"Specialized Industry" Web Design?

A busy few months it has been here at AJT.  We have been launching on average 6 to 8 new projects per month, many being extremely large projects with interactive backend management systems.  Sometimes we get calls or e-mails from prospective customers and they ask "Do you specialize in my industry?".  Our answer is almost always -- NO.  This is because our business model has been built to be a diverse web development and marketing firm to service a wide range of industries.  What we do specialize in is the actual production of a successful web presence.  Does a company that only does websites for, lets say Lawyers for example, produce a better website than a firm like us?  The answer is again -- NO.  Infact if you look carefully at some of the web development companies that only do Lawyer websites or Real Estate websites or Car Dealer websites, you will quickly find that all of their "designs" look almost identical, very cookie-cutter.  Some potential customers think that its best to work with a firm that only does websites in their "field", and though we do not talk them out of their personal feelings, we do bring to their attention that it is not necessary to know the in's and out's of a particular industry to create a successful website.  We do have extensive discussions to learn what we NEED TO KNOW about a certain industry when it comes to web development, but it is not required for a web design firm to know every real estate law (for example) to produce a high quality, effective website for a Real Estate Agent.

 

One of our Clients, Condo Hotel Center is a prime example.  They initially hired a firm that specialized in real estate web design.  The website was up for about 2 years and was next to useless.  Condo Hotel Center approached AJT for a total re-vamp in 2004.  The site has now been up for 2 years and receives over 200,000 new visitors per month and ranks #1 on all of the major search engines for almost every keyword related to their industry.  Infact their website is so busy, we had to sell them their very own web server just to handle the traffic. They now look back and laugh at how they made their first decision - thinking a "real estate web design company" would be the best fit - instead they ended up with a cookie cutter template seen on hundreds (or thousands) of other websites, no search engine rankings and no customer support.  That all changed the day they hired AJT.

 

We enjoy our diversified portfolio.  Next to existing customer referrals, our online portfolio (www.ajtdesign.com/portfolio.html) is our main selling tool.  Highly effective, custom web presences that exceeds our Clients expectations are what the AJT team strives to produce on each and every project.  We enjoy the "pat on the back" when the job is over.  A nice note thanking our team of designers and programmers is always a great moral booster and keeps our team on the up - always wanting better.

Be Careful with E-Mail Attachments

Just a few days ago we had a customer wrote in to our support department. The customer had received an email from "admin@" their domain name and had an attachment. Unfortunately the customer hasn't been keeping up with the latest trends in spammers that attempt to forge their emails (also called spoofing - see previous blog entry here: http://ajtdesign.com/blog/2006/09/e-mail-spoofing-huge-nuisance.html). What this email contained was an attachment, which the Client opened and his computer was immediately infected by a worm which began using his computer as a "spam relay" meaning his computer was turned into a virtual spam machine. Unfortunately we are unable to assist with removing virus's from a customer's computer - not just because "that isn't our job", but because we are not "computer technicians" and honestly do not know how to fix issues like this. A call to the Geek Squad was in order. (It's a common misconception that we are computer techs - when that is far from the truth. Supporting web sites, web servers and e-mail hosting is very different than fixing a computer.)

So to make a long story short, never open an attachment from something that appears from your own domain name unless you know who sent it. If it looks fishy - it probably is. Also, just know that AJT will never send an attachment with any of our announcements to our Client base so should you ever get anything that doesn't have our company logo, physical address, phone numbers, etc. then dont open it. Granted most computers would have immediately deleted this email upon download from the server, this particular customer was using an out-dated version of McAffee. Our entire company uses Norton Internet Security and we keep our virus definitions up to date - so really, if something like that were to come in to us, our Norton would get it before we could even have made the mistake of opening it. By following these two simple rules you can rest assured that you will keep your computer virus free!

If you are interested in a third line of defense that will intercept Viruses before they even make it to your computer, we recommend a spam filtering service that works as a middle man not only blocking 98% of all spam, but also blocking 100% (guaranteed) of viruses. Check out our Web Hosting section for more information: http://www.ajthomas.net/services/hosting.html.

The Hosting Industry's Secrets

The web hosting industry has a several dirty little secrets that we think you should be aware of. We feel you deserve to be able to make an educated choice among hosting companies. Most often, the average shopper will compare the features of one hosting company against another. And the winner is often the company with the biggest numbers at the lowest price. The loser in this situation is most often the customer.

Mistake: Buying by the numbers
The most common mistake people make when selecting a hosting company is that they don't go any further than to compare the features offered by the prospective hosting services. Bigger is most definitely not always better and neither is cheaper. We're going to show you the right way to compare hosts, the secret gambles hosts make, the mistakes people make when buying hosting services, and some of the marketing tricks hosts use to attract clients.

The Right Way To Shop For A Hosting Company - The first step is to determine your needs not what features are being offered. This way you can avoid overbuying and falling into the marketing hype that we hosting companies put in your path. Next try to determine what your future needs will be just in case you’re short and long-term dreams for your web site come true. This way you will be able to determine if your perspective hosting company will be able satisfy your future needs.

Industry Secret: Overselling The Server
Here's some of the secrets that you probably wouldn't know unless you owned a hosting company. Most clients don't use anywhere close to the amount of disk space and bandwidth allocated to their account. Most of the clients on our servers use less than 100 Megabytes of disk space (sometimes more depending on the amount of active email users). To capitalize on this fact, hosting companies offer packages with 1000, 2000 or 3000 megabytes of disk space in spite of the fact that if they ever sold the amount of space they're offering they'd need so many servers that they'd never make a profit. This seldom happens and is a good gamble.

Additionally the $10 dollar hosting company has to compensate for the expense of running a secure web hosting network. They do this by either cutting corners on their NOC or servers and/or pack 700-800 (or more) domains on a single web server! Wow - talk about server overload. Can you say.....downtime? AJT runs, an average, just 200 domains per server. Our track record shows that we hold true to our 99.98% uptime guarantee. In keeping the client base low "per server" it keeps the loads on the server to a minimum. What causes server lock-up, overload or downtime is when servers get overloaded. We monitor each web server like a hawk - if a load reaches a specified threshold, alarms immediately go off in our office and everyone on staff gets an SMS message to their cell phone in which the server load is immediately investigated by our team and action is taken if required.

When it comes to web hosting, the old saying, "You get what you pay for!" is absolutely true! We can provide you with hundreds of testimonials from happy AJT clients that moved to us, either from local competitors that "try" to run a small rack out of their office using a DSL line or from the "budget" $10 dollar hosting companies. Just take a look at our online portfolio - Click Here - we host almost every website you see listed on this page. Monitor these websites - you will see nothing but uptime and fast loading pages.

Industry Secret: The Bandwidth Lie
Please indulge me as I tell you another metaphorical story. Think of the data lines coming out of a server as a highway of data and the amount of traffic lanes being the bandwidth capacity to carry your data to the Internet. With that in mind, ask yourself if you want to share the highway with a convoy of trucks during rush our. Or worse, what if the highway for all the traffic coming and going from Los Angeles had only two lanes? Bandwidth is the amount of data on the network coming in and going out of a server. Many hosting companies tell you that you can have unlimited bandwidth knowing full well that they have a very limited amount of bandwidth to offer. Frankly, nothing is unlimited.

We have an extremely fast and broad connection to the internet backbone using three large communications providers. Our hosting packages offer generous, yet realistic amount of bandwidth for our clients. For clients who need more than their allotted share of bandwidth we provide it on an as needed basis.

Unlike many hosts who have one contact with the Internet backbone, we have three redundant connections using three different communications providers. Many hosts rely on only one connection (such as a Sprint DSL line or a FDN T1 connection). If that one should fail, you’re down until it’s repaired. It should be pointed out that hosting companies rely on phone companies to provide the backbone connection. How long did it take the last time you wanted your phone company to repair anything? With redundancy to fall back on, we’re up and running all the time even if one or two of connections should go down. Knowing the above information, where do you want your web site?

Industry Secret: Service and Technical Support
There's another gamble played by many hosting companies that if odds weren't in their favor they would be out of business. That gamble is that when people are reviewing their services they never bother to check into and test the support department. All too often it is after they sign up when they send in their first support email or first call to tech support that they realize what they’ve bought into.

How to test the service before you buy - It's really not possible for any company to answer the phone with a live person every time you call, but you should never get a busy signal or no answer. Leave a message and wait. You should expect an answer within a reasonable amount of time. Depending on the time of the call you should get a reply within hours if not minutes. The same applies to email requests for support. How long does it take to get a reply? Even if the answer is that the tech has to do a little research to find the answer. Just so you're not left hanging.

Try playing “Test the tech.” You might ask a question that leaves an open end for them to expound on. Something a little out of the realm of a tech support persons job. The question, "Can you tell me about your least expensive hosting package?" would be fine for a sales person but not a tech, which is exactly why you should ask. If the reply comes with a short reply or a link to a page on their site this might be a red flag. It is indicative of busy techs, not concerned about actually helping, only getting out quick replies. They should take the initiative to take advantage of this request as a marketing opportunity. You've giving them a golden opportunity to try to close a sale. You're a fish nibbling the hook; do they try to reel you in? Do the techs care? If they don't take the initiative now, what will it be like when you call for support? We offer our clients a private phone number, interactive Flash tutorials and 24 hour support via our support portal - www.ajtsupport.com

Additionally, each and every web hosting account, no matter how big or small, is assigned an Account Manager. This is something that NO other web hosting company does for their hosting clients (unless, of course, they are spending hundreds per month). We believe you should have a contact to talk to about anything related to your account. Your Account Manager will oversee your account on a day by day basis, answer any questions you have and assist with upgrades or suggestions. We host Clients on our servers from large multinational Corporate Law Firms to City/County Government Agencies to Real Estate Agents and hundreds of other industries across the board.

Want to switch but don't know how? NO PROBLEM! In most cases our team will handle the migration of your website at no additional cost to you. Just provide us with the necessary information and let our technicians handle the "dirty work". In all cases, downtime is not necessary. A complete "mirror" of your website is made on the AJT network, at which time the DNS is changed ensuring zero downtime for your website and e-mail services. Rest assured, our team has the art of migrating Clients down to a perfect science.

Industry Secret: The NOC
Servers are fancy computers that are left on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They don't often get rebooted (unlike my home computer). They are only part of the infrastructure that serves up data to those who wish to view your web site. Hopefully, they're kept safe in and industrial strength and secure Network Operations Center (NOC).

The environment for the server on which your web site resides plays a key roll in the reliability and security of your data. Many hosts see nothing wrong with renting office space, or worse, their basement, to house their servers. They are getting by on a shoestring and your data is as vulnerable as the next lightning bolt, power outage, burglar, angry competitor, or curious child. You never really know who's manning the server. Housing a server in a "standard office" is something we couldn't even fathom. Being in a multi-million dollar NOC might be more expensive for us - but in the long run, it works in our favor as well as our Clients. Top notch NOC = No Downtime/Fast Connections means our Clients stay happy. When our Clients are happy - they stay with us as well as refer us new business. Pinching pennies is something we save for paperclips and envelopes. We pay top dollar when it comes to our hosting infrastructure and this business model has proven to be successful.

We have two strategic locations that house the AJT servers. Several servers are at our Baltimore Maryland NOC and the others are at our Dallas Texas NOC. Both Network Operation Centers house other clients such as Motorola, Appriver, Delta Airlines, The Miller Company, Nikon, Bluetooth and many other big names. We believe in investing in the BEST for our servers and location. We have three autonomous locations linked together by an encrypted digital connection. One for the office and technical support staff and the other two houses the servers and staff of network experts who man the NOC's. More information about our network: www.ajtdesign.com/services/hostingnetwork.html. The infrastructure of the multi-million dollar NOC includes the building security, uninterruptible power back up and generators, network, communications lines, routers, air conditioning, spare servers and other supporting equipment. The NOC is alive with activity 24 hours a day operating and maintaining the integrity of your web site as well as thousands of other clients. The NOC is not open to the public. Admittance requires an ID or an escort. Other hosting companies would be challenged to boast of such a facility.

Industry Secret: Telling the Truth
AJT makes every effort to be honest and forthright with our clients. We want you to make educated decisions based on your needs, not our marketing. We’re here to help you find the best solution for your needs. We find that honesty and integrity is our best marketing tool.

If you have any questions about AJT's Web Hosting services, please visit us online at www.ajtdesign.com/services/hosting.html. Please be sure to watch our "Hosting Introduction" video. Additionally, if you would like to schedule a live demo with an Account Manager, we invite you to contact our team, toll-free at 1-877-258-3746.

New Internet Explorer - Version 7

The new Internet Explorer version 7 hit the market a few months ago and is still in "Beta testing" mode. The AJT team, including all of our managers, designers, programmers and technical support team members have been experimenting with the new version of Internet Explorer.

There are many great features to the new version, and everyone here at AJT who is using IE v.7 is really enjoying it. One of our personal favorite new options is how new windows are opened. The new IE uses a "tab" system that basically opens new windows within a single IE window. No more 20 IE windows for the hefty surfers - all of your windows are nice and organized in one Explorer window.

Another neat feature is the zooming tool - zoom in on any part of a website, increase the size, decrease - whatever best fits your screen size (and eyes).

As of today, we have only found one little bug with IE v.7 which is pretty amazing considering it is still in its "Beta" release stage. The issue we found probably would never be picked up by your average surfer - yet we did report it to the Microsoft development team. We will post more comments as we test and continue to use our new favorite browser.

If you are interested in trying the brand new version of Internet Explorer, simply visit the Microsoft Download center online at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie to download absolutely free.

Another great browser platform that is growing rapidly among Internet users is Firefox. We have been enjoying this browser for about a year now and Firefox (now owned by Google) is just one of many free items that Google now offers. Check out Firefox and download for free - http://www.mozilla.com/firefox.

Happy Surfing!

E-mail Spoofing - A Huge Nuisance!

Several times a week, we get support tickets asking about "E-mail Spoofing" because they are receiving bounce notices for emails they surely did not send. So we decided to post some details about e-mail spoofing on our blog to help explain.

WHAT IS EMAIL SPOOFING? E-mail spoofing is the forgery of an e-mail header so that the message appears to have originated from someone or somewhere other than the actual source. Distributors of spam often use spoofing in an attempt to get recipients to open, and possibly even respond to, their solicitations. Spoofing can be used legitimately. Classic examples of senders who might prefer to disguise the source of the e-mail include a sender reporting mistreatment by a spouse to a welfare agency or a "whistle-blower" who fears retaliation. However, spoofing anyone other than yourself is illegal in some jurisdictions.

E-mail spoofing is possible because Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), the main protocol used in sending e-mail, does not include an authentication mechanism. Although an SMTP service extension (specified in IETF RFC 2554) allows an SMTP client to negotiate a security level with a mail server, this precaution is not often taken. If the precaution is not taken, anyone with the requisite knowledge can connect to the server and use it to send messages. To send spoofed e-mail, senders insert commands in headers that will alter message information. It is possible to send a message that appears to be from anyone, anywhere, saying whatever the sender wants it to say. Thus, someone could send spoofed e-mail that appears to be from you with a message that you didn't write.

Although most spoofed e-mail falls into the "nuisance" category and requires little action other than deletion, the more malicious varieties can cause serious problems and security risks. For example, spoofed e-mail may purport to be from someone in a position of authority, asking for sensitive data, such as passwords, credit card numbers, or other personal information -- any of which can be used for a variety of criminal purposes. The Bank of America, eBay, and Wells Fargo are among the companies recently spoofed in mass spam mailings. One type of e-mail spoofing, self-sending spam, involves messages that appear to be both to and from the recipient.

The "Spam Button" on AOL

From the AJT Abuse Department

On a daily basis we receive numerous spam complaints against many of our clients. In researching the issue we found that AJT's clients are NOT the ones (purposely) sending the spam. The bad news however is that they are "indirectly" sending the spam. Interested? Read on...

Upon investigating this issue we generally find that the root cause of the problem resides in that, one or more email accounts in AJT's clients mail manager were configured to forward mail to AOL and/other networks email address (es). As normal mail is forwarded to AOL and/or other networks, spam of course, is also being forwarded. These clients then receive the spam from their own account in our network at --let's say -- their AOL account and then they proceed to click the "Report as Spam" button in his/her AOL email client software to thus report the spam. In essence these clients are self-reporting.

As a result of the complaints generated from our client's domain AOL could temporarily block AJT's server IP and/or a particular domain. To stop this blockage from taking place and to thus stop further abuse. What can you do?

Three possibilities.

1. Stop reporting the spam with AOL and thus stop self-reporting - simply delete the email. This is the ideal alternative since its hard to know what comes from your domain and forwarded to AOL and what comes directly to your AOL account - see #3 for another option if you insist on reporting.

2. Find a different alternative to your email forwarding (i.e. gmail, yahoo or hotmail accounts). This is also a really good alternative.

3. If you insist on forwarding mail to your AOL account (not a problem) and you insist on reporting spam (problem) you will want to analyze the full headers of each and every spam email received prior to reporting the spam (highly unlikely that you would want to do this) to make sure that the email is not one that was forwarded from your account with us to your AOL email account. Any references to your domain name or our server name will tell you that it came from your domain.

We would be very appreciative if you would share this information with all email users on your account that might forward email to their personal AOL accounts. You will save yourself (and the AJT abuse team) a lot of hassle.

Be Careful With Autoresponders

From the AJT Abuse Department

Spammers use a very effective technique. That is known as "domain name hijacking". They also hijack email addresses and even server names. They do this through the use of spambot and spider software that works 24/7/365 doing the work of collecting information for them. Once obtain they couple the hijacked domain name with a bogus user and now in most instance with legit user names such as "info@", "admin@", "postmaster@", etc. They write this address in the "From" line of the email headers and then of course, write the specific email address in the "To" line they want to send their spam to. They send the mail, millions of them. All the emails that bounce due to filters created by the recipient (email address in the "To" line) will bounce back to the email address in the "From" line which in this case is the innocent bystander's email address that was hijacked.

If this email address is not correct or non-existent in the specific account they it will end up in the "DEFAULT" inbox of your client's account. If you have this account configured to "REJECT MAIL AND SEND AUTORESPONDER" then this auto-responder will most likely reach the other network's spam traps and/or will get caught up in a loop thus generating spam complaints which ultimately end up in server IP blockage. It is very important that you read the following articles. Educating e-mail users will ensure a smooth running operation with minimal interruptions and inconveniences.

Why are auto responders bad? http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/329.html

There is a link that has an article on this topic that may offer some insight and a little help. Please read carefully: http://news.spamcop.net/pipermail/spamcop-help/2002-July/007903.html

If you have any questions or comments about this information, please contact the AJT Support Team online at www.ajtdesign.com/customer-support.html.

Welcome!

Welcome to the AJT Blog! This Blog is going to be a place where the AJT team members will post articles and comments about various aspects of the ever changing Internet world. As we get our Blog setup completely, it will be full of great information, articles by the AJT team, resources and links. We are excited to enter the world of Blogging...