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(The Hosting News) – If you’re planning to watch the big game this Sunday between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots, and happen to stick around during the commercials, you may notice one TLD receiving some big attention.

The .CO domain will be highlighted in an advertisement from top web host Go Daddy.

As usual, the top domain registrar’s commercial is edgy, featuring Columbian star Natalia Velez as a body paint model. Meanwhile, Go Daddy commercial stars Danica Patrick and Jillian Michaels apply the paint, adding slogans such as “hot .co,” “get noticed,” and the Go Daddy logo.

Making a cross reference to the .CO domain and models, Jillian Michaels says, “They definitely get you noticed.” Patrick agrees, stating, “That’s why smart businesses go with .CO from Go Daddy.”

Registration of .CO through GoDaddy.com appears to come with a price of $9.99. Featured on the Go Daddy homepage is a crossed out price of $29.99, showing that the company has substantially cut its rates on .CO.

Despite Go Daddy’s push to advertise .CO, they’re not the only web hosting company that’s doing so. On Friday, web hosting provider WestHost launched its own initiative to promote the TLD by offering a limited registration price of $9.49 to prospective customers.

WestHost Director of Marketing David Anderson even referenced Go Daddy’s big Super Bowl plans, calling his own company’s .CO initiative “a more cost-effective approach.”

“Major domain registrars are spending millions of dollars on ad campaigns intended to drown out competition for the domain extension but our new ‘.CO’ price discount is intended to open up opportunities for customers looking for an affordable alternative,” Anderson also commented.

Interestingly enough, the .CO TLD also doubles as the ccTLD (country code) for Colombia. It was initially made available for businesses globally in 2010.

The .CO TLD is operated through cointernet.co. In June of last year, .Co Internet announced that over one million .CO domains had been registered. At the time, .CO Internet CEO Juan Diego Calle stated, “Entrepreneurs and innovative businesses around the globe are adopting .CO web addresses at an unprecedented pace, way beyond my initial expectations.”

During Super Bowl Weekend, .CO Receives Attention

(The Hosting News) - AvaHost.net hosting provider doubled the parameters for their VPS hosting: instead of 512 Mb RAM and 40 Gb hard drive storage the customer will get 1024 Mb of RAM and 80 Gb of disk at the same price.

VPS hosting accounts from AvaHost.Net provide the full root-access to the virtual server of the customer. Due to this the user has access to the advanced options. The installation of additional software, modules and services is available also.

The updated VPS account will provide user with 2.4 Ghz CPU power, 1024 Mb RAM, 80 Gb of disc storage, 1.200 Gb of traffic and up to 3 IP-addresses.

VPS Hosting is usually used for the traffic-intensive Web sites. It is also perfect for the Web sites which require a more powerful configuration. With the full root access it is easy to manage the server. VPS Hosting can be used for a wide variety of purposes, including reselling, Java applications, C/C++ and other.

Daniel Hart, the Head of AvaHost Business Development, said that VPS web hosting is a good solution for the Web sites with a lot of traffic, as well as for the customers who need a flexible server configuration, which is not available in the shared hosting. “VPS hosting is a perfect alternative to the dedicated server, but it comes with better price. AvaHost regularly upgrades the servers. We offer our customers more options for the same price.”

About AvaHost:

Since 2001, AvaHost has been established in the web hosting industry by providing reliable service and support, and the best web hosting solutions, for personal Web sites and small-to-medium sized businesses.

For the last years AvaHost received the following prestigious awards from the well-known hosting business Web sites: #1 Fastest Growing Company, Reseller Hosting of the Month, #1 Budget Hosting, etc.

AvaHost.Net Upgrades VPS Hosting Service

(The Hosting News) – WestHost, a leading web hosting and domain registration provider recently kicked off of an aggressive campaign targeting .CO domains. WestHost’s rock-bottom price of $9.49 — went live on February 2, prior to “The Big Game”, designed to appeal towards web savvy customers looking to register the .CO domain with a reliable company. This extraordinary price reduction is a limited time offer on all .CO domain registrations.

“Major domain registrars are spending millions of dollars on ad campaigns intended to drown out competition for the domain extension but our new ‘.CO’ price discount is intended to open up opportunities for customers looking for an affordable alternative,” said David Anderson, Director of Marketing, WestHost.

According to the New York Times, more than 600,000 .CO addresses have been sold across 200 countries, with this number growing rapidly. Colombia has licensed out the easy-to-remember domain to international registrars in return for 25% of the sales revenue.

In addition, the article suggests that .CO registrations will surge past the 5 million mark by 2017. This type of growth underscores why domain registrars have poured serious money into aggressive marketing campaigns to promote domain sales.

“This gold rush has yet to realize its full potential as the ‘.CO’ market is poised for serious growth. Our huge price cut is intended to underscore our growing reputation for competitive domain prices and excellent customer service,” he said.

While WestHost does not anticipate an ensuing .CO price war, it has confirmed its intent to offer competitive domain registration prices globally. WestHost has increased its focus finding new efficiencies within its domain platform which have reduced costs and allowed a new phase of aggressive price reductions on domain registration services.

“An estimated 100 million people will see Go Daddy’s new ad featuring ‘.CO’ domains. But, WestHost will be taking a more cost-effective approach by harnessing the power of the web to promote our lowest ‘.CO’ domain prices to date. And, we expect a big response,” said Mr. Anderson.

ABOUT WESTHOST

WestHost has had a singular goal since its inception in 1998: provide the most powerful, secure Web hosting environment for clients around the world at an affordable price. As a subsidiary of the UK2 Group, a significant player in the European and U.S. Web hosting markets, WestHost provides domain name registration and website hosting services to global customers. Having garnered various industry awards, WestHost is committed to providing reliable, cutting-edge products and services at a great value, underpinned with superior client support. For more information about WestHost, visit http://www.westhost.com

WestHost Launches Promotion on .CO Domains

(The Hosting News) – Hackers breached web hosting provider Blacknight on Tuesday. The company revealed the issue in a press release today.

Possibly 40 thousand user accounts provided for by the Blacknight were hit. However, the company emphasized that the breach was minimal, not resulting in any loss of financial data.

Telephone numbers and emails were the data possibly affected. To help safeguard against any further issues, the web host is recommending that its users change their login passwords.

“We take our responsibilities to our customers very seriously and have already been in touch with the Data Protection Commissioner and have informed them of the breach,” stated Blacknight employee Michele Neylon.

Neylon referred to her company as “secure” but called similar matters “a reality that almost every online company must face.”

Blacknight also said it had been in touch with Ireland’s Office of Data Protection along with the Irish Reporting and Information Security Service regarding the issue.

“We are taking this opportunity to increase our security even further and apologize to our customers for any inconvenience this may cause,” Neylon stated.

As a hosting provider, Blacknight’s services include cloud, SharePoint, Hosted Exchange and Minimus Hosting. On Tuesday, the hosting provider revealed the addition of business mobile platform goMobi to its services.

Website breaches have proven an increasingly problematic issue for web hosts in the recent past. Just last month, web hosting provider DreamHost revealed that it had faced a similar problem relating to an unauthorized breach of the company’s system. But like Blacknight, the company’s financial data was also not affected.

Hackers Breach Web Host Blacknight

(The Hosting News) – Phoenix NAP®, a full service data center, premier infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider and primary network access point (NAP), announced today that Assessment Technology Incorporated (ATI), a leading provider of online instructional improvement tools and data analysis, has selected the data center for its additional disaster recovery (DR) site. The group cited Phoenix NAP’s full redundancy, multiple service providers and timely and professional staff as key influences in its decision to place its DR solution with Phoenix NAP.

“We are excited to welcome ATI to Phoenix NAP and look forward to working with them to fulfill their disaster recovery needs,” said Ian McClarty, president of Phoenix NAP. “Working with a fellow Arizona-based company gives Phoenix NAP great pleasure, as we pride ourselves on working with local businesses. Additionally, residing in one of the safest-from-natural-disaster cities in the United States, our data center is an ideal location for not only disaster recovery services, but primary services as well.”

With the likelihood of environmental catastrophes like tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes and major flooding minimal to non-existent in the Phoenix metro area, Phoenix NAP continues to be a prime location for DR.

“ATI is a fast-growing company and enhancing our disaster recovery capabilities to include near real-time failover capability is an important step forward. Phoenix NAP provides a level of security, robust infrastructure and broad selection of data carriers that met all our requirements and made them an obvious choice,” said Brandon Smith, Information Technology Director. “ATI takes great pride in providing a high level of availability and data security to our clients. Phoenix NAP staff gave us great confidence they will be an excellent partner in maintaining those standards in the future.”

Phoenix NAP is a PCI DSS Validated Service Provider and a SAS 70 Type II certified facility.

About Phoenix NAP

Phoenix NAP, a full service data center, premier infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) provider and primary network access point (NAP) for the Phoenix, AZ, metro region leads the path for technology systems and solutions through its innovation and vastly redundant data center systems. Our highly personalized approach ensures that all of your requirements are met. Whether it’s high-density colocation, flexible storage, physical servers or cloud hosting services, our enterprise-grade facility and certified NOC technicians supply IT solutions to fit your every need. For more information, visit the company’s website at http://www.phoenixnap.com.

About Assessment Technology Incorporated

Assessment Technology Incorporated, through Galileo K-12 Online, provides a fully integrated, standards-based instructional improvement system that combines the strength of research and the power of innovation to assist educators in promoting student mastery of local and state standards. As a leader in online testing, Galileo’s patented technology offers a comprehensive assessment system including instruments documenting instructional effectiveness. Galileo reporting tools coupled with curriculum and instructional dialog tools make it possible to continuously link information about student learning and instructional planning and teaching to promote standards mastery. ATI offers innovative technology that addresses an educational system’s goals when implementing standards-based strategies to help raise student achievement. For more information, call 1.877.442.5453 or visit http://www.ati-online.com.

ATI Selects Phoenix NAP For Disaster Recovery

(The Hosting News) – Softaculous Ltd., the developer of Softaculous Auto Installer that simplifies Application deployment on various hosting platforms, announced that they have launched version 4.0. This version of Softaculous, which is also available in AMPPS, has User Interface improvements, Developer API improvements and many bug fixes said a company spokesperson. The company also announced the launch of AMPPS 1.5.

Softaculous Auto Installer integrates into popular hosting control panels like cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin, H-Sphere and Interworx and allows the user to install any application by the click of a button. There are lots of script categories like blogs, forums, micro blogs, wikis, social networking, image galleries, ERP, Project Management, Educational, etc. One can also upgrade these applications when new versions become available. Softaculous also offers Demos, Ratings, Reviews and screenshots of the various applications.

“We have been working really hard to make Softaculous, Webuzo and AMPPS the best applications in their respective categories,” said Pulkit Gupta, Softaculous founder and CEO, “and with version 4.0 of Softaculous and version 1.5 of AMPPS we are surely getting there. We have seen tremendous growth in the usage of AMPPS and some new features are also going to be released soon. At the same time some new products are also in the pipeline.”

To address the needs of different hosting providers, Softaculous is available as a Free product or as a Premium product. The Free version has only 60 apps while the Premium version currently has 260 Apps.

The Softaculous apps library already contains popular applications, including: WordPress, b2evolution, StatusNet, Drupal, Joomla, Concrete5, phpBB, MyBB, SMF, bbPress, Coppermine, Gallery, Mediawiki, DokuWiki, TikiWiki, Elgg, Dolphin, OpenX, SquirrelMail, LimeSurvey, Piwik, Mantis, SugarCRM, WHMCS, PrestaShop, Magento, CraftySyntax, osTicket, Moodle, Claroline, etc.

AMPPS can be used by Enterprises, SMB’s and Web Developers. Softaculous AMPPS is available as a Free product which can be installed on Microsoft Windows Desktop and Servers as well as on the Mac OS. AMPPS now has 260 Apps to serve the needs of different users. “AMPPS is specially beneficial to the Web Developers as they will not have to spend time installing Apache, MySQL, PHP, PERL, Python seperately and also they can install various blogs, cms, wikis, forums, etc. on their desktops by the click of a button. If you are a web developer and have not tried AMPPS, you have certainly not tried the best WAMP or MAMP stack” said Pulkit Gupta, COO of Softaculous Ltd.

Softaculous Apps are also available in the form of Virtual Appliances. The Virtual Appliances (called Webuzo) contain all the necessary server software required to power the various Apps. Webuzo is a LAMP stack with Softaculous installed on a CentOS Machine. Webuzo can help any user deploy Web Apps on their Desktops or in the Office. Recently the Webuzo Team announced support for the Amazon Web Services Cloud allowing Webuzo to be deployed in the Cloud which helps users to access their apps from anywhere.

About Softaculous

Softaculous was founded in 2009 with the goal of helping users to deploy apps by the click of a button. Softaculous is already being offered by leading Data Center’s and Web hosting companies around the world.

It is very easy to find, deploy, manage and backup applications using Softaculous. One can also deploy apps in the office using Softaculous Webuzo.

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

Softaculous Launches New Version

(The Hosting News) – When U.S. Federal authorities pulled the plug on file sharing site Megaupload earlier this month due to piracy accusations, thousands of digital files belonging to the site’s users were rendered inaccessible.

Would users be able to retrieve legitimately legal files before the feds forced the file sharing site’s hosting companies to erase Megaupload’s server data?

According to a CNN report, U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride had indicated that the deletion of server information could take place soon. “It is our understanding that the hosting companies may begin deleting the contents of the servers beginning as early as February 2, 2012,” MacBride previously stated in a court letter.

However, it now appears such an action will not happen just yet.

Web hosting companies which have provided for Megaupload including Carpathia Hosting and Cogent will not move forward to provisioning their servers for a while. On Monday, MegaUpload defense attorney Ira Rothken stated via Twitter, “Carpathia and Cogent agreed to preserve consumer data for additional time of at least two weeks so #Megaupload can work with US on proposal.”

Rothken’s statement was followed up today by an official press release from Carpathia Hosting concerning the matter. Carpathia Hosting Chief Marketing Officer Brian Winter said his company “has no immediate plans to reprovision some or all of the Megaupload servers.”

Winter continued, “This means that there is no imminent data loss for Megaupload customers.” Winter also stated that if things change, the hosting company would inform users a week prior to any server action taking place.

Meanwhile, Carpathia Hosting is working with the Electronic Frontier Foundation to raise awareness concerning user files contained on Megaupload that are legal, which it hopes to help users retrieve. “EFF is troubled that so many lawful users of Megaupload.com had their property taken from them without warning and that the government has taken no steps to help them,” stated EFF Staff Attorney Julie Samuels on Tuesday.

Despite that, Carpathia Hosting Brian Winter emphasized that Carpthia Hosting did not “have access to any data for Megaupload customers.”

The U.S. Justice Department has accused MegaUpload operators including Kim Dotcom of raking in over $175 million in illegal profits due to the availability of pirated material on the file sharing site. Aside from blocking access to Megaupload, six others in addition to Dotcom received charges related to copyright infringement.

According to U.S. authorities, actions by Megaupload have cost copyright owners over half a million in profits. Megaupload has vigorously defended its actions with the company’s attorney Ira Rothken telling CNET earlier this month, “Many of the allegations made are similar to those in the copyright case filed against YouTube and that was a civil case….and YouTube won.”

Web Hosts: Megaupload Server Data Wont be Deleted Just Yet

(The Hosting News) – Ahead-of-the-curve Irish domain registrar and hosting company Blacknight is now offering goMobi, a service that makes your online business more easily available to mobile users.

As millions of people are now using their mobile phones to surf the Internet and look for information and services, goMobi ensures customers can easily find your business anywhere, anytime. goMobi offers a fast and easy way to build a mobile website allowing you to provide customers with immediate access to key information about your business via their mobile phone while also giving users the ability to contact you with just one click or touch.

Michele Neylon of Blacknight states: “Mobile isn’t the future, it is the present. We aim to offer our customers the latest Internet Technology and goMobi is a great tool for businesses to catch up to the mobile Internet revolution. It is projected that by the end of 2013, 1 billion customers will be using the mobile web, this is not a passing fad.”

Those who haven’t yet made the leap to taking their website mobile may want to consider that mobile websites are built with the special characteristics of mobile phones in mind to provide the best possible experience to users. Besides adapting the site to work with the smaller screen of a mobile phone, they are also made easier to navigate using touch or a keypad and provide more direct access to the information that a customer is more likely to need while on the go.

Eileen O’Sullivan, COO of dotMobi — the Dublin-based company behind the goMobi mobile website builder — said, “dotMobi is excited to have Blacknight as our latest goMobi partner. With goMobi Blacknight can offer sophisticated mobile websites to their customers with a quick and seamless integration of the service into their existing infrastructure.”

Each goMobi site is built and optimized for SEO, and includes creation of a sitemap, well defined page titles and descriptions, optimized site structure for navigation and more. Also, when you sign up for goMobi, you get access to the user-friendly goMobi Setup Assistant that puts you in charge of your site’s look and content.

Neylon continues: “Setting up a goMobi domain for your business is a no brainer as goMobi does most of the work for you. All you have to do is create the content. Just as bricks and mortar businesses have grown by getting online, they will grow even more by taking advantage of the mobile Internet”

Blacknight’s goMobi services are priced at EUR 3.99 per month or EUR 44.99 per year.

Visit http://www.blacknight.com to setup your goMobi site today.

About Blacknight:

Blacknight are an Irish based, ICANN accredited domain registrar and hosting company. Recipients of several awards for their revolutionary use of social media, Blacknight are one of Europe’s most cutting edge Internet companies. Blacknight constantly seek to lead the way by introducing innovative solutions for its client base and provide dedicated servers and colocation as well as a comprehensive range of Microsoft Windows and Linux based hosting plans and domain name registration services to business globally.

Blacknight to Offer New goMobi Service

(The Hosting News) – Shinjiru Technology is pleased to announce it has renewed its partnership withSmarterTools Inc. to distribute feature-rich software to qualified customers.

Under the terms of the partnership, customers that purchase Windows VPS or Dedicated Servers will receive professional editions of the SmarterMail mail server, SmarterStats Web log analytics and SEO software, and SmarterTrack customer service software at no additional charge. The software bundle is valued at $800 (U.S. dollars).

“SmarterTools had once again proven to be one of our most trustful and reliable partner. The SmarterTools bundle enables our small businesses and enterprise customers to get a feature-rich and robust email experience at a reasonable price.” said Terence Choong, founder and CEO of Shinjiru Technology. “With this user friendly and cost effective Microsoft Exchange alternative, we are happy to get the positive feedback from our enterprise customer, and this has again strengthened our position as market leaders in the SME market.

SmarterMail is a cost-effective Microsoft Exchange alternative, bringing enterprise-level functionality to businesses, ISPs, and Web hosting environments. Features include a rich Webmail interface, file storage, detailed reporting, events/notifications, throttling, email archiving, intrusion detection/prevention, advanced synchronization, out-of-the-box antispam and antivirus and optional add-ons for Exchange ActiveSync, Commtouch Premium Antispam, and Commtouch Zero-hour Antivirus.

SmarterStats is comprehensive Web log analytics and SEO software that cost-effectively delivers relevant, accurate, and detailed website statistics to help businesses increase conversions and maximize ROI.

SmarterTrack is a powerful help desk application built for tracking, managing, and reporting on customer service and communications, including sales and support issues. Features include a ticket system, live chat, call logs, time logs, Who’s On, branding and language support, cost analysis, data mining, reporting, surveys, a task management system, and a knowledge base.

About SmarterTools Inc.

Founded in 2003, SmarterTools Inc. is an information technology management software company based in Phoenix, Arizona. SmarterTools builds a Windows mail server, customer service software, and Web log analytics and SEO software that simplify and automate the day-to-day IT operations of businesses and hosting environments in over 100 countries. Additional information about SmarterTools Inc. and the SmarterTools product line is available at the company website: http://www.smartertools.com.

About Shinjiru

Shinjiru is an ISO9001:2000 certified leading provider in web hosting and dedicated servers in Asia. With presence in seven data centers, Shinjiru provides industry-leading dedicated servers and web application hosting solutions to more than 100,000 corporations around the world. Shinjiru owns, operates and maintains its network inclusive of IP range, bandwidth, servers and other critical network equipments. Shinjiru provides cost effective, secure and reliable web hosting solutions with advanced, industry-recognized control panels for server management and administration. More information about Shinjiru can be found at http://www.shinjiru.com/about_Us/.

Shinjiru Technology Renews with SmarterTools

(The Hosting News) – Web host Secured Servers is now officially a division of colocation provider Phoenix NAP. Finalization of the deal was announced by Phoenix NAP on Monday.

The companies initially announced the agreement in August of last year and the move provides Phoenix NAP with Secured Servers’ services including cloud, additional colocation, dedicated servers and more.

Discussing the matter in a press release, Phoenix NAP president Ian McClarty said the move “falls right in line with our full service data center philosophy.”

“Our colocation options, public cloud services, and now dedicated hosting solutions reflect the ongoing commitment we have to be a go-to provider for established and emerging technologies,” McClarty commented.

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed in a press release concerning the matter.

As a data center operator, aside from colocation, Phoenix NAP’s services include disaster recovery with a cloud that offers features such as firewalls and load balancing.

PhoenixNAP operates its services from a 160 thousand square feet facility in Phoenix, Arizona.

Like PhoenixNAP, Secured Servers is also based in Arizona. The company was founded in 2003 and despite the acquisition, continues to operate under its original name.

Upon initially announcing the deal in August, Phoenix NAP/Secured Servers director of corporate strategy Jordan Jacobs stated, “We are thrilled to have Secured Servers solutions offered within the IaaS framework of Phoenix NAP.”

“The financial strength and stability the enterprise data center brings will only help to ensure the continued growth of all product sets, including the dedicated hosting and physical server options of Secured Servers,” Jacobs continued.

In addition to announcing the move’s finalization, PheonixNAP also indicated that it will soon launch new hardware options for servers falling under Phoenix NAP Secured Servers, made possible through the acquisition.

In November, PhoenixNAP began accepting enrollment for a new public cloud solution called Secured Cloud which relies on technology from companies including Cisco and VMware.For further information regarding PhoenixNAP’s acquisition of Secured Servers, view a press release here (phoenixnap.com).

Acquisition Complete: Secured Servers Now Part of PhoenixNAP