Start September with a bang! Reserve your .com / .net / .org domain name for yourself at a fantastic 40% discount when you reserve more than 5 years! You can either register a new domain, or renew (add more years) to an existing one:

5 years only SGD60! (U.P. SGD100! – 40% savings!)
6 years only SGD72! (U.P. SGD120! – 40% savings!)
7 years only SGD84! (U.P. SGD140! – 40% savings!)
8 years only SGD96! (U.P. SGD160! – 40% savings!)
9 years only SGD108! (U.P. SGD180! – 40% savings!)
10 years only SGD120! (U.P. SGD200! – 40% savings!)

* Valid till 28 Sep 2010
* Valid for .com / .net / .org domain names ONLY

New domains: Go to http://www.vodien.com/domain-name-register.php and use the promo code “wilddomains”

Existing domains: Simply reply to this email with your domain name to request for this promo

Why get a domain name or add extra years to it? Here are some great reasons to do so:

1. Domain prices are increased by the .com domain registry (something that is out of our hands) very often
2. Protect your online branding, which is represented by your domain name
3. Avoid service disruption due to late renewals
4. Buy a name for yourself
5. Buy a name for your children or future children
6. Start your own personalised blog

These are just some of the many reasons why you should act fast, and register/renew your domain name with Vodien, so tell all your friends who need a domain name about it now too!

Singapore is turning 45 this year, and to mark the occasion, we are offering these special prices on domain names!

.sg / .per.sg

• New registrations only SGD4.50/year!
• Subsequent renewals locked at only SGD45/year!
• Use coupon “ndp10sg” when purchasing)

.com / .net / .org / .biz / .info

• New registrations only SGD14.50/year!
• Subsequent renewals locked at only SGD16/year!
• Use coupon “ndp10com” when purchasing)

>> Register Now <<

This special offer is valid for new registrations only. If you know friends who would appreciate this, let them know too!

Promotion is valid from 9th August 2010 to 30th August 2010.

And as per usual, if you ever have any needs regarding your account, please feel free to get in touch with us anytime. We stand by our SuperSupport promise, and are dedicated to ensure that you enjoy your time here with us.

Thank you again for choosing Vodien Internet Solutions Pte Ltd as your preferred hosting provider!

U.S. politicians have responded to China’s threat to Google by announcing a bill that would try to pressure nations with trade sanctions.

A bill introduced Thursday, the One Global Internet Act (PDF), would require the federal government to identify “priority” Internet concerns overseas. Then the U.S. Trade Representative would be directed to begin an investigation under the 1974 Trade Act, which authorizes sanctions and retaliatory actions.

Section 301 of the 1974 law permits retaliation when a “practice of a foreign country is unreasonable or discriminatory and burdens or restricts U.S. commerce”, according to the USTR. If the problem is severe enough, retaliation becomes mandatory.

“Preserving an open and truly global Internet should be a top priority for the U.S. government,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat whose district includes the heart of Silicon Valley. Lofgren’s legislation is cosponsored by seven fellow Democrats and two Republicans, including Bob Goodlatte of Virginia.

While the Great Firewall of China isn’t new, imposing trade sanctions to try and bring down the wall would be a move that would benefit neither country.

View the source

Pingdom recently released an article on “Where jailbreaking iPhones is most common”. Jailbreaking is a process where the original Apple software is replaced with a hacked version, allowing for unapproved third-party applications to be run on the iPhone. People do this because it allows them more functionality such as access to themes, and to hacks that allow usage of apps like Skype over 3G instead of just WiFi. The results of the study were surprising – it turns out the top country is none other than Singapore!

Our interests piqued, we tried to replicate their methodology, and obtained similar results. The difference was just in the order of the country, and that was expected because they originally did their study in the first part of June. While this was by no means an accurate study, it was a good gauge to see the level of interest in the various countries. The research tool used was Google Insights, and we used the original keyword term used in the Pingdom study, which was “jailbreak iPhone”.

This was our results on July 2, 2010:

1. Singapore
2. Hong Kong
3. Puerto Rico
4. France
5. Switzerland
6. Lebanon
7. United States
8. United Arab Emirates
9. Australia
10. Norway

It has been noted, however, that the study is not that accurate because only one keyword term is used, and the majority of the searches may entirely be another keyword term altogether (e.g. “how to jailbreak”). In Google Insights, the term order is also important, and you’ll find that you’ll get different results if the keywords are placed in a different order (e.g. “jailbreak iPhone” versus “iPhone jailbreak”).

The Chinese have just released the new iPed or aPad, another tablet computer. It looks exactly the same as an Apple iPad but runs Google’s Android OS instead. From the videos, operating it is nowhere as smooth as the iPod, but it’s amazing how fast knock-offs can appear in the Chinese market, and how alike they are to the real deal – from the surface, at least. Using them, however, is typically a completely different matter.

Some say imitation is the best form of flattery, but I think Apple’s not going to be too pleased. It’s not their first product being copied – the Apple iPhones and iPods have been copied before, but again with a completely different user interface. Besides Apple, there are several other companies that have had their products copied, and they’re always the popular brands that are in demand. For example, footwear companies like Uggs, Crocs, Vibram; and companies that make accessories like OBM, Tag Heuer, Rolex. Electronics such as earphones and mobile phones aren’t spared too.

China is just one country where IP laws may be harder to enforce, and there are other countries facing this problem too. It doesn’t bode well for a country that wants to be recognised as a world economy though, if trademark and IP infringements can’t be policed.

Facebook has just announced that starting today, it will:

• Provide an easy-to-use “master” control that enables users to set who can see the content they share through Facebook. This enables users to choose, with just one click, the overall privacy level they’re comfortable with for the content they share on Facebook. Of course, users can still use all of the granular controls we’ve always offered, if they wish.
• Significantly reduce the amount of information that must be visible to everyone on Facebook. Facebook will no longer require that users’ friends and connections are visible to everyone. Only Name, Profile Picture, Networks and Gender must be publicly available. Users can opt to make all other connections private.
• Make it simple to control whether other applications and websites access any user information. While a majority of our users love Facebook apps and Facebook-enhanced websites, some may prefer not to share their information outside of Facebook. Users can now opt out with just one click.

In an interview with TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington, Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz swears and disses TechCrunch. Arrington’s not being the innocent interviewer though, as he was clearly pushing Bartz, and doesn’t seem like he’s putting his invited guest in a good spot.

On the other hand, Bartz is swearing a lot, which may be unorthodox and her style of doing things, but seems highly inappropriate and classless. Her points may be expressed without swear words, making more people comfortable with her points, and still be points that are equally strong and clear, or more so.

The problem with interviews like these though, is that both parties end up just looking bad. Yahoo has been placed into a long hard fight with Google and Microsoft as its main rivals, and its CEO needs to be more of a leader. As it is, from the comments that this interview is generating, a lot of people aren’t impressed with her style of answering, and though she may appear strong, it doesn’t lend much to the credibility of Yahoo as a company.

We’re proud to announce that for the past year, we’ve exhibited tremendous growth and have overtaken many other web hosts and now we’re within the top 10 of web hosting companies in Singapore by size (http://www.webhosting.info/webhosts/tophosts/Country/SG)

This could not be possible without our valued customers, and we’d like to thank all of our customers for their support.

Not on Vodien yet? Give us a try and you won’t be disappointed. Get any of our services for a 20% discount by using the coupon code “welovevodien” when checking out!

If you’re trying to display languages other than English on your WordPress blogs, you may encounter problems displaying them properly. We had some issues come up with clients who wanted to display Chinese characters on their WordPress blogs, but got “???” instead.

The way to resolve this has got to do with the following lines in your wp-config.php file. This file is in your WordPress root directory. Just edit it, and look for these lines:

define(’DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8?);
define(’DB_COLLATE’, ”);

Comment out the lines by adding double slashes to the start of the lines, like this. Commenting simply excludes them, so they’re still there, but aren’t run as part of the code.

// define(’DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8?);
// define(’DB_COLLATE’, ”);

Once that’s done, you may have to publish your posts again to re-insert them into your database, and you should see your WordPress posts showing Chinese characters properly now.

Brainstorming, if done right, can help generate great ideas for the problems that you’re facing. Brainstorming, however, must be done so that idea generation is encouraged. As such, negativity and criticism must be prevented, otherwise people would start being discouraged and they wouldn’t want to contribute to the idea generation process.

For this scenario, we’ll use the hypothetical example of coming up with a name for our website that sells widgets.

Step 1: Define What You Want To Have

Here you would state what you want to achieve, so you’d list the problem that you want ideas to be generated for. Following our example, this would be the naming of our website. For you, it might be the naming of a new product or service, or the solution of a problem that you have with backing up your data.

The thing to note here is not to define your problem scope too narrowly. For example, saying that you want to find ideas for “how to backup my data to my external hard drive every day” would be too narrow. Perhaps the solution would be something that bypasses your external hard drive completely? Perhaps you need to use an online backup service? Perhaps you can come up with a solution that does backups not every day, but instantaneously? So, the question you really should be asking is “how to backup my data in the most efficient way”.

Step 2: What Are The Characteristics Or Properties

You’d want to properly state the characteristics and properties that your problem has. In our case, it’ll be whatever widgets that the website sells, and any other unique characteristics. For example, assuming our hypothetical website has a unique directory, or an article section with helpful guides and tutorials, then these are the characteristics of our website.

If you want to give a name to your product, then you’ll need to identify what your product is and does. For example, if your product is a new web hosting service that helps people with security, this may be a list that you’ll have:

• Secure web hosting
• Shared web hosting
• Easy to use
• Fuss-free maintenance

Step 3: What Are The Desired Properties of the Idea

In our example, this would be the desired properties of our website’s name. So let’s say we want the name to suggest the following:

• Fun
• Cool
• Business
• Authoritative
• Innovation

That would be the desired properties of our idea, and this gives us a boundary to work within.

Step 4: Idea Generation

This is where the actual idea generation occurs, and can be done with 1 or more people. Ideally there shouldn’t be that many people (8 would be a good cap). Throw out any idea you have on to a whiteboard or drawing paper, and have a person act as a facilitator. Remember – criticism is not allowed at this stage. One of the facilitator’s roles is to guide the idea generation process, and to invoke new thoughts if the train of thought seems to be stuck on a particular path.

Step 5: Idea Filtering

At this stage you should have a very long list of ideas. This is when you need to be critical and rate the ideas based on the list of desired characteristics that you came up with in Step 3. A simple scale from 1-5 can be used, where 1 is poor and 5 is great. This would allow you to remove the bulk of your ideas – these ideas aren’t bad, but they’re just not that relevant or applicable to your problem.

Finally, you should have a shortlist of ideas. This is when you and your team will decide on the one final idea that just “clicks”. One great example of a fantastic idea is the name for Twitter. Twitter is essentially a social networking website, and the founders wanted something that conveys the conversations that occur on the site. Because they had a clear idea of what they wanted to represent, they could come up with the idea of birds and the sound they make (which was “twitter”). Short, simple, concise, brilliant.