Did you know that No-IP was an idea that was started in college by our founders? That small idea has grown into a great big idea with over 13.5 million users worldwide. We are proud to say that since 1999, we have been providing rock solid Dynamic DNS and Managed DNS , no ifs, ands, or buts.

Answer the following question for a chance to win a No-IP T-shirt or a Year of Enhanced DNS. 5 people will win. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, August 21, 2012. Leave your answer in the comments and be sure to Like this post and share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter!

What No-IP service allows you to use your own domain name on our redundant and reliable managed DNS network?

We have all heard the horror stories. Websites go down all the time, it’s not a question of if, it’s when. A 2009 Dunn & Bradstreet survey reported that 49 percent of Fortune 500 companies experience at least 1.6 hours of unplanned downtime per week. That is over 80 hours of downtime a year, not including website maintenance downtime. How would these outages affect your business and brand reputation? Do you know how much it will cost you when your website goes down?

What would cause an outage of your website though? Downtime can be caused by internal and external issues. Natural events as simple as a lightning storm, or as extreme as hurricanes and earthquakes can easily take your website down, as well as man-made events like changes to network configurations, hardware or even wiring issues. Outages can cause both short term and long term problems that not only affect lost revenue, labour costs and marketing costs, but also indirect things like lost customers, lost business opportunities, driving traffic to your competitors and irreversible brand damage.

We have all heard about the recent Amazon outage that affected major brands like Instagram, Netflix, Pinterest, and others. Not only was this an Amazon issue, but because of the other companies that were directly involved, it became those companies issue as well. Many customers could be found on Twitter complaining about the outages of Netflix to them directly, even though the issue wasn’t even caused by Netflix. If your customers aren’t happy, your brand isn’t happy.

So, how much does all of this downtime cost a company? It is all dependent on how much revenue and sales your company generates from your website. If you are generating $10,000 a day from your website and your website is down for a few hours, this could greatly affect your bottom line. It could be the same scenerio if you generate sales leads via your website. If customers search for your website and it is down, the first thing they are going to do is go to a search engine and find another provider.

Downtime can potentially cost your business tens of thousands of dollars a year. Why take the risk? If your website is important to you, you should really think about a Managed DNS solution. DNS is an essential part of the Internet.  If your website is hosted on web servers that are only located in one or two locations, and something happens, your entire website can be taken down. DNS that is hosted in many geographically diverse locations means that even if the unthinkable happens, your customers will still be able to reach your site.

The location of DNS servers is important in ensuring 100% uptime. No-IP deploys nameservers across the globe at geographically unique datacenters using different tier 1 bandwidth providers to ensure a natural disaster or connectivity outage does not disrupt our robust DNS network.

Remember, there are no upsides to downtime.

Have you or your business ever been affected by a DNS outage? Share your thoughts below!

Q: How many programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: None. It’s a hardware problem.

We are now a very connected population. According to a Pew study, “45% of cell phone owners said that their phone is a smartphone.” Nearly half of the cell phone users in this country are on smartphones, which means they are also accessing the Internet from their phones.

Most smartphone users access the Internet through a 3g or 4g connection from their service provider. Data can be costly though and these networks can also be slow if located in a densely populated area.  So, when there is a free WiFi network available, people typically use it. Did you know that when you are on an unsecured wireless network you can easily be hacked? Follow these tips to keep your information safe and secure while browsing on public WiFi.

1. Download a VPN app on your device. When you are on the Internet, go through the VPN. This will encrypt and secure all of your browsings. What exactly is a Virtual Private Network (VPN)?

2. Never access sensitive information over an open network without a VPN in place. Do not enter passwords and other sensitive information.

3. Turn on encryption if your phone has the option. How to turn on encryption: iPhone, Samsung Galaxy A quick search on Google for “How to encrypt data on a (your smart phone)” should return directions if your phone supports encryption.

Any other tips for safe Internet browsing via your smartphone? Leave them in the comments. Do you use a VPN app on your phone? Which one do you use?

Recently, we had a user complain on our Facebook page about not being able to share his free No-IP Hostname with his friends on Facebook. His hostname was something like gameserver.no-ip.org. Facebook thought he was posting spam.  This is one of the downsides of our No-IP Free and Enhanced service. So, why does this happen?

No-IP Free Dynamic DNS and Enhanced DNS users share roughly 50 different domains. With these services, you are relying on millions of other people doing the right thing with their hosts, which unfortunately isn’t always the case. Our service sometimes fall prey to cyberscammers and spammers. They create a hostname, and then send out spam on it. Our abuse team is amazing and they are usually pretty quick to shut them down. But because we have a history of this type of abuse on our domains, Facebook and other websites don’t like when people share our links.

So, because of a few bad  people it punishes everyone? Yup. Isn’t that life though?
There is nothing that we can really do about it either, aside from shutting down our Free and Enhanced service or simply deterring these scammers by moving to a paid model. Don’t worry though, we aren’t going to do that. Just be aware that when you are using our shared domain services, you may have trouble sharing and posting content…

Our shared domains are a great choice for someone that wants to run a small video game server, reach their computer remotely, or view a webcam over the internet, but if you are going to be using your domain for something a little more important than that like say, run a blog, website, etc, you may want to think about registering your own domain name and using the hostnames on it.   With No-IP Plus DNS, you register your very own domain (www.yourname.com or www.yourbusiness.com) and we handle the DNS for you!

If you believe the actions of one of our users violates our Terms of Service, help us out by emailing Abuse@no-ip.com.

Now that we have fully restored functionality to our POP3/IMAP email service, we would like to take a few moments to share what exactly caused this outage, our efforts to restore email and the steps we are taking to ensure that this doesn’t happen again. We know that many of our customers were impacted by this outage and we sincerely apologize.

As many of you are already well aware, yesterday we suffered a service disruption on our POP3/IMAP email. This event rides on the coat tails of the service disruption that we had last fall. So, how did this happen again?

Well… The outage occurred because a Raid Controller bit the dust, crippling the entire POP3/IMAP storage system. Our other email services Reflector, SMTP, and Backup MX were not affected.

“I thought you guys weren’t managing email in house anymore? Why haven’t you transferred me to the new service provider?”
The process to transfer accounts over to the new service provider has proven to be a very arduous task. We are now working around the clock to get everyone transferred over. Although users have still been on the old configuration since the outage in the fall, we moved the system to an older, more tested configuration that had proven to be reliable in other situations.

“What was the resolution process like?”
Resolution to the outage was a team effort. Alerts started going off at 4am that the network was down and our engineers were on it immediately. Our senior network engineer was on the first flight out of Reno to the data center to replace the faulty hardware. Our support staff did their best to give whatever information was available to customers that called in and submitted tickets. The problem was that there wasn’t a definitive time frame for the resolution process, because it was all riding on how quickly the installation and data migration to the new Raid Controller would go.

While we waited on the hardware installation, our engineers created a temporary webmail fix. All email functionality was available via the fix.  (Including the emails that had been received since the network disruption occurred.)

Slowly but surely, the Raid Controller rebooted and loaded. Around 7pm last night, email was back up and running with all delayed email delivered.

For our customers that were affected by this outage, we will provided a 5 day pro-rated credit of our email service. Customers will not have to do anything in order to receive this credit, as it will automatically be applied to their account.

Last, but certainly not least, we want to apologize. We know how important email is and we understand our customers frustration with the system. We have amped up our efforts to complete the migration to the new service provider for the remaining customers we support. We are doing everything we can to learn from this situation to drive improvements to not only our mail service, but all of our services.

Summer is awesome, but summer can also get pretty boring and HOT. Check out some tips for helping you stay entertained and cool.

1. Have a swimming pool? Stand guard while you are at work for the day to make sure those pesky neighborhood kids aren’t soaking up the sun on a raft in YOUR pool by setting up a webcam that’s easily viewable via the web.

2. Like to feed birds, but hate your neighbor’s cat who terrorizes them? Again, set up a webcam and make a booby trap to try to catch the cat red handed. (You didn’t get the suggestion from us)

3. On a nice leisure vacation when your boss calls and requests a very important document that is on your home computer? (WTF man, I am on vacation!) Remotely connect to your computer with ease (even if your IP address has recently changed) Your boss will be very impressed. Now, proceed to turn your phone off for the remainder of your vacation.

4. Sick of the heat? Stay in the air conditioning and set up a video game server to play all your favorite games with your friends!

Any other tips or tricks? Leave them below! Also, be sure to Like this to share it with your friends on Facebook!

Which No-IP nameservers currently support IPv6?

The answer is NS1 and NS2.

The six winners are:
Michael Kappel
Attila Bajor
Charles Farence
Rick An
David Tipple
Wayne smith

If you are one of the winners of the t-shirt giveaway, please email your address and t-shirt size to ngoguen-giveaway@no-ip.com

Just a year ago, we wrote about World IPv6 Day and the need to transition from IPv4 to IPv6. World IPv6 Day last year was a day to test IPv6 enabled websites. Today we revisit that day, but instead of it just being a “test flight” day,  June 6th is the Official IPv6 Launch Day. Today, organizations worldwide including (but not limited to) Facebook, Cisco and Google will make the official switch to IPv6.

We are proud to announce that we have progressed in the transition to IPv6. Two of our name servers, ns1 and ns2, are currently IPv6 enabled and anycasted in over 7 locations. They are capable of handling quad A records (AAAA). We plan to have ns3 enabled within the next few months. There is still a long way to go and by enabling IPv6 support, we are keeping pace with the Internets ever expanding audience and growth. Our update API will accept quad A (AAAA) updates within the next month.

Check out the screenshot from the member’s section. Click the Hosts/Redirects Tab and then click Add Host (located in the left navigation) (Note: IPv6 is only available on Plus Managed DNS)

Why is the transition to IPv6 so important?
To access the Internet on an Internet enabled device, the device needs an IP address. Every website, computer, mobile device, (even some light bulbs) NEED an IP address in order to access the Internet.  IPv4 addresses are only 32-bits long, meaning there is only a total of 4.2 billion IP addresses available. Well, since everyone and their mother (and grandparents) are on the Internet, those 4.2 billion IP addresses are quickly running out. In short, we need MORE SPACE!

So, this is where IPv6 comes in to play. IPv6 addresses are 128-bits long and there are a total of 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 (yea, that’s over an UNDECILLION) possible IP addresses.

In short, you could say that because of the implementation of IPv6 the growth, evolution, and future of the Internet is secured.

We are here to help you during this transition. You can now add and modify IPv6 quad A records to a host.  (Quad A records are only available on No-IP Plus Managed DNS)

Has your ISP made the switch? Check out this article for 5 ways your ISP’s failure to move to IPv6 could affect you.

You can also test your IPv6 compatibility here, or you can check out a cool infographic about IPv6 here.

Have you used IPv6, or do you plan on using it in the near future? Sound off in the comments and be sure to Like this post to share it with your friends on Facebook!

Sometimes, we use tech terms and explain things in a way that a not-so-technical person may have a hard time understanding. This blog will try to explain those terms in an easy to understand way. Enjoy!

DNS Resolution (Resolving) – During DNS resolution, a DNS server is contacted and the IP address of the URL you are trying to reach is returned. So, your computer asks the DNS server, “what is the IP address for yourhost.no-ip.com“, and the DNS server replies with the current IP address, which connects you to the correct website. This is the bread and butter of the Internet and how it works.

Delegation– Delegation is where you are assigning a group of name servers to be responsible for a domain name.  During the resolution process, the name servers that are assigned to a domain are directly asked what to respond with (what IP address) for a DNS request.

Port Forwarding– If you have a router at home or your office, you will need to forward ports in order for outside traffic to get into your network. Think of your router as being a huge electric fence or wall, with a few doors or openings. This electric fence or wall serves as your barrier and security blanket from the scary outside Internet world. Your router comes preconfigured with a few of those doors (or ports) open to let you access the internet, but the others are closed tight. So, in order to run a mail server, game server, access your computer remotely, etc you will need to open an extra door or two in your router in order for the outside traffic to get inside. This is called Port Forwarding.

IP Address– An Internet Protocol Address or IP address for short, is like your computers phone number. Without it, your computer wouldn’t be able to connect to the Internet. Every computer, tablet, smartphone, and the internet-enabled device has its own IP address (even some light bulbs have an IP address these days).  An IP address consists of numbers and periods (192.168.1.1).

Static IP Address– A static IP address is one that doesn’t change, it is assigned to you by your ISP (Internet Service Provider) and often costs extra money. A static IP address is YOURS and will never change (unless you cancel the subscription)

Dynamic IP Address– A Dynamic IP address is one that is NOT static. It changes from time to time. If you are unsure if your IP address is static or dynamic, chances are pretty high that it is dynamic. They are more cost-effective for your ISP.

Hostname vs. Domain Name– A hostname is the beginning part of the domain, which usually consists of www. Another word for a hostname is a subdomain.

With our No-IP Free Dynamic DNS service, you choose one of our free domains, (no-ip.org, systes.net, no-ip.net) and you use a host or subdomain on it. You are essentially sharing the no-ip.org (or whatever domain you choose) domain with everyone else that uses that domain, but you just have your own little space on it. That little “space” is called your hostname.

In comparison, with our No-IP Plus Managed DNS service, you register your OWN domain name, and then you use the subdomains or hosts on that domain. No one else will be able to add subdomains or hosts to this domain because it is yours. Get it?  (Example: www.mydomain.com and the hostname would be something like…. myhost.mydomain.com)

Redundant– This is a term to explain that the network is guarded against downtime because the domain or hostname that you are using is hosted on many different servers that are located in various locations across the globe, not just one. So, if you are located in Los Angeles, and there is an earthquake, your website will stay live even if the servers located in Los Angeles are not online.

URL– Abbreviation of Uniform Resource Locator (URL) it is the global address of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web. (www.no-ip.com or yourhost.no-ip.org)

HTTP– Hypertext Transfer (or Transport) Protocol, the data transfer protocol used on the World Wide Web. The secure and encrypted version of HTTP is HTTPS. If you are browsing the internet and want it to be secure, add the S. Make sure websites that you enter passwords and private data on have the HTTPS. Without that S, you’re not browsing securely.

Are there any other DNS related tech terms that confuse you? Leave them in the comments!