At EarthLink Business we know the value of the human voice and we place a high value on delivery of high quality voice transmission over our nationwide IP network. Whether your business requires Hosted Voice services and mobile devices, or relies on traditional telephony communications EarthLink has a full voice product suite delivered with quality of service second to none. So if you want your voice to be heard loud, crisp and clear reach out to an EarthLink Business representative today.

The post Hosted Voice Services – Be Heard appeared first on EarthLink Blog: Internet services, Web Hosting, IT services.

The conference, which over 6,000 developers are attending at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, is still going on right now and will conclude tomorrow. But there has been quite a lot of buzz about what Google has already announced.

Here’s a rundown of the biggest announcements from the Google I/O developer conference so far:

• Google Play Music All Access: This is a new, unlimited streaming music/Internet radio subscription service. It offers access to millions of tracks, playlists and suggestions based on music you already own and like, and let you customize a streaming radio station based on specific songs or artists (a la Pandora). You can stream music on Web or Android phones and tablets. The service will cost $9.99 a month, but if you sign up for a free 30-day trial before June 30^th, you’ll pay only $7.99 a month. CNET has a review of the new All Access service. Or visit Google Play Music.

• Google Play social gaming: Google is launching a new platform that will allow game developers to build in more social gaming aspects as well as take advantage of Google’s cloud storage capabilities, so you could play and pause a game on Android devices, iOS decices, PCs or Macs. See the Wall Street Journal for a review.

• Google Maps: The popular map and direction service has been totally rebuilt. The next generation of Google Maps offers a more full-screen, less cluttered view with a search box built into the map itself. You’ll get a lot more options with your map searches: more local points of interest, more business information, street view and satellite imagery options, photo tours, and more. You’ll likewise get more options for directions: car, public transportation, walking, biking, flying. The new maps is available for the Web, on Android devices, or iPhone. Google has a preview of the new Maps and links to downloads here.

• Google Search: Google previewed its work on conversational search. When it launches, you’ll be able to say “OK, Google, will it be raining this weekend in Central Park?” and get your answer spoken back to you. You can then ask follow-up questions. Google also announced improvements to its Knowledge Graph, to answer factual questions more precisely and fully. And Google Now updates offer reminders based on time and your current location. See Google’s Inside Search blog for more details.

• Google Hangouts: Google launched a new Hangouts chat, video chat and unified messaging app that works across platforms. You can use it to text, send photos, or have a group video conference; SMS integration is reportedly coming soon (but not for iOS). The new Hangouts replaces Google Talk and G+ Messenger. It’s now available on Android, iOS, Chrome and Gmail. Read a review of Hangouts on Techcrunch.

• Google+: The social network site has been redesigned to work better across platforms (Web and mobile devices). Google+ Photos also features a number of important updates: Auto Backup, Auto Highlight, Auto Enhance, and the more-awesomely named Auto Awesome. Google has an overview of G+ changes here.

That’s not all. Watch for more updates on Google’s Official Blog.

You can also keep up-to-the-minute on Google announcements and even watch live streaming video of the ongoing developers conference here.

The post Google Announcing New Products at I/O Conference appeared first on EarthLink Blog: Internet services, Web Hosting, IT services.

Online shoppers love convenience but hate risk. No one wants to be unsure about placing a purchase because they might be giving their financial information to an insecure site.  Don’t let that happen to your business: give your customer a guarantee.

This guarantee is a digital certificate.  Also known as an “SSL Certificate,”it encrypts your site’s online shopping cart, making it incredibly tough for a third party to snatch the credit card/mailing info your customers provide you.

And how will your customers know you’ve encrypted your website?  Firstly, you can display a graphic (showing a seal of the certificate, or a lock, etc) on your site, but…more importantly…if your cart is properly encrypted, the “http://” in your store’s web address will display as “https://” (the “s” literally stands for “secure”, and there is no way to get it without encryption).

With a secure website, your customers can buy without worry.  So include an SSL Certificate as a part of your ecommerce web hosting plan!

The post SSL Certificate – Give Your Customers Peace of Mind appeared first on EarthLink Blog: Internet services, Web Hosting, IT services.

Though the focus was specifically on whether startups should spend venture capital funding on a domain name, the article was a good reminder of domain name basics (as we’ve previously posted about; see Best Website Domain Names) and provided valuable insight and domain strategies to use when the domain you want is unavailable.

The article asserts that while domain names are currently a little less important (because of mobile and apps), they are still your email identity (as we also wrote about a couple of weeks ago in Domain Email…What Are You Waiting for?) and an important part of your marketing.

A domain name can even be the difference between winning and losing companies, one of the factors that tips the competitive balance from one startup to another; for example, the stronger Mint.com domain winning out over Wesabe.com.

Why? Because a good domain name catches attention, is easy to remember, and easy to find online. It represents your company often before you have any other way to influence potential customers, investors, or even future employees.

Three main domain name factors proposed in the article are:

1. Fit. This is perhaps obvious, so Teten doesn’t explain any more than to say the domain should match the business. There are, of course, different ways to “match” or “fit.” As we’ve previously written, a domain name that is an exact match or close match to your company name (assuming you’re not a startup with no previous company name) is often the number-one recommendation. Next would be a strong, popular keyword that’s associated with your business, like one of your core products or services. I would say that the domain doesn’t have to be immediately obvious but it should makes sense when you think about it. Like the Facebook domain. While “facebook” wasn’t a popular keyword and people first hearing the domain may have wondered what it was, a social network like this is kind of like a contact “book” with the “faces” (and other personal detail) of friends. So it fits.
2. SEO. Here’s another push for keyword-rich domain names. If your domain name exactly matches keywords people are using to find the products or services you sell, your website will get a real boost towards the first page of search results (assuming you have a non-hyphenated .COM site). If you are lucky enough to have such a domain (or can get one), make sure you optimize the homepage for your domain name keywords. In other words, the content of the homepage should support the URL/domain.
3. Linguistic Characteristics. Though we have written about certain aspects of these good domain name characteristics before (notably that you want a short domain, without hyphens or numerals, that’s easy to spell and therefore remember), some of Teten’s other recommendations about the internal sounds of domain names were new and intriguing.

No matter what your domain name means, data suggests that the best ones generally have these linguistic characteristics:

• are short
• use dictionary words
• do no include hyphens or numerals
• have initial sounds that are easy to articulate
• avoid internal sounds phonemes associated with disgust (like the uh sound in yuck and the ew sound in puke)

The bad news: If you’re going to be bidding on domain names that are already owned, you’ll probably need fairly deep pockets. Average domains are said to go from $5,000 – $20,000, with the very top of the market going in the millions.

The good news: Teten advises most new businesses to start with a free or very low-cost dot-com domain name. If your ideal domain name isn’t available but there is no website yet active at that domain, you may want to purchase a similar domain to launch your business with the goal to transition to the other domain when you can purchase it. These EarthLink Web Hosting services offer a free domain name for one year.

To get more domain name advice for startups, read the full article on Forbes.com.

When you’re ready to get started, here’s a step by step guide to choosing a new domain name with EarthLink.

The post Good Domain Names – How Valuable Are They? appeared first on EarthLink Blog: Internet services, Web Hosting, IT services.

These days criminals are using a variety of techniques to compromise and gain access to accounts across the Internet.  They then often use these compromised accounts to send spam or gain unauthorized access to a victim’s private information (emails, banking information, etc.).

Just take a look at all the recent stories about stolen passwords and hacked accounts from some of the most popular sites on the Internet today.

To reduce the risk of getting your accounts hacked into or compromised, we recommend that you take the following precautions to protect yourself:

1. Be Careful What You Click
Never reply to emails or click on email links that ask for your username and password. Our spam prevention partners have tracked a significant increase in phishing worldwide. Criminals often use phishing scams to help gather credentials.  Phishing is a term used to describe false emails sent from spammers claiming to be sent from a legitimate company (for example, EarthLink or well-known banks) and asking for your username and password. These fraudulent emails may look quite authentic – so beware.

2. Use Varying Usernames and Passwords
Don’t use the same username and password across multiple sites like email, banking and social network sites. Recent security research revealed that, on average, people use the same credentials to log into 49 different sites. Email usernames and passwords can be acquired from security breaches suffered by other service or product providers (tens of millions of credentials have been reported this year alone by other service or product providers). If you are using the same password for your EarthLink account as other accounts that were breached, then spammers may use this information to access your EarthLink email and send spam.

For these reasons, it’s good to have a system to generate strong, unique passwords for all the sites you use. Just follow these three simple steps.

You can change your EarthLink password here at any time.

3. Run an Antivirus Program to Curb Malware Infections
Some malware today is designed to run stealthily on your computer while it records the usernames and passwords to sites you access (your Web Mail, online banking, etc.).  Some security firms are reporting malware infection rates as high as 1 in 3 computers worldwide.  To protect yourself, the first step is to run an antivirus scan on your computer.  This can be done with any antivirus program of your choice.  EarthLink offers Norton 360 Online as a premium antivirus subscription with a Free 30-Day Trial if you want to check it out.

4. Choose Your Secret Hint and Word Wisely
A secret word or hint is often used to verify your identity when account changes are being made. You should not use information associated with you that is readily available on the Internet or through other sources. If you are unsure, try doing a quick Internet search for yourself to see what you can find.  If you can find it, so can a hacker.

Stay safe out there and never hesitate to reach out if you have additional questions around email or password security.

For further support from EarthLink, visit our Knowledgebase Support Center.

The post 4 Email Account Security Tips appeared first on EarthLink Blog: Internet services, Web Hosting, IT services.

But connection issues do occasionally come up. The good news? Often you can quickly and easily troubleshoot and resolve the issue by looking at the cable Internet modem lights.

So, if you ever have problems connecting to the Internet, take a look at the cable modem lights and follow these recommendations.

Cable Modem Connection Light is Out

• If the light on the front of your cable modem that indicates your cable connection (it may be labeled Status, Online or Cable) is out or blinking, you will be unable to connect to the Internet.
• To re-establish your Internet connection, first make sure that the coaxial cable is firmly connected to the back of your modem.
• If the cable is properly connected to your modem and the light is still out, try to reset the modem.
• To reset your cable modem, press and hold the Reset button for five seconds. If your modem does not have a Reset button, you will need to power cycle (turn off, then on) your modem. See the complete steps for power cycling your modem below.

Cable Modem Power Light is Out

• If your modem’s power light is off, make sure that the modem is securely plugged in. Your cable modem should be plugged in and powered on 24 hours a day.
• If the modem appears to be securely plugged in and the power indicator light is still out, test the outlet or power strip your modem is using by plugging something else in. You can also plug the modem into another outlet and/or power strip that you know is in good working condition.
• If you have confirmed that your outlet and/or power strip are working and the cable is securely connected to the modem, but the power indicator is still off, a service call may be required. Try power cycling your modem (using the steps below) before you contact Technical Support.

Cable Modem PC Light is Out

• If the light on the back of your computer (next to the Ethernet cable connection) and/or the light labeled PC on your cable modem is out while your computer is on and your operating system loaded, your network card may not be functioning correctly.
• To troubleshoot your cable modem connection, try the following:
• Confirm that the Ethernet cable (which looks like a slightly enlarged phone cord) is securely plugged into both the cable modem and to the back of your computer. If the cable looks securely plugged in and the light on the back of your computer or your cable modem is still out, try unplugging the cable and plugging it back in to the back of the computer first and then the back of the cable modem.
• Try running the diagnostic program that came with your network card, if available.
• Reset your cable modem by pressing the reset button for five seconds or power cycle your modem using the steps below.
• Shut down and then restart your computer.
• If the above still does not solve the problem, please contact Technical Support.

Cable Modem Light is Blinking

• If you are having problems receiving email or browsing the Web, you should verify that your cable Internet modem is successfully communicating with the broadband network.
• Depending upon the type of modem you are using, the cable Internet connection indicator light on the front of your modem may be labeled as Status, Online or Cable.
• If that light is blinking, you may need to reset your cable modem by pressing the Reset button for five seconds. If your modem does not have a Reset button, you will need to power cycle (turn off, then on) your modem (see detailed steps below).
• If, after one or two minutes, the connection light on your cable modem continues to blink, a Technical Service call may be required.

Cable Modem Light is Orange

• If the light on your cable modem labeled Status is orange, you will be unable to connect to the Internet. To re-establish your connection:
  1. Make sure that the coaxial cable is firmly connected to the back of your modem.
  2. If the light is still orange, try to reset your cable modem. To do so, unplug the modem and leave it unplugged for one minute.
  3. Plug the modem back in, and wait one or two minutes for it regain connection.
  4. If the light does not turn green, a Technical Service call may be required.

How to Power Cycle Your Cable Internet Modem

Windows Users

1. Make sure the coaxial cable is plugged securely into your cable modem.
2. Unplug the cable modem from the power source.
3. Leave the modem unplugged for two minutes.
4. Plug the cable modem directly into the wall outlet.
5. Wait for the modem to regain block sync (this usually takes just one minute or less but may take up to five minutes).
6. When your cable modem lights are illuminated and steady, try visiting at least two websites.
7. If the lights on your cable modem are correctly illuminated but you can’t get on the Web, run winipcfg or ipconfig, verify that you have obtained a valid IP address and try release/renew.
8. Try once more to access a couple of websites.
9. If you still can’t connect to the Web, shut down your computer and turn off the power by pushing the On/Off button on your computer.
10. Restore the power and turn your computer back on.
11. Try connecting to the Web again.
12. If your cable lights are properly illuminated and the steps above have failed to restore your connection, you will need to call Technical Support.

Mac Users

1. Make sure the coaxial cable is plugged securely into your cable modem.
2. Unplug the cable modem from the power source.
3. Leave the modem unplugged for two minutes.
4. Shut down the computer and turn it off.
5. Plug the cable modem directly into the wall outlet.
6. Wait for the modem to regain block sync (this usually takes just one minute or less but may take up to five minutes).
7. Check the lights on your modem to ensure the cable lights are steady.
8. If the lights are illuminated, try visiting various Web sites.
9. If your cable lights are properly illuminated and the steps above have failed to restore your connection, you will need to call Technical Support.

The post Cable Internet – Troubleshooting Cable Modem Connection Issues appeared first on EarthLink Blog: Internet services, Web Hosting, IT services.

We’ve previously posted about several of the sections of the Control Center, including how to build your website, how to manage your domain email, how to manage your website, and how to manage your domain.

Today we’ll focus on the Manage Account section of the Control Center. It offers you one centralized place to access essential settings information, account statistics, alerts, available services, important account-related dates, disk usage, and more.

So let’s take a look.

Log in to Web Hosting Control Center

As always, you should start by going to control.earthlink.net and logging in with your Web Hosting domain name, username, and password. (If you have multiple domain names, you can access them all by using your primary domain information.)

Then, simply click the Account tab at the top of your screen to go to the Manage Account section of your Control Center.

Manage Account Tab

If you have more than one domain name, the first thing you’ll want to do is use the Show & Manage menu to select the domain you want to manage.

Client Settings 

Click the plus sign (+) next to FTP Settings, Mail Settings or FTP Dropbox Settings to verify these account-related settings. You’ll need the FTP setting if you are going to FTP files to your website (rather than only using our built-in Site Builder to control your website). Use the Mail Settings if you want to set up an email client to access your domain name email or use our Web Mail for Web Hosting.

Account Statistics

This section gives you a quick look at a few of your most important stats:

1. Disk Usage: see how much webspace you are currently using and what the limit of your web hosting plan is.
2. FTP Users: Just a reminder of how many people have FTP access to your domain.
3. Bandwidth: Similar to Disk Usage, it’s a snapshot of how much bandwidth (also called web transfer) you’ve used this month and your monthly Web Hosting account limit.

Assistants Manager

Click the Assistants Manager icon if you want to add users to your web hosting account and assign them specific privileges. See our previous post on adding web hosting assistants.

Alerts

It’s a good idea to click into the Alerts page of your Control Center every now and then to see if there are any issues that require your attention. Alerts listed here may be billing issues, system updates, announcements of planned downtime and other important information. Click to open and read any alert you have and then click the X to close the alert. Then choose to Mark as unread, Mark as read or Delete.

My Services

Click the My Services icon to view all available services as well as upcoming billing dates for all your web hosting services. This section gives you a quick look at this information only; if you need to modify any account information or make a payment, click the My EarthLink Account icon instead.

My EarthLink Account

Clicking My EarthLink Account opens a new browser window with our My Account portal, the place to go when you want to make any changes or updates to your Web Hosting account. See our previous post about My Account for more information.

Disk Usage

The Account Statistics section we mentioned above already gave you a quick look at your primary account statistics. Click into Disk Usage if you want a bit more. You’ll get a more detailed look at your available disk space, used disk space, free disk space, available bandwidth, current bandwidth, and email boxes. All stats are in megabytes (MB) except mailboxes, which show current number of boxes and the total allowed for your web hosting plan.

The statistics listed on top of the Disk Usage page are for the current month only. If you want to see how this information compares to other months, use the drop-down menu to select previous months.

The post Managing Your EarthLink Web Hosting Account appeared first on EarthLink Blog: Internet services, Web Hosting, IT services.

Original proposal for the Word Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee.

The Web turned 20 this week, on Tuesday April 30.

It was on that day back in 1993 that Tim Berners-Lee, father of the Web, and CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) made the very first website public.

Though that historic world’s first website went offline long ago, it was recently recreated and is once again live at its original URL. We encourage you to take a look back to the future: http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

No, it’s not much to look at. But it is one of the major milestones in the history of both technology and culture.

Also of historical importance on this anniversary of the Web is Berners-Lee’s original 1989 proposal to CERN to convince them to back his idea for the Web (which at the time he was calling “Mesh”). See the proposal for the Web.

It’s astounding to think: Just 20 years ago there was one lone website. Today there are an estimated 630 million websites, according to CERN.

Also astounding: EarthLink’s 20-year anniversary is just 11 months away in March 2014.

I knew EarthLink was founded in 1994, but it was just this week as the news reports came in about the 20^th anniversary of the Web that it struck me just how close to the very beginnings of the Web EarthLink started.

And we’re still going strong.

From all of us here at EarthLink: Happy Birthday to the World Wide Web!

The post Happy Birthday to the Web – World’s First Website Back Online appeared first on EarthLink Blog: Internet services, Web Hosting, IT services.

We know that web hosting provides a great return on investment.

But we also know that you still may not be ready for web hosting.

So, what about domain email hosting?

For some, getting a domain name to use for email is a smart first step before moving on to creating a website.

A domain email address can be a valuable extension of your personal or business brand, providing a more consistent and professional way to communicate with customers, prospects, partners and vendors.

Wouldn’t it be nicer to be You@YourBusiness.com or CEO@YourCompany.com than something like tcs7114@yahoo.com when you are communicating about your business?

As a potential customer, I know I’d feel better about doing business with someone using a branded domain than a free email service.

Not having a company email domain suggests you don’t really take your business seriously. And if you don’t, why should others?

After all, getting started with domain email is simple and inexpensive. For just $4.95 a month, our Domain with Email service includes:

• 50 email addresses @ your domain name
• Email mailing lists, forwarders and auto-responders
• 1GB of storage per email address
• Easy Web Mail access from any online computer or device
• Built-in spam and virus protection

To learn more, these previous domain-related blog posts may be helpful:

• How to choose the best domain name 
• How to set up your domain email in our Control Center 
• How to configure domain email on your email client or mobile device
• How to use your domain email with Web Mail 

One final word of advice: get your domain name as soon as you can.

There’s a lot of competition for good names. And it would be a shame if you waited too long and then couldn’t get one that works well for your business.

Good luck!

The post Domain Email … What are You Waiting For? appeared first on EarthLink Blog: Internet services, Web Hosting, IT services.

No, it’s not giving you more characters, but it is expanding its scope: into both music and comedy.

Last Thursday saw the launch of Twitter #music, which was officially announced on TV’s Good Morning America.

According to the company’s official blog post announcement, Twitter #music is “a new service that will change the way people find music, based on Twitter.”

The new music service, currently available as on the web at music.twitter.com or as an iOS app for iPhone and iPad (sorry Android users), uses tweets and other engagement metrics to promote the most popular music tracks and emerging artists. It also showcases the music-related Twitter activity of artists and makes it simple to check out artist profiles or tweet songs.

Twitter pulls the tracks from iTunes, Spotify and Rdio. Everybody can listen to song previews; Spotify and Rdio subscribers can sync their accounts to get access to full tracks.

So, why would you want to listen to music on Twitter versus all the other options you have?

Well, you might not. But the unique experience Twitter #music can offer is that it can recommend songs and artists based on your Twitter follower data (artists you follow directly, as well as the artists followed by the people you follow) in the Suggested tab. It can also play music that’s tweeted out by people you follow who use the #NowPlaying hashtag; you can access that music in the #NowPlaying tab.

Check it out and let us know what you think of Twitter #music.

If last week was about Twitter getting its groove on, next week looks like lots of laughs.

Cable TV channel Comedy Central is hosting a five-day comedy festival that will feature both young comics like Amy Schumer and legends like Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, as well as directors Paul Feig and Judd Apatow. And the festival, called #ComedyFest, will take place almost entirely on Twitter.

Jokes will be tweeted with the festival’s #ComedyFest hashtag and clips of comedy routines and panel discussions will be shared on Twitter using the Vine video platform.

#ComedyFest kicks off next Monday, April 29. You can see the full festival line-up on Comedy Central’s Tumblr page.

Be sure to follow @ComedyCentral on Twitter for festival updates.

Let us know what your favorite tweeted jokes are in the comment section below.

And speaking of Twitter, if you’re not already a follower, we encourage you to follow @EarthLink and @EarthLinkBiz on Twitter. Thanks!

The post Twitter Music, Twitter Comedy appeared first on EarthLink Blog: Internet services, Web Hosting, IT services.