February News from the iNGENroom

Published at February 11, 2010 in Ingenuity Stuff and Web Hosting News. 0 Comments

So much to do, so little time, but who needs sleep with all the excitement, iNGENUiTY are rolling out new services and improvements like sushi ninjas. After extensive market research Ingenuity now know how we can provide all of what our customers need as well as all of what they don’t – sure our Market Researcher’s eyes may be burning – but it’s a small price to pay! Hours of coffee and Krispy Kremes, have born awesome adjustments to our existing plans – now tailored to better suit you and your needs. More details about the new plans in next month’s newsletter.

Also iN News:

  • The new server is almost ready which means more Web Space and Faster Sites for everyone, plus the addition of an Application Firewall, details below
  • This month we would also like to introduce our new VPS solution, details below
  • And of course there is the Server Co-Location and the Corporate Spam Filtering as discussed in January’s newsletter.

Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting

A VPS is a powerful system that may be divided into independent sections; each section operating as a small dedicated server. Each VPS comes with your choice of operating system, has its own dedicated section of processing power, hard drive space, memory and can be used for whatever purposes you need it for. To find out more go to www.ingenuity.net.au/virtual-private-hosting.php or call us on 1300 66 46 43.

Application Firewall

The Application Firewall on our new servers will go towards making a more secure environment; mitigating such problems as Credit Card Fraud, spam creation and distribution, and tracking of common errors.

Wishing you all the best for the holidays and a safe and happy new year!

The Ingenuity Team

Don’t forget you can keep up with all the news at Ingenuity by following us on:

Facebook: facebook.com/IngenuityHosting
Twitter: twitter.com/IngenuityHost

When Free Web Hosting Really Works

Published at January 29, 2010 in Web Hosting. 0 Comments

In today’s context, if you don’t have a presence on the web, you’re likely to be thought of as ancient and out of touch with reality. Every business, small or big, has their own web page where they provide information about their services and products and using which their customers can reach out to them. Most individuals have their own space online, either by means of their social networking page or through their own blog page. So if you’re not online, it’s like you don’t exist. Getting on the Internet is not that big a deal – there are various hosting providers who allow you to set up your site without charging you for the privilege, but before you jump on this bandwagon, you need to know if free web hosting really works for you. It is viable only if:

You’re ok with the ads: Free web hosts make their money using the ads they place on your site. They’re sometimes irritating to your visitors, especially if they’re in the form of annoying pop-ups that jump up every time they open or close a page. Other ads may be in the form of banners or frames, so unless the sponsored links are unobtrusive, there’s no use of signing up with a free provider.

You don’t plan to expand: Free web hosts give you limited storage, which is ok if you’re starting out. But if your site picks up and needs to expand, you’re going to have to move to a paid host who offers more storage space and more email ids. Some hosts also limit the size of files that you’re allowed to upload, so if you have large pictures or other graphical images and videos, you may find yourself unable to put them up.

You don’t require speed: When your site is hosted by a free web host, it’s usually one among thousands on the same server. So it is slow to load, especially during peak traffic hours when most other sites on the same server are also being accessed. This could cause your readers to see a link that the site is unavailable at the moment, and if they’re not particularly looking for your site, they move on to the next one on their search list. Free hosting is ok if you’re not expecting too many visitors, but then again, if you’re not looking to attract traffic to your site, what’s the use of being online in the first place?

You don’t need too much bandwidth: If your site is heavy and takes time to load or if it has too many graphical images, you may find yourself being asked to pay for the use of your web server. Yes, you did sign up for a free web host, but there are some providers who charge if they find that you’re uploading and downloading more than the norm.

You don’t need FTP access: With a free web host, you’re only allowed to upload content using your service provider’s builder, so if you need access through email or via any browser of your choice, free is not the way to go.

Some people prefer to start out with a free host, and as their requirements grow, they migrate to one who must be paid. Changing hosts is a complicated task, especially because your site has to undergo downtime, so if your traffic is going to be adversely affected because of this, it’s best to go with a paid host right from the beginning. The choice of a web host must be made with care, because sticking to the same provider will pay off in the long run. Costs must be weighed against benefits, and adequate research must be done before you choose a web host that’s right for your needs.

This guest post is contributed by Barbara Williams, she writes on the topic of Computer Technician Schools . Email her at: barbara.williams07@gmail.com .

System Upgrades and Other January News

Published at January 6, 2010 in Ingenuity Stuff and Web Hosting News. 1 Comment

System Upgrades

As was introduced in December’s Newsletter we will be upgrading our servers to offer PHP 5.3 by default. PHP 5.3 is more robust, has increased security and provides improved functionality.

For you this means that if your site is developed in PHP4 and older versions of PHP5 they may encounter some functioning problems. We recommend you contact your web developer or us here at Ingenuity on 1300 66 46 43 and we can refer you to someone who can help.

Some more exciting developments here at Ingenuity have been the addition of some new products and services on offer to our clients:

Server Co-Location

If your company has a dedicated server to handle your IT related tasks such as hosting websites and managing email you may have encountered some common problems. Housing a server at your business premises can be slow, impact on the reliability due to a lack of constantly monitored environmental controls and redundancy in case of power failures, not to mention housing a server yourself can become quite costly due to internet connection bandwidth quotas. If you would like to improve the efficiency of your server and avoid such issues, Ingenuity provides different server co-location plans.

To take advantage of this service go to www.ingenuity.net.au/server-co-location.php or call us on 1300 66 46 43.

Corporate Spam Filtering

Spam is a problem that most of us will experience at some point by doing no other wrong other than simply having an email address. Ingenuity is now offering Corporate Spam Filtering to help your business tackle this all too common problem. As the name suggests, this isn’t the basic type of spam filtering that can easily be exploited by professional spammers – this is a corporate solution with proven results to considerably reduce the amount of junk emails received.

If you are interested in this product please follow this link for more information www.ingenuity.net.au/corporate-spam-filtering.php or call us on 1300 66 46 43.

Don’t forget you can also follow us via Facebook and Twitter.

Christmas Trading Hours and Server Upgrades

Published at December 10, 2009 in Ingenuity Stuff. 0 Comments

Earlier today we sent-out an email newsletter to our clients about “Christmas Trading Hours and Server Upgrades”. If you’re not on our mailling list, here’s what we had to say:

We would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and to advise you of our trading hours over the holiday period and some upgrades we will be making in the new year.

Christmas Trading Hours

We will be closed over the Christmas period from 12pm Christmas Eve and will re-open 9am Monday the 4th of January. Some of our staff will still be on holidays in the week leading up to Christmas and the first week after we re-open, so please be patient if it takes a little long for us to respond to your enquiries.

For absolute emergencies, if you need to get in contact with us during the times we’re officially closed, you can contact us on 1300 664 643 and you will be transferred to our after-hours service and we will take your call or get back to you. Please note that we charge a fee of $220 per hour for this service.

System Upgrades

Here at Ingenuity we pride ourselves on being at the forefront of the industry, constantly striving to improve our service to our clients and the products that we offer to them. In line with this philosophy we are pleased to announce the roll-out of upgrades across our entire server system. We will be upgrading our servers to offer PHP 5.3 by default which is more robust, has increased security and provides improved functionality.

While we have always supported PHP5 and PHP4, for our clients whom have sites developed in PHP4 and perhaps old versions of PHP5, this means that your site may encounter some functioning problems. We believe that it is important to move ahead and make upgrades whenever possible and we would invite you to also take this opportunity to upgrade your own websites. To bring your website up-to-date we recommend you contact your web developer or us here at Ingenuity on 1300 66 46 43 and we can refer you to someone who can help.

Some more exciting developments here at Ingenuity have been the addition of some new products and services on offer to our clients which you can find out about in next month’s Newsletter.

Wishing you all the best for the holidays and a safe and happy new year!

The Ingenuity Team

P.S. If you would like to keep up with all the news at Ingenuity you can follow us on:

Facebook: facebook.com/IngenuityHosting
Twitter: twitter.com/IngenuityHost
Or have a look at our blog: www.ingenuity.net.au/blog

Fake webmail account upgrade emails

Published at April 14, 2009 in Tech Stuff. 0 Comments

Recently I’ve noticed a few fake webmail account upgrade emails floating around. If you see an email with the info below, please ignore and DO NOT REPLY as they are not from us. Here’s an example of the email I received:

Attn: WEBMAIL ACCOUNT Subscriber:

This mail is to inform all our { E-mail Account Users} that there we will be upgrading our site in a couple of days from now. So you as a Subscriber of our webmail e-mail account users, you are required to send us your Email account details so as to enable us know if you are still making use of your mail box. Furthermore, be informed that we will be deleting all E-mail Account that is not functioning so as to create more space/room for new user. so you are to send us your original mail account details which are as follows:

*User name:
*Password:
*Date of birth:

Failure to do this will immediately render your email address/account deactivated from our database. You can also confirm your email address by logging into your webmail account if it’s still active before sending it to us.

Thank you for using our Webmail Email Account!

Yours In Service.
The Webmail Email Support Team
Webmail Admin Service.

Jacques Tits wants my Asian domain names

Published at March 11, 2009 in Domain Names. 0 Comments

Today I received the following email:

Dear Manager,

We are a professional Internet consultant organization in Asia, which mainly deal with the global companies’domain name registration and internet intellectual property right protection. Currently, we have a pretty important issue needing to confirm with your company.

On 2009-03-11, we received an application formally, one person named “Jacques Tits” wanted to applied for the Internet brand “ingenuity” and some domain names through our body.

During our preliminary investigation,we found that these domain names’ keyword and internet brand is identical with your trademark. I wonder whether you consigned “Jacques Tits” to register these domain names through us or not? Or is “Jacques Tits” your business partner or distributor in Asia? Currently, we have postponed this application of this company temporarily already. In order to deal with this issue better, please let the principal make a confirmation with me by telephone or email ASAP.

In addition, I must state that we have time limited for one person or one company’s registration. It is just 15 days. If your company files doesn’t resent within the time limited. We will unconditionally authorized the application of ” Jacques Tits”.

Thank you for your cooperate.

I’ve seen variations of this from some of my clients and it appears there has been a very big push by the Asian domain registrars to get more clients.

Normally if there is an opportunity to own a domain name, I say “go for it” as domains are like property – if you are lucky enough to purchase a house in the right area, as the population grows and property becomes scarce, and you maintain that house well, it will be quite a valuable asset in the future. Last year I read that there were officially no more combinations of 4-letter dot com (.com) names available.

Also, domain names can have an impact on how well your website ranks in the search results as well. It’s important to understand that by having a domain name with some keywords in it won’t magically boost you to the top of Google – lots of other work is required to achieve this, but it certainly doesn’t hurt having a few of these domain names up your sleeve.

But like I said (in the property example) above, you need to nurture and look after your domain name for it to have any worth – which means that the domain name should have some relevance to your business or personal life and if possible – attract some interest from others as well.

It is for these reasons I’d say that having an Asian domain name isn’t something most small Australian businesses really need.

The domain would mainly attract the attention of the Asian market and if you really want to focus on this demographic, you should have your site translated into the necessary dialect, then there’s the consideration that China restricts access to a lot of external websites, so even with the translated pages, you still may not get that much traffic.

So while most domains are a great addition for any business to have, unless you’re planning on selling to the Asian market, I think you can let Jacques Tits’ have these domains.

Developing your Website – Step by Step

Published at September 16, 2008 in Web Development. 0 Comments

If you’re a first time business person on the web, you need a certain amount of guidance as you go about designing and developing a website that suits your company’s needs. Even if you’re a beginner and have absolutely no idea as to how best to go about with the project, there are ways to get things done in record time if you’re dedicated to the job and a quick learner. So here they are, the things you need to do to build your website and have it up and running successfully in no time:

  • Arm yourself with books and other sources of information that teach you about the process of web design and development. This is a good thing to do even when you’re not planning to develop the site yourself because you must appear knowledgeable when you’re talking to the designer who’s going to be taking care of the design and development processes.
  • Spend a few hours browsing the Internet surfing sites that are similar to the one you’re considering. While you don’t want to come across as a copycat, there’s no harm in adapting a good idea and making it your own as creatively as you can.
  • Map out a plan or flowchart to show how your site navigates.
  • Gather all the information (in print) that you need to put together a comprehensive yet concise website. Sort and sift this data into a form that’s suitable for the web.
  • Get a professional writer to optimize this content for search engines so that your site will be picked up by Google and its counterparts as they trawl the web.
  • Choose a domain name, make sure it’s available and get it registered.
  • Choose a web hosting company who will design, develop and maintain your site for you. Make sure that they are willing to take care of any edits and changes that are bound to arise on a day to day basis as you go through teething problems with your fledgling website. The changes must be done immediately because it’s imperative that your site irons out all the creases as soon as possible. The longer the delay, the more number of visitors you lose to poor design aspects. Also, take into account the costs that you will incur, both in terms of initial design fees and continuous hosting and maintenance fees.
  • Make sure your site is easy to navigate and that the pages load quickly.
  • While ads do generate revenue, the money does not pour in until your site gains popularity. So hold off the advertisements at least initially, and when you do incorporate them, make sure that they are the side salads and not the main course.
  • Once it’s up and running, continue to make changes and tweak details till it gets the look and feel that you’re gunning for. Improvement must be a continuous process based on your site’s performance and customer feedback.

About the author: This article is contributed by Sarah Scrafford, who regularly writes on the topic of web designing institutes. She invites your questions, comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address: sarah.scrafford25@gmail.com.

Registry ready to take on the world

Published at August 7, 2008 in Domain Names. 0 Comments

Just read an article about how local domain name registrar AusRegistry has taken its first global expansion steps and has signed a deal to provide services in the Middle East.

Now, I think that it’s great that an Australian domain name authority is expanding to other countries.  This is a great thing for Australia and reinforces our high level of technical competency in a field that is monopolised by the US.

The Middle East has been the fastest growing country for internet usage over the past 8 years (with a whopping 1,176.8 % uptake… with Africa being the only other country that has come close with an uptake of 1,031.2 %).

It will be very interesting to see how AusRegistry, and the domain industry in general evolves over the coming years.  You can read the full article here.

Long or Short Domain Names

Published at June 5, 2008 in Domain Names. 1 Comment

Just had a client ask me to register a new domain name for them and it was roughly 40 characters long.

Now it can be a good thing to try and incorporate some keywords that you want to rank for in the search engines into your domain name. The search engines favour domains that include a keyword or two because it indicates a little more relevance and when other sites link to you, it’s a lot more likely you’ll get keywords mentioned because many websites will use your URL as the anchor text.

But there is definitely a point when you can try and cram too much stuff into a name so that it becomes ridiculous.

Having a website should be designed to make things as easy as possible for your clients, making it easier for you to sell your products. To provide a resource that’s available 24/7 to answer all your clients frequently asked questions so they don’t have to call or email you. To reinforce your brand, reputation and authority.

Having a domain name that is too long doesn’t help achieve any of those things and you’ll often find that:

  • It makes it more difficult for people to spell (and the longer the name, the greater the chance that people will misspell it)
  • It makes it harder for people to remember
  • Sometimes if a name is too long, it will deter people from wanting to contact you simply because it takes too long to type
  • It could raise red flags from the search engines and savvy users who are aware that placing a keyword in your domain can be a good thing… but when the domain is very long and appears to include multiple keywords, it can make your site appear spammy

At the end of the day, your site should be an aid for your business, not a hindrance and if your choice of domain name is too difficult, you’ll be seriously limiting your potential success online.

The Webhosting Year in Review

Published at December 31, 2007 in Ingenuity Stuff. 0 Comments

This blog is only about 4 months old, but as a company, Ingenuity has been around for 4 YEARS. Over this time we’ve seen a lot of things happen in the web hosting industry.

We’ve seen dozens of different online shopping carts come and go, we’ve watched the evolution of content management systems eg. Mambo to Joomla. Not to mention clients that have insisted on having content managed sites (and paid good money for them too) but have never updated a single page.

There have been over 1 Million Australian domain names registered and thankfully the number of domain name scams has dropped in 2007, although there were still a few places that were unfortunately tricked into spending a couple of hundred dollars purchasing new domain names when they actually thought they were simply renewing their existing names.

We’ve personally experienced the growth of blogging in Australia and attended the first ever Australian Blogging Conference.

Our client-base which started from virtually nothing has been growing at an exponential rate and this year has been busier than ever. To accommodate this growth, we’ve been progressively upgrading all of our servers and equipment and even though there were (as there will always be) a few small hiccups throughout the year, we’ve still managed to keep our Uptime at 99.99%.

So, what’s in store for the new year?

We’re planning on finalising the minor renovations to our office that we started about a month ago, hiring some additional staff and expanding our reseller offering.

2008 will be a very exciting year for Ingenuity and all our new and existing clients. We will continue to expand and improve our products and services whilst always providing the utmost highest level of customer service possible.

Happy New Year!