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issue 5.2CONTENTSPing! Zine MagazineFEATURED ARTICLE22 Alternative Web HostingOne doesn’t have to rely on traditional server platforms or even grid-basedpower systems to provide quality web hosting solutions.30 Server Backups, Are You Serious?Its time to discuss a great new software that is being developed to help hostingcompanies quickly and easily perform backups on their servers.34 Communicate With Your CustomersYou have done everything you can to make your website a great virtual store.So what’s missing? Could it be your communication?2236 Eric Meyer: A Candid Chat About CSS & StuffEric Meyer has written six books and he is well regarded and respected for hispassionate advocacy when it comes to web standards, particularly CSS.40 Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire FactorThere are plenty of online tools and resources, however, I was pleasantlysurprised when I was given the opportunity to test out FireFactor.44 Customer Service Q&ADouglas Hanna is back with his Customer Service Q&A, delivering answers forthose tough Customer Service Questions.46 The Ranks Of ServiceThe different levels of technical support representatives are similar to a rigidclass system in eighteenth-century Europe...52 Decisions, Decisions...Choosing the best solution for placing your website online and available 24/7can present a dizzying array of choices. So, what is the best option for you?4656 AJAX Web ToolForgive the cliché, but instead of cleaning your kitchen sink, Ajax cleans up thetraditional web experience and brings out shiny usability in web pages.60 VoIP For Your BusinessMigrating your business phone service to a VoIP-based solution may seem alittle intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be.63 Productivities New Name: Project ManagementHow can companies be more productive? Today’s CIOs are focusing on projectmanagement as one of the keys to productivity.64 Service DirectoryFind the services you need from some of the best companies in the industryright here in our Service Directory.5666 Job Security & The Art Of Careless CodingProgrammers today are being replaced with lower level programmers. Do notfear, for I will share with you the secrets of total job security!

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issue 5.2BITS & BYTESPing! Zine Magazine12 DOMAIN NAME DISPUTE FILINGS INCREASE 21%, IN 200613 VERICENTER APPOINTS SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF MARKETING14 SMARTERMAIL 4.0 SETS A HIGHER STANDARD FOR MAIL SERVERS14 LENOVO RECALLS EXTENDED-LIFE LAPTOP BATTERIES16 COMODO CRYPTOGRAPHY EXPERT TO DELIVER KEYNOTE SPEECH AT 4TH ITNG CONFERENCE16 HOSTINGCON 2007 KICKS OFF PLANNING IN CHICAGO18 TWO PLEAD NO CONTEST IN MYSPACE EXTORTION SCAM18 COST OF CYBERCRIME TOOLS FALLDUMB HOSTThree web hosts are attempting to change a light bulb. One of them decides to call 911:Web Host: We need help. We’re three web host changing a light bulb.Operator: Hmmmmm. You put in a fresh bulb?Web Host: Yes.Operator: The power in the house in on?Web Host: Of course.Operator: And the switch is on?Web Host: Yes, yes.Operator: And the bulb still won’t light up?Web Host: No, it’s working fine.Operator: Then what’s the problem?Web Host: We got dizzy spinning the ladder around, and we all fell and hurt ourselves.

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issue 5.2SPONSORSPing! Zine MagazineLunar Pages 2.3Bocacom 5Intersurge 7CDG Commerce 91&1 10.11Hosting Panama 13FirstVox 15WingSix 17Pinnacle Cart 20.21SiteMagix 25BizHosting Network 27SCInterface 27DataHosts 29Doreo 33Touch Support 37ModernBill 39Host Gator 43Host Buyout 45Relio 47SWsoft 19.49.50.51Host4Yourself.com 55Press Advance 57Web Host Magazine 57Psoft 59TechPad 62Host Careers 67Righteous Software 68Publisher Keith A. DuncanManaging Editor/Designer Derek MorrisCorporate Manager Devin WhiteSenior Editor Reece SellinTechnical Editor John A. BurmeisterCustomer Service Editor Douglas HannaMarketing Editor Trey GardnerOffi ce Assistant Monica LeBlancAdvisory BoardIsabel Wang, CEO, IsabelWang.comDeborah A. Discenza, Publisher, Preemie MagazineBen Fisher, VP TechPad Agency LLCRon Dunlap, ME, Web Host Magazine & Buyer’s GuideFrank Feingold, Owner, Doreo HostingAaron Phillips, VP Sales/Marketing, FastServers.NetDavid Kathiramalai, Director, WebWorldNetworkCarlos Regos, Owner, Relio.comStaff WritersAmy ArmitageDavid DunlapDouglas HannaRollie HawkDerek VaughanDave YoungContributing WritersTimothy DickPam PeacockEvan KamletKaanon MacFarlaneContact InformationPingZine LLC1814 S. Range Ave, Suite DDenham Springs, LA 70726(225) 791-6140Website www.pingzine.comGeneral Info info@pingzine.comSales sales@pingzine.comEditor editor@pingzine.comDesign design@pingzine.comPing! Zine Web Hosting Magazine © March 2007,Published and Copyrighted 2007 by Ping! Zine, LLC,P.O. Box 516, Denham Springs, LA 70726. All rightsreserved.Permission to reproduce all or parts of this magazinemust be secured in writing from the publisher.For more information email info@pingzine.com.Permission to clone all or parts of this magazinemust be secured in writing from the Department ofExperimental Drugs & Rehab.Disclaimer: Ping! Zine assumes no responsibilityor liability for the content of this magazine or ourCorporate Manager. He’s an idiot! All points andideas are strictly that of the writers involved and notthat of the publisher, publishing company, printingcompany or anyone involved with the same. Allmaterials in this magazine were produced by you,the heart and soul of this magazine. Printed in theU.S. by our printing company. D3656uh!

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DOMAIN NAME DISPUTE FILINGSINCREASE 21%, IN 2006Domain name dispute resolutions increased by 21% in 2006compared to 2005, according to The National Arbitration Forum.Reporting that it handled 1,658 Internet trademark disputes, TheNational Arbitration Forum says that 2006 has been the largest filingyear since the inception of its domain name dispute program.Notable disputes involved famous trademarks such as GeorgeForeman, Stevie Wonder, Vin Diesel, Louis Vuitton and the New YorkYankees. In 1999, the National Arbitration Forum was appointed as anapproved provider of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) bythe Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).Since then, the National Arbitration Forum has handled more than7,600 Internet domain name disputes. Of these, 6,508 were decidedby the National Arbitration Forum’s panel of 150 intellectual propertyexperts. Many of the remaining cases were settled by the parties.Curtis Brown, Vice President of the National Arbitration Forumremarked, “There continues to be a need for cost-effective and timelyresolution of Internet trademark disputes. On average the NationalArbitration Forum resolves domain name disputes in less than 50 dayscompared to what may take years in court.”The National Arbitration Forum’s online services allow parties fromacross the globe to file claims to resolve trademark disputes overInternet domain names. The majority of cases filed with the NationalArbitration Forum involve .com, .org and .net domain names. TheNational Arbitration Forum also handles disputes involving .biz, .info,.name, New.Net extensions and several country code top level domainsranging from .us (United States) to .tv (Tuvalu) and .ro (Romania) to .cc(Coco Islands).In 2006, the National Arbitration Forum expanded its spectrum ofservices to include the resolution of domain name disputes involving:Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), domain names that displayin a language using non-standard characters such as Arabic, Chinese,Japanese or Korean.The .pro domain name extension, designed for professionals andprofessional organizations.GET THIS NEWS & MOREON THE WEB @ WWW.PINGZINE.COMThe .mobi domain name extension, designed for mobiledevices.The National Arbitration Forum (FORUM) is one of the world’sleading providers of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) services,including arbitration and mediation. Committed to the integrityof America’s legal process, the National Arbitration Forumadministers efficient, cost-effective dispute resolution programsand services for all parties. It maintains a distinguished panel ofover 1,500 attorneys and retired judges who follow and applythe substantive law when rendering legal decisions. Mediatorsand arbitrators on the panel are located across the U.S. and in35 countries around the world. Established in 1986, the NationalArbitration Forum is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota withoffices in New Jersey and Southern California.To learn more about The National Arbitration Forum disputesresolutions, please visit: www.domain-disputes.com.For more information about the weekly ADR Law and PolicyUpdate newsletter, please visit: www.adrforum.com.To learn more about the searchable case database, please visit:http://domains.adrforum.com/decision.aspx12 Ping! Zine Magazine

VERICENTER APPOINTS SENIORVICE PRESIDENT OF MARKETINGFormer SafeNet, BMC Software and IBM executiveappointed to lead expanded marketing organization.VeriCenter, Inc., a leading provider of managed hosting,colocation, and IT outsourcing services, announced inFebruary that it has named Steve Lesem as Senior VicePresident and Chief Marketing Officer.In this newly created position, Lesem will report to GrayHall, President and CEO. His responsibilities will includedemand generation, field marketing, communications,business development, analyst relations, and messaging.“We are delighted that Steve has taken this role withinVeriCenter. He is a proven leader and his addition furtherstrengthens our executive team,” said VeriCenter CEO GrayHall. “Because Steve has been successful in both salesand marketing rolesthroughout his career,he will provide uswith the leadershipVeriCenter requiresto develop a strongermarketing competency,driven by customerneeds and industrydemands.”Lesem bringsmore than 20 yearsof experience in ITmarketing and sales.He was most recentlySenior Vice Presidentof worldwide sales for SafeNet, a Maryland based securitytechnology firm. At BMC Software, a Houston based systemsmanagement software solution provider, Lesem served ina variety of capacities, including a VP role in Asia Pacificbusiness development and channel programs, VP of AmericasMarketing, and VP of Sales and Marketing for BMC’s SecurityBusiness Unit. Prior to BMC, Lesem held several importantsales and marketing positions at IBM including GeneralManager, PC Server Sales and Marketing for North America.“I am honored to receive this important assignment andjoin the VeriCenter team,” said Lesem. “VeriCenter’s pacesetting growth and leadership of the managed hosting industryare truly exciting. VeriCenter has a world-class industryreputation, great solutions, a seasoned management team,and an extremely strong commitment to their customers. Ilook forward to working with the team as we accelerate thecompany’s success in this fast, dynamic and rapidly growingmarket.”www.pingzine.com 13

SMARTERMAIL 4.0 SETS A HIGHERSTANDARD FOR MAIL SERVERSSmarterMail is well known as a rock-solid mail serversolution for ISPs and Web-hosting companies. SmarterTools,Inc. advances that reputation by announcing the releaseof SmarterMail 4.0 with a virtually spam-free environmentand a new AJAX Web interface without sacrifi cing stability,performance, or value.This newest version of SmarterMail stays on the forefrontof protection by providing fully-integrated SpamAssassin,Greylisting, Outbound Spam Checks, and ClamAV virusprotection right out of the box. These industry-leadingenhancements build upon previously introduced SmarterMailfeatures; such as Bayesian fi ltering, SPF, RBL, SMTPconnection blocking, and more; to ensure that spam andviruses are stopped at the perimeter—95% (or more) ofspam never touches an inbox. Best of all, SmarterMail 4.0does not require the purchase of additional modules or 3rdpartyapplications. The complete set of spam, virus, andattack-prevention features is included with every version ofSmarterMail 4.0 at no additional cost.“Stability, reliability, and protection are what ISPs, Webhostingcompanies, and enterprise organizations needmost—hands down.” said Tim Uzzanti, CEO of SmarterTools,Inc. “SmarterMail 4.0 is more stable, has more features, andis more secure than ever before. It doesn’t matter if you arerunning very large distributed networks or a single mail server;SmarterMail drastically reduces downtime, failures, and callsfor technical support.”SmarterMail 4.0 is a leap forward in email technology witha new user-friendly AJAX Web interface and the additionof custom skins that can be used to make SmarterMail theperfect fi t for each organization. ISPs and Web-hostingcompanies can even create custom skins to “co-brand” andcoordinate their mail services. Version 4.0 also expandsupon the tools that business customers demand; includingcollaboration, calendars, contacts, tasks, folders, notes,and enterprise-level features such as synchronization withMicrosoft Outlook ® and Pocket PC.Mr. Uzzanti continued, “We could not be more excitedby SmarterMail 4.0. This release is part of our continuingcommitment to offer robust, full-featured software productsthat deliver value to our clients at every level.”The Enterprise Edition of SmarterMail 4.0 can still bepurchased with an unlimited number of domains and userslicenses for well under $1000—making a world-class mailserver affordable. Additional information about SmarterMailand all of the SmarterTools products is available at thecompany Web site: www.smartertools.comAdditional information about ClamAV can be found at: http://www.clamav.net/Additional information about SpamAssassin can be foundat: http://spamassassin.apache.org/index.htmlOutlook and Vista are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation:www.microsoft.comGET THIS NEWS & MOREON THE WEB @ WWW.PINGZINE.COMLENOVO RECALLS EXTENDED-LIFELAPTOP BATTERIESBy David DunlapWeb Host Magazine (www.webhostmagazine.com)Lenovo voluntarily recalled several Sanyo Electric lithiumion extended-life batteries for use in their ThinkPad notebookcomputers.The battery in question is a 9-cell battery part number FRU P/N92P1131 and was sold between November 2005 and February2007. The battery works in the ThinkPad notebook models R60,R60e, T60, T60p, Z60m, Z61e, Z61m and Z61p. Roughly onehundred thousand of these batteries were sold in the US andanother one hundred thousand were sold worldwide.The defect is not the battery cell itself, but occurs when the laptopis dropped and lands on its corner. This drop can cause overheatingand may end up damaging the notebook itself and possibly hurtingthe user.The extended life laptop batteries were a joint effort betweenLenovo and Sanyo and were tested by Lenovo prior to their release.Sanyo and Lenovo said the defect is in the design of the batterypacks, which were jointly designed by the two companies and testedfor impact-resistance by Lenovo, and not in the internal battery cell,designed by Sanyo alone.14 Ping! Zine Magazine

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GET THIS NEWS & MOREON THE WEB @ WWW.PINGZINE.COMCOMODO CRYPTOGRAPHY EXPERTTO DELIVER KEYNOTE SPEECH AT4TH ITNG CONFERENCEDr. Colin Walter’s speech will focus on how solutions to sidechannel attacks are ineffective in real-world implementation.Comodo, a leading provider of Identity and Trust AssuranceManagement Solutions, is pleased to announce that Dr.Colin Walter, Head of Cryptography at Comodo’s Digital TrustResearch Lab, will present the opening key note address at the4th International Conference on Information Technology: NewGenerations (ITNG), 2- 4 April at the Orleans’ Hotel, Las Vegas,Nevada (www.itng.info).Dr. Walter’s speech, Counter Intelligence against SideChannel Attacks, focuses on inadequacies in existing countermeasures to side channel attacks and emphasizes the needfor extreme care and expertise when designing hardwarefor containing secret cryptographic keys. In the fi eld ofcryptography, side channel attacks are the exploitation ofweaknesses in physical devices used to deploy cryptographicsystems allowing the attacker to decrypt sensitive data, such asprivate keys. For example, minute variations in timing, power,and electromagnetic radiation can be used to reconstruct thesecret keys used by a smartcard or cryptographic token whenperforming authentication.The speech will show how “conventional wisdom” in themathematical world about the security of counter measuressuch as data whitening, longer key lengths, and key blindingcan be insuffi cient when deployed onto real-world hardware.Dr. Colin Walter is the Head of Cryptography at ComodoCA and Chairman of Peripherals Working Group - TrustedComputing Group and Co-chair - Cryptographic Hardware andEmbedded Systems. He has achieved internationalrecognition in the design of hardware andalgorithms for the implementation of RSAcryptography. A senior member of the IEEE,Colin is most well-known to the internationalcommunity for his long term researchinto Montgomery modularmultiplication. Aselection ofhis papers areavailable on theComodo websiteat http://www.comodo.com/research/crypto/publications.htmlFull conferencedetails and anitinerary can befound at the ITNGwebsite (http://www.itng.info)HOSTINGCON 2007 KICKS OFFPLANNING IN CHICAGOBy Derek VaughanTechPad Agency (www.techpadagency.com)HostingCon 2007, the premier event for web hosting servicesprofessionals, will be held from July 23 – 25 at Navy Pier inChicago, Illinois.The HostingCon Advisory Board recently gathered inChicago to discuss this year’s HostingCon agenda, and tostrategize on how to add the most value for both attendees andexhibitors. The advisory board is composed of the organizersof HostingCon - Interjuncture, representatives from two of theHostingCon Platinum Sponsors – Microsoft and FastServers.Net., hosting industry luminary - Isabel Wang, and web hostingadvertising agency and publisher – TechPad Agency.The mood was optimistic and upbeat – with the participantsoften clamoring to get their ideas out and their points across.While the exact details of the discussions are confi dential, I canreport (as a HostingCon Advisory Board member myself) thatthe Theme and Tracks for this year’s HostingCon are:Theme – The Future of Hosted ServicesThe Tracks – Marketing, Technology, Growth, and LeadersI hope to see all of you at this year’s HostingCon event. Theorganizers are putting a huge amount of effort into ensuring thatHostingCon 2007 will help your business grow, give you greatideas to put into use throughout the coming year, and put youin contact with the best and brightest in the hosted servicesindustry.Here are some comments gathered from some of the otherHostingCon Advisers and a popular speaker from last year’sevent.”We’re very excited about HostingCon 2007. Navy Pier isan excellent venue... The exhibit hall, conference rooms andkeynote room are all wonderful!We’re looking forward to putting on an excellent conferenceprogram this year, covering extremely relevant and timelytopics. We’ll have some really good keynotes and panels thisyear, too. There will be a lot of great networking opportunitiesthis year, including the opening night reception and a reallygreat barbecue with fi reworks on Wednesday night.If you register for HostingCon 2007 and book a room at theW Hotel or the Sheraton by May 1st, you’ll get entered into adrawing to win some great prizes like free hotel stays and freeconference registrations.” – George A. Roberts IV, Presidentand CEO, Interjuncture Corp.”The direction of HostingCon 2007 is very exciting for us.Not only have we had a great opportunity to provide feedbackto the convention - the overall location and returning attendeesmake this an exciting opportunity for us to reconnect withfriends, vendors, and potential new clients. During the recentHostingCon Advisory Board meeting we had a great opportunityto mingle with today’s Hosting Industry Leaders and exchange

GET THIS NEWS & MOREON THE WEB @ WWW.PINGZINE.COMCOST OF CYBERCRIMETOOLS FALLBy David DunlapWeb Host Magazine (www.webhostmagazine.com)TWO PLEAD NO CONTEST INMYSPACE EXTORTION SCAMBy David DunlapWeb Host Magazine (www.webhostmagazine.com)Shaun Harrison and Saverio F Mondelli, both of New York,pleaded no contest to the single charge of unauthorized computeraccess stemming from a complicated extortion schemethat targeted popular social network, MySpace. Three othercharges were dropped.According to Los Angeles County deputy district attorney,Jeffrey McGrath, Harrison and Mondelli were arrested via anElectronic Crimes Task Force. The two men ran a site calledwww.myspaceplus.com were they wrote programs that wouldexploit a critical fl aw with the MySpace Web site that would enablethem to gather personal data from its users.Once MySpace caught wind of the exploitation they told thetwo to stop all action. Instead of stopping the two told MySpacethey had created an even better version, one that could escapedetection. They then told MySpace executives if they were notpaid $150,000 they would release the new code on MySpace.MySpace worked with law enforcement to get the two tofl y out to Los Angeles. Mondelli and Harrison believed theywere fl ying to the City of Angels for a meeting with MySpaceexecutives. Instead undercover investigators arrested the twosuspects.According to security fi rm RSA, there has never been abetter time to purchase cybercrime tools. Hacking tools,Trojan kits, e-mail address lists, and even log-in details arebeing sold at reduced rates.At the RSA Conference 2007, Jens Hinrichsen, RSA’sproduct marketing manager for fraud action, showed severalscreenshots to illustrate the lowering of hacker tool pricing.Many of the “venders” had been rated and reviewed inways that were nearly reminiscent of popular auction siteeBay.Examples of the pricing includes custom Trojan viruses for$600, 15,000 genuine e-mail addresses for $1,500, and evenhacked root servers starting at $100 apiece.This comes on the heels of a survey that shows that one inevery 27 Internet users were victims of identity fraud in 2006.Losses due to these identify thefts total to more than $49.3billion dollars.The Business Software Alliance (BSA) CEO and PresidentRobert Holleyman is urging members of Congress to updatethe U.S. criminal code to allow more effective prosecution ofmodern cyber threats.Representatives of Microsoft and members of the opensource community agreed that police lack the skills andexpertise to deal effectively with cases of internet crime thatare brought to them.18 Ping! Zine Magazine

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@ALTERNATIVE WEB HOSTINGBy Reece SellinBeyond Linux,Windows, Profit& the Power GridAs we’re no doubt all familiar, theoverwhelming majority of today’s web hostingproviders utilize servers running Linux orWindows, host in datacenters powered fromthe electric grid, and run their businessesfor profi t. But, as a growing number ofhosting enterprises are showing, one doesn’thave to rely on traditional server platforms,conventional business models, or even gridbasedpower systems to provide quality webhosting solutions. To this end, this articlewill explore three categories of alternativeweb hosting – solutions based off of AppleInc. technologies, green hosting solutionsand approaches, and cooperative businessmodels in the hosting industry. I willconclude with a brief summary and analysisof how these technologies may affect thewider hosting industry in the future.[continued]www.pingzine.com 23

MAC-BASEDHOSTINGHistorically, when most individuals thought of Apple Macplatforms, they tended to think only in terms of Apple’s desktopand notebook computers, serving roles in a relatively limitednumber of homes, or as a multimedia, publishing or educationalmachine. As we all know, that role has shifted in recent memory– a stronger general consumer audience now purchases Macplatforms as an extension to their experiences with Apple’s iPodtechnologies, while business users now take advantage of theMac’s Intel-based architecture and dual-boot-with-Windowscapabilities. But, usually absent from most considerations is therole of the Mac in the server room.Perhaps surprising to some is that Apple actually doesmanufacture a quite traditional-looking server platform, availablein a 1U rackmount configuration, called the Xserve. In termsof hardware, this platform in virtually every way matcheswhat one would find from a traditional server manufacturer– the base Xserve configuration boasts dual Intel Xeondual core processors, 1GB of RAM (expandable to 32GB),Gigabit Ethernet, and even a few extras not always found withrackmount servers, such as Firewire ports. All of this is offeredwith an unlimited client edition of Mac OS X Server – Apple’sMach-kernel-based server OS equivalent of their consumer MacOS X operating system.The obvious question is if such a server has applications thatbring it outside of the corporate server rooms of organizationsheavily reliant on Mac technology, and into a conventionaldatacenter environment. Interestingly, and perhaps surprisingly,it appears the answer is a definite yes. But, as I discovered– and in the stereotypical eccentric Apple fashion – it’s not justXserves being utilized for web hosting.An example of this is what at first may seem like a slightlybizarre approach to colocation – the Las Vegas, Nevadadatacenter of Macminicolo.net, which specializes in thecolocation of Macintosh platforms, primarily the Mac Mini.Indeed, there is in fact a very active and viable market ofhosting not simply Xserve platforms, but what would actuallybe considered consumer-grade technology: Mac Minis. And,surprisingly, in what very well makes up a whole new definitionfor the concept of “White Box” hosting, Mac Minis are apparentlyrobust machines, capable of performing impressively well in aserver environment.“People wonder about their ability to act as a server,”explained Brian Stucki, System Administrator at Macminicolo.net. “But surprisingly, they are quite capable,” he continued.“For instance, all of the FreeMac sites (www.freemacware.com)are hosted from one Mini. Granted, there are projects out therethat would need more power than a Mac Mini, but for the largemajority of sites, mail servers, databases, and DNS Servers, theMini does quite well,” he stated. “It’s an inexpensive way to haveyour own dedicated server.”Freddy Gonzalez, Account Manager at Arogo.net provideda similar view: “Mac minis are very powerful, and are able todeliver a lot of services reliably, at a very affordable price,” hesaid. Perhaps more interesting, though, is the role Mac miniscan play in compensating for a non-existent Mac-based VirtualPrivate Server (VPS) market: “For VPS, it seems more costeffective to offer low-end dedicated Mac mini plans than the costof setting up Mac VPS plans,” stated Gonzalez. “This is mainlydue to a lack of proper tools, but also the cost of licensing forsuch product offerings,” he explained. “In the end, a Mac basedVPS offering might be marginally less expensive to the customerthan a dedicated Mac mini, thus making this [VPS] option onethat would not make sense, both to the customer, and thehosting company offering such services,” he concluded.But Mac Mini and Xserve colocation isn’t the only type ofhosting widely available based off of Macintosh platforms.Although it does not appear Mac-based reseller hosting is at allcommon (due to a lack of MacOS being actively supported bymajor control panel manufacturers), shared hosting based off ofMac platforms is certainly available. And, although prices do nottend into the “bargain basement,” they do remain quite low forthose seeking good value in a shared solution.One very affordable and well-established entity in the Macshared hosting industry is Denver, Colorado-based MacHighway(www.machighway.com). Now in its tenth year of operation,the company provides a full range of shared hosting platforms,entirely based off of Apple Xserve platforms. Pricing andfeatures are almost precisely what you would expect from a highqualityshared hosting platform – starter hosting plans begin at alittle over $4/month (with annual payment), with more advancedplatforms ranging from $8.29 to $20.79/month. Features arealso quite typical, and include full PHP, MySQL, CGI/Perl,POP3/IMAP support, and so on. About all that isn’t available isa full-featured control panel (cPanel, SWSoft and other majorcontrol panel manufacturers do not offer products that supportMac platforms).What’s very interesting, not to mention possibly being apositive sign for Apple Inc., is that although the Mac-basedhosting user base is predictably dominated by those who useMac platforms at home or work, the overall numbers tendto show that many PC users choose to host on an Apple[continued]24 Ping! Zine Magazine

platform, too. As Chris Graves, co-founderof MacHighway explained it, “[although] weobviously push ourselves a lot in the Macmarket, we do have a lot of users in the PCmarket.” In his view, this is primarily due tocustomers desiring a high-quality hostingsolution – in other words, once the core featureset is established, the decision on whereto host becomes less about the underlyingplatform and more about the overall quality ofthe product and its support.GREENHOSTINGOne possible exception – where theunderlying platform has a very heavyimportance – is the emerging “greenhosting” industry. Given growing concernwith environmental issues in general,and global warming in particular, it is notsurprising that many hosting providers areincreasingly representing themselves as being“environmentally friendly.” In fact, a quicksearch on Google quickly reveals that a verylarge range of “green” web hosting providerscurrently exist, offering everything from sharedhosting through to colocation. It should benoted, however, that there isn’t any realdefinition of what qualifies a hosting companyas being “green.” In fact, there are a fewcompeting understandings of the concept, thatthemselves create at least some small level ofcontroversy in this segment of the web hostingindustry.By far the most common approach tojustify the “greenness” of a hosting provideris for that provider to offset their energy usewith Green Tags, also commonly knownas Renewable Energy Credits or TradableRenewable Certificates. Succinctly, a hostingprovider looking to do this will calculate theirtotal energy consumption, and then purchase,on the open market, a sufficient number oftags to match their energy consumption.Because the tags are effectively subsidies for green power providers (e.g. thoseoperating wind power generation facilities), companies doing this can (some sayaccurately) claim they run their hosting operations on clean energy. The factremains, however, that such solutions are by no means guarantees that the actualelectrons used by the hosting company are derived from nonpolluting sources -- infact, the exact opposite can be true, with a tag-using hosting provider’s serversactually using electricity derived from, for example, fossil fuels.One might anticipate that given the size of the hosting industry, surely therewould exist a hosting provider that solves that dilemma. And, perhaps no surpriseto some, they would actually be correct! One of the most interesting hostingproviders I have ever come across happens to be Romoland, California-basedAISO.net, also now in its tenth year of business, and still the world’s only hostingprovider running entirely on self-generated solar power. In their solution, a verysophisticated (not to mention very expensive) solar array affixed to the AISO.netdatacenter complex provides the raw energy that is utilized by their web servers.This is combined with a multi-faceted approach to power management, in sumproviding what is undoubtedly one of the most eco-friendly solutions available inthe hosting industry.For example, in addition to their solar power, AISO.net utilizes solar tubesto bring natural light into their office and datacenter (significantly offsetting theneed for even energy-efficient compact florescent lighting), recycled products toinsulate their building and datacenter, extremely energy efficient servers, andsophisticated virtualization solutions. According to Phil Nail, a founder of AISO.netand the firm’s Technology Manager, the company’s business processes will soonbe made still “greener” with the addition of LED lighting for after-hours use, theaddition of a “living roof” to the datacenter (several inches of dirt combined withdrought-resistant plants), and formal LEED certification (e.g., see www.usgbc.org/LEED) of the company’s office and datacenter.In terms of the typical client makeup, according to Nail, they “range from smallmom and pops who are environmentally-focused to large, billion-dollar companieswho are seeking true reliability, who are environmentally-focused, and who wantprofessional, personalized tech support.” As would be expected, an ecological26 Ping! Zine Magazine

focus is also shared by the company’s founders. When askedabout his personal motivation in starting AISO, Nail indicatedthat it was largely based on the dramatic changes that havetaken place environmentally in the past decades: “If peopleand corporations don’t step up and take responsibility fortheir actions, then the planet won’t be the way it used to be,”he stated. “Everyone in our company cares about the earthand our environment -- we want to do everything we can topreserve our planet so that the generations that follow havea clean and eco-friendly place to raise their families,” heconcluded.Also notable is that others can use AISO infrastructureto establish their own truly “green” hosting platforms -- inaddition to standard Windows and Linux-based sharedhosting, AISO.net offers lines of Reseller and DedicatedHosting, as well as Colocation services. And, no, the hostingdoesn’t shut down when the sun sets, or when there’s acloudy day (yes, I asked!). The trade-off, of course, is“WE ARE MORE AFRAMEWORK FORCREATING HOSTINGPLATFORMS TO MEETMEMBER NEEDS THANWE ARE A PARTICULAR‘HOSTING COMPANY’WITH SET ‘PACKAGES’LIKE YOU’LL FIND ATMAINSTREAM PROVIDERS”expense -- being the sole entity of its type in the worldwidehosting marketplace, and with significantly higher capitalexpenditures given the use of solar rather than grid power,AISO’s services tend to be somewhat more expensive thantraditional hosting platforms.COOPERATIVEHOSTINGMaking up the final “alternative” in this article is a quitefascinating type of entity offering hosting (and other)services – namely, cooperatives. Loosely defined, a(legally incorporated) cooperative is an entity that is bothdemocratically controlled and owned by its members.Services are effectively provided as not-for-profit (profitsare typically either spent on expanding the cooperative’sassets, or distributed among the cooperative’s membership).Traditionally, cooperatives have had a significant role in areassuch as enabling affordable housing, empowering smallretailers to pool buying resources (and thus take advantageof economies of scale), offering consumers member-ownedbanking solutions (e.g. “credit unions” and “cooperative[continued]

savings banks”), and so on.Considering their prevalence in many forms and in manyareas of economic activity, it is perhaps not surprising thatcooperatives exist in the realm of information technologyservices, including hosting. In preparing this article, I had theopportunity to interview representatives of two cooperativeorganizations – one with a stronger focus on providingservices to businesses, and another whose membership isalmost entirely made up of individuals. Both provide somerather fascinating insights into a unique segment of ourindustry.My interviews with Adam Chlipala, a director of HCoop(www.hcoop.net) and Drew Crampsie, a director of The TechCoop (www.tech.coop) were simultaneously refreshing andfascinating. My only regret is that my allotted space heredoesn’t allow me to expand in great depth on all of the pointsraised by both of them – suffice it to say, it appears that manya corporate hosting company could learn a great deal fromassessing cooperative web hosting business models.Perhaps the most striking point that is similar betweenthese two entities is the amount of flexibility they offer.Despite a somewhat dissimilar membership profile, withTech Coop having approximately 65% of their membersbeing corporations, and with HCoop being composedalmost exclusively of non-corporate persons as members,both organizations provide an impressive range of services– although they don’t necessarily fit into a specific “plan”.The primary difference between a conventional hostingcorporation and a cooperative hosting organization wasparticularly well put by HCoop’s Adam Chlipala: “As anon-profit corporation whose legal existence is basedon all decision-making being tied somehow to voting bymembers, the sky is really the limit in terms of what hostingarrangements are possible and at what costs,” he said. “Every year, members elect three of their number to serve onthe board of directors, and these directors make day-to-daydecisions on exactly what services we should provide andat what cost,” he continued. “So, the big message here isthat we are more a framework for creating hosting platformsto meet member needs than we are a particular ‘hostingcompany’ with set ‘packages’ like you’ll find at mainstreamproviders,” he indicated.Even prices are not necessarily static – referring to HCoop,Adam Chlipala stated that “our rates change from monthto month, as we focus on figuring monthly expenses forthe whole co-op and then dividing them evenly among themembers... in our current set-up, the cost over the last onemonthperiod to a single member was under $2.” Prices,of course, are kept so low through a rather sophisticatedcombination of factors – support, for example, is providedcooperatively, with members helping members – and pricestrend lower as a result of a lack of a profit motive. All of thisis offered with a scope of service that far exceeds what istraditionally available with a shared hosting platform, evengoing so far as to allow their members to run their owncustom-developed service daemons.It also seems possible to use a bit more of a traditionalhosting company structure, while still maintaining acooperative business model. A sterling example of such isVancouver, BC, Canada-based The Tech Coop (www.tech.coop). As mentioned earlier, the majority of The Tech Coop’smembership are corporations – this is reflected in the againvery flexible types of services they offer, which in manyrespects far exceed what one would normally see with atraditional hosting company.28 Ping! Zine Magazine“For businesses especially, the co-op offers a lot more than amore mainstream provider would,” explained Tech Coop director,Drew Crampsie. “For some of our business members, we aretheir IT department,” he continued. “We host their databases,web site and e-mail, purchase and support their hardware andnetworks, write their internal applications, act as their helpdesk, etc.,” he said. And, in what is undoubtedly a rarity in thebroader hosting industry, “all our members have the cell phonenumbers of our technicians -- our policy is to always let you talkto someone who can take responsibility and solve the problem,”says Crampsie.Pricing in this case remains flexible as well – discussing hisorganization’s pricing model, Crampsie indicated that “how mucha member pays is based entirely on what they need and whatserver/human resources they consume.” For example, “[TechCoop] has members who pay nothing, and instead help run theco-op, and [has] members who pay upwards of $500 monthlyfor a comprehensive hosting and support package,” he clarified.“We don’t try to compete on price, although we do try to pricecompetitively -- a simple hosting package is going to run between$5 and $20 [Canadian Dollars]/monthly; Xen VPS packages startat $20,” he concluded. Bandwidth and storage space is billed atwhat is effectively the organization’s cost.ConclusionsIn this article, I discussed three “alternatives” in the hostingindustry – hosting based on Apple Inc. Platforms, eco-friendly“green” hosting, and hosting based off of an alternative businessmodel, namely cooperative hosting. I think it is important topoint out that my analysis has by no means been exhaustive – Iwould definitely encourage all readers to explore any or all ofthese hosting alternatives, as there are many fascinating aspectsto each that I could not explore here due to time and spaceconstraints.In terms of the future of each of these business models, theyeach seem very positive. Whether or not they will assumea dominant or even widely significant position in the largerhosting industry remains to be seen, but the fact remains thateach are growing. Use of Apple technologies both in consumerand business environments has been on the rise for severalyears. Concerns involving the environment and global warmingcontinue to increase, as well. And, as demonstrated by theconsistently growing memberships of two representative hostingcooperatives, it appears cooperative hosting also has a long,prosperous future.Last, but certainly not least, each of these hosting modelsseem to provide some interesting lessons, even on a personallevel. With Mac-based hosting, the underlying theme is that eventhe smallest of platforms can perform far beyond one’s initialexpectations. With green hosting, we are reminded that seekingecologically friendly and sustainable solutions to many issueswill help ensure a prosperous, healthy future for our children,grandchildren, and beyond. And, with cooperative hosting, welearn that by working together and not focussing on profit, we canoften still achieve our goals.P!Writer’s Bio: Reece Sellin is Senior Editor of Ping! Magazineand Chief Content Engineer at Net Logistics Pty. Ltd. (www.netlogistics.com.au), a leading Australian web hosting firm. Whilewriting this article, forces (largely) unknown compelled Reece toacquire a Macbook.Send your questions or comments to writers@pingzine.com

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Dig a little deeper, and you will probablyfind that most web hosting providersdo not have a viable backup solution inplace. Why? Well, that’s the main reasonI’m writing this article. But to take it astep further, I’m going to discuss someawesome new software that is beingdeveloped to help hosting companiesquickly and easily perform backups ontheir servers. I recently took some timeto interview a fairly new company in theindustry called Righteous Software (www.r1soft.com). The crew over at RighteousSoftware is developing some of the mostinnovative technology solutions specificallydesigned for backing up servers, primarilytargeting the web hosting industry.My interview started with David Wartell,founder of Righteous Software Inc., andwas truly an experience worth discussing.David and his team are developing asoftware platform called ContinuousData Protection, or CDP – software forLinux and Windows operating systemsthat provides anything from bare-metalServerrecovery to snapshots to data integritybackup solutions. I began by asking Mr.Wartell a series of questions regarding thehosting industry and how backup solutionsare being used in today’s dedicated servermarket. You will definitely want to take afew minutes and read what he had to sayabout past and present backup solutions.The Current Stateof Backup and RestoreThe first question I asked is “What is thecurrent state of backup and restorationfor the typical hosting provider includinglarger, more prominent hosting providers?”Once a Senior Network Engineer forEV1Servers (EV1), David’s responsibilitiesincluded giving tours of the EV1 expansivedatacenter facility. While giving tours,some of the more IT-savvy customersoften asked about backup solutions thatwere implemented for the thousands ofservers racked in the EV1 datacenter.David’s response was the same as usual– “We don’t back up these servers, it’s the30 Ping! Zine Magazine

customer’s responsibility to back up their servers and providetheir own backup solution.”Even servers that did have a backup solution relied on a mixtureof FTP, tar, rsync, and homegrown shell scripts. After all, in thededicated server business ordering a “restore” doesn’t meanthe customer gets any of their data back; instead, it means theserver gets wiped clean and the operating system is reinstalled.Is this an inconvenience to the customer? Absolutely. Mostcustomers usually are not aware that a “restore” simply meansa “wiped system with a fresh operating system installed.” Thisconcept often leads to frustrated business owners who just wanttheir web sites and servers to be back online after a failure.What Are Other Industries Using for Backups?So far, I have only discussed how the hosting industry handlesbackups for customers. But, what are the other industries usingfor backup solutions? What are the Enterprise-level and themultinational Fortune 500 companies using? Walk into their datacenters, and you are likely to see a completely different picture.There you are going to see server data stored centrally on largeNetwork-Attached Storage (NAS) systems from vendors likeEMC and NetApp. You will see Storage Area Networks (SANs),Fibre Channel, robotic tape drive systems, and a team ofspecialized engineers to make it all work. Having a server failurein one of these environments is usually not a problem – just bringto why hosting providers do not have access to this technology.And, don’t expect these vendors to start lowering their pricingjust to cater to the web hosting industry – after all, why shouldthey, when most of their existing customers apparently have noproblem paying the $400 to $2,000 per server price tag?Disaster RecoveryWhat are data retention policies like for web hosting providers?Is it fast or easy to restore servers after a serious disaster?Since most web hosting providers use tar and rsync, they don’treally have an efficient way to store incremental backups. Forexample, if a provider wanted to keep the last ten backups theyhave made, it might require as much as five times their totaldisk usage in storage space – and that’s assuming they usecompression.Many web hosting providers may only have one backup copy oftheir data. “I have seen some hosts have a server failure, only tofind out their backups were failing part way through the process,”said David. “Since they did not know they had a problem until itcame time to restore, having only one backup copy meant theylost a lot of their customer’s data. Keeping one copy might alsoland you into trouble if you have a failure during your backup.”So, let’s assume everything has gone right with the backups.You have a solid backup copy, and now its time to restore yourserver. This is where the best plans can go wrong. Does theBackups, Are You Serious?By Dave Younga new server online (or utilize the instant fail-over) – as all of thedata is stored centrally.These same companies are using disk based backup softwarefrom vendors like EMC, Veritas, and Computer Associates. Theycan take incremental disk-based backups, back up open files,and take consistent system wide snapshots. Backups are oftendone on a secondary NAS device, so production systems andstorage are not impacted during the “backup to disk and tape”process.If it sounds like cool technology that every web host shouldutilize, well, that’s because it is cool – even very cool. But,implementing such complex solutions is often not practical forhosting companies in terms of cost and convenience. Theseadvanced technologies are not suited to a market wherecustomers tend to be small or medium-sized businesses – eachone demanding their own “sandbox” to play in, and give theirnew toys a spin.In addition to the hardware and storage networks, theseaforementioned large companies are also paying a license fee,typically ranging from $400 to $1,000 per server, for backupsoftware. If they want open file backups and snapshots, they aremost likely paying an additional $500 to $1,000 per server forproducts like Open Transaction Manager (OTM).With the cost of commercial backup software solutionssometimes requiring an entire year’s revenue, it explains a lot asoperating system need to be installed first, before the restorecan start? Maybe you need to order one of those “restores” fromyour data center to even get remote access to the host? Did yourecord how the disk was partitioned? Have there been changesto the boot loader?These are all great questions for an experienced systemsadministrator. But even the experts don’t want to deal with thesehassles under the pressures of a server being down while at thesame time, angry customers are demanding their services be upand running without any further delays. So what should you do?Is there an ideal solution out there?An Ideal SolutionWhen Mr. Wartell started in the hosting industry back in 1997,there was not a single viable solution for solid disk-based backupsoftware. Another six years went by, and there was still no sign ofan affordable backup solution on the market. In fact, the problemhad become a lot worse than ever. So, what did David do? Heformed a company called Righteous Software Inc. (www.r1soft.com) and enlisted the help of a couple other software engineers.David said, “Our mission was to solve this problem once andfor all. First we sat down and made a wish list. What would theideal backup software for the hosting industry look like.” He andhis team created a list with all the features they would want tosee in a backup solution including bare-metal disaster recovery,[continued]www.pingzine.com 31

incremental backups in a few minutes, open file backups,encryption, compression, minimal performance impact, multiuser,web interface, quotas, and so on. “We tried to think ofeverything we could and put it on the list, even if it didn’t soundrealistic,” he said.The Righteous Software team of engineers looked at everysolution available on the market – with limited success assolutions were few and far between. They examined theirstrengths, their weaknesses, and left nothing out. They looked atopen source solutions and commercial solutions, and they testedeverything they could get their hands on, finding very little in theform of features and functionality. None of the solutions theyinvestigated had more than one or two of the features that werescribbled on the team’s list.Initially focusing on Linux, since at the time it was the mostdominant operating system in the hosting industry, the teamwrote a lot of C code. Many days and nights were filled writinglines and lines of C code. But after nine months of extensiveresearch, programming, and a lot of C code thrown in the trash,the only lesson learned was they had to approach building abackup solution completely different than any other product onthe market. Did the nine months of research and C coding payoff? Well, it taught them several things. One being there arefundamental flaws with backups performed at the file systemlevel.“The greatest efficiency and scalability was to be had backing upat the hard disk sector level. No file lists in memory, no limitationson the number of files, and the ability to backup only changeddisk sectors,” said David. “It took another nine months to figureout how to make it work. We learned the backup process had tobypass the file system, providing point-in-time snapshots of thehard disk in a completely consistent manner. This method alsoproved to be highly efficient [in] reducing CPU usage and I/Owait times when compared to other backup methods.”The second thing they learned is that in order to meet their goalof “incremental backups in a few minutes,” the software had topassively track which sectors were changing between backups.This also had to be done in a way that had virtually no impact onperformance, and in a way that was guaranteed to never miss adisk change, even through reboots or crashes. A full three yearslater, in the spring of 2006, Righteous Software finally reacheda point where they had successfully invented a system for whatthey now call Continuous Data Protection (CDP).“It delivers what we barely thought possible when we started,”said David. “Open file backups, system wide snapshots, andthe ability to reduce backup windows down to the time it takesto read changed sectors off of the hard disk. This fundamentallychanges the way people should look at backups.” The industrystandard indicates that usually no more than 10% of a server’sdata changes on a daily basis. In practice, it’s often much less.“With CDP, we have reduced the backup window down to thetime it takes to send that changed data across the network. And,the more frequently you back up your data, the less data there isto send.”Customers are able to use the CDP software product tobackup servers every 10 or 15 minutes, even on servers thatare extremely busy. And because the method for backups isso efficient, there’s no reason not to run backups frequently.Backups can now be performed even during peak periods, whichis a significant advantage for safeguarding data when serversare running at maximum level.The third thing they learned was how to efficiently store alarge number of incremental sector-level backups. “We lookedaround for existing solutions and, unfortunately, we couldn’tfind anything,” said David. “We next invented what we call DiskSafes. Disk Safes first store a seed image of a server. Thisincludes the partition table, MBR, and even the file systemformatting. It excludes unused parts of the hard disk.”When incremental backups are performed, only disk sectorsthat have been changed are stored. Coupled with the nearlycontinuous backup technology offered by CDP, complete diskimages can now be stored incrementally and reconstructed ona “backup server,” which is where all of the disk-based backupdata is stored for many Linux servers. “The process is soefficient it’s nearly as fast as accessing the files as if they wereon the live system. It supports compression, and end-to-endencryption,” said David. “The software also has a built-in backuppolicy manager capable of retaining copies based on a variety ofschedules.”David continued to discuss more of the unique features offeredby the CDP software. “We often recommend to customers theyshould be able to store backups dating back to at least oneyear. Incremental backups can be taken and rotated out basedon minutely [sic], hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly schedules.”Another advantage to backing up at the sector level is that youcan restore directly to a new disk. There is no need to first installthe operating system and partition drives. David continuedby stating, “Our customers simply boot servers into disasterrecovery boot media using a CD or network PXE boot. And,with several mouse clicks, customers can watch the server’shard drive image stream across the network. Our customers aregratified by the capabilities of the CDP software, its efficiency,and ability to provide a nearly continuous backup for all theircustomers’ important data.”Was It Worth ItBased on Mr. Wartell’s thorough explanation of where theystarted, what they have researched and coded, and wherethey are today, the CDP software appears capable of reducingdisaster recovery down to four easy steps. The first is to resolveany hardware problems or deploy a new server. The second isto boot that server into disaster recovery mode. The third is toselect the backup you want to use to restore the server. Andthe fourth is to sit down, relax, and watch your server’s backupsolution give you a complete disaster recovery, without payingthe big bucks to other software vendors.“Our software removes all barriers to an efficient restoration ofa server,” said David. “The only limitation left is hard disk speedand network bandwidth. That said, anyone can use it, and it’sall controlled via a web interface.” Moreover, there is now asolid backup solution for web hosts using Linux, and in the nearfuture, Windows, that meets and in some cases far exceeds whatthe enterprises are using. And, it’s also affordable. Still further,unlike other backup software vendors, Righteous Software ownsall of its technology and pays no third party licensee fees for anycomponents of its technology. “This allows us to reduce the pricefor backup software,” said David. “For most customers we havebeen able to get it down to between $50 and $100 per server.Compared with $400 to $2,000 for other solutions, that do notperform well.”So there it is: a complete backup solution specifically designedfor the hosting industry. Righteous Software has been able toachieve features and functionality of a truly continuous backupsolution, at costs much lower than any competitor in any otherindustry. This technology is very cool stuff, and is well worth theasking price.Consider this the next time you tell your customers it’s theirresponsibility to backup their servers: Is it worth having anadvanced, yet simple to use software program availableto backup your servers without placing the burden on yourcustomers? Absolutely. It’s one more thing you can add to yourarray of features that could, in turn, generate more revenue. And,who doesn’t want more revenue? P!Send your questions or comments to writers@pingzine.com32 Ping! Zine Magazine

Do you own ane-commerce web site?Do you sell products, services, and other goodies tocomplement your products and services? If so, you’re mostlikely monitoring your web site’s performance through trafficanalyzing software? Or, maybe your e-commerce web site hasbuilt-in reporting functionality that tells you how well your siteis performing? Is it a situation where traffic is up, but sales arebelow what you were expecting? Even though you have a greatweb site, that’s designed well, with user-friendly navigation,graphics that are not too intensive, and content that is just right?In other words, you have done everything you can to makeit a great virtual store – so what’s missing? Could it be yourcommunication?No, I’m not talking about just your product descriptions ordetails on your services. I’m not talking about your “About Us”page or your money-back guarantee. I’m not even talking aboutyour sale prices, or your top-selling products and services.Before I reveal the big secret, first think about the last timeyou went to a retail store and were shopping for a particularitem. Let’s say you walk into an electronics store searchingfor a new television, maybe that new High Definition televisionINCREASE WEBSITE SALES:COMMUNICATEWITH YOURCUSTOMERSBy Dave Young34 Ping! Zine Magazine

(HDTV) you’ve been wanting to buy. You walk into the store, andimmediately head to the television section where the wall is filledwith new HDTVs, just like you’ve seen in the ads. Before youcan even make it to the first wall of new HDTVs, you look up andnotice there are literally dozens upon dozens of televisions. So,which one do you choose? How do you know which HDTV is theright one for you? What size television is ideal for your room?And, most importantly, which brand is ideal for your exact needs?How do you know?My first guess is that you will ask a salesperson. Or, evenbetter, a sales person approaches you first, and says, “Hi,my name is Jim. Can I answer any questions you may haveregarding our line-up of HDTVs?” You are immediately takenback by Jim’s eagerness to help you. What’s Jim doing? He’scommunicating with you. Jim wants to answer your questions.He wants to help you find the right TV. Jim wants you to leave hisstore knowing that you made the right purchase. And, he wantsyou to tell everyone you know just how great your experiencewas at the electronics store, so they too can stop by and letJim communicate with them about his wall filled with dozens oftelevisions. Okay, so how does the retail store, televisions, andJim relate to increasing sales on your web site?Well, it was easy for you to talk to Jim, because he was in thestore and approached you first – there was a human elementinvolved. You did not have to pick up brochures or read salescopy on every television before learning which one was bestfor you. Although it’s possible Jim gave you literature on thetelevision you purchased, or were considering purchasing,you did not have to rely heavily on just the text – instead, Jimcommunicated with you directly, and it was easy because hesaw you walk in the store and noticed you were interested in histelevisions. The same goes for your web site. But, how do youcommunicate with your visitors since you cannot see them ordirectly know what interests them?First, you need to understand the different tools you canutilize on your web site to communicate with your customers.Let’s start with the easiest one first – e-mail. Yes, that’s right,put your email address on every page of your web site. Typicallyyou would want to use something similar to sales@yourdomain.com or questions@yourdomain.com. In some cases, you caninclude a person’s name, especially if the web site is basedaround one person such as a consultant, lawyer, accountant orweb designer. For example, if you are a consultant, you can useyour-name@yourdomain.com, because it is more personal. Itgives the impression that you are available to communicate withcurrent and potential clients directly.Another way to communicate with your customers is to createa contact form on your web site. Do not create dozens of textboxes on your form, as that will deter your customers from fillingit out and pressing the send button. The only text boxes neededare name, phone number, e-mail address, and comments. And,sometimes you can use a text box specifically for the “best timeto call you,” if you are asking for a phone number. Make sureyou provide options for either the phone number or e-mail. Somecustomers feel more comfortable using e-mail versus picking upthe phone. However, in my experience, placing a phone numberon your web site is one of the best things you can do for yourcompany.Why is advertising your phone number one of the best thingsyou can do for your company? Just the fact that you have, orshould have, someone on the other end of the web site waitingto answer questions is a huge advantage. Remember the humanelement Jim provided you at the retail shop? Most customersfeel comfortable using the phone because they can hear yourvoice. And, if you are enthusiastic about your products andservices, it is heard in your tone of voice; the way you feel aboutwhat you do and what you sell reflects over the phone. Theimpression your customers receive can be so strong that it caneither persuade them to buy, or dissuade them from purchasinganything from you. Don’t make that mistake – talk to yourcustomers – and be sure you are the subject matter expert (orhire someone to be the subject matter expert on your productsand services if it can’t be you).In addition to e-mail, contact forms, and phone numbers, youcan also utilize the flexibility of online chat programs. There arefree versions such as Skype, Yahoo, MSN, and AIM. These freechat clients do not allow you to initiate chats with your visitors,but it’s okay to place your instant messenger usernames onIf you can make themfeel good about whatthey are purchasingsales willincrease!your website, understanding that it is up to your visitors andcustomers to make the “first move.” However, you can purchasesoftware such as LivePerson and have full control on whichvisitors you contact. The advantage of using LivePerson or asimilar product is that you can initiate chats with visitors, trackwhere they go on your web site, keep a history of chats withvisitors, transfer chats to other team members, and push specificweb pages to customers based on their particular areas ofinterest.Taking all of the above into consideration, you should makeit easy for your customers to know how they can communicatewith you. Your current and potential customers will contact you ifthey need to purchase more products and services, get support,or ask general questions related to your business. The moreoptions you provide them, and the easier you make it for them tofind those options, the more chances you have to communicatewith your customers. And, the more you communicate with yourcustomers, the better they feel and the more televisions (orhosting packages!) you can sell, just like Jim does in his retailstore. Don’t let these concepts and channels of communicationsseem difficult to implement – rather, approach these ideas as away to send your subject matter experts out into the virtual worldto help your customers. It’s an easy way to make them feel likethey are in a retail store, without actually having to be there. Ifyou can make them feel good about what they are purchasing,sales will increase – all because you are communicating withyour customers.P!Writer’s Bio: Dave Young plays a vital role in the web hostingindustry as Marketing and Public Relations Specialist forFastServers.Net, Lead Technical Writer for cPanel, ProfessionalWriter and founder of Young Copy (www.youngcopy.com), and aStaff Writer for Ping! Zine Magazine.Send your questions or comments to writers@pingzine.comwww.pingzine.com 35

EricExcerpt from http://blog.lunarpages.comMeyerA Candid Chat‘about CSS & StuffBy Amy ArmitageLast year my ego was crushed because Kaanon was ravingabout Eric Meyer who was the Keynote speaker at WebmasterJam Session (WMJ) – and he didn’t notice that I was on the listof speakers, too!What’s so great about this CSS Guru? What makes so manypeople attend his conferences, visit and comment on his blogdaily, or buy his published books?Chad and I were fortunate enough to meet Eric last year atWMJ and he was truly wonderful, gracious and kind. He evensigned a menu from our dinner for Kaanon!Along similar lines to Richie Cunningham’s determination tobreak a real story (in episode #101 of Happy Days) when hegot a D on his paper about a burnt out stop light from ProfessorGarrity, I decided to hit up Eric for an interview, but not one filledwith only the “geekspeak” that web designers and developerscan relate to. This was going to be an investigative story... askingthe hard questions!Eric Meyer has written SIX books and he is well regarded andrespected for his passionate advocacy when it comes to webstandards, particularly CSS.But what don’t we know about Eric?Did you know that Eric detests the taste of chocolate andcoffee, and can’t stand carbonated fluids? That’s right – his entirecareer, and indeed his life, has been conducted entirely withoutthe use of highly or even moderately caffeinated beverages.*gasp*How can anyone function without 8 shots of coffee priorto 9am? (Editor’s Note: Ping! in no way endorses the use ofcaffeine, and advises that one contact their physician beforetaking any drugs. Reece, however, wants a Tassimo.)What if I told you that Eric confided a secret to me that hasn’teven been blogged by him yet? Yes a LunarScoop!Eric: “I’m a member of the International Academy of DigitalArts and Sciences (IADAS), having been inducted in late 2006.What’s great for me is that they did so knowing full well who Iwas and my role in the field, instead of just coming across myname on web designers’ sites and assuming I was a designer too(I’m not). The letter of welcome actually cites me for my work inpromoting standards and advancing the use of web technologies.That was a really, really great feeling.”If that tickles your fancy then keep on reading ;)I contacted a few designers and developers I know (includingKaanon) and asked them what they would like to hear about fromEric Meyer.Todd Austin (resident LP designer): With the upcomingApple iPhone utilizing a full browser, what changes if any doyou see coming regarding CSS and mobile?Eric: To be honest, I’m not sure I see any, because I’m notsure that CSS is an appropriate tool for mobile devices. I knowit’s meant to be medium-neutral, but it isn’t. It’s web-centric,which is totally understandable since the only user agents thatsupported CSS for years upon years were web browsers.The more I think about the kinds of media coming available,from iPhones to 108-inch LCD displays, the less I believe thatany human-readable presentation language will be sufficient tocover all those bases. I could be wrong, of course. We’ll see.Todd: How can the industry help push universities toteach web standards, as I notice a lot of curricula is filledwith old HTML/tables-based teaching?Eric: Stop hiring the people those curricula produce. That’sabout the only thing that will work, and it’s hardly fair to theunhired, since it’s not their fault the instructors failed them soutterly. Still – and I know this probably sounds harsh – wouldengineering firms hire new graduates who’d been taught 18thcenturyengineering? Would a software company hire a newgraduate who trained in COBOL? Would you do your taxes withan accountant who’d learned the tax code of the 1950s andnothing since?36 Ping! Zine Magazine

Of course not. So I’m not sure why it should be different withweb firms.Beyond a hiring lockout, firms could communicate withuniversities that what they’re doing is outdated and needs tobe fixed. Rolling in a “these students will not be ready for theworkplace if you continue on your current path” might help,depending on the university.Kaanon (Eric Meyer worshipper): In the beginning, inlineHTML was the most commonly used way to change the waya page was displayed. CSS has now become the standard.What changes do you anticipate happening in the future?Eric: It’s hard to say. Right now, there isn’t a lot of movementin presentational description for the web unless you count theMicrosoft XAML/WPF work, which is intriguing but proprietary,not to mention more of a competitor with Flash than with XHTML/CSS/JS.Actually, there’s not a whole lot of movement in any of themajor web specifications. CSS, XHTML, and DOM have allground to a near-halt. There are efforts to push some of themforward, but it remains to be seen how successful those effortswill be.So, I guess what I see coming is a grave risk of stagnationfor the standards-based web. Mind you, I’ve had this feelingbefore, and so far it’s resisted obsolescence quite handily. If itdoes so again, then what I would anticipate is mostly gradualimprovements with occasional leaps in capability. One exampleof the latter would be a robust layout language, whether that’sCSS Advanced Layout or some other approach. I don’t actuallycare so much what form it takes, so long as we get it.Kaanon: CSS is limited by how much browsers willsupport it. Is there a preferred browser that you use fordevelopment?Eric: Firefox–not only for its excellent standards support, butalso for extensions like the DOM Inspector, the Web DeveloperToolbar, Firebug, HTML Tidy, and more. You can put togethera really top-flight web development environment for free usingnothing but Firefox and extensions.Since someone will wonder, no, I don’t just code for Firefox.Once I’ve gotten things they way I want them in my developmentenvironment, I start testing in other browsers and working aroundany problems I find, the same as anyone else. What I don’t do istest as I go. That way lies madness.Zac Armitage (9 years old): What was the first web siteyou ever made about? Is it still online?Eric: Rather than my first site, I can point you to my very firstHTML document: the “Incomplete Mystery Science Theater 3000Episode Guide” As you can see from the “last updated” date, Iwrote it in late 1993. I was a big fan of the show, and took sometext files that were available via Usenet to turn into a big old webpage.From early 1994 until early 2000, I was in charge of cwru.edu.That probably counts as my first site, even though I only did partsof it. It’s still online but looks nothing like it did, so while it’s stillonline, it’s not really the site I directed.Amy: For budding webmasters... What are the worstcolors you can combine in website design?Eric: Whichever two are most popular on MySpace right now.No, I kid! I think the answer is probably lime and fuchsia.[continued]www.pingzine.com 37

Amy: When you started out and were examining webhosts closely, what were the major factors that influencedyour choice of web host?Eric: I never examined web hosts closely. I’ve just drifted fromone to another as chance has dictated, soaring like a leaf on thewind.Some fluff questions (because an interview can be geekyyet entertaining at the same time):Amy: When I was at Webmaster Jam last year I noted agroupie reaction to you from many webmasters and also onyour site. You seem to have an active and loyal community,all of whom adore and respect you – similar to rock stars onstage having flowers and underwear hurled at them, whenyou are speaking at an event, what type of stuff is thrown atyou? (Laptops, PDAs, notepads)Eric: Questions, if I’ve done my job right. I don’t think I’ve everhad anything tangible thrown at me onstage, not even rottentomatoes—those get saved for the feedback forms. No flowers,no room keys, nothing along those lines. Maybe one of thesedays I’ll do a rock opera based on margin collapsing and see ifthat changes the landscape.Of course, if anyone wants to throw a new top-of-the-line fullydecked out MacBook Pro at me onstage, I’m all for it; just makesure it’s well padded, yeah? I’d hate to have it break on landing.Amy: Was her name really Lola?Eric: I deny everything, including the rumors that I met her in aclub down in old SoHo.[Amy: But just who shot who?]Amy: You once said “In private and around people Iknow really well, I have a tendency to swear to an extentthat would probably shock regular readers”. What is yourfavorite curse word and why?Eric: Well, we have to be clear about what is meant by“favorite”. The most common and satisfying one is the good oldf-bomb and variations thereof, because it releases the mosttension in one syllable, but it isn’t my favorite. My favorites aren’tactual cuss words, but creative substitutes I’ve picked up hereand there. A few examples: “fargin’ bastige”, “son of a biscuit”and “mother pus bucket”. I think my current favorite, though, is“sweet fancy Moses!”.Also, “what the blinking font?” is kind of a favorite, but that’spartly because I came up with it.Amy: Play a game with me. You HAVE to choose one ofthe following… .com or .org?Eric: .org. What can I say? I’m an old-school info-hippie atheart....Amy: Swim with killer sharks or swim with crocodiles?Eric: Sharks. They’re marginally more discouragable [sic] andmight be induced to eat each other instead of me... Xbox or Playstation?Eric: Xbox. Halo. ‘nuff sed....Deserted Island or Japanese Subway?Eric: For a day or three, the island. For the rest of my life, Ithink the subway. Maybe.38 Ping! Zine Magazine...Windows or Linux?Eric: Linux. It would have more overlap with the tools I’m usedto from OS X....IE6 or IE7?Eric: IE7 — because of the better standards support, natch...PHP or HTML?Eric: PHP, because I can use it to generate HTML, so I getboth....Indiana Jones or Batman?Eric: Batman. Cooler gadgets and fewer split lips, plus he’sinsanely wealthy....Go to Church or visit a serial killer?Eric: Kind of depends on the church. In most cases, I’d ratherthe church, but there would be definite exceptions....View source or view porn?Eric: Tough choice, but I think view source. I’d have a higherchance of learning something....Lose your vision or your hands?Eric: I guess I’d lose the hands, since I want to see mychildren as they grow up. Also, there are decent bionic handsbecoming available, whereas artificial vision systems are stillfairly primitive....Give up your computer or your TV?Eric: No contest: give up my TV. Even if that choice meant Iwere also unable to watch TV shows via the computer, I’d stillgive up the TV without hesitation....BestBuy or Home Depot?Eric: Best Buy. They have cooler gadgets....28 children or NONE?Eric: 28 children, assuming I could afford it....Kill a dog or a cat?Eric: Kill a cat. There’d better be a damned good reason for it,though.Amy: Last one (I promise): Finish this sentence: Theinternet is…Eric: …the ultimate zócalo.Amy: Thank you, Eric! You are such a warm and generousperson and we appreciate you taking the time to brighten upour little place in cyberspace!Eric: Thank you, Amy! I had a great time.Amy: Omg me too! Plus I learned some cool newexpressions I can use on ICQ to psyche out my staff like:WTBF you mother pus bucket!For the complete interview, visit Amy’s Blog at:http://blog.lunarpages.com/2007/01/31/eric-meyer-interview-css/Writer’s Bio: Tinkering on her PC in Australia about 7 years ago,Amy met the owners of Lunarpages.com on their forums and likea classic girl to geekness cybertale, she now lives in California,heading up their Business Dev. & Sales & Marketing Dept.Send your questions or comments to writers@pingzine.comP!

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‘Where TheresSmoke, Theres ‘FireFactor!By Amy ArmitageMany moons ago when I tried “designing”my fi rst website, I used this really dodgy button maker andDreamweaver. The result looked like a glitter ball throwing up onmulticolored 1970s wallpaper. I was thinking about this last nightand cringing (and chuckling) at the number of people I actuallyemailed with pride boasting about this incredible web page I’dcreated. If I was this naïve, it’s safe to assume that the majorityof webmasters undertaking the task of building their own websitebegan their adventure in much the same way.After my “disasterpiece” was live (using a kickme.to redirect), Iwaited for the traffi c to fl ood in. Shock and awe don’t even beginto describe my reaction to the lack of hits. “Come On! Thissite is jazzy, peppy, and it has twirling pink and orange buttons,fl ashing text and ad banners! Pfffft! Why aren’t people keying intheir credit card details on this insecure order page? Don’t let thePHP warning messages stop you!” Surely they were dazzled atthe prospect of purchasing my Salmon Scented Hand Cream?(Uh huh... I thought I was an inspired inventor. Being an at homemom does have that affect on some women).The reality was that when creating my website I didn’t knowabout all the “behind the scenes” stuff that must be happeningto get your site indexed and accepted as a “cool” and “popular”member of the “webmaster” and “search engine” set. So how doyou ensure the site you’re proudly showing to the world – yourown, personal masterpiece – is optimized, is laid out correctly, issimple to use and fi nd, while also having easy navigation?There are plenty of online tools and resources with suggestionson all of the above elements; however I was pleasantlysurprised when Nick Longo, the CEO of CoffeeCup, gave methe opportunity to test out their latest offering, FireFactor, on mycompany’s main website. Immediately, I liked the simplicity ofFireFactor because it covered every major element we wantedfeedback and information on.Applying the recommendations of the report and surveying theresults simply rocked my socks. In the last issue of Ping!, I leftyou with a teaser about this extraordinary program.. and now it’stime for an honest review. Before we get into the intricate detailsof the scores, let’s break down what each factor is and how itrelates to the scoring of your website.40 Ping! Zine MagazineThe FIVE FactorsVisibilityVisibility of your Website is measured by how often your siteappears in the search engines. FireFactor analyzes how muchvisibility your site has. It looks at how many pages of your siteare listed in the search engines as well as your link popularityand other factors.OptimizationOptimization focuses on how well optimized your Website isusing known best practices for Search Engine Optimization.Design ElementsThe design of your Website has a substantial impact on theusability of your site by users as well as search engines. The betteryour site is designed, the easier it is for users to navigate yoursite, and the faster it is for search engines to scan the content ofyour site. In this section, FireFactor analyzes various design elementssuch as fonts, tables, CSS and more.AccessibilityAccessibility of your website is very important for users withdisabilities and automated web browsers (like search enginerobots). FireFactor analyzes different areas of your site to ensurethat your site is compliant with accessibility standards.User ExperienceThere are many reasons why a user will leave a Website. Onereason is because the Website fails to load quickly in the user’s[continued]

42 Ping! Zine Magazinebrowser, thus keeping them waiting too long. In this sectionFireFactor looks at several aspects that can cause yoursite to load slower so that you can improve the load time. Iwill also present a look at the features of your site that canmake the site more interesting and visually pleasing for yourusers.Six weeks ago, I ran the complete 120 page SEOFireFactor analysis on our main site, Lunarpages.com. Itarrived via email within about an hour as a PDF file, andI was confident we would score almost perfectly. Was Idiscouraged? Not impressed with the results? The answeris a big yes! Actually, I was shocked at how badly wescored. Did I burst into tears? Ummm... No... But for thesake of building the drama and making for a great read, let’spretend I did!The five stages of Webmaster Meltdown(all experienced by me):Denial and Isolation - “There must be a flaw with this program!Our site was professionally designed and has beentweaked and twiddled by SEO experts! I’m going into myoffice to be alone!” [Slams door.]Anger – “Ok this is utter crap. These FireFeckers haveno idea what they are talking about! Our site is perfect!People compliment us on it! Especially my grandmotherand my six-year-old nephew! Get Nick Longo on the phone,now!” [I actually make my own calls, but that just sounded...better.]Bargaining –“Nick... come on... surely you’re not consideringreleasing this to the public?!”Depression – “Crikey! The thought of undertaking anentire new site design project just kills me. There’s no waywe can do this! I can’t bear to go on!” [Insert dramatic sighand fist banging on the table.]Acceptance – “OK... Send FireFactor flowers... On thecard write ‘I’m sorry I called you a [censored by Ping!]’”RecoveryAfter I cleaned up my office and glued my keyboard backtogether, our team took a very close look at the scoresand decided to put this program to a real test. We built anew website based exactly on the results, and then we ranFireFactor again.Below are the initial results, and the“Makeover” scores:The Five Factors First Result Makeover ScoreVisibility 8 9.1Optimization 6.5 8.7Design Elements 6.7 8.9Accessibility 5 9User Experience 4.7 9.2Was the FireFactor report solely responsible for such adramatic hike in our websites’ scores? No, we had to applythe information the report provided us with, learn andinterpret the best way to apply the five factors to our website, research our terms, text and keywords and make useof our design superstar “ToddSnob” (he’s a design snob; it’sa pet name). I also ran the report on a new staff member’swebsite. (Tiara had never created a web page before.)The Five Factors FR (New Staff) Makeover ScoreVisibility 3.5 6.7Optimization 4.1 7.2Design Elements 3.8 6.8Accessibility 4.3 7.5User Experience 3.2 6.1The report identified (among a zillion other flaws) that hercontent wasn’t described correctly and the majority of hertext was contained inside the images. She did that becauseshe figured it looked nicer, and of course being a new webmastershe had no clue of the negative impact from such asimple error.So we rolled up our sleeves and scrapped all the imagesand started using text and tables. Tiara had links toother websites only displaying the url rather than using keywords- e.g. http://blog.lunarpages.com should have beenLunartics – Lunarpages Web Hosting Blog! (Ping! PublisherKeith Duncan is a regular contributor of this blog) By usingkeywords in correct context, I showed her how to make useof HREF by using words that are related to her site and theuse of the ALT and TITLE tag which can help with accessibility.H1 and H2 tags can play a significant role in how yourpage is ranked so we added those also. Her HTML andCSS was not W3C-compliant, so after running the W3Cvalidate a few times, we were able to tweak her code intocompliance. Honestly, I think her site looks just as ugly as itdid beforehand (FireFactor can’t resolve taste issues!), butwow, did her scores improve!As I write this article I’m hopeful that our new site will belive for you all to check out. Meanwhile you can get a freemini report at http://firefactor.coffeecup.com/mini_report/ oruse this coupon PINGZINE for 20% off.If you go for the paid service $49 gets you a whole lotmore. The report delves even deeper and covers Googlepage rank, link popularity, Alexa rating, Google saturation,MSN saturation, Quality rating, Site features, Credibility anda stack more metrics.You have access to additional tools and resources suchas a Page Analyzer, Spider Simulator and a massive pageof additional optimization tips and for just $9 you can re-runthe report after your makeover.Part of the service includes the FireFactor team submittingyour website using hand refined techniques so it’squickly and accurately noticed in 100’s of Search Engines.I felt all warm and fuzzy sitting next to Tiara watchingher face light up when she saw the results from the simpletweaks and changes to her site.I guess if I had to sum up FireFactor in afew words it would be..Fantastic; Informative; Revolutionary; Easy to Use; Fantasmogorical;Amy Rocks; Coooooool!; Tremendous; OMG,WOW! Really Really Awesome! P!Send your questions or comments to writers@pingzine.com

.........................................................................................................................+ +CUSTOMER SERVICEQ&AQ: What are some alternatives to the usualticket-submitted, ticket-goes- to-queue,agent-responds-to-ticket system?A: The system of a customer submitting a ticket to aqueue where agents respond on a first come, first servetype basis is probably one of the oldest and least innovativeamong support methodologies. It does work, to a certaindegree, though. If you are seeking an alternative, however,there are a few available.Some companies (notably Rackspace) have adapteda team-like structure. This doesn’t really work for smallercompanies, but for medium to large companies (more thanthirty to forty employees), it has the potential to work well.The model is relatively simple. A team, instead of a pool ofagents, deals with a majority of customer issues.For example, team one could consist of “Bob” (asales/billing employee), “Betty” (a hardware expert),“John” (a security expert), and “Susan” (a general serveradministrator). Whenever the customer called and had asecurity issue, he’d talk to John. If he had a sales question,he’d talk to Bob. The team (which would usually consistof about ten to fifteen specialized people) would be ableto handle a vast majority of the customer’s questions orrequests. If the team couldn’t solve something, they wouldseek out an answer from another employee. This system isvery effective because it allows employees and customersto build a more personal relationship than would otherwisebe possible with large employee resource pools.Another system is one that marketing expert SethGodin (www.sethgodin.com) recently proclaimed as a newmethod of doing customer service. Essentially, the systeminvolves having trained receptionists (web hosting providerssometimes call them “Level One” representatives) gatherall relevant information they can about an issue and then44 Ping! Zine MagazineBY DOUGLAS HANNAassign it to an employee who is responsible for ensuring theissue is resolved. The system is explained in far more detailin Seth’s post entitled “Starting over with customer service.”(A Google search or a search on his website will easily findit.) ** Can’t we just use a tinyurl?A completely unique system is of course possible, butwould really depend on your company. Think about the mostcommon types of issues and complaints you receive andhow you can resolve them. It may take a little out of the boxthinking, but it can be done.Q: How can web hosting companies use atechnology like click-to-call?A: Click-to-call has been around for a while, but is slowingstarting to catch on. It’s a fascinating and extremely usefultechnology, when used correctly. The basis of click-to-callis dead simple: A user enters their phone number into asmall web form and selects when they would like to becalled (usually instantly, ten minutes later, an hour later,etc.). The system telephones them and connects them to arepresentative or, in less advanced systems, sends an alertto an on-duty employee who will call the customer.To me, the most interesting aspect of more advancedclick-to-call technology is the ability to use somethingcalled dynamic/rule-based deployments. Examples of thiswould include the click-to-call software knowing how manyitems are in a customer’s shopping cart (and what theyare worth), how long a customer has been idle on a page,if the customer is a preferred customer, and/or whether ornot the call center is open or available. Can you think of thepossibilities of this technology in web hosting?Like live chat, agents can proactively start a click tocall session, monitor where customers are on the website, and track how effective the system is in convertingnew customers. I like to look at click-to-call as the nextgeneration of live chat; for web hosting companies, itspossibilities are almost unlimited.Q: What does it mean to practice “blowingout the dust?”A: Web hosting companies don’t have to deal with thisexact situation, but the metaphor is one that’s frequentlyused in technical support in general. How do you ask acustomer to ensure something is plugged in? You can’t askthem to do that – they may think you are treating them asthough they are stupid, and/or they will assume “of courseit’s plugged in!” Instead, technical support people have longasked customers to unplug whatever the item was, blow outthe dust, and then plug it back in. Same effect – just a bitof usually unnecessary housekeeping, and best of all, noinsulted customers.In the web hosting industry, the situation would be morelike asking the customer to delete an e-mail account, andthen asking them to re-add it, or asking them to change thepassword, then asking them to change it back. It isn’t rarethat when doing this, customers will realize their mistake,but won’t say anything. Sometimes all you have to do isblow out the dust and the problem will fix itself. It just seemsto be one of the mysteries of customer service. P!Writer’s Bio: Douglas Hanna is the Customer Service Editorat Ping! Zine. Please send your customer service questionsto qanda@pingzine.com.Send your questions or comments to writers@pingzine.com......................................................................................................................................................................

THE RANKS OF SERVICEBY DOUGLAS HANNAIf you have worked in the web hosting industry, or haveeven been a customer of a web host in the past, you probablyknow all about the different levels of support in a typicalhosting company. The different levels of technical supportrepresentatives are similar to a rigid class system in eighteenthcenturyEurope: Each level of representative has a different typeof education and varying levels of training, different privileges,and contributes to “society” (i.e. their company) in different ways.“Level 1’s” support the masses, “Level 2’s” are the middle class,and “Level 3’s” are the “elite.”The question, though, is what makes a Level 1 a Level 1, anda Level 3 a Level 3? I spoke to several web hosting companiesto get an idea. The answers varied from company to company,but the similarities were clear.46 Ping! Zine Magazine

Level 1’s:It should serve as no surprise, but Level 1 representatives atthe companies I talked to were not very impressive in terms oftechnical abilities. What they were much better at, though, werethe general principles of customer service.The leader at one large web hosting company told me that theLevel 1 representatives at his company were basically a humanversion of the company’s FAQs and web site content. Theyhave built web sites and are friendly, but don’t really have muchadvanced technical experience.He also told me that most of their employees start off answeringthe phone and doing live chats – the best of those technicians arethen promoted to Level 1 and start doing e-mail support. As theemployees continue to prove themselves, they can be promoted.At some companies, Level 1 representatives are slightly moretalented and have a good understanding of cPanel, e-mail, FTP,and so on. At Intermedia.net, a web hosting company based inNew York, Level 1 representatives are required to have two yearsof relevant experience before being considered for hiring.Level 1 representatives are typically able to also troubleshootbasic issues and answer a majority of customer’s questions.Moreover, they can help customers set up their accounts, getstarted, and even point them in the direction of any appropriateFAQs or tutorials.At other companies, Level 1 representatives don’t really exist.At Rackspace, a high- end managed hosting company based inSan Antonio, Texas, customers can speak to an advanced systemadministrator right away. The phone is answered by a receptionist,and then an administrator is put on the phone. Notably, however,Rackspace is far more expensive than your average hostingcompany – so once again, it proves the old adage of “you get whatyou pay for.”Notably, many companies look for personality more thantechnical aptitude when hiring Level 1’s. Simply, they want theirfront line employees to be friendly and able to help customerswith their basic requests and problems. In the end, with Level 1representatives, companies are seeking a friendly “face” that canprovide basic help and assistance to customers.Level 2’s:Level 2 representatives seem to vary the most from companyto company. At some companies, they are simply more advancedLevel 1’s with slightly more access, while at other firms, they arecloser to experienced system administrators. At some web hostingcompanies, Level 2’s are generally trained with Level 3’s and havemore access privileges than Level 1’s. In other situations, theydon’t have such formal training, but instead gain a majority of theirexperience working as a Level 1 representative.At HostGator, a Houston based web hosting company, about5% of issues get elevated to Level 2 representatives. Of thoseescalated tickets, Level 2’s manage to solve about 60% of theissues. The other 40% are elevated to Level 3’s. At Intermedia.net, about 8% of tickets are elevated to Level 2. From there, about13% of those tickets are elevated up to Level 3.The elevation ratios vary from company to company, but atalmost all companies, Level 1 and 2 representatives are able toanswer a vast majority of questions. Only the smallest percentageof tickets are elevated to the next level – Level 3.Level 3’s and Beyond:From a customer’s perspective, Level 3’s are definitely thepeople you want to get to when you have a support issue; theyhave the most training, the most experience, and are usually bestsuited to help you. However, with only a small percentage of your[continued]

tickets being elevated that high, your chances of dealing withthem are low.At most companies, Level 3’s are the best of the best. Mostof them have multiple years of experience, and are familiar withmanaging large numbers of servers. Companies spend a lot oftime and money on recruiting and training these employees, andtry to elevate only the toughest issues up to them.Brent Oxley, the President of HostGator told me that Level 3’shave to be “l33t” [sic]. He defines “l33t” as someone who “usuallylives and breathes computers and coding.” When hiring Level3’s, most companies demand a high level of technical aptitudeexpertise. When hiring Level 3’s, most companies seem to lookfor technical skills rather than customer service skills. Customersseem to be willing to tolerate a less friendly/personable employeeif they are able to solve the problem quickly and accurately.Training:At many web hosting companies, mentor based training playsa big role. Most employees will shadow a senior employee beforegoing off on their own. Some representatives will be trained ina classroom type setting where they will be taught how to useinternal systems and how to troubleshoot common problems.New employees usually go through customer training as well.They are taught how to properly communicate with customers,how best to deal with angry customers, e-mail and telephoneetiquette, and so on. This part of training repeatedly endsup being very important – after all it’s often the way you saysomething, not what you say that can frustrate a customer.Mentor-based training is usually very effective. It exposesemployees to a lot of situations, and allows them to work onreal problems in a live environment. While it is impossible toexperience everything in a week or two, mentor based trainingprovides employees with a good idea of what it is like to hold theirjob at the specific company. Simply put, they can learn what toexpect and how to deal with certain situations.Escalation Procedures:At some companies, escalation procedures are verycomplicated. Variable X has to be met before a representativecan consider variable Y, and so on. Lunarpages, a web hostingcompany based in California, has a simple escalation procedure:try all of the available options, and if they don’t work, send it upthe line.At HostGator, escalation is starting to be based more on timerelatedvariables. HostGator’s Brent Oxley explained to me howmany lower level technicians often worked on issues for an houror more, even though those issues could be solved by a higherlevel technician in a few minutes. This is obviously inefficient,so the company is trying to work better as a team. Eachrepresentative has his or her own strengths and weaknesses,and it takes teamwork to best realize and utilize each individual’sskills.At Lunarpages, Level 3 representatives supervise theescalations and are responsible for monitoring servers andresponding to issues as they happen. This way, the companydoes not have to send customers “up the line” and can elevateissues as they come in, which saves the team time and thecustomer frustration.So, there you have it -- the intricacies of elevation and thedifferent levels of support have been partially demystified. Thinkabout what these companies do, consider the tips above, and tryto implement some of the procedures at your company. If doneright, you’ll notice a more efficient customer service staff andhappier customers!48 Ping! Zine MagazineTIPS.........................................Here are some tips for companies looking to refinetheir escalation procedures and different levels ofsupport:Have the team be aware of the different strengths andweaknesses of their fellow team members. A page on aninternal web site or wiki, even if it just lists some strengthsand weaknesses, can be very useful.Outline job descriptions and responsibilities. Thedifferences between Level 1, 2, and 3 representativesshould be clear and complete. An internally available listingof job descriptions and responsibilities will help employeesknow what they should and should not do and who to go toif they have questions.Have administrators watch incoming tickets. If yourcompany is large enough, it may be a good idea todedicate an administrator to simply assigning tickets todifferent departments. An experienced administrator shouldbe able to easily categorize and assign incoming issues.This saves time for employees and eliminates frustrationfor customers.Escalate quickly. Companies should not delay escalating aticket if it is needed. Customers will quickly get aggravatedif they don’t feel anything useful is happening with anissue, or if they feel the company is delaying.Give updates. Let customers know what you are doingthroughout the process. They will generally be moreunderstanding if they know you are working on their issue.A quick e-mail saying “I’m looking into this – you shouldhear from me within the hour” will let the customer knowyou are thinking about them and trying to help.Use training to your advantage. When trainingrepresentatives of any level, teach them what to look forand when to escalate issues or ask for help. They shouldn’tbe afraid to escalate issues; nonetheless they also needto realize that not everything needs to be escalated. Teachemployees to look for certain things and what to do if theythink a ticket should be escalated.Have a “go-to” person. Larger companies should have a“go-to” person for each shift. The “go-to” person shouldideally be an experienced employee, supervisor, ortalented administrator. This would be the person that wouldreview tickets and tell employees whether or not theyshould be escalated, answer questions from employees,deal with frustrated customers, provide updates for delayedissues, and so on.Share your statistics. If employees know that X percent oftickets are elevated to Level 2, that will help them decide ifthe ticket should be elevated.Monitor individual employees. Monitor and work withindividual employees and their escalation habits. Don’t justwatch the number of escalations, but also the number ofreplies to each ticket and the time it takes them to resolvea ticket. If employees seem to be elevating tickets toomuch or too little, work with them on improving. P!Send your questions or comments to writers@pingzine.com

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By: Evan Kamlet*DECISIONS,DECISIONS...Website Hosting Options for Small Businesses.52 Ping! Zine MagazineIt’s a common situation these days: your businesshas or plans to have a beautifully designed websiteto promote your products or services… You arefeverishly waiting for the moment it goes live, so you canwatch the money pour in… But, assuming you have thewebsite design taken care of, choosing the best solution forplacing your website online and keeping it available 24/7/365can present a dizzying array of choices. This is why you mayask, “what is the best option for me?”It’s helpful to know that the simple definition of webhosting is “a service that makes your web site accessibleto the internet.” In the simplest form, web hosting involvesa computer acting as a web server, and a connection to theinternet that allows incoming visitors. Factors to considerwhen choosing web hosting include, but are not limited to:Cost the technical ability of your company. Any softwarerequirements. Any hardware, network, bandwidth, andscalability requirements.Small businesses typically choose between an in-housesetup, outsourcing to a local hosting firm, or outsourcing to alarger national/international host. But, which solution is best?That depends!In-house hostingPros: You can watch, touch, feel, and even caress themachine that serves your website. Hardware can be replacedby you, with no third party involved.Cons: Higher bandwidth cost. Greater expertise is requiredeither in-house or through an on-call support company.Potentially lower reliability and reduced redundancy.

Best fit: Your company has an in-house IT professionalavailable at all times. Either your company does not require a lotof bandwidth/reliability, or your company has the capital to payfor redundant bandwidth and hardware.In-house hosting generally works like this: Your companypurchases a server machine and any software needed for thatmachine to support your web site. Your company then must finda suitable bandwidth provider that can offer local service. Popularoptions include Verizon DSL or Time Warner’s Business Classcable internet service. The major attraction to in-house hostingis that your geeky, in-house IT professional can physically touchthe web server machine. They can replace hardware, diagnoseconnectivity problems, or just stare at it all day long (geeks loveto do that)!If you don’t have in-house IT support, some local companiesprovide on-call technical support. A technician can come out(usually during regular business hours) to work on your machineor diagnose problems if it goes offline, usually at a reasonablecost. The downsides to consider are plentiful, however. First,adding bandwidth redundancy locally is typically very costly—and, if you work in a smaller town, bandwidth may not be veryplentiful.Second, your office likely does not have telco-gradedatacenter space. Thus, you are likely not going to have raisedflooring, backup generators, redundant power, and so on. Ifa local power outage will bring you down and put you out ofbusiness, hosting in-house is not a preferable option for you.However, if you can deal with the occasional hardware failure,have internal IT staff, and like the idea of being able to physicallytouch your web server, in-house hosting may be your best fit.Outsourcing to a Local Hosting CompanyPros: You are helping the local economy. You can physicallymeet the staff and form a personal relationship with your localhosting company.Cons: More costly than many national or international hostingcompanies. Generally not as many options, not as muchredundancy, and not as much scalability when compared to anational or international provider. Usually very limited 24-hoursupport options.Best Fit: Your company has no internal IT staff, not muchtechnical knowledge, and a web site that is not going to demandlarge allotments of bandwidth/power resources.Having a local host serve your web sites is a preferablechoice for many local businesses. For example, you may knowthe hosting company staff personally, or at least know theirreputation. Moreover, most hosting local providers offer a fullservicesolution from webdesign up to hosting and support. If youhave a small e-commerce site or just a simple, static web site,and finding the cheapest of the cheap is not important, local webhosting may fit your needs and even remain within your budget.However, it is important to keep in mind the fact that many localhosts are simply outsourcing to larger international hosts, andreselling web space at marked up rates. Your web site may verywell be stored in Texas or California, even if the company you’rebuying from is in New Hampshire.On the other hand, some local hosting companies do havetheir own datacenters and hardware housed at their locations).Do consider the fact, though, that these hosts, on average, donot have millions of dollars of revenue like many internationalhosting companies. As a result of lower revenues, a local host’sresources and network will almost never be quite as top-ofthe-lineas a large host. And, few local web hosting companieshave 24/7/365 emergency support if a problem should ariseat 3AM. If physical access to your webhosting machine is notimportant, 100% guaranteed reliability and support is not at thetop of your list of importance, and you do not plan to be drawingmore bandwidth than a small local datacenter or even the entirelocal area could ever handle, then a local commercial hostingcompany may be your best fit.Outsourcing to a National or InternationalHosting CompanyPros: Usually the most cost-effective solution. More optionsfor web sites in need of massive bandwidth and lots ofredundancy. More options for software and hardware. Options for24/7/365 support. More options in general.Cons: Less of a personal touch. Your money is leaving thelocal economy. Usually no physical access to machines. Typicallymore technical know-how required.Best fit: Your company needs guaranteed reliability andredundancy, 24/7/365 support, lots of bandwidth and scalability,and doesn’t have the capital to build its own telco-gradedatacenter.“what isthe bestoptionfor me?If you plan on having your company’s website max outRoadRunner’s Business Class line, or even a local hostingcompany’s network pipe, one of your only affordable optionsis to look elsewhere in the world. National and internationalhosting companies generally own their own datacenter’s), or atleast lease a portion of one, and can rent out portions of theirresources to clients. When comparing the amount of money putinto some of these facilities to that put into local facilities, thedifferences can be staggering. In almost all cases, the nationaland international hosts can provide more options, more power,more support, and more bandwidth at a lower cost.Sometimes, finding hosting “resellers” can provide morepersonal/direct support, but for the most part, the averagecustomer of an international hosting outfit will need at least someidea of how to administer or update their own web site, and won’tmind dealing with a different technical support rep every timethey call in with a question. If you like the idea of having oneor more diesel backup generators, two redundant power grid[continued]www.pingzine.com 53

connections, battery backups, 5+ bandwidth providers, gigabitsof bandwidth, raised fl ooring, giant air conditioners and climatecontrolled environments, more options than you can throw a stickat, and even dirt-cheap hosting plans, a national or internationalhosting conglomerate may be your best fi t.One of the pros of international hosting is the wide array ofoptions. Some consumers may consider it simply confusing. But,let’s try to summarize some of the options your business mayencounter when doing research. (Some local hosting companiesmay also have similar options for you and it is important foryou to ask what type of hosting you are getting when shoppinglocally.) “Virtual Hosting” or “Shared Hosting” is the preferredoption for businesses with smaller websites or e-commerce sites.Local hosts almost always use this method of hosting. The“ideais that many websites will share the same physical machineand a portion of resources will be devoted to each. It is notthe most secure and reliable solution, but when done right, itDo yourworks just fi ne.“Virtual Dedicated” or “Virtual Private” Hosting is similarin that several accounts are placed on the same physicalhardware, but there is more separation between theaccounts. It is a bit more secure, and allows the clientto have full control over their hosting space (sometimesresearchreferred to as “root” access). It is also a bit more expensive.“Dedicated Hosting” is more expensive still—here, youget your own physical machine devoted entirely to youand your website. Managed hosting providers can takecare of the management or you can login with full “root” or& make“Administrator” access to administer your machine remotely,as though it was right in front of you.“Colocation Hosting” or “Colo” is for you if you preferowning your own hardware. You buy the hardware andsend it out to take advantage of the datacenter’s resources.(Some local companies do have colo options on a smallyour sitescale.) As you require more redundancy still, or morebandwidth, even more options become available. Thespecifi cs can take up a whole other article, so we won’t gointo much detail here. Suffi ce it to say that if your company’swebsite is extremely effective and becomes extremelypopular (and hopefully profi table!), you may want to askhappyyour host about options for geographically distributed loadbalancing, clustering, and content caching networks.To make a long story short, it is sometimes hard todiscuss hosting options with the average, not so technicallyorientedconsumer. If you have no one in your businesswho can get a good grasp of what is needed, do call alocal computer or hosting company and leave it to them.Otherwise, you may want to consider in-house hosting oreven outsourcing to a larger hosting fi rm located elsewherein the world, depending on your bandwidth and reliabilityrequirements. The options are virtually endless. Tens ofthousands of web hosts are in business today and millions uponmillions of websites need a reliable home. Do your research andmake your web site happy!Writers Bio: Evan Kamlet was an employee of NyPennComputer Corp., a small, local web hosting company in 1999and 2000, where he managed hosting accounts and helped localtelevision stations such as WBNG with internet marketing. Evanmoved on to found Host for Yourself LLC in 2001 and later H4YTechnologies LLC. He has more than a decade of experience inall aspects of the hosting industry, including marketing, businessoperations, and technology.54 Ping! Zine MagazineP!Send your questions or comments to writers@pingzine.com*

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By Kaanon MacFarlaneUnless you’ve been under a rock for the last 12months, you’ve undoubtedly heard of Ajax. Forgive the cliché,but instead of cleaning your kitchen sink, Ajax cleans up thetraditional web experience and brings out shiny usability in webpages. Ajax stands for Asynchronous Javascript and XML, butthe most prominent letter is the J. There has been a lot of effortto add synchronicity (making the order of things matter) andavoid the use of XML (by returning Javascript instead), so Ajaxcan be thought of as more of an approach.Ajax is a wonderful new tool to improve usability of sites.Although developers must be careful about what is possible,the added functionality is worth it. Many established internetcompanies are using Ajax. Yahoo uses it for their homepage andthe user interaction. It is also used in their Yahoo Music systemfor rating songs. Google’s very popular Gmail email client is aAjax web application, as is Google maps. This article is actuallybeing written using an Ajax application. The GoogleDocs partof the Google website is a fully-functional word processor. It56 Ping! Zine Magazine

allows users to edit files with all of the functionality of MicrosoftWord, or other word processors. It’s defining improvement overtraditional desktop based processors, is it’s portability. Becauseyour file exists on Google’s servers, you can access it from anywhereyou have computer access. It also allows collaborationon documents and the ability to publish your work to a website,for anyone can view it.The traditional web site approach is to display pages and reloadthe page when you click on links. The Ajax approach is toNOT reload the entire page when links are clicked, but insteadonly reload the relevant data. This is accomplished by usingJavascript to mimic the action of going to a page and gettingdata. For instance, let’s say a page has a list of products. Thereare a few ways to show more detailed information about thisproduct. When the user clicks on the product, the “normal” wayto find out information about the product is to go to a new page.The “Ajaxy” way is to have Javascript request (go to) the pagewith the extra info about this product and then have Javascriptget the data and display it on the page the user is already on.While both ways are functional, the Ajaxy way is faster. It also issignificantly “smaller” than the normal way because it can savebandwidth.While an incredibly powerful approach to web development:Ajax does come with a few risks. The most obvious one isthat the pages generally do not work if a user does not enableJavascript. Most statistics show that approximately 10% ofInternet users do not have Javascript enabled. Because of this,it is important to either develop pages that still work whetherJavascript is enabled or not. Graceful degradation is very importantif are making sales or need to make sure that everyone(and every browser) can use your site. A more serious riskinvolves “hackers” exploitation. According to Wikipedia:Cross site scripting (XSS) is a type of computer securityexploit where information from one context, where it is nottrusted, can be inserted into another context, where it is. Fromthe trusted context, an attack can be launched. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XSSThis can happen if a knowledgeable user tries to fake thetype of requests that your Javascript requests would make. Forinstance, a hacker might try to display a different product or adifferent category. More likely, the hacker will try to use the parametersof your pages to execute their own commands. SomeFree (as in beer) ways to combat this is to send POST requestsinstead of GET requests, and to make sure that your Javascriptsends extra information that ensures the request has comefrom a valid resource (in this case, the page on your website). Itis also essential to make sure that any user input fields, no matterhow mundane, are stripped of Javascript code and HTMLtags. Problems can arise when this is allowed, so it is importantto take great care when developing.Now for the nitty gritty. While still init’s infancy, Ajax has given new life to the Javascript programminglanguage and many new libraries to ease the use ofdevelopment have risen up to meet the challenge.. There aremany popular ones, including dojo, Rico, the Yahoo User Interfacelibrary (YUI), the Google Web Toolkit(GWT). While all ofthese toolkits offer Ajax support, and have great pros and cons,the most popular one is Prototype. According to a Ajaxian.compoll, 43% of those polled use the framework.Our first example will be a simple photobook. The first stepis going to http://prototype.conio.net/ and downloading theJavascript file. When this is done, make sure to have your pageinclude the file.[continued]

The basic HTML for our example follows:Show AppleShow OrangeShow BananaThe main point of this code is to have an HTML element witha unique ID, in this case ‘photo’. The buttons have onClick eventhandlers set so that when each button is clicked it will call theappropriate function. Now for the Javascript:function showPhoto(fruit){params = ‘fruit=’+fruit;var myAjax = new Ajax.Updater( ‘photo’, ‘photo.php’,{parameters: params});}The Prototype library has a built-in class called Ajax, interestinglyenough, and it has a very useful function called Updater.The Updater function takes the ID to be updated with newcontent, the page to send the content to (called the RequestHandler), and parameters to pass along to our Request Handler.The parameters are in the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)format. I use PHP in the majority of my development, so I use‘photo.php’ as my Request Handler. Any web programming languagecan replace PHP in this respect as long as it accomplishthe main function. My photo.php takes the “fruit” parameter, tacksa ‘.jpg’ onto the end, and print outs an image tag.A full working example can be seen at http://www.kaanon.com/ajaxexample. Obviously, this a very simple example but thebeauty of Ajax is that it scales upward very gracefully. A developeris able to keep most of the logic out of Javascript and intotheir main development language, while keeping the Javascriptsmall and unobstructed. Ajax is also useful for tracking usersand sending request even when there is not result you would liketo display. Javascript can continually send request back to theserver to check how long a user has been logged in, for instance.It can also be used to parse user input for validation or it couldbe used to set cookies that need to be used in other portions ofa site.Another useful tool that exists in the Prototype library is the abilityto update multiple fields at once. The “traditional” way to do this isto have your Request Handler script print XML from your request,and have Javascript parse and extract the necessary information. Amore intuitive way, is to use return Javascript from your RequestHandler. For example, we use the following as our html code:58 Ping! Zine MagazineCalculate Number10I then use the following javacript call to change the content ofthe number box:function calculate(){params = ‘number=’+$F(‘num’);var myAjax = new Ajax.Request(‘number.php’,{parameters: params,evalScripts: true});}The biggest difference in this call is that we use the Ajax.Requestfunction instead of the Ajax.Updater function. This generalpurpose function allows the return of more structured informationthan the Update function. It also allows the Javascript thatis returned to be executed. This is done by using the evalScriptsparameter that is sent along with the request. This code also introducesthe $F() function. What this function accomplishes is returningthe value of a form element, without manually traversingthe HTML page. The form input must have a unique ID, but thefunction works flawlessly. The code below prints out an interestingaddition to Javascript, the $ function. What this function doesis either return the actual HTML element that it is looked for, oran array of elements if more than one is found.My php Request Handler page simple updates the number boxcontent on the page, AND it also changes the color of the contentbaed on it’s sign. The corresponding php code looks like this:

VoIPFOR YOUR BUSINESSBY TIMOTHY DICKMigrating your businessphone service to aVoIP-based solutionmay seem a littleintimidating, but it doesn’t haveto be. In most cases, usingVoIP can quite literally cut yourcommunication costs in half andoffer you far more flexibility thantraditional phone service. If youtake some time to research youroptions and find a solution thatmeets your needs, you can enjoysome major benefits.First, absolutely make sure that you have a stableinternet connection. Even if you use an incredibleVoIP carrier with great hardware, you’ll always run intoproblems with a flaky connection. Remember, with VoIP,all calls are transmitted through that connection. If it’snot up, your phone service will not function. If it’s havingproblems with latency or packet loss, your calls will be ofpoor quality. Make sure your connection is solid.Once this is confirmed, just sit down and think aboutwhat you want your phone system to do. Decide howmany phones you need, what features you want to access,and what kind of functionality you really use. Forget whatyour current system does – remember, you’re in controlhere – and instead think about what do you want yoursystem to do. Once you have a general idea of whatyou’re looking for, you need to do some research. Thereare three main components you need to make decisionsabout: First, you need to have the right platform orsoftware to power your system. Second, you need to havethe right equipment. Finally, you need to have the rightcarrier.SystemYou’ll want to carefully assess the different availableplatforms, since what you choose in this area will likelydictate what you need to do for equipment. You could60 Ping! Zine Magazine

go with a commercial system (Cisco CallManager, Shoretel orTalkSwitch), or an open-source platform such as Asterisk, or evena hybrid solution. In my opinion, hybrid is the way to go. Most ofthe traditional commercial systems are incredibly overpriced, butsolutions like Asterisk require you know how to build and maintainyour own system. While that may seem simple enough for sometech-savvy individuals, remember that you need to make thesystem easy to use for all of your employees as well -- that’s notalways an easy task.A hybrid system is usually commercial, but built on an opensourceplatform, typically Asterisk. The two leaders in thisarea are Switchvox and Fonality. These are basically “turnkey”systems that are all GUI-driven and can be deployed on asmall or large scale. If you opt for one of these options, yousimply plug the system into your network, configure it using yourbrowser, and set up IP phones. Unlike some of the traditionalsystems which can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars, bothhybrid systems are less than $5,000.and has a plethora of carriers listed in it. Once you have someoptions on the table, compare then. Remember that with VoIP,data is routed over a public networw -- the internet -- rather thana private network. For that reason, it’s always a “best effort”service. Once data leaves, a carrier can’t always control howthat data is transmitted. For that reason, the quality of a providercan vary slightly from user to user.The best thing to do is just to try the service personally to seehow it works for you. If the carrier offers a trial, take advantageof it. If it works well for a personal line on your connection, it willwork well for business line as well. For a point of reference, toget quality, business-grade VoIP service, you can reasonablyexpect to pay around $0.02 per minute. Tip: Don’t sign acontract. With VoIP, long-term contracts only exist becausethey’ve always been prevalent in the telecommunicationsindustry. One of the primary reasons many users switch to VoIPservices is to cut through some of the typical red tape. Qualitycarriers know that, and will not require a time-based commitment.A monthly minimum for usage is all that should be required.JUST PUT THE 3COMPONENTS TOGETHEREquipmentOnce you decide on a platform, you simply add IP phonesto the mix. There are thousands of options out there, and, forthe most part, it just comes down to the features you need andpersonal preference. It is unlikely, though, that you’ll find muchin the way of commercial IP phones or related VoIP equipmentat your local electronics store; the industry just isn’t quite thereyet. Two of the industry leaders for VoIP equipment includeVoIPSupply.com and Voxilla.com. Both have a huge inventory ofphones and related gear. In general, systems are based on theSIP protocol, so any SIP-based phones should work. You canexpect to pay around $100 for a quality, basic IP phone. Justtake a look at what’s available, see what meets your needs, andconfirm it works with your chosen platform.CarrierOnce you decide on the platform and get your equipment, youneed to select a carrier. This is a critical piece of the puzzle.Have you ever called a company and experienced crackling orechoes while on the line and thought “they must be using VoIP”?If you opt for a quality carrier, that should certainly not be thenorm. The bottom line is that when you’re dealing with phoneservice for your business, you want quality.If you look around, you’ll find a huge number of carriers.VOIP-Info.org is a completely free Wiki site dedicated to VoIP,AlternativesIf you don’t feel this is something you’re ready to do yourself, apopular alternative called a “Hosted PBX” may be a better optionfor you. With a hosted service, all hardware except your actualIP phones are housed in the carrier’s facility. Your phones simplyremotely connect to the carrier’s system. Generally, everything isincluded and ready to use. Hosted services are typically priced“per extension” and are “all inclusive”. Expect to pay $30 to $40monthly per extension for unlimited calling.Once you decide what you want to do, just put the 3components together. If you opt for a hosted system, thiswill likely be all taken care of for you. Either way, it’s reallystraightforward if you do the proper research. And, the benefitsare well worth it.P!Writer’s Bio: Timothy Dick is the President and Founder ofVOIPo.com, a provider of VoIP services funded by HostGator.com which primarily caters to VoIP resellers by providing carrierand wholesale services. VOIPo.com is also scheduled to launchUS residential service nationwide in the first quarter with a fullprivate-label reseller software platform in the second quarter.Dick is the former Vice President of Operations of HostRocketand its VoIP subsidiary.Send your questions or comments to writers@pingzine.comwww.pingzine.com 61

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Productivity has a New Name:ProjectManagementBy Pam PeacockCEO, Cheetah LearningWhen the numbersare crunched andthe bottom-line isanalyzed, there’soften one word thatrises to the top:productivity.How can companiesbe more productive?Today’s CIOs are focusing on project management, as oneof the keys to productivity. According to CIO Magazine’s TheState of the CIO 2006, CIOs are staffing up to hire those withproject management and business-process management skills.These two skills, along with application development, are thetop three skills desired most from new hires, according to thesurvey.So, what do managers need to look for when hiringproject managers? One indicator is the PMP®, the projectmanagement industry’s own certification. The PMP ensuresyou that the candidate understands the key principles andprocesses of project management and has passed the PMPexamination.If you want to groom rising stars in your organization tobecome Project Managers, consider the CAPM exam. Thisis a Certified Associate in Project Management and is a goodprimer for less experienced managers who may later becomePMPs.Beyond the PMP, there are also Certificate programs like theProject Management Master’s Certificate that embed hands-onproject management experience in the curriculum.Our philosophy is to create a life cycle of learning aroundproject management and make it part of your organizationalculture. At the top of the organization, your senior levelexecutives need negotiation skills. They need to know how tocommunicate through conflict and grow and manage a skilledteam of project managers.If your organization is focused on the bottom-line, (and whoisn’t?), this is your time to look at your organization holisticallyand make Project Management a priority.How do you know if Project Management can benefit yourorganization? Here’s a checklist that highlights ways ProjectManagement can boost your bottom-line:Project ManagementPain ReducersProject Managementcan help you:A) Align business goals with organizational outputB) Support business continuity/risk management effortsC) Manage costsD) Support IT enabled process improvementE) Improve employee satisfactionF) Develop leadership and business skills that instill pride.G) Develop a productive and profitable business cultureH) Support privacy initiativesI) Support knowledge management and leverage of intellectualassets.J) Support regulatory compliance.You have nothing to lose, but time and money.“PMI”, “PMP” and “PMBOK© Guide” are service andtrademarks of the Project Management Institute which isregistered in the United States and other nations.Writers Bio: Pam Peacock is a PMP and the CEO of CheetahLearning (www.cheetahlearning.com). She has the analyticalmind of an engineer and the “get it done” prowess of a projectmanager. She brings an equal balance of systems, solutionsand a sense of humor to problem solving.Send your questions or comments to writers@pingzine.comP!www.pingzine.com 63

COLOCATIONCONTROL PANEL SOLUTIONSDEDICATED HOSTINGHANDY NETWORKSwww.handynetworks.comp: 877-704-2639e: sales@handynetworks.comSpecializing in Windows HostingSCINTERFACEwww.games.scinterface.com/pingp: 888-8-NETARUSControl Your Game Servers!PSOFTwww.psoft.netp: 718-928-9912e: sales@psoft.neth-Sphere Control PanelSWSOFTwww.swsoft.comp: 703-815-5670Proven Automation & VirtualizationSoftware SolutionsDATAHOSTSwww.datahosts.come: sales@datahosts.comGreat Servers & Hosting @ Great PriceBOCACOMwww.bocacom.netp: 561-939-3330e: sales@bocacom.netProfessional, Affordable DedicatedServersHOST4YOURSELFwww.h4y.usp: 866-435-5642e: askus@host4yourself.comSmarter, Cheaper, Faster!NETSONICwww.netsonic.netP: 877-432-0360e: sales@netsonic.netGet a Bigger Server for Less! $99.95Standard PackageDEDICATED HOSTINGE-COMMERCE SOLUTIONSFASTSERVERSwww.fastservers.netp: 319-277-6937e: sales@fastservers.netManaged Dedicated ServersHOSTING PANAMAwww.hosting.com.pap: 011-507-226-HOSTe: sales@hosting.com.paSecure Offshore Data CenterLUNARPAGESwww.lunarpages.comp: 877-586-2772e: sales@lunarpages.comBasic Hosting to Dedicated & Beyond!QUANTACT HOSTINGwww.quantact.comp: 866-611-6062e: info@quantact.comLinux Virtual Private ServersNTOUCHwww.ntouch.cae: sales@ntouch.ca30 Day Money Back On all ServersCDGCOMMERCEwww.cdgcommerce.comp: 888-586-3346E-Business You Can TrustHOST BUYOUTwww.hostbuyout.come: sales@aditz.comSell or Buy a Hosting CompanyPINNACLECARTwww.pinnaclecart.comp: 800-506-0398 x701e: resellers@pinnaclecart.comMaking E-Commerce WorkRESELLERDIRECTORIESHARDWARE E-COMMERCE SOLUTIONSMODERNBILLwww.modernbill.comp: 502-566-7754e: marketing@modernbill.comWeb Host Billing: Create,Manage, Grow.QUALITEAMwww.qualiteam.bizp: 877-212-9725e: sales@qualiteam.bizOnline Business Solutions& E-Commere DevelopmentRACKMOUNT MICROwww.rackmountmicro.comp: 800-673-0174e: sales@rackmountmicro.comQuality Servers at Affordable PricesWEB HOSTING UNLEASHEDwww.webhostingunleashed.come: bwb@resellerguide.comWeb Hosting Reviews, News, andGuidesWEBHOST MAGAZINEwww.webhostmagazine.come: info@webhostmagazine.comThe Final Authority!HOSTING FORUMSwww.thehostingforums.come: mgmt@thetechpad.comWeb Hosting ForumsHOSTGATORwww.hostgator.comp: 866-964-2867e: sales@hostgator.comReseller and Shared Hosting SolutionsRELIOwww.relio.comp: 863-943-1212e: info@relio.comH-Sphere Hosting & Reseller Plans64 Ping! Zine Magazine

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JOB SECURITY& THE ART OFCARELESS CODINGBy David DunlapOne thing many expert programmers face is a time when theircompanies decide they can no longer afford their salaries; suchprogrammers end up being replaced with lower level programmers whosesole jobs will be to maintain the code that the senior programmers -- theunsung heroes of the desktop -- have spent so long writing. Do not fear,however, for I will share with you the secrets of total job security!CommentsInstead of commenting your variables, functions, loops, and/ormethodology, comment about your life, or comment about anything thatseems to come up at the time you are coding. For instance, “coffee is thegreatest thing on the planet.”Be sure to comment out unused code instead of deleting it. This alsogoes for any sort of code that might be considered obsolete. Sure, theprogram has changed since then, but it might just as easily changeback! If you have left the comments on those methods and variablesuntouched and sufficiently cryptic, anyone maintaining the code will betoo scared to touch them. Heck, bell bottoms made a comeback; maybethe old ASP 1.0 functions will be used again! Also remember: you shouldnever document whether the new code was intended to supplement orcompletely replace the old code, or whether the old code worked at all. Ifthe maintenance coder really wanted to learn these trifling details, theycan just read through every line of your code, as they should.To break the boredom, use a thesaurus to look up as much alternatevocabulary as possible to refer to the same action. Vaguely hint thereis some subtle difference, even where none really exists. However, ifthere are two similar functions that have a crucial difference, alwaysuse the same word in describing both functions. Your code should alsoimpress. Peruse mathematical and scientific journals and thesis papers.Write down the most obscure terminology you find, and add them to yourcomments and algorithmic explanations. If people can’t understand yourvocabulary, they must assume that you are very intelligent and that youralgorithms are very deep.General ProgrammingIn naming functions, make heavy use of intangible words like it,data, handle, stuff, do, routine, perform, thingy, foo and bar. If you haveareas with multiple functions, give them all the same names with slightmodifications, such as adding a number or two. Also avoid consistentnaming schemes associated with arrays. If you have, say, 30 elementsin your array, hard code it to thirty. Always avoid using variables to holdthese values. Or, if you want to use a variable that is equal to 30, findother areas in your code where thirty happens to come up, and usethe array variable for that as well. You may not win any points with themaintenance programmers, but this is not about their comfort level!Besides, if they were true replacements for your genius they would writetheir own code.A good coder can get up to 10 levels of ( ) on a single line, and 20 in asingle function or method. String these suckers out as long and as far asyou possibly can. And, as you write the code, you can chuckle to yourself,for you know that poor, unsuspecting future programmers will be up allnight just trying to figure out what the heck you were doing.Also, never underestimate how much havoc you can create byindenting with tabs instead of spaces, especially when there is nocorporate standard on how much indenting a tab represents. In fact, theeasy way is to do a simple find and replace method to convert thoseworthless spaces into tabs!Some might call it devious. Others may call it unethical. But at the endof the day, you can feel safe in knowing that there is only one person onthe planet who can safely navigate your paradigm of “impracticalitude.”P!66 Ping! Zine MagazineWriter’s Bio: David Dunlap has been both a web hosting industryanalyst and commentator for the past eight years. For four years priorto his active writing career, David was a network and communicationstechnician. He is currently Reviews Editor for WebHostMagazine.comSend your questions or comments to writers@pingzine.com

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