bahjons.com

I often hear this question. What is an SPF Record?

The complicated answer to the above question is this:
SPF means Sender Policy Framework.

What does that mean?  Well, I’ll make it as simple as I can. It’s basically a DNS record that is put in place that lists the allows mail servers (SMTP Servers) that you have authorized to send email for your domain. Why would you want this? Simply to help fight the war against forged or spoofed messages.  How so? Basically, the receiving mail server (or host) if they are checking for SPF records, it will make sure the message it’s receiving is coming from the allowed hosts.

So for example, for bahjons.com, I only want messages to be accepted if it’s coming from the mail server: mailserver2.bahjons.com – I could create an SPF record only allowing this host. When a message is sent to Yahoo Mail, they will check to make sure the message is from mailserver2.bahjons.com.  You can find out how to create an SPF record at www.openspf.org

If you want to be able to check to see if a domain has an SPF record, you can use a validation tool like this one.

I hope that helps.

So I wanted to share my thoughts on Parallel’s recent activity, or perhaps it’s not so recent.

SWSoft is renamed Parallels.
I have mixed feelings about this move by Parallels. To me, I think they will always be SWSoft. And why not? SWSoft makes me think of a software company, which is basically what Parallels is. Other obvious reasons that I wouldn’t have left the brand behind is of course the massive amount of money was was poured into building the previous brand name.

I understand Parallel’s reasons for the change. They want to unify their offerings. It seems they are renaming everything to “Parallels BlahBlah.” Seems like another way to confuse customers with your offerings. Anyway, more power to them, they seem to know what they are doing. And with over $100Million in revenues last year, I’m not going to question their tactics.

Parallels Aquires ModernBill.
This is a rather interesting move for Parallels. In my honest opinion Modernbill had alot to be desired before the acquisition. Their support was fairly useless, with their rather confusing documentation. Shortly after the acquisition, the site is moved, and the old documentation is taken offline. They have started to put a new one online, but even after weeks it’s still mainly incomplete.

I only hope that Modernbill turns around from it’s previous self. At Parallels Summit 2008, they announced ModernBill will be integrated more fully into other Parallels products. Maybe at the sametime they will start reworking the core product, without losing support for the other control panels – namely cPanel.

Parallels Summit 2008
Overall I think it’s a good conference. The speakers most be good, as the exhibit hall was only full during the coffee breaks and during lunch. Otherwise, it was rather slow. The number in attendance was around 500-600 including Parallels employees. The food was good, and the boat ride Monday evening was entertaining.

You can really tell from the conference that Parallels is really working to improve their image and their company relationships. They repeatedly mentioned they want to help their customers and partners grow their business – not worrying about Parallels pocket books – which I find hard to believe, but I’m buying into it. I’m still rather bias to cPanel, but will be keeping a closer eye on Parallels and what they are doing for the next coming years. The industry is moving forward, and Parallels is keeping right up with it I believe.

Feel free to post your comments and opinions on Parallels as well.

What is Overselling?
This is a great question. And it’s important that a consumer know what overselling is. Overselling is basically the practice of selling more hard drive space, bandwidth, and other resources that the web host has. Why would a webhost do this? Simple – to maximize profits. Continue reading

What is Web Hosting?
So if you don’t already know what web hosting is, you are probably wondering – What is it?
To explain it in simple terms – it’s a service that allows you to put your website on the internet.
Now to explain it in more detail – The web hosting company maintains a network of servers (or computers) which have a nice fast internet connection. These servers have software running on them, which allow them to divide up the servers hard drive space (along with other resources) and offer them to its customers. As a customer, you are buying an allotted amount of resources. And there are different levels of hosting, which will be discussed below. Continue reading