MA1.SE

Just heard back from Gogrid support. These are the only ports they allow to be open:

Windows
port 3389/tcp - Microsoft Terminal Services

Linux
port 22/tcp - SSH

Here is the form to get the SMTP port open!

1. What is the volume of e-mail that you’re expecting to send (e-mail per day/week/month)?

2. What mail software are you running to send outbound messages?

3. Do you require authentication to send e-mail messages?

3a. If you require authentication, what method?

4. For servers on GoGrid, what domain(s) will be sending e-mail?

4a. Where are your DNS records for the domains sending e-mail (hosted on GoGrid or specify another company)?

4b. Do all domains sending e-mail have rDNS (reverse DNS) entries with GoGrid and SPF records in the zone file? If not, please list cases where you’ve submitted these requests to be completed. rDNS is required for outbound SMTP access.

5. Do you participate in bulk message sending (subscription lists, newsletters, offer notices, etc)?

5a. If you send e-mail in bulk, how do you generate your e-mail lists?

Answering all of the above questions does not guarantee you will be allowed to send outbound e-mail addresses. All replies are reviewed, and all IPs allocated to your account are constantly monitored against approximately 120 blacklist groups. Discovery of any GoGrid IP listed in any blacklist group may result in your SMTP access being revoked, and a fine of $99 for violating our AUP/TOS.

GoGrid claims to offer the world’s first multi-server control panel that enables you to deploy and manage load-balanced cloud servers in just a minutes. Well thats theory, and to some extent its true. I managed to configure and build a Centos VPS based on Xen and within a few minutes, was logging in by SSH. I wanted to use the VPS to host a few Wordpress blogs and to see how reliable the service is. To make life easier I decided for my sins to install Cpanel with Fantastico so I could roll out multiple blogs and to see if GoGrid was useful for virtual hosting (it isn’t).

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As blogging and in particular blogging for profit becomes ever more popular amongst online entrepreneurs, we’re seeing new tools developed to assist in this process being released, what seems like every week.

In this post I’m going to talk about one such tool, Firepow Blogging Software,because I believe it might just be a cut above the rest in terms of it’s flexibility of use, and overall effectiveness in accomplishing the three primary aims of blogging - creating a blog, managing it or maintaining it, and getting traffic to it.

It was hard to know where to start with this post because there are so many individual features of this software that could be mentioned.

To give you a brief overview of how it works. Firepow is based on the Wordpres platform, and allows a user to install a fully customized and functioning wordpress blog with a few clicks of the mouse.

If you’ve used Wordpress before, you’ll know that one of the best things about it is it’s ability to be enhanced by third party plugins. You’ll also know that it’s not hard to get LOST in all the plugins and potential feature additions that CAN be made.

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Find out how a 25 year-old Maverick Internet Marketer has created new Google software… which allows him and his fellow ‘partners in crime’ to quietly earn up to $2,750 per day from Google, right under the noses of the establishment.

http://www.weycrest.co.uk/blog/google-nemesis/

I’ve been keen on Intel-Macs for some time and Operating System virtualization - the ability to run multiple operating systems at the same time without having to reboot. Parallels Software products such as the best selling Parallels Desktop for Mac continue to shake the Mac world with the ability to run the Windows “family” including Vista, XP and good old Windows 98 on an Intel Mac. Non Microsoft OS’s are supported too, such as Linux. The Premium Edition of Parallels Desktop for Mac also contains an additional bundle of software including Acronis Disk Director Suite, Acronis True Image Home, and Kaspersky Internet Security can be obtained. Below are links to download and purchase at a discounted priceYou will receive information and download information as soon as you have completed the purchase.

Click here for Parallels Desktop for Mac
Click here for Parallels Desktop for Mac Premium Edition

Quite a few Web 2.0 sites are now offering the facility of mapping your free blog account to your personal or business domain name. This post provides information on how to do this with your 1&1 Domain and Google’s free Blogger service.

Setting up your domain you bought at 1and1.com and Blogger as your …

Anyway here is my own version of the tutorial and this will only works for domains bought from 1and1.com It works easily if you follow the step by step procedure, I have done this to all my 3 blogs so I know it really works. …

1&1 Domain prices currently start at £2.99 per year for a UK domain and £8.99 for global domains (.com, .net etc).

Came across this great blog post today from Webhostingninja’s. Showing you how to configure your 1&1 Instant Mail account.

Configure 1and1 mail.

To configure your 1and1 mail settings login to your hosting service account, click the ADMINISTRATION button and go to CONTROL PANEL. Click the Show E-mail Settings or the E-mail icon. Either will bring you to the same place. (more…)

Worth pointing out that 1&1 Instant Mail now comes with 2GB storage as well as full Spam filtering and Anti-Phishing scanning for all accounts as well as free Webmail.

Click here for more information on 1&1 Instant Mail

I constantly keep trying new keyword tools. I’m starting to get obsessed with keywords. More and more I view the world in terms of keywords. Quite often keyword spy tools can be disappointing, but they seem to be improving. Its also important that any keyword tool can geo target keywords so you can differentiate between Google.co.uk and Google.com

Well the other day I was playing with spyfu.com. However there service appeared to be down so I started looking for something else. I came up with Keyword Spy and so far I’m quite impressed! Being based in the UK, its important ithat you can select the area where you want to “spy” fairly accurately, rather than being sole US based. You can choose UK, Australia, Ireland, Canada & South Africa, in addition to a “Global” option.

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A while back I downloaded the original Authority Blackbook. I’m glad I did. The 2008 version is even better, and still free of charge, despite being loads better than many ebooks by so called “guru’s” on the subject costing $30-40 or more. I should know. I’ve bought them all! The basics of the book are how to use “social networking” and “social bookmarking” to drive traffic to your website.

Many of you will have heard these terms before and thought it was all about teenagers in bedrooms. Wrong! There are many specialist social networking sites springing up and covering your niche as well as popular social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us, furl, simpy and so on . Importantly also all the advise in the book is 100% white hat techniques. No dodgy spamming. This is important when building a social networking presense - turn the sales hat off for a while and participate in the communities. Your reward will be better “link love” and the search engines may smile upon you!

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This is quite an old article I’ve copied over from my old site, there are still some good points in it, but you would be better concentrating on keyword research and trying to find niches where there are not too many competing website, and laser targeting those and use “Web 2.0″ techniques to get seen, rather than worrying excessively about keyword density in your articles as Google and the other search engines have moved on - Paul Lee

By following these steps you will see that most closely guarded secret– the search algorithm. Remember the movie “the Matrix?” The Matrix is there, you just can’t see it. So is the search algorithm. It’s easy to pay a Search Engine Optimizer to give your pages some ranking power. Unfortunately, given the inherent time factor involved in climbing the ranks, your money may be long gone before you know if you’ve spent your money well.

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