Archive for July, 2007

Hey there!

I hope you’re all keeping cool during this sweltering start to the summer. I live in Wisconsin; we’re built to handle 40-below temperatures and feet of snow. This hot & muggy stuff is brutal.

I actually have some things to talk about this month. Isn’t that a shocker?

We’ve had a few “black hats” sneaking around in the digital alleyway spray-painting the walls and throwing stones at the windows. Paul & Jason have been on top of things, however, and beat off the intruders with virtual baseball bats.

Hacking is a serious problem. Every server out there is constantly being hammered by everything from script-kiddies to serious threats. Last week the Department of Homeland Security revealed that they had 800 successful incursions into their servers over the last 2 years. We’ve had 3. And in each case, it was discovered within hours and shut down with little or no damage. If you look at it mathematically, we’re 266.6 times more secure than the Dept of Homeland Security!

If you ever suspect that your site has been hacked contact us right away. Catching the hack early not only means minimizing any damage, but also finding out how they got in and plugging the hole. The fact that we’ve been able to catch every one of the hacks within hours, and only 1 actually did any damage is a testament to the diligence and skill of the two guys handling the technical side of things.

In happier news: Geek Niche is going public! For the last 2 years, we’ve gotten almost every customer by word of mouth. That we’ve gotten as many as we have is a big boost to our egos. Well, on July 3rd, we’re running our first public advertisement. We’ve bought the sidebar ad on Something Postivive. The fun part is that we have no idea what it’s going to look like!

For those of you that don’t know, Something Positive (S*P) is a webcomic. It’s a cynical, scathing, sometimes rude and always funny webcomic. The author does custom-designed ads using characters from the comic. When I contacted his advertising manager, I gave him information on who we are, what we do, and what our attitude is (“we’re not afraid to make fun of ourselves”), and told him to do whatever he wanted.

Okay… I’m just a little bit scared.

Even though we’re doing the whole “real advertising” thing, word of mouth is still our best advertising. And we’re willing to put our money where our mouth is: we have our kick back rewards program in place. Recommend someone to us for hosting and, after 3 months, you’ll get 10% of their hosting fee credited to your account. They just have to e-mail us and let us know who recommended them to us. If you like what we’re doing for you, send your friends our way–you could end up getting your hosting for free!.

Happy Independence Day to all you Americans. And for those who don’t care to celebrate that, may be one of the other holidays this month will be more your style…

Fireworks Safety Month
Light the Night for Sight Month
Anti Boredom Month
Baked Bean Month
Hot Dog Month
National Ice Cream Month
July Belongs to Berries Month
Purposeful Parenting Month
Recreation and Parks Month
Tennis Month
Adopt a Rescued Rabbit Month

Therapeutic Recreation Week (1-7)
Coral Reef Awareness Week (15-21)

Or any one of the many many holidays celebrated around the world.
(Check out the Earth Calendar for more holidays)
–
M Blaze Miskulin
President
Geek Niche, Inc.