In March 2011, ICANN finally approved the creation of the .xxx domain extension for usage. After several years of debate and ongoing controversy, the domain name is now in the pre-reserve stage, and it is administered and managed by ICM Registry. The idea behind the .xxx domain name is that it will be easier for parental control software to filter out adult material simply by blocking access to a single top level domain. As many people know, adult material freely pervades the search engine results even for keywords that are generally innocuous. Anything that reduces the possibility of children coming in contact with such material is beneficial.

Although your company many not be related to the adult industry in any way, it is still important for your to register your .xxx domain name. The primary reason for this is brand integrity. One of the ways adult webmasters drive traffic to their websites is by incorporating the name of a well known brand into their website. If the brand’s actual name is available on the .xxx extension, you can be certain someone will register it and use it to host material you may not want to be associated with. If your brand name is protected by a trademark, you do have legal recourse to have the site taken down. If you don’t, then your best option is to register the name before someone else does and redirect it to your main website.

Most web savvy people will understand that an .xxx domain name being used by an adult webmaster is not associated with you. However, not everyone who uses the internet is web savvy. Brand confusion can easily develop especially if the .xxx websites show up in the search results for your brand name. This can result in a public relations nightmare that can damage your brand and cost you thousands of dollars to repair. It is better to spend the money upfront registering the .xxx extension and avoid the headache down the road.

Typically, when new extension hit the market they are sold on a first come first served basis. Therefore, you should not wait until after the extension goes live before registering. Lock your domain name in the pre-registration phase. If someone has already registered your domain name with the .xxx extension, then you will have to wait until the .xxx domain name goes live before you can take legal action.

About the Author
Ong Pang Seng is a professional E-Business consultant at Exxelnet Solutions Pte Ltd, leading SEO Company in Singapore. Expert E-Business services include Web Hosting, Domain Name Registration, Web Development, Internet Marketing, Search Marketing and Email Marketing.

There are some important reasons why someone might decide on one open source CMS instead of another. Many designers, developers, and administrators have their favorite content management system, which most likely includes one of the three most popular types of CMS. These are WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. The advantages and drawbacks of each will be explored here so you can make a better decision about which one is ideal for you.

WordPress is an open source CMS that has been around since 2003. People use it to get their thoughts out on the web quickly and easily. In fact, it’s so easy to use, that even the least computer savvy people can quickly get the hang of using it. Once you get started using this open source content management system, there are no modifications required. For bloggers or people sharing thoughts in a chronological order, WordPress is ideal. However, this CMS is not developer-friendly and the upgrades that are continually released occasionally bring more bugs than fixes. The quick setup and ease-of-use should be weighed with these disadvantages.

The catchy name Joomla means “all together” in Swahili (Urdu), and based on how powerful and all-inclusive this open source CMS is, it certainly lives up to its name. When compared to WordPress, Joomla may not be as user-friendly, but all types of clients—designers, developers, and administrators—can get behind this content management system. It’s also not as powerful as Drupal, but if you need help creating your website using Joomla, there is a great customer service community that you can utilize. Over the past three years, this CMS has been improving and expanding, meaning it certainly has a great future in store.

Drupal provides everything a developer could ever want and then some, with more tags and functions than either WordPress or Joomla. For people who live in code, getting lost in the development of beautiful, highly-functional websites is a dream that can come true with this content management system. However, as a designer, using Drupal may more difficult because of all the code requirements to make it really amazing. The themes, until recently, were a huge drawback because developers rather than designers were building them. Finally, because of the power behind this open source CMS, it may cost more to run a Drupal website than one based on WordPress or Joomla. Ultimately, the choice is yours, but this breakdown should make your selection easier.

A domain name is required of anyone who wants to become involved in the internet world. All sites you visit online have two parts to them. The first half is a descriptive name that describes the site and the second half is .com, .org, .info, .gov, or a number of other suffixes. .tel domain names are appropriate for individual professionals, large and small business owners, government agencies, universities, and NGOs. The service allows all kinds of people to have their storage and management needs met because things like keywords and contact information can be stored directly in the Domain Name System (DNS) without the need to put together, host, or manage a traditional web service. Here are the benefits of a .tel domain name that will make getting one worth it to you.

The first reason why you should own a .tel domain name is because all your methods of communication can be stored under one name. .tel is designed to connect you with your customers in a single click. It also simplifies your regular website because you can integrate information from it into your .tel “Contact Us” page. Instant mobile presence is beneficial as well, since mobile marketing is more profound than ever before.

Then, it can also increase your search engine rankings without spending extra on SEO efforts. Your.tel domain name lets you cross-link with other service websites and social networks, thus spreading authoritative information about your company through a method that you directly control. It’s easy to promote your .tel so people visit and revisit your site. By publishing active and useful content, search engines will consider your .tel a relevant source on the web.

Another reason this kind of domain is useful is because it allows you to join the world’s first and only real-time global directory. You own and control your company’s contact information and have the ability to update it any time you wish. Other online directories are fragmented or expensive to be listed on. .tel offers worldwide exposure in multiple languages at a fraction of the cost.

All of these benefits culminate in the fact that .tel is quick to learn, easy to use, and much more affordable than other options available to you today. Combining your standard website with a .tel domain name will clearly benefit your business or other organization and allow you to have that global presence you have been after.

Was in KL few days ago, my usual monthly trip to our KL office. Time flies, our KL branch is already 7 yrs old. I have been observing KL’s progress since my early trips till now, things hasn’t changed much though.

Day one in KL, feelin very hungry after a long journey from the airport to office, can’t wait to go to this very unique place for lunch. You must be thinking of some sort of high end restaurant in a 5-star hotel. On the contrary, this is a small eatery nested in an old zinc house somewhere off Jalan Ipoh at a place that resembles the kampong (village) we used to have in Singapore back in the 1980s.

My colleagues and I called it “Xiao mei mei’s stall” because the pretty granddaughter of the operator, who is barely 10 years old, will be helping out taking orders in her school uniform. This place has its old world charm, you will only see makeshift tables and chairs and some stone tables and stools, it is surrounded by lush greenery forming the natural shades from the hot afternoon sun.

We always like to sit under the trees next to the pond listening to the Chinese oldies of the 1980s coming from the two old speakers under the zinc roof shed.

This time round, that xiao mei mei wasn’t there, her mother took the order instead. We ordered our usual favorites, KL Hokkien mee, pan mian (mee hoon kueh), ko rou mi feng (Mee hoon fried with stew pork ribs), and dumpling soup.

These dishes are really our all time favorite as they are very home-cooked style food! She asked if we would like to try their Sushi, to which we all blurted out “huh down here got Sushi ah???”.

She said “ya, we even have facebook! .. And we recently setup a website also”. My colleague replied jokingly “do we get a discount if we “Like” your facebook?”. Lol.

This comes as no surprise, any business or ALL businesses need at least a website to have an Internet presence and use it as your 24 hours salesman to bring in sales. Having a website with no traffic is also useless, you must leverage on the power of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to bring in the traffic.

That’s still not good enough, one also need to make use of the latest social media marketing, like facebook and twitter to entice your customers to drop in and spend money. This may sound simple though but not many companies are embarking on this yet, surprisingly. They dunno what they have missed out on!

Though the “Xiao mei mei’s stall” is in an old zinc house doing small business but they are embracing the powerful Internet technology and keeping up with the trend.

An old-school eatery

I am sure their business will prosper as more and more people will get to know about them thru this virtual channel.

Setting up your company website won’t automatically mean instant traffic flow. There are millions of websites and probably thousands that sell something similar to your site. Your goal is to stand out from all other competition by utilizing SEO services. SEO stands for search engine optimization and can be accomplished in various ways like social media marketing. Here is what working with an SEO company can do for your business.

Improve your search engine placement. An SEO expert knows how to get you from page 10 or higher on Google to page 1 or 2. This is so important because search engines—Google in particular—serve as the number one way in which websites are found and visited. An SEO consultant can pull out all the stops to ensure the content on your web page is working as an effective search engine marketing method.

Boost your website’s popularity. Apart from being accessible to your target audience, SEO services also aim to spread information about your website in a positive way across the web. This can be accomplished when an SEO expert advises you to write quality articles, newsletters, and other write-ups, and then assists you in the actual writing process. By circulating positive information about your company, you are sure to get more targeted traffic to your site.

Increase your business’s revenue. The reason why an SEO company will focus so hard on getting more traffic to your website is so you can improve your bottom line. Hiring an SEO consultant to help you master all the necessary techniques is an investment, but one that will certainly pay off if you follow the advice of the SEO expert you choose to work with. They are called “experts” for a reason, and their goal is help your website be more productive and earn you a greater income. This could be directly with sales earned on the site or indirectly by passing along information about your website and getting customers to walk through your door.

The bottom line is that SEO services are here to supply you with useful tips for getting more traffic to your site and converting those visitors into paying customers. Hiring a reputable SEO company will be an affordable and effective way to boost your online presence and make your website begin to work for you. Trying to achieve great SEO on your own can be far more time consuming and fruitless than it’s worth, so save time and energy with an SEO consultant by your side.

Just received a SMS from friend complaining about having to clear over 500k of spam mails in one of his mail servers. He has cleared only 10% of the spam mails in the mail server queue after 7 hours! OMG! Apparently spammer had guessed the username and password of a user who has used a password that is the same as his username of his email account. i.e. username@domain.com, password = username

Why do so many people continue to use easy-to-guess passwords, despite so many warnings about the risks? Are they being just pure lazy or they are totally ignorant about security? This people can’t be bothered with their own security at all. If you think this is not important, think again, this irresponsible behavior will cause much inconvenience to your own self and others!

What will happen when a mail server is being exploited to send mass volume of spams?

1. The mail server will be overwhelmed with mail sending request, as a result slows down its performance tremendously and may even stall.

2. The outgoing mail server will be filled with huge number of spam mails queuing to be sent out, as a result causes delayed delivery of legitimate emails of the other users in the same server thereby causing inconvenience to all users.

3. With this huge volume of spam mails going out from the same email server, commercial spam filters from messagelabs and barracuda networks, etc and filters from Gmail, hotmail, etc are likely to blacklist the mail server’s IP address. This will cause emails sending through these mail servers to be blocked thereby causing inconvenience again. It may take quite a while to be delisted from these spam filters.

One of the simplest ways by professional spammers to gain access to your information is through the use of a Brute Force Attack. This is accomplished when a spammer uses a specially written piece of heavy duty software that cycles through a bunch of common usernames and passwords, hoping to hit a match that works. If he gets one that works, he effectively has an open relay. Thereafter, he will blast huge volume of spam mails through the email server using this email account.

The most commonly exploited accounts are guest/guest, admin/admin, test/test, demo/demo, sales/sales123, admin/admin123, administrator/administrator123, guest/guest1234, test/test1234, demo/demo123 and webmaster/webmaster1234, although any account with a weak or missing password is vulnerable.

A strong password is therefore vital. A good strong password must have a mix of characters, symbol and numbers, should be randomly-generated to avoid guesses based on your name or domain, but should also be reasonably memorable since you are likely to need the password to access your Webmail from remote locations.

I sincerely hope all email account users will be responsible enough to set a strong password to their email account thereby eliminating the unnecessary work and stress given to the technical support engineer and reducing the inconvenience caused to other users.

In the latest development from Yahoo and Microsoft’s Bing Search Alliance, the search transition will happen beginning this week on Yahoo’s organic search results while the paid search transition testing has already begun.

With this latest development from Yahoo and Microsoft merger, website owners should also start paying more attention to this two big search engines in terms of planning and executing their search strategies.

“You’ll want to make sure that you’re prepared for this change, so be sure to check out these tips and stay tuned to the Yahoo! Search blog for confirmation of when the organic search transition is complete.” says Yahoo! on their Search Marketing Blog.

Getting visible on Bing does not only provide presence on Yahoo! search engine. Bing also powers the search of Facebook and is also seen as another search option on Apple iPhones. Optimize your website for Bing now! Visit Yahoo! Search Blog post, New Search Alliance Transition Update and Tips.

To read the full news article, visit Yahoo! Search Blog news post, Important Updates on Search Transitions.

WebProNews has an interesting article about the launching of the new stable and faster versions of Chrome web browser for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Other than speed improvement, the new stable version has added these features:

-    Ability to sync browser preferences (bookmarks, themes, homepage and startup settings, web content settings, preferred languages, and page zoom settings) across multiple computers
-    new HTML5 capabilities (Geolocation APIs, App Cache, web sockets, and file drag-and-drop)
-    new Bookmark manager

Check out this video on testing the speed of the latest Google Chrome.

“For a taste of HTML5’s powerful features, try browsing through websites developed in HTML5 such as scribd.com, dragging and dropping attachments in Gmail, or by enabling the geolocation functionality in Google Maps,” says Chrome product manager Brian Rakowski.

Visit “Why use Google Chrome?” page on Google to learn more about Google Chrome.

Continue reading the details of the WebProNews article, “The New Chrome is Now Available for Windows, Mac, Linux”.

Many businesses and companies still do not employ Online Marketing strategies, much less have a website or blog. This is because Online Marketing can be understandably difficult to wrap one’s head around. If not confusing, the idea of getting charged for simply clicking on something in a search engine results list can seem scary.

Here are 5 tips for a successful online marketing campaign that gives you the assurance and understanding of the whole process:

1) Create a website with your own domain name

Whether it is a four page website or a website with 100 pages, it is important for a company to have it’s own identity in cyberspace. Your free blog’s spaces will get inserted with banner advertisements that you will not gain from. Also, you get to call the shots on its lay-outs and features. Luckily, some blog sites offer platforms and tools for creating your own unique site with your own name at minimal costs.

2) When designing your website, put yourself in your target market’s shoes

If you’re a car dealership company, what would your customers be like? What demographic would they be from? How would they read and search for specs?  Would they like to read about car news articles or tips? These kinds of information will help your create a website interface that is easy and best suited for your readers.

3) Optimize your site with keywords

Search engine optimization involves inserting keywords into your web pages’ page title, meta and source codes so that search engines can easily access and yield your website as a significant result. Apart from inserting keywords, optimizing your pages can help people know (and like) what your website is all about when you type in a short but effective description of your company and it’s web page in your meta description.
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Exxelnet Solutions Pte Ltd is a web development firm specializing in online solutions, aimed at getting businesses onto the Internet within the shortest time possible.