Yes, it’s that time again. Actually, it’s past that time, but I’ve got a very good reason for being late (no, it’s not because I was being lazy): We’ve been doing some upgrades!

The Plesk control panel is now up to version 8.1, and with that extra decimal comes several nifty new features.

One of the first things you may notice is that some there’s a few changes to the way things look. For example, the spam-filter section of your mail controls is now tabbed. There are a few other little tweaks in the look here and there, but nothing that should be confusing.

Now… on to the important stuff: New features!

One of the biggest is the partnership of Plesk with Fotolia. What’s Fotolia?

SWsoft (the maker of Plesk) has partnered with Fotolia, the first worldwide social marketplace for royalty free stock images, allowing individuals and professionals to buy and share stock images and illustrations. Fotolia offers the largest image bank of free and affordable royalty free photos and illustrations perfect for any medium, web or print. For a limited time, you can receive a 20% discount.

What does this mean for you? It means professional-quality photographs and graphics for your website–legally!

For the stat-hounds out there, Plesk has added the option of using AWStats instead of Webalizer. Where Webalizer gives you a nice overview of how your site is being viewed, it doesn’t let you get down to the nitty-gritty details. AWStats changes that. It gives a lot more information, and lets you see every last page hit, referrer, and keyword search. It shows you how many of your viewers are using which browsers, how long they’re staying at your site, when they’re coming in, and a whole lot more. If you’re just interested in the big picture, stick with Webalizer. If you’re obsessive about your stats (like I am!), you’ll definitely want to switch.

Right now, individual users can’t change the setting on their own (it looks like you can, but you really can’t). Just drop me a line and let me know that you’d like to switch over to AWStats, and I’ll do it for you. It takes about 24 hours for things to switch over, so you won’t get the details until the following day.

For those of you who just have to check your e-mail–even when you’re nowhere near your computer–there’s something new for you! Mobile IMP lets you check your e-mail from anywhere (provided you have the appropriate geek accouterments).

Mobile IMP is a Horde web mail extension that allows access to web mail through mobile devices such as WAP phones or PDAs. Basic IMP functionality is available, including mailbox viewing and paging, viewing messages, deleting, replying, forwarding, and composing new messages.

Don’t worry, geeks. You haven’t been forgotten. With Plesk 8.1 comes MySQL 5.0 Ooooh. Aren’t you excited?

Don’t forget to check out the Application Vault for new additions and updates of your old favorites: 37 applications free and easy to install.

And if you haven’t been into Plesk since the last upgrade to 8.0 (where have you been?!) there’s this wonderful new “desktop” that puts upgrade information, basic stats, and the most commonly-used tools all in one place. You can even create shortcuts to your “favorite” screens within Plesk.

And that’s not all! Order now and get the Samurai Tomato Slicer!! Umm…. sorry… ignore that. I was having flashbacks to the old Ronco commercials.

That reminds me, however…. It is getting close to Christmas: that wonderful time of year when Santa brings all the good little geeks new computers. And, as you know, every computer user needs their very own website. Right? Luckily for you, we have our referral program: Whenever you refer a new customer (and they let us know about it) you get 10% of their hosting cost deducted from your bill–for as long as they’re with us (some restrictions apply–of course). In D.C. they call this a “kickback”. Around here, we call it a “thank you” (it even has the approval of our ethics committee).

And…. check back here on Christmas morning. Maybe Santa will have left a little something extra under the server.

On a less silly note: we are coming up on a season which is important to a lot of people of a lot of faiths. No matter if you’re waiting for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule, the Winter Solstice, or the start of the ice-fishing season, remember to take some time to step back and remember what it’s all about. Those who celebrate Ramadan have recently been through their season of charity; many of the rest of us are entering ours. Below are just a few of the options for helping those less fortunate than ourselves.

Child’s Play
Salvation Army
Red Cross
Empty Stocking Club
Any Soldier

And our very own Christmas Fairy has a few suggestions of her own.

Well, that newsletter was worth the wait. There’s nothing better than ending the year with a bang (unless the bang is the sound of a server exploding… then it kinda sucks).

Have a good December. I’ll see you next year.

—
M Blaze Miskulin
President
Geek Niche, Inc.

Happy Halloween!

It’s trick-or-treat time, and we’ve got a treat for you (and you didn’t even have to dress up and knock on our door!).

We’re officially announcing the Geek Niche Referral Program.

The way it works is this:

If you refer someone to us, and they sign up, they just need to drop me an e-mail saying “I was referred by “. After they’ve been with us for 3 months, we’ll apply 10% of their monthly fee towards your account for as long as they’re with us.

There are a couple disclaimers and limits: This is a trial program to see if we want to advance into a full-fledged affiliate program, so we reserve the right to tweak things a bit in order to make things work smoothly. We will, however, inform you in advance if there are any major changes.

The 2nd limit is that this is a “discount” program, not a “cash back” program. What that boils down to is: you can’t get more credit per month than the cost of your hosting.

If you have any questions, drop me a line.

—
M Blaze Miskulin
President
Geek Niche, Inc.

Yeah.. I know… I’m late. But I have an excuse! Nothing important has happened!

Okay… so it’s a lame excuse. But it’s the truth. We’re humming along just fine. While we haven’t had any major breakthroughs in the last month, we also haven’t had any major breakdowns. And that’s the way it should be–at least that second part.

A tip for the paranoid: Plesk has a “backup” feature that allows you to backup your site at any point. If you’ve just done some major changes, you may want to go into Plesk and activate the backup just to make sure that everything you just did gets saved.

I’ll be back next month with even more of this excitement. Until then, happy surfing!

It’s another month, and that means it’s time for another newsletter. This one’s going to be short because… well… not a whole lot has happened. And that’s a good thing. There’s been a lot of little tweaks and updates and such, but moving from v5.0.0.0.0.1 to v5.0.0.0.2 of some helper-script probably isn’t all that interesting to you.

Looking ahead, there is one small bit of news. We’re looking at a few changes which would affect our users (that’d be you), and we’d like your input. Right now, we’re using Plesk as our control panel and ModernBill as our invoicing application. We’re looking at some alternatives to those. Right now, we have cPanel set up on our test box, and we’re looking at AgileBill for our invoicing. We haven’t made any definite decisions either way, we’re just trying them out to see how they work.

Do you have any preferences? Is there anything in either Plesk or ModernBill that you really hate? Anything you’d like to see that isn’t there? If you’ve dealt with other programs in the past, what did you like about them? What did you dislike about them?

We’ll all take your suggestions into consideration, and I’ll certainly keep you informed of any changes as we move along.

I’ll see you all again in October!

–
M Blaze Miskulin
President
Geek Niche, Inc.

Ah… August. The month without any holidays. Not even silly holidays like Arbor Day or Sweetest Day.

August is also a the month when nothing is happening at Geek Niche. Well… there’s always things happening here, but it’s going to be a quiet month, a month of introspection, a month when the world will be at peace and dollar bills will rain from the sky.

Or not.

It is true, however, that August should be a quiet month around here. The server migration took a lot out of us. A serious wrench was thrown in the works when we discovered that some of the basic programs had internal inconsistencies. I apologize very sincerely for any problems this may have caused you, and I want to thank you again, on behalf of all of us here, for being as kind and understanding as you were.

The new server is humming along nicely, and all the tweaks and glitches should be taken care of now. If you notice any problems, please let me know. I’ll make sure the guys with the know-how are notified right away.

With the upgrades, you should notice a few changes. Your Plesk control panel will look a little different–and not just because we installed a new theme, either. There’s some new options available to you. And a couple new applications in the Ap Vault.

Just a few tips on using Plesk:

• You can use the “Directories” button to password protect directories on your site. This means you can have sections which are private, or only accessible to the people you decide to let in–such as a “members’ section”. When you password protect a directory everything inside that directory–including subdirectories–is protected by that password.
• Want to know how well your site is doing and who’s coming to see you? Click the “Reports” button, and select “Web Stats”. A new window will open up with a listing of information by month. Click on the month you want to see and a volume of new information is available to you. This includes where people are coming from, what browser they’re using, what search terms find your site, and which pages are being viewed the most. It’s a great way to find out if someone is stealing (hot-linking) your pictures, or if you’ve your site is being linked from other sites
• Want the mail from your site to be redirected to somewhere else? Go to the “Mail” button, select the address you want to be redirected, and click the “redirect” button. Just fill in the address you want it to go to, and you’re done.
• Too much spam getting through? You can do something about it. Again, click the “Mail” button, and select the e-mail address you want to filter. Click the “Spam Filter” button up above. You’ve got a few options, now. Lower the number of “hits required” and less spam will get through. You can have Plesk automatically delete what it thinks is spam or just mark it with a tag of your choice. The Blacklist is for addresses that you want to automatically delete messages from–regardless of their “spam rating”. The Whitelist is for addresses you want to always show up in your mailbox–even if they look like spam. Click on the “training” button and you can tell Plesk which e-mails in your box are spam and which are real. Plesk will remember these, and learn from what you tell it, so less and less spam will make it through.

Take some time to poke around and see what Plesk can do for you. And if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

–
M Blaze Miskulin
President
Geek Niche, Inc.

Happy weekend of North American celebrations!

Today we say “happy birthday” to our upstairs neighbors, Canada. Tuesday, it’s time for our own birthday. Sounds like a great reason to have a party.

However, I’ll take a few minutes to write up a newsletter.

Frist of all, the migration that was supposed to happen last month will definitely happen this month. Concerns over the possibility that some of the new upgrades wouldn’t play nice together caused us to delay it for a few weeks, but we’ve settled on a solution and are ready to go ahead. We haven’t set a date yet, but rest assured that you will get at least a week’s notice before we make the move. It’ll probably be on a Sunday morning, since that’s when most of you are off at church, sleeping in, spending time with your sweeties, or sipping coffee and reading one of those quaint things called a “newspaper” (It’s cordless and lightweight!).

Now… I strive to keep Geek Niche the type of company that lets you know what’s going on behind the scenes as well as out in the spotlight. I said we’ve found a solution to the issues of applications not playing well together. We have. It’s a solution that allows us to provide you with the services that you want and expect from us. However, it puts up a few hurdles for us expanding our range of services in the future. What does this mean for you? Right now, it means you’ll continue to receive the same kind of service you have been. Down the road? It means that there may be another migration in the coming months. As a company, we know where we want to be and we know what we want to offer to our clients. As the ones with our hands in the machines, we sometimes get frustrated that we can’t do it all right now. However, as the owners of the company, we understand that not everyting is that easy.

Rest assured, however, that we’re constantly working towards our goals, and we’re keeping your needs in mind.

Speaking of needs (aren’t I just a master of the segue), are your webhosting needs being met? If not, please, let me know. I’m more than willing to work with you to get those needs met. Just a few reminders:

• You’re not locked into your plan. You can upgrade (or downgrade) at any time.
• You can order “add-ons” such as more disc-space, more bandwidth, or extra features.
• You’re not limited to the plans and niches we have listed. If you have specific needs, we’re more than happy to work out a custom plan for you.
• Basic tech support is free, but if you have need of something more we offer support for HTML, PHP, SQL, and customization of applications such as WordPress and Gallery.
• If you’re unsure, just ask!

Amidst all this, we’re still looking to the future. We’re playing around with ideas for a couple of new niches, we’re working with programmers to bring you some new applications, and we’re researching additions and alternatives to what we already provide.

If there’s anything you’d like to see us offer, drop me a line and let me know: suggestions@geekniche.com

So… for all of you in the US and Canada: enjoy your holiday-weekend. And the rest of you enjoy your non-holiday weekend.

–
M Blaze Miskulin
President
Geek Niche, Inc.

Yay! Three months in a row! I’m on a roll now!

That’s right. It’s Newsletter time again. And… well… nothing very exciting is happening. Which, to be perfectly honest, is a good thing. Around here “exciting” usually translates to “running around in a near panic trying to keep things from exploding.” This is why I’m very glad to say that things have been down-right boring for quite a while now. And we like it that way.

The last month has been pretty good. We’ve said goodbye to a couple people who have moved for one reason or another, and we’ve said hello to a few new people who’ve decided that they like what we have to offer. That’s the way business goes. The important thing is that it’s still going. And getting stronger. With the publishing of this newsletter, we’ll be celebrating 1 year since we three owners (of orient are….) sat down and worked out the final details of this little dream of ours.

In that time, we’ve grown, we’ve learned, we’ve run into a few speed bumps, and we’ve reorganized to bring you better and more reliable services. I think we’re doing pretty well.

As has been mentioned before, we’re still on track for moving to bigger and better servers in a couple weeks. We’re in the process of working out the final details on the new servers, and we’ll be ready to start tossing around the bytes in no time. If things go perfect, you won’t even know we’ve done anything. There may be a small bit of downtime while we get things moved over, and all the internet catches up with the new address information.

We’re setting aside the morning of Sunday, June 11th to pull the trigger on the actual changeover. If this changes, I will be certain to let you know. For your own sake, I’d like to ask that you not do anything with your sites that morning. Don’t upload anything, or modify files. At some point that morning, we’re going to be taking a final “snapshot” of the data on the old server and making sure that the new server matches it.

I think that’s all I have for this month.

You’ll all be receiving some of this information in an e-mail, just to make sure you get it. If you have any questions, please let me know.

Thanks.

–
Blaze Miskulin
President
Geek Niche, Inc

Yes, you’re seeing correctly. It’s actually 2 newsletters in 2 months. Don’t worry, I’ve contacted several experts and have been informed that this is not, in fact, a sign of an approaching apocalypse.

However….. The real fact of the matter is that not much is happening that you haven’t been informed about already. This, of course, makes it a little difficult to write up a nice long newsletter.

Upgrades for the operating system and the Plesk control panel are still in the works, and we’re looking at a more rubust and secure backup system to include in the upgrades. I’ll be sure to let you know before any of that actually happens.

We’re approaching the end of our first year in business, and we’re doing well. We’re not millionaires yet, but that’s okay. We’re willing to wait a few more weeks for that to happen.

All of us here are very happy with the way business is growing, and we’d like to thank you for picking us out of the swarm of other webhosts out there.

–
M Blaze Miskulin
President
Geek Niche, Inc.

As the inaugural post for the new Geek News blog, I’m just reposting the last newsletter that was sent to you via e-mail. There is a bit of new information, so you might want to read through this again.

Hello again.

It’s me, your benevolent dictator…err.. I mean “company president” with yet another of my semi-annual newsletters.

The past few months have been busy for us, and the next few look just as busy. And that’s good. We’re keeping busy because we’re adding new customers. When starting up a new business, the conventional wisdom says: during the first year expect to lose money hand-over-fist, during the second year expect to fall short of a profit, during the third year you’ll be doing good if you break even. Well, we’ve been in business for under a year, and we’re actually making a little bit of money, and growing at a steady and maintainable rate. That’s fabulous!

That growth means we can work on improvements and upgrades. In the coming weeks, we’ll be looking at moving to newer, better servers. As part of this move, we’ll be upgrading our operating system, and the Plesk control panel as well. This migration may require that we take the servers offline for a short period, but we’ll do everything we can to keep that time to a minimum. I’ll make sure to give you ample warning, so you’re not caught by surprise.

I know that our growth hasn’t been without a few bumps along the way. I’d like to say “thank you” for your patience and understanding as we make our way through these growing pains.

You may have noticed that occasionally at night or in the early morning, you’ll see a “Plesk Default Page” instead of your site. This isn’t anything to worry about. As part of the back-up process, Plesk turns off your page for a few minutes. This is to ensure that it grabs a stable snapshot of the data.

The upgrade to Plesk 8.0 should significantly decrease the time these backups take. Right now, we’re arbitrarily scheduling the backups for during the night. If, however, you’re a night owl–or in a very different time zone from us–and would like your backups to be moved to a different part of the day, please let me know. I’ll do my best to accomodate any scheduling requests.

I’ve been pretty lax about sending out newsletters, and I’m going to change that; this will be the last newsletter that will be e-mailed to you….

…Instead, I’ll be installing I have installed WordPress on our site and am doing the updates there here.

In addition to keeping an archive of what I’ve said (uh oh… maybe this isn’t such a good idea…) WordPress has an RSS feed, so you can just plug the feed into your favorite RSS reader, and be notified when I post something new. The existing forums, however, will be going away. They really aren’t being used by anyone, so it’s not a huge loss.

At this point, I need to insert a new bit of information: One of the reasons I chose to get rid of the forums is phpBB’s lack of security. I knew that it had some pretty large holes through which hackers can gain access and corrupt the data. Well… it looks like I was prophetic in my concerns. Our forums fell prey to a hacker. The overwrote our data with their own, effectively deleting the forums and all the data contained within. A hacking of this type does not give the hackers access to any of the other data on the site or server. It just lets them destroy the forum they choose to vandalize.

Our Application Vault includes phpBB as one of it’s options. If you’ve chosen to install this, be aware that you are very suseptible to vandalism. This is not something over which we at Geek Niche have any control. This is a flaw in phpBB.

If you’re using phpBB, and are concerned about your data, please let us know, and we can work on setting up a special backup for the data. It will be up to you to let us know if your forums have been hacked, however.

For those of you who didn’t know, Geek Niche has a sister-site: geekniche.org (www.geekniche.org). gn.org is a little repository for WordPress themes and plugins, as well as a number of useful stand-alone applications. All of them are free to use as you want. Head on over and check out the shiney new layout I built over the weekend.

N.B. If you have WordPress installed on your site and haven’t upgraded to 2.x yet, I highly recommend you do so. 2.x is not yet available for the Application Vault, so we can’t offer it as a one-click install, but we’ll help you with upgrading if you need it (it’s really really simple). 2.x has added some wonderful security and anti-spam features–as well as a shiney new interface–that make it much safer and more robust.

That’s all for now. I’ll let you all know when the upgrdes are due.

—
M Blaze Miskulin
President