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By: James Koole on April 15th, 2011
Posted in: Reseller Resources
Tags: Email Service, guides, marketing
Comments: 0

Did you know that OpenSRS Email Service works great with the latest smartphones and other mobile Internet devices? Thanks to the fact that we offer IMAP support standard with all mailboxes, end-users with iPhones, iPads, Android devices and BlackBerries can access their OpenSRS Email Service mailboxes natively on their chosen device.

Mobile Email Configuration Guides

To help your customers get email configured on their device, we’ve put together a collection of mobile email configuration guides for the most popular mobile devices. These are white-label docs with text and screenshots that will walk your customers through the process of getting email setup.

Feel free to download and use them as is, or grab the content and adapt it to your specific domain name with your branding. As with all the documentation and marketing materials we provide, it’s free to use and adapt if you are an OpenSRS Reseller.

Download them here

What do you think?

We’d love to hear your feedback on these guides as well. Is there anything you’d change? Have we missed a popular device? Do you want them in a different format? Drop us a line in the comments and we’ll see what we can do.

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By: James Koole on February 18th, 2011
Posted in: Partners and Resellers
Tags: Hostnet, Meet the Resellers
Comments: 0

Hostnet offers hosting and domain services in the Netherlands

Like many hosting companies, Hostnet started small. But thanks to a continued focus on the needs of its customers and a long-standing commitment to innovative technology and superior customer support, Hostnet has grown to become one of the leading providers of hosting and domain services in the Netherlands.

The company was started in 1998 by a pair of students providing web-design services. Soon, they realized that they needed a more recurring revenue model upon which they could grow their business.

Providing hosting and domain (domeinnaam in dutch) registrations was the natural extension that served the needs both of existing customers and allowed them to expand their customer base.

“Hostnet started out as a small ISP, offering web-design and SEO services to go with them,” says Merijn de Brabander, Business Manager, Hostnet. “It only made sense to add hosting services and domain registrations, and at that point things really took off for the company.”

Hostnet: Hosting is a growing market.

It was about five years ago that Hostnet completely shifted the focus to hosting and business services and they have been growing quickly ever since. The company now boasts nearly 60 employees working out of an office overlooking the IJ river in Amsterdam serving hundreds of thousands of customers who run the gamut from individuals to small and mid-sized businesses.

Hostnet is regarded as a leader in the Dutch hosting space, offering a one-stop shop where customers can get online, create brand awareness and grow their business or personal online presence. Hostnet offers low-cost domains, hosting and other solutions aimed at Small and Medium Business including email, Hosted Exchange and SSL certificates. For Large and Enterprise customers Hostnet offers high performance hosting services like Virtual Private Servers and Dedicated Servers.

Hostnet and OpenSRS Long-time Partnership

Hostnet has been an OpenSRS domain reseller since 2000 and uses OpenSRS to power domain registrations and management for a large part of their domain portfolio with the exception of the larger european domain registrations (Hostnet are themselves a .nl, .eu and .be accredited registrar).

De Brabander says the partnership with OpenSRS has played a key role in the company’s growth.

“Working with OpenSRS for the last ten years has contributed to the improvement our services,” he says. “Also, we were very excited to hear that Thorsten Einig has joined OpenSRS and we look forward to an even closer relationship with OpenSRS.” [editors note: Thorsten Einig joined OpenSRS in October, 2010 as the Managing Director for Europe and is based in Amsterdam].

Hostnet Premium Hosting Support

With a customer base of small and mid-sized businesses, support is an important consideration. Hostnet offers a full helpdesk site with tutorials, FAQs and other resources to help their customers use the hosting an domain services. And they have a full customer support team to provide the enhanced level of customer support that their business base requires.

De Brabander says the company knows providing top-notch support is a must. “We try to stay on top of the customer support by constantly adding easy-to-use features to our website and our hosting and domain services, as well as improving the communications skills of our employees,” he says.

Ensuring the company is stocked with top talent is another way it stays in the lead in a very competitive environment. Hostnet recruits from nearby Delft University of Technology, one of the best engineering and technical schools in the country.

The company’s commitment to its employees starts the day they walk in the door. New employees will find a bicycle waiting for them on their first day–bikes being a common mode of transportation in the Netherlands.

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By: James Koole on February 7th, 2011
Posted in: OpenSRS Services
Tags: goMobi, Publishing Service
Comments: 3

Version 1.3 of goMobi has just been released and is now live for all users of the service.

Included in this update are a number of new features that will be of interest to resellers and end-users, along with a series of bug fixes and backend changes that won’t be visible, but will improve the experience overall.

Here’s the rundown of the changes that will be visible to users:

Better handling of full website transcoding

Currently the “Full Website” feature is hidden in the Control Panel unless a source domain is either provided when provisioning the site, or added via the “Advanced Features” section.

As part of the goMobi v1.3 release, goMobi is making the full website feature visible all of the time to users within the goMobi Control Panel. This allows site owners to enter or change their source domain (the desktop site URL) without having to know to visit the Advanced Feature section.

The site owner also now has the ability to transcode their desktop website and display it in a mobile friendly version for their site visitors. That feature is enabled via a checkbox in the Full Website section of the Control Panel.

Here’s what that feature looks like now:

This “Enable content adaption for mobile phones” check box is checked by default. This means that the desktop site will be transcoded into a mobile friendly version (using dotMobi’s Instant Mobilizer technology, and formatted for the specific device being used to browse the site).

New full website interstitial page

In addition, when site visitors to the goMobi version of the site click on the “Full Website”" feature, an interstitial page is now displayed to offer visitors the choice between a mobile-friendly, transcoded version of the full website, or the standard desktop version:

This gives more options to users on devices with different capabilities. For example, users of larger tablet devices, iPads or even those with Android or iPhones will have the option to see the desktop site as opposed to the mobile version. Visit our own goMobi-powered mobile site to see the new features in action.

Updates to goMobi are automatic

There’s nothing resellers need to do to enable v1.3 for all users. Software updates to the goMobi service are performed by goMobi.

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By: James Koole on February 4th, 2011
Posted in: Announcements, OpenSRS Services
Tags: .CO, ccTLD, Contact Privacy, WHOIS Privacy
Comments: 0

Effective today, it’s now possible to add WHOIS privacy to .CO domains.

At launch WHOIS privacy was not permitted on .CO domain names. Recently that policy was amended to permit the use of WHOIS privacy for .CO registrations.

Included Free

As with all other domain extensions that support the use of WHOIS privacy, there’s no cost to enable our Contact Privacy service on .CO domains through OpenSRS.

Adding Contact Privacy to a .CO domain is done in the same way as all other domain extensions that support it, including via the Reseller Web Interface and using the OpenSRS API. Support for WHOIS Privacy in OpenSRS Storefront will be added shortly.

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By: James Koole on February 3rd, 2011
Posted in: General
Tags:
Comments: 0

Version 1.3 of goMobi has just been released and is now live for all users of the service. Included in this update are a number of new features that will be of interest to resellers and end-users, along with a series of bug fixes and backend changes that won’t be visible, but will improve the experience overall.

Here’s the rundown of the changes that will be visible to users:

Better handling of full website transcoding

Currently the “Full Website” feature is hidden in the Control Panel unless a source domain is either provided when provisioning the site, or added via the “Advanced Features” section.

As part of the goMobi v1.3 release, goMobi is making the full website feature visible all of the time to users within the goMobi Control Panel. This allows site owners to enter or change their source domain (the desktop site URL) without having to know to visit the Advanced Feature section.

The site owner also now has the ability to transcode their desktop website and display it in a mobile friendly version for their site visitors. That feature is enabled via a checkbox in the Full Website section of the Control Panel.

Here’s what that feature looks like now:

This “Enable content” adaption for mobile phones”check box is checked by default. This means that the desktop site will be transcoded into a mobile friendly version (using dotMobi’s Instant Mobilizer technology, and formatted for the specific device being used to browse the site).

New full website interstitial page

In addition, when site visitors to the goMobi version of the site click on the “Full Website”" feature, an interstitial page is now displayed to offer visitors the choice between a mobile-friendly, transcoded version of the full website, or the standard desktop version:

This gives more options to users on devices with different capabilities. For example, users of larger tablet devices, iPads or even those with Android or iPhones will have the option to see the desktop site as opposed to the mobile version.

Updates to goMobi are automatic

There’s nothing resellers need to do to enable v1.3 for all users. Software updates to the goMobi project are performed by goMobi.