Internet

As a parent you'd naturally be upset if a stranger were following your child around the mall or your neighborhood, so why aren't parents upset that their kids are being followed around in online games?

When "anismuncher1" is asking all players in a game geared toward children, "where do you live?" do you get the chills or do you have a sense of insulation because it's just on the Internet?  When a Roblox player is following the girl characters around saying "you're pretty" do you see an imminent threat, a predator hunting for vulnerable children, or a weirdo looking for attention?

So many times we've seen a website owner struggling to manage their domain name registration because best practices weren't used when it was originally registered.  In many cases it was simply not knowing what the best practice is, or having paid a web designer to both create your site and register your domain name.

There are 4 contacts of record, and an optional 5th, with any domain registration.  Whether you have paid for domain privacy or not will determine whether all of these contacts are visible.  Many companies pay for domain privacy simply to stop all of the fake invoices that come in the mail from other registrars trying to get you to pay them and thereby moving your domain to that registrar, but that's another subject.

The first contact is the Registrar, this is the body that maintains your domain's registration information.  They are the company that shows your domain is registered to you and not available for anyone else to purchase.  The registrar also provides the nameserver information to people on the Internet so people will be able to get the information about how to get to services using your domain. Most common would be getting to your website or delivering email.

Recently we've had several people come to us having been hit by a nasty piece of Adware.  This particular pop-up is insidious as it's a two part pop-up, see the attached screenshot.  First you have the large underlying pop-up with the information that says "Call XXX-XXX-XXXX immediately."

We don't normally write about threats in the real world, focusing more on the online world, but in this case there's a real threat coming from the online world - specifically Craigslist locally in the Reno / Sparks area.

For those who sell items on Craigslist there has always been a certain amount of risk involved. Some of the crimes associated with Craigslist include:

• Georgia January 2015- Elrey & June Runion went missing and were later found murdered after contacting a car seller on Craigslist.

We saw it for the first time this weekend and because the devil is in the details, I mean in the Terms of Service, with Web.Com we just had to go look and see how this one will be biting unsuspecting business owners in the rump later.

For those who haven't seen the commercial click here.  The gist of it is they'll build you a "free" Facebook page, get it likes and manage it.  The "free" word is thrown in there a lot, but hopefully most of you realize it's not free, as in without money changing hands.

So you originally signed up with a nationally recognized website hosting company; they offered you a great introductory deal and they've been "fine" ever since.  Well, except when you have to call them for support, or when you wanted to add an email address but it was near impossible to get through, or when that introductory price ended, right?

What could be the benefits of moving your website to a local website hosting company?

• At Top Speed Internet Services we provide the same web hosting services as the national names like, GoDaddy, Dreamhost, Bluehost, Host Gator, etc. but with several advantages.
• As a smaller local company, we’re not overloading servers to get as many clients on them as possible.
• Depending on your service with the national companies you may be paying left and right for add-ons that are included with us.
• Our goal is to provide a higher quality service at the same or lower rates as the national companies.
• Being local, we work to establish actual business relationships instead of just being another monthly fee. If you need help, you can pick up the phone and be able to talk with someone here in Reno instead of an automated machine or some call center in a foreign country.
• Even better, you can always see us in person by stopping by the office or if you need other technical services we can come to you.  Not likely you’ll ever get a face to face with somebody at GoDaddy.
• Our servers are all hosted internally and local to us, we're not farming you out to host at another data center like Unified Layer, etc.
• Your customers are here, having your website on servers using the same Internet connectivity as your customers makes it load quicker.

So many reasons to host with a local provider!  If you'd like to learn more about what it takes to move your website to Top Speed call or email us today!

For most, moving your website is a simple process that can save you money and frustration when you need support.  There are exceptions, such as if you used a site builder company like Wix.com or Web.com to build you website.  If that's the case, it's unlikely that you own your website or its content and should call us right away to find out your options.