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Welcome to
the July 2003 issue of pair Networks' Insider Newsletter.
Our newsletter is available to everyone. Subscribers
need not be customers of pair Networks.
Manage your subscription here: http://insider.pair.com/
Contact us at insider@pair.com.
We enjoy reading your comments and suggestions. |
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JULY 2003 TABLE OF CONTENTS
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TRIPLE Prepayment
Discounts for New Accounts
During the month of July 2003 only, all NEW accounts will
receive triple prepayment discounts, as shown:
3 months prepaid - 6% discount (normally 2%)
6 months prepaid - 12% discount (normally 4%)
12 months prepaid - 24% discount (normally 8%)
This special does not apply to existing accounts, over-usage
fees, domain name registrar fees, or any services added after
an account has been created.
Special Offers Web Page -- http://www.pair.com/pair/specials/
pair Networks Sign-Up System -- http://signup.pair.com/
FREE Setup for Webmaster and Above
Sign-up or upgrade to the Webmaster, or higher account level,
and pay no setup fees during July 2003. New sign-ups will
also have their setup fees waived on their first virtual
or vanity domain name (purchased during the sign-up process).
This special does not apply to over-usage fees, domain name
registrar fees, or any services added after an account has
been created.
Special Offers Web Page -- http://www.pair.com/pair/specials/
pair Networks Sign-Up System -- http://signup.pair.com/
Add Multiple Virtual Domains and
Save
This promotion has become so popular that we have decided
to run it for the rest of the year.
We are offering discounts off of Virtual and Vanity domain
name setup fees, when certain quantities are added through
the Account Control Center during a calendar month.
Add 5 or more during the same month -- get 50% off Setup
Fees
Add 10 or more during the same month -- get 75% off Setup Fees
Add 20 or more during the same month -- get 100% off Setup Fees
Discounts are tabulated during the subsequent month's billing
cycle. Monthly fees remain the same. Contact info@pair.com
for more information.
FREE Setup for Refugees -- Switch
to pair.com
Tired of bad service or dishonesty from your current Web
host? Looking for a better deal or superior uptime?
Switch to pair Networks now and get FREE SETUP on any of
our Web hosting plans -- just put the words "Web hosting
refugee" in the Coupon Code or Comments field when signing
up.
Feel free to tell anyone about our Refugee Special. With
our 30 day money back guarantee, there's nothing to lose.
Special Offers Web Page -- http://www.pair.com/pair/specials/
pair Networks Sign-Up System -- http://signup.pair.com/ |
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Web Site Statistics Packages
pair Networks conducts surveys
of its customers and potential customers on a regular basis.
Everyone who fills out the survey is entered in a monthly drawing
for a free pair Networks mouse pad. The drawing takes place
after each survey ends.
The current survey asks for feedback regarding Web Site
Statistics Packages. Your answers to the survey questions
will help guide the future development and expansion of our
services.
Please provide your suggestions and feedback by taking our
survey:
http://www.pair.com/pair/current/survey.html
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SSI (Server Side Includes) Included With Basic Account
Server Side Includes are now available to all customers
with Basic or higher level accounts. Server Side Includes,
or SSI, nicely integrates small amounts of dynamic content
in to your Web site.
Tutorials are available in the pair Networks Support Forum
and on the Apache Foundation Web site.
http://www.pair.com/pair/support/tutorials/ssi.html
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/howto/ssi.html
European Union Demanding VAT Collection by US Businesses
Nearly a year ago, the European Union (EU) changed their
laws to require the collection of Value Added Tax (VAT) for
digitally downloaded products and services. Until July 1,
2003, this applied only to EU-based businesses. Now, however,
the EU is specifically applying this rule to businesses not
based in the EU.
This means, for example, that the EU expects each Web host
in the United States to charge the VAT to non-business EU-based
customers who use the host's services, even though the US-based
host is outside the EU jurisdiction.
The EU is not seeking to levy any tax on non-EU businesses.
The VAT applies only to EU-based consumers. They do, however,
expect US-based businesses to take on the hassle of identifying
their non-business EU-based customers, charging them VAT,
and remitting the VAT to EU tax authorities. It is unclear
that the EU has any jurisdiction to take this step; certainly
it would be more straightforward for the EU to require its
consumers to pay VAT directly.
These EU tax changes may be protested to the World Trade
Organization by the United States, but it could take years
for any change to result, if such a protest is even lodged.
There are also grassroots protest efforts underway (see sites
linked below).
pair Networks has advised our customers that unless otherwise
notified, we will assume that our EU-based customers are
businesses with their own VAT registrations, and that therefore
no VAT is expected to be collected through pair for our services.
This may or may not change depending on further developments,
but in no case will any EU-based customer be charged without
ample prior notice. We do not specifically endorse any protest
efforts, but feel that these new rules raise serious and
troubling issues for international e-commerce.
Further information about the EU VAT rules, as well as a
protest site, can be found at the following URLs:
http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/2194111
http://www.techworld.com/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=displaynews&NewsID=231
http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2003/0,4814,82602,00.html
http://www.brusselsteaparty.com/
HTML Version of the Insider Newsletter Available
Starting this month, the Insider Newsletter will be available
in HTML and plain text versions. The plain text version will
be sent to all current subscribers by default. If you would
like to receive the HTML version of the newsletter, please
update your settings on this page:
http://insider.pair.com/ |
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pair Networks Donates $25,000 to the Perl Foundation
As part of our ongoing efforts to give back to the open-source
software community, pair Networks has donated $25,000 to
the Perl Foundation. The money is earmarked for development
of the much anticipated Perl 6.
Visit the Perl Foundation's Web site for more information
about Perl programming and development.
http://www.perl-foundation.org/ |
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Moving Away from a Failing Host or Domain Registrar
If you are concerned that your current Web host or domain
name registrar is about to fail, there are some steps you
should take to protect your domain name and data. Make
sure to do everything on this checklist:
A. Go to http://whois.pairnic.com/ -- enter your domain
name -- click continue.
Verify that you, or the organization that you represent,
are listed as the "Registrant." Also, make sure
the you, or the appropriate person in your organization,
can receive e-mail sent to the "Administrative Contact" address.
If this is not the case, contact your domain name registrar
immediately and request that the information be corrected.
This will allow you to easily transfer your domain name
to a stable registrar if your current registrar fails.
B. Back-up all of the data on your Web site.
No matter where you host your Web site, it is really important
that you keep back-ups of all of your Web pages, images,
CGI scripts, multi-media files, databases, and any other
data that only exists online. If your hosting provider
were to fail, you could use your backed-up files to quickly
and easily setup a new Web site at pair Networks, without
having to worry about recovering your data from your old
provider.
C. Log all custom configurations.
If your current hosting account features any custom configurations,
such
as: special DNS records; e-mail forwarding, filtering,
or autoresponders; create an up-to-date list and keep it
in a secure offline location. You will need access to that
list, to recreate your current configuration, if you have
to change hosting providers, or domain name registrars,
in a hurry.
D. Maintain an alternate means of contact.
Typically, most companies won't provide advanced warning
of their imminent failure, they just fail, and leave you
high and dry. For larger, high profile Web sites, it's
a good idea to have a live back-up of your entire site
waiting at another provider. For most sites, that's not
practical. Your only real solution is to keep good back-ups.
Make sure to keep at least one 'off-site' e-mail address
through another e-mail provider. You'll be able to stay
in contact with your customers and have an e-mail address
to use while you are moving your files to a new provider.
Plus, domain registrars like pairNIC offer free e-mail
and Web/URL forwarding -- that can come in handy if you
need to re-direct your e-mail and Web services in a hurry.
The most important point to make is that you should always
be prepared. That can make the difference between a simple
unplanned transition to a new provider, and a hosting or
domain disaster.
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An Introduction
As I am welcomed into the ranks of pair Networks, I am honored
to welcome you to a new column for the Insider Newsletter. In
this article I'll give you an introduction to me, and the future
of this column.
I am Casey West. I've been an active member of the Perl Community
for six years, participating in a myriad of projects, in a
wider myriad of capacities. I work in Perl itself, as a member
of the Perl 5 Porters team. There I specialize in documentation
and the core Perl libraries.
One of the most interesting Perl Community projects I'm involved
in is the beginners project. In April of 2001 I threw down
the gauntlet to the people of Perl. I asked them to take notice
of beginners, to help, to be nice. My essay on Perl.com represents
my views, and the views of many in the Perl Community. Because
so many agreed, the mailing lists have been a wild success.
Read my article here:
http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2001/05/29/tides.html
Now that I am a member of the pair development team, I have
something more to offer Perl beginners. I will write a monthly
column to aid new Perl programmers to write better, more useful
programs. These columns will teach techniques and idioms,
features of the language, program design principles, useful
CPAN modules, and building real applications.
What I consider interesting may not appeal to you. I am excited
about this column because I can help you write better Perl
programs, but you know what you're interested in. Please e-mail
me with your ideas, questions, and problems. Your feedback
is very helpful to me, and will form the direction this column
takes in the future. Send inquiries to insider@pair.com.
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The pair Networks Newsgroups
Since May 25, 1997, pair Networks
has operated a "news server" where our customers
can engage in discussions on a variety of topics. This news
server runs the same software as a Usenet server, and is organized
in the same fashion. You can access it with any NNTP-capable
newsreader program, such as Netscape Communicator, Mozilla,
Forte Agent, or even the dreaded Outlook Express.
The newsgroups available are:
pair.announce
Announcements to our customers about new services and upgrades.
pair.authoring
Discussions about Web design and publishing.
pair.business
Ideas related to running an online business, particularly in conjunction with Web hosting.
pair.community
Anything that's on your mind, as long as it's polite and positive.
pair.db
Discussion of our MySQL database services or other database code.
pair.frontpage
Discussion of the Microsoft FrontPage client and server extensions.
pair.future
Open-ended discussion of future improvements at pair Networks, suggestions, criticisms,
and other Web hosting services.
pair.lists
Discussion of SmartList, pairList, and other mailing list services.
pair.mail
Discussion of how our e-mail delivery system works, including the configuration of mailboxes,
autoresponders, and other recipes.
pair.network
Discussion of network performance issues, routing, and upgrades.
pair.nic
Discussion of our pairNIC domain name registrar service.
pair.notices
A read-only group which mirrors our System Notices page.
pair.quickserve
Discussion of our QuickServe dedicated server program.
pair.test
For testing your newsreader software in case you want to post.
pair.users
The general discussion group; suitable for any issue not better covered by a specific group.
Although the newsgroups are often quiet, they have a strong
following and interesting discussions pop up frequently.
Other customers can be an excellent source for information
on advanced or obscure topics related to your Web hosting
account. There are also over 100,000 messages archived. All
on-topic discussions are welcome in the newsgroups, even
if they are critical of pair Networks services. We know that
honest criticism can be a great way to help us improve our
services.
Detailed instructions for configuring your newsreader program
can be found on this Web page:
http://www.pair.com/pair/support/community/newsgroups.html
Please note that you need to use the login and password
which appears in the welcome message when you login to one
of our servers with Telnet or SSH. Do not use your account
name and password.
We hope to see you posting there soon, even if only to introduce
yourself in pair.community. |
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Now Hosting 148,000+ Web Sites
- We host over 148,000 unique Web sites.
- We have over 14,000 Value-Added and Authorized Resellers.
- We have over 900 Web servers in our custom-built datacenter.
- We have customers from over 150 countries.
- promote.pair.com has served over 650,000,000 banners
since February 2002.
- We host over 20,000 electronic mailing lists.
- Our servers deliver over 400,000,000 hits per day.
- We have over 63 Terabytes of storage on our servers.
- On a typical day, we deliver over 3 Terabytes of data to our
visitors.
- We are deploying Intel and AMD servers at 2200 MHz and above.
- All shared Web servers feature our Shadow Drive Technology.
- We have been online for more than 90 months continuously.
- Our customer base includes a remarkable number of high-profile,
high-volume sites, some of whom have been featured as our
Site of the Week -- http://www.pair.com/pair/current/csotw.html
The 'long list' of advantages is available here:
http://www.pair.com/pair/advantages.html |
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INSIDER RULES FOR REPRINTING |
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Insider Rules for Reprinting
If you would like to redistribute,
reprint, or quote all or part of any pair Networks Insider
Newsletter, please contact insider@pair.com. Redistribution
without prior permission is prohibited.
If you have any questions about reprinting the Insider Newsletter,
please contact us.
insider@pair.com |
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Reseller Information and Discount Rates
Complete details about our Value Added Reseller and Authorized
Reseller Programs can be found in the Reseller Resource Center
at:
http://www.pair.com/resellers/
For any VAR with three or more active Web hosting accounts
or QuickServe dedicated servers, the following discounts
are applied to the monthly fees of all current and new accounts.
The discount is available only at the time of payment, and
only in accordance with the number of current accounts. Prepaid
time is not eligible for retroactive discounts.
| # of User Accounts |
Discount off of Monthly Charges |
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| 3 - 5 |
5% |
| 6 - 8 |
8% |
| 9 - 19 |
10% |
| 20 - 39 |
12% |
| 40 - more |
15% |
The number of accounts includes only accounts that are part
of the merged billing for the VAR (All accounts and services
must be listed under one billing ID).
Contact info@pair.com for more information. |
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Thank
you for taking the time to read the Insider Newsletter.
We wish you continued success!
The Insider
Newsletter Team
insider@pair.com |
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