theWHIR.com Blogs - Liam Eagle's Web Hosting Blog

Sign Up Now For Our Webinar with VeriSign's Bob Angus

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:10:19 -0400

By Liam Eagle We've nailed down the date for our upcoming webcast with Bob Angus of VeriSign, and I wanted to mention it in this space along with wherever else we end up promoting it. [If you're not in the mood to read my pitch, want to jump right to the registration page, here's a link. There's no fee to attend. Just a simple signup page.]

WHIR Networking Event Tonight: Fun Times and some Cool Prizes

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:28:36 -0400

By Liam Eagle We got into Los Angeles last night and are doing a bit of preparation in advance of tonight's WHIR networking event. Tonight's event is happening at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip. I think it's a little late to register at this point (it starts in a couple of hours), but if the last two events - in Dallas and New York - are any indication, these events are getting bigger and more successful.

WHIR Networking Event in NYC - Good Times and Giveaways

Wed, 06 May 2009 17:16:54 -0400

By Liam Eagle Just landed in New York a couple of hours ago, and I'm just about to get ready for tonight's WHIR Networking event, which starts in a couple of hours at the lounge The Park. I have every reason (a list of registered attendees, and some really nice weather, basically) to believe that tonight's will have the largest attendance of any of the events we've held so far.

DreamHost Posts Voicemail from Customer Online – Out of Line?

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:22:49 -0400

By Liam Eagle It seems like word's spreading about this via Twitter and a few other means, so you may have already heard about this, but yesterday DreamHost posted an audio clip on its blog of what was apparently a customer calling to beg them for help recovering a domain that appeared to have been taken from him. DreamHost is pretty well known for being "irreverent" in its blog. The approach that has earned it a loyal following and praise for its transparency (and I think the blog is sort of emblematic of an admirable sense of approachability at the company, something a lot of other hosts try to emulate). And it has also been the cause of the occasional bad PR move, as in the case of the blog post that "irreverently" took a "whoops!" approach to apologizing for an accident that saw the company mistakenly bill customer for millions of dollars.

WHIR Networking Event – Chicago – Pictures and Prize Winners

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:21:04 -0400

By Liam Eagle It's been a week already, I know, but rest assured it has been an extremely busy week for me, or you would have seen this blog post much sooner. We had a great time heading down to Chicago last week to hold the most recent of our WHIR Networking Events - the fourth in the series, and another really successful showing. We had a great turnout, and a great time, thanks once again to our sponsors: GigaPark (www.gigapark-va.com) OpenSRS (www.opensrs.com), Parallels (www.parallels.com) and Mezeo Software (www.mezeo.com).

Prize Giveaways at Tonight’s WHIR Networking Event

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:37:08 -0400

By Liam Eagle Hello Chicago! We just landed in Chicago a few hours ago, and we're going to head over to the venue for tonight's WHIR networking event, the Fulton Lounge, in about 15 minutes. Here's a photo of the Fulton Lounge. Looks like a fun place to hang out, and I'm personally looking forward to grabbing a seat in one of those particularly comfortable looking chairs.

White Paper: ROI and NeuStar’s UltraDNS

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:22:06 -0400

By Liam Eagle I'd better begin by addressing the nature of the information, since it's an usual source, and it treads very close to that line between church and state that I work to observe very strictly, and that can produce tricky situations. Fortunately, I'm of the opinion that those situations can be avoided with careful disclosure. We come across information in all kinds of ways, some of them surprising. In this case, it comes from an advertisement - in particular, an advertisement we've been running on the WHIR.

Further Update to Yesterday's WHT Hack Story

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:18:54 -0400

By Liam Eagle Yesterday, we ran a news story about further developments in the hack on Web Hosting Talk servers. It had come to light, early Tuesday morning, that the hacker had accessed and distributed a list of stored credit card data. Shortly after posting the story, I updated the story to include information about the contents of the compromised credit card database, including the suggestion that it might have included stored CCV/CVV data (a PCI standards violation), and that certain credit cards may have been marked "removed" rather than having actually been removed.

Pingdom Posts Uptime-Downtime Conversion Table

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:37:45 -0400

By Liam Eagle There probably isn't an entire news story to be wrung from this, but it's definitely worth a couple paragraphs and a link. We've mentioned in the past that website performance monitoring company Pingdom does some excellent work on their Royal Pingdom blog, spinning monitoring data into really interesting analysis.

More Info on Web Hosting Talk Hack Posted

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:02:14 -0400

By Liam Eagle Yesterday we ran a story about the ongoing situation at web hosting community message board Web Hosting Talk. The site was hacked, a certain amount of user data was compromised, and between four and five months of posts was lost (maybe temporarily), along with their backups. I sent a few follow-up questions to iNet Interactive by email yesterday, and I heard back today. They did me one better and posted the answers to (most of) my questions, and a few others, on the message board.