New HostDemon Intro

by kayol on July 9th, 2010

The shot took 3 days to film and edit.

The Road Less Traveled

by kayol on November 23rd, 2009

In the Beginning:

Situated along the north shore of the Bay of Fundy at the mouth of the Saint John River rests Saint John, the largest city in the province of New Brunswick, and the oldest incorporated city in Canada.

Growing up in a small harbour town with a population of about 68, 043 and steady decline over several decades two things became apparent; The Road less Traveled and the Definition of Insanity.

Albert Einstein once said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

Most of the people worked hard labour in different industrial sectors or call centres. Wanting to follow a path perhaps not as easy because not many others have done meant, although things were going to be less obvious, the rewards were much higher too.

How HostDemon came to be:

Around 1994, on a custom built PC using Windows 3.1 operating system produced by Microsoft many afternoons of learning basic HTML scripting ensued which would spark a fascination in technology.

In 2002, our first website we developed centred around Fantasy Wrestling or eFeds which drew in steady streams of traffic from family and friends. Unfortunately, the servers were frequently down due to free web hosting and lack of resources on a shared server.

Around 2002-2003, a network of animated web series were made up of a very creative group of friends and fellow classmates. The majority of series revolved around stick figures in various webisodes and web comics.

Mike McLennan produced the series “The mike and Melvin Show”, “Phat Jesus”, and drew comics on the side.

Zac McIntyre produced the series “The Adventures of Bob and Steve”

Kayol Hope produced the series “Epoh World”, and “Sarah Westscape”

Clarence Ball produced the series “The Amazing Adventures of Mr. Gear and Clippy”

Tim Cyr helped influenced the writing of many scripts with his unique since of humour and vast pop culture knowledge in movies and music.

Throughout 2003, skills were honed both through self teaching and a local computer service internship in a variety of script languages/programming, media applications, and  troubleshooting.

2004, our introduction into the web hosting industry came about after High School with server space rented to long time friend Clarence Ball. His series “The Amazing Adventures of Mr. Gear and Clippy” was starting and gained a loyal following while we decided to scrap the “Epoh World” series for a new series called, “Sarah Westscape”. It was suppose to be a Buffy the Vampirish Flash Webisode and Web Comic series.

Over the next couple years, Personal goals would be halted by marriage, kids, and dead-end jobs.

Finally, in 2007 the desire to come up in the world returned. Unfortunately, it also took it’s toll on personal life as well. The cute Anime styled Mascot and website layout would be modified to fit our web hosting company.

Originally we choose the domain littledevilhosting dot com to start as a reseller but the hosting provider quickly became too good to be true. After the initial setback we registered the domain hostdemon dot net in Feb 3rd 2007.

Deciding to encompass previous projects with future endeavours would help serve as a constant reminder that sometimes to find your way you have to look at where you’ve been.

Playing off the domain name and mascot logo we unofficially named it, “Epoh” meaning “HOPE” spelled backwards in honour of Kayol Hope, Founder of HostDemon. The 7 Deadly Sins Theme was used as a unique naming convention among our different Linux Hosting and Windows Hosting plans. Although our core business model focused toward mobile device compatible websites, our theme had allowed us to appeal to the church hosting niche market.

Later that year Clarence Ball returned as our first client along with his highly popular web game  - The Never Ending Level Game until he had outgrown the limitations of of a shared hosting environment. Luckily, a good amount of traffic flowed over to our website allowing us to pick up a new clients. Clarence Ball has given excellent reference in return for our design, hosting, and advertising services.

The Future of HostDemon:

We wish to become more recognized among the mainstream media and anticipate accomplishing this goal over the next several years.

The great thing about our business model is that we have the freedom to branch out into many areas of business technology: design, hosting, seo, advertising, networking, security, programming, business, law, accounting, trouble shooting, customer service, social media, etc.

Come Get Your Google Wave Invite

by kayol on November 14th, 2009

Announced by Google at Google I/O conference on May 27, 2009 and initially released to targeted developers. Google has been handing out Wave limited entry invites to 100,000 lucky new users. Google Wave is “a personal communication and collaboration tool” and there are four ways to receive an invite:

1. Early Sign Up. Following the announcement of Wave, Google put up a request form. To be honest, it can be a long list if you didn’t sign up early.

2. Developer Preview of Wave Account. The Sandbox version of Google Wave was accessible for a select group of developers allowing them to test Wave, report bugs, and Wave extensions.

3. Some Paid Google Apps Users. Several companies and schools that use Google Apps got early access during launched.

4. Invited by Someone already using Wave. Basically, you have to know a member to be a member. Here’s how Google explained it:

“We’ll ask some of these early users to nominate people they know also to receive early invitations — Google Wave is a lot more useful if your friends, family and colleagues have it too. This, of course, will just be the beginning. If all goes well we will soon be inviting many more to try out Google Wave.”

Here is the best part though, we have the ability to nominate anyone that is desperately seeking an invite to Google Wave. All you need to do in return is login to your Twitter account and tweet containing the hashtag #hostdemon with a nice shout out or tinyurl to back to HostDemon.

Full Website Integrations Complete

by kayol on October 26th, 2009

We are very pleased to announce that with the help of HostPenguin we have completed the integrations of our Wordpress Blog, WHMCS Billing & Support System, and our new PHPBB Forum into our current website layout.

It has been a goal of ours since day one to have every aspect of our website fully integrated. This decision will make HostDemon easier to navigate and much more aesthetically pleasing.

We felt the time was right to undertake this major design project for three reasons:

1. With the latest update to WHMCS it rendered our previous design useless.
2. We believe our clients will enjoy the additional support option.
3. Since we are designing a system for accepting and training employees we thought a new Forum would be a great feature as we will certainly need to fill support agent positions such as Forum Moderators.

Even though transactions are securely handled through Merchant Gateways like PayPal and 2Checkout we have secured all of our servers with Private SSL Certification. The decision was put into action after concluding that if a potential to a website does not see a visible lock icon in the address bar they tend to walk away. Although our website has always been secure and updated on a regular bases, we want to instill confidence in our clients.

Need Web Hosting & Design Solutions? There’s An App For That.

by kayol on August 26th, 2009

HostDemon has carved a successful niche out of helping customers build a successful online presence with an array of services that expose the web design community that are just beginning to understand the market for mobile device compatible websites. In staying true to what makes our company different from the multitude of web hosting and web designers, we have developed an Official Web Hosting Web App that provides a web-application experience when viewed from an iPhone, iPod touch or Android touch mobile device.

Modeled after Apple’s app store design specs, our websites load lightning fast on touch mobile devices, displaying our content beautifully, all while not interfering with our regular theme.

Get the latest important news, updates, and even special offers through our blog on the web hosting industry. Dive into the culture of HostDemon on a personal and professional level.

We submit our Web App August 22/2009 and were happy to see it Approved and listed August 24/2009 .

Your Ad Here

Affordable Linux & Windows Hosting + Instant Backups

by kayol on August 16th, 2009

Need a web host for your business or personal use? Already have a webhost but not happy with them? Consider HostDemon.net

Company Information

Company Name: HostDemon
Company URL: HostDemon – Web Hosting & Design Solutions at Sinful Prices!
Twitter Stream: Follow us on Twitter
FaceBook Page: Find us on Facebook
Podcast Feed: Subscribe
Company Telephone Number: 1.800.526.0952
Company Description: HostDemon specializes in helping customers build a successful online presence with an array of services that expose the web design community that are just beginning to understand the market for mobile device compatible websites. In the
future more and more websites will be easily browsable by devices like your children’s portable game system or Mp3 player. We also offer all the services you would expect from an affordable web hosting provider including, domain registration, hosting plans, and custom web design with instant weekly backups of your content.

cPanel hosting + Fantastico + Instant Backups W/ No Overselling

Plan Information

Hosting Plan Name: Greed
Payment Options (Visa, MC, etc.): All Major Credit Card, Paypal, & Mail-in-Payment
Billing Cycle (monthly, quarterly, etc.): Monthly, Semi Yearly, & Yearly
Monthly Price of Your Hosting Plan: $5.00
Web Space (MB): 500
Operating System: Linux
Setup Fee: $0.00
Data Transfer (MB per month): 2000
Number of Email Accounts: unlimited
Connection: (T1, T3, OC3, etc.): Multiple Gigabit
Order Now!

Plan Information
Hosting Plan Name: Lust
Payment Options (Visa, MC, etc.): All Major Credit Card, Paypal, & Mail-in-Payment
Billing Cycle (monthly, quarterly, etc.): Monthly, Semi Yearly, & Yearly
Monthly Price of Your Hosting Plan: $7.00
Web Space (MB): 1000
Operating System: Linux
Setup Fee: $0.00
Data Transfer (MB per month): 5000
Number of Email Accounts: unlimited
Connection: (T1, T3, OC3, etc.): Multiple Gigabit
Order Now!

Plan Information
Hosting Plan Name: Envy
Payment Options (Visa, MC, etc.): All Major Credit Card, Paypal, & Mail-in-Payment
Billing Cycle (monthly, quarterly, etc.): Monthly, Semi Yearly, & Yearly
Monthly Price of Your Hosting Plan: $10.00
Web Space (MB): 2000
Operating System: Linux
Setup Fee: $0.00
Data Transfer (MB per month): 10000
Number of Email Accounts: unlimited
Connection: (T1, T3, OC3, etc.): Multiple Gigabit
Order Now!

Plesk hosting + Plesk & Spanish Language Application Packs + Instant Backups W/ No Overselling

Plan Information

Hosting Plan Name: Gluttony
Payment Options (Visa, MC, etc.): All Major Credit Card, Paypal, & Mail-in-Payment
Billing Cycle (monthly, quarterly, etc.): Monthly, Semi Yearly, & Yearly
Monthly Price of Your Hosting Plan: $5.00
Web Space (MB): 500
Operating System: Windows
Setup Fee: $0.00
Data Transfer (MB per month): 2000
Number of Email Accounts: unlimited
Connection: (T1, T3, OC3, etc.): Multiple Gigabit
Order Now!

Plan Information
Hosting Plan Name: Sloth
Payment Options (Visa, MC, etc.): All Major Credit Card, Paypal, & Mail-in-Payment
Billing Cycle (monthly, quarterly, etc.): Monthly, Semi Yearly, & Yearly
Monthly Price of Your Hosting Plan: $7.00
Web Space (MB): 1000
Operating System: Windows
Setup Fee: $0.00
Data Transfer (MB per month): 5000
Number of Email Accounts: unlimited
Connection: (T1, T3, OC3, etc.): Multiple Gigabit
Order Now!

Plan Information
Hosting Plan Name: Pride
Payment Options (Visa, MC, etc.): All Major Credit Card, Paypal, & Mail-in-Payment
Billing Cycle (monthly, quarterly, etc.): Monthly, Semi Yearly, & Yearly
Monthly Price of Your Hosting Plan: $10.00
Web Space (MB): 2000
Operating System: Windows
Setup Fee: $0.00
Data Transfer (MB per month): 10000
Number of Email Accounts: unlimited
Connection: (T1, T3, OC3, etc.): Multiple Gigabit
Order Now!

Services:

Offered by our company
Video Streaming
Account “Control Panel” (cPanel for Linux/Plesk for Windows)
CGI permitted
Domain Registration
Telephone Support
Secure server available
Unique IP Adress
SSL Certificates
Audio Streaming
All Major Database available
Unlimited FTP Updates
Active Server Pages
PHP
Perl
ASP.net
AJAX
Tomcat
Application pack
Spanish language pack
Fantastico DeLuxe
MS FrontPage Extentions
Detailed Web Usage Statistics
Server Side Includes
2 Free Website Building software Programs
and more!

Additional Comments: “We have been providing web hosting solutions since 2003. At the time our company did not provide
hosting services and most of our clients were made up of friends and family that wanted either a website built or a website revamped. Now in 2008 we still offer a superior hosting service to our clients. Although, support and reliability we offer has proven to be the key factor in our ability to be a competitive force in the ever growing hosting market. Our ability to grow and offer hosting solutions to an array of internet based devices is a testament to why with Hostdemon.net your in good hands.

At Hostdemon.net we don’t wear suits and ties and we certainly don’t work out of our parent’s basement. We are a group of web savvy individuals
with a strong passion for art and technology.

We are an electronic company originating from Canada and spans throughout the USA and UK.

Our datacenter is located in Dallas, Texas and is staffed 24/7/365. There are multiple OC48 SONET fiber rings that provide basic connectivity to eight access carriers. The datacenter is completely redundant, including a 2200 gallon backup diesel generator. There are over 580 smoke detectors throughout the 35,000 square foot facility, with a VESDA contaminate system.”

We use the most current software and control panel versions
Apache 1.3.37
Windows 2003 Server
PHP 5.2.1
Peal 5.8.7
MySQL 4.1.19-standard
cPanel 11 – Auto updates to latest version
Plesk – Auto updates to latest version
GD/Image magik – Latest Version

Uptime Report History:
WebHostingStuff.com Uptime Monitor™.
[View Report]
HostDemon Server Monitor
[View Report]

“We guarantee your site will have a 99.9% uptime and receive a 30 day money back guarantee on any of our hosting plans. If we fail to deliver we
will refund you!”

Social Media Outreach Marketing

by kayol on January 16th, 2009

At first most social networking services seemed to be unprofessional, and that’s exactly how it would make our business look. It took quite awhile to warm up to the concept and sort out the fads. Sure, most of our friends, and co-workers communicate and stay connected through various social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Blogger but thanks to the integration of our Wordpress Blog it would be hard to live without it.

Technology changes and we have always strived to adapt and grow with it because just like any online business our goals are as follows:

* Reach more customers for our business
* Launch new products with a bang!
* Encourage more people to read our news updates
* Generate more traffic to rank higher in search engines

Throughout the majority of 2008 HostDemon invested in Social Bookmarking advertising campaigns with moderate success. Our social media outreach marketing campaigns would not be complete without Twitter.

“Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”

Our trusty iPhone and Apple Apps Store keep us connected on the go to ensure 24/7/365 customer support. Don’t forget our new Hosted Exchange and SharePoint services for all you mobile device users.

Although not a support channel for mission-critical issues saying something meaningful in 140 characters or less is great avenue for enhancing our Blog with promotions and other web hosting related thoughts.

This gives provides a more intimate level between HostDemon and our customers. Check out our Twitter Stream and if you like what you see, consider following us. We welcome all suggestions on expanding HostDemon’s social media presence.

Your Ad Here

Hosted Microsoft Exchange 2007 & SharePoint 3.0

by kayol on January 12th, 2009

Introducing, HostDemon enterprise-grade Microsoft Exchange 2007 hosting with Blackberry & Windows Mobile wireless email, SharePoint hosting and a full range of archiving and compliance tools. Hosted Exchange service provides our customers with the following important business email and collaboration tools.

Our Microsoft Exchange 2007 provides enterprise-level communicating without the expensive overhead costs of hardware, infrastructure, and personnel or even a dedicated IT department to maintain it. Our technical support team will handle implementation so your company can have your email up and running within minutes of signing up.

Once setup, your team can access their important data and communicate from any Internet connection or on their mobile device (i.e. – Smartphone, BlackBerry, iPhone). Safety measures are taken such as “remote device wipe” for lost or stolen mobile devices. All emails and information to our Exchange Servers are encrypted ensuring your information’s security on both your desktop and mobile device is kept from prying eyes.

SharePoint is an internal Web site portal to optimize your organization’s workflow and collaboration needs. Making Customizable SharePoint portals work for your organization is a synch with multiple built in Web tools that can be easily toggled on and/or off.

Designed to eliminate inefficiencies such as emailing documents back and forth and trying to track changes, SharePoint provides the following:

*Coordination of projects, calendars, and schedules
*Arena to discuss ideas and review documents or proposals
*Common area to share company news
*Managing contacts, tasks, and etc

By integrating with hosted Exchange 2007, SharePoint 3.0 gives our customers an instant, powerful company intranet. You can:

* Store documents online. Everyone works off a single, centrally-stored version of all documents, which can be easily opened using a hyperlink.
* ‘Check out’ files. Locks documents while they are being edited, so nobody overwrites the work of others.
* Run blogs and wikis. So the entire company can stay in the loop.
* Use single sign-on. Our customers can instantly log in to SharePoint using the same usernames and passwords as their Exchange mailbox.

Buyers & Sellers A Relationship Built On Ignorance?

by kayol on August 17th, 2008

As hinted on a previous update, we had no choice but to enable the MaxMind Phone Verification option on WHMCS.

This graph shows a breakdown of the percentage of domains in each of the different statuses.

This graph shows a breakdown of the percentage of accounts in each of the different statuses.

Don’t let the statistics fool you, even with the amount of active accounts we’re still doing great for ourselves.

How Telephone Verification works:

1. The customer places an order. Payment process awaits telephone verification before completing order process.
2. A Robotic call generates to the number provided by the customer.
3. A random 4-digit numeric code is given to the customer via telephone.
4. The customer enters the security code onto website.
5. If the code matches, the payment process is allowed to proceed

Kind of a hassle huh?

Believe us, we didn’t want to resort to this method because signing up for our services should be quick & easy. Although Internet fraud has been on the rise for years, we have always chalked up “Internet fraud as just part of running an online business.”

It just seems ignorant to overlook the direction the buyer/seller relationship is going though. The financial institutes almost always side with they’re cardholders while Merchant Gateway Processors give in and Customers won’t start taking financial responsibility for their purchases. Guess that leaves the Merchant holding the short straw.

We have updated our Terms of Service with one minor change. In regards to Section 1.) Account Setup In an effort of dramatically reducing refund rates on e-products, all downloadable products and/or electronic services we sell such as web design solutions, hosting plans, etc, *must* also be shipped with something tangible such as a CD-ROM copy, with tracking and preferably with a delivery signature.

Without some form of proof-of-delivery, we will have a needlessly high refund rate and a zero (0) chance of winning chargebacks, and will lack documentation available for verifying disputed accounts.

We include a copy of the proof-of-delivery tracking, a copy of the transaction receipt showing a positive AVS (address verification) and card code match, and any customer support tickets or e-mails from the customer that would prove they did indeed receive the product.

Windows Managed Hosting added

by kayol on August 10th, 2008

If you intend to create your site using ASP, the .NET environment, Windows Streaming Media, Access, MSSQL, or any of the other Microsoft proprietary technologies then you might want to look into our Windows hosting.

Windows hosting also offers an advantage if you wish to incorporate searchable databases in your website. The Microsoft platform delivers reduced development time and better functionality for databases.

We are using Plesk as the control panel for this server with Plesk Application pack and Spanish Language Pack pre-installed.

We have recently added Windows Server 2003. Our windows hosting servers run on Dual/Quad-Core Dual Xeon with Raid 1. Our Windows servers are located in the AtlantaNAP datacenter.