See what happens when you make fun of The Planet explosion?

Alright, I know this probably is not the good news you were looking forward to starting your Monday with, believe me - it wasn’t in my plans either.  Due to the Thursday night storms we had here in my area I had been knocked offline.  Just got power restored late yesterday afternoon.

The good news is all is fine here, just a few broken tree limbs and a big mess to clean up.  Bad news is that a new episode of the Web Hosting Show podcast may be delayed another week.  Last week the PC was being repaired, this week the power was out.  Now next week, even if there is an earthquake, flood or some other natural disaster I promise I’ll et something recorded for you all.

Thanks for your understanding, it is greatly appreciated!

Well, I tried - but looks like episode 154 of the Web Hosting Show will be delayed again this week, due to the fact that my main production machine for the podcast has yet to come back from HP.  It should be coming in Monday or Tuesday, so if I get the time - perhaps I can get an episode recorded mid-week.

I apologize to anybody looking forward to downloading the next edition, but I can promise you that after I get my PC back from getting the power supply replaced we will be back up and running again.  While we are in this unexpected hiatus - would be a great time to go browse through the archives.

Also would like to open this post’s comments up to feedback about any and all aspects of the podcast to get some of your feedback. What you you like, what do you hate, what do you want to see more of?  If you have any thoughts, get to leaving a comment!

Due to my PC being in bad shape, going to postpone recording this week.  Do not freat though, because I hate to leave anybody empty handed.  I have had a great collection of people on the podcast of the 3+ years.  My question is, have you heard them all?

Here are some of my favorite interviews I have done with the elite of our business.

• Emory Rowland of Clickfire.com - Episode 152
• Errett Cord of eCord.us - Episode 149
• Mario Rodriguez of R1Soft - Episode 139
• Alex McMillen of Sliqua - Episode 121
• Gary Jones of BlueFur Hosting - Episode 120
• Ben Welch Bolen of WebHostingUnleashed.com (2nd Interview) - Episode 118
• John Hughes of HostSearch.com - Episode 113
• Dan Garon of Press Advance - Episode 112
• Troy Augustine of iNet Interactive and Web Hosting Talk - Episode 111
• George Roberts of HostingCon - Episode 110
• Ben Welch Bolen of WebHostingUnleashed.com - Episode 109
• Amy Armitage of Lunarpages - Episode 106
• Julien Szemere of Wormly.com - Episode 105

Interested in hearing somebody on the show or being on the show yourself?  Drop me an e-mail and I would be more than happy to hear about it.

Most people would like the chance to be able to pick up the phone and either praise or yell at their web host, but these days it it a fading trend?  The more web hosts I check out it seems like the phone option is not there or is so hard to find you would give up before finding it.

Honestly, for me as long as the Online support (either via e-mail, a help desk system or both) is great I could live without the ability to dial them up to make the same complaint.  Chances are your not going to get a quick fix for your complicated issues over the phone any ways.  What will the phone tech representative do?  They will put in a ticket for you.

For smaller web hosts who don’t have a lot of funds, having a toll-free number can become rather expensive with little or no payoff in the end.  By not having phone support you can also avoid those people (you know who you are) who call in about everything and anything that might be wrong with the web site they have.  So which side of the fence do you come down on?

A few week’s back there was a news story not many made much out of happening that I though I could at least mention here.  Hostopia will pay $1.6 million in cash for Tucows shared hosting assets.

That includes approximately 14,000 Domain Direct, NetIdentity ItsYourDomain.com customer accounts.

That is a ton of cash changing hands.  One has to wonder why Tucows wanted to get out of the shared web hosting game and what will they do now with this extra surplus of cash on their hands?  Colin Campbell, the CEO of Hostopia release the usual quote out to the public saying they had high hopes and more…

“Our plan is to provide customers with numerous upgrades and additional value-added services to earn their loyalty and continued business. Traditional web hosting is fast evolving to the SaaS (software as a service) model and Hostopia is perfectly positioned to offer these services to these customers.”

This is a big buyout for sure, and big congratulations deserve to be sent towards Hostopia for getting the deal.  If you were Tucows, what would you do now being the actual “cash cow”.

To those outside of the Online world, cybersquatting sounds like part of a work out routine you’d do with a digital Richard Simmons.  I can promise you though that this is not the case.  It is actually a very important issue that comes up in the world of domain name registrations.

It is registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The cybersquatter then offers to sell the domain to the person or company who owns a trademark contained within the name at an inflated price.  At least that is according to the United States federal law on the issue, the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.

Now when people are squatting outside of the digital realm we live in, it usually means they are living in an abandoned building or some other space that the squatter does not own.

Back to the Online side of things, cybersquatters will actually register and pay for the domains in question and then wave it in the face of the copyright holder and sometimes even put up really bad things about them in hopes that they will want to give them a big ol’ check to shut them up and buy the domain.

For more information on domain name squatting I would highly suggest checking out ICANN’s uniform domain-name dispute-resolution policy.

Ready for the Online tool that promises to provide you with the quickest domain name searching ever?  Domize.com is promoting themselves as the “better” instant domain search tool.  Do they live up to that hype?  Yes, they do!

There is no rocket science needed to use it either, which as you all know if something I like to see.  Just type in the domain name you have in mind and they will let you know if there is a .com, .org or .net version of that domain available to use.  Red means it is in use and blue means it is available.  If you hover your mouse over the red links, they will give you a thumbnail picture of that registered site too.  Find one you like?  Click on a blue link and you will be taken to GoDaddy.com to purchase.

All Domize traffic is secured over SSL, making sure your queries stay private and away from snooping eyes.

Another neat feature of this web site is you can search via your iPhone too.  Now why your searching for domains on your phone?  That is another problem I can even begin to get into here.  Nice to know though that if you get that big idea for the next great domain name you can check on it even if there isn’t a PC in sight.

So go visit Domize.com for more and let them know them know the Web Hosting Show sent you there.