Well, some say no news is good news- it’s certainly the case with a server network. But it’s not really been all that quiet. We’ve been keeping the servers fully up to date, managing to patch the recent CPanel updates in record time and many of you have commented on how much you’ve been enjoying the X3 features (if you want to try it- just send us a helpdesk email).

Further to this we’ve been concentrating on reducing helpdesk response times, and many tickets are now responded to within 20 minutes. We’re still seeing technical issues be resolved well within 24 hours, even for complicated cases.

Some of you have noticed the introduction of new phone numbers- and I have to say I have enjoyed talking to clients again as it sometimes gets a bit isolating when you only interact via email or helpdesk! We’re still not letting Jeff anywhere near the phones though, his strong Welsh accent would probably be enough to scare customers away…

As always if you need some help, have any queries or find something you want to check on, just let us know. helpdesk@colorteck.com is the helpdesk email, and you’ll receive an instant response with your ticket ID and details. If you don’t receive an email straight away then something is stopping it from getting to you- if you use yahoo mail, for example, it may have gone straight to your SPAM folder. Annoying!

If you submit a helpdesk email but don’t hear from us- please just give us a call. There is a local rate number for the USA and a London number for the UK. We can’t always pick up the phones, but there is a voicemail system which we 100% react to. If you leave a message, you *WILL* get a response and a call-back if you leave a number.

I hope you all enjoyed Valentines day- we didn’t get any roses here in the office, but there’s always next year!

From all the team here at Colorteck, we wish you the very best of whatever type of celebration you are enjoying at this time of year! May your websites stay strong, your adverts turn a good profit and your family not bother you about spending too much time at the computer!

We will be running on a slightly reduced team for the next three days, but since we experience slightly less volume of tickets and problems at this time of year this is unlikely to be noticeable.

P.S Did you notice Santa dropped us off a new phone number?

Here’s a competition which might interest some of you- but hurry: only 24 hours remain!

http://www.splashpress.com/2007/worth-value/

How would you apply the techniques needed to value a website or network of sites to your own websites? Have you valued your own site? If I had the time, it would be fun to work out the estimated “value” of  all the sites Colorteck hosts!

I’ve just finished paying out a bunch of affiliates and it reminded me that I haven’t mentioned it on the blog for a few months.
So I’d like to take a moment to mention our affiliate center again today - at http://colorteck.com/idevaffiliate/ you can sign up and start selling colorteck services to your website visitors and customers, for 50% of the revenue. We take care of everything- the order, the setup, the support. All you do is bring the customer to our website in the first place. We think it’s a pretty sweet deal. 50% of what they spend is the pumped back into your affiliate account, and as soon as it reaches the payout level we send you the cold hard cash via paypal.

Why not give it a try? At the very least, it might pay your hosting fees in return for just putting a banner or text link on your website! We have some affiliates earning hundreds of dollars a month.

Hi Folks,

We have made a small change to the front end of the helpdesk, it will look slightly different but functionality is the same- same email address (helpdesk@colorteck.com) and so on. However those of you who registered with the helpdesk will no longer be in the database. We have made it so that you don’t have to register in order to submit a ticket.

As soon as you submit a new ticket you will be automatically registered and emailed a password which you can update if you so wish.

As usual, any questions just let us know.

Thanks,

Will and the Team.

Here’s an amazing opportunity for you from one of our sister companies. One product you may not have come across before is BlogHoster.

This nifty piece of software lets you provide a blog service to others, via your website. The service you can provide your users can be equated to Blogger, Typepad and Livejournal. These social networking / blog sites have the potential to explode a modest blog or blog network. If you have related products and services to promote then your blog hosting service can provide the perfect launching pad.

There’s also the option to have it installed on your server for free.

As the admin of your own blog hosting website you get control over every aspect of your user’s experience from how they sign up, how they write their new blogs and even how they interact with one another within your site. It creates a uniquely encapsulating experience for your users. The most beautiful thing about Bloghoster, however, is that the code is 100% unencrypted. In this bold move, the developers have given you full permission to twiddle, tweak and fiddle with the source code to make your service exactly as you want it. This is a step up from other related software, which typically uses some form of php encryption either server based or license key based to prevent you from really being able to manipulate your purchase.

GUI wise, the front end of Bloghoster is vanilla, letting you dictate your website’s “feel”. The product bundles with some example portals to give you an idea how to go (the code uses a system of Tags to allow the easy placement of key modules such as login and so on). The client forums also have users sharing their own mods, templates and portals.

Along with giving you somewhere to promote your own stuff, the script allows you to place adverts such as google adsense automatically on all the blogs you host.

Your users will benefit from the added features such as interactive profiles, friendships, photo uploads and albums, blog categories and all sorts. You can check out the website for the full feature list. If you buy Bloghoster you will also get free upgrades and the developers are currently releasing updates once per month with new features, bug fixes and general tweaks based on feedback from the client base.