Sooooooooo.. Halloween is upon us and there’s some spooky stuff happening around the Lunarpages corporate office.

Being an Australian, we never celebrated Halloween at home, so as you can imagine, it’s still a great novelty for me and my family. We arrived at work last week to see just about every conceivable surface decorated and I mean EVERY surface thanks to our fantastic HR Manager Pat. She spent 8 hours over the weekend spiffying up the place! My keyboard was covered in spiders, there’s a bat hanging over my office door, a severed head in the fridge, rats and snakes all over the place and when I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, it was more shocking than usual..

Happy Halloween everyone! In this month’s issue we have:

• An interview with Rob Malda (creatorof Slashdot.org)
• cPanel help and how-to FAQs
• 3 NEW Winter WordPress themes
• Lunar Legal (Domain Name Rights)
• A great discount for a new cPanel backup tool! (WOW it’s awesome btw)
• Free Ruby on Rails PDF book by Patrick Lenz (thanks to SitePoint.com)
• Lunartic Webmaster Tips & News
• An interview with another LP staff member (our beloved Kaanon)
• Finding Your Site in Google: 5 Simple Tips
• And more!

Here’s hoping you enjoy the October issue of Lunarpages News!

BOO!

In September, we announced the launch of our UK and Dedicated Hosting sites, one of the biggest launch months I think we’ve had since we redesigned Lunarpages.com. The response was incredible, and we really want to thank everyone for taking a look and giving us wonderful feedback.

And if you thought nothing could top this worldwide launch, you were wrong, because this month we’ve got a lot to cover!

PageMason Beta 2

A couple months ago, our developers knocked out PageMason, a WYSIWYG template-driven web design application that runs in your browser and is completely free with every Lunarpages Web Hosting plan purchase. Though it’s still in the Beta phases, PageMason got a facelift this month to include some stunning new features.

Beta 2 no longer installs to a customer account! Now, we host the whole application in one central place, so it’s easier than ever to run PageMason and update the content to your website. You’ll also notice a few cosmetic changes to the PageMason application, so if there’s anything you like or dislike, please send us your feedback: pagemason@lunarpages.com

The new login for PageMason can be found by logging into your account and clicking on the available link or by visiting http://mason.lunarpages.com and using your current account username and password.

New WordPress Themes!

Our web designer guru, Todd Austin, has come up with several more snazzy new WordPress themes that you can download for free and upload directly to your Lunarpages-hosted WordPress blog. Let Todd know what you think and give us suggestions for future themes as well!

Free Offer From HackerSafe!!

LunarPages has partnered with ScanAlert, the leader in website security. We recognize that internet security is a key concern to our customers and yours, and as a valued client, your continued business success is always important to us. If you select a vendor other than ScanAlert, you could expect to pay between $500 and $5,000 annually for the same service.

Through this partnership, you can receive a free PCI account with tools to meet the Payment Card Industry – Data Security Standard. You will also receive:

* Certified Scans up to 6 IP addresses
* Unlimited Telephone Support
* Quarterly scanning
* Full-service meeting all requirements
* Certificate accepted by all banks

PCI compliance is required for ALL ecommerce store, and because of our relationship with HackerSafe, this $149 per year program is available free when you sign-up via the link in your control panel (log into account.lunarpages.com and scroll down until you see the HackerSafe offer). The best part is that each additional year is only $19.00! This is an incredible savings, so try it out today!

That’s all for this month in LunarNews, but we’ve got something coming in the next month that’s going to be even bigger, so stay tuned!

When Reece from PingZine handed me this assignment and told me I was interviewing Rob Malda I pretended to be excited and nodded my head knowingly while he educated me on Rob’s background.

Honestly, I had no clue who Rob was. I guess that’s because I live in my own little Web Hosting and Reality TV world…but then I heard the magic word: SLASHDOT!

Oh…
My…
Gawd…

Slashdot? Are you kiddin’ me? They are like the GEEKSTAPO of the internet. The holy source for all things techy! (Slashdot never publish my submissions btw…pfft)

Just like Lois Lane I was determined to get to the guts of this story to find out something nobody knows about Rob Malda. There has to be some edge, something I can bring to this story that will have people gasping at my ingenious and crafty interviewing techniques…

I know!! I’ll lure him into a relaxed and welcoming environment and then when he least expects it, I’ll hammer him with a question so volatile, the LP attorneys will question if it is even worth publishing my exploze (yes, that’s right, ex-plo-ze: exploding exposé).

[* innocent look]

Amy: So Rob, hi, how are ya? Nice weather we’re having huh? Love your shoes btw …

Rob: 85 Degrees and Humid as hell. Stupid October. Not going outside. And I’m not wearing shoes: Get a new prescription!

[*gasp]

Amy: I’ve been doing a bunch of reading about you and your achievements so I’m thinking we should track back to your teens where it all began..

[Gawd I sound like a therapist]

Were you a Star Wars fan?

Rob: Indeed. I still routinely record them when they air on TV and watch them if they air in high-def. In college my roommate and I watched the entire trilogy every weekend for an entire year.

Amy: You play Dungeons and Dragons? Ummm…why? Did you ever get into WOW or Everquest?

Rob: Yes. We have a bi-weekly D&D campaign. My current char’s name is Bonzer Xylophone, an undead ranger. It’s just an excuse to drink beer and eat cookies. Last week we had fondue. I played a fair bit of EQ and tons of WOW. I have 4 level 70s now actually, although I haven’t logged in for months. I just like games with XP. I like making the numbers go up, and the monsters go splat.

Amy: I was reading in your bio that as a child your mother’s favorite punishment was to take away your keyboard and lock it in her trunk. The story on how you got around that cracked me up (Rob added a keyboard error code check to his autoexec.bat file which launched a BBS making it possible to get the data from a friend’s house). It got me thinking about children online nowadays and the traps and filters we put in place to protect/monitor their online activities. Are we deluding ourselves thinking that by checking their history and adding some filters to Google, blocking MySpace etc we can stop them?

Rob: Absolutely delusional.

[Wow… did he just call me delusional?]

Rob: Kids are smart and every generation is more tech savvy than the last. The truth is that the higher the wall you build, the harder the kid will work to see what is on the other side. Better build a picket fence and just talk to the kid about what’s on the other side of it. Instead we just try to sue everyone who creates something that we might not want a kid to see. It’s sad.

Amy: You were a hyperactive kid. What other trouble did you get yourself into? Come on, spill it.

Rob: Once we started a fire under a bridge near the local high school. It got pretty big and I panicked and so we filled a cardboard box with water from a nearby creek and dragged it back to the burning fire. Most of the water leaked out of the cardboard (not the best vessel for water distribution mind you) and dumped it on the blazing inferno. The steam & smoke that billowed out from under the bridge stopped traffic for as far as the eye could see, right as school was letting out. It was awesome. I was probably 10.

Amy: Your first job was working as a PC tech guy and you mastered Windows and then the heavens opened and an angelic penguin whispered “Linux” in your ear. Tells us how that experience transitioned you into cyberspace.

Rob: Linux came into my life because I was a CS major who was required to do homework on SUN Sparcstations running UNIX. Linux let me work at home. Plus it made internet easy (even on a 14.4k modem) and really showed me why windows was the wrong way to work.

Amy: I happened to “drop” your name to some development guys I know and the conversation went something like this:

Dev Guy: “Sup Ames? You look very beautiful and glamorous today as usual”
Amy: “Oooooh nothing much really, just writing up some questions for ROB MALDA THE CREATOR OF SLASHDOT”
Dev Guy: “Omg omg omg omg! Like totally no way!” (Valley Girl style)

And, after they stopped squealing like chicks they asked me to ask you if you use any open source software on Slashdot and how is it setup?

Rob: Pretty much everything on Slashdot is open source. MySQL. Perl. Apache. Even our own code is all open source and available at www.slashcode.com. It’s set up like software usually is: on hard drives inside computers. We plug those into various plugs on walls, some give us electricity and others give us packets. And all is well.

Amy: Also.. What are some tips & tricks for managing a high-traffic site?

Rob: Cache. Cache. Cache. If you can make it in advance, do it. Most people don’t need any customization, so make the page once and give the next 10,000 people the same page.

Amy: Oh and ASL?

Rob: I don’t know American sign language. I barely speak English.

[Pffft ya newbie]

Amy: You created SlashDot and yes, I wish I had the same idea. Are you uber rich now? Did you sell the site to some massive conglomerate and retire at the age of 21 to your own island?

Rob: I am not uber rich, but I did get to buy my first house at like 23. Still haven’t paid of the mortgage though. And while we did sell to corporate overlords, I’m 31 and still nowhere near retirement or an island.

Amy: Any regrets on selling?

Rob: Like anything, it’s a mixed bag. I like having health insurance and a 401k. But running a media company inside a publicly traded corporation is a unique set of challenges.

Amy: SlashTips – I mentioned earlier nothing I have ever written was published on SlashDot (I guess they don’t appreciate my unique style and humor). What do you look for when approving Slash-missions?

Rob: Maybe you’re just trying to hard.

[Yup that must be it]

Amy: Rob is married to a gorgeous gal named Kathleen and they got married Vegas style. Tell us how you met!

Rob: An old girlfriend and I set her up with a friend of mine, and somehow neither relationship lasted. Worked out well for everyone.

Amy: SlashCats – How many cats do you and Kathleen have Rob? Are you a cat-a-holic?

Rob: In order of age they are Pixel, Dante, Matrix, and Sushi. We could probably stand to have a few die off- but I had 2 and she had 2 and then it was all Brady Bunch and we were stuck with a herd. But they are ours and we love them even when they puke strange colored fuzzy objects on the carpet.

Amy: On weekends I love to go to yard sales and buy random junk in the hope that I will make millions with that one treasure… What do you do in your downtime that doesn’t involve plugging something into a power socket?

Rob: Go to movies. Learn to cook. Go to interesting restaurants. Travel. Play Video Games. Watch the season premiere of Heroes.

Amy: For the web hosting freaks, tell us about the server set up when you first started SlashDot and the situation now?

Rob: DEC Alpha Multia/166 running Red Hat plugged into a T1. Now we have a dozen dual cpu webheads, 4 Quad cpu databases, and a few other random helper boxes, and are plugged into an OC3.

Amy: What is the next challenge or project for you, Rob?

Rob: You mean after surviving this interview? Finding shoes… Stop looking at my toes.

[Sheesh… now I’ll be known as the girl with the foot fetish ]

Thanks for chatting with me Rob! I had a slashtastic time!

One of the woes every webmaster goes through is backing up important documents on your site. If you upload the wrong file or something goes wrong on your end, what’s going to happen to your files? Many customers choose not to back up and take the chance of losing data should something happen, while others hire professionals to do the job for them, considering “backing up a website” sounds like a grueling, time-consuming task. But these professionals can cost upwards of thousands of dollars and can end up being more of a hassle than they’re worth. Plus, you’d have to give them access to your account, which is often dangerous.

I’ve found the two best ways to backup your site with Lunarpages, so take a look and see which one is right for you.

So what is CP Site Saver, you ask? It’s a backup tool for CPanel users – what a coincidence, considering we offer CPanel on all Linux Hosting Plans – that’s easy and most importantly affordable. Normally this software costs $50 to download, but because CP Site Saver knows Lunarpages rocks, they’ve given our customers a $10 discount! A one-time payment of $39.95 gives you instant access to CP Site Saver for life, something that could save you thousands of dollars in the long run.

Since CP Site Saver is easy to setup, there’s no steep learning curve involved in performing daily backups of your site. You can use CP Site Saver in 2 Easy Steps:

1. Configure

Simply configure the software to access your website (a username, password, and domain name are really all that’s required) just like you would if you were using an FTP program.

2. Backup

Choose if you want to manually back up specific files or if you want to set the program to perform automatic backups each day.

That’s it! You can now sit back and relax – your files will be backed up just as you need them, and if you want to restore any of the backups, simply login to the backup section in CPanel next to whichever part you want to restore (Home Directory or MySQL Database), click “browse” and find the file of the backup saved to your computer!

It’s incredibly easy, carries no learning curve, and is so affordable I continue to wonder how the company can offer it at such a discount. Really, $40 for a lifetime’s unlimited site backups seems pretty worthwhile to me.

Try their 10-day Free Trial version to give it a shot – the free demo allows you to backup any 1 site and 1 database for 10 days. After that, you can always purchase the full version and enjoy unlimited site and database backups! Take advantage of our Lunarpages Offer for the full version of Site Saver for $40!

The other easy option for backing up your site is to purchase the Lunarpages Premium Restore Service, which for $1.50/month is a great add-on for security. Let me explain the benefits.

Lunarpages automatically saves data to backup tapes every night. These backup tapes can store somewhere between 3 and 7 days worth of data from your site and can be recalled by our techs within that time period (the sooner the better), normally for a fee of $75/hour. But with the purchase of Premium Restore Service at $1.50/month, we’ll bring unlimited backups back for you at no additional charge. With this service, you don’t have to do anything except let us know you need a backup – we’ll do everything free of charge.

So backing up your site doesn’t have to be a nuisance. It can in fact be a pretty easy and painless endeavor that you can manage with the addition of some cheap software or have our techs handle for you.

So I’m the kind of person who shops at thrift stores and buys shoes for $1 and then brags about it constantly. I love things that are both useful and inexpensive, clothes that are true vintage and handed down, and more than anyone else I think, I love freebies! When I lived in Missouri, I would visit the Flea Markets almost every Sunday in the summer and pick up some, uh, interesting things (I once purchased a small dog statue made entirely of golf balls…only because the poor creature was on a table marked “Free!” and I felt like it’d be tossed into the garbage otherwise – ironically, it fell apart in my suitcase on the way to college one year).

But besides my love for weird and somewhat useless free things, sometimes I come across really incredible deals that are actually worthwhile and a great chance to get something that could normally sell for a large sum of money, absolutely free.
Such is the case this month, when I stumbled across a free download of Patrick Lenz’s Ruby on Rails book Build Your Own Ruby on Rails Web Applications! It’s basically a beginner’s guide to writing applications in the Ruby on Rails language, and it’s by major web developer Patrick Lenz, founder and lead developer of freshmeat.net and limited overload!

This is a great opportunity to get this incredible text for free. All you have to do is head over to SitePoint and click the big red button. It’s really that easy, and you’ll get an incredible read from this offer, so I’d suggest taking advantage of it, as it expires on December 1, 2007.

Download the Free Ruby on Rails book now!

Also, let us know how it goes. If you become a RoR Guru, we’d love to hear about your success and see your applications in practice.

This month we have seen several issues arise concerning the use of domain names with respect to the rights of registered trademark owners. Registering a domain name is not the same as registering a trademark and I thought some information as to the difference and how they might interrelate would be helpful. Understanding the difference and taking steps to protect the trademarks that you have some claim to can save you significant aggravation and expense down the line and help you avoid the risk of possibly losing your domain name or your marks.

According to the United States Trademark Act which is also known as the Lanham Act 15 U.S.C. §1127 defines a trademark as follows:

“… Any word, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof–

(1) used by a person, or

(2) which a person has a bona fide intention to use in commerce and applies to register on the principal register established by this Act,
to identify and distinguish his or her goods, including a unique product, from those manufactured or sold by others and to indicate the source of the goods, even if that source is unknown.”

“Servicemark” is the correct term used for services as opposed to products.

One key to the ability to register a mark is that there must be either an actual use or an intent to use the purported mark in commerce or trade in a manner that indicates the source of the goods and distinguish them from the goods of others. Registering a domain name is most certainly insufficient by itself to qualify for trademark registration or protection.

Furthermore, registering a domain name does very little to secure your trademark rights under the Lanham Act. While you own a trademark upon your use of the mark in commerce, in order to secure your right to protection under federal trademark law you must register your mark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. This process involves the submission of an application, payment of the appropriate fees which is based upon the number of International Classes of products or services that you offer under the mark. Approximately 6 months from the submission of the application you will receive your first contact from your assigned trademark examiner. If the evidence that you have submitted in support of your mark is appropriate for the information in your application and your mark is otherwise the type of mark that is able to be registered and there is no prior conflicting use of your mark and there is no opposition to your application then you may be granted publication in the Principal register. Only then can you be said to have “registered” your trademark. The process takes approximately one year from start to finish.

An attorney is not required for this process. An applicant is responsible, however, to observe and comply with all substantive and procedural issues and requirements whether or not they are represented by an attorney. In many instances even where you feel comfortable making our own filing it may be desirable to employ the services of an attorney who is familiar with trademark matters to greatly simplify the procedure.

Only federally registered trademarks may be designated by the federal registration designation ®. The SM and TM marks are used to designate a claimed trademark right however their use may be governed by the law of your particular state. The federal registration symbol should only be used on goods or services which have been identified in the applicable federal registration.

Federal trademark registration has the following benefits.

(1) It provides constructive notice to the world of your claim to the ownership of the mark.

(2) It serves as evidence of ownership of the mark.

(3) You may bring actions in Federal Court to protect your mark.

(4) It may be used as a basis to secure registration in Foreign Countries

(5) With respect to goods, your mark can be filed with the US Customs service to prevent the importation of infringing foreign goods.

With that understood, because of the large and always increasing number of top level domain names and the ease with which they may be registered, the owner of a trademark can often learn that another has either intentionally or unintentionally registered a domain name consisting of the trademark owner’s mark. In general, the owner of a federally registered mark has the luxury of a choice between (1) proceeding to Federal court to secure an order allowing the recovery of the domain name together with monetary or other damages according to proof or (2) proceeding under the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) developed by ICANN.

Although it is helpful, trademark registration is not necessary to proceed under the UDRP however there can be no award of any damages other than an order to transfer the domain name in question. Under the UDRP an arbitrator or panel of arbitrators can issue a binding order to a registrar to transfer a particular domain name. There are some registrars that do not subscribe to the UDRP which can present certain difficulties when attempting to recover a domain name registered in bad faith.

The proof necessary to prevail in Federal Court for trademark infringement under the Lanham Act is not the same as the proof necessary to prevail under the UDRP. The specific proof necessary is dependant upon the nature of the cause of action which is beyond the scope of this entry. In general, however where you have registered a trademark for certain services (such as web hosting) and another company is offering the same or similar services under a domain name that is the same or confusingly similar you are likely well within your right to not only demand that the company stop the use of your mark but that they may be responsible to pay damages resulting from their use of your mark and that they must turn over the domain name to your control as well.

Often we are contacted by individuals that have received a cease and desist letter from a lawyer representing a trademark owner claiming a violation of trademark law. These individuals often express frustration based upon the misunderstanding that because the trademark owner “left the domain name open” by failing to register it that they are somehow entitled to some right simply because they have successfully registered the domain name. This is simply not the case. There are many domain names available for registration which are essentially useless to anyone but the owner of the mark.

Before you register a domain name, it would be prudent to examine whether the domain is registered as a trademark, is the type that is subject to registration, or is otherwise in use in commerce by others before you spend too much time and effort getting used to your new domain.

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.