British web host Fasthosts has run afoul of the  Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) for boasting that its virtual servers were the "best" in the UK. The hosting company was unable to prove that its virtual machines were better than all the other virtual servers in the country, or that they used "industry-leading technology", the ad watchdog has ruled.

It appears that rival competetor web host Heart Internet took exception to the wording that appeared on the FastHost site and in a magazine ad. Heart Internet Ltd challenged whether:

1. the claim "Best UK spec" in relation to virtual servers on the website ad (a) and in ad (b) was misleading and could be substantiated;

2. the claim "RESELLER HOSTING ONLY £19.99pm" on the website (a) was misleading, because it did not make clear that that price was an introductory rate for 12 months only;

3. the claims "industry leading range" in relation to web hosting solutions in ad (a), "INDUSTRY LEADING TECHNOLOGY" in relation to virtual servers and dedicated servers in ads (b) and (c) respectively and "Industry leading power & performance" in relation to dedicated servers in ad (c), were misleading and could be substantiated; and

4. ad (b) misleadingly implied that the specification listed was available at the lowest price of £26.99 ex VAT.

1)They believed that their platform and hypervisor technology provided customers with a superior virtual private server (VPS) experience, which included automatic failover and recovery, large scalable architecture and excellent support and service-level agreements (SLAs).

2)Fasthosts said the £19.99 price for the reseller service was a one-month contract only and that the customer could close their account at any time with no further obligation.

3)Fasthosts said they replaced their servers every 18 to 24 months to ensure the latest technology was being used.

4)Fasthosts said there were two items that were not included in the £26.99 price. They pointed out that the "Plesk control panel to run multiple websites" had been described as "optional" in the body copy and that "Resource monitoring with email & SMS alerts*" had been linked to text that stated "SMS usage alerts service is available from £3 per month & limits apply". They believed it was clear from the ad that those two features would not be included at the £26.99 price.

The ASA considered that consumers would interpret the claim "Best UK spec" to mean that Fasthosts' virtual servers had a higher overall specification than those available from all other online services providers in the UK.

We noted that the comparative table provided included the specification of virtual servers offered by three of their competitors only. Because we had not seen evidence that demonstrated Fasthosts offered the best specification virtual servers in the UK, we concluded that the claim had not been substantiated and was misleading.

The ASA slapped Fasthosts on the wrist and ordered that it not to make "best" or "industry leading" claims unless they hold the necessary substantiation for the claim!
Two other complaints about how Fasthosts advertised its prices were dismissed by the agency.

HostJury is attempting to aquire a copy of the comparative table of the  three competitors. There was no indication in the ruling of which three FastHost used.

It does make one wonder if the ASA has ever looked at any of those hosts offering unlimited everything claims!

The Wordpress.com site of  the Greek neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party has a message on the homepage which states: "this site has been archived or suspended for a violation of Wordpress.com Terms of Service".

Fresh off winning nearly seven percent of the vote in last week's elections, the party isn't throwing in the towel quite as quick as their coalition stymied cohorts in the Greek Parliament.  With their newly updated domain, the Golden Dawn Party has put the website back online using American web host Liquid Web.

Domain Name: XRYSHAYGH.COM
Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Name Server: NS1.XRYSHAYGH.COM
Name Server: NS2.XRYSHAYGH.COM
Status: ok
Updated Date: 10-may-2012

It is unclear how many Golden Dawn members will ultimately end up as lawmakers with Greece appearing to be heading to a fresh round of  elections. The extreme-right party whose flag closely resembles the Nazi swastika campaigned heavily on an anti-immigrant platform under the slogan "So we can rid this land of filth."

The fate of their website  may also be uncertain as HostJury has requested a comment from Liquid Web. We'll update this one as it develops!

A Pingdom post recently demonstrated how popular WordPress has become as a web publishing platform for blogs and other types of websites. The follow up study of one done three years earlier, found that WordPress was in use by 48% of the top 100 blogs in the world. This was an increase from the 32% Pingdom had recorded in the initial study..

Other finding concluded that custom blog publishing platforms are more common now, TypePad had all but disappeared from the top 100, Tumblr made an entrance, and some companies really chose to keep quiet on which content management system (CMS) they used.

While likely a foregone conclusion that the daily traffic necessary to be included in this elitist list would almost certainly require dedicated server(s), HostJury decided that it would be interesting to explore which networks the worlds top 100 blogs were employing to deliver their offerings.

As expected, many of the blogs used content delivery networks or data center networks. Still there does appear to be a significant number that focus on doing what they do best (being a top 100 blog), while using hosting companies to deliver the content!  

Web Hosts used by the World's 100 Top Blogs 

Trustworthy Internet Movement in an effort to make the web a safer place, has introduced “SSL Pulse”, a continuously updated dashboard that is designed to show the state of the SSL ecosystem. TIM is also formulating a list of good and bad websites globally, and intends to publish the domains of companies that do not do enough to keep their websites secure to help improve security. TIM will focus on the top 200k sites listed by Alexa ranking

TIM states that while it is possible today to deploy SSL and to deploy it well, the process is difficult: the default settings are wrong, the documentation is lacking, and the diagnostic tools are inadequate. "For these reasons, we cannot say that the Web is yet secure, but we hope that someday it will be".

The purpose of SSL Pulse is to bring visibility to SSL implementation issues on the Web. The underlying data set draws from the information on about 200,000 SSL web sites that represent the most popular web sites in the world. TIM has cherry-picked only the most important data points, focusing especially on those aspects where improvements are needed. So far they have conducted only one round of testing, but, when the next month’s results become available they will start to show historic values and hopefully see improvements for each data point.

Looking at the SSL Labs grades, which are designed to sum up the quality of SSL configuration, it can be seen that about 50% (99,903 sites) got an A, which is a good result. Previous global SSL Labs surveys reported about 33% well-configured sites, which means that more popular sites are better configured. Unfortunately, many of these A-grade sites (still) support insecure renegotiation (8,522 sites, or 8.5% of the well-configured ones) or are vulnerable to the BEAST attack (72,357 sites, or 72.4% of the well-configured ones). This leaves only 19,024 sites (or 9.59% of all sites) that are genuinely secure at this level of analysis.

Among other interesting data points, TIM found only 19 weak private keys in their data. There are also 9 keys that trigger their black list of weak Debian keys. The support for HTTP Strict Transport Security, which is the state of the art configuration for SSL, is at 0.85% (1,697 sites).

To help with the effort,  TIM published an SSL/TLS Deployment Best Practices guide with clear and concise instructions to help overworked administrators and programmers spend the minimum time possible to deploy a secure site or web application.

The Trustworthy Internet Movement was launched at the RSA Conference 2012. It is a non-profit, vendor-neutral organization leveraging the power of the global security community to advance industry-wide technology innovations and initiatives for actionable change. TIM’s mission is to resolve major lingering security issues on the Internet, such as SSL governance and the spread of botnets and malware, by ensuring security is built into the very fabric of private and public clouds, rather than being an afterthought.

TIM hopes to attract individuals and collaborators with specialized domain expertise to guide and contribute to the development of the various working groups.

HostJury is compiling discount web hosting coupons and special offerings by various hosts. As always we recommend that while price may be a consideration when choosing a web host for your "baby", it should only be one of the many factors considered in your research. Page load speeds, additional features, good communication, and a fast knowledgeable support team will always top saving a few cents per day.

“Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.” – Elise Boulding

So keep a little more...  HostJury encourages you to take advantage of  discounts if available.  You will find coupons on the respective host review pages!

JustHost is offering a hosting plan for $4.45 $3.75 per month includes a free domain name. Click the button to learn more.

HostJury is compiling discount web hosting coupons and special offerings by various hosts. As always we recommend that while price may be a consideration when choosing a web host for your "baby", it should only be one of the many factors considered in your research. Page load speeds, additional features, good communication, and a fast knowledgeable support team will always top saving a few cents per day.

The quote “Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance, and the parent of Liberty” may be attributed to Samuel Johnson, but Groucho Marx said "I started out with nothing and I've got most of it left".

So keep a little more...  HostJury encourages you to take advantage of  discounts if available.  You will find coupons on the respective host review pages!

Green web host HostPapa has a hot deal offering plans for $3.95 per month along with $500 of extras!

Google’s recently announced that website loading speed was beginning to be incorporated into search engine ranking algorithm; Suddenly webmasters were faced with additional reasons to reconsider their web hosting options. While cost was a major factor during a recession; funds spent on search engine optimization, marketing and website design constitute the lion's share of most budgets. Jeopardizing these investments utilizing a slow oversold web host gives credence to the adage “penny wise and pound foolish”.

In a post on their blog, Google claims that they are passionate about speed and making the web faster. From their first hand view (Google bots are spiders that never sleep), Google is convinced that many website owners have come to share these same values! Afterall, a faster web is better for both users and businesses - faster pages lead to better user experience and improved conversions.

Though the search algorithm is a trade secret akin to the formula for a well known soft drink, Google does provide enough glimpses of the inner workings for a webmaster to make rational decisions to establish best practice methodology.

In order to utilize speed in search engine ranking, Google first needed to optimize the process to establish and obtain an accurate set of data metrics which included speed of a page as seen by real users: users network, device type and speed, geographic location, cache sizes, and a dozen other factors. Combined along with aggregate speed data for the web as seen by Google Analytics and shared by opted-in web publishers, Google derives a baseline.

How do I know if my site is fast enough?

The answer, of course, depends on the nature of the site, the content, and the type of interactions your users perform on the site.

Mobile internet is growing at an incredible rate and Google found mobile experience is about 1.5x slower than desktop experience which is a significant difference considering many sites are already ‘mobile-friendly’.

A Graph about page load speed should include web hosts

Once you've established that your website is adequately optimized, accounting for geographical location, and allowed for speed variance in the device you are measuring from (desktop or mobile), the logical assumption for a slow website page load is the web host.

As many variables factor into page load speeds, it would be unfair to just choose random domains for HostJury's very unscientific graph of web host speeds... so we are using the web host’s own homepages!

 Testing any web host is easy using many of the free online tools. For our particular test of web host homepages, HostJury chose Pingdom Tools.

HostJury is compiling discount web hosting coupons and special offerings by various hosts. As always we recommend that while price may be a consideration when choosing a web host for your "baby", it should only be one of the many factors considered in your research. Page load speeds, additional features, good communication, and a fast knowledgeable support team will always top saving a few cents per day.

“My basic principle is that you don't make decisions because they are easy; you don't make them because they are cheap; you don't make them because they're popular; you make them because they're right.” said American Clergyman and University President Theodore Hesburgh

So what are you waiting for! HostJury encourages you to take advantage of  discounts if available.  You will find coupons on the respective host review pages!

BlueHost is offering professional web hosting plans for $6.95 per month.

HostJury is compiling discount web hosting coupons and special offerings by various hosts. As always we recommend that while price may be a consideration when choosing a web host for your "baby", it should only be one of the many factors considered in your research. Page load speeds, additional features, good communication, and a fast knowledgeable support team will always top saving a few cents per day.

Orson Wells said “I have the terrible feeling that, because I am wearing a white beard and am sitting in the back of the theatre, you expect me to tell you the truth about something. These are the cheap seats, not Mount Sinai.”

So what are you waiting for! HostJury encourages you to take advantage of  discounts if available.  You will find coupons on the respective host review pages!

• Unlimited bandwidth, web space, databases, email & more
• Huge one-click install library (including WordPress, Drupal & Joomla)
• 24x7 100% UK support with no outsourcing
• UKs No. 1 reseller hosting
• Create your own custom VPS

There's an effect seen in small businesses on a very regular basis. It's not quite exhaustion, but it's something close. With limited time, a limited budget, and not enough information, groups jump into marketing activities head-first, hoping for the best. They start a Twitter account, they write a couple of blog posts, they create a Facebook Page (or, misguidedly, a Profile), and they join 15 groups on LinkedIn. Maybe the owner does this all on a Tuesday night after a glass of wine. Or maybe it's the admin assistant in between calls one week. Either way, the channels are activated and a star is born.

3 weeks later, the total tweet count is 7 ("hey, follow us on Facebook"), the Facebook page has 12 Likes (11 family and friends and one from deep Siberia), and a 3rd blog post has been written ("Did you follow us on Twitter and Facebook?"). Almost immediately, these marketing-related activities are relegated to the back burner. Not only have no progress been made but, even worse, an impossible to-do list was born out of nothing. Who will tweet and update Facebook? Who will write the posts? Who will update our LinkedIn group? What's the answer?

The answer is: don't even start.

There seems to be this sense out there that if it's possible and other people are doing it then you should absolutely be doing it too. The problem with this kind of thinking is it has you jumping into activities that, without good planning and execution, get you nowhere. They probably won't hurt you but loss of time can be significant.

So how does someone choose the right things to do? I tell people that "the right way is the easy way." This means that if it's difficult to do, if it feels like a chore, and you're not getting anywhere, don't do it because it's not worth your time. Your marketing activities should be fun and easy to repeat.

Where should you be concentrating your efforts? Figuring out what technique works for your business and how you can make it easy to do. The key is taking it one step at a time and being fine with a slow start instead of taking everything on all at once and being a non-starter across the board.

These kinds of time-eating tasks seem to fall into three buckets and I'll take each one on individually.

Content Creation

The challenge: When you saw "content," you probably thought "pages of text." In some cases, that's correct; text content is very important because it's easy for a machine to consume (makes it easy for email, mobile browsers, search engines, etc). It's also cheap to store and distribute. The problem is that's it's tough to create good text content that performs well.

Making it easy: So, let's say that text only has to be part of the equation. What else you can create? Photographs, videos, audio, graphics, data … the possibilities are myriad. You'll have to write a bit but the core of the content piece can be anything helpful or interesting or entertaining that you make.

The key here is to make it easy. If there is nobody on staff who likes to write, is there someone who will take photographs? Someone who always thought they should be on camera? Someone who is talented at combining and expressing data? The important thing is that the creator enjoys making it and has a knack for it.

Regardless of the type, there are so many tools out there to help you with creation:

Text: The best advice that I've heard here is to use a voice recorder with transcription. I know someone who uses SpeakWrite to record their posts and pays a small fee to have it transcribed. Combine that with a freelance editor and creating 1 post a week is a cinch. Also, there are many talented freelance writers that can turn your thoughts into a polished blog post. You get what you pay for so be choosy and don't be afraid to try a few people out before selecting someone to work with on a regular basis.

Photos: This is more simple than you might think. An iPhone, or any modern smartphone with a good camera, can help you put together some great image content. Try using Instagram to take and share photos. Even if you don't link it up with a social network, you'll still have fun, interesting photos to combine with a post or just add to a gallery, like Flickr or Picasa. Take a picture of what inspires you and tell people why. Really getting into it? Splurge on a nice camera and you'll be amazed how much fun looking for cool pictures can be.

Video: The key is short and sweet. Instructional videos are simple and easy, screen casts work great too (though these are tough to get just right). The "talking head" video is wearing a little thin these days but as long as you've got something to say and it's around a minute or so, don't be afraid to give it a try. You can make this one easier by always writing a short script (but don't read off of it) and being ready to do multiple takes. Forget hosting the video yourself, put it on Vimeo (great player) or YouTube (lots of exposure) to make your life easier.

Remember, you're looking for fun to make and easy to repeat!

Marketing and Engagement Channels

The challenge: It's like a noisy, over-crowded Wild West out there. There are so, so many options to choose from when you're looking for a way to get your message out there. They range from one-way options (like email marketing), asynchronous (meaning that it can be one or two way, like Twitter) and inherently two-way (requires a connection, like LinkedIn). It's easy to sign up and "get started" but, before too long, there's too much to do and it feels like you're at a big party with a million people you don't know who aren't listening to you.

Making it easy: Let's relieve the pressure a bit and say, first and foremost, this is not required. No one is forcing you to use these channels and no one is promising sales out of any of them. Each channel has it's strengths and weaknesses and every business is different. Just because your brother-in-law is finding success on Facebook doesn't mean that you can. What works for you depends on how you use it, what you're using it for, and what your message is.

Feel better yet? You should because as long as you have it in your head that this is an experiment, you'll be able to relax a bit and be fine with just giving it a shot. Until you've tried a few different things, you won't know what the easy way is.

So, where to start? The best place to start is using anything that you already use. If you're on Facebook or LinkedIn, start experimenting with your own profile. Add a few pictures, start plugging into people a little more, add a few more connections. Using these channels for a business is not much different than using them in your personal life. In fact, the closer they become, the easier it will be (we'll save the conversation about over-sharing for later). Always ask yourself: what part of this is fun? How could this relate to my marketing activities? What do my own connections like to see?

When you're ready to take the next step, ask yourself two questions: how much time do I have to spend on this activity and what kind of value can I provide? The first question is one part commitment and one part "dose of reality." If you've got an extra hour per week, that's not a lot of time so keep it simple. The second question makes sure that you've got something to offer before you start offering. Making these channels work for you means having something to give first. Maybe you're making content (see above) or maybe you stay plugged into industry news but, whatever it is, have something to offer. I have some ideas here a great facebook page for a boring niche or unappealing business] and here taking your first steps on twitter the 30 40 30 plan

Just take it slow, take on one channel at a time, and don't be afraid to experiment. Talk to people, interact, and don't be afraid. The worst thing that can happen is a typo.

Remember: fun and easy to repeat

With all of your marketing tasks, just remember that success comes with repetition and repetition is made possible and tolerable through enjoyment. Find the easy way to do specific tasks and ignore the herd mentality!

About Josh

Josh C. runs Josh Can Help, a small web design, SEO and development shop specializing in WordPress. In his less-than-copious off time he love to make and eat great food, explore craft beer locations here in Seattle, cycle, drink coffee, and snowboard. He’s a total Seattle cliche but don’t tell him that because it would break his heart.

Josh provide some tips on a regular basis! If you got something to say that may be of interest to HostJury readers and want to write a guest commentary, drop us a line. feedback@hostjury.com

HostJury is compiling discount web hosting coupons and special offerings by various hosts. As always we recommend that while price may be a consideration when choosing a web host for your "baby", it should only be one of the many factors considered in your research. Page load speeds, additional features, good communication, and a fast knowledgeable support team will always top saving a few cents per day.

Thomas Edison once said “I shall make electricity so cheap that only the rich can afford to burn candles”  So what are you waiting for! HostJury encourages you to take advantage of  discounts if available.  You will find coupons on the respective host review pages!

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*Promotional price is for the first term only. Plans renew at the regular rate.

The news regarding George Zimmerman and the shooting death of unarmed black Florida teenager Trayvon Martin is not normal fare for a site like HostJury. So while that may be true, a website created by Zimmerman to raise money for his legal defense and living expenses while he awaits a special prosecutor's decision whether to charge him provided us an opportunity to enter the fray! 

"On Sunday February 26th, I was involved in a life altering event which led me to become the subject of intense media coverage," Zimmerman says on the home page."As a result of the incident and subsequent media coverage, I have been forced to leave my home, my school, my employer, my family and ultimately, my entire life." (editor's note.. really!)

Trayvon Martin's family has established the Justice for Trayvon Martin Foundation which is raising money "to support awareness of civil rights, social justice and the quality of life for young black men.

Just the facts... HostJury style

TheRealGeorgeZimmerman.com was registered on the 8^th of April and has domain masking on both the owner and contact details.

-The website is hosted on Go-Daddy servers. Name Server: NS63.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
-The website load time and speed will not get any points with Google. Using JustPing to ping the server from 50 locations worldwide shows some dismal returns..even from within the continental USA: 28 milsecs was the lowest return.
-Gtmetrix, a website performance analyzing tool first failed at its task: Analysis Error An error occurred fetching the page: read timeout. A second try later gave an A
-SpyOnWeb shows 5234 other domains on the server (a single website can have multiple domains pointing to the main domain)

The Justice for Trayvon Martin Foundation website can be found at parkscrump.com/justicetm/

-The website is hosted at MediumFour: ns1.mediumfourhosting.com
-MediumFour servers are in The Planet in Houston Texas.
-Gtmetrix give a B (86%) for page speed grade.
-JustPing results have a low of 2.2 miliseconds.
-SpyOnWeb shows 93 other domains on the server (a single website can have multiple domains pointing to the main domain)

Craig Sonner, one of Zimmerman's lawyers is purported to have confirmed that the site TheRealGeorgeZimmerman.com is legitimately Zimmerman's.

Small businesses using Microsoft to host their websites and email accounts may be in for a harsh reminder that free isn't always free forever.  At the end of April, Microsoft is replacing its free email and website-hosting service, Microsoft Office Live Small Business (OLSB), with Office 365, a paid productivity service introduced in June 2011.

Businesses that don’t transfer their data before the deadline, whether to the new service or to another provider, will lose it forever.

While Office 365 does offer additional features over its predecessor, some small-business users are expressing that they don’t need or can’t afford the additional features. There is also the cost and hassle of transitioning, as Microsoft has not automated the switch to 365.

Microsoft began announcing the  switch in October 2010. Microsoft has also alerted users via email, online forums, and notifications on the service itself. Microsoft has provided a number  of options on its website.

Move your data before April 30

• Option 1: Move your email and website to Office 365
• Option 2: Keep email in Windows Live but delete your website
• Option 3: Move your email and website to another provider
• Option 4: Save your data before it is deleted
• Option 5: Do nothing. Everything will be deleted on April 30, 2012.

For technology or time challenged clients choosing option 3, many hosting companies offer  free migration of data and email. Timing the transfer to off hours can alleviate most of the concerns regarding downtime of email accounts.

Proper research of the potential new web host can elimanate the need to switch again! 

HostJury is compiling discount web hosting coupons and special offerings by various hosts. As always we recommend that while price may be a consideration when choosing a web host for your "baby", it should only be one of the many factors considered in your research. Page load speeds, additional features, good communication, and a fast knowledgeable support team will always top saving a few cents per day.

Owen Young  once said... We are not to judge thrift solely by the test of saving or spending.  If one spends what he should prudently save, that certainly is to be deplored.  But if one saves what he should prudently spend, that is not necessarily to be commended.  A wise balance between the two is the desired end.  Wise words for the wise!  HostJury encourages you to take advantage of  discounts if available.  You will find coupons on the respective host review pages!

JaguarPC is currently offering buy one month, get second month free on any vps. Use coupon code CJD2012.   Click here to get hosting from JaguarPC.

An interesting, yet conflicting story, still developing, has web based form builder JotForm claiming their domain has been suspended as a part of an ongoing investigation by a yet unnamed government agency about content posted on their site. JotForm has posted a short notice on their blog stating:

A US government agency has temporarily suspended our jotform.com domain. We are fully cooperating with them, but it is not possible to say when the domain would be unblocked.

To make sure your forms continue operating, please change your form URLs on your web site from jotform.com to jotform.net.

The Blog post has been updated:

Many people on the comments assumed the content was posted by us. This can happen to any site that allows public to post content. SOPA may not have passed, but what happened shows that it is already being practiced. All they have to do is to ask Godaddy to take a site down. We have 2 millions user generated forms. It is not possible for us to manually review all forms. This can happen to any web site that allows user generated content.

Some of the comments being posted hint at the confusion surrounding JotForm explanation of the take down. WebSavy remarks that JotForm provide a form service. Their customers do not upload content to the servers and don't download content from your servers. So what content could a federal investigative body be looking into? What could be of such import that it would cause them to suspend the domain? Information that was submitted in a form? I don't think so...

Other comments suggest that it had to do with a phishing attack on a South African bank that used forms on the jotform domain to steal personal information from the bank’s users.

Retrieving DNS records for jotform.com
DNS servers: ns1.suspended-for.spam-and-abuse.com [64.202.167.73]
ns2.suspended-for.spam-and-abuse.com [64.202.167.74]

Query for DNS records for jotform.com failed:
Timed out

A query of the domain JotForm.net shows although registered through GoDaddy, has been running on CloudFlare servers for at least the last six months.

Jotform is an online form creation service that can be used by free and paying customers to create online forms in an easy to use what you see is what you get interface. JotForm claims to have over 500,000 users. I am sure there is more to this one and will continue to unfold!

A story in the Washington Post is reporting newly released campaign spending records that show Newt Gingrich’s campaign is now roughly only $600K in debt after earlier reporting deep debts and a long list of creditors. So one could ask, and rightfully so.. what does Newt's campaign have in common with a web hosting review site?

Interestingly enough, the campaign reportedly paid $67,000 to Gingrich Productions for web hosting and e-mail hosting. Gingrich Productions is led by Callista Gingrich.

Gingrich campaign adviser R.C. Hammond is quoted saying that Gingrich Productions was reimbursed for Web site and e-mail hosting and that no profit was made,” The records also show that $89,000 was paid to High Tech Win, the campaign’s Web site development firm. In an earlier report, it was stated that the Gingrich presidential campaign paid $8,400 to Gingrich Productions for the right to use the domain name, “newt.org”. It's unclear whether the $67K included the domain leasing.

Republicans are people also

In these tough economic times, individuals are weary of getting snafued by hidden fees and up charges. People would agree that 67K is some serious chump change for web hosting, HostJury almost has a civic duty to explore the numbers further. Its a number that begs to be explored!

A traceroute of the newt.org domain suggests that Gingrich Productions may be a reseller of SMARTech Corporation. Sourcewatch.org, the wikipedia style brainchild of The Center for Media and Democracy goes into great detail on the history of Smartech and the Republican establishment which includes hosting the convention in 04, as well as the Bush/Cheney websites.. all of which is outside the scope of this article. Suffice it to say a reseller account with “unlimited domains ” starts at $24.95 per month from HostGator.. There are also a number of reputable companies offering fully managed dedicated servers if you are particular about your neighbors! Sorry, HostJury doesn't track political affiliations :)

Trace the other frontrunner's to ensure an informed electorate.

Front runner Mitt Romney may be sitting on cloud nine but his website mittromney.com is being hosted on Amazon cloud hosting. The Ron Paul Revolution is powered by Tailor Made Servers out of Dallas.

While it may be unfair to measure website speeds without specifics like traffic metrics... we did using GTMetrix

-ronpaul.com gets two A
-mittromney.com got an A and a C
-Sorry Newt, but that $89K website on Republican servers is only getting a dismal D and a C. You may want to review your web host on Hostjury.com. See the comparison here

This will be the 8th year for Google Summer of Code, an innovative program dedicated to introducing students from colleges and universities around the world to open source software development. The program offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source projects with the help of mentoring organizations from all around the globe. Over the past seven years Google Summer of Code has had 6,000 students from over 90 countries complete the program. The goal is to help these students pursue academic challenges over the summer break while they create and release open source code for the benefit of all.

Spread the word to your friends! If you know of a university student that would be interested in working on open source projects this summer, or if you know of an organization that might want to mentor students to work on their open source projects, please direct them to our Google Summer of Code 2012 website where they can find our timeline along with the FAQs. And stay tuned for more details coming soon!

Dot CA domain holders that have registered a domain name or transfered one to Canadian web hosting company Webserve have been informed they will need to find a new registrar. In a press release, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) states:

This is to advise that Webserve Communications Inc. is no longer a CIRA Certified Registrar.

In order for Webserve Communications Inc. .CA Registrants to maintain their .CA domain name(s), Registrants will be responsible for transferring their domain name registration(s) to a new CIRA Certified Registrar of their choice.  All affected Registrants have been informed by CIRA of this development.

WebServe response:

By now you should have received an email from CIRA stating that you need to change your .ca domain name registrar company from WebServe to another company which is the normal procedure and expected, Since WebServe partnership with CIRA has been ended, however WebServe still will be able to register, renew or manage your domain name through our other partner channels.

To improve our domain name registration, transfer, renewal and managment system WebServe domain services will be moved to our new system which requires you to transfer your domain name, what this essentially means to you as the domain owner is basically nothing! You are only changing the name of your registrar, you will not notice any change in your website or domain name ownership or contact information, except the name of your registrar. Furthermore during the domain transfer your domain name will be renewed for one full year, that means your domain expiry date will be extended by one year regardless of what your domain expiry date is. So even if your domain name is not expiring and you have years left till expiry date still you will receive one year added to your current expiry date.

HostJury: Who are these other partners?

Victor: ENOM

HostJury: Why did Webserve lose its status?

Victor: I do not have this information

Victor: To encourage our valued clients complete the domain transfer/renewal process and as a thank you for supporting WebServe we will be offering 20% discount on all domain transfer/renewal fees. Please provide coupon code: TRNSCA over the phone or in the email to take advantage of this offer. end

Under the CIRA rules The Registrar’s failure to be re-certified each year by CIRA prior to the anniversary of its Certification Date will result in the automatic, immediate termination of this Agreement as of the anniversary of the Certification Date and the cancellation of the Registrar’s certification. HostJury will try to learn more about why WebServe lost their status and update this post.

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“Saving is a very fine thing.  Especially if your parents have done it for you."... that said, for most of us that just isn't the case so HostJury encourages you to take advantage of  discounts if available.  You will find coupons on the respective host review pages!

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On January 1, 2012, the Canadian Provincial government of Ontario's Integrated Accessibility Standards regulation under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005, became law. Described as making a number of very important and far-reaching changes, the Regulation represents a significant shift in human rights and accessibility law affecting nearly all organizations in Ontario with respect to their human resources practices and in the way they do business including web based business and communications.

Section 14 of the law mandates that Ontario government organizations and businesses will make their Internet and intranet websites and web content conform with the World Wide Web Consortium Web Content Accessibility Guidelines in accordance with a time line set out in the legislation.

The Government of Ontario is required  by January 1, 2012 to have all new websites and web content conform to the standards. By January 1, 2016, all government websites and web content must conform with the WCAG 2.0 Level AA.

Designated public sector organizations and large business organizations are allotted slightly more time, and are required to meet the requirements by January 1, 2014 for all new websites and web content.  All website content is required to conform by January 1, 2021, which would include archives and redundant content. These new rules not only apply to public facing web content, but also includes “ internal website used to privately and securely to share any part of the organization’s information or operational systems within the organization”

Wielding the big stick

The Regulation would enable a government official – a "director" – to assess an administrative penalty based on a consideration of the severity of the impact of the contravention (e.g. administrative oversight vs. health and safety risk), the contravention history of the person or organization in question, and the nature of the organization (corporation, unincorporated association or individual).

As example, penalties for individuals and unincorporated associations would generally range from $200 (for a contravention of minor impact and a minor contravention history) to $2,000 (for a contravention of major impact and a major contravention history).

The range for corporations would generally go from $500 to $15,000. However, in the case of contraventions of major impact coupled with a major contravention history, the administrative penalties can be assessed on a daily basis to a maximum of $100,000 for a corporation, and $50,000 for an individual or unincorporated association.

Of course the government has designated the License Appeal Tribunal as the tribunal responsible for hearing matters arising under the AODA!

After the Canadian Federal government got its knuckles rapped for what the Courts described as...

A systemic system wide problem of inaccessible Federal Government websites. The court also concluded the Federal Government too often does not even live up to its own inadequate website accessibility standard, and that the Federal Government’s 9-year-old accessibility standard for its websites “…has not been implemented, has not been enforced, and has not been made a priority by the deputy heads of the estimated 146 government departments and agencies who are responsible for implementing these standards.

You would think their Provincial counterparts would walk softly with that big stick!  Think again. Ontario Accessibility Fail...

The government is using social media and the web in an effort to raise awareness of the “very important and far-reaching changes”  that took affect on January 1, and has been promoting a informational page to achieve this goal. The new law requires all new web content published by the Ontario Provincial Government after January 2012, to be compliant with the INTEGRATED ACCESSIBILITY STANDARDS.

So I ran a accessibility test on the information page... WAVE has detected no accessibility errors ...but you must still check your page to ensure it is actually accessible.

Alright... dig deeper. On the page it has a explore government section. In no particular order I run tests on pages. Between six and eleven errors depending on the page and which assessment tool I use! But this is not new content and wouldn't be in contravention of the act with the big stick...yet.  Back to the new Government Accessibility pages...  the screen-shot says it all...

The government's response at being called a hypocrite... thanks for the heads up. We've informed the web-master! While it is generally agreed that inclusiveness of all individuals in society is an ideal that everyone should strive to emmulate, attaining these goals may not be best accomplished by creating artificial time lines while wielding a threat of a big stick. The competitive global nature of the Internet while creating endless possibilities for enhancing Accessibility is not without obstacles that can not be considered solely in the vacuum of one regional area.

And what would the Premier of Ontario Dalton McGuinty say...

In the UK, the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) is reported suing BMI Airlines after the airline failed to make changes for its website to be more accessible to blind and partially sighted people. The RNIB was apparently first alerted to a problem back in 2010 when one of its members complained that they could not use the site to make bookings.

Apparently RNIB gave the airline specific expert guidance and even provided a full audit report to help it in its compliance efforts. A message on bmibaby.com claims the airline is currently working with the RNIB to sort out its web woes:

Unfortunately our website is not fully accessible by people with sight problems, hearing, mobility and cognitive impairments. We are fully aware of this issue and are working alongside the RNIB to ensure our website is brought up to standard.

We have received the RNIB recommendations and we are working to rectify the proposals. Whilst we are going through this process users can call 08451238951 (A local rate number) to access our fares at the original web price. We will aim to update this page on a regular basis to keep users informed of our progress and are working to rectify the issues as soon as possible.

Website accessibility in the United Kingdom is specifically governed by the Equality Act 2010, which swallowed the old Disability and Discrimination Act 1995. However, the law is far from prescriptive, stating that web owners need only take “reasonable steps” to make their sites accessible.

A Global Issue

In November 2010, a Federal Court of Canada rendered a landmark ruling on accessibility of websites for persons with disabilities. With very detailed and persuasive reasons, the Federal Court of Canada agreed that there is a systemic problem of inaccessible Federal Government websites. This was found to be so despite Federal Government claims that it had been working for years on making those sites accessible.

The Court concluded that this was a system wide problem. It found that accessibility standards that the Federal Government uses for website accessibility were too weak and inadequate. It also found that the Federal Government too often did not even live up to its own inadequate website accessibility standard.

The Court ruled that the Federal Government’s 9-year-old accessibility standard for its websites “…has not been implemented, has not been enforced, and has not been made a priority by the deputy heads of the estimated 146 government departments and agencies who are responsible for implementing these standards.”  

Is your site up to par?

While making your website inclusive and accessible for all your visitors should be a given, there are practical reasons why it should be a priority. Search engines are effectively screen readers, and evaluate your site in much the same way as a screen reader used by a human. 

There is a number of free web accessibility evaluation tools available including one  provided by WebAIM. The site states that it is used to aid humans in the web accessibility evaluation process. Rather than providing a complex technical report, WAVE shows the original web page with embedded icons and indicators that reveal the accessibility of that page.

HostJury.com.. WAVE has detected no accessibility errors ...but you must still check your page to ensure it is actually accessible.

HostJury is compiling discount web hosting coupons and special offerings by various hosts. As always we recommend that while price may be a consideration when choosing a web host for your "baby", it should only be one of the many factors considered in your research. Page load speeds, additional features, good communication, and a fast knowledgeable support team will always top saving a few cents per day.

"The best way to save money is not to lose it.". that said, HostJury encourages you to take advantage of  discounts if available.  You will find coupons on the respective host review pages!

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HostJury is compiling discount web hosting coupons and special offerings by various hosts. As always we recommend that while price may be a consideration when choosing a web host for your "baby", it should only be one of the many factors considered in your research. Page load speeds, additional features, good communication, and a fast knowledgeable support team will always top saving a few cents per day.

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HostJury is compiling discount web hosting coupons and special offerings by various hosts. As always we recommend that while price may be a consideration when choosing a web host for your "baby", it should only be one of the many factors considered in your research. Page load speeds, additional features, good communication, and a fast knowledgeable support team will always top saving a few cents per day.

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