123-reg.co.uk

If you are reading this then the chances you are fairly computer savvy if not expert. What that also probably means is that any older members of your family and extended family quite possibly see you as an expert in computers even if you are not. Have a think how many times have you had a call, SMS or email out of the blue from a relative or friend asking you what they see as a technical question about how to use Excel, send an email,  etc?

In most cases you may have known the answer but sometimes the request is a bit more obscure. You will probably never stop people asking for your help so how can you make sure that when they do ask you can answer more quickly and with the minimum of hassle? Here’s Six tips we think will help:

1. Offer buying advice

If you hear a relative talking about buyin a new PC, be proactive and see if you can help them choose. You will probably have more idea of what they will and won’t need on a machine for their own use so you might save them money and the need for buying a machine they will only use 1% of the capabilities of. Also it makes sense that you can help steer them to perhaps an operating system or manufacturer you have experience of, as it will save you ‘researching’ when helping in the future.

2. Load their software

Of course they will have preloaded stuff they are keen to use, but if you are to advise them when things go wrong there is no point them running with the latest versions you have never even seen. Open-source software can be as powerful as the expensive stuff and often more intuitive to use. If you load that onto their machines and you also have a copy on your machine, offering future advice will become so much easier.

3. Get them with the smartphone generation

OK many will be reluctant to switch and be daunted at first, but touchscreen technology and apps really is a much easier way for tech-reluctant people to get things done. Also the chances are you have a smartphone too, so try to get them to choose one like yours or similar so that when things ‘go wrong’ you at least have some idea of what they are talking about.

4. Get them online

Although being on the internet might be common-place to you and I, you will be amazed at how many people see the internet as beyond them. If they are not yet connected, help them get set-up and maybe find out about local (often free) courses nearby that they can attend for some introductory sessions. Once they are online, communication when things go wrong will become much easier for you but also the advice that is available online means they may well find they need you less and less.

5. Get them on Facebook

There is a growing movement of the older generation to Facebook but there are still many scared by media stories about privacy and who can see their account. Explain to them the controls they can put over their information and set them up an account. Normally once they have had a few sessions playing around and realising how many of their own family and friends are already on their, they will catch the bug. Now if they have a problem they can post on their status and possibly recruit others to provide their IT support too – instantly.

6. Set-up Remote login software on their machines

This is probably only for the regular ones who seem to need help every week or so. With so many free and cheap remote-access options out there nowadays there are plenty of options to choose from to install a program that can sit quietely on their machine until needed. If you are trying to help them fix something it is so much easier if you can see their screen at the same time and in the busy world that side-by-side support is difficult to fit in. You may want to warn them first though as watching your cursor move by itself can be disconcerting even to experienced computer users.

The above won’t stop people bugging you for help but will certainly help you to help them when they do.

Good luck.

Share and Enjoy

Comments

Thinking of launching a hate campaign against a rival? Or illegally downloading copyright-protected films via the internet? If you believe Hollywood or even some quasi-government spin then you’d think that the police can reliably trace suspects via their IP addresses. Well apparently they can, but not necessarily with any accuracy.

We obviously don’t want to promote criminal activity but we are all about educating the population mis-informed about cyber-issues by PR puff and propaganda.

Over on PC Pro an interesting article by Davey Winder uncovers just why IP tracking is flawed as a crime detection method. Whilst it has become a key tool in anti-piracy and criminal investigations, the English courts recently cast some doubt over the ‘tried and tested validity’ of the method after the tactic was employed by copyright-protection chasing law firm ACS Law.

What is an IP address?

Before you understand why your IP address can’t actually personally identify you  need first to understand what an IP address is. Every connection to the internet has an internet protocol (IP) address – a numerical identity that enables the correct delivery of  data. Every domain name is basically a literary translation of an IP address. It is what makes the system work.

Your public IP address is allocated by your ISP (internet service provider) and may be permanent (static) or temporary (dynamic), the latter meaning each time you login you will be allocated an IP for that session from a pool of available addresses owned by the ISP. Behind that public IP address within your own network you will have a private IP address, that further complicates matters.

The problem is that IP tracing assumes that every address is traceable back to an individual, but it quite often isn’t.  In fact if you know what you are doing you can quite easily hide your IP address. The more hops and connections made to reach the internet backbone using proxies and the like, the more difficult it becomes to track or resolve the original IP, meaning a super-cyber criminal needs only to know how to bounce around the internet a few times to cloud the water behind them.

The police and other agencies now have the right to demand ISPs reveal who’s behind an IP address and IP logs under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. Yet in practice most ISPs delete these after a few days anyway. Therefore even if an IP can be traced back to an ISP by then the logs are normally destroyed by then. So, other than catching careless cyber-criminals caught in a matter of hours, the tracing of IP addresses is pretty hit and miss. More Hollywood illusions shattered.

Read Davey Winder’s post for a more detailed account.

Share and Enjoy

Comments

You might have noticed that we’ve launched a few new domain name extensions on 123-reg over the last year or so. Most recently, it’s been the turn of .so domains – you’ll be able to register domain names ending in .so from 1 April 2011.

(No, we didn’t have any choice over the date. And no, it’s not a joke.)

How new domains are created

New domain names aren’t just created and released overnight. The exact process depends on what sort of domain name extension it is:

• Country code domains, like .uk (for the United Kingdom), .cn (for China) and .co (for Colombia) are administered by the relevant country’s government. In practice, an appointed organisation usually runs the domain. In the UK, Nominet does this. Every country has its own country code. It’s up to them how they use it.
• Other domain extensions – like .com, .mobi and .info – are created by ICANN, the organisation with overall control of the domain name system. Getting a new extension created is very complicated, though plans are afoot to liberalise the market (mind you, you’ll still need hundreds of thousands of pounds and creating a new extension could take a year or more).

Anyway, let’s just suppose that a new domain name’s about to hit the market. What happens next?

The stages of domain name registration

Once a new domain name extension has received the seal of approval from ICANN, there are a series of stages to the registration process:

• Sunrise. During the sunrise period, it’s usually only trademark holders who can register domain names. Every trademark holder gets checked individually, to make sure their application is legitimate.The idea is that trademark holders can protect their brand early – although there’s usually a hefty premium to register at this stage.

  Sunrise is for people who can prove they have the ‘right’ to a particular domain name.

• Landrush. At landrush stage, anyone can apply to register any domain name. However, they’re not sold on a first-come-first-served basis. Instead, domains are allocated at the end of the landrush period.

  If more than one application is received for a domain name, it’s auctioned off.

  Landrush is for people willing to pay more to secure a domain name.

Both the sunrise and landrush stages are usually run by the domain name registrar – the organisation that manages that domain name extension. Each stage can last a month or two. It’s not until the third stage that domain name companies like 123-reg usually start selling the domains:

• General availability. Following on from sunrise and landrush, general availability is when anyone can take their pick of the remaining domain names.

  When we talk about pre-ordering domain names on 123-reg, it’s in preparation for general availability – if you place a preorder with us, we automatically try and register your domain name(s) the second general availability starts.

  General availability is the ‘free for all’, when domains become available at more reasonable prices.

Although not every new domain name follows this process exactly, most are released in a similar manner.

As for our new .so domain names? You can pre-order up until 31 March. If you don’t get your pre-order in time, come back to our site on or after 1 April, when you’ll be able to register .so domain names there and then.

Share and Enjoy

Comments

Among the budgetary announcements this week, plans for an auction of new a new 4G spectrum next year were revealed.

After the 3G (third generation) sell-off off of bandwidth a decade ago helped off-set government spending to the tune of £22.5 million, the Chancellor will be hoping there is a similar amount to be made as mobile providers clamber to be able to provide a mobile connection that could be faster and more functional than most home and office broadband connections.

The draft rules for 4G have been much anticipated but since Germany only raised €4.3 billion from its own 4G auction last year the mobile windfall might be much smaller than many hope. While the telecoms market remains strong, many see the hefty price paid for 3G licences led to the decline in competition in the industry with Orange and T-Mobile since merging and the new fourth player Three still struggling for market share against the more established names.

Yet the new rules appear at least retain the existing competition with explicit mention of four providers likely to be governed by regulator Ofcom limiting the amount of the spectrum any one provider can own. Yet, experts forsee that even this could be challenged in the courts by the big providers wanting to take larger slices for themselves. The potential of 4G means that whilst the licences might not raise as much as the government would like, there is potential for large profits to be made in the future by 4G providers, simply due to the diverse uses it could offer. Such legal wrangling is only likely to delay the 4G service launch which is already not likely until 2013. The 4G spectrum will include part of the former analogue TV range and with the TV Digital switchover having taken years, the practicalities of rolling out 4G have been affected.

With video calling, fast internet browsing and a host of app-driven tools already available on 3G, the potential of 4G is mouth-watering. But still two years away from launch it could mean that the UK loses its march on other nations like Japan, Sweden and Germany who will be 4G-ing long before us.

Should companies be considering 4G potential now even before licences have been granted?

Share and Enjoy

Comments

When Peter Steiner included the phrase “On the internet nobody knows if you are a dog“ in his cartoon that featured in the 5th July 1993 issue of The New Yorker, little did he realise the great fame and fortune it would bring him, nor that nearly 18 years down the line it would be still relevant.

The growth of the internet has only seen the fear’ built into the phrase – the fact that you never really know who you are dealing with over the internet – increase at a similar rate. The more sites that appear on the internet the bigger the risk that the one you pick out to do business with is a dog, and how would you know?

Well now you can. Or at least you can show your customers that you are not a dog and that you are actually a valid business, committed to doing things the right way and one well worth dealing with. With the launch of Website Passport from 123-reg there is now a way of proving the status of your website, your company and the fact that you are not a dog – dogs are not specifically excluded although they would need to be a registered company.

If you have taken the time to set-up and build-up your business the correct way you deserve a bit of recognition and in terms of the internet your Website Passport acknowledges exactly who you are. Available now at a launch special price of £89.99 the Website Passport provides you with a recognisable badge of distinction – a secure fingerprint icon – that is easily embedded into your website with a simple piece of code. Then when customers click on that icon they can view a secure virtual passport powered by industry leaders GlobalSign, confirming you are the registered owner of the website, your registered company details and a host of other essential information designed to re-assure your visitors that they can but trust in your website and your business.

Yet, it is more than just a pretty icon and flashy-pop-up. The information is real-time verified, meaning everything is up-to-date with information pulled directly from assured sources such as Companies House, The European Commission and the Whois database. You can proudly display your business credentials and your potential customers can immediately see that your site and business is one they can trust.

The Website Passport also includes priceless online tools that bought separately would cost your business a considerable sum, but come included in the price of Website Passport. With a built-in Google Malware alert function, Website Passport will notify you of any malware issues within your site, before your customers are confronted by the dreaded malware alert on their Google search. Also included is the Google Map location of your registered address and trading address if different, enabling would-be customers to find you should you also want to promote your real-world activities too.

In the real-world we carry countless forms of ID everyday in the form of driving licences, passports, sports club cards, etc yet until now the online world has been one still shrouded in mystery and potential pitfalls from not being able to identify who is who. Website Passport now offers that identification option to build trust, build custom and build sales.

Have you tried our Website Passport?

Share and Enjoy

Comments

Recently we’ve been writing more and more about social media so we sat down and thought: “You know what, let’s give something to our social media followers.”

…so tada! Here it is.

We’re giving away 100 .info domain names for free on Facebook in our 123-reg fun day.

To be in with a chance of winning all you have to do is:

1.       Visit our Facebook page.

2.       Follow the instructions there.

It really is that simple!

So visit us on Facebook now and who knows, you might be one of our 100 lucky winners.

Share and Enjoy

Comments

Charlie Sheen has recently shown how fame, fortune and eccentricity go a long way to creating a large Twitter following but have you ever wondered who the most influential Tweeters are in this country?  Who are Britain’s Twitterati?

The recently launched i paper from the Independent stable has this week published a very interesting Twitter 100. Whilst we are disappointed not to see 123-reg listed despite our influence in the domain and hosting Twittersphere, we have to admit to being quite excited at seeing some different names and so perhaps surprise results.

The Twitter 100 claims to list in order the most powerful Britons on Twitter. Not the most followed but the most influential, the ones who unlike Charlie Sheen, tweet and are listened to not just mocked.

So who tops the list? Not author comic Stephen Fry. He is at number four. The most powerful tweeter in the country is seen as Sarah Brown, the wife of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown. At number two is BBC Five Live DJ Richard  Bacon – topping some big hitting and highly followed Tweeters from the DJ sector including Chris Moyles, Fern Britton and Chris Evans.

Number three spot goes to Eddie Izzard with his mix of philosophical and slightly political tweets, meaning that Stephen Fry is not even the most influential comedian on Twitter.

A surprise for many may be corporate strategist and blogger Umair Haque in at number 5 but if you ever read any of his thoughts it is clear to see why many feel them worthy of re-tweeting and thus why he is deemed so influential.

Finally, mention must be made of the apparent ongoing Twitter war going on between Sir Alan Sugar and Piers Morgan. What at times looks like hearty banter between the two has had some very hard edges at times with some very barbed comments, carried on by their own followers. Expect then Sir Alan Sugar  (14^th) to be reminding Morgan (61^st) of their respective standings in this latest table.

A bit of fun perhaps, but the fact  that a serious newspaper is running features like this confirms the status and importance of Twitter in modern business and social lives.

Share and Enjoy

Comments

Fire protection consultants, online bespoke jewellery retailers, some web designers and a smattering of builders, financial advisers and digital marketing consultants: The annual Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) Conference currently being attended by some of the 123-reg team in Liverpool is an example of the diversity of the British economy. The fact that each and every one of them bore a smile and exuded positivity about their own companies and marker sectors – even in the current economic climate – is also an example of the tremendous entrepreneurial spirit that many experts predict will help the country eventually back into the black. The further fact that of the 100s of people this blogger spoke to on the first day, only one person did not have a website for their business – nor could that person be convince of the value of an online presence – is also an example of why the Digital Economy is so important to this country.

Tomorrow (Friday) sees both Prime Minister David Cameron and his minister Vince Cable address the Conference on political issues that affect the broad membership of the FSA. That very fact – as well as being a partial balance to the tabled lobbying motions voted on by conference attendees – also shows just how important the one-man bands, two-partner firms and small family-run outfits that make up much of the FSB Membership. Direct questions to such high profile politicians will be minimal but Saturday’s ‘Question Time’ like debate featuring previously submitted questions to a panel including MPs from across the political spectrum looks set to be a fitting finale. So we hope that given the findings from this slightly-conference weary blogger above, that one of the questions fired at the panel is that on the need for investment in the digital economy.

Here are 123-reg we like to think we encourage entrepreneurship and help businesses get online, yet beyond these Towers we see frustration after frustration of customers and would-be customers not able to enjoy the basic tool of online business, that of a high-speed internet connection. While at our HQ minutes from Heathrow and at our secure digital data-centre in the north of England  we enjoy fast leased lines, we appreciate that some in more remote parts of the country are stilling using dial-up connections – and by necessity and not by choice.

The Digital Economy is important to the success of the country and now needs the appropriate investment from the government to ensure the growth of online business is not stifled by inadequate infrastructure. Recent moves to clamp down on broadband providers who fail to live up to their advertised speeds is welcome, but greater attention needs also to be paid to why those advertising speeds aren’t being met and why they are not nationwide, as we currently are already beginning to lag behind other nations across the globe in relation to high-speed internet. Without suitable investment quickly, the increase of connected devices will only serve to make that worse.

Whether that investment arrives or not, of course the positive minds and enthusiastic faces probably won’t dampen the spirits of those in membership of the FSB – what it may mean however is that the next generation of FSB members and entrepreneurs may not find the same enthusiasm to take a punt when the daily grind is worsened by constantly slow internet connections.

Do you agree digital infrastructure investment is essential to future economic success?

Share and Enjoy

Comments

We’ve blogged about individual bloopers in the Twittersphere before, but this week even one of the world’s biggest names in IT forgot the adage to ‘think before you tweet’.

While the world news media reported one of the worst natural disasters ever, Microsoft’s Bing team committed a faux pas by creating a Twitter campaign that effectively capitalised on the disaster and the discussions around it in the Twittersphere.

On 12th March, just a day after the earthquake and tsunami had struck Japan the Bing Twitter account tweeted:

How you can #SupportJapan – http://binged.it/fEh7iT. For every retweet, @bing will give $1 to Japan quake victims, up to $100K.
Try Bing. A new way to search, explore, & decide

Poorly thought out at best, a senseless marketing drive at worst, considering the death tally is already in the tens of thousands.

Those on Twitter appeared to feel the same. Following criticism about Bing’s approach within a few hours the company had tweeted an apology, but not before damage had been done.

We apologize the tweet was negatively perceived. Intent was to provide an easy way for people to help Japan. We have donated $100K.

To be fair to Microsoft when they did admit to an error in their ways they did donate heavily to the disaster relief fund and also used the ‘apologize’ word which is more than many probably expected.

In fact if you follow the original link in the ‘offending’ tweet you will see Microsoft’s contribution to the fund is an impressive initial commitment of $2 million including in-kind contributions like software.

Will those using Twitter learn? We think not. Expect a similar blog in a few months time.

Share and Enjoy

Comments

If you still needed convincing that the way marketeers are using social media is ever changing then check Jennifer Whitehead’s blog on Revolution’s The Wall blogosphere.

She writes “after recommending to a friend via Twitter that she read David Mitchell’s latest novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, I was tweeted at by the Twitter stream that is part of the digital campaign running ahead of its official launch in paperback”.

It obviously had an impact as Jennifer blogged about it and we’ve then name-checked the same. So is shown an example of Twitter management that is not just about placating the disillussioned customer. Twitter is definitely ‘the new word of mouth’. If you follow any celebrities on Twitter you will probably see daily re-tweets of brands / events and the like seeking informal endorsement via the Twittersphere. There’s no better recommendation either than a satisfied customer that you can show off, so this latest move by the publisher of Mitchell’s book, twitter stalking those who have apparently already read the book and liked it – is just an attempt to make the most of those already on side and encourage them to promote that enjoyment.

A little incentive helps too. A signed-book giveaway is there to entice in those supporting the drive and writing a short review of the book for its Facebook page. The need to ‘like’ the page ahead of a review being allowed also grabs the campaign, some useful metrics about happy readers.

With just over 1,000 likes at the time of this blog, it has not set the world alight in terms of Facebook marketing but it is an interesting insight into how some established names like Hodder & Stoughton are looking beyond the obvious.

Have you come across any off-the-wall social media campaigns that you think break the mould and that really work well?

Share and Enjoy

Comments