It’s set to get prime time attention this weekend thanks to a television spot from Go Daddy expected to air during the Super Bowl. And on Friday, web hosting provider, WestHost announced it would aggressively advertise the TLD.

In a reference to larger web hosts including Go Daddy, WestHost Director of Marketing stated, “Major domain registrars are spending millions of dollars on ad campaigns intended to drown out competition for the domain extension but our new ‘.CO’ price discount is intended to open up opportunities for customers looking for an affordable alternative.”

With a promotion of the TLD, the web hosting provider is offering registration of .CO domains for $9.49. Anderson also referred to his company’s promotion as “more cost-effective” than Go Daddy’s.

The .CO domain, which is primarily recognized as a TLD for advertising businesses also doubles as the ccTLD for the South American country of Columbia. .CO for international businesses became available  in 2010.

In its press release discussing the company’s promotion of .CO, WestHost cited a report from the New York Times showing a registration rate of 600 thousand domains using the TLD thus far.

WestHost’s promotion of .CO is set to run for a limited time. Aside from web hosting, WestHost’s services include cloud, domain registration, reseller hosting and dedicated servers. For more information regarding the company, visit: http://www.westhost.com/

VPS hosting accounts from AvaHost.Net provide the full root-access to the virtual server of the customer. Due to this the user has access to the advanced options. The installation of additional software, modules and services is available also.

The updated VPS account will provide user with 2.4 Ghz CPU power, 1024 Mb RAM, 80 Gb of disc storage, 1.200 Gb of traffic and up to 3 IP-addresses.

VPS Hosting is usually used for the traffic-intensive Web sites. It is also perfect for the Web sites which require a more powerful configuration. With the full root access it is easy to manage the server. VPS Hosting can be used for a wide variety of purposes, including reselling, Java applications, C/C++ and other.

Daniel Hart, the Head of AvaHost Business Development, said that VPS web hosting is a good solution for the Web sites with a lot of traffic, as well as for the customers who need a flexible server configuration, which is not available in the shared hosting. “VPS hosting is a perfect alternative to the dedicated server, but it comes with better price. AvaHost regularly upgrades the servers. We offer our customers more options for the same price.”

About AvaHost:

Since 2001, AvaHost has been established in the web hosting industry by providing reliable service and support, and the best web hosting solutions, for personal Web sites and small-to-medium sized businesses.

For the last years AvaHost received the following prestigious awards from the well-known hosting business Web sites: #1 Fastest Growing Company, Reseller Hosting of the Month, #1 Budget Hosting, etc.

Namecheap has donated over $64,000 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation to help the organization fight for our digital rights. Namecheap also blacked out its front page on January 18th, urging US customers to petition their government officials to ask them to shelve both acts in the House and in the Senate.

“Namecheap is proud to stand behind our intellectual freedoms on the Internet,” Namecheap CEO Richard Kirkendall said. “We continue to support the fight against overbroad, ill-considered legislation. We strive to support the open web and build awareness around issues that may curb the liberties that serve as the foundation of the Internet.”

In the last week of December alone, Namecheap’s stance against all overbroad, ill-considered legislation and keep the web open and free resulted in over 80,000 inbound domain name transfers in addition to thousands of new hosting customers and SSL certificate purchases. In early January, the Drupal Association joined the Namecheap family, and Namecheap is pleased to welcome them.

“The Drupal Association is pleased to switch the Drupal.org and Drupal Association SSL certificates from GoDaddy. We received new certificates from Namecheap because we value their commitment to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and their stance against SOPA and their desire to keeping an open web,” said Jacob Redding, Executive Director of the Drupal Association, which hosts DrupalCon. “It is important for our organization to align with others who share our community’s values. With almost 7 million unique visitors a month, a thriving developer community and thousands of registrations a year to one of the largest open source tech conferences, DrupalCon, our partners are hugely important to our project’s success.”

Namecheap is pleased to continue its relationship with the Drupal Association and urges everyone to continue standing against SOPA and PIPA to keep the web open and free.

About Namecheap

Namecheap is a Los Angeles-based ICANN accredited domain registrar founded in 2000 by CEO Richard Kirkendall. With over 500,000 clients and millions of domain names under management, Namecheap is one of the top domain registrars in the world and also offers web hosting services. Find out more by visiting us at http://www.namecheap.com.

About The Drupal Association

The Drupal Association is dedicated to helping the open-source Drupal CMS project flourish. Powering millions of websites and software applications, from personal blogs to the largest enterprise applications, Drupal is free, flexible, and extremely robust. It is constantly being improved by a community of hundreds of thousands of passionate people from all over the world. The Drupal Association provides the support, infrastructure and funding to grow the Drupal Community and help with online collaboration at http://drupal.org. The Drupal Association hosts and supports conferences and camps around the world including DrupalCon Denver to be held March 19-23, 2012. Funds to support these programs come from memberships, sponsorships and donations. To learn more about the Drupal Association, the Drupal Project, and how to get involved and contribute, visit https://association.drupal.org/.

-This month, web hosting provider CaroNet is offering a discount on its colocation services with a monthly rate of $995. The offering includes bandwidth amounting to 100 Mbps, a full rack (42U), and 20 amps of 110v power. Further details at Caro.Net.

-Web hosting provider WestHost recently announced that it is offering a discounted price of $9.49 on its .CO domains for a limited time. Information here (prweb.com).

-Network Solutions is offering domain registration on .COM, .ORG, .BIZ, .NET, .NAME, and .US TLDs with the use of a promo code. Further details can be found on the company’s Facebook page. The promotion ends at the end of this month.

-Web hosting provider Namecheap is awarding domains hourly with a trivia contest the company is holding through its Twitter page. Details here (Namecheap.com)

-Website speed optimizing company Yottaa is taking a unique approach to celebrating the Super Bowl weekend. They’re holding #BurstBowl 2012 where they track website speeds belonging to top Super Bowl advertisers. Details here (yottaa.com).

iomart Group’s stance follows the announcement today (2^nd February 2012) by the Science and Technology Select Committee, that the UK Government should consider imposing safety standards on software sold  if self-regulation isn’t adopted by the IT industry.

iomart’s web security software Netintelligence, which provides internet protection for 100,000s of school children and families in the UK, is the first and only such software to carry the BSI Kitemark for Child Online Safety. Netintelligence was awarded the Kitemark by Children and Families Minister Tim Loughton in January 2011. So far, no other UK software company has taken up the accreditation and the government has not supported the Kitemark publicly.

The BSI Kitemark for Child Online Safety is a certification scheme for internet website filtering software produced by software manufacturers. These products can be bought as stand-alone products from computer retailers or come as part of an operating system or ISP package. The software’s ease of use, reliability, and performance must meet the scheme’s strict criteria.

Angus MacSween, CEO of iomart Group plc, said: “Back in 2007, iomart along with the British Standards Institute, OFCOM, the Home Office, several major UK child safety organisations and other private sector companies spent a considerable amount of time working on the specifications required for PAS 74 (Access control systems for the protection of children online), which ultimately became the BSI Kitemark for Online Child Safety.

Rather than yet another clarion call for more action, the UK Government could make a bold stance now. It should insist that all public sector organisations with a duty of care towards protecting children online, for example schools and local authorities, should only purchase products that have been awarded the Kitemark. That way other commercial companies will have to follow the lead of Netintelligence and iomart to provide software that the public can trust.”

iomart Group plc is ranked as one of the top web hosting companies in the world by HostReview and is Scottish Digital IT Company of the Year 2011. Bill Strain was recently named IT Leader of the Year 2011 by IT Pro.

For more information on iomart Group plc, please visit: http://www.iomart.com/

The company detected a breach effecting customer data pertaining to around 40 thousand of its customers. Thankfully the issue didn’t expose financial data but was limited to phone numbers and email addresses.

It’s a breach that Blacknight emphasized caused “miminal damage” in a press release headline put out by the company.

“We take our responsibilities to our customers very seriously and have already been in touch with the Data Protection Commissioner and have informed them of the breach,” stated Blacknight employee Michele Neylon when discussing the matter today.

Neylon continued, “Blacknight is a secure company, however data breaches are a reality that almost every online company must face. We are taking this opportunity to increase our security even further and apologize to our customers for any inconvenience this may cause.”

In the aftermath of the breach, the company is taking further security measures. The Irish-based provider has alerted the Irish Reporting and Information Security Service to the intrusion. It’s also contacted the country’s Office of Data Protection. Along with that, the company is asking that users change their login passwords.

Tuesday’s breach is just the second to affect a web hosting company within the past month. Earlier in January, web hosting provider DreamHost revealed that it had been hit with an attack relying on an exploit.

Blacknight’s hosting services include SharePoint, cloud, Hosted Exchange and Minimus Hosting. Just earlier this week, the company announced that it had added goMobi, a business mobile solution to services by the company.

Included among the updates with Softaculous version 4.0 are bug fixes and updates to the platform’s interface and Developer API.

Discussing the issue in a press release, Softaculous CEO Pulkit Gupta stated, “We have been working really hard to make Softaculous, Webuzo and AMPPS the best applications in their respective categories.”

Gupta also said Softaculous had experienced “tremendous growth in the usage of AMPPS.”

Meanwhile, the company’s latest version of AMPPS (release 1.5) includes updated PHP version 5.3.9. Softaculous is expected to expected to release new products within the near future, as hinted by company CEO Pulkit Gupta.

Since its launch, Softaculous has proven popular within the web hosting community due to its easy integration with some of the most used control panels including cPanel. Popular apps provided for within the Softaculous platform include Joomla, Drupal and WordPress which are among almost 260 scripts offered.

“By joining the Protected by Prolexic program, businesses will be sending a strong, clear message to customers, competitors, and even cyber attackers that they are taking the threat of DDoS attacks seriously enough to secure the services of the gold standard in DDoS mitigation,” said Paul Sop, chief technology officer at Prolexic. “When they see this logo, online customers will have added peace of mind that a DDoS attack will not bring down sites they rely on for shopping, membership services, entertainment, and other online activities.”

The Protected by Prolexic logo is a registered trademark that belongs exclusively to Prolexic. To prevent unauthorized duplication and misuse of the logo, Prolexic will provide each customer a unique HTML code that hyperlinks to a numbered logo hosted by Prolexic.

“The Prolexic name is known all over the world as the leader in DDoS mitigation and many of the businesses we serve already use our recognized reputation as a selling point to their customers,” Sop said. “Displaying the Protected by Prolexic logo will give these businesses an instant competitive advantage through association with the ‘gold standard’ for DDoS mitigation.”

“We have been proactive and added premium DDoS attack protection from Prolexic and that has increased the value of our web hosting service,” said Lisa Retief, Vice President of Engineering at Yola (http://www.yola.com), a global web site builder and hosting service serving small businesses. “Prolexic’s protection provides peace of mind to Yola and our customers from around the world.”

Certain terms and conditions surrounding the use of the Protected by Prolexic logo apply. Businesses that are interested in participating in the Protected by Prolexic program can learn more by logging on to http://www.prolexic.com/protected or by contacting protected(at)prolexic(dot)com

About Prolexic

Prolexic is the world’s largest, most trusted Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) mitigation provider. Able to absorb the largest and most complex attacks ever launched, Prolexic restores mission critical Internet facing infrastructures for global enterprises and government agencies within minutes. Six of the world’s ten largest banks and the leading companies in e-Commerce, payment processing, travel/hospitality, gaming and other at-risk industries rely on Prolexic to protect their businesses. Founded in 2003 as the world’s first “in the cloud” DDoS mitigation platform, Prolexic is headquartered in Hollywood, Florida and has scrubbing centers located in the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit http://www.prolexic.com.

“We are excited to welcome ATI to Phoenix NAP and look forward to working with them to fulfill their disaster recovery needs,” said Ian McClarty, president of Phoenix NAP. “Working with a fellow Arizona-based company gives Phoenix NAP great pleasure, as we pride ourselves on working with local businesses. Additionally, residing in one of the safest-from-natural-disaster cities in the United States, our data center is an ideal location for not only disaster recovery services, but primary services as well.”

With the likelihood of environmental catastrophes like tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes and major flooding minimal to non-existent in the Phoenix metro area, Phoenix NAP continues to be a prime location for DR.

“ATI is a fast-growing company and enhancing our disaster recovery capabilities to include near real-time failover capability is an important step forward. Phoenix NAP provides a level of security, robust infrastructure and broad selection of data carriers that met all our requirements and made them an obvious choice,” said Brandon Smith, Information Technology Director. “ATI takes great pride in providing a high level of availability and data security to our clients. Phoenix NAP staff gave us great confidence they will be an excellent partner in maintaining those standards in the future.”

Phoenix NAP is a PCI DSS Validated Service Provider and a SAS 70 Type II certified facility.

About Phoenix NAP

Phoenix NAP, a full service data center, premier infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) provider and primary network access point (NAP) for the Phoenix, AZ, metro region leads the path for technology systems and solutions through its innovation and vastly redundant data center systems. Our highly personalized approach ensures that all of your requirements are met. Whether it’s high-density colocation, flexible storage, physical servers or cloud hosting services, our enterprise-grade facility and certified NOC technicians supply IT solutions to fit your every need. For more information, visit the company’s website at http://www.phoenixnap.com.

About Assessment Technology Incorporated

Assessment Technology Incorporated, through Galileo K-12 Online, provides a fully integrated, standards-based instructional improvement system that combines the strength of research and the power of innovation to assist educators in promoting student mastery of local and state standards. As a leader in online testing, Galileo’s patented technology offers a comprehensive assessment system including instruments documenting instructional effectiveness. Galileo reporting tools coupled with curriculum and instructional dialog tools make it possible to continuously link information about student learning and instructional planning and teaching to promote standards mastery. ATI offers innovative technology that addresses an educational system’s goals when implementing standards-based strategies to help raise student achievement. For more information, call 1.877.442.5453 or visit http://www.ati-online.com.

The solution, called Flex Images functions by allowing users to capture images of the cloud. Users can then store them in order to deploy them across different servers including cloud and dedicatd.

Discussing the matter in a press release, SoftLayer Chief Marketing Officer Simon West stated, “Flex Images provide our customers with unprecedented flexibility and scalability.”

“The ability to provision and automate server images seamlessly between cloud and dedicated computing environments empowers users to easily build out their IT environments while being able to quickly meet changing requirements,” West continued.

The solution currently remains in beta and is available to SoftLayer customers.

In October of last year, the company revealed an investment plan of $75 million dollars in its European operations including cities such as London and Amsterdam.

As a cloud provider, SoftLayer’s solutions pertain to areas such as virtualization, disaster recovery, monitoring, managed hosting and more. For more information on the matter, visit: http://www.softlayer.com/flexImageBeta