http://www.thewhir.com/RSS/blog/name/Kayla_Fleming Kayla Fleming en-US Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:44:31 -0400 http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Kayla_Fleming/Transparency_Transforms_Industry By Kayla Fleming Watching the effects of social media slowly glaze over the web hosting industry is very interesting. I remember in 2003 when I first installed a forum for Surpass Hosting. I loved talking to customers and helping them as soon as they posted. Their immediate satisfaction gave me a very pleasing sense of accomplishment to make them happy and impress them, especially when other visitors could see! The forum quickly grew into a very important part of Surpass. I truly consider Surpass one of the first web hosts that had a strong sense of community and that trait is forever a glue holding together the company's goals. Throughout the years I noticed other hosting companies adding forums but most never devoted the needed attention. Many forums would sit unattended and without much activity. While select hosts did try, others were either too corporate to have a forum, uninterested to have comments in public or just didn't get it. In 2004, less than a year after being created, the Surpass forum's name was changed to Surmunity to reflect our direction. Fast forward to 2007, I stumbled across a little blue site called Twitter because, ironically, a customer in Surmunity linked to their personal Twitter account. I didn't really understand what the craze was about or where it was all going, but there was definitely something engaging that needed to be latched on to - especially considering the existing, open personality of Surpass. Besides getting my own personal account, I also registered one for Surpass and started to test the waters of a new social pool. Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:34:09 -0400 http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Kayla_Fleming/Transparency_Transforms_Industry http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Kayla_Fleming/Top-10-Hosting-Memories-of-2008 By Kayla Fleming Join me on a trip down memory lane as we welcome in 2009 and all of the new technology and ideas it will bring. 10 - Will it blend? Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:41:20 -0500 http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Kayla_Fleming/Top-10-Hosting-Memories-of-2008 http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Kayla_Fleming/Solar-Sunrises-and-Moonlight-Mazes By Kayla Fleming The predecessor of the Internet, ARPANET, was set up by the U.S. Department of Defense in 1969. Cyber attacks against the U.S. government in the last ten years, such as Solar Sunrise and Moonlight Maze, prove that an original creator does not know all forever. Some news stories call the attackers "brilliant" or "sophisticated" but I find them to be anything but. Like most engineered attacks, even against normal Internet users, hackers focus on very weak vulnerabilities and betrayals of common sense. Government security officials claim they are suffering from high-tech espionage but I think it merely boils down to the basics of phishing and social engineering. Just as attacks against innocent Internet users rise continuously each year, so do attacks against U.S. government to obtain sensitive information. As I read an article detailing how a hacker in China sent a very believable email to an executive of a government consulting firm, it made me realize how far we are from sealing security here. Even if the government's IDS, Einstein, ever reaches the front of all government networks, there is no way to successfully stop human error. But I have an idea for them. Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:15:00 -0400 http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Kayla_Fleming/Solar-Sunrises-and-Moonlight-Mazes http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Kayla_Fleming/Stealing-Employees--Do-It-With-Pizazz By Kayla Fleming Maybe grabbing an employee from another company can never be looked upon as a totally innocent move, but there is a way to do it with a little pizazz. Have you ever been at a store, business or even a restaurant and were impressed with service received from a particular staff member? It was their attentiveness, personality, attitude or just how well spoken and knowledgeable they were. Suddenly a chord strikes within you: this person would be great at my company. How can you tell them? Seems like it would begin with a long story. "I started this company three years ago and we are located here and do this and that, and you seem really happy here and I hope you don't mind me asking you this.." Doesn't seem so smooth! Enter the Apple way. We know that business cards aren't just for names and numbers anymore, they can also have coupons on the back, special promotion info, or if you dip them in water they may turn into a sponge - who knows these days. Some things that Apple has done have not rubbed the right way with me, in fact some things they do seem unnecessary. But coming up with the idea for this "come over to the dark side, we have cookies" card is fascinating. Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:34:00 -0400 http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Kayla_Fleming/Stealing-Employees--Do-It-With-Pizazz http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Kayla_Fleming/2008--The-Year-of-the-Acquisition By Kayla Fleming Thu, 22 May 2008 21:13:00 -0400 http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Kayla_Fleming/2008--The-Year-of-the-Acquisition http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Kayla_Fleming/Companies-and-Blogs-Bag-It By Kayla Fleming Our company has been casually blogging for some time so now we have a good feel for what our customers like to see in this format. When our new website is released our blog will become a focal point of our site and a source for quality content on web hosting and applications. Company blogs will become more important in the next few years so you should start one now if you haven't already. While your business may already be well established, and perhaps even have a community forum with a good number of members, a blog can only further the connection with your customers. If you maintain quality posts on a regular basis, you'll really bag this new way of improving your public relations. I have words of warning before you begin. I do see mistakes in existing company blogs out there, there are a few things that I believe should not be discussed. One of them is talking too much about your own products and services. That is what your website is for. No one wants to spend time reading about your services elsewhere only to see oddly placed sales pitches in the blog. It just doesn't fit. Your blog is a chance to point out something else about your company that is important but perhaps rarely noticed. You have to keep that in mind and be sure not to waste this opportunity. You should also be sure to keep things as serious as possible no matter how fun you're feeling that day. (We all have those days when the idea seemed like a good one but later turned out to just be off the wall.) The company blog is a reflection of your business. So unless you are going for silly and wacky, try to keep things consistent. There is a time for humor in many situations, but you have to control the impression that visitors will receive after reading your blog. After reading only a few posts, a visitor will have developed an image of your company and its vision. Make sure that image is the one you want. Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:46:00 -0400 http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Kayla_Fleming/Companies-and-Blogs-Bag-It http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Kayla_Fleming/Hosting-Jobs--An-Apprentice-Approach By Kayla Fleming Web hosting is still a relatively new market and its concept remains unknown to many. Walk down any street and ask a few people what web hosting means and you'll receive a variety of unsure answers. Because of that alone, you can imagine that the pool of web-host-worthy applicants to a tech job is small. Some believe that there will be a shortage of tech skilled workers in the next ten years, but I don't see it this way. Imagine the children growing up in the now flourishing Web 3.0 world. They grew up watching movies on a laptop in their room, they'll never know anything else. Netflix. Vonage. iPods. I am sure many of these children will choose to go into the IT field. Everything that we have grown accustomed to, or were forced to change, will be completely natural and inspiring for them. As for the present time in the hosting field, our collective results vary. Many entry-level employees at web hosting companies may only have call center backgrounds. Some of them may have websites of their own but were never sure of how web hosting really worked. Depending on how fast they learn and their initiative, these new "apprentices" can eventually be leaders and loyal members of your team. Thu, 06 Mar 2008 04:42:00 -0500 http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Kayla_Fleming/Hosting-Jobs--An-Apprentice-Approach http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Kayla_Fleming/Web-Spam-Not-Just-Bots-Anymore By Kayla Fleming While email spam is battled with relentless focus, web spam becomes more powerful while we aren't watching. By "web spam" I am referring to the type of spam that is posted on blogs, comment sections or forums. Because we have been so barraged with unwanted messages from bots, many sophisticated plugins and scripts have been developed. The Akismet web service blocks nearly all of the common bot-posted spam (online casinos, pharmacy links) and does its job so well, you may be lucky enough to only receive one bogus comment or trackback every few months. Akismet can be implemented into many applications which receive submitted content such as forums, wikis, contact forms and blogs. So we finally have adequate protection available for these kinds of annoyances. The new arising problem is the spammers are realizing their success rates are dropping. If the bots can't get into our forums and blogs, then who can? Only real human eyes. In the past few months I have witnessed a definite increase in the amount of spam being posted by real people behind their smeared monitors. Unless these posters are directly benefiting from the spam they spew, they must be "employed" by the head spammers. The good part of this is that spammers' pockets are now being emptied. While their bot-operation failure rate climbs as we build more walls, they are reluctantly spending their own money to recoup losses. Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:30:00 -0500 http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Kayla_Fleming/Web-Spam-Not-Just-Bots-Anymore http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Kayla_Fleming/Did-You-Mean-AntiPhishing-or-AntiTubing By Kayla Fleming Senator Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens (Alaska) along with Senator Olympia Snowe (Maine) introduced the Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act this week. The problem is they are honestly in need of phishing education. The APCPA just doesn't make much sense. First, phishing is already illegal. Second, phishing is going to continue happening no matter how many laws there are. The root of the problem has to be addressed. Blanketing more laws over existing ones is not helping. Third, there is a section in this bill about domain name Whois privacy. This has nothing to do with stopping phishing either. From the pages of the act: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:58:00 -0500 http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Kayla_Fleming/Did-You-Mean-AntiPhishing-or-AntiTubing http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Kayla_Fleming/USPS-Goes-AntiPhish By Kayla Fleming I received what you might call unsolicited mail from the post office. It arrived addressed to Postal Customer and in bold was the title "Identity theft prevention tips." If the majority of receivers do open these letters, this project will have very good results. Educating the public about phishing and identity theft online is hard enough so any outside help is really a good idea. The letter inside reads: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:50:00 -0500 http://www.thewhir.com/blog/Kayla_Fleming/USPS-Goes-AntiPhish