The Small Business E-Commerce blog of all sections with no images

 We experienced a network service interruption on two of our three facility circuits, both of which were Road Runner. The problem has been resolved.

We are now planning to migrate the servers effected to our Ohio.Net AT&T circuit on Friday and expect service to be interrupted long enough to change IP's on each of the machines.!

In a nutshell, Two of the three circuits we have in our office are Road Runner and I put an order to terminate one of them back in November. They finally  got around to completing the order, but instead of terminating just the one, they shut them both off by accident. Bureaucracy at it's worst with two  different departments at two different locations whom didn't communicate properly. 

We are pleased to introduce Steve Rohner of Talk N Coffee in Deptford, NJ. Talk N Coffee offers coffee beans, coffee flavorings and gourmet coffee syrups to the world via their web site at http://www.talkncoffee.com

 Steve contacted config.com with the goal of having us teach his son Brian more about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Brian a graphics artist who re-designed the talkncoffee.com website had the desire to learn more about how to integrate graphics with text for the Google search engine to index better. In a relatively short period of time Brian acheived high ranking and placement for such coffee flavoring industry strings on Google as:

http://www.google.com/search?q=swiss+water+decaffeinated+flavored+coffee

http://www.google.com/search?q=chocolate+cherry+flavored+coffee

http://www.google.com/search?q=Chocolate+raspberry+flavored+coffee

We'd suggest the placement came as a result of hard work, great coffee, and a click-thorugh rate resulting from satisfied customers returning for more great coffee beans, coffee flavorings and gourmet coffee syrups.

The config.com network is pleased to introduce Denver B. Moore Private Investigations - A California & Florida Licensed Private Investigation Agency at URL: OneSmartPI.com

Denver B. Moore Investigations is a California & Florida licensed private detective investigation agency .

We are pleased to announce a new and improved web site for Shoemakers Outlet in Ravenna, Portage County Ohio! Bill Sackman has been hosting his web site since 1996 on the config.com network. We recently converted  http://www.shoemakers.config.com to a content managment system that includes all the SEO features available to  make it easier to find using the search engines which have billions of web pages indexed these days.

http://www.shoemakers.config.com onlys sells American made shoes and represents American manufacturers including Red Wing, Georgia Boot, Sebago, Minnetonka moccasin, Vasque outdoor performance boots, Double-H Boots, and Carolina shoes.

Please visit  http://www.shoemakers.config.com and tell them Joe Rinehart of config.com sent you. I've been wearing Shoemakers footwear for over a decade ;)

As of March 25th 2pm these numbers are now ringing into our office:

330.297.9595 (Sales line)

330.297.9596 (Support line)

330.274.3812 (Mantua Ohio)

330. 676.9977 (Kent, Ohio)

Our toll-free support 1.877.644.6932 line has been  routed  to our support line.

Our toll-free sales 1.888.266.3442 (1.888.config.com) line has been routed  to our sales line.

 We never want to miss a telephone call again!:

The sales lines will now ring to our sales line, then to our support line, then to our network administrator cell, then to our config.com secondary cell, then to our network administrators notebook, then his home, then to voicemail... so please, stay on the line long enough for someone to answer and you just might get the President of the company ;)

Philadelphia Candies is a manufacturer of fine chocolates and candies. config.com is providing web hosting and SEO services while KK Pro Design is managing the artistic direction.

Philadelphia Candies maintains a candy factory in Hermitage PA, and a retail store in Boardman OH.

David Juris of Generation Sales Group of Littleton CO contracted with config.com to provide guidance with their SEO.

Generation Sales Group services include:
Sales Prospecting,
Appointment Setting,
Lead Generation,
Lead Qualification,
Full Sales Cycle Execution,
Cold Calling,
Event Registration,
Pre & Post Event Calls,
Web Demonstration Scheduling,
Direct Mail Follow-Up Calls,
Customer Surveys,
Prospect Database Lists,
Local and National Campaigns.

Considering the growing popularity of Blackberrys and mobile Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) computing, I'm very pleased to announce that this web site now has Mobile Cell Phone PDA WAP compatible access from http://pda.config.com for those that live on a PDA!

Please feel free to send me your comments as my template may need some tweaking. Of course, you can also always use your phone to telephone me at 330.389.1192 since some of us really don't like to use the small keypads on our phones to SMS You may also call toll-free in North America 1.888.config.com and hit extension one. This line revolves to the config.com reception desk first, five seconds later it'll ring my office, then five seconds later it'll ring my cell.

This new PDA designed web site service will also allow us to conduct additional research toward  the effectiveness of search engine optimization (SEO) for PDAs.

Every now and again config.com enjoys an opportunity to host a web site for an interesting client or project.
Dr. Azzam Issam Moustapha of Beirut, Lebanon is an electrical engineer who works on novel portable wireless explosive detection systems.

His personal web site is hosted on the config.com network at URL:
http://www.moustapha.org

UPDATE:  Our NewVoIP service provider has helped us to port our numbers! We chose VoIP Solutions of Columbus Ohio since they represent a partnership of three Columbus Ohio based companies each with their areas of expertise and they also provide access to the Central Ohio area hospitals.

As of March 25th 2pm these lines are ringing into our office:

330.297.9595 (Sales line)

330.297.9596 (Support line)

330.274.3812 (Mantua Ohio)

330. 676.9977 (Kent, Ohio)

Our toll-free support 1.877.644.6932 line is in the process of being routed  to our support line.

Our toll-free support 1.888.266.3442 line is in the process of being routed  to our sales line.

Original VoIP Telephone problems announcement:

Our FutureLink VoIP telephone service provider is currently experiencing problems or has gone out of business! We were told it was due to a major outage in The NorthEast and have no estimated time for it to be fixed.The curcuit has been up then down again since mid-December and we've not received any return calls. Our lines are currently ringing with three beeps then dropping.

We are now in the process of porting our telephones to a Central Ohio VoIP company that also provides service to several area hospitals.

We are pleased to introduce Mario Milano of Plateau Pictures in Hollywood California! We've been hosting PlateauPictures.com for over a year now but never made the official welcome to our network.The movie Beneath the Cristo will be coming to theatres soon.

 A trailor is available for the the movie "Beneath the Cristo" at http://www.PlateauPictures.com

The ArtArmory.com designed our new advertising campaign with a "Hit a bullseye" target theme.

We are excited to have run the first ad on a 1/4 page of the Washington Times on the 5th and the 13th of December in the National section of one of America's most prestigious newspapers

This ad is also running in InsiteGainesville.com which serves the University of Florida communities. 

config.com was featured in the Summer 2008 issue of Omaha B2B  so we decided to buy an annual contract.

We are also sponsoring the Omaha Beef Arena Football team in 2009.

Other advertising opportunities in Omaha, Nebraska that we have taken advantage of include:

Table-top game machines in the Omaha Metro area.

Omaha Monthly Magazine.

We are also proud to be assisting  http://www.familyfuncenter.net/ with Internet consulting and they threw a blurp to that effect on their signage. The Family Fun Center is located at one of the busiest intersections in Omaha ;)

15 years after publishing the 1st URL in a computer magazine the actual act finally becomes recognized.

You may read the article at Kent State University Daily Kent Stater online at http://www.KentNewsNet.com

UPDATE: I receeived a telephone call from the CEO of Virtumundo named Scott who got caught in my viocemail, then another from their IP manager Bay who also got caught in voicemail. In any regard, I telephone a IP Manager named Bay who explained that they do email advertising and they probably got a bad list from a new client. He also explained that he would enter our domain name and have them filtered from future mailings and also look into adding the IP's of our MX SMTP servers so that they'd not cause grief to our hosted clients in the future. The amount of traffic has already dropped to a trickle.

Issure resolved and is now considered closed.

E-mail server spam denial of services issue

We are presently experiencing an issue with usernames and password timing out. Upon investigation we learned that some spammer is trying to send hundreds of thousands of emails thorugh our servers. This by itself isn't much of a problem as we run a pretty tight email server, however, when so many illegal requests are made then it can stop the legitimate requests from getting through.

We are watching the server closey today to monitor our ability to log on and get or send email.

We are also in the process of adding a third network backbone which will help us distribute the server workload for these types of events and expect that it'll be completed soon. The backbone is actually already in place but we need to configure the additional servers.

We've tracked down the company doing the spamming, but it appears they have a strong history. Some interesting information and links  start at

http://thespamdiaries.blogspot.com/2007/08/virtumundo-wins-legal-fees-from-gordon.html

and http://www.rahul.net/falk/quickrefs.html#virtumundo

Go figure as soon as I left a comment via their contact page re: please cease... they started to hammer us even more :(

Visit Google for the many links about this company and their history:

http://www.google.com/search?q=virtumundo

 Below is a clip of a couple of seconds from one of our logs to demonstrate the issue:

If you have a domain hosted with config.com then you need to use our Authoritative Domain Name Service (DNS) servers which include:

Name:   a.ns.config.com
Address: 69.93.64.43

Name:   b.ns.config.com
Address: 174.133.242.158

Name:   c.ns.config.com
Address: 66.219.144.144

 And the config.com technical contact information includes:

Rinehart, Joe This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

124 East Spruce Avenue
P.O. Box 1044
Ravenna, Ohio 44266-3048
US
+1.3302979595    Fax: +1.3302964005

for other valuable notes of DNS interest read more:

GlobalPops dial-up modem OFF-network list requires a special login which includes:a config.com user can dial into a OFF-network number as This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it using the same password that is in our system.

* NOTE: ONLY THE TELEPHONE COMPANY OF THE CALLING FROM NUMBER CAN DETERMINE IF A CALL WILL BE FREE. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY TOLL CHARGES OR MISUNDERSTANDINGS OF THE USE OF OUR ACCESS NUMBERS. *

 The two or three character codes listed next to Off-Net: on our locator are identifiers of our tiered providers (Qwest - QW, Aleron - AL, UUnet)

You must have a config.com Internet access account to use any of these modem numbers!

If you do not and wish to register for an account please telephone 1.888.config.com (1.888.266.3442) and press 0 for the operator.

Up to 10 hours metered monthly $9.95 monthly, or

Up to 300 Hours (there is only 700 hours in a month and the average user uses only 38 hours), and

If you'd like a secondary network connection is available for only $10.95.

 * NOTE: ONLY THE TELEPHONE COMPANY OF THE CALLING FROM NUMBER CAN DETERMINE IF A CALL WILL BE FREE. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY TOLL CHARGES OR MISUNDERSTANDINGS OF THE USE OF OUR ACCESS NUMBERS. *

This is the list of modem telephone numbers for the GlobalPop network which include:

config.com Internet access subscribers  may set their settings to "automatically assign" their domain name service (DNS).
In the event you need or wish to use our DNS cache servers they include:

Name:   cache-a.ns.config.com
Address: 74.52.193.71

Name:   cache-b.ns.config.com
Address: 174.133.242.150

Name:   cache-c.ns.config.com
Address: 66.219.144.143

If you have a domain hosted with config.com then you need to use our authoritative DNS servers please see URL:

http://www.config.com/E-Commerce-Support/Commercial-Domain-Name-Service-DNS-settings-and-information.html

All config.com Internet access subscribers and commercial web hosting accounts are entitled to email.Information you may need to configure your email on the config.com network includes:

In Outlook Express click tools, then accounts, then config.com, then the server tab:

Usernames may include the domain ie: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or just username

Password: This is the same password you log into our network with, or was assigned when you commercial account was created.

All our servers are named after the protocols ie:

Incoming server:

POP3: pop3.config.com

IMAP: imap.config.com

Outgoing server: 

SMTP: smtp.config.com

We are very pleased to introduce The Holiday Light Store of Raleigh North Carolina owned and operated by Lin and Cindy Honeycutt! We have really enjoyed converting their traditional web site to our custom designed Joombalaia content management system throughout the past months. There is nothing more exciting than being recruited by Santa's helpers in the midst of Summer to assist in planning the outdoor Christmas lighting and outside Christmas decorations of a real physical store that sells holiday lighting yard art year round!

One can only imagine how competitive the Christmas holiday season is for selling Decorative Christmas lights online. We are now enjoying respectable results for such Google strings as "outside Christmas lighting " or "Animated outdoor Christmas decorations" to make it easier for people to find a reliable resource to order their holiday lighting yard art from...

We are pleased to introduce our latest client RestorationVIP.com water damage extraction service from Miami, Florida!

I was first hired to perform a Search Engine Optimization web site review to help make it easier for people who need emergency water damage extraction services from hurricanes, floods, fires, and other natural disasters to find them easier. Upon implementing my recommendations the growth and ranking of their web site had indeed improved to the point that we've agreed to convert their site to our joombalaia content management system (CMS) designed specifically to make it easier for people to find our clients.