In this issue of our newsletter we have:

• LunarNews March 2008

• Creating your First Website with LP Quicksite

• Lunar Legal – Should I register My Mark?

• A Little More About Windows Hosting

• The Pros and Cons of PayPal

• Write Better Web Site Content

• Lunarpages Interviews TheRatingBlog.com

• Top 10 Reasons to Burn Your Feed

• Lunarpages Staff Interview: The Infamous Steven Priest

• Difference in Hits vs Visits in Webalizer

• Help Us with your Hosting How-Tos

Enjoy!

Lunarpages Supports SSH on Shared Hosting Plans

Did you hear the news? Lunarpages has started to support SSH/shell access on our shared hosting plans. New clients can specify if they want this as an addon when signing up and current clients can drop in an e-mail to support@lunarpages.com and we’ll get you hooked up. Because we know not everyone wants to be on a server that allows SSH access, we are putting SSH customers on separate servers, so everybody’s happy!

Windows Server 2008 Support at LPDedicated.com

Now with our Windows dedicated servers, you can pick between Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 giving our dedicated hosting clients and customers even more choice when it comes to getting the hosting setup that is right for them.

New LP Quicksite Release!

We keep improving LP Quicksite to help you guys make better websites, so check out our advanced Quicksite demo for the new blogging tools and templates, or see our featured article on Quicksite’s new features.

February 2008 Site of the Month

Our first Lunarforums site of the month winner has been announced. The winner for February was MindSmack.com. This web site is the home to one of the best web design firms on the planet. Want to submit your own Lunarpages hosted site for the next site of the month contest? Check out the rules and get yourself on the list.

Windows Web Hosting Specials!!

This is really cool, guys. If you like Windows Web Hosting, try our Windows Hosting Plan and get 3 months FREE when you sign up for a 12 or 24 month billing cycle! There’s no coupon code to remember – just visit Lunarpages and sign up for your Windows Hosting Plan and you’ll automatically get your 3 free months.

Need a Windows VPS Hosting Plan? We have cut our Windows VPS Plan pricing in half! Now get Windows VPS Hosting for $39.95/month! Just sign up on Lunarpages and the discount is automatically applied to your bill.

Remember, these are limited time offers, so take advantage of them while you can!

If you haven’t heard, Lunarpages launched LP Quicksite a couple months ago, as a solution for new customers who need a fast, simple solution to create their website. We have received wonderful feedback on Quicksite, and our customers are helping us make it even better every day, but I thought it might be nice for those of you interested in setting up your first website (but possibly too scared to take the plunge) to see how easy it really is.

How to Create Your First Website

First, decide on a really awesome name. If this is for your personal website, see if yourname.com is available. If this is a website for your business or an ecommerce website, see if your business’s name is available in .com form. If not, try adding “online” to the end of it – i.e. if your business is called Lovely Boots, try LovelyBootsOnline.com. If your business is incorporated, try adding “inc” to the end: i.e. LovelyBootsInc.com

Once you have your name, you’ll want to pick a template or the design of your website. This is the best part, I think, because you get to browse the templates we offer in LP Quicksite – right now there are about 100 to choose from, but we’re adding new ones every day. These templates are organized into categories so that you can find them easily, so if you’re looking for a template on Nature or Books or Education or Weddings, we’ve got you covered. Here’s a quick peek inside of the template system:

As you can see, you can not only choose the right template but customize its color scheme as well! And if you don’t like a template in a month, you can always change it back again.

Lastly, you’re going to want to type up some content for your website. If you’re not ready to write everything, no worries! You can login at any time to create, edit, or delete text, pictures, links, and more. I would recommend at least a brief message letting your viewers know your website is in the process of being created. If you don’t have time to write one up, here’s a quick template for you to use:

Welcome to YourDomainName.com. This website is currently undergoing some construction but will be available shortly. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to email me at Email@YourDomainName.com
-Your Name Here

Once you’ve entered some content, just click the button that says “Publish” and your website will instantly be viewable online!! It’s honestly that easy. And the best thing about Quicksite is that not only can you have your website up in 2 hours or less but we’ll help you get it there at no additional charge! 

Extra ‘Advanced’ Website Features

Quicksite is meant to be a quick and simple website solution, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do all the really cool stuff with it that you can on our Basic or Business Web Hosting Plans. So here’s a quick rundown of special advanced website features you can find on LP Quicksite:

Blogging Tools – Do you like to blog? We love it here at Lunarpages, so we created our own blogging platform that makes it incredibly easy to post daily news, stories, journal entries, or to share information with your family and friends. You can post pictures, add links, and format your text just like you would using Microsoft Word! Pretty nifty.

Photo Gallery – If you like sharing photos, you’ll love the Photo Gallery feature on LP Quicksite. Easily upload and describe your photos and sort them into galleries that you can post on your website.

Shopping Cart – Do you need to sell products or services? Our Quicksite Shopping Cart tools make it easy to upload product images, set up categories, and even integrate PayPal, Google Checkout, or other systems directly into your cart.

And if you want to take a look at Quicksite for yourself, visit our Quicksite Demo and let us know what you think!

What is a Trademark? Think of a trademark (or servicemark for services) as a word, phrase, symbol or design that identifies and distinguishes one source of goods or services from another. It is not necessarily the name of your company but the mark that you use to identify your goods or services.

Why Register a mark? In general terms, if you have such a mark and you have used the mark in commerce, you already own it. Trademark rights come into being upon use in commerce – not upon registration, as many people believe. However, registration with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) provides protection in many ways that most people feel are worth the comparatively reasonable expense. The benefits of Federal Registration are:

• constructive notice to the public of the registrant’s claim of ownership of the mark;

• a legal presumption of the registrant’s ownership of the mark and the registrant’s exclusive right to use the mark nationwide on or in connection with the goods and/or services listed in the registration;

• the ability to bring an action concerning the mark in federal court;

• the use of the U.S registration as a basis to obtain registration in foreign countries; and

• the ability to file the U.S. registration with the U.S. Customs Service to prevent importation of infringing foreign goods.

Essentially, this means that while you may own the mark in advance of registration, it becomes somewhat difficult to enforce the ownership of your mark against another person if you do not have access to Federal courts to enforce the mark – or at least registering it offers you the threat to do so if necessary. Also, given that registering the mark affords you the “legal presumption” of the ownership of your mark and that your mark becomes publicly searchable by all those that are interested in such things, the likelihood of an unintentional infringement is reduced significantly.

What does it cost to Register a Mark? The fees are presently set at figures that range between 275.00 and 375.00 PER INTERNATIONAL CLASS. An International Class is essentially the type of goods or services that you provide. If you sell t-shirts and shot-glasses for example, those are two different International Classes. If you have an attorney prepare the application for you, you should get an estimate up front and not expect to pay more than an few hours for anything but the most complicated of applications. At InternetLitigators, we often complete single class applications in under an hour.

Can I register a mark before I start using it? Recognize that you may file an application even before you start using the mark. This is called an “Intent to Use” application and is quite common. Once approved you have 6 months to prove your use of the mark. This way, when you have that sudden spark of inspiration for a new product or service name, you can immediately protect the mark so that when you finally start using it your claim will pre-date anyone that came up with the same idea in the meantime. The process typically takes about 8 months so filing an Intent to Use application is not a bad idea if you are just getting started.

Do I need a Lawyer? You do not need an attorney to register your mark. However, we have had many clients come to us after having their application rejected by the Examining Attorney. This can significantly delay and/or complicate your registration. In addition, if you represent yourself, be certain that you comply with all requirements of the trademark statute and procedural rules.

May I use the TM, SM, ® Symbol? Prior to your successful registration you may NOT use the ® symbol. This is a designation for marks that have achieved a Federal Registration only. Up to that point in time you may label marks in which you claim ownership with either TM or SM as long as the use of those designations is not otherwise prohibited in your State.

See. InternetLitigators Blog Entry: You Registered a Domain Name, But Do You Have the Right to Use It? for more information.

About: Jeffrey A. Cohen is a partner in the El Segundo, California office of Cohen & Richardson, LLP. Mr. Cohen can be reached at JCohen [at] InternetLitigators.com. The reader is cautioned that the information contained herein is not legal advice and is not a substitute for legal advice. There is no attorney client relationship created by this information.

Here at Lunarpages, we offer many different hosting plans and all kinds of sizes. We like to think we have a hosting option for just about everyone. From Dedicated to shared. From Linux to even Windows hosting. What is so special about our Windows hosting setup?

Well, here are a few interesting facts you may or may not know about our Windows hosting plan:

• Any 12 or 24 month Windows hosting plan purchased comes with a free for life domain name registration
• We use Plesk for Windows accounts, the leading multi-platform control panel delivering proven performance and ease of use. For a demo of this easy to use system, click here: https://plesk76.demo.swsoft.com:8443/login.php3. Login: client Password: plesk
• Our Windows plan supports ASP.net versions 1.1 and 2.0
• There is no limit but your imagination when it comes to creating e-mail accounts, forards, auto-responders and sub domains.
• We have both MS SQL and MySQL databases supported on the Windows hosting plan.
• Looking for CGI, Perl, SSI or PHP support? Our Windows hosting plan comes with all of those included too.
• More than your average webmail solution, all new Windows hosting plans come with SmarterMail Enterprise Edition 4.3.2903 and Antivirus/Spam Solution.

Last but not least, Lunarpages has much love for the Windows hosting webmasters as much as our Linux based ones. To show you how much we love our Windows hosting plan clients, with all new orders on we are giving you the first 3 months of web hosting for free. Be sure to give our Windows hosting plan a second look today!

Last month, I received a couple emails and newsletter comments, asking for further advice on choosing the right payment gateway, specifically for the pros and cons of working with PayPal over the other more expensive options. I’m keeping this list of pros and cons quite short compared to some of the other literature out there, but hopefully this will help you decide if PayPal is the best solution for your online e-commerce website.

PROS

It’s Easy!

OMG is it easy! Both for the merchant using PayPal to accept payments and for the customer who needs to pay ASAP, PayPal is a great solution. As a merchant, you sign up online and place a link to PayPal on your site. As a customer, you don’t even have to have ever used PayPal to send a payment through its secure gateway. The ease of the process makes accepting or sending payments a breeze.

It’s Cheap!

OMG is it cheap! Unlike most payment systems, you don’t pay any monthly fees and they only require a pretty low per transaction fee. This means that you only pay when someone pays you, which to me is quite feasible for any business. Likewise, you are not required to purchase a Dedicated IP Address or SSL Certificate, because your site doesn’t have to be encrypted – you will be redirecting all the customers to PayPal’s secured systems, which already have their own IP and SSL.

It’s Well-Known!

OMG…okay, you get the idea. But literally, almost everybody knows what PayPal is and understands how to use it. If you have a problem, there are many websites that can help you, even outside of PayPal’s help system. You can find PayPal reviews, testimonials, and can even research successful businesses that utilize PayPal for the payment processes.

It’s Convenient!

If you live outside the US and don’t have a credit card, you already know how helpful PayPal can be. Even Lunarpages supports PayPal payments on our website, because many of our international customers need this service to get their online business going.

CONS

PayPal is Law…

Once utilizing PayPal’s payment services, you must at all times abide by their rules. This shouldn’t necessarily scare you away right then and there, as most of their rules are in place for a reason. However, chargebacks for what they deem “fraudulent” can hurt your business or your reputation as a customer. And the fact is, PayPal is always in charge of what is “fraudulent” and what is not.

PayPal is Unprofessional…

That’s just a rumor, of course, but a lot of so-called ‘professional’ webmasters look at PayPal as an amateur payment service or will see your business as amateur if you use it. I personally don’t agree, though seeing a trust logo and personalized shopping cart always helps me feel more at ease somehow than being redirected to PayPal’s secure area. That doesn’t mean I’m not the first one recommending PayPal to startup and home-run businesses, as it’s just easier than going through the learning curve sometimes for work-at-homers or newbie webmasters.

PayPal Fraudsters are Everywhere…

All phishing and spoofing emails are terrible, but PayPal has a nasty reputation for some of the worst. This is because the spammers who make these spoofed emails make them quite believable, to the point that I have actually emailed PayPal twice about suspicious emails because I couldn’t tell if they were fraudulent or not. And that is scary.

Your Site is Not Trustworthy…

I believe this to be another misconception, but a couple people have brought this up to me so I feel it’s fair to list that if your website doesn’t have an SSL and Dedicated IP, customers are actually less likely to buy from you. This is actually, I think, dependent on what kind of business you’re running. If you’re a single mom working as a web designer and I’ve entered into a contract with you but you only have PayPal listed for payment, that’s fine! If, however, you’re Joe Schmo’s Amazing Business Secrets Revealed Online and I don’t see a trust logo or some kind of security, odds are I’ll think twice. Okay, I’ll think twice about that website anyway.

In conclusion, I really think it’s about what makes your business work. When I help out our Sales Department and suggest online payment information with new webmasters, I always recommend PayPal, because it’s easy, affordable, and incredibly convenient. For growing businesses, you may want to look into something more or PayPal might continue to impress you with its options.