Let me tell you about our most recent email migration feat. On Friday, March 15, at 1.18 pm, we received an online order for email hosting from Geh of Chua Trading. At the time, our team was having a mini vacation in Port Dickson to watch Le Tour de Langkawi. The race had started in Muar and was ending in Port Dickson, and being cycling enthusiasts, we just had to be there!

Malaysian Anuar Manan creates history in Le Tour de Langkawi

Thankfully, with our Remote Office concept, it didn’t matter where we were. Upon receiving the request, the team was able to ascertain immediately that this was an email migration instead of new email setup. With that in mind, we knew we had to act fast, because usually, the customer must have encountered some serious email problems that had forced them to migrate.

Sneak peek of mobile office

First, we made a call and spoke to them about their problem. In this way, we wanted them to know that they weren’t dealing with a machine. Before that, we did some background checks to ensure that we had sufficient access to manage their email domains in order to estimate a completion time. The customer was relieved to hear that we could get it done within the same day, and we also informed them that our migration team was ready to continue working on their problem even on the weekend if necessary.

Guide to new email hosting

Geh was extremely prompt and helpful. He provided all the information we requested almost immediately. By 5.27pm, the email migration had been completed. A new email setup guide was prepared and sent to him to help him set up the new email system for all their email users.

Before we closed the case, however, our team made sure that the new Mail Exchange (MX) settings were propagated correctly. A call was made on Monday morning to make sure that everything was working well. Then, we helped the customer to remove their own email domain from their previous email service provider. If we didn’t do that, they’d encounter missing emails, which can be a big problem.

In response to our team’s quick action, Geh said, “Thanks for the info. Appreciate your fast reply.” Our team would like to thank you too Geh, for coming to us with your problem.

Malaysian Anuar Manan creates history in Le Tour de Langkawi

In a perfect world, your web hosting company might assume that every website consumes the same processing power, but this is not the case. Busy websites with heavy codes can take up more compute cycles. Compute Cycle (CC) provides a better way to measure how busy a website is, apart from its bandwidth and storage. It’s fair to say that those with higher CC’s should be charged more.

“Compute Cycles are a measurement of the processing time that your applications require, attained by calculating CPU processing time and accounting for the disk I/O consumed by your application’s operations”

Our standard web hosting comes with 10,000 CC a month, more than enough for most websites. So far, we’ve only had two customers who’ve exceeded their CCs. Instead of charging them (or penalising them), we work hand in hand with them to look into their site and find out if we can reduce the high CC problem. Since both of them are running busy Blogs, we introduced the WP-Cache, a plugin that serves content from the cache for faster access and reduced CC.

“XXX hosting company in Malaysia offers an unlimited hosting plan that comes with unlimited storage that allows you to host unlimited web sites”

The word ‘unlimited’ is catchy but doesn’t ring true. Many web hosting plans boast about supporting unlimited or certain number of add-on domains. In a nutshell, you can host a number of websites by subscribing only to one hosting package. Such a setup is messy and often turn the server unmanageable or abused.

We limit our hosting package to host only one website for each hosting package subscribed. For example, if our customer wish to setup a new sub-domain (eg, blog.xxx.com), they need to subscribe to a new web hosting package.

One of our friends who had subscribed to our web hosting service to host their Cradle award winning CRM project has subscribed to the additional hosting xxx.coconect.com. Each hosting is RM80 a year, though it doesn’t come with ‘unlimited add-on domain’ we are sure that is a better approach!

“We’d like to continue supporting you as we really like your service,” said one of the founder of Coconect.

Muhamad Aizam, the cute and macho IT veteran

Allow us to introduce you to Aizam, who outsourced us to host and support email facilities for the company he works for. They’ve quite a huge number of users, and our set up for them in February went smoothly. Now, their email users are using our services without any problems.

Q: Aizam, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your work?

I’ve been working in IT for more than 11 years. I used to work for IBM Malaysia (AS400) and CSA Malaysia ( KTM Komuter Project ), but now I’m with Sime Darby Eng ( Senior System Analyst ).This is my 10th year with them. I’m responsible for preparing bids for new projects (local and international), designing and ensuring that new and existing systems are in working order, and last but not least, to analyse current systems for enhancement, in accordance to the company’s growth and expectations.

Q: How did you find us and what made you choose to work with us?

I found 1.com.my via the Internet, after I Googled for a top email hosting service in Malaysia. I decided to choose 1.com.my due to your minimum downtime for the whole year, and the support you offer to your customers.

Q: Why did you opt to outsource an email host, rather than hosting it in-house?

I chose to outsource due to my project-based requirements, plus the cost to implement an in-house email host is much higher in comparison to outsourcing the solution.

Q: If you were to describe our email hosting services in one word, what would it be?

GREAT – Good, Readiness, Easy, Archive, Total Solution

Q: Okay, last question, which would you choose – iPhone or BlackBerry?

Blackberry :)

“Thanks Aizam! The interview really helped us to know more about you. Your words really motivate us and it’s made our team extremely excited! Rest assured, continued enhancement of services and support is at the top of our list of priorities, and it can’t be done without feedback and support from people like you!” said Pin, founder of 1.com.my

Download Pin’s Guide to Email Hosting

The first draft of our web blueprint has been circulated to others to gather feedback, so that it can be finalised. After each discussion, the blueprint will be updated and made ready for final submission.

Web blueprint discussion

After the presentation of the revamp goals, what’s next?

Many vendors walk in and out with solution that over promises many features, which may not solve customers’ problems. Some vendors would present themselves as consultants and start describing how the future of the web would be, not unlike fortune-tellers.

After several rounds of interviews and extensive studies into existing process flows, we managed to ‘diagnose’ the goals to revamp their website and the various measurable performance indexes of their website. Yet, managing the client’s expectations, which includes how the website would function, the cosmetic issues, the usability issues will be very crucial and needs to be addressed before the first line of programming code is written.

To better communicate with the clients, the client would need to look at a prototype. It could be sketches, storyboards or designs of the system interfaces. While presenting the prototypes to the clients, the clients would be able to assist us in providing any feedback that was missed out from the earlier stages of discussions. These feedback are then collected before the interface design is finalized. The process flows of the proposed revamped are also determined at this stage to make sure that the newly revamped site achieves the objectives.

Sketches of user interface prototypes from an actual discussion, image intentionally blurred to protect the privacy of our clients ;-)

If you are a web developer and is interested to see how we can add value to your existing services, let’s meet up!

EDMS recently informed us that they’ve decided to change their official domain name to reflect their new corporate identity.

EDMS Consultants provides software that makes business sense

We responded by wasting no time in registering the new domain name they wanted, and then we notified them about the scope of work that would be involved. This included addressing the following issues:

1) The old website address must point to the new one

2) We must update the content in the website to show the new names

3) An email migration must be performed to switch to a new email domain

4) Messages sent to the old email address must continue to be forwarded to the new email address

Our new client, Shima Asia Pacific, has had several bad experiences dealing with email service providers. They’ve often given her nothing but empty promises, but failed to provide her with the support she needs.

Shima's Third Email Migration

We were introduced to Shima by a friend who is a web developer. During our first visit to her office, we spoke to the people in charge to try and understand their issues with the existing email service provider. Apparently, they’ve been losing emails and having spam problems.

It was clear that Shima and her team were frustrated, so we did a thorough technical review of their current email server. We found a few incorrect settings in their DNS servers, and noticed duplicate MX records which were pointing to same IP address. To make matters worse, one of the pointing used was “.asia” which isn’t recommended.

Once the contract was signed, our email migration team took immediate action. There were several issues reported and our support team prioritised those issues and solved them immediately.

It is also worth mentioning that usually, previous email hosting service providers tend to not remove email domain names from their system when someone terminates their email services. This causes internal routing problems, so we’ve informed Shima, who will in turn inform her previous email host to make the necessary removal.

Read also A Taboo of Recurring Business

Jamie’s approach to web design is definitely off of the beaten path. Not only does she use her own name as her website address (jamiesoon.com), but she always replies to your emails in a short but sweet fashion that makes you feel like you’re working with a friend, rather than a company. She’s definitely someone you can trust, and gives you peace of mind.

Jamie has been designing websites since 2001

On her website, you’ll find her impressive portfolio and also interesting travel photos of the places she has explored. You can tell by looking at these that she’s a very passionate person and it definitely makes you feel like you want to work with her. She has also posted some interesting articles such as: ‘Getting the right colours for your design‘, ‘Why making changes is a good thing‘, and ‘Getting a website without spending money‘ – I think people may not understand the joke.

Camping in Gunung Nuang

We’re proud to say that she’s now one of our hosting referrals. We’ve worked with her on many successful migrations, transferring her customers to our new hosting servers. Here’s what she has to say about our services:

“I am glad that I finally found an affordable hosting plan at 1.com.my. The hosting package is perfect for installing a blog and the price makes it more affordable for my clients who are starting small businesses or want to start a personal or non-profit site. It’s cheaper than other hosting plans because the email hosting is a separate package, but it’s no problem because my clients can use their Yahoo or Gmail email accounts. Not only is the price great, I’m impressed with the friendly service, fast response to my enquiries and the effort put in to get the new hosting is up as fast as possible. I highly recommend Pin and his team at 1.com.my!”

Thanks Jamie! It’s been a pleasure working with you too! So, if you’re on the lookout for a web designer/developer, do check out jamiesoon.com.

A web blueprint project is a huge undertaking that usually requires various kinds of expertise. The blueprint defines the goals that need to be achieved, and includes hand-drawn interface designs.

How can web developers and web-design freelancers participate in the web blueprint project?

Well, the project is carried out by web developers appointed by our web blueprint customers. Here is an outline of the types of expertise required from draft to interface design:

The deliverables in Stage 1 of the Web BluePrint is a presentation of our findings. The revamp goals are identified and the reasons behind their selection are also discussed. Once everyone agrees with the goals, we will start writing the blueprint.

Listing and prioritising of revamp goals

First, we will interview people in the management level, such as: CEOs, managers and heads of departments. It is important for us to understand what their responsibilities are in the company.

Second, we will meet up with staff who work in the front-line. They will have first-hand information on feedback from customers. We will then try to cover every region, since each of them will have their own work flow and tool preferences.

Lastly, we will approach their customers directly for feedback. We will also study the website statistics and enquiries submitted by visitors.

Some time ago, Hap Seng Land Holding Berhad registered their official domain name with us. Recently, they’ve decided to secure the domain name associated with the brand names they have, including “The Podium” and “Menara Hap Seng”.

We were chosen because our team would be taking care of the domain name in the long term. Something like this requires proper registration procedures and two high availability DNS servers. Three names were proposed and an order was made through our domain name order form. I’m happy to report that our team has successfully registered and secured the name for them!

I was told by my friend that their domain name was hijacked. Someone has transferred the domain name to another Registrar. Apparently, it was an inside job. My friend said No to an offer from the domain theft and immediately make a police report.

A new domain name was registered to resume their business operation, but it is tedious for sure. Despite the police report, my friend tried everything but in vain, for a month! They wrote to both original and new Registars, as well as the domain name reseller in Malaysia – but no luck!

The domain name was originally registered with Tucows, 4 years ago, through their reseller ACME Commerce in Malaysia. The domain theft transferred the domain name to a new registrar called Name.com. This was done anonymously.

True to say, many Registrar take no action on such issues. To them, it was a legal transfer. The dispute is between the staff and the company, none of their business. Tucows requested a so called International court order, a document equivalent to – we are not going to do anything. ACME, in this case – the billing party, failed to do anything too.

Many domain name owners do not bother to update their domain name registration information, or WHOIS record. It is too late until your domain name was transferred and only you find out your contact information is not updated. Domain name reseller or registrar never bother to inform client on keeping the up-to-date WHOIS record too.

Run a WHOIS check, make sure Registrant and Administrator information shows the owner of the business, not any Technical staff or someone who provide the domain name registration. Make sure it is your email got listed, than any other email which you do not have access. Remember, any changes or transfer to the domain name triggers email notification, and you will be the first one to know, to take immediate action.

The Story Continues – Retrieving the Domain Name!

I wrote an email to Tucows, no reply. My second email to Name.com was replied within a day who promise to look into this matter. This was great! Here comes, the proof of ownership of a domain name. While WHOIS shows the ownership of the domain name in text, but not in action. Yes, same thing to contract. The conduct of a business utilizing the domain name in their brochure, namecard, emails – all shows a conduct of the usage of the domain name. My friend’s company pay for the renewal yearly, another solid proof!

With all document compiled and emailed to Name.com, we are expecting to retrieve the domain name back soon! :)

Updates: The case was finally resolved. The ownership was returned to my client via a account transfer done by Name.com. All thanks to the prompt action taken by Name.com and the initiative to liaise between the parties.