During the hours following the recent rioting & looting that has affected London, Birmingham & other, major UK cities, a fantastic clean-up operation has been spawned by the British public, by utilising the power of Twitter combined with the hash tag of #riotcleanup.

Over-night many websites were spawned to help co-ordinate the ‘riotcleanup’ efforts. One of these was riotcleanup.co.uk, hosted here at 34SP.com. It is clear now that the owner could not have predicted how popular the website would become after the deluge of tweets referencing it, including mentions from celebrities Simon Pegg and Rufus Hound.

Unfortunately, the entry-level website hosting account chosen by the owner was quickly over-whelmed by the number of visitors to the site.

Despite our Professional hosting package offering great value for money for small-to-medium sized websites, the sheer weight of the British public accessing one website at a time was effectively a denial of service against the other domains shared on that server; many hundreds of our customers were effectively left without hosting services.

As soon as it was identified that the Professional hosting server could not contend with the load of requests (in addition to its other duties) we were forced to suspend the riotcleanup.co.uk website, pending communication with the owner.

No sooner than a few seconds later, we began receiving a lot of stern e-mails, tweets and even a few phone calls from third parties (not our customer), demanding that we reinstate the domain’s hosting. Persons contacting us were informed that we were doing our best to contact the customer in question, so that we may arrange a stronger hosting solution that would allow riotcleanup.co.uk to stay online.

Our customer eventually returned our calls, quite unaware of the scale of popularity that his website had achieved and together with our Dedicated Account Manager, Mike, a solution was agreed to provide one of our High-End Dedicated Servers gratis, in exchange for a small logo & link back to the 34SP.com website.

In less than an hour after this conversation, the 34SP.com Engineering team had a High End Dedicated Server installed, updated and configured to run the riotcleanup.co.uk website. Cached DNS queries were taken-care of by a few lines of mod_rewrite code on the original shared hosting server and the site was effectively live again.

Immediately, the website had 50,000 hits within a minute. 1.5 million hits in 2 hours. The peak of outbound network traffic from this server was at 32.4Mbit/sec. And what’s more, the server itself still had plenty of resources to contend with such an enormous swell in visitor traffic: a great success.

Whilst it’s been a very busy morning in the 34SP.com office, we are all proud to be supporting the #riotcleanup movement and every person involved now and in the future. Despite any of the issues within the UK, it’s fantastic to see such a large community effort from the British public and we are very happy to be contributing a small part to these efforts.

Recently 34SP.com has been implementing a number of product enhancements for customers. Not only have we just updated our Account Management System (AMP) to make it easier for customers to navigate around and access their accounts, but we are currently planning a redesign to the 34SP.com website to tie in with the same theme. The 34SP.com designers and developers have been hard at work ensuring every last detail will be included in the site re-launch and comprehensive testing will soon be under way .

Not only is the website getting a fresh lick of paint, but so are our dedicated server products. Leveraging our close partnership with Dell and our other key suppliers we have managed to update our server offerings, and now have the very latest hardware and robust connectivity via the 34SP.com network. This also enables us to create some great offers with rock solid hardware and friendly, efficient support. (On that note – you can see what other real customers think of 34SP.com’s recent support efforts by reviewing our Twitter comments here: http://twitter.com/#!/34SP/favorites)

Our dedicated servers now use the new Dell PowerEdge R210-II Chassis. These support the Intel Quad Core E3 Processor family and DDR3 memory. This is the latest Intel and Dell hardware to ensure maximum efficiency, performance and stability for all our clients.

34SP.com dedicated servers are available with a choice of Linux or Windows operating systems. You can view them here: http://www.34sp.com/dedicated-servers.

If none of our standard configurations meet your needs, let us know and we’ll happily put together a custom quote for you. Our close relationship with our various suppliers ensures that we can meet your needs no matter what the project. Contact the dedicated server sales team at: sales@34SP.com to get started.

Eye-pee-vee-whatnow?

You don’t know what IPv6 is? In a perfect world, brilliant; you shouldn’t have to know! But sadly, due to the decades-old ‘supply and demand’ notion, too many ISPs aren’t taking notice of what is a very, very important issue for anyone that uses the Internet on a daily basis.

The reality is that ‘IP addresses’, in their current format (IP version 4) are running out.

IPv6 solves this problem. Unfortunately, customers knowing ‘what’ IPv6 is, is the key to raising awareness amongst ISPs around the world. IPv4, the now legacy Internet Protocol addressing scheme, is rapidly shrinking in availability. With stores of legacy IP addresses depleting fast, it won’t be long before only IPv6 addresses are available to ISPs and their customers.

This essentially means that when websites and mail servers are only available via IPv6 connectivity, you will be out of luck if your Internet access provider hasn’t yet provisioned IPv6 connectivity for you. Therefore it is now more important than ever to ensure that ISPs across the country (and indeed, the world) are concentrating on ensuring they can provide the same services via IPv6 as well as existing IPv4 connectivity.

This also applies to the companies providing your website hosting (such as 34SP.com), particularly if you happen to be a business owner. When we consider that China will be one of the first major areas with only partial IPv4 connectivity, that is an alarming number of end-user eyeballs that are unable to visit your website. After that? Australia, India, Japan… Unfortunately the common ISP argument in the UK is ‘we have enough IPv4 addresses to last for a long time‘ does not solve the problem. If you wish to view a site only available via IPv6, you need an IPv6 tunnel or native IPv6 connectivity — no amount of IPv4 addresses will help you.

(Tip: you can check your ISP’s readiness for IPv6 via a visit to http://test-ipv6.com!)

The APNIC region (covering all of Asia & Australasia) have only a few months before they’re out of IPv4 addresses with which to provide to ISPs within those areas. The individual ISPs themselves will take a little longer, but it’s no secret that IPv6 adoption in these areas is well ahead of the curve in Europe (and indeed, North America) due to the increased pressure on IPv6 requirements that they’re already seeing.

But what are 34SP.com doing about it?

34SP.com are doing their bit to stay ahead of the impending crunch, and intend to introduce IPv6 connectivity throughout our entire, current range of hosting products with as little delay as possible. As some of you more familiar with IPv6 may imagine, this presents a number of challenges; not least the poor support for IPv6 from some of our biggest providers — a situation that’s proven (and proving) difficult, not to mention costly, to circumvent.

However, after reaching a number of milestones (including more than a few late nights) we are now in a position to make a large step forward by providing ‘beta’ assignments of IPv6 addresses to Dedicated Server & VPS customers! Currently only those located in our London data centre are able to receive an assignment (those with IPv4 addresses within 80.82.112.0-80.82.123.255). Support for the same customers located in Manchester will be coming as soon as we iron out a few unknowns with equipment there.

The biggest caveat in this current beta programme, is support for Plesk. Until very recently there has been no official support from Parallels for IPv6 (despite my badgering them). Thankfully the very latest release (10.2) does include preliminary IPv6 support. However, we have had little time to test this fully since its release and will need longer to be sure that it is of the same quality as the current version that we support, 8.6.

It is for this reason alone that IPv6 support on shared hosting packages (such as Professional hosting or Reseller hosting) will take a while longer to complete. We’ll need to first look at the possibility of upgrading to Plesk 10.2 (from 8.6) and this will take time to achieve, given the complexities involved.

Despite this, if you’re interested in getting an assignment now, please drop an e-mail to support@34sp.com with a relevant subject and we’ll go from there. The more customers we have showing an active interest now, the better, so please don’t be afraid to try something out — even if you’re not sure you know entirely what to do just yet!

And what about IPv6 Day?

Good question! The official IPv6 Day, as explained on the Internet Society website, takes place on the 8th of June this year and will be a chance for big organisations across the world to show their support for IPv6, whilst testing the waters of IPv6 adoption on a global scale. Participants will include such big names as Google, Facebook, Akamai and also, yes, 34SP.com.

This means that, unless we experience any major disasters, June 8th will see a IPv6 DNS record (type AAAA) for www.34SP.com. We hope to provide some statistics on visits over the 24hr period to show just how many people can reach us via IPv6 and from which ISPs.

We will also likely add an IPv6-only ‘test site’ in the weeks leading-up to 8th June, though in the mean time if you’d like to know whether or not your Internet provider already supports IPv6 you can always visit http://test-ipv6.com. If for any reason the tests fail, you should contact your Internet provider and ask them what they’re doing about IPv6.

Both 34SP.com name servers will shortly be upgraded with IPv6 access to the Internet and we already support the provisioning of AAAA records via our zone files, so hopefully some of our customers will be able to join-in on the day too!

Where can I learn more?

If any of this has come across as jibberish or perhaps you’d like to learn more, there are a number useful of resources available online. Here are a few that I’d recommend taking a look at:

• Wikipedia’s page on IPv6
• A short video explaining IPv6 from explania.com
• Some IPv6 adoption statistics from Google.

If anyone has any further queries as to the availability of 34SP.com products via IPv6, or if you wish to participate in the beta programme, please do not hesitate to contact us via support@34sp.com. We’ll be happy to provide any information that we can!

It’s a common scenario.  Your business plan is in place, your website is nearly complete and you are almost ready to launch your online business.  All you need now is to secure the perfect domain name for your website.  Whether you choose a .co.uk domain name or a .com domain name, it is going to be a huge success.  And then the inevitable happens, every domain you want to register, seems to already be taken.

It is an all too common experience these days.  Your ideal domain name is most likely gone.  As the Internet has rapidly grown, so has the rate of domain name registrations.  In fact, domain names of three letters in length ran out 10 years ago. Four letter domain names were quick to follow.  These days shorter domain names or those with common words, are in short supply.

So what can you do?  One option is to go out and buy a premium domain name.  One that has been purchased by a speculator with the sole intent of reselling to you.  This means a significant price premium, that most people would rather avoid paying.

I often assist 34SP.com customers in finding their ideal domain name, in order to avoid going to the premium domain market.  Here are a few tips I often give people.

Think local  

As the web expands, local search is becoming increasingly relevant to sort through the vast amounts of data.  Think about your customers, where are they located, where are they searching, what are they searching for.  What would you search for if you wanted to find your product?  Let’s say your business is for car maintenance, and your ideal domain name is carmaintenance.com – that’s guaranteed to be gone.  But where are you based? If your business is based in Leeds, people in New York are unlikely to want your services.  This opens up a raft of options for example:

carmaintenanceleeds.com
carmaintenanceyorkshire.com

This also improves the odds of your customers finding you via search.  Many searches for specific products or services are based around geographic needs.  Including this in your domain name, massively helps your website’s Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Thinking outside the box

Don’t get stuck with rigid terms you MUST have in the domain name.  Look through a thesaurus, change the words up a little.  Draw up a list of different domain names that are available with different words, in different orders:

automaintenanceleeds.com
automechanicleeds.com
carservicingleeds.com
leedsmechanic.com

You don’t have to commit yourself.  Build a small list up and you may find something else comes to your mind.  Give yourself as many options as possible.

.com is not the only domain

There are literally hundreds of domain name types you can register.  Most won’t be appropriate for your needs, but keep them in mind.  As a UK domain name provider, we deal with many UK clients.  For these clients .co.uk domain names are often as useful a domain name as .com.  You might find that while your ideal .com is taken, many other domain types are free.  Some of the most popular include are:

.org for organisations

.net for online endeavours

.co.uk for UK based businesses

.eu for european websites

.tv for video related websites

.mobi for mobile targeted websites

Check out our domain name registration page for more details.

A few warnings

A shorter domain is often better.  The shorter the domain name, the easier to remember by your customer.  Longer domain names are less memorable, but are not inherently bad provided the keywords in the domain reflect your business.

Don’t forget it is okay to use the odd hyphen in a domain name, e.g.

car-maintenance-leeds.com

but don’t go crazy:

best-car-maintenance-in-leeds-yorkshire.com

Also try to avoid easily confused words or words with slightly different spellings and different meanings.

Have a 34SP.com T-shirt? If so why not showcase it an exotic location and earn free 34SPoints. The more exotic and interesting the more 34SPoints. T-shirts are still available priced at ten pounds including postage and packing to the UK (prices for International delivery on request).

Our first brave souls are Olly and wife Nic, seen here holidaying amongst the amazing vistas of New Zealand:

Yes that’s right! On the evening of Thursday the 7^th of December we had our Christmas party with the surrounding offices on our floor. Many wonderful things occurred but the highlights of the evening were as follows:-

• Beer / Wine / Soft drinks,
• Food in many forms,
• A Magician,
• A Charicaturist.

The magician was very good and did lots of card tricks that left us all in awe, so much so we think you should go to his website.

However it doesn’t stop there! The charicaturist did a masterful picture of each and every one of us, bar Ian and Stuart who are very naughty for not being here . He also has a website here.
Here are the pictures:-