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Congratulations to Mike Harris on presenting his Innovation Initiative at HostingCon 2012! Harris, IX Web Hosting’s VP of IT, gave a speech on integrating innovation throughout an entire company and not simply waiting for great ideas to happen on their own.

Mike’s speech was covered by Web Hosting Industry Review and was a featured topic on several hosting-related websites.

“Real innovation is methodical. You can repeat it,” Harris said.

While many companies will pay for outside ‘consultants’ to brainstorm ideas, Harris believes innovation can come from within the company, provided the innovation team is given the right environment. For instance, the team should be given the space, time, and resources to work on the project, rather than being expected to work on it in addition to their normal duties. Scheduled time away from the typical ‘day to day’ aspects of their jobs also helps the team focus and make measurable progress.

Harris goes on to describe how the innovation team communicates with senior leadership, and how leadership should challenge and support the team, and avoid simply shooting things down.

Check out Mike’s slideshow for the Innovation Initiative.

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Attention all Apple users!

If you haven’t heard, come June 30th, Apple will no longer be supporting MobileMe accounts. Because of this, any iWeb site you have uploaded to MobileMe will no longer be up and running.

But don’t worry!

IX Web Hosting provides web and mail services which will allow your site to remain active, and moving your site over to us is a snap. I’ve put together this quick walkthrough to show you how easy it is to switch your iWeb site from MobileMe over to IX Web Hosting in just 5 simple steps:

1. When you create a hosting account with us (if you don’t have one already click HERE to sign up) you will receive a ‘Welcome’ email detailing all login and server information you’ll need. If you signed up previously and lost your ‘Welcome’ email, contact us and we’ll help you find this info.

2. Log into your IX Web Hosting account. Click the ‘Manage’ button for your hosting product and add your domain name under ‘Domains’. Ignore the message about ‘top level domain’ and be sure ‘Web Service’ is turned on. Also, once finished, write down the IP address. (Take note if the word ‘shared’ appears next to it).

3. Open iWeb. Click the domain name on the left to bring up the publishing settings. You will see “Publish to: ‘MobileMe’“. Instead, select “FTP Server” from the drop down menu and enter your IP address or web server name indicated in your welcome email.

4. From the welcome email, you’ll need your Server Address, Username, and Password to fill out the rest of the “FTP Server Settings”. Leave the “directory/path:” field blank.

5. Once finished, click ‘publish’ and thats it! You’ve migrated your website over to our service just with a few simple clicks inside your iWeb program.

To make sure your site is up and working the way you want it, open up a browser window and type in the IP address you wrote down earlier unless it had ‘shared’ next to it.  If you have a ‘shared’ IP address, you click ‘Web Options’ in the ‘Manage’ section of your hosting account, click the domain name, and scroll to the bottom to click ‘Instant Access Domain Alias,’ as seen below.

Once you’re sure it’s working, update your name servers with your current registrar using the information provided to you in the ‘Welcome’ email. If you’re not sure how to change your name servers, consult this:

http://www.ixwebhosting.com/hosting-manual/domain-name-system

If you have any issues with this process, feel free to reach me Sunday – Thursday, 8AM – 5PM EDT.  I’m considered the ‘mac guy’ in the office and would be happy to ensure this transition goes smoothly for you. My number is 800-385-0450, extension 014.

If I’m not available, any one of our helpful staff members can assist you. Just visit http://www.ixwebhosting.com/support if you have any questions.

Good luck!

Robert Graham
Customer Relations

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This is not a typo. Act fast before we regain our senses!

Right now, we’re offering domain registrations* for a single U.S. dollar. One buck. Which is a very small price to pay. In fact, it’s the lowest price we’ve ever offered for .com, .net, and .org domain registrations.

Have we gone completely bonkers?

Well, yes and no.

So… why so LOW? We want all of our customers to understand and utilize Whois Privacy, a feature that protects your prized contact information from spammers, scammers and phishers. To help you get started, we’re offering .com, .net, and .org domain registrations for the unheard-of low price of one dollar each, when you enable Whois Privacy at the regular price of only $9.95 a year.

One Dollar Domains!

It’s such a great deal, we still can’t believe it!

When you enable Whois Privacy on your new domains, you’ll get your first year’s registration for a single dollar. Whois Privacy is an excellent way to prevent evildoers and other bad guys from getting your contact information from the Whois Directory and causing all kinds of fresh mayhem. In fact, one of our people nearly had a domain stolen by a hacker. How? They used her Whois information to hack an email account and request a domain transfer. Pretty nasty stuff. We even get thinly-veiled attempts to hijack our corporate domains.

So Get Your Feet Wet. Go Overboard.

With one-dollar domains you can beef up your domain portfolio. Protect your dot com branded websites with dot nets and dot orgs. Or, maybe now is the time to find that domain you been dying to get but haven’t gotten around to registering. Maybe you want to buy up some domains for the future. Or find a domain to cash in on current events or trends. The sky’s the limit. It’s easy to do – search and register your new domain names right here.

Start Building Your Domain Empire Today!

$1 .com, .net, and .org domain registrations when you enable Whois Privacy. It’s like having your cake and eating it too! This is a limited time offer! As you can imagine, offering domains for $1 is below our cost, so we’re actually losing money on it. We’re definitely not going to keep this offer up forever; we just want to make a limited offer to people who know a great deal when they see it.

Good Luck and Continued Success,

Fathi Said, Founder
IX Web Hosting

*Offer includes all .com, .net, and .org domain registrations for one dollar each for the first year when you enable Privacy for that domain, for a limited time only.

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Here’s the details on the five-featured knock-out punch for your domains.  All five fall into the “you’ve been asking for it forever” category.

You would not believe the amount of emails I get from my customers asking about these features.  They’re finally here.  Let’s get right to it:  (Drum roll please…)

Number 1: Domain WHOIS Privacy

When you register a domain, you fill out your name, address, phone, email, etc., right?

I’m not sure if you know, but this information is PUBLIC.  It’s stored in the so called “WHOIS” database, and anyone, including bad guys (like spammers, identify thiefs (or phishers), and other online fraudsters go there to get the goods on domain owners like you and me.)

There’s actually a close-to-home story that I have of how one my colleagues almost got shafted because she didn’t have her domains protected.  I’ll tell you about it later this week.

The only way to solve it:  Domain WHOIS Privacy – it hides your information and tells the trolls that it’s off limits!

 Click here to protect the domains you already have registered.

To honor the release of this feature – for a very, very short time, we’ll offer new .com domain registrations for the crazy low price of $4, when you register them with Domain WHOIS Privacy.

Number 2: .ME and .NAME Domains

Have you ever wanted to grab a personal piece of web real estate for yourself, your children, or grandchildren?

We’re talking .name and .me domain names. Very cool. They’re the perfect way to put your unique, personal stamp on the internet, and get a really sweet email address. Over 14,000 domain names are registered every hour, so act fast if you want to secure your name.

See if yours are available here.

Number 3: Internationalized Domain Names.

Did you know that domain names can be registered in non-English language characters?

If you get traffic from other countries, your should snap up your domain in those languages and redirect the traffic to your site. Right away. Why? Because it will help your site rank higher in Google, and it’s likely that you’ll start getting more traffic.

It’s fast and easy, and now you can do it right in your control panel.

If you don’t know how to spell your domain in the language you’re looking for, simply visit http://translate.google.com. Plus, it’s easier to copy/paste than try to figure out how to make a ¨, Б, or 买 using your keyboard.

Number 4: Premium Domains

I’m sure you’ve run into this problem before.  You think of your perfect domain name.  Alas, it’s not available anymore.  Just like all of the other good domain names – all taken.  But really, a lot of them are for sale!  And with any luck, the name you really want is too.

They’re called “Premium” (or pre-registered) domain names, and they’re a great way to get the exact domain name you want.

But, like all good things, they’re not cheap.  They can get pretty pricey – but you get what you pay for. Premium domains are often a big source of immediate direct traffic, built-in SEO rankings, and a reservoir of pre-existing backlinks (and all that stuff is really good for ranking your site higher on search engines.)

Take a look here to see if there is one you like, or if your perfect name is actually available!

Number 5: Easy Domain Transfer

For years, both my customers and my customer service specialists have been beating me over the head with this little tidbit: It’s a pain in the neck to transfer domains into our system.

So finally, we created something new: An automated tool for domain transfers that lets you extricate your domains from the grip of your former registrar, and transfer them quickly and easily to your account, directly in your control panel.

You can do it fully automated, and it doesn’t require any phone calls to our team.  So transfer away!

That’s it for now. We’re all very excited about these enhancements. I hope you will be too.

Talk soon,

Fathi Said, CEO
IX Web Hosting

PS:  Pesky Disclaimers:  $4 .com domain registrations good for initial registration period only. WHOIS Domain Privacy Protection is available on .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, and .mobi top-level domains only.

PPS:  To get handy screenshots and instructions for all of our new features – check out the online hosting manual.

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