Solar Sunrises and Moonlight Mazes

Posted on 2008-08-13

The predecessor of the Internet, ARPANET, was set up by the U.S. Department of Defense in 1969. Cyber attacks against the U.S. government in the last ten years, such as Solar Sunrise and Moonlight Maze, prove that an original creator does not know al

Peer 1 Racecars and "Community Evangelists"

Posted on 2008-08-11

Last week the hosting provider Peer 1 ran an entry in it's blog about a couple of system administrators from the company that had put together a team to compete in the awfully amusing race "24 Hours of LeMons" the weekend of July 26-27 in Kershaw, So

Go Daddy CEO Gets Honorary Doctorate

May 30, 2008 -- In a press release describing the man as a "renegade" and the "king of controversy," Go Daddy reported Friday that its CEO Bob Parsons had received an honorary doctorate from the University of Baltimore.

Microsoft Hosting Summit - WHIR Tours Microsoft Redmond Campus

Posted on 2008-04-18

Last Thursday, after the Microsoft Hosting Summit wrapped up, the WHIR contingent had the opportunity to tour Microsoft's Redmond, Washington campus with lead marketing manager for hosted solutions Michael van Dijken.

Netcraft Releases April Survey

April 14, 2008 -- Web analytics firm Netcraft announced on Monday the results of its April 2008 survey.

Four Easy Ways to Tell They Love You - Part 2: Vanity

Posted on 2008-04-10

Vanity searches are searches one conducts on his/her own name. Apparently the practice is common enough to have a wikipedia entry. I consider vanity searches as the virtual equivalent of a credit check - to see what mischief is being conducted in you

Did You Mean Anti-Phishing or Anti-Tubing?

Posted on 2008-02-27

Senator Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens (Alaska) along with Senator Olympia Snowe (Maine) introduced the Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act this week. The problem is they are honestly in need of phishing education.

Wikimedia Peering at AMS-IX

December 12, 2007 -- The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization behind Wikipedia reported on Wednesday that it has joined with the non-profit Amsterdam Internet Exchange for the good of the Internet.

There is no place for manners in customer service

Posted on 2007-11-26

That's right - you heard me. If you want a truly effective customer service organization, ideally, you should not base any portion of your hiring or training on the your (potential) employees' manners.

Attenda Provides Hosting for Miomi

November 23, 2007 -- Managed services provider Attenda announced on Friday that it has signed a three-year deal to host and manage UK-based Web 2.0 startup Miomi.

Host Color Adds Social Tools

November 23, 2007 -- Web hosting provider Host Color announced on Friday it has added new software applications to its hosting plans, enabling customers to use two social tools such as Wiki software and social networking CMS.

Home Multimedia Meets Hosting

Posted on 2007-10-21

Google Grabs the Modular Data Center Patent

Posted on 2007-10-11

On Wednesday, Google was assigned the patent for something called the “Modular Data Center,” a distinction for which it applied in 2003, and which was given the final approval this week by the US Patent Office.

Thoughts from office 2.0

Posted on 2007-09-06

The office2.0 conference began yesterday with a cocktail party.  At the party, I met a doctor from CNMRI who is using technology in two interesting ways.  He’s using Twitter so his staff can figure out what tasks each of them are enga

Is Isabel Right?

Posted on 2007-08-28

Many people have seen Isabel and I debate the pros and cons of SaaS and Web 2.0 technology.  While by and large I talk about potential liability issues stemming from the sale and use of this technology, there is a certain curmudgeonly aspect to

Data, who does it belong to?

Posted on 2007-07-21

    So many concerns today about our precious information.  Who has legal rights to what?  How am I going to get my email history if the lawyers get involved? Can they get my information before I can? Can I get my log files t

Comply! Comply! - Keep your mail servers off blacklists, avoid being flagged as spam

Posted on 2007-06-22

Alternate title : Making Sure your Email Services are up to Date with RFC Standards

FCC Finished Receiving Net Neutrality Comments

Posted on 2007-06-20

  Last Friday (June 15th) was the final day for the FCC’s public comment period on the issue of net neutrality.

Mashups - scary mashups

Posted on 2007-06-05

For those of you who missed Isabel and my seminar at ISPCON or our presentation at the SW Soft Summit, Isabel has alerted me to another matter that will allow me to do some additional fear mongering. Amazon.com allows users to tag content on the com

Microsoft sez "all your patent are belong to us"

Posted on 2007-05-13

To summarize, Microsoft is starting to get really antsy about patents. Ok, that's not news - they've always been patent-aware. But now they're starting to become a little more public about it. This is one of the more convoluted pieces of legal con

The Nobody Who Became Somebody

Posted on 2007-04-10

On most web servers, PHP normally executes as the user "nobody" and is ran as an Apache module. The ability to execute arbitrary code as an unprivileged user may lead to modified web content, denial of service, or further compromise. With t

Netcraft Releases April 2007 Survey

April 2, 2007 -- Web analytics firm Netcraft announced on Monday the results of its April 2007 survey, receiving responses from 113,658,468 sites, an increase of 3.2 million sites from last month's survey.

CAN-SPAM Liability for Your e-mail partners.

Posted on 2007-03-29

The U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona recently rejected a request for summary judgment by a marketer who claimed that the CAN-SPAM Act does not impose liability on companies for the actions of their marketing partners. The court held

Web 2.0 is Dead!

Posted on 2007-03-22

Ok, so I'm being a little overly dramatic, but it appears there's a very real threat to one of the staples of Web 2.0, AJAX, that threatens to make this technology too risky for browsers to continue to support.

Twitter is Misbehaving and I Blame Joyent! (Or, Hosting Providers as Venture Capitalists)

Posted on 2007-03-14

Dave Young from Joyent recently blogged about Twitter's use of Joyent Accelerators. Accelerators are Solaris Containers on Sun Fire X4100s with Sun Fire X4500s (also known as "Thumpers") for storage. Joyent promises on-demand, no-leash computing and

What to make of the latest FBI Flap.

Posted on 2007-03-13

A recent report from the U.S. Department of Justice has highlighted deficiencies in the F.B.I.'s use of national security letters. The wide ranging report, required under the USA Patriot Act, included a detailed breakdown of how the letters have be

Are We Running Out of Storage Space? IDC is Concerned, but Maxell Says Never Fear

Posted on 2007-03-13

I learned about the IDC storage paradox on Zoli Erdos' blog. Zoli mentions this Associated Press article, which cites IDC's estimate that "the world had 185 exabytes of storage available last year and will have 601 exabytes in 2010. But the amount of

The Future of SaaS, and What Puts ThinkFree Ahead of Google

Posted on 2007-03-08

ThinkFree is way cool! I signed up for an account earlier this week, and its web-based spreadsheet, word processor and slide presentation apps work beautifully. TJ Kang, the company's founder, has been developing office productivity software since th

SixApart, WordPress and 37Signals Support OpenID; Why Not 1&1 and GoDaddy?

Posted on 2007-03-07

I've been reading a lot about OpenID, a free, decentralized framework for managing digital identities. You start with an URI (think of it as a master username) and store your password and other creditials with an OpenID provider. You can then log int

More Revenue, Less Attrition - One Solution

Posted on 2007-03-02

Offering eCommerce solutions in addition to web hosting helps you reduce attrition while enhancing revenue - and that's just the beginning.

Customization vs Standardization, or What Amazon and Rackshack Have in Common

Posted on 2007-02-27

In early 2001, just a few months before Exodus filed for bankruptcy, Robert Marsh launched Rackshack. Unlike his struggling competitors, who typically built servers to spec, Robert sold $99 Cobalt RaQs. Only one configuration was available, and order

CDA protects MySpace

Posted on 2007-02-21

In 2007, MySpace was sued by the parents of a Texas girl who was assaulted by an adult after they exchanged information over the MySpace social networking site. The plaintiffs claimed that MySpace's failure to implement features that would have work