iNET Interactive, those darlings of the web hosting world who brought us such things as webhostingtalk.com, hostvoice.com, and hostingtech.com have acquired the HostingCon conference.  From the looks of it Interjuncture (the previous owners) will still oversee HostingCon 2008, but in 2009 one would assume iNet will be taking over.

Now let me quickly give you my positives and negatives on this.

On the bad side of things, we see one more diamond of the web hosting world being gobbled up by the web hosting equivalent to the Juggernaut, iNet Interactive.

On the positive side of things, I have a lot of trust in Troy Augustine, he is a good guy and I think he will continue to do what is best for the business in a whole.  iNet also has the capital to move the conference forward to make it even bigger and better than before.

George Roberts, the guy who was behind all the other HostingCons to date has really turned this conference from just a gathering to THE event of any web hosters calendar year.  He deserves the pat on the back and congratulations the most out of this deal.  Right now it is planned for George and Interjucture COO Frank Spaulding, to both remain involved in HostingCon as members of its advisory board.

For more coverage of HostingCon 2008 be sure to check out their web site and you can check out my previous interview with Troy “Juggernaut” Augustine back on podcast 111.

You may have caught wind of some of the .me buzz last week, as GoDaddy started taking registrations for them for $20 a year (and you have to sign up for two years, so that should really be $40).  According to Mashable.com several people were claiming to have registered the same domain name, which is going to be a disappointment for some.  If eight people say they registered it, that will leave seven people really unhappy about the whole ordeal.

GoDaddy has also released this response to the claims that there was some wacky stuff going on during the first day of .me domain name registrations:

We knew the .ME Open Registration response would be tremendous, but it went beyond even what we had expected. As a result, we experienced some system issues in our communication with the registry.

As soon as we became aware of the issue we began taking steps to correct it. It is now resolved.  For our customers, if we did not successfully register the domain name requested they will receive a full refund.

Now that the first week’s hype is over, it might be a little easier to search around and see what .me domain names you can register from GoDaddy.  Only problem your left with is, are all the good names taken already?

I often hear complaints from people that FTP programs are too hard to use.  There are too many options, too many buttons and too many configurations you have to learn about.  For those people out there looking for a  simpler FTP program I offer to you DropUpLoad.

This program is a very light, simple yet robust utility which manages your uploads in the way of a spooler.  It also is so small you can load it up on a USB device too.  You don’t even have to worry about getting it installed.  All you do is double click the .exe file and it is ready.

To use, just create or select a server you wish to connect to then drag and drop the file you wish to upload into the white box.  You also have the option to zip each file you upload too.  Another neat feature is that you can create a “locked” version of DropUpLoad, which limits connections to a single server and hides and encrypts login information inside the generated executable.

If you feel like you don’t need a full FTP program like Filezilla and the like to get the job done DropUpLoad is undoubtedly the simplest alternative program you could have in your web hosting tool belt.

Tons of fun to be had on this week’s show. It was a big week for those us us in the hosting business and I’ll cover it from headline to footer and everything in between. We have buyouts, we have failures, and we even have the Juggernaut.

How could you not download and tune in?

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 158!
Running Time: 10 minutes | File Size: 4.47 MB

Here are just a few topics from this week’s episode of the Web Hosting Show.

• HostingCon Sold Off to iNet Interactive?
• Interesting Tool to See if Your Site is Up or Down!
• The Mess That Was .ME Domain Name Registrations?
• The Simplest FTP Program Ever!?!

The Web Hosting Show is back Jack, or Jill… no mater which side of the hosting hill you may be going up I am here to help you, you and even you with a little hosting talk, explanation and a little pale of fun tossed in along the way.

Have you taken the Web Hosting Show’s fan survey yet? If not, listen to the show and then get it done. Your feedback given there could dramatically change the production of this podcast! Be heard and give me you thoughts!

Adding password protection to a directory in cPanel is a fairly easy thing to do.  If it still has you tossed for a loop though, check out this nice video tutorial from the people at Audio and Video in WordPress.

Have any other interesting hosting videos to share? Sent ‘em to me at mitch@mitchkeeler.com and I’ll share them with the web hosting world.

Is it just me, or does it seem like there is a lot of spam talk these days?  Here I have for you two of the hottest spam stories of the moment, and a little talk about hacking and passing the blame to round things up.

King of Spam to be Sentenced

You would think that the king of spam would at least get a crown made of mixed meat or something cool like that, but the only thing Robert Alan Soloway has to look forward to now is a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and fines of more than $500,000.  How did he get the crown?  According to Jeffrey C. Sullivan, a United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington, “Our investigators dubbed him the ‘Spam King’ because he is responsible for millions of spam emails”.

Switzerland Tops World in Spam

The Swiss are usually only known for banks and watches, but now they can add one more title to that list, spam.  According to security vendor MessageLabs, Switzerland has exceeded former front-runner Hong Kong as the most spammed country.

ICANN Blames Register.com for Hack

Last but not least, to give you an amusing story for the web hosting water cooler, it looks like ICANN has tossed Register.com under the bus.  Since ICANN’s web site got hacked a few weeks back, looks like Register.com is becoming their scapegoat.  “The DNS redirect was a result of an attack on ICANN’s registrar’s systems.  A full, confidential, security report from that registrar has since been provided to ICANN with respect to this attack.” Register.com is a good company, and I don’t think it is totally fare that ICANN is looking to pass the buck so quickly with it’s own security problems.

If you have any news you’d like to share, be sure to drop me a line or leave a comment and I’ll be more than happy to spread the word about your latest happenings or interesting web hosting article.

We all started hearing the phrase “front running” when Network Solutions got caught with their pants down on a few domain name registration issues.  Now what does it mean?  With all the news and coverage, not many bothered to explain.

Domain name front running would be the practice of using insider information to register domains for the purpose of re-selling them to the pubic, or by placing ads on the page in question and making money cause you know the domain is in demand.

For example, lets say I want to go register MitchKeeler.com, and I go search for it at well, insert slime-ball domain name register here.  Ok, so I use their domain name “check for availability” tool and they say it has not been registered yet.  Something happens though, I get distracted or move away from the idea and close the browser.  That is when the slime-ball domain register with go ahead and register the domain name themselves.  The next time I go to check, I see it has been registered but for $40 the slime-ball domain register will sell it to me.  In most cases the domain name register can do this for up to five days without having to pay for the registration of the domain name themselves.

The previously mentioned Network Solutions has defended the action by saying, “This protection measure provides our customers the opportunity to register domains they have previously searched without the fear that the name will be already taken through Front Running.” Still seems rather slime-ballish to me, how about you?