know how the email will look like at the end, you can edit it with the WYSIWYG editor to ensure everything is right and meet your need. Even better, it also provides you with graphical emoticons that make your emails more attractive and have personal touch to the receiver. Horde offers an interesting composition to your email message.

After little introduction…
Now that you know how to access your emails wherever you are practically, you will not lose any chance to grab them on time for the importance of your business. Horde will help you much in handling your emails, anytime, anywhere.

-Gabrielle Capstick-

Wanna know the update Host Department’s having at the moment? We gladly announce that we have launched a new cost-efficient bundle plan, No Limit Double Deluxe Special, providing you our famous No Limit Developer Unix and Windows .NET in a single plan. This unique bundle allows you to take the advantage from the features and technologies of both Unix and Windows at a single cost only, $7.95 per month.

For the first time, we combine our two powerful plans, the Developer Unix and Windows .NET plan, to let you enjoy the amazing technologies of two hosting environments. This is the answer for your hosting needs - the Windows-exclusive technology including ASP.NET, SQL Server, ODBC and IIS6, together with trusted UNIX features like PHP, PERL and CGI - beautifully packaged into one perfect plan.

Why Do You Need to Subscribe?

Usually, you pay one you get one, always like that. When you need both Unix and Windows, you pay twice and it’s cost-taking plus pain in the ass for your saving. With our special plan, you just pay from only $13.95 per month (monthly payment) until $7.95 per month, very affordable pricing when you sign up for 36 months.

As a reminder, the regular No Limit Developer Unix costs from $8.95 monthly to $5.95 per month for at least annual payment. Moreover, No Limit Developer Windows .NET costs you even higher, from $10.95 in a monthly basis to $7.95 the cheapest for annual billing or more. Now, calculate how much you will spend for two plans if both of them are required for your hosting needs but don’t scream ok! Why should you pay one and get one when you can pay one and get two?

Stop yourselves from wasting your money unnecessarily!

Throw your confusion away when you need both Unix and Windows. We offer the best solution to solve your worries. Get the most from our No Limit Developer Unix and Windows .NET and sign up now!

For further details, visit http://www.hostdepartment.com/doubledeluxe_webhosting/

-Gabrielle Capstick-

Scams - they come from many different flavors. Some are downright obvious, like eBay and PayPal sites stealing your identity. Then, there is a generous Nigerian who is willing to give you millions in cash. Yet, other scams can be a little hard to detect. These scams do not directly target you. Instead, they may target your business (or your online business) and can have very damaging effects if you are not cautious.

Today, let me share a little about a “harmless” scam that seems very above-the-board at first, but is really not so when you dig deeper beyond the obvious.

Domain name is the most important item for a company to have in the Internet. Without it, there will be no such company. People can’t visit your website with ease (just imagine remembering all those IP numbers). Regarding that simple but significant issue, domain can be one of the prime targets for scammers. who are they and how do they trick you out of your domain?

Most scammers nowadays come from the China domain registrars; they e-mail you, say that there is third party trying to steal your trademark, and suggest you to register all China extension domain names referring to your company (like .cn, tw, hk) with them. It’s not new for my company as during the last one month, there have been few typical e-mails sent to us.

Dear Manager,

We are Fexon Technology Limited, which is the domain name register center in China. I have something to confirm with you. We have received an application formally, one company named “Chesterton Holdings LLC” applies for the domain names(hostdepartment.com.tw hostdepartment.com.hk, hostdepartment.net.cn, yourcompany.org.cn, etc.) and the internet Brand Name(yourcompany)on the internet Apr. 3, 2008. We need to know the opinion of your company, because the domain names and keywords may relate to the usufruct of brand name on internet. We would like to get the affirmation of your company, please contact us by telephone or email as soon as possible. Please let someone in your company who is responsible for trademark or intellectual right contact me freely.

We didn’t know it was just a scam. I searched in search engines and found out these cases have been undergone by many companies. China domain registrars contacted them, told them that another company was trying to register domains referring to their trademark, and advised them to register the domains with the China registrar. What did I do next? I replied them politely and said that our company has no plan to expand to China; so, there is no need to register the domains with them.

Did it stop? Wrong guess! Two or three weeks after, we received another e-mail from another China domain registrar. Awesome! Two companies but the same type, scam. It said like this:

Hello
We are Shanghai NIC Internet Service Co.,Ltd, an oversea domain name registration organization. On April. 28th 2008, we received the Aiffida Investment company’s application that they want to register the ¡°hostdepartment¡± as their CN domain name and the Internet Brand. It’s our duty to tell you this matter in order to avoid the unnecessary Intellectual Property dispute .We want to confirm whether you have authorized the company to register. If you haven’t, please let me know whether you need to protect your domain name and the Internet Brand or not. According to the register principle, the original owner of the trademark has the priority to register. The priority time is 5-7 workdays, if your company give up the priority, we will accept the Aiffida company’s register request and help the company register after the time is over. Best regards!

Dylan Lan, China Internet Network approve Organization -Shanghai NIC Internet Service Co.,Ltd

Regarding the ticket, we sent a polite reply, saying that nobody can steal any company’s trademark and if there is, necessary lawful action will be taken; but tell you what, he sent another e-mail, the same point in paraphrased sentences. They sounded the same to me honestly, annoying huh?

Hello
We are now auditing the application of Aiffida company. Hereby I need to tell you that Aiffida company is using the trademark “hostdepartment” to register the top domain in China “transactiondirectory.cn, hostdepartment.com.hk, hostdepartment.com.tw, hostdepartment.net.cn, hostdepartment.org.cn ” and internet brand “hostdepartment”. These domain names and internet brand involves your company¡¯s benefit and reputation, according to domain name registration principle, we are responsible to bring this issue to your attention. If you want to object Aiffida to register ,there is only one way is to register these domain name by yourself and prevent other to register it . If you need to register it ,we will send you an application form according to the procedure of registration .After you fill out ,please send me back .We will use it to reject Aiffida’s application and help your company to finish the registration

Best wishes! Dylan

Don’t you think it was already unbearable anymore? Replying this, we were not that tolerating anymore. We stated directly that they are included in the list of scam registrar companies and asked for their explanation. This was effective because no more e-mail again from them since then.

What to Learn from the Lesson?

I found articles about people’s similar experiences and even the law document about China domain registration. It’s true we will impossibly expand our business in China regions if a third party registers domain names referring to our company since the law doesn’t allow different organizations refer to the same trademark. On one hand, it seems they are helping to save our trademark from being stolen. However, be aware that the cases are not rare and it is silly to straightly trust them and register some domain names in a rush. We should at least check them out for their reliability.

Mostly, their strategy in tricking us is just exactly like our experience. They contact by e-mail and say that a third party company (is there any?) is trying to register some China domains referring to our brand and it will influence our trademark badly on the sight of our customers. No doubt about that (if the case exists). However, to tell you the truth, what they are doing is just trying to fool us for their profit since the Domain Name Registration usually costs higher than the usual one.

Even worse, are you sure it will guarantee your brand is safe once you register those domains to them? The answer is no since they just manipulate our money by selling the domains expensively at $20-$50 a year for one China domain. If we really want to register the domain names and protect our trademark, do it with reliable domain registrars to ensure that our trademark is really protected.

For information, the China government internet network institution, CNNIC, has exposed the lists of China domain registrars that are scams, as you can have a look at http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=6944670. In the provided link, you’ll be assured that these companies have grown abundantly in number, meaning that you should be more concerned when any of these registrars contact you through e-mail. Even more, who knows if the number has increased? Just beware! You don’t want to lose some money worthlessly for sure.

So, don’t get tricked by the domain scammers. Just inform them that we can take any lawful action for trademark thief and if they insist, let them realize what they should know about themselves.

-Gabrielle Capstick-