Hosting

Yahoo! Extends $4.98 Domain Offer

According to a report by research and analysis firm Netcraft (netcraft.com), Yahoo! has extended its $4.98 domain promotion, suggesting that the offer is generating business for the Internet portal and Web hosting provider.

Yahoo! recently extended its $4.98 domain offering through February 8, 2005, the third extension of the promotion that launched on December 10, 2004.

In an effort to keep up with dropping domain prices, Web hosting provider Go Daddy (godaddy.com) recently dropped its annual domain name price from $8.95 to $7.95 per year.

Yahoo! and Go Daddy's recent moves continue the trend of Web hosting companies dropping domain name prices, using domains as a loss leader to attract new customers. According to Netcraft, 1&1 Internet, EV1Servers, Hostway, Interland, Web.com and AIT are all offering domain names for less than $8 per year.

Aplus.Net Offers .Info Web Domains for 99 cents

"Aplus.Net (www.aplus.net), a leading web site hosting and development firm for small and medium-sized businesses (SMB), announced today that it will be selling domain names with the .info extension for 99 cents each, with no quantity limit.

Aplus.Net’s low price is part of an effort by the registrar to popularize the extension, bringing it in line with more popular domain extensions like .com, .net, and .org. Aplus.Net also sees this as an opportunity to help more people get domain names and establish web sites.

Additionally, Aplus.Net is encouraging web site owners to protect their online branding and intellectual property by registering the .info addresses that correspond with their existing domains.

The registrations will last for one year, and if registrants want to renew the domain after a year, they can do so for the going domain rate. Aplus.Net domain prices are among the lowest in the industry, with .com, .net, and .org domains available for $5.95 per year.

“As part of our commitment to provide our customers and the public with affordable web presence, we are proud to facilitate low cost .info domain registration.” said Ivan Vachovsky, Chief Executive Officer of Aplus.Net.

Domains can be registered on Aplus.Net’s website located at domains.aplus.net. More information may also be obtained by calling Aplus.Net at (877) 275-8763."

Name Intelligence Offers Free Domain Name Lock Monitoring Service

Name Intelligence, is making available, for free, a suite of domain name tools available to help registrants watch their domain names, in an effort to protect against the negative impacts of a new ICANN domain transfer policy change which puts domain registrants at risk of losing their name if they are not locked and monitored closely.

Many Domain Name registrants and domain managers are not aware of a loophole in the updated ICANN domain name transfer policy (going into effect 11/12/2004) which could allow someone to transfer your domain away from your registrar without consent.

If you own one or more domain names, you need to be aware that those domain names are potentially exposed to unauthorized transfer under a new ICANN policy.

"People are not aware of the magnitude of the impact of this policy change and what it means to domain name registrants. Names that are not registrar-locked are at risk.", said Jerome Gagner, Senior Developer at Name Intelligence. "Previously, a registrant's name would be safe from someone taking it away from them, because a transfer simply could not happen without their explicit approval. The new policy makes transfers require that the current registrant explicitly decline the request. If the current registrant fails to decline the transfer, the transfer will go through. "

"Whois Source has always maintained free tools to aid domain managers in their efforts as a public service to the internet community. We encourage people who use the site to contribute via upgrade to the paid subscription model, as it allows our organization to improve the services we offer – clearly this costs us money to operate, yet I am passionate about having useful resources available at no cost, and I am also passionate about not hounding the free member base to upgrade." adds Westerdal.

Dynamic DNS

Dynamic DNS is a service which allows you to alias a dynamic IP address to a static hostname in any of the domains, allowing your computer to be more easily accessed from any location on the Internet.

The Dynamic DNS service is ideal for a website whose IP address changes frequently. With dynamic DNS, your hostname will always point to a correct IP address, no matter how often your ISP changes it.

One known issue with Dynamic DNS is mail. Many providers block e-mail from a dynamic IP address. To solve this, you can relay all of your outgoing e-mail through your ISP's mail server. Simply set the SMTP/outgoing mail server in your e-mail client.

Below is a list of links to some Dynamic DNS service providers:

Constant Time Software	Deerfield	DynDNS
DynIP	DynoReg	Dynu
Easy DNS	No-IP	Sitelutions
ThatIP	TZO