Blog Postings

To celebrate the launch of our USA based web hosting services Clook Internet USA (http://www.clook.us/) is now offering 6 months FREE on our Shared Hosting and Multi Domain / Reseller packages. A free domain name is also being provided with select packages.

For more information, please see: http://www.clook.us/

The PowerEdge servers our USA services utilize are designed with 125% more memory capacity and more integrated I/O than the previous systems. This increased capacity is crucial for virtualization performance and scalability. New DDR3 memory offers higher bandwidth and lower power consumption than previous FBD or DDR2 technologies.

The building where our USA servers are colocated is the Pryme Technologies Datacenter situated in the heart of Ashburn, Virginia. The datacentre boasts exceptional facilities which are important for the provision of high uptime hosting services.

When you have your own online business, the last thing that you want to do is find yourself stuck in a trap by thinking that you have to fall for the cheapest hosting service around. While you may be able to say some money, you are sure to run into some problems along the way. Clook knows that when it comes to your online presence, the last thing that you want is to have to end up kicking yourself for settling for anything less than the best.

While there are always times when a bargain is music to your ears, you really need to make sure that you are getting a good service in terms of your hosting options. Your website needs to be up and running properly with a company that knows the importance of running a tight ship. Additionally, lower cost hosting services may not provide their customers with the type of customer service and support that will be necessary for a good working relationship. (more…)

For those who have never viewed a “Did You Know” video before, you will definitely want to check out the YouTube video that is posted at the following URL.

Some of the statistics presented are amazing and others are quite alarming. Great video!

Did You Know 4.0 on YouTube

I?m pleased to announce that our affiliate program has now officially launched and is now accepting affiliate registrations. It has been requested by many customers and non-customers for what seems like years? and finally it is here!

Simply put, you send us business and we send you cold hard cash. Unlike our competition, we are paying up to £80.00 per referral and top earning affiliates will be earning thousands of dollars/pounds in affiliate commissions on a monthly basis.

For more information, and to get started today, please see our website: http://www.clook.co.uk/affiliates

This work isn’t quite complete yet and will be detailed via the announcements system at a later date. I couldn’t resist posting about some of the improvements made here recently…

Thankfully, we don’t need to call on backups for total server restores all that often. However, it remains a critical element of any hosting service because at the very minimum, clients should be able to expect to have their files backed up regularly and stored in a safe and secure environment so if the worst should happen (either single file restore, whole account or entire server) backup archives can be called upon.? Depending on how far one wants to go, it can get pretty expensive! (more…)

Just a quick notice, we are now tweeting on Twitter!

Follow us here: http://www.twitter.com/clookinternet

In the midst of researching a new technology that we will be bringing to the table in the coming months I stumbled upon an interesting article that detailed the hosting environment of a particular (popular) website. I took the following statistics and queried a few colleagues to see if they could guess the website that the statistics represent. They were unable to guess correctly. Can you?

1.5 terabytes of data (compressed)
50,000 HTTP requests (per second)
80,000 SQL queries (per second)

Having sufficient web browsing capabilities on various RIM BlackBerry phones has proven to be a bit of a nightmare in the past. The default browser, entitled BlackBerry Browser, poorly renders websites and therefore makes simple web browsing and functionality a bit tedious. The BOLT browser is a great FREE alternative to consider.

BOLT is a free downloadable browser that offers an uncompromised browsing experience on even lower-end mobile phones.

Rather than offering a simplified, mini version of the Internet, BOLT provides users with a fast, efficient, feature-rich way to enjoy full PC-style web pages and rich media applications on all levels of mobile devices.

Built on Bitstream’s ThunderHawk browsing technology, BOLT is the result of 5+ years experience developing mobile browsers that optimize usability, speed and performance on resource-constrained systems with limited memory, processing power and screen space.

For more details and information, I suggest checking: http://www.boltbrowser.com

I’m happy to report that our new Direct Debit payment gateway is now live! The whole process has been quite a learning experience for me…

As most already know, Direct Debits allow providers to charge their clients direct from their bank account using a Direct Debit agreement. Due to the ever increasing restrictions on Maestro card use we felt this was the best way to go for offering clients an alternate method of payment without using credit cards.

I hadn’t accounted firstly on how difficult direct debit facilities were to get setup. Assuming you can find a bank/provider who wants to do business (especially in the current climate), the application process is very similar to credit card merchant accounts with a large amount of detail, credit checks, references and so on.? Thankfully we’re in a decent position on this front and have nice figures to back us up from the credit card processing stats so this wasn’t a major problem.

The second hurdle was the technicalities involved in automating the whole process. To compare, most credit/debit card gateways are pretty straight forward and use a variety of HTTP or XML calls back and forth which can be coded up easier.? For Direct Debit, how things are different!? For security reasons I cannot go into huge detail but the programming involved with automating our Direct Debit facility involved some technologies that are not exactly standard – nevertheless, after a lot of all night coding sessions and a huge amount of testing + tweaking we’re now ready to make it live after a few months of private trials.

Our clients can setup a new Direct Debit agreement online via the client area without the hastle of filling in and posting the paper form that many think of with Direct Debits.? Following this, the agreement is activated and the rest handled at our side!

For further info, see here: https://www.clook.info/kb/151

On behalf of our entire team, we wish that everyone had a happy and safe 4th of July with plenty of fireworks to light up the sky!