We've recently seen a rash of phishing emails that seem to be getting confused as potentially legitimate emails from us. The emails typically look something like this:

Dear user of the mydomain.com mailing service!

We are informing you that because of the security upgrade of the mailing service 
your mailbox (info@mydomain.com) settings were changed. In order to apply the 
new set of settings click on the following link:
http://mydomain.com/owa/service_directory/settings.php?email=info@mydoma...

Best regards, mydomain.com Technical Support. 

The From email address for these messages vary widely, but often have some sort of tech support or customer service association to it. These emails are usually sent to any publicly exposed email addresses that you have on your website.

These emails are not from us and are either phishing attempts or attempts to install malware on your computer. If you get any of these emails, you should delete them immediately. If you click on the link, do not provide any personal information or follow any instructions that they ask you to follow. 

Clicking on the link in these emails will send you to a page that may look like the following image.

Any official tech support email coming from Hyperlinked Web Services will come from support@hyperlinked.com and we will never send out a mass email message asking you to install something to update a security setting or login to update your user information.

If you wish to connect an email account that you have in your hosting environment to Gmail, please follow the steps below to get your accounts configured properly.

If you wish to connect an email account that you have in your hosting environment to Yahoo Mail or Gmail, please follow the steps below to get your accounts configured properly.

For AT&T / Yahoo Mail

Note, these setup instructions only work in Yahoo Mail Classic. If you're using the new Yahoo Mail, these instructions may not be completely correct.

We're pleased to announce a new advertising opportunity for local businesses in and near Downtown Campbell! Earlier this year, we helped launch the Downtown Campbell Wi-Fi network with the Public WiFi Project. This Wi-Fi network is free for all to use and is inexpensive to advertise on. The network covers most of the main strip of Downtown Campbell along East Campbell Ave. and some additonal areas on the periphery of Downtown Campbell as well. Please see the coverage map below for more information about the optimal coverage areas of our Wi-Fi network.

Here's an example of how the banner ads look.

Advertising Rates

Please add a $29.99 banner ad design fee if you are not supplying your own banner.

As of 3:40pm PST, the data center where we have our servers located is having some unknown connectivity issues. The problem has been happening on and off since around noon. We don't have any ETA on when the issues will be fully resolved, but it should be fairly soon. 

ISLG–Campbell Showroom has been a Campbell fixture ever since they moved into Downtown Campbell a few years ago. They're very good at what they do as evidenced by the steady demand for their Interior Design services. They were so busy, that they just could never get around to getting their old home-made website replaced with a professional one worthy of their stature as an interior design group recognized by the American Society of Interior Designers.

Well, now they can go back to their busy ways without wondering if their website is doing their stature justice. You can view their new site at www.islg.net.

Actually, the video isn't that new, but I've been so busy that I haven't had time to show off a new short web video that I produced for one of my web design clients. You can view the video on the A+W Wrestling site.

Finally, Hyperlinked Web Services has a new website! I've been so busy doing other development work that I was never able to find the time to fix up my main business website to match the quality standards that my clients have come to expect from my work. The old site was a quickie job tossed together in about one day a few years ago and was supposed to be replaced within a year, but my schedule just never allowed a redesign to happen.

The redesign isn't finished yet. There are still some big pieces that will have to come later after I clear off my waiting list of prospective clients. Sometime before the summer is out, I'm planning on setting up an automated ordering and billing system, a support ticketing system, and enhance the portfolio area of the site to include case studies of the interesting projects that I've worked on in the past few years.

This is old news, but it bears posting because people continue to fall vicitm to it. There's a few companies well known for sending people bogus domain name registration reminder notices through the mail. The best known one is the Domain Name Registry of America, but by the time you read this, their name may have changed or a copycat sham business may be doing the same dirty deeds.

If you own a domain name for a website, you've probably already gotten a renewal notice by mail from a company called Domain Registry of America. They've got the nice colorful American flag as their logo. That's just where the deception starts.

First, it's a Canadian company. Second, they probably aren't your registrar though they use deception to fool unsuspecting people into thinking that they are their registrar. They've already been busted by the FTC and have modestly reformed their act so that they now have to disclose that they're not your registrar and that they want you to transfer your domain name to them, but they word it very cleverly that confuses most people.

Don't be fooled. The main service they offer is still conmanship. Their one year renewal price for a domain name is several times the rate of a competitive price for a domain name and twice the cost of what I consider a reasonable registration fee ($15). Most reputable registrars that charge competitive rates do not send you mail reminders via the post office because the margins are so razor thin for discount domain name registrars that they could literally waste any profit they make on postage.

If you find postal mail notices a valuable service, there are other companies that will do it without being unethical in exchange for a premium fee. Network Solutions is one company that used to send notices by postal mail, but I'm not sure if they still do.

If you've ever researched a domain name that you wanted, but waited to register it only to find out a day or two later that it's been claimed by some mysterious company, read on. There are some shady players who are running a domain name registration scam that tries to buy the domain names that you want so they can sell it back to you at exorbitant rates. This isn't the old practice of cyber-squatting that was common in the boom years. This is far more pervasive.

Here's my scenario. A client of mine wants a domain name that's about to expire and re-enter the public domain in a few days. She gets offers from "domain acquisition specialists" to get the domain for her for a minimum of $200. In some cases, these "specialists" actually can come in handy if you're competing for a very popular domain name that will be getting released back into the public domain. In most cases that I've encountered, domain names these days are so specific that the market for your average domain name is limited. Chances are that there aren't many people who want to buy a name like "willworkforsocks.com" away from you.