A few months ago, FastServers.Net started shipping a digital camcorder to customers in exchange for a video testimonial. The results have been overwhelming as each week the digital video device is shipped to various locations throughout the globe.

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This week we welcomed Shon Georgie as the newest Server Support Engineer in the Chicago office. Shon joins us from Burbank, CA where he served as a Systems Administrator for Walt Disney Feature Animation. He most recently assisted with production on the movies Chicken Little & Meet the Robinsons - name in the credits and all! Shon has an extensive RedHat Linux Enterprise background and has been in the industry for nearly thirteen years. We’re excited to put Shon’s talent and experience to work for FastServers.

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We are excited to announce our new Managed Exchange hosting suite of products and services launching April 15th. The new Fully Managed Exchange hosting servers come with the highest level of support from the FastServers.Net team of engineers. We give you access to an advanced, yet simple to use control panel where you can create and add new domains for your organization, resell exchange hosting, add new email accounts, enable/disable POP3, IMAP, SMTP, OutlookWebAccess, Outlook MobileAccess, Global Address Book, control the number of emails/aliases/shared folders per domain, and enable/disable accounts.

Our new Windows Velocity Exchange Servers give you everything you need to run your organization’s email services. You even get a hardware-based firewall, server AntiVirus software, and an Advanced AntiSPAM solution, exclusive to FastServers.Net Exchange servers. Your Exchange hosting server can be expanded as your organization grows. And you get 1500GB of high quality bandwidth, 100% Network Uptime, Free Priority Support, and 10GB Managed Remote Backup with 7 day retention. The FastServers.Net Exchange Hosting suite of products and services are absolutely the best on the market. Take advantage of a solution provider who can deliver what you need, when you need it, and for the right price.

The Abuse Desk is a critical component of our Technical Department. Many of you are not aware of how beneficial the Abuse Desk can be to you. This component is vital to maintaining the health and reputation of our network segment and address space. It does this by handling all the various complaints we receive concerning spam, phishing sites, copyright infringement, unauthorized access attempts, and attacks that are hosted or originate in our network segment. The complaints we receive are heavily filtered so only valid complaints are passed on to you, our cherished customers, for action. Regardless of your technical expertise, the expectation is that you will respond to issues brought to your attention from our Abuse Desk.

The Abuse Desk processes complaints received and if any part of the Acceptable Usage Policy (AUP) is violated, the complaint will be recorded. The goal of our Abuse Desk is twofold 1) protect our network (as mentioned), and 2) enforce the AUP. If a complaint is found to involve an incident that violates the AUP or threatens the health or reputation of our network or address space, it is forwarded to the listed contacts we have on file, and action will be immediately required by the recipient. If ongoing complaints about a single server continue, we have a strict policy in place to eradicate the problem including possible cancellation of service.

That said, no one wants things to escalate to the point of having their service cancelled. With this in mind, below are four tips to help you deal with abuse complaints in the most efficient manner:

1. Maintain up-to-date contact information. The Abuse Desk will forward complaints requiring action to the contact information on file. If the primary contact goes to someone who is not equipped to handle such complaints, please take a minute to add a new email address. Something like abuse@yourcompany.com works perfectly. Then let us know you want abuse complaints sent to the new email address.

2. Respond quickly and ask for help where needed. The Server Support Engineers at FastServers.Net are tremendously knowledgeable about server administration. If you do not know what to do, open a ticket and ask for advice. Or you can authorize the usage of your Advanced Technical Support hours for any clean-up activities that need to be done on your server.

3. If you are using third-party technical support, do not separate yourself from abuse complaints. If abuse complaints are not routed and handled correctly, it may result in the end of service for you at FastServers.Net.

4. Whitelist abuse@fastservers.net to make sure you are receiving complaints coming from the Abuse Desk.

As a server owner and part of a growing managed hosting company, you are responsible for what takes place on your server, just as we are responsible for what takes place on our network. The FastServers.Net Abuse Desk works hard to maintain network integrity. We take all the necessary steps to prevent abuse issues that could ultimately result in a negative impact network-wide. The proactive stance taken by the Abuse Desk protects our entire client base. Your timely replies allow us to resolve issues quickly.

If you have questions regarding anything pertaining to abuse or our AUP enforcement, please email abuse@fastservers.net or open a ticket to our Technical Department. There is a wealth of knowledge through these avenues available upon request.

Happy spammer hunting!

As I’m writing this article I look outside my office window every once and a while and see snow falling down in windy 29 degree Chicago weather. Not exactly my idea of an ideal climate, but rest assured that within the next few weeks the cold temperatures will be gone for good, making way for the sunny skies, calm breezes, and of course, the incredible weather that makes Chicago, at least for four months, the best city in America. I bring this up in an effort to help our sales team with a new goal that I set for them in 2007. I asked each of them to work on encouraging potential and existing customers to visit us should they be planning a trip –business or pleasure - to the Chicago area. Even if a trip wasn’t in the cards previously, remember giving us a visit and letting us show you the facilities can result in a business trip for tax purposes! Tax deductions are nice.

There’s plenty to do and see in Chicago year-round, but adding outdoor seating to the world class restaurants, relaxing on the beach, jogging up and down the Lake Shore trails, and even walks through parks and zoos, simply puts it over the top during the summer. We’ve got a great staff of dynamic personalities that would enjoy putting a face with your customer profile. If you ask nicely you may just get a lunch or dinner at one of the aforementioned restaurants out of the deal! At FastServers.Net, we put a premium on our personal interaction with everybody that we deal with - customers, vendors; we even want to know the FedEx delivery person on a first name basis.

Over the past two years various staff members have had the great opportunity to meet many of you in person. We really want to take that concept to the next level and personally invite you to come see us in 2007. Even forty-five minutes of face-to-face time has tremendous benefits to you and us. Getting a chance to chat with you in person and show you around almost always proves to be a valuable experience for everybody involved. The next time you’re thinking about visiting the Chicago area, or anywhere near us, please pickup the phone and set up a time to meet with us in person. We want to thank you for being a valuable member of the FastServers.Net family.