Crown Plaza, Cincinnati, Ohio - Internet Review
Posted by Administrator on Jul 13, 2007
During vacation this week my family and I stayed at the Crown Plaza hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio on our way home from New York. My two primary criteria were an Internet connection and swimming pool. Both ended up being a dissapointment. The Crown offers wireless Internet (more on this in a later post), but had different zones within the hotel. I just happened to get a room in a bad zone. By the time was done jacking around with my Internet connection the pool had closed and gates chained for the night.
After calling the front desk, I was informed that I had two options; Call the Internet Service Provider or move to a room on a higher level.
I called the ISP and they said if I was connecting to the network there was nothing they could do to help me. The front desk blamed the poor Internet connectivity on the ISP. Next, I tried plan B, I went up to the fifth floor with my laptop to see if I could get a better connection in a different zone. This proved fruitless as well.
This has prompted me to work on another post to discuss Internet connectivity and how much it varies from one hotel to another and an a funny story to help emphasize my point.
There was one highlight with my stay at the Crown Plaza… they have some of the best crab cakes I’ve ever eaten.
Why Is Flash Blocked On My PC?
Posted by Administrator on Mar 16, 2007
If you work for a large company or enterprise corporation you are probably already aware of this. Many large companies and businesses block flash at the network level which in turn blocks Flash from the desktop user.
In work I’ve done for real estate companies, auto dealers, and even some of my web hosting customers have all witnessed this. Some companies will block Flash to preserve network bandwidth and prevent employees from watching movie trailers or playing Flash games on the company nickel.
I was prompted to write this article as I had an opportunity to sit in on a vendor meeting in which the vendor pointed out that they had one of the fastest deliveries available for an online product. Everything was coded in Flash. When I asked the vendor if they were aware that by virtue of the application being Flash based a certain percentage of potential customers would be unable to view his offering….He looked at my like I had three heads and recited the marketing line from Adobe / Macromedia regarding 93% of all desktops having some version of Flash installed out of the box.
This is a great number, but it is doesn’t speak to the growing number of networks blocking multi-media type files.
Are thinking of developing a web application in Flash? Be sure to take into consideration the percentage of potential customers, viewers, or prospects that will not be able to view your Flash files. How could this affect your bottom line?
Do you work for a company that blocks Flash on the network? Share your story with our visitors.
Network Solutions Certified Offers vs. AfterNIC
Posted by Administrator on Mar 14, 2007
Have you ever bought and sold a domain name? Thinking about buying and selling a domain name or two? I have sold numerous domains through AfterNIC, but never sold a domain through Network Solution’s Certified Offer program.
Recently, I sold a domain name through AfterNIC and completed the transaction in a single day and received my funds within 24hours to my paypal account. AfterNIC keeps a small percentage of the sale, but things can go very quickly if everyone is on the ball.
In the case with Network Solutions, It took me nearly a month to complete all the back and forth requests and I’m now told I will need to wait another 3-4 weeks to receive a check in the mail. In the mean time, the buyer has full ownership and use of the domain name. Network Solutions does not charge the seller via their Certified Offer program, but the wait is not worth it in my opinion.
Want to complete a domain name sale / transaction quickly? Use AfterNIC
I do a fair amount of business with Network Solutions and their customer support is awesome, but in the case of domain name sales I will not use them again in the future.
osCommerce Hosting
Posted by Administrator on Jan 3, 2007
osCommerce Hosting special for January 2007. Ever want to set up an ecommerce website? or have already heard of osCommerce, but not sure how to get started? For a limited time you can get a basic install of osCommerce (FREE) and osCommerce hosting for just $14.95 per month plus sales tax if applicable. See offer details at: osCommerce Hosting.
Dedicated Servers - What If Your Provider Is Acquired?
Posted by Administrator on Mar 2, 2006
If your company utilizes hosted dedicated servers as mine does you’ll invariably run into this scenario…
For the past eight years I’ve had a great relationship with a personal friend who’s company provided my dedicated hosting servers, colocation, bandwidth, and management. Over those years I’ve had awesome phone tech support. If I had a server issue I simply picked up the phone and whatever needed to be done was done.
In January 2006, the company that provided my servers for me, was sold. I soon found out that the new company that acquired my dedicated machines did not offer any phone support. During the changing of the guard an issue came up with one of my machines.
I filled out several trouble tickets which were never responded to….after 3-4 days of filling out trouble tickets I finally made contact. Now it’s been a week and still no resolution to the issue.
It’s one of those things you tend to overlook, but its an important factor to consider if your company uses server colocation, dedicated servers, or fully managed servers.
There are clauses you can have added to your service aggreement in the event your colocation service decides to sell. I’ll be writing about this some more in a future post.
This same process applies to companies that require business web hosting. So before you sign up for your next dedicated server or business web hosting package be sure to ask you provider what will happen in the event the company is sold or acquired.