Earlier this week, ProVim earned media placement in Web Host Industry Review for its hosting acquisitions of late. The article, “Web Host ProVim Acquires Two Hosts” outlined two hosting companies ProVim absorbed, adding over 650 new accounts and 25 resellers to its server list. The Industry Review is the publication of record for the Web hosting industry, reaching more than 15,000 industry insiders and consumers daily.

While most hosting companies do a fine job of hosting websites and pinpointing problems when they arise, they lack the expertise to fix websites when something goes awry. Not so at ProVim. And that’s one benefit of hosting on ProVim’s severs. ProVim staff can pinpoint, diagnose and fix website snafus for clients. Exclusivity is among other benefits of private hosting.

Unlike public hosting services, like (ahem, GoDaddy) that lets any Tom, Dick and Harry start a website. ProVim hand picks those companies that host on its servers. There’s a big difference between letting your website reside in an exclusive community, or putting you website in the middle of a ghetto. Where your website is hosted could affects its rank on Google.

That’s why ProVim is your GoDaddy alternative. And have an escape plan from the GoDaddy ghetto to the pristine servers of ProVim, and we are eager to help business owners experience the benefits of hosting their business website on a private server.

At the close of 2010, ProVim Web Hosting and Development acquired New Jersey-based hosting company, IndexU. The acquisition adds over 500 new accounts and 24 resellers to the existing ProVim server list. In addition to the IndexU takeover, ProVim absorbed Jacob Cane Hosting, which added 150 new accounts and one reseller to ProVim’s server list.

As the economy rebounds the competition for hosting companies heats up. While some fold, larger hosting companies absorb them. With these acquisitions, ProVim continues to expand in a new year. “This growth demonstrates our core values of strengthen and vitality,” said Heid, President and CEO of ProVim Web Hosting and Development.

The difference between ProVim and other hosting is the service. “While other hosting companies can pinpoint problems with a client’s website that it is hosted on their server,” said Heid, “traditional hosting companies can’t fix the problem.” ProVim gives its clients both. “We can pinpoint, diagnose and fix website problems on our servers,” said Heid. “Plus, businesses have the option of purchasing our filter junk email service that blocks nearly all junk mail and protects computers from malware and spyware.”

Businesses that host with ProVim typically experience less down time with their websites and become more productive with email by using the filter junk email services.

The Cons: Your domain may not be safe. Domain Registry of America is out to steal it. The scam works something like this.

Domain Registry of America sends you a document that looks like a bill. But it’s not! Their trick? The bogus invoice says your company’s domain is set to expire, and by sending them the allotted dollar amount in the “invoice,” Doman Registry of America will “renew” your domain.

We’ve seen this scam burn a lot of business owners. One of ours almost did. It’s easy to believe Domain Registry of America because the “invoice” looks real. But it’s a fake. A fraud, even! Things get messy when you pay the initial fee, because Domain Registry of America leaves out a tiny, but important truth. Using their service gives them permission to take possession of your domain.

Once they have it… you don’t!

Falling for the Domain Registry’s little trick will cost you a bundle in the long run. Later you’ll receive a proposal to repurchase your company’s domain! See the problem? We’ve seen a repurchasing price as high as $699 USD.

Despite a 2003 settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, Domain Registry of America (DRoA) is still using “domain slamming” solicitations.  We see them all the time.  Complaints about DRoA are nothing new.

The danger:  Your domain is a key part of your brand.  You have it for email, your website, and years of marketing your brands awareness. Failing to own and protect your domain places your contact information up for grabs.  (Side note: Domain Registry of America is located in Canada, England and Australia.)

This has been confirmed by McAfee Labs in a March 2010 post.  We can also report, as a local Indianapolis web developer, many of these still coming in (including the one listed above from one of our clients).

Beginning in February of 2010, there have been reports of a new method of sending emails that appear like legitimate transfer requests.

The Pros: Your information does not have to be listed publicly.  As an added service and increased level of protection, we offer private registration to block your contact information from being harvested and ultimately sold.  Work with someone you trust.  If you ever have a question, just give us a call (317) 847-0302.

Many people believe the future of computing is thought to be moving towards something called cloud computing. The notion of cloud computing is to use the internet as your hard drive.  The term “cloud” derives from logical drawings of a network and the internet is often represented as a cloud.  Those of you that use online calendars or web hosted email are already computing in the cloud.  Services like these  are broken down into three major categories:

1. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
2. Platform as a Service(PaaS), and
3. Software as a Service(SaaS).  

An example of IaaS is Microsoft’s SkyDrive.  Microsoft lets you use up to 25 GB of free storage online.  PaaS helps you use programming tools like Java or Python to develop web based applications.  Examples of SaaS are web based email, Google Docs, and our very own secure email spam filter, ProSpam.  The idea behind Software as a Service is to let others worry about the behind the scenes work and lets you as a user just know the software will work.

Maybe one day we won’t even use a traditional operating system on our personal computers to access our software and files or to run applications.  The functionality is already here and user satisfaction is what will keep cloud computing moving forward.  

A little over a month ago, Facebook decided to revamp its privacy settings in an obvious attempt to combat Twitter’s openness and overall Google friendliness. As most Facebook users can recall, a pop-up randomly appeared that asked the user if they wanted to keep their “old” settings or go for the “new” ones. The new security settings were already checked for the user, so most people probably just clicked “save settings” without giving it much thought. Overnight, this caused a massive amount of Facebook profiles, pictures, status updates, etc. to be immediately available to the public. Not only did this make the profiles publicly accessible, but publicly searchable through Google. Therefore, people inadvertently put their “personal” Facebook lives out in public for the world to see.

This brings up the continuing discussion of what to make private and public online. We’ve all heard the horror stories of college grads being fielded on Facebook by potential employers, only to find photos of the potential employees getting sloshed at parties. We’ve also heard the stories of employees complaining about the company they work for thought their publicly available twitter account, only to find themselves fired the next day for their comments.

With all of this in mind, it’s important to decide what content to be private, and what to be public on social networks. I think it’s OK to have personal content on social networks, you just need to be smart about it. If you want to post profane status updates that you really only want your real-life friends seeing, then make sure its done in a controlled and private way. For example, to do this safely on Facebook, you’d have to make sure all your content was being kept private (through privacy settings), that you have a tightly controlled “friends” list, and that you’re not a part of any networks (i.e. school, business, etc.).

A good way to balance both private and public content is to use Facebook for private networking with friends and Twitter as a public medium for publishing your thoughts. Of course, this really all depends on how you want to represent yourself online. For example, I tend to keep most of the profanity off the social networks I use because I don’t want to be represented that way online. I don’t want to offend anyone and don’t want anything like that to harm my personal brand.

In the end, you must decide how you want to represent yourself online and stick to it. If you want everyone in the world to have access to your thoughts, posts, and multimedia content, then go for it. If you want more privacy, then make sure you go through all of your privacy settings on the particular social network and set them up in the way you see fit.