July 2009 Archives

Since we launched the new control panel last year we've been working behind the scenes on several things that needed to be done in order to move domains and other things from one system to the other. It's a work in progress - but we are getting there !

As you may know, we are the largest Eurid accredited registrar in Ireland, but we weren't always accredited.

We used to rely on the services of some of our partner companies in order to offer domain registration services for certain TLDs and ccTLDs (we still do).

In order to bring some level of sanity to our .eu portfolio our sales team will be working with registrants to move their .eu domains to our accreditation.

If this impacts you you will get an email from one of our staff in the next few days.

Once we've moved the domains under our "roof" we'll be able to move them into the new control panel system, which offers a lot more features to registrants (check out some of the screencasts).

We'll probably have to conduct a similar exercise with some of the other TLDs in the coming months, but we'll do our best to keep you all in the loop, so that you don't confuse our emails with phishing attacks!

This weekend is a long weekend here in Ireland, so our offices will be closed on Monday next,  August 3rd 2009.

Sales:
Friday 31st July 2009 - open
Saturday, Sunday, Monday - closed
Tuesday 4th August - open

Accounts (Billing)
Friday 31st July - open
Saturday, Sunday, Monday - closed
Tuesday 4th August - open

The guys in MadeInHollywood did a fantastic job on our mug packaging a few weeks ago.

They've since gone off and taken some more photos of the packaging with actual Blacknight branded mugs (we didn't have any!) and I thought they looked really cool, so here they are:

And another angle...
Which leads into this angle ...
So the question that begs to be asked ..

If we had Blacknight mugs, would people really want them?

Would you use them if you had one?

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• More Cool Foam Stuff (blacknight.com)

The Irish Internet Association (IIA) is holding elections for its board at present.

Full details of the various nominees, what they hope to achieve and how to cast your vote, is available on the IIA site.

All members of the IIA have 5 votes, as there are 5 positions on the board available.

As usual there are some very strong candidates on the list, so making the choice probably isn't that easy.

Best of luck to all the candidates!

It's always pretty exciting when a new domain space opens up ..



Over the next few weeks a lot of people will be focussing their energies on .cm - Cameroon.

Up until now it was only possible to register com.cm, co.cm and net.cm

The launch of .cm at the top level opens up some really interesting possibilities which people may wish to explore.

If you're interested you can pre-order .cm domains for landrush via NameJet

If nobody else is interested in the domain then you'll just pay the registration fees.


If there is competition for the name then there will be an auction




The small print:

CM orders for Landrush are taken up until July 31st 2009.

Order processing will begin August 1 and are expected to be complete within 30 - 45 days.

Successfully registered domains may then be transferred to any other .CM accredited registrar free of charge (after 60 days from the date of registration)

CM domains successfully awarded to you through the auction will be charged $350 for a minimum 2-year registration (unless they go into auction)

Wordcamp UK is being held this weekend in Cardiff and we are one of the event's sponsors.

The event, which describes itself as "an informal annual gathering of WordPress publishers, designers and developers based in the United Kingdom" should be well attended.

The event runs over two days and has quite a varied agenda which should appeal to users, publishers, designers and developers.

Unfortunately I won't be able to make it due to personal commitments this weekend (I'm at risk of being disowned by my mother if I don't make an appearance!) ... .. maybe next year?

As a registrar and hosting provider we normally don't talk much about PCs.

Why would we?

Unfortunately there are times when it is necessary.

The desktop computer has almost become as ubiquitous as the internal combustion engine in many respects. Nobody would try to run an office without a computer these days.

But unfortunately we, as a society, don't take as much care of our PCs as we do of our cars.

You'd remember to take your car for its service, but you could easily forget to do the same with your PC. And therein lies the problem.

At the moment, for example, our technical team are trying to mitigate the impact of a PC virus that is infecting people's PCs and (ab)using their FTP logins to upload malicious content to their websites.

How is this happening?

In simple terms their PCs aren't as secure as they thought. Maybe their antivirus software is out of date or maybe they haven't updated it in while.

If you didn't change your car's oil regularly you'd run into issues, so do yourself a favour. Check your PC. Please.

If you are using any recent version of Windows you should be able to get it to update almost automatically for you.

Renew your antivirus subscription if you haven't done so already.

We know you like offers, so we've been working on putting a few together to keep you all happy.

Our latest offer is for .be (Belgium) domain name registration.

For a limited time only we've slashed the price on new registrations to EUR4.99 (ex-VAT if applicable)!

What can you do with a .be?

It's really up to you, but you could use it for expanding your business presence into another EU country ....

OR

you could play around with the "be" element

One of our clients has put together this rather simple site that plays with the word

You might find this site which list all words in English ending in "be" helpful as well...

If you do something cool with a .be domain do let us know

UPDATE: Since there seems to be a bit of confusion about this. The discount will appear once you add the domain to your shopping cart NOT before

UPDATE 2: We've extended this through August

ICANN have organised a number of public consultation meetings over the coming weeks to discuss the new TLD program.

If you're based in Europe the obvious one to attend is that being held on July 15th in the Royal Institute of British Architects. The day's schedule has now been made available (pdf)

Anyone who has an interest in the domain / internet industry's future should try to attend one of these events, as it's the only opportunity many people will get to let their voices be heard about the upcoming changes

Full details on their site

Although we only became ICANN accredited a few short months ago we found ourselves signing up to the new contract with ICANN during the meeting in Sydney.

The new contract (RAA) is the first major revision of the contract since it first came into being a decade ago.

The new contract gives domain holders greater protection and certainty when they register domain names.

In the picture above Dr Paul Twomey (centre) surrounded by a group of ICANN registrars including ourselves (I'm the one wearing the Blacknight tshirt obviously!).

I'm a strong believer in print advertising. I'm also a strong believer in quality.

If your print ads look dated or messy then I think it reflects badly on your business.

The two new ads we'll be running in some UK magazines are below:

Advert 1 (click to enlarge)



Advert 2 (click to enlarge)


Both designs were done by Alan from Spoiltchild, who is one of the two agencies we've been using for print ads over the last couple of years.

The guys in MadeInHollywood have come up with yet another cool concept.

Remember when we had a few Microsoft mugs to give away? Well one of the problems we ran into was that the mugs weren't packed ie. no boxes or anything, so shipping them was a problem.

MadeInHollywood came up with a pretty cool solution that does two things:

1. Protects the mug
2. Promotes our brand

I've taken several photos of the packages which are now on Flickr, but here's a couple to whet your appetite:

Pretty cool concept !

While in Sydney I did my best to take as many photos as possible, though I also discovered the limitations of carrying a big SLR around with me ...

In any case you'll find my shots over on Flickr.

Other people's photos should be viewable on Flickr here if they're tagged with "icann" (I'm not the only person who put photos on Flickr - honest!)

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Our Windows sysadmins inform me that there are still one or two Windows packages available on our special promo pricing

Signup now for the Windows 2008 Minimus and pay only 29.95 for the first year (when that offer's gone it's gone.. )

If you're using Windows on your desktop - why not upgrade to Internet Explorer 8?

UPDATE: Offer sold out.