Just a quick post to let you know that Verisign once again raised the prices for all TLDs they control and in turn Enom also raised their prices for ALL TLDs by $0.50. Asthe profit margin on reseller sales is so small we have no choice but to pass this increase along to our Domain Resellers. All TLDs have been increased by $0.50. The reseller tier is now $9.95 for .com, .net and .org.

We have not raised prices on retail domains which remain at $12.95/yr.

This is too good not to share.

We received an order today that got flagged by our anti-fraud system. The order was from “James Shropshire” and domain “free4k54ca.com”. We did our usual follow-up which asks the client to send in a scanned copy of a photo ID. We received a response from “quai vat san”:

Hi,
Thank for rour email, this is my scanned driver license
I hope my account will be active soon
Thanks,

And the ID:

On behalf of all the staff here at HostNexus I’d like to wish all our clients a most Merry Christmas and wish you all the very best for 2012. It’s been a crazy year all over the world and one can only hope that 2012 brings stability, peace and stability to this fragile planet and all who dwell here. Best of luck in 2012 – let’s hope the Mayans are wrong.

As you may know, Hurricane Irene, the first Hurricane to threaten the North East in quite a few years, is currently projected to produce 100mph winds at our Clifton (NJ) facility at some point this weekend. Irene has the otential to be a serious and multi-hazard threat for the major metropolitan areas of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. This hurricane has the potential to produce flooding rains, high winds, downed trees (on houses, cars, power lines) and widespread power outages. We have taken all of the necessary precautions to prepare for this and any disaster. The generators have been tested and fuel levels have been verified. Backup fuel has been secured and moved to a safe site, close to the data center, in the event of extended power interruption. Arangements have been made to make sure extra staff are available on site and we have additional staff local to the facility on standby if needed. We have also verified all outdoor equipment is secure and the roof is free of any debris that could potentially get picked up by the wind.

We are confident in the data center’s preparations and our ability to provide you the outstanding service you have come to expect from us, even in the event of a major natural disaster.

We are discontinuing a few old nameservers on our Linux servers. Basically all the “control-access.com” nameservers are being discontinued and you need to make sure you are using the “dns-shield.com” nameservers.

========================
ARIES

ns11.dns-shield.com
ns12.dns-shield.com

DISCONTINUING
ns.control-access6.com
ns2.control-access6.com
ns.control-access10.com
ns2.control-access10.com

========================
TAURUS

ns13.dns-shield.com
ns14.dns-shield.com

DISCONTINUING
ns.control-access3.com
ns2.control-access3.com
ns.control-access12.com
ns2.control-access12.com

========================
CANCER

ns15.dns-shield.com
ns16.dns-shield.com

DISCONTINUING
ns.control-access4.com
ns2.control-access4.com
ns.control-access16.com
ns2.control-access16.com

========================
LEO

ns17.dns-shield.com
ns18.dns-shield.com

DISCONTINUING
ns.control-access.com
ns2.control-access.com
ns.control-access14.com
ns2.control-access14.com

========================
VIRGO

ns19.dns-shield.com
ns20.dns-shield.com

DISCONTINUING
ns.control-access2.com
ns2.control-access2.com
ns.control-access11.com
ns2.control-access11.com

========================
BETA

ns23.dns-shield.com
ns24.dns-shield.com

DISCONTINUING
ns.control-access7.com
ns2.control-access7.com
ns.hostnexus7.com
ns2.hostnexus7.com

========================
ZETA

ns25.dns-shield.com
ns26.dns-shield.com

DISCONTINUING
ns.control-access5.com
ns2.control-access5.com

========================
THETA

ns27.dns-shield.com
ns28.dns-shield.com

DISCONTINUING
ns.control-access9.com
ns2.control-access9.com

========================
OMIKRON

ns29.dns-shield.com
ns30.dns-shield.com

DISCONTINUING
ns.control-access8.com
ns2.control-access8.com

========================

We are just letting these domains expire over the next year with the first domains expiring end of May so please make sure you change nameservers within 2 months to avoid any issues.

At HostNexus we have 3 SQL servers plugged into our Windows servers. Two are SQL 2005 (SQL1 and SQL2) and we have one SQL 2008 server (SQL3). I’m sure most people connect to their SQL server via the public IP or “sql.yourdomain.com” and connecting in this way sends your SQL traffic over the public network switch. We also have a secondary network on all our shared servers and this means you can connect to your SQL Server via the private network IP which will significantly improve your SQL performance in terms of response speed. Here is a list of the SQL servers and their private IPs:

SQL1 (2005) – 192.168.4.15
SQL2 (2005) – 192.168.4.16
SQL3 (2008) – 192.168.4.11

Simply edit your MSSQL connection scripts with the private IP of your SQL server and reap the benefits.

In October 2010 I posted in our newsletter and on our forum about the latest price increase from Verisign for .com and other TLDs they control. At the time I did a bulk price update of all Domain Resellers but it seems quite a few resellers didn’t receive the updated pricing. Our pricing for Domain Resellers has been $9.45/yr and .com, .net, .org, .info domains since October as is published on our website.

Greetings,

We are seeing an increasing amount of spam being sent by Coldfusion scripts which is due to us not enforcing SMTP Auth in CF – this has to change or our servers will get continually blacklisted. This is a very simple change though!

To enable SMTP Authentication you need to :

1. Create a valid email on your domain. But for domains that have a different MX server you will need to connect to that MX mail server).
2. Change the CF code in the CFMAIL tag to include the username and password of the valid mailbox as outlined here:

Abobe CF MAIL Documentation

Simple example :

<cfmail subject = "Contact"
   from = "test@localdomain.com"
   to = "test1@remotedomain.com"
   server = "localhost"
   username = "test@localdomain.com"
   password = "mailboxpassword" >
</cfmail>

We will start enforcing CF to authenticate against a valid mailbox from Monday 13th February so please make sure you have fixed your code by then. If you make alterations and find you are having issues with sending mail please let Technical Support know and we’ll look at your code and assist.

Many thanks.

Laurence
HN Support

Our new site has been live for a month now. The feedback has been truly amazing. So many people mentioned how much they liked the site and many emailed us just to say that. I thought the site was good but the sheer amount of positive feedback really took me by suprise.

We have seen a 400% increase in sales and about the same increase in traffic. The traffic stats are a bit skewed because the old NexusPortal is now integrated with HostNexus so the stats include forum traffic and support traffic. But there is no doubt that a good site helps convert visitors into customers. I saw the same thing 6 years ago when we launched the old Ceonex site.

But how often should a company change its site? The net is an ever-transforming animal so there really is a need to change designs to keep up with the latest trends. Some people say once a year but I think that’s a bit much and I certainly wouldn’t be able to handle that. I think maybe every 2 years would okay for small changes. In our case it had been 6 years so a radical change was needed but believe it or not I set out on this mission to get a new site up for HN in June 2006 – yep, 3 years ago. So just how can a site take 3 years to build?
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