Thanksgiving is a special time for many families in lots of different ways. FatCow’s “family” is not an exception. We have our own tradition that makes Thanksgiving truly unique, memorable and… a bit stressful for some at FatCow. But there’s no need to sweat – we simply are trying to find the best bowler among our crew members. And we do it in our own unique FatCow way by converting our cafeteria into a bowladrome…

But the main point of it goes beyond simply having fun, even though the fun part is very important around here! This year we decided that we would donate $10 to the Greater Boston Food Bank for each strike that we had during the competition. And we have to admit – we’ve got some pretty good bowlers on the Moo Crew! After 81 strikes and a bit of rounding up, $1,000 has been donated to our local Food Bank.

Don’t forget to visit FatCow on Facebook to see more pictures. I hope you will like it .

Throughout the years, FatCow has sponsored some fun and cool giveaways– And this year was no different!  This years winners won a smart fortwo coupe, a Vespa scooter and 4 people won a Schwinn bike.

This year’s “Host Smart, Drive Smart” giveaway was an extension of FatCow’s ongoing commitment to the environment and our Green Initiatives. We love being a fun and quirky web host, but we’re also very conscious of the decisions we make, and how they affect our customers and our environment. What better way to prove that than to give stuff away to our loyal customers – stuff that is not only fun, but also eco-friendly?

Our grand prize winner was David Campbell of inthecorners.org, a non-profit organization providing free labor for home repair and maintenance, primarily for widows and the elderly. David won a smart fortwo, but opted for the cash stating, “Can you picture us trying to haul a sheet of plywood and some lumber in a smart car?  We choose to take the cash and plan on using the money to further the cause of inthecorners.org.”  Congratulations, David!

Laura Negrete, our first place winner of the Vespa, has been a FatCow customer since 2003.  Her website inkstains.org is a literary magazine, publishing poetry, art work and fiction.

For Laura, “the most helpful aspect of FatCow was how user friendly the company is.  For a newbie like me it was really great that the FatCow website was not intimidating.  It helped the process of getting my website up and running that much easier.”

Winners of a Schwinn Bike

Russell Johnson of i35marketing.com, an online Marketing company.

Joshua Ziegler of jczdesigns.com, used as on online portfolio.

Claudia Sims, of radiatedjupiter.com, a personal blog.

Shannon Hill, of http://shannonlhill.com, a writer, speaker and blogger who specializes in animal welfare.

To Celebrate…

Each time you refer a friend to FatCow from now through December 31, 2010, you’ll earn a $20.00 credit.

It’s simple. Be sure your referral enters your domain or username in the “Friend or website who referred you” field during the account setup process, and after they’ve been with FatCow for 30 days, you’ll receive a $20.00 credit.   For full Referral Terms visit our TOS page.

The Moo Crew is MOOved and excited to learn that we earned new web hosting award! Over the years we have received numerous awards, but still each one of them is very special to us. We work around the clock to provide the best service to our customers and an award like this from an independent, respected web-hosting-review site is a real encouragement and honor.

John K, a spokesperson for MyBestRatedWebHosting.com, explains in their press release why they think FatCow is a worthy winner:

“The MBRW Second Semi-Annual 2010 Hosting Award was awarded after careful consideration of the web hosting market. Considering an extensive field of strong competitors was a difficult process, but we felt on balance that the customer service and reliability of FatCow was enough to make it our clear winner. The low price points belie the true value of FatCow’s customer support functions, available by email and telephone around the clock.  In a highly technical industry, there’s a trend away from quality customer support, but we’re happy to see FatCow blazing the return of a high-quality user experience.  For overall value, FatCow represent worthy winners of our Second Semi-Annual Award.”

I would like to use this opportunity to thank our team for staying true to FatCow’s original goal – delivering the best value and customer service experience in Web hosting. And we are happy that FatCow gets recognized for it! Also we thank YOU, our customers, for your trust and look forward serving you for the years to come.

Paul Bukhovko
Brand Marketing Manager

The Internet not only needs to be able to bridge the gap between different languages, but also different alphabets and characters. Now, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has announced they will now take non-Latin character Web addresses. This would essentially change the way Web wanders see the Internet.

Jordan’s Proposed ccTLD

The ccTLD that Jordan has proposed is ‘Al-Ordon’, the Arabic name for Jordon and الاردن in Arabic. The reason for the non-Latin characters is that it’s the country’s official languages and met the requirements set out by the DNS Stability Panel. The IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process for Jordan’s TLD was approved in October of 2009 and the first requests began appearing one month later.

How They Do It

To begin these IDNs, countries need to complete three phases. First, the country in question must prepare for this process before they undergo the second step, which is the string evaluation phase. During this step, the linguistics and technical aspects of the country’s IDNs are tested and defined. Then, they can apply for the string delegation. So far, four countries have passed the evaluation phase. These include Russia, the UAE, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.

So far, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers have received 21 requests for IDN ccTLDs in 11 languages, according to TheWhir.com, 13 of which are ready for string delegation.

The ongoing evolution of the Web 2.0 framework continues to change the way marketing and publicity work in the new digital world. Everyone knows that the groundswell of awareness that services like Facebook, Twitter and other peer to peer networks can marshal has to be worth something, but the question is, what, exactly? The quest to figure this out has lead to a number of social networking analysis services. One of these services, Virtue, has just come up with an answer: $3.60 each.

How they arrived at that number is the subject of the link at the bottom of the page, but a quick review of what they mean seems warranted. Virtue tracked the number of wall posts for brands whose Facebook fan pages they manage. These brands had a grand total of over 45 million individuals as fans. By averaging revenues from their client’s fans, Virtue found that, on average, over the 45 million users, each fan was worth around $3.60 in advertising revenue.

After the successful launch of the Apple iPad, many are wondering what Apple will do next. Their success in the electronics industry is truly incomparable. Through the iPod series, iPhone, iPad, iMac, MacBook and countless other computers, electronics and accessories they have developed, the question that has to be asked is what is left?

According to a report on cnet.com, it appears that Apple is looking to develop an alternative to Adobe Flash. Gianduia, the Flash alternative introduced originally by Apple last summer, is described as a “client-side, standards-based framework for rich Internet apps.”

The framework has already been in use by apple on their iPhone reservation system, the Concierge program for Genius Bar and Personal Shopping reservations.

The Battle With Flash Heats Up

The clear action to move in on the market long held by Adobe’s Flash software (originally developed by Macromedia) is only the latest in a battle between Apple and Adobe. Apple’s stance to support HTML5, JavaScript and CSS instead of Flash was the beginning of dissension between the two companies.

The fire was fanned when Apple changed their iPhone Developer Licensing Agreement to ban the use of technologies other than Apple’s to develop iPhone apps. This action took place after Adobe had begun advertising the use of Flash to develop iPhone apps. As a result, Adobe has filed complaints with the FTC and Department of Justice which may result in investigations.

4G is the newer, faster mobile internet service that is expected to speed by 3G services within the next couple of years. According to MSNBC, web standards expect that 4G coverage should reach download speeds of more than 100 mbps, faster than most home and business services available. Current 3G download speeds range between 400 kbps and 1.5 mbps and will soon become a thing of the past.

What about the new 4G services that are being advertised? Are they the real deal? What you need to know about the future of mobile connection speeds.

The Truth About The New 4G

While web firms agree that the standard should be set much higher for 4G service, marketers certainly are not “up to speed” with what this mobile technology really has to offer. The new 4G being advertised falls far below the standards that have been set. However, it will still be much faster than the current 3G services and will surpass most low-end DSL internet services available for homes.

The fourth generation of wireless services is expected to offer from 4 to 10 times faster service than 3G. To put it into numbers, 4G should provide download speeds of somewhere between 2 mbps and 12 mbps depending on the service. In preparation for the switch to mobile internet, companies are already starting to offer wireless hotspot devices that will connect up to eight devices to the internet.

Attention designers! Our comprehensive set of free web icons just got a whole lot bigger. We’ve added 400 new free web icons to our farm-fresh set — perfect for both PC and Mac users — and they’re free to download with a simple click. Check ‘em out!

Last fall, FatCow put together a professional set of 1000 free web icons to show their support for the web design community at large. Like the original set, the new icons are a great mix of images perfect for application and general web site usage.

Download the full 1400 icons, and you’ll get both 16- and 36-pixel versions in PNG. Use them to polish your design templates and websites, add functionality to your blog, and more.

And be sure to tell your friends you don’t have to host with FatCow to take advantage of the extensive set of icons. They’re free for everyone and anyone, so help us spread the word! Be the first to show friends and family where they can find hundreds of free web icons worthy of professional design, and share this post!

New plans revealed this week by Facebook stand poised to provide a major change in the internet. The Facebook F8 event, patterned after the MacWorld expo, was host to several major announcements by the social media powerhouse, many of which may have far reaching implications in the way that the Internet functions. Facebook, with 500 million users, is already a huge player in the on line world, commanding huge advertising revenues and an impressive amount of social and cultural relevance. With the new initiatives announced by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook is expanding out of the semi-walled garden that it has resided in until now and expanding out into the Internet as a whole, directly challenging Google with alliances to Microsoft.
Essentially the ‘like’ option in Facebook will expand out into the Net. It also connects users to a social fingerprint, dragging along Facebook information with them to other sites and allowing Facebook to gather even more information than it does now. By partially opening up Facebook to the wider web, Zuckerberg has expanded the amount of customer data it has access to and with the advent of a Facebook wide ‘currency’ called the credit, it incorporates a distributed system for commerce across the entire net.
This is a major change in the way that the world’s largest social network interacts and it will have far reaching implications for everyone on the Internet, some of which are discussed in more depth here: http://scobleizer.com/2010/04/22/facebook-ambition/

The popularity of the iPad has proven this format will certainly create a profitable marketing base for those willing to work with it. This means making sure websites are optimized for the iPad to give them an edge over their competitors. Here are three ways to do it:

Start with a Basic HTML Coded Site

Using only head, title, body, heading, and <P> tags, code a basic page in HTML that can be displayed on any browser no matter how basic or antiquated it maybe. Images, bold, italics, and underline as well as fancy fonts should also be avoided in order to avoid the possibility of display issues. Google finds these sites easy to crawl and index as well.

Add CSS To Style the Site

To add style to the site and define its structure, use CSS classes and IDs. This will allow you to give the site the look it needs to succeed, but it also lets you divide and customize the various sections of the site.

Add the Needed Components, Not Luxury Options

The rest of the site’s components such as JavaScript should be added next, however, be careful not to weigh the site down with unnecessary items. Only add things such as menus and Flash control that make the site work. Lastly, make sure to test and check each element as it’s added to ensure it works with the appropriate browser.

To find out more about optimizing and marketing your website, visit FatCow’s marketing services.