What's New at Hover HQ

Last time we talked, I discussed Netbooks and their unique value on the market. I also mentioned then that unlike Laptops, most Netbooks do not come with Optical Drives, making it harder to add new software. While that may seem like a big disadvantage in the traditional sense, it’s not as big a deal as it was 5 years ago?

“Why do you say that?,” you may ask.

“How can I install and use programs on my shiny new NetBook if I can’t get them on it in the first place?”

“Oh and by the way……NetBooks are too darn slow to run a lot of that software anyway, even if I could install it!”

All are good points, and are considered by many to be knocks against buying NetBooks.

But what they don’t know is that there are websites and internet services out there that turn both of these “issues” into “non-issues”. This miraculous technology is called Cloud Computing. And regardless of the cute name, it has nothing to do with those white fluffy things in the sky. Rather Cloud Computing refers to the concept of allowing other computers on the internet to run intense programs and do all the hard work for your computer. Your system would just be the interface that controls these bigger faster computers. That means that even your “lowly” NetBook could be used to perform high powered tasks like video editing through an internet based service. Sort of like Peanut Butter and Chocolate……… NetBooks and Cloud Computing are a match made in heaven!

To explain Cloud Computing simply, try to imagine your computer sitting at home connected to a High Speed Internet service. It doesn’t have to be powerful, it just has to have a fast internet connection. Out there in the “Clouds” are massive, powerful “Server Farms” made up of many computers all linked together. Until now, these types of computers were used for making movies or doing complex scientific research. But as hardware costs have come down, and internet speeds have become faster, the technology has come within reach of us. These computers work together to quickly and powerfully to do all the heavy lifting for your computer. In the end you just download the finished files!

The odd thing is that the idea isn’t really all that new. Back in the 60’s it was suggested that computer processing power would be seen an essential public utility like Water, Gas or Electricity. The main hold-back has been the speed of sending those big files to and from the computers. Now with Fibre Channel going into more and more homes, and even just good high speed Cable/DSL, the concept is possible. Could you imagine sending a large video file over Dial Up? I shudder to think of it…..

The best example in my mind right now the potential of Cloud Computing is a gaming service called OnLive. (http://www.onlive.com) OnLive allows a basic computer, a TV, and even an iPhone to play high performance 3D games. Unlike a Game Console or PC Tower, all of the thinking is done by the servers out there on the internet. All you need is a fast internet connection to stream the video that displays on your TV or Monitor.

On the other end of the cloud computing spectrum are search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. The seach engine does all the hard work of processing your requests by using it’s servers to do all the hard work. On top of searching for websites, they also offer Calendar and Office type products that are managed online, allowing you to no longer require any other program to be installed on your computer besides a web browser.

Cloud Computing is not to be confused with Distributed Computing, which is a similar type of technology that has been around for some time as well. You may have used one very well know example of Distributed Computing yourself! Since 1999 Seti@Home has been using other computers to do it’s analysing of deep space radio signals. The difference here is that it’s sort of backwards compared to Cloud Computing. In this case YOUR computer is the one doing all of the hard work for another computer. While your computer may not be powerful, there are millions of computers just like yours doing a little piece of work each. But it’s still the same idea here, the bulk of the work is done for one user by other computers.

My point in showing this example is that there are different and unique ways to leverage the concept of Cloud Computing for your own business. Not only can you use it as a tool for yourself, but you may be able to develop creative Cloud based applications for your customers! And the good news for you is that right now there are not a lot of Cloud Computing services out there compared to other services. That means the ship hasn’t yet sailed, and it’s a good time as a web developer to come up with the next big thing. Ask yourself “What sort of intensive tasks do a lot of people perform on their computers every day that could be done online”.

Whether you intend to use a Cloud Computing service, or create one yourself, this is a big change in how we will interact with software and services in the future.

“Innovation is driven by everyday end-users. Today, more and more innovation comes from the myriad hobbyists and enthusiasts at the tech-savvy edges of the computing ecosystem” – Geoffrey Koch, senior manager, Intel Solution Services

There is a beautiful story to be told about human ingenuity; where everyday people, like you and me, provide a solution to solve a problem. Whether you’re an amateur photographer, curious researcher, tech-savvy developer, or food lover, both your passion and wisdom can be shared with the world in order to solve an array of mind-stumping problems.

Crowdsourcing is a rising phenomenon that is catching more and more companies’ attention. Crowdsourcing exists as an online, distributed problem-solving model that has now emerged as an alternative business model. Jeff Howe and Mark Robinson coined the term in June 2006 and defined it as “a new web-based model that harnesses the creative solution of a distributed network of individuals through what amounts to an open call for proposals”.

With the Web and rise of Web 2.0 applications providing a means to aggregate the answers, the number of sheer contributors is overwhelming.

Professional Hobbyists – iStockPhoto

The world of professional photography was given a new meaning when Bruce Livingstone launched iStockPhoto – a royalty-free stock of photography, animations, and video clips – in year 2000. iStockPhoto not only gave companies a cheaper and more accessible way of obtaining photographs, but it created a new marketplace for amateur photographers. Suddenly, anyone with a passion for photography could contribute; hobbyists across all genres – students, musicians, computer geeks, and even biologists – could share their passion and turn a small profit.

Unlike professionals, iStockers don’t need to clear $120, 000 a year from their photos; likewise, nor do companies have to negotiate an appropriate budget for photography. Companies can purchase professional-looking photos from iStock anywhere from forty dollars to one dollar a pop.

Today, iStockphoto’s clients include bulk photo purchasers such as IBM and United Way, as well as small design agencies once forced to go to big stock houses. As of January 2009, the online photo library contains over 4 million images contributed by over 50, 000 photographers at the rate of 27, 000 images per week.

Because the crowd willingly shares their works of art, a new and profound way of purchasing photographs is born, “iStockphoto relies on contributing artists to upload their creative works for us to sell.” – Bruce Livingstone

Could Crowdsourcing Cure Cancer? InnoCentive

InnoCentive is a company that believes in the power of open innovation, harnessing creative minds to generate breakthrough solutions. Founded in 2001, InnoCentive thrives as the world’s first open innovation marketplace.

Seeker companies like Proctor & Gamble post their toughest problems to the “InnoCentive” solvers page. Then, the crowd of solvers can then submit their solutions via the web, which go under review by the seeker. If a solution meets the technical requirements for the challenge, the seeker company awards a cash prize that they determine up front. Awards range from $10,000 to 1 million US dollars.

The idea that the wisdom of crowds can be used to create solar-powered wireless technology so marginalized women and children in rural India can have access to skills and knowledge needed to escape the sex trade is both profound and hopeful. InnoCentive provides new hope that one-day soon, collective knowledge can solve some of the world’s toughest and most tragic problems such as cancer.

The beauty of InnoCentive is that registration to become a “potential solver” is free. You don’t need to be a professional scientist or worldly scholar; no matter what your background may be, you can put your mind to the test.

InnoCentive continues to broadcast scientific challenges to over 80-thousand independent scientists from over 150 countries. You can explore InnoCentive and its various challenges and news via the InnoCentive Blog.

Creativity Cheeky

Chevrolet experimented with crowdsourced advertising for the 2007 Chevy Taho, which ultimately backfired in a rather interesting way. Chevrolet introduced a website that allowed users to take existing nature-filled video clips and various music in order to create a customized 30-second commercial by inserting their own words.

Unfortunately, many of the video responses were incredibly biting, full of witty mockery and negative implications. The most popular parody like responses included political and environmental messages to address global warming, pollution and overall environmental concern. Needless to say, Chevrolet had to work hard to control the videos that appeared on their site. Despite strong efforts, the parodies still leaked onto YouTube.com and other popular video sites.

Here is one of the popular parodies:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oNedC3j0e4

The Wisdom of Crowds, From Every Crowd

These examples – among hundreds of others – help to show just how powerful the crowd really is, by outperforming the industry faster and cheaper than even the top minds in the fields. The crowd not only generates profound creativity but also provides solutions to today’s trickiest problems. In the end, it’s people like you and me who hold the talent to capture beautiful photography, produce memorable commercials, and unlock breakthrough solutions; and it’s the companies who turn to us for answers.

Recently, it seems as though computer stores are being taken over by wee little laptops that seem more suited to the hands of children. These NetBooks, as they are called, are a lot smaller than a laptop and can be found for as low as a couple of hundred dollars. It’s no surprise that millions have been sold in just the last couple of years. The big question for anyone creating web content or involved in online marketing is: “How do I make sure I’m creating a positive experience for this growing market of Web users?”

A well known example of a NetBook

Let’s look at how you can target these NetBook users when they are on your site or using your products. A good starting point is to ask “What makes them so different from laptop users?” To answer that, we need to understand a bit more what we are dealing with.

 NetBooks have much smaller screens

Since NetBooks are so small, they can’t have glorious 17” LCD screens. The screen resolution on NetBooks is usually 1024 x 600. The problem with that small size is that when you create a web page that’s formatted for a 1024 x 768 screen or larger, the NetBook will only be able to show a somewhat “gun slit” view of your page. I’ve used a few NetBooks, and the last thing you want is your customers feeling that they are looking at your page through a cardboard tube! The good news is that Intel has increased the maximum allowed resolution from 1024 x 600 to 1366 x 768 for new NetBooks. But that’s still a tight squeeze for most web pages which tend to extend vertically. While most users won’t have a problem scrolling up and down, no one wants to have to scroll Left or Right just to see everything on it. This can make navigating them very annoying for the user, and could result in potential customers leaving your site. An east rule of thumb would be to make sure that the really important stuff fits in the 1024 x 600 space that NetBook screens accommodate. You may also want to consider a separately formatted site just for NetBooks. That’s not as crazy an idea as you may think. Developers create separate sites for iPhones all the time, why not NetBooks? Again, there are certainly enough of them out there! Letting users know that your site is “NetBook Friendly” would go a long way to ensuring traffic. That may be the ace in the hole that makes your product stand out from others!! . Now you may also be tempted to just huff and say “Tough luck, get a real computer!”…..but did I mention that there are millions of NetBook users?

1280 x 1024

 

 

 

1280 x 600

Linux is pretty common in NetBook land

Another very important consideration involves the software that’s loaded onto these NetBooks. Unlike the majority of PCs, a far higher percentage of NetBooks come preloaded with Linux. Many of these Linux NetBooks come with Firefox, while others come with Opera and other less popular browsers. So when creating web content, playing it safe by coding for Internet Explorer may not be doing you any favors. Try to write your content for as broad a user base as you can. Not only will it make NetBook users happy, but it’ll also ensure that other non-standard web users are happy as well.

Smaller size also equals less performance

Finally, there’s one other very big concession when it comes to NetBooks……performance! While pretty good at basic web browsing and average quality video, NetBooks are not meant for high end animation and video. So if you have advertisers that run videos, or if you embed a video into your home page, lower its quality or scrap it altogether to make it faster for NetBook users. NetBooks can also struggle with a lot of Flash stuff as well, so you may want to keep the Flash content and video down to a minimum….at least on the main page and any pages that can close a sale. At the very least make sure that whatever you do put up will fit in that 1024 x 600 window. Most of the time “Less is More” is a better way to go with your home page anyway.

The point to all of this is that there are many ways for your potential customers to access your content, and by making that content appropriate for the devices out there just makes good business sense. By making sure that your content is enjoyable to everyone on the Internet, you make your product that much more successful.

In the past year, Twitter, Microsoft, Coca-Cola and HSBC have all seen their websites taken over by hackers.

In all of these cases, the security failure was due to poor domain name or email account security which allowed the bad guys to retrieve information that they shouldn’t have had access to, and use that information to disguise themselves as the rightful owner of the domain name. Once they gained access to the domain name registration record, it was a simple task to redirect these high profile websites to a completely different web host, making it look like the company operated website had been compromised.

By following these simple steps, you can generally avoid getting caught in a similar compromising position.

1. Follow good password practices. When you create your account at your registrar, don’t use a password that is easily guessable or one that you use elsewhere. The best passwords are 8-12 characters in length and consist of a random selection of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. These passwords are also hard to remember. To make it easier to use passwords like this, I use a program on MacOS called “Wallet” which securely stores my passwords and syncs them among my various devices. So even though my passwords are pretty complicated, I can readily access them and paste them into my web browser when I sign into my domain account.
2. Make sure your contact information is accurate and updated at all times. Did you register your domain name with a Hotmail address that you stopped using three years ago? Guess what, if you haven’t updated your contact information with your registrar, then you’ve exposed your domain name for a hijacking. Hotmail and most other free email providers delete and recycle email addresses that haven’t been used for a while. It is trivial for a bad guy to re-create one of these addresses and then ask your registrar to send them your password to the address that they have on file. Once they have your password, they have your domain name. Having updated contact information on file with your registrar is critical in the event that your domain name gets hijacked. If they have good data to work with, they can generally verify your ownership of the domain name, but if they have bad data, this task becomes almost impossible. If you are worried about your privacy, use their Whois privacy service to protect the publication of your personal information. It is impossible for a registrar to verify the identity of a domain owner for a domain name that was registered to “Joe Blow, 123 Main Street, Anywhere USA”.
3. Track your own renewal dates. Treat your domain names like new born babies, when you register a new domain name, make a note of its “birthday” in your calendar or daytimer. As these dates approach, sign into your registrar account and renew the domain name a few days early. This will guarantee that you never lose track of your domain names, or worse, accidently let them slip into expiry or deletion where they will be instantly picked up by someone else.
4. Lock your domain. This one is easy. Make sure that you domain name is always set to “locked”. If your registrar doesn’t permit you to lock your domains, find a new registrar who will. If you are with Hover, you can use this great “howto” to doublecheck that your domain name is locked: http://about.hover.com/locking
5. Find out who your registrar is. Every single day we talk to customers who don’t know who their registrar is. Most often they had someone else register their domain name in the first place, and that person has since left the picture walking out with the important information about the identity of their registrar. Finding out who your registrar is pretty easy. Just visit http://whois.opensrs.net and search whois for your domain name. The results will tell you who your registrar is. Even better, if your registrar is listed as “Tucows”, you will find your “Registration Service Provider” listed at the bottom of the registration record. The Registration Service Provider is the company or individual that can help you manage your domain name and safeguard it from theft.
6. Renew your domain name for as long as possible. When a domain name expires, there’s a pretty strong chance that it will get deleted and drop into someone else’s hands. You definitely don’t want this, so as a mitigating strategy, you can minimize the chances that the domain will ever drop by registering it for as long as your registrar permits (or as long as you can afford!). By renewing a domain name for ten years instead of one year, you’ve decreased the risk of losing your name ten fold. For important names, the extra cash outlay is definitely worth it. Also, this is a great way to lock in your domain name at today’s prices as the registries continue to increase their prices.
7. Whitelist email from your registrar. Make sure that your spam filters aren’t catching important emails from your registrar. Find out what domain name they are sending from and add them to your email whitelist. It may seem like a bit of bother at first, especially if your registrar is “chatty”, but the emails they send can mean the difference between keeping your domain name and losing it to someone else. For instructions on whitelisting Hover, check out this great tutorial.
8. Use Domain Privacy. If you don’t publish your identity in the online Whois directories, then the bad guys won’t know who you are. If they don’t know who you are, then they can’t send you these confusing messages. If you are a Hover customer, you can use these simple instructions to turn on Whois privacy for your domain names.

Do you have any other strategies that you use to keep your domain names safe and secure? Share them in the comments and we’ll gather them up and share them for everyone to read.

The good folks at CENTR have put together a great video that explains how DNS works. Definitely worth watching.

In the wake of the devastating Haiti earthquake, consumers are being advised to exercise caution before giving donations in response to unsolicited e-mail messages, websites, door-to-door collections, mailings, and telephone calls.

If you receive any suspicious solicitations, the FBI and the National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) have established a 24/7 telephone hotline to report suspected Haitian earthquake relief fraud. The number is (866) 720-5721. You can also e-mail information directly to disaster@leo.gov.

The following guidelines have been published by the FBI National Press Office:

* Do not respond to any unsolicited (spam) incoming e-mails, including clicking links contained within those messages.
* Be skeptical of individuals representing themselves as surviving victims or officials asking for donations via e-mail or social networking sites.
* Beware of organizations with copy-cat names similar to but not exactly the same as those of reputable charities.
* Rather than following a purported link to a website, verify the legitimacy of non-profit organizations by utilizing various Internet-based resources that may assist in confirming the group’s existence and its non-profit status.
* Be cautious of e-mails that claim to show pictures of the disaster areas in attached files, because the files may contain viruses. Only open attachments from known senders.
* To ensure contributions are received and used for intended purposes, make contributions directly to known organizations rather than relying on others to make the donation on your behalf.
* Do not be pressured into making contributions, as reputable charities do not use such tactics.
* Do not give your personal or financial information to anyone who solicits contributions. Providing such information may compromise your identity and make you vulnerable to identity theft.
* Avoid cash donations if possible. Pay by debit or credit card, or write a check directly to the charity. Do not make checks payable to individuals.

If you want to make a contribution to help relief efforts in Haiti, you might consider sending your donation using one of the following charity websites:

The American Red Cross
The Canadian Red Cross
Clinton Bush Haiti Fund

“That will be $8.42 sir.” the barista requested flatly.

“I thought it was 99 cents.” I responded, a bit puzzled. “Isn’t that what the sign says?”

“Yes sir, but you asked for a cup. That’s an extra dollar.” she said as she glanced over my shoulder at the growing lineup.

“So coffee is two dollars? You said it was $8.42?” I asked as I nudged the steaming cup back towards her.

“Sir, the coffee is 99 cents. The cup is another dollar, cream and sugar are optional extras. Plus, we had to pour it for you. And don’t forget the bathroom service and heating surcharges.” she explained.

“Bathroom? Heating surcharges? You’d like me to pay for heating the restaurant?” I grumbled.

“Don’t be silly sir, of course we heat the restaurant for free,” she said plainly. “But unless you’d like your coffee cold, we have to charge you for warming it.”

Leaving the coffee on the counter, I turned and headed for the door.

It is hard to imagine any business pricing their products and services like this coffee shop, but look no further than the domain name industry. Many domain registration providers seem to have deliberately gone out of their way to price their products and services in the most confusing manner possible. Customers may put a premium on simplicity and transparency in the post-Enron business world, but it seems that the domain name industry just hasn’t caught on.

For example, check out this offer from a leading registrar.

“Domain Names for just $1.99″

Sounds pretty awesome, right? So what’s the catch?

You need to buy  $20 worth of email service just to get the domain price.

And Whois privacy is another $9/year.

That $1.99 registration is going to cost you $31.15 for the first year!

The second year is even worse when the price of the domain name itself jumps to $10, coupled with all of the other surcharges brings the year two cost of the domain to $71.00!!  Not only is that an additional $39.85 over what the first year cost, its a full $69 more than what the offer promised in the first place!

$1.99 domain names indeed.

Registrars who price like this also love to play games with how much they charge for renewals. Almost everyday I get a call from a customer who wants to bring their business back to us. Typically, they’ve left us because of an amazing deal another registrar offered them on their domain renewals. Then, after the first year, the awesome price disappears and the customer ends up paying much more than what we were charging them in the first place. Some registrars call this a “loss leader”, but it sounds more like “bait and switch” to me.

I’ve certainly heard the justifications about how this isn’t a scam, its just savvy marketing. After all, these unbelievable low prices all carry asterisks pointing to fine print. My question to you is, do you want to do business with a company that forces you to read the fine print?

Hover is different from other registrars. We’ve been selling domain names since 1994 and take a long term view of our relationship with our customers. Our prices are transparent – what you see is what you get. There are no asterisks, fine print or weasel words. You will never pay more for your second year than you did for your first year as part of a scheme we cooked up to trick you into paying more. Pricing tricks like this might work once or twice, but it certainly isn’t a realistic basis for a long term relationship.

If you aren’t already doing business with Hover, be sure to check what your registrar is charging you for these services. Don’t get caught paying too much because of the fine print in a purchase contract you entered into five years ago. If you think you are paying too much, call your registrar and ask for a better price. If you don’t get it, think seriously about transferring your business to a provider that hasn’t made a business out of pulling the wool over your eyes.

Here’s more from Hover friend and guest-blogger Jessica Muhlbier.  Jessica is a genuine chatterbox, social media guru, avid writer and up-and-coming digital celebrity.  She lives at www.jessicamuhlbier.com.

If you’ve been on Twitter for more than a few minutes, chances are you’ve seen a tweet or two with a hash “#” symbol, also known as a hashtag. Trending topics develop and revolve around hashtags. Some recent trending topics are #ladygaga #googlewave and #Twilight. So, what exactly is a hashtag?

A hashtag is a simple way to catalog and organize tweets around a specific topic.

Exploring Twitter in all its glory, hashtags don’t just spark trends. They are both extremely useful and beneficial for your online brand or business. Why? Well hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional metadata to your tweets, which helps to provide extra context for your audience, and in Twitter’s case, followers. Hashtags work similar to tags on Flickr, Facebook, or Google maps, only they are added in-line to your post.

You can create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag. For example, if I were to tweet about Hover it would look something like this: “I’m so excited to be blogging for the #Hover community!”

How to Utilize HashTags for your Brand or Business

Because hashtags develop and spread so quickly, it can be overwhelming to know which tags to use or create. A good rule of thumb is to use hashtags that are consistent with your brand. If you are a foodie then why not share some recipes on #tastytuesdays and if you’re a musician then #musicmondays is a popular trending topic not to be missed.

Essentially, if it makes sense for your brand to join the conversation then go ahead and tweet with the appropriate hashtag.

Now while participation is all good and fun, you may want to start your very own hashtag. Many conferences assign a specific hashtag, which has proven to be a positive networking tool and a convenient way to follow different presentations. I was recently in San Jose for the KMWorld conference and was unable to attend a specific session; however, I was able to follow the tweets simply by searching the #kmw09 hashtag, which was extremely helpful.

Like conferences, hashtags are very helpful for small businesses as a way to track social media campaigns, engage your customers, and to further build your company’s sense of community.

Getting Your HashTag Started

The first and most basic step is deciding on the tag word. It’s best to pick something short and sweet, easy to spell, and of course memorable.

Once you’ve chosen the tag itself, the next step is a no-brainer: start using it and promoting it! But do ensure that your tweets with the hashtag are worthwhile and valuable to the conversation stream; and don’t overdo it; the last thing you want is to appear spammy to your beloved followers.

A great and fairly recent example of a hashtag promotion is when Starbucks (@Starbucks) launched the new VIA instant coffee. #StarbucksVIA became a popular hashtag in customer’s response to the new product, which in turn was great (and free) feedback for Starbucks.

Keeping Track

Once you’ve become a Twitterholic-hashtag-using-machine all that’s left is to keep track of your tags within the Twitter discourse. You can search hashtags via Twitter Search (which is the most popular), What The Trend and of course, Google. However, if an easy search doesn’t do you justice then check out Monitter or TweetGrid. Both these programs are good web-based control panels for performing real-time Twitter searches of hashtags.

Happy Hashing!

We are seeing reports that a new phishing attack is affecting our Subscriber’s Inboxes and will compromise your security if responded to.

Here is a sample:

From: noreply@smith.net [mailto:noreply@smith.net]
Sent: donderdag 7 januari 2010 14:27
To: diana@smith.net
Subject: A new settings file for the diana@smith.net
has just been released

Dear user of the smith.net mailing service!

We are informing you that because of the security upgrade
of the mailing service your mailbox (diana@smith.net) settings
were changed. In order to apply the new set of settings click
on the following link:

http://smith.net/owa/service_directory/settings.php?email=diana
&diana&from=smith.net&fromname=diana

Best regards, smith.net Technical Support.

If you have received anything like this, just ignore this message, delete it, and do not click on the link.  All emails coming from Hover, your service provider, will identify us as Hover.com.

Our Abuse team is currently investigating information related to this phishing scam.

Here are some quick answers for the customers of 1stDomain.net who will soon be joining the Hover community.  We are thrilled to welcome you.

How did I get here?
Your registrar, 1stDomain LLC, has voluntarily ended their accreditation with ICANN (International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).  1stDomain has chosen us to be your new domain name service provider and ICANN has approved us.

Who is Hover?
Fair question.  Hover is a division of Tucows Inc., a publicly-traded company that has served millions of Internet users worldwide since 1994.  Tucows is one of the leading domain name registrars, with over 9 million domain names under management.  (We’re not going anywhere.)  Hover is focused entirely on making domain and email management simple.  We have great tools and we are in the process of making them better.  We have a huge library of tutorials and help videos.  Most importantly, we have a large, accessible, knowledgeable, eager customer support team to help you in any way we can.

What is happening with my domain name?
Your domain name is absolutely still yours and it should still be resolving to wherever you have been pointing it.  However, as of Tuesday, January 5, you can no longer manage it (make changes to settings or information) at 1stDomain LLC.  We are working as quickly as we can to migrate your domain name to our system and to assign you login information so that you can start managing it at Hover and we can start helping you do that.  We expect to have that done within the next 48 hours.

What if it expires amid the transition?
We will not let that happen.  Hover always provides a 40-day grace period following the expiration of your domain name.  So even if your domain name expired tomorrow, there would be plenty of time to get you set up in our system and get you renewed without any additional charge.  Even if your domain name expired recently and you think you might have missed the renewal notices, we can try to help with that too.  In short, we intend to do everything we can to make sure you happily own and manage your domain name at Hover for as long as you like.

What happens next?
You will get an email from us with your Hover username and password.  That means your domain name or domain names are there in a Hover account waiting for you.  Log in and get started.

Help?
Sure. Email us at help@hover.com or call us at 1.866.731.6556.
You can start browsing around Help Section for tutorials, discussion forums and videos.
Check out our blog at: http://stuff.hover.com
Follow us on Twitter: http://about.hover.com/twitter

Update: The original version of this post implied that ICANN had ended the relationship with 1stDomain. This is incorrect. 1stDomain LLC has voluntarily ended their relationship with ICANN. The post has been updated to reflect this. Sorry for any confusion we might have caused!