We’ve Moved!

We Moved!

Today we finished the move to our new corporate headquarters in Las Vegas, Nevada.   The old office was busting at it seams!  The new office gives our expanding support and development staff plenty of room so they can continue providing outstanding service and support.

During the move our phone systems experienced zero downtime and were able to take calls at both locations during our migration.  Thank you VOIP!!!

Open Port Check Tool

Here is a handy little port check tool we developed:
http://portchecktool.com

This tool will check for open ports and see if there are any services responding on that port.  It comes in handy when troubleshooting your network.  Specifically it helps in checking to see if your ISP blocks certain ports such as HTTP port 80 and SMTP port 25 (commonly blocked by major broadband residential ISPs).

Additionally if those ports are blocked, No-IP has a solution that will get around this block. Users with ISPs that block the standard http port can use the port 80 redirect feature available to all users.  This can be found in the member section why managing your host. No-IP also offers Mail Reflector and Alternate-port SMTP service for those with ISPs that block inbound and outbound SMTP port 25 respectively.

Keep in mind when using this port check tool you will need to open up the http://portchecktool.com website from the same WAN IP address that you wish to check for open ports.

Changes to Stand-Alone Domain Registrations

Previously if a user was to buy a stand-alone domain registration without No-IP Plus they did not get the No-IP Enhanced service.  Today all domain registration customer regardless if they package the service with Plus get a complementary No-IP Enhanced service.

No-IP Enhanced is an upgrade to the No-IP Free service.  This service allows you to add more than 5 hosts under the No-IP provided sub domains, gain access to all host type options, and remove advertisements from web and port 80 redirects.

Way Back Machine: The Screen Savers

I was going through some of our archives today and stumbled across this video. This is a segment from “The Screen Savers” show on the former TechTV network talking about dynamic DNS. They really butchered what it is we do. None the less it was a quick moment in fame. I hope you enjoy!

No-IP Blog Online!

No-IP has started this No-IP blog to post some of the smaller changes that happen at No-IP and other interesting information that we think our users would find useful. Check back here for updates as we will try to post something every couple days.

No-IP Adds Text Record Support and SPF Wizard

Today No-IP announces the availability of DNS text record support and SPF record creation wizard. Text record support is necessary for the implementation of the email sending authentication scheme known as Sender Policy Framework (SPF).

The current SMTP standard allows anyone to send email with a forged email address. SPF is used to help identify forged senders that are used by many viruses, worms, and spam. SMTP servers that support SPF can easily detect forged senders and flag or delete messages from spoofed senders. In turn drastically reducing or completely eliminating worm viruses and spam that are sent through email on infected machines.

An SPF record describes to a mail server which mail servers are allowed to send email for a particular domain name. SPF records are simply a string of text published in a DNS TXT record. When an email is sent to an SPF enabled mail server it checks the SPF record to make sure that the email is coming from one of the mail servers that is authorized to send email for the particular domain.

Thousands of email providers and companies including Hotmail, AOL, and Google have begun publishing SPF records and have built SPF support in their spam filters. Microsoft has announced that they will begin filtering email that does not support SPF starting Oct 1st, 2004 and is urging ISP’s to begin publishing SPF records.

No-IP.com feels this solution has great potential to stop the forgery of email and reduce spam and the propagation of viruses. In efforts to get all of our customers to publish SPF records No-IP has now added text record support and an easy to use SPF record wizard, which helps administrators easily create and modify their SPF records.

“SPF should be a boon to all legitimate mail providers,” said Joel Rasmus, Chief Operating Officer. “We are excited about the possibilities of better service for our customers and more reliable interactions with our peers.”

The SPF wizard and text record support is immediately available to all No-IP Enhanced and No-IP Plus customers.

About No-IP™
No-IP™, a subsidiary of Vitalwerks Internet Solutions, LLC, is a leading dynamic DNS and online services provider dedicated to helping companies and home users manage their Internet presence. No-IP™ offers a wide selection of online services, including domain registration, email solutions, server monitoring, and managed DNS to over three million users worldwide.

No-IP.com Adds Site in London, England

NO-IP.COM ADDS SITE IN LONDON, ENGLAND

Las Vegas, NV, June 20, 2004 – No-IP.com today announces the addition of its fifth geographically diverse name server located in London, England. The addition of the London site expands No-IP.com’s global DNS network while providing faster DNS lookups to European customers.

By adding the London location No-IP.com is able to provide a more diverse global DNS network, ensuring responsive name service is provided in the case of a network outage at any one location.

A large majority of DNS servers on the Internet route requests to the closest name server.
Because of this No-IP.com is now able to provide faster DNS lookups to European users and their customers. This in turn increases responsiveness of web services using No-IP.com’s global DNS network.

In addition to No-IP.com’s London site, name servers are operated in New York, San Diego, San Antonio and Chicago. All sites are strategically placed at core points on the Internet with different carriers at tier-1 datacenters to insure 100% uptime.

For more information about No-IP.com’s network and technology go to:

http://www.no-ip.com/company/page/tech

About No-IP™
No-IP™, a subsidiary of Vitalwerks Internet Solutions, LLC, is a leading dynamic DNS and online services provider dedicated to helping companies and home users manage their Internet presence. No-IP™ offers a wide selection of online services, including domain registration, email solutions, server monitoring, and managed DNS to over three million users worldwide.

No-IP.com Releases Dynamic Update Protocol v2.1

NO-IP.COM RELEASES DYNAMIC UPDATE PROTOCOL V2.1

Today No-IP announces the public release of the No-IP Dynamic Update Protocol v2.1. Now router manufacturers and software vendors can integrate No-IP’s rock solid dynamic DNS service into their products adding substantial value to their product and leveraging No- IP’s growing user base of over 2 million worldwide.

With Dynamic DNS the trouble of accessing a computer or network attached to the Internet via a dynamically assigned IP address becomes a thing of the past. Dynamic DNS solves this problem by updating DNS records in seconds after an IP address change is detected and insures that an easy to remember static domain name is always in sync with the end users current IP address. Users then have endless opportunities to take full advantage of their Internet connection including running a website, hosting a game server, aiding remote administration, managing security cameras and endless other client-server applications.

Adding No-IP support to your product is simple. With No-IP’s easy to understand HTTP based update protocol, router manufactures and software vendors can add support to their product in no time. Additionally, incorporate our affiliate program and earn residual income by referring customers to No-IP.

“The new protocol specifications bring together all the features that have been available to the No-IP supported update clients.” Said Dan Durrer, Chief Technology Officer, “The new documentation makes the system easy to understand and quick to implement.”

A compatibility update protocol is also available which implements a protocol commonly used by other providers. This is convenient for vendors who already support other dynamic DNS providers. Adding support under the compatibility protocol may be as simple as making your software aware of the No-IP update server.

To read more about the update protocol specifications and design guidelines please visit http://www.no-ip.com/integrate/

About No-IP™
No-IP™, a subsidiary of Vitalwerks Internet Solutions, LLC, is a leading dynamic DNS and online services provider dedicated to helping companies and home users manage their Internet presence. No-IP™ offers a wide selection of online services, including domain registration, email solutions, server monitoring, and managed DNS to over three million users worldwide.

No-IP.com Introduces Basic and Advanced Server Monitoring

NO-IP.COM INTRODUCES BASIC AND ADVANCED SERVER MONITORING

Las Vegas, NV, February 6, 2004 — No-IP.com today announces the introduction of No-IP Monitoring. No-IP Monitoring provides site monitoring, notification and failover to ensure high-availability of your mission critical internet based services.

No-IP’s monitoring services will provide you with the piece of mind that your sites are up and running. Services are monitored 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. When a configured service starts to produce a warning or goes down, our monitoring network will failover your site to an alternate IP address or offline page and send out a notification to any email addressable device.

“In all the jobs I have had, there has always been that late night phone call from your boss saying he can’t get to the site, or something is down. With No-IP.com’s monitoring service you can avoid these situations by being notified of a problem as soon as they occur. By catching and dealing with the problem when it happens, it not only makes you look good, but makes your company look good.” explained Kurt von dem Bussche, Senior Network Engineer at No-IP.com.

Each monitored site is checked from multiple monitoring locations located across the country to insure that your site is in fact down. Failover is performed using No-IP’s industry proven dynamic DNS system to insure the smallest amount of downtime.

For more information visit:
http://www.no-ip.com/services/monitoring/

About No-IP™
No-IP™, a subsidiary of Vitalwerks Internet Solutions, LLC, is a leading dynamic DNS and online services provider dedicated to helping companies and home users manage their Internet presence. No-IP™ offers a wide selection of online services, including domain registration, email solutions, server monitoring, and managed DNS to over three million users worldwide.

No-IP Announces Affiliate Program

NO-IP ANNOUNCES AFFILIATE PROGRAM

Las Vegas, NV, September 22, 2003 — No-IP.com launches affiliate program.

The affiliate program works by linking to our site with a special URL that contains your affiliate code. When your users click on that link a cookie is stored on their machine for 30 days. So whether the user signs up and buys something that day, or if that users decides to come back in a few weeks to sign up and purchase, you still get credit for the sale!

The affiliate system includes an Affiliate Dashboard. Here you will be able to view your sales and commission reports, traffic statistics and download banners and html links to add to your website.

“It’s FREE to join and you can make substantial revenue with our generous 15% commission payout!” said Dan Durrer, Chief Technology Officer.

For more information visit: http://www.no-ip.com/affiliate-signup.php.

To become an affiliate you must first be a member of No-IP.com

Should you have any questions or comments about the affiliate program please contact affiliates@no-ip.com

About No-IP™
No-IP™, a subsidiary of Vitalwerks Internet Solutions, LLC, is a leading dynamic DNS and online services provider dedicated to helping companies and home users manage their Internet presence. No-IP™ offers a wide selection of online services, including domain registration, email solutions, server monitoring, and managed DNS to over three million users worldwide.