Hosting - Domains - Blacknight Blog

iPhone Wallpapers

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 05:57:04 PDT

Several of us have iPhones in the office, so one of the guys was asking this morning if we could get an iPhone wallpaper..

So now we have these:

We're still playing around with the positioning etc.,, so if you're an iPhone user please download them and let us know what you think.

Grey version of the wallpaper is below:

How To Get A Blacknight Mug

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:47:01 PDT

We've spoken about the Blacknight mugs a few times in the past and we've had a lot of people asking us about getting their hands on one.

So how can we make everyone happy?

We can't.

But what we have come up with is a silly idea to give away one of the mugs and we'll give away a couple of the Blacknight tshirts as runner up prizes.

So what do you have to do?

Simple really. Write a blog post explaining why we should give you a Blacknight mug

If you don't have a blog or for some reason you feel that your blog's readers won't "get" why you're writing about mugs, then simply post a comment here.

We'll run this until March 24th 2010.

Any questions?

Post a comment and let us know

Andrea Talking About Mobile and Wordpress - Wordcamp Ireland 2010

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:46:16 PDT

Click to Play

Andrea talking about Mobile web and Wordpress Mobile at WordCamp Ireland, Kilkenny March 2010. Please excuse the rather dark bits and the camera shake.

St Patrick's Day Domain Special Blowout

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 06:58:11 PDT

Blacknight is a 100% Irish owned and run company. It's something we're very proud of.

We're also the only Irish ICANN accredited registrar, we're the biggest Eurid registrar, the biggest Nominet registrar etc.,, (You get the point?)

For 51 weeks of the year we don't "push" our Irishness, or at least not overtly ..

However, 1 week a year you'll have to forgive us as we roll out the green carpet for St Patrick's Day - which is Ireland's national holiday.

So what are we doing for St Patrick's Day?

We're doing a special offer on domain names - that's what!

Use the coupon code:

feilepadraig (all lower case - no spaces)

And SAVE BIG

Here's what that magic code will get you (you'll see the discount once you apply the coupon code in the checkout) :

.tel domain registration slashed to 9.99 for 1 and 2 year registrations
.ie domain registration slashed to 9.99 for 1 and 2 year registrations
.me domain registration slashed to 8.99 for 1 and 2 year registrations
.net / .org / biz / mobi reduced to 4.99 / year (we're still discounting .com to 4.99!)
.eu registration 3.99
.info registrations slashed to only 2.99 / year
.be registration slashed to 1.99

NB: Prices are valid for both registrations AND transfers. Transferring a domain will extend its registration by one year (except in the case of .be and .eu)
NO coupon = NO discount

NOTE: Offer valid until midnight March 18th 2010.

Need inspiration for domains? Try our domain suggestion tool and find previously owned domains easily.

This year, by the way, our offices will be working from 1200 until 1600 - just in case you need technical assistance or want to lighten your wallet!

Awstats Now Available On Linux!

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 06:06:52 PDT

Image by blacknight via Flickr

We're delighted to finally be able to offer Awstats statistics for all our shared Linux based hosting accounts (it's also available for Windows).

If your site is hosted on any of our shared Linux hosting accounts you can now setup Awstats via your control panel

NB: Stats will not be viewable for 24 hours after setup, as the logs will need to be processed first.

We've also made available a screencast showing you how to set it all up in your control panel.

Since I'm a strong believer in making things as easy as possible where I can, you'll also find that our screencasts are available via iTunes as well.

If anyone has any feedback on the screencasts please do let us know.

Coffee Machine Upgrades and More About Mugs

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:56:28 PST

Since I'm a bit of a coffee addict (as are a lot of our staff) I decided the time had come to upgrade our office coffee machine.

If you recall, we got ourselves quite a nice machine nearly two years ago.

Unfortunately that machine, while excellent in its own right, simply could not cope with our expanded numbers (our staff numbers have gone up quite a bit since we got it).

So I started shopping around for a new machine. Eventually we settled on the Jura Impressa X7. Like the other machine it's "bean to cup". The difference is that the Jura is a lot bigger and can be plumbed in. It also handles capuccino and latte directly ie. no more messing about with steamer nozzles etc.,

The only downside to the new machine is that our office milk consumption has sky rocketed!

Note the tube for the milk on the left of the machine (milk cooler has been ordered):
The coffee we're using at the moment came from Discount Coffee, who offer a good range of coffees at reasonable prices. As you can see in the photo above, the Jura has not one, but two spaces for beans, which means you don't have to refill it as often and you could even try mixing types of coffee if you were adventurous.

So what about mugs?

A few months ago we ordered a batch of mugs from Owen in Mug Revolution. We got mugs for all our own staff and for some clients / friends / partners etc.,

Like so many of these "silly" ideas the feedback has blown me away.

Yes, they are really nice mugs, but I wasn't honestly expecting so many people to be so passionate about them.

One person who got one sent me an email thanking us and, to be perfectly honest, it made it all worthwhile:

Thank You for the great coffee mug!! It is twice the size of any of our mugs at home, which saves me the back and forth trip when I'm comfortable on the couch watching football. (Only a company run by guys could understand that benefit)

We have a couple of mugs left that we will probably give away in a competition at some point in the next couple of weeks, but if you want to get your own mug you don't need to wait. Owen, who is a really cool guy, is now offering the Blacknight mug for sale on his site!

If you'd like to find out more about how the mugs are made, then have a look at some of Owen's videos on Youtube. Owen makes really nice mugs, but what's totally captivating from my point of view is his passion for his craft. If you exchange emails with him you'll be impressed with his attitude, but it's only when you actually see him talking about his work that you can get a real feel for it, so I'd recommend you take a minute or two to watch his videos. (And yes - I am a big fan of his work!)

ICANN Board To Decide Fate of .XXX Tomorrow

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 07:39:22 PST

As the ICANN meeting in Nairobi draws to a close several big questions still hang in the air.

While many ICANN insiders may be wondering about new TLDs the world's media is firmly focussed on one topic an one topic only - .xxx.

Tomorrow morning the ICANN board will officially decide what will happen with .xxx.

Will it move forward?

Will they find some way to not take a decision?

I for one will be getting up early tomorrow morning to find out!

In other news, the hosts of the next ICANN meeting, which is scheduled for Brussels, today presented a short video to those attending the current meeting.

ICANN Meeting Opens In Kenya

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:59:36 PST

Earlier today (around 6am Irish time) the 37th public ICANN meeting opened officially in Nairobi, Kenya.

I stress the "official", as the meeting's activities had already started on Saturday with a large number of meetings taking place over the weekend.

The official opening ceremony in Kenya included the usual welcomes from the local hosts and dignataries followed by an address by ICANN's CEO, Rod Beckstrom.

What made this opening a little different is that Beckstrom did not just open the event. No. ICANN's new CEO made certain that his opening words would resonate and called out the African Telcos on their pricing:

As the vice president mentioned, there's now a fiber connection to
Mombasa, which actually goes all the way to this conference center.
We have some of the best, if not the best fiberoptic connectivity
that ICANN has ever had in the world is right here, right now in
Nairobi. Thanks for this important work. The government and the
private sector together working together has done.

That service is so good, do you know what it cost to get high-speed
broadband access at your home here in Kenya? $13 a month.

$13 a month!

That's an excellent price. But I'd say it's also too high, and we
hope it comes down even lower all over Africa where we have one
billion people, many of whom want access to the Internet. And no one
needs to take my word for it because a survey of 1700 Kenyans was
just completed three days ago, and published by TNS. And the
research said that 77% of Kenyans want better Internet access, and
63% of Kenyans value better Internet access more than good telephone
service. More than good telephone service. Can you imagine what
that means?

Maria Farrell has an interesting post from Nairobi covering the opening speech, which is worth reading. You can see the full opening speech below:

This week's meeting is going to attract a lot of media attention and it will be interesting to see how things pan out as the week progresses.

Unfortunately I am not attending in person this week, though I will be following the meeting remotely, which means a lot of early mornings this week! (Nairobi is 3 hours ahead of Ireland)

Fortunately there are plenty of tools available for people to follow the meeting from afar, with both audio and video feeds for most of the meeting being made available.

Blacknight Invasion of Kilkenny

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:17:50 PST

I mentioned earlier this week that we were sponsoring WordCamp in Kilkenny and that I was attending.

It now transpires that a large number of our staff will be attending, so it looks like Blacknight will be invading Kilkenny!

By the sounds of things the event itself has completely sold out, so it should be a good weekend

See you there!

WordCamp Ireland Next Weekend

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 10:26:11 PST

Next weekend Kilkenny will be playing host to Wordcamp Ireland.

We're the headline sponsor, though admittedly I've been a bit remiss in promoting our involvement!

In any case the event runs over two days, with three tracks:

Intro track
Blogger's track
Tech track

The schedule includes some very interesting topics regardless of your level of experience with blogging or Wordpress, so deciding on which sessions to attend could be "interesting"!

Speakers lined up include both Irish and international figures covering a very broad range of topics including business blogging, SEO, design, usability, mobile web and a whole lot more.

So if you are interested in blogging, or want to learn more about how to make the most of your Wordpress blog (or site), then WordCamp Ireland is probably the event for you.

I'm planning on attending, though I'm also meant to be giving a presentation to the ICANN meeting in Nairobi on Saturday (remotely), so I still have to work out the logistics!

Want A Personal Domain Name? Why .me Makes Sense

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 04:47:18 PST

If you want to get your own "slice" of the internet to setup a blog or to publish your CV then why not look at .me?

Unlike some country code domain names .me is completely free from restrictions - so you can register a .me domain name as easily as you can register a .com.

The .me domain is one of the few ccTLD extensions that Google allows you to target to ANY country - so you don't have to worry about Google "thinking" you want to use it for the wrong country!

"Me" says it all. It's about YOU. And what's wrong with that?

Nothing!

You could use a .me domain for a whole range of different things.

Don't limit yourself to just personal domains - you can also use a .me domain as a "call to action" (love.me, kiss.me, buy.me etc., etc.)

A personal blog is pretty obvious, but how about using it for your CV? Impress a prospective employer with an online version of your CV, or simply point it at your LinkedIn profile.

Or how about an online photo gallery?

The possibilities are endless.

You could setup email.....

Or grab your family name and give each member of the family their own subdomain.

What would you do with a .me?

Have you seen anybody doing really cool things with a .me domain name?

Upcoming Change To Pending IE Domain Registrations

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 03:31:28 PST

The IE Domain Registry (IEDR) have informed us of a small change that they will be introducing to their processes.

Currently any registration or modification request is valid for 30 days, so you have 30 days to provide the supporting documentation.

As of April 8 2010 this period will be reduced to 27 days

We will be implementing some minor changes on our domain registration backend to accommodate this change.

Get Your Own TV!

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 07:50:24 PST

We've got yet another nice little promotion to share with you. This time round it's on .tv domain names!

Use the coupon code: tvpromo (no space - cASe SeNSitive) and you'll be able to get a .tv domain for a mere €19.99 ex-VAT

You will be able to register a .tv domain name at this special IF you use the coupon code. No code - no discount!

What is the .tv domain?

Originally .tv was for the island of Tuvalu, however it has become synonymous with "TV" or online video.

We have been using Blacknight.tv to promote our Youtube channel, for example and there are literally thousands of online video services that rely on the .tv extension to promote themselves online.

You can also check out or other promotions on domain registration.

Do you like this promo?

Would you like us to do a promotion on a particular domain extension?

Why not let us know what you think?

Feel free to post a comment below!

We Need Your Feedback!

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:42:58 PST

UPDATE 28/2: New screenshot added below
The Blacknight hosting platform is very powerful and has a lot of fantastic features.

However, the control panel is not perfect and we are all too aware of this.

The control panel vendors, Parallels, have been working closely with us to improve aspects of the system so that:

You are happier
We are happier
We all have a more pleasant life

Unfortunately we cannot read people's minds, so we're going to be asking YOU, our clients, for feedback on certain aspects of the system in the coming months.

We will do our best to take all the feedback that we receive back to the control panel vendors and get as many of the changes implemented as possible.

One of the areas that we know people have been having issues with is the billing section of the control panel.

We've held several conference calls with Parallels and our staff over the last few weeks and they've come up with a draft view of how it *could* look moving forward. (NB: there are plans to for an extensive reworking of the billing side of the system in the pipeline, but that could be over 12 months away)

So here is a preview (click to enlarge):

Do you think this is better than the current display?

Is it worse?

How could it be improved?

What would you like to see here?

Do you want to see this information in this way?

Is there something on the billing side that isn't clear (with this screenshot)?

Any and all feedback is welcome, though please try to give us something to work with! Comments like "I hate it" may be valid, but they won't help us improve it.

You can leave comments here or if you prefer feel free to email management@blacknight.com with your feelings.

Thanks for taking the time to give us feedback - we really do appreciate it.

UPDATE: We have received several very helpful emails from clients with quite detailed feedback. Please keep it coming!

UPDATE 2 - Parallels have made some changes based on feedback from us, you and other clients. They've supplied an updated screenshot (click to enlarge):
All feedback welcome as before

Thanks!

Get Serious With .Biz

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 02:00:57 PST

One of the things we like to do here at Blacknight is to bring you special offers on domains (and hosting). But we also like to focus on domain extensions that you might overlook.

So what about .biz?

The .biz domain extension was launched to help business find a space online.
Sure, you could register a .com domain name, but over time the number of easily recognisable .com names available shrank.

While .biz is not a "tiny" domain extension (there are over 2 million names registered), there are still more names available compared to its "big brother" .com (there are over 85 million .com domains!)

So why would someone register a .biz domain name?

Biz - means business.

It's that simple.
If you want to see some examples of .biz in use then head over to my.biz where you'll find some nice examples of .biz domains in use.

If you're already using a .biz for your website then why not let us know in the comments?

So what's the promo?

From now until the end of February you can register (or transfer) .biz domain names for €4.99 (ex-VAT)

No promotion codes needed - the discount will appear in the cart once you've added a domain to your order.