Exchange My Mail Blog

How Bloggers Can Fight Spam:

Bloggers all over the world have learned an unfortunate reality: spammers love to hit any Web site that lets them leave comments. Many spammers are not human – they’re programmed bots that hit numerous sites every hour, posting links in comments sections. Others are human – these spammers are also able to hit plenty of blogs each hour.

No blogger wants a cluttered, spam-infested comments section, but most don’t necessarily have much free time to deal with spam. If you have a blog, and you’re trying to fight junk messages, these tips will help you control the garbage without devoting a few hours a day to deleting unwanted comments.

* Require a login to post comments. Spammers might log in and comment anyway, but many will pass over your site in favor of a “friendlier” one. Making users login before they comment also discourages the anonymous Internet trolls, as they prefer to remain unknown.

* Enable the CAPTCHA feature. Anybody who wants to leave a comment on your blog must type the series of characters on the screen. This is fairly effective, as most spambots aren’t capable of reading the characters. Many human spammers can’t be bothered.

* Moderate comments. This feature lets you approve each comment before it appears on your blog. The disadvantage is that you do have to wade through comment spam. However, this is also an easy way to filter out comments from Internet trolls and just-plain-annoying visitors.

Those solutions, however, do not encourage visitors to interact with you, or return in the future. Many Internet users want things to be as simple as possible: they aren’t really interested in going through an extra step or two simply to comment on your blog.

One of the keys to fighting spam without discouraging your visitors is to keep things as simple as possible. There are, fortunately, several ways to accomplish this. These methods are not necessarily universal: some blog sites support them, and others don’t.  Wordpress is the most popular Blogging software available, and has many spam fighting capabilities built in. There are also tons of plugins available to add additional functionality to your beloved blog.

If your not already using Wordpress as your blogging software, you might have to switch your blog over to another site to take advantage of these features. However, that might be worth your time if it means that you’ll have a sizable advantage over the spammers.

* Look for spam-fighting scripts. These bits of programming are often easy to install and don’t typically require much maintenance on your part. Try different scripts to see which one works best with your blog.

* Create a “keyword blacklist.” You create a list of keywords that will trigger the blog site’s filtering system. If a comment includes one or more of the words on your blacklist, then the comment is not posted. This can be great for fighting spam, but difficult on your “real” readers. The blacklist looks for keywords, not overall content, so one “bad” word in a legitimate comment causes the site to scrap the whole comment.

These are just a few of the ways that you can fight comment spam. In most cases, these will drastically reduce the number of spam comments you see on your blog. However, you should check the blog site that you use to see what unique or site-specific measures it offers. Each blog site is a bit different from the others, so learn about what your site can do.

When deciding where to host your blog, remember that uptime is key. You don’t want your blog site down when your readers are trying to visit your site. Shared Hosting companies are offering some great deals now for Wordpress blogs, however remember that these are shared servers. So uptime is not going to be that great. Even the best hsoting companies cannot completely control the environment. The databases are shared as well, and so one busy site, or a web developer who is doing sloppy work can easily cause problems for the whole server.

In order to ensure the best uptime, a Windows VPS Server may be your best option.  Because a VPS server is isolated, you are the only one using those resources, and you will not be effected by others like on a shard environment.

Related Articles:
Windows VPS Hosting - Bridging the Gap

Eight Reasons to Choose Windows VPS Hosting

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Support Staff Gadgets, General, Software, Technology, Tips & Tricks, Windows VPS Hosting plugins, spam, Windows VPS Hosting, wordpress

Virtual Private Server (VPS) or Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS) hosting is the type of web hosting in which one server is partitioned into several dedicated servers (virtual servers), which can be stopped/started and operated independently. As a normal computer can be operated on Linux OS or Windows OS, the dedicated server may also be run using either. In this article, let’s see the benefits of using Windows VPS hosting.

1. It uses Windows: The most popular operating system in the world, Windows is familiar to almost all computer users. It’s so universal that it is the first choice of most users. Since the dedicated server in this hosting uses Windows, it will be a breeze for most people to set it up.
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2. Technology:The hosting is perfect for high traffic websites and small business sites that include complex web-based applications using Microsoft technologies. Since setting up is also pretty quick, the Windows VPS hosting scores well over shared hosting packages, which are pretty limited in capabilities.
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3. .Net and .Net Framework: Windows comes with built-in compatibility for the several programming languages in the .Net family, such as Visual Basic, Visual Interdev, and others. Hence, if your web business requires programming in any of these languages, then Windows server is the best choice.
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4. ASP (Active Server Pages) is a very popular scripting language counterpart of PHP and JSP. This can be run only under the Windows platform. PHP can also be run on a Windows server, providing that much more functionality. Applications like Wordpress which use PHP are running on many Windows Servers.
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5. FrontPage Extensions: Microsoft’s most popular web design software program, FrontPage extensions are built into the Windows server. A lot of people prefer this easy-to-use, feature-rich application to other software for the purpose.
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6. MSSQL Server and MySQL: Both databases are able to run on Windows Server without any problems. Some users prefer to use Microsoft SQL server, and others prefer to use the free open source version called MySQL. In either case, Windows Server is capable of running both, however Linux is not capable of running Microsoft MSSQL Server.
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7. Microsoft Sharepoint (used to create corporate web portals) is available only on Windows Server.
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8. Windows server is proprietary and well supported. The support of open source applications can never match the Windows. Also, Microsoft periodically publishes server updates and security patches. These updates make the server more robust. This is another major reason why many people prefer Windows hosting.
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Conclusion:
From this discussion, what we understand is that if you are a fan of the traditional Windows development platform and want the same capabilities in your website, then Windows VPS hosting is perfect for the purpose.

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Support Staff General, SharePoint Services 3.0, Software, Technology, Windows VPS Hosting, wordpress windows vps, Windows VPS Hosting, windows vps server

Wordpress is one of the easiest to use and most powerful blogging platforms around.  The versatility of Wordpress is its greatest feature, it has the ability to act as a blog and also as a static web site.  The ease of use when it comes to both updating your site as well as maintaining it is phenomenal.

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One of the Wordpress features that holds the bulk of the power of the software package is the utilization of plugins.  Plugins allow your blog to perform or display specific functions and are highly customizable in almost every way.  They are also easy to use as generally all it takes to put them into use is activating them in the admin screen of the Wordpress platform.

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Lets look at some of the most valuable plugins you can use to enhance your blog.

Akismet - Probably the first plugin you should activate, it helps keep spam comments from needing to be moderated.

All In One SEO Pack - A great SEO plugin that gives each post its own Title, Keywords, and description.

Subscribe To Comments - This plugin is a nice way to get an RSS feed for the comments to each post.

Wordpress Database Backup - This is essential as it helps lessen the chance that all of your blog info will be lost.  This plugin automatically backs up all of your database information and emails them to you at the exact time each day or week you specify.

AdRotator - This is a simple to use plugin that allows you to enter a list of banner or box ads, even text ads, that will be displayed on your site.  Then, each time a new page is opened or the same page is refreshed, a new ad appears in that one spot that you have specified.  This can also be used for cycling random photos or quotes too.

Sociable - A very cool plugin that puts links to all the popular social networking sites like StumbleUpon and Digg at the end of each post.  This is very handy as it allows your readers to bookmark them right there at the site of the post they are already reading.

Related Posts - This is a powerful plugin that allows readers to view other posts that you have written and they might be interested in.

Google Sitemaps - A nice plugin that helps to insure that Google knows about each and every post and page that makes up your site.

NextGen Gallery - A very easy to use photo gallery plugin that allows you to place single images, slideshows, and full blown galleries into posts and pages.

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Using all of these Wordpress plugins, and others as well, you have the ability to convert your standard blog into a web based masterpiece.  The plugins provided for use with the Wordpress blogging platform are the single best reason to choose Wordpress as the package that runs your blog.  With the wide variety of options available through the thousands of available plugins made for Wordpress, it will be no time before you have one of the best blogs on the internet working for you.

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Support Staff Gadgets, General, Software, Technology, Tips & Tricks, Windows VPS Hosting, wordpress plugins, wordpress

Windows Virtual Private Servers (VPS) are becoming increasingly popular among business owners and developers looking for the security and the reliability of a dedicated server to host their websites, but at a lower cost. Hosting a website using Windows VPS Servers offers the perfect solution, bridging the gap between shared hosting services and dedicated hosting.

While shared hosting will most definitely serve the needs of small and personal website owners who don’t experience high traffic volume and do not require any special technologies, most larger business choose dedicated servers to allow for more flexibility and better performance. It stands to reason, when you share a server with other customers, you can potentially run into security risks, performance issues, and all too often, become stifled by the limited technologies offered by your hosting provider.

However, dedicated hosting, which allows for a single user to be in complete control of their software applications and server management on their own dedicated piece of hardware, can be very costly and difficult to maintain. Although Windows VPS Hosting is really no different than dedicated hosting, it is more affordable because the only thing that is shared with other customers is the hardware, which ultimately decreases the cost over dedicated servers.

Windows Virtual Private Servers use special software like Parallels Virtuozzo Containers to allow for a single server to host multiple “virtual” servers providing more reliability, isolation, and flexibility than a shared hosting account, but are less expensive and require little to no maintenance as compared to dedicated servers.

Yet there is more to Windows VPS Hosting than just having the perks of dedicated hosting at a fraction of the cost. In fact, if you choose the right host, offering Windows VPS Servers, you will find that the server may be much faster than your average dedicated server.

In short, if you find that shared hosting doesn’t suit your needs because you need specialized software, faster response time, more customization capabilities or just more power overall, before you decide to take the plunge into the world of dedicated server hosting, consider Windows VPS Hosting as an alternative. In fact, if you are familiar with dedicated hosting and have had experiences with it in the past, you will find that using Windows VPS Servers isn’t really that much different - but your wallet will notice a difference, for sure.

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Support Staff General, Software, Technology, Windows VPS Hosting dedicated server hosting, shared hosting, windows vps, Windows VPS Hosting

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

– Benefits of Exchange My Mail Service Trumps High Fees and Management Headaches of Dedicated Server Scenarios

Albertson, NY – June 15th, 2009 –
Exchange My Mail®, a full service provider of customized web-based productivity solutions for small-to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and web hosts, today launched its Windows Virtual Private Server (VPS) service, which delivers the advantages of a dedicated server without the hassle and expense of managing a dedicated server in-house. SMBs and web hosts frequently have to pay vendors for space on multiple servers, and lack the flexibility to change plans based on their evolving needs. Exchange My Mail’s VPS solution offers the security, control and functionality of a dedicated server, but with the affordable pricing, simplicity and manageability of a traditional shared hosting account.

Exchange My Mail’s VPS service employs Parallels’ Virtuozzo Containers, a leading Operating System (OS) virtualization solution that creates isolated containers on a single physical server and OS instance. Rather than virtualize a complete set of hardware, Parallels containers virtualizes at the OS level. Virtuozzo runs all virtual environments on top of a single OS kernel, which is multiplexed to look like multiple Operating Systems. This configuration is ideal for hosting environments, and reduces stress on the OS, allowing customers to use more allocated resources for web sites and applications. Parallels is a global leader in virtualization and automation software.

All Exchange My Mail VPS plans offer 99.99% uptime, off-server backup, a dedicated IP address, unlimited DNS hosting and firewall protection. Plans also include full administrator access and a powerful, easy to use Parallels Plesk  panel for remote management. This allows customers to use their space as they wish, while ensuring that their server is totally isolated from other users. Plans start as low as $39.99 monthly, and are superior to dedicated server solutions in terms of cost, reliability, manageability, “burstability” and flexibility:

* Cost: All the functionality of a dedicated server at a fraction of the cost.
* Reliability: Bundled nightly backups ensure data remains safe.
* Manageability: Tools help users easily add applications or change and upgrade service instantly.
* Burstability: Get the resources you need right when you need them.
* Flexibility: Instantly increase your service plan to use more resources as you grow, and easily migrate to a more powerful server if necessary.

Virtual Private Server services are superior to shared hosting due to:

* Control: With administrative or root access, you can easily modify server configuration files, install applications or modify system software.
* Security: Your file system is not accessible or viewable by others.
* Isolation: You are fully isolated from other users and actions on the server.
* Performance: Resource availability and performance is guaranteed.

Name organizations such as Goodwill Industries International, The Weekly Standard, Marc Roberts Companies, Zayo Group, Community First Bank, Marjam Supply Company and the Iowa City Heart Center, P.C., have helped Exchange My Mail establish itself as a leading provider of web-based productivity solutions. ”Exchange My Mail has done a great job of developing cost-effective email and productivity solutions for us for years,” says Ken Ratner, Senior Managing Director, Marc Roberts Companies. “Because they’ve been so reliable, hands on and responsive, we definitely plan to take advantage of their VPS services.”

“What’s unique and particularly helpful about our VPS offering is that a customer can upgrade to a plan with more power, RAM or disc space with a click of a mouse,” said David Grantz, CIO for Exchange My Mail. “We make it cost-effective and simple for SMBs to start and monitor their VPS plan, and make adjustments on the fly as their needs change.”

Exchange My Mail solutions are backed by a 30 day money back and 100% satisfaction guarantee. We operate out of a secure, state-of-the-art Tier3 Data Center and Network Operation Center (NOC) that is fully N+1 redundant. Our Data Center has achieved SAS 70 Type II compliance and rigorously adheres to HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley requirements for the IT infrastructure of our customers. Exchange My Mail has been awarded Gold Certified Partner status in the Microsoft Partner Program, with competencies in Networking Infrastructure Solutions and Advanced Infrastructure Solutions. Exchange My Mail uses only the best technologies available, including Dell Servers with six 10K RPM drives in a RAID10 configuration for maximum performance and reliability.

About Exchange My Mail®

Exchange My Mail, Inc. is a leading provider of customized web-based productivity solutions for individuals and SMBs, including Hosted Microsoft Exchange, Mobile email, Windows SharePoint and Windows Virtual Private Servers. A Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, every day our dedicated and experienced team delivers stellar service and support. To learn more about Exchange My Mail, please send email to sales @ exchangemymail.com, visit us at www.ExchangeMyMail.com or call 888.608.6245.

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Support Staff General, Hosted Exchange, Press Releases, Software, Technology, Windows VPS Hosting linkedin, windows vps, Windows VPS Hosting, windows vps server

As a leading provider of Hosted Microsoft Exchange and Windows VPS Servers, we are committed to achieving the highest level of technical expertise.  We believe in order to deliver a truly high quality service you must poses the greatest skills possible.  Exchange My Mail is pleased to announce that Microsoft has renewed our status as a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for the 2nd consecutive year!

Achieving Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status is a result of hard work and continued focus. In order to gain, and maintain Microsoft Gold Certified status we are required to maintain a number of Microsoft Certified Professionals on staff, complete an annual customer satisfaction performance review, provide customer references, and meet an annual volume licensing commitment. Exchange My Mail is proud to say we have achieved all of the above needed requirements for the second year in a row.

We have completed two Microsoft competencies, and have an additional four competencies in progress. We expect to have earned an additional two Microsoft competencies by the end of this year, and the remaining two competencies by next year.

Exchange My Mail,  as a recognized Gold Certified Partner receives advanced technical resources and training, consultation services, early access to the next generation of Microsoft software, and access to a dedicated team of experts within the Microsoft Hosting Solution group. These benefits are only available to Microsoft Gold Certified Partners, and help us to maintain and achieve the superb level of service our customers deserve.

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Support Staff General, Hosted Exchange, Press Releases, Software, Technology, Windows VPS Hosting gold certified

Exchange My Mail Launches Windows VPS Service!

Exchange My Mail is proud to announce the launch of our
Windows VPS Hosting offering. VPS, short for Virtual Private Server is basically your own dedicated server without the cost and hassle of a dedicated server.

Operating System Virtualization
Rather than trying to virtualize a complete set of hardware, Virtuozzo virtualizes at the operating system level, which makes it ideal for a hosting environment. Virtuozzo runs all the virtual environments on top of a single operating system kernel which is multiplexed to look like multiple operating systems, especially from the perspective of running users and services. This results in lower overhead from the operating system, allowing you to use more of the allocated resources for your websites and applications.
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VPS solutions provide isolation and functionality of a dedicated server with the low price and manageability of a shared hosting account. All of our Windows VPS Hosting plans include full administrator access, and a powerful remote management interface. This allows you to use your space as you wish and have the peace of mind that you are completely isolated from other users.

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Virtualized services have many benefits over a dedicated server:

Cost: All of the functionality of a dedicated server at a fraction of the cost.
Reliability: Bundled incremental backups ensure your data remains safe.
Manageability: Tools help you add applications, change and upgrade your service instantly.
Burstability: Get the available resources you need when you need them.
Flexibility: Instantly increase your service plan to provide for more resources as you grow, easily move to a new more powerful server.

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Virtualized services have many benefits over shared hosting:

Control: With administrative or root access, you can modify server configuration files, install applications or modify system software.
Security: Your file system is not accessible or viewable by any other customer. Your files are ensured full privacy and security.
Isolation: You are fully isolated from other users and actions on the server. No other customer can slow down or affect your service.
Performance: Your resources are guaranteed based on your plan. Nothing else on the server will affect the performance of your VPS.

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With our 30 day money back, 100% satisfaction guarantee and plans starting at just $39.99 a month, we are sure you will love our service.

We use all Dell Servers with six 10K RPM drives in a raid10 configuration for maximum performance.

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Ready to order? Choose your plan now!

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Support Staff General, Hosted Exchange, Technology, Windows VPS Hosting windows vps, Windows VPS Hosting, windows vps server

As you may already know, we love Evernote. We’ve blogged about it several times here, but today is special. Although this post is a bit late, we are very excited to se Evernote on the BlackBerry!

The team over at Bnet blogged about this on May 12th, and I’ve personally been loving it since that day.

Evernote for BlackBerry lets you create notes containing text, snapshots, voice recordings, and file attachments. Once created, the new content is automatically sent to the Evernote Service, making it available across all the versions of Evernote that you use. You can also access your existing notes, search by keywords, filter by tags and notebooks, or simply browse.

So lets give credit where credit is due, and link you right to the source.

Read the full Bnet blog post here

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Support Staff Blackberry, Gadgets, General, Software, Technology, Tips & Tricks Blackberry, evernote

Ever wonder how you can easily save the contact info for someone directly from an email, without having to copy and paste a whole bunch of info?

Let’s say you received an email from someone whose contact info was not saved in your contacts. Will you ever find the time to do it?  Well if you are like me and think it’s too much work to have to go in contacts click new and manually add the users name and email address, the kind folks at Microsoft have that figured out this tip for us.

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What you can do is simply right click the senders name in the e-mail message and then choose Add to Outlook Contacts, you will now be presented with a contact window with the name and e-mail fields already populated. You can then add any additional info like phone number and street address.

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What do you think of this tip?

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News Team General, Software, Tips & Tricks contacts, outlook 2007, outlook tips

Social networking websites have rapidly been changing the way we use the web. Perhaps the greatest change over the last year has been the way in which people are accessing websites such as Facebook. Adoption of the new Facebook application for BlackBerry Smartphones and iPhones has been tremendous (over 1 million downloads reached in 2008) and many users are now accessing Facebook not from home, but from wherever they may be and whatever time of day. Social media has gone mobile.

Facebook for BlackBerry Smartphones has been available for a while now, but its popularity is growing exponentially. It is a free piece of software available for download directly from your BlackBerry. It is simple to install and run and you will notice that Facebook has been changed significantly to provide better functionality and viewing on your Smartphone. Admittedly, the application is not as feature rich as if you were accessing Facebook from a PC but the convenience of being able to make simple status updates or send messages to friends is too good to pass up.

Perhaps one of the best features of the application is photo-sharing which is not available on any other version of Facebook. This allows you to take a photo with your Blackberry and then with one click you can have it posted to Facebook. This feature means you could be travelling somewhere or having a fun day out and instantly be able to share your experience with your friends.

There are a few hindrances, however. You will not be able to use any third party apps on Facebook and connection speeds can vary based on your location. The ease of use and simple design is helping to create a new niche of mobile micro-blogging, in which friends can interact with each other anywhere on the planet and at anytime.

Download the application here:
http://na.blackberry.com/eng/devices/features/social/facebook.jsp#tab_tab_download

Become a Fan of the BlackBerry on Facebook here:
http://www.facebook.com/BlackBerry

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News Team Blackberry, Gadgets, General, Software Blackberry, Facebook, Software