Howdy-do, Turnkey Lovers?

You know, I haven’t spoken with you guys and ladies in quite some time. It’s been too long, and I just wanted to write a post for you. Today, one of my favorite musicians’ latest album came out, and it got me thinking — thinking about what some people consider to be the American Dream.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the story; some lady or gent claws their way from the bottom to the top. It could be figuratively or literally. It could be coming to this country and opening up a chain of gas stations, or coming to this country and opening a chain of hosting companies. While all of that is fine and dandy, I wanted to share with you, Turnkey Internet lovers, my hosting dream.

Now, this dream is mine and mine alone, but I’ve also gathered a bit of information just from dealing with multiple clients on a daily basis. You see, I believe the hosting dream is very similar to the American Dream. I say this, as I work with hundreds of clients who have this idea that they can start a hosting company.

They purchase a Turnkey reseller account, and set up their site to begin. They may then have a developer, or use one of our website development tools, to build and design their site. Dedicated IPs are purchased, and assigned to domain names that have been recently bought through Turnkey’s domain registration. The customer then sets up the reverse DNS (dynamic naming service) to only be in their domain, after which WHMCS or a similar billing product is purchased or provisioned so that orders can be processed.

Next comes the fun part — marketing this new online business. Maybe you create a hosting account on a credible hosting forum to begin making a name for yourself. You may even create social media accounts on sites such as Twitter or Facebook to develop a following. Sure enough, the day comes that you receive that first customer. The beginning of a long journey has arrived.

Support issues will be raised, and need to be addressed quickly and completely to the customers’ satisfaction. Repeat. Repeat, repeat. You repeat until your customer base grows. Your name is mentioned in forums and in social — and possibly your local (newspaper, television, etc.) — media.

You see, that’s my hosting dream. That anyone can deliver a satisfying product to their customers with the correct tools, ambition, proper networking, support, etc. That anyone can provide top-notch support and superior customer service. That, with all of this, you and your budding hosting company can flourish.

That’s my dream and desire for every customer that approaches Turnkey Internet. My hosting dream is for our company to help your company succeed and thrive.

I just thought I should share that with you, as everyone has to have a dream, right? How could we achieve anything in this life if we never have a dream?

From my hosting dream, to your own.

Until next time, Turnkey lovers!

Do you read Ping! Zine? If you do, great! We do too. We love Ping! Zine.

If you don’t, we’ll tell the latter of you a little bit about them and you’ll be bummed that you’ve been missing out for so long. Ping! Zine readers — hang out for a second. We have some exciting news.

Ping! Zine is a web tech magazine, which caters to service providers and consumers alike. They’re celebrating their 10^th year (happy birthday, guys!) and are aging phenomenally. Want to read about super-cool gadgets? Head to Ping! Zine. What about web design? Read about it on Ping! Zine. Are you into cloud computing? We hope you are, for obvious reasons, but guess what — they cover that too! You can read more about them on their website, here, because we’re simply dying to arrive at the main point of this article. Also, because if you’re already familiar with our Ping! Zine buddies, we can practically hear you wishing we would tell you something you don’t already know.

Well, here it is: The Ping! Zine readers have spoken, and guess what they’re talking about…Us! We’re beyond excited to announce that TurnKey Internet was selected to receive a Ping! Zine Readers’ Choice Award for our dedicated servers. You can check out the Readers’ Choice Issue here, but only if you pay special attention to page 15.

We’re so thrilled and honored to have been acknowledged by such a stellar community. We’re also excited to pin another cool little award badge to our website, but that’s not important right now. What is important, however, is extending a massive “thank you” to everyone at Ping! Zine; readers, staff…everyone! Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you X infinity. You guys rock.

Today sure feels like a holiday… Wouldn’t you say, iPhone lovers? The iPhone 5 seems to not only have lived up to, but surpassed all hype and expectations, in innovative features and anticipation alike. It would have to, to make it worth waiting in the lines that are wrapped around blocks and buildings in nearly every Apple store in the country—well, world, actually. Did you pre-order your new smartphone, or show up to wait amongst your fellow iPhoners and iPhonettes a few (dozen) hours early? Lines in New York City could be measured per-hundred in the wee hours of the morning today! If you’ve been camping out for several days, we pass no judgment. Whatever it takes, right?

The iPhone 5 is expected to blow all previous models’ sales completely out of the water. So what’s all the fuss about? When Apple released the 4S, a quick once-over didn’t reveal all that much of an aesthetic difference from the 4. However, the 5 is a different story entirely, from the shiny surface of its larger screen all the way down to the bottom of its redesigned ear buds. It’s thinner, it’s lighter, it’s faster—oh, my!—and boasts a plethora of new technological advancements that I could go on for days about. It’s going to be so cool, guys.

Now, I am not personally an iPhone user—“yet,” as my friends like to remind me. However, the iPhone is very near and dear to all of us here at TurnKey Internet… For the obvious, we-heart-technology, tech-R-us, reasons, but also for some that live a little deeper. For instance, when Apple introduced the world to the iPhone phenomenon in 2007, it simultaneously paved the way to the modern day cloud. Now, let’s back up a few steps. Apple did not invent the smart phone. It also did not invent the cloud. However, their innovations with the iPhone brought the hand held device that could connect you anywhere, anytime, to anything, into the mainstream spotlight. Thus, the cloud hurdled forward in its wake, creating infrastructure repositories for applications, data, and storage, that the iPhone—and now, every other device from Android phones, to iPads, to desktop PCs—can remotely connect to.

Anyway, we know you’re just as excited as we are. Go ahead and put that iPhone 4S back in your pocket for the precious culmination of your time together, and have fun getting to know your new best friend. We wish you a wonderful journey together!

Okay, TurnKey fans, we need your help and we need it fast!

This month, our friends over at OurEarth.org have been running an amazing campaign. This campaign has been pumping up awareness and enthusiasm for a group of Earth-loving organizations (also amazing) in their efforts to earn some well-deserved cash in Chase’s Community Giving Contest. Basically, OurEarth.org and these charities joined together and collectively devised a goal of scoring $500,000 of Chase’s $5 Million total. OurEarth.org is calling this campaign “Vote for the Planet”, but in the interest of time, laziness, and my own propensity for acronyms, let’s call it V4TP. I’m glad we got that out of the way.

Over the past few weeks, V4TP has been putting up a serious fight against the competition. Out of a participant pool that is nothing short of massive, multiple V4TP organizations are looking at hefty winnings. Particularly noteworthy, is the fact that it’s not just the charity with the most votes that benefits from V4TP. All charities that rank within the top 196 of the total Chase Community Giving vote counts will be given a grant. If you jump over to the “Ranking” page on the V4TP website, you’ll find a quick-look at where your votes stand to make the biggest splash. For instance, bumping the Save the Manatee Club up just one spot would mean a difference of thousands of dollars! Or, pushing The American Hiking Society into the top 196 would, quite literally, make or break it for them in this contest.

Here’s where the sense of urgency comes in: V4TP is ending soon. How soon, you ask? Well, tonight-soon. 12am, EST-soon. Thankfully, the voting process is incredibly easy. There are more details and instructions on the V4TP website, here. Oh, and do you want to hear something really exciting? You are not limited to just one vote. Each participant can earn up to three voting credits on Facebook alone. Are you a Chase customer? If so, you have a little extra pull, and we encourage you to use it!

Lastly, don’t forget to check out the “Done Voting?” page when you’re –wait for it—DONE VOTING. There, you will find a list of ways you can help raise awareness or get involved with the V4TP organizations after all is said and done.

As of 6am today, the V4TP organizations stood to win $290,000. Think we can push them a little higher? I’m sure you, like me, have been told that more is not always better… In this case, it so is.

Hey, everyone! My name is Emily Wegener, and I’m the new girl on the block here at TurnKey Internet. As TurnKey’s Interactive Marketing Specialist, I could not have hoped for a more fun and exciting time to join these amazing people in the cloud. Let me tell you why.

As you Facebookers and Tweeters and Press-Release-Readers out there have probably already heard, we just began an awesome promotion. For those of you who haven’t, we are calling it “Let’s Make a Deal!”, based on the concept of the popular game show. Have you played yet? If not, you’re missing out!

Here’s the scoop: If you head to www.turnkeyinternet.net/deal, you’ll arrive at the “Let’s Make a Deal” page where the fun begins. You can get there from a bunch of other places as well, like our homepage and social media sites. As long as you get there, we don’t mind how. You decide; it’s your world. Anyway, on the deal page, you’re met with three briefcases and a human. No, that is not an Olsen twin.

This is where the game gets interesting. We’re offering HUGE product offers and discounts on absolutely everything. We picked out the deals that we thought were the coolest, and placed them neatly in the aforementioned briefcases for your consideration. Disagree with us? Think you can come up with a better, more personalized and relevant deal? TELL US. Our spin on this game show not only allows you to do that, but it encourages you to! You’ll see an option to talk to our “Deal-maker”, where you can negotiate your own special deal. It’s fun! Try it!

Lastly, most importantly, and most wonderfully, ”Let’s Make a Deal!” is being served up piping-hot with a side of “Deal of a Lifetime”. As the promotion progresses, TurnKey Internet will be randomly selecting winners from the participant pool, and awarding them a lifetime of free service! That’s right, a LIFETIME. AKA: The rest of your life. AKA: Forever and ever. I’m sure you understand. Didn’t find your perfect deal? Doubtful, but no biggie. We’re just happy you came to play! The giveaway is no-purchase-necessary, and if you would like to enter anyway, simply mail a letter of intent to us at our headquarters in Latham, NY. You can find the mailing address here.

Here’s the thing, guys: we really, really appreciate you. We like that you choose to use our services, and read our blog, and hang out with us in all of the other awesome ways that you do. That being said, we also like to give back to you. We want you to save money, and we want you to have fun doing it. This is our attempt at helping you kill those two birds with one stone. I mean, everyone offers discount codes and coupons, right? But how often can you make your own?

So, without further ado, I know I speak on behalf of all of my new TurnKey pals when I say – Have fun, and thanks a million. No, thanks a zillion.

Howdy-do, TurnKey Lovers?

Jeremy here, with another entry for you to gobble up. “Gobble”? Well, that’s a funny use of the word, but it actually deals directly with my current post. The word “gobble” results in thoughts about turkey. Now, this could be due to the fact that I’m hungry. Any reference to food incites a bout of extreme hunger, causing me to crave that 5-piece spicy nugget from Wendy’s that I have left over. But, I digress.

The reason that I mention “gobble” is really to talk about turkey—not TurnKey—but turkey. That, sometimes dry, meat that you have to cook perfectly on Thanksgiving, or start looking for a gallon of water to just get through the meal. Turkey brings us to Thanksgiving; one of the joyous occasions most Americans celebrate every year by engorging themselves with as much food possible, and then passing out an hour later. Ok, that might just be me who does the passing out part…

There is also another GREAT benefit to this time of the year. Have you figured it out yet? Did you even guess? I’ll give you a hint; it’s the day after you recover from stuffing yourself with delectable food. Queue the jeopardy theme song—BLACK FRIDAYYYY!!!

Black Friday isn’t considered a holiday, but with the sheer amount of people out shopping, you would think it was the busiest holiday of the year. I will give you a bit of history on the day Black Friday:

This day, Black Friday, is the official kick-off to the Christmas shopping season. You will see/hear/read about many retailers opening up at 4AM or earlier to accommodate the large rush of customers expecting to find ridiculous deals on different products. Consumers every year look forward to this one day, so that they can purchase those headphones they’ve been eying for months that were a bit too expensive, or that new 50-inch LCD flat screen that they’ve been wanting to hang up over their fireplace since first seeing the ad on television.

To put this in perspective, I’ve included the table below from our good buddy Wikipedia, which depicts the average amount of money that is spent on this day:

Retail Sales

The National Retail Federation releases figures on the sales for each Thanksgiving weekend.

Now, you may be wondering, “What on Earth does this have to do with hosting?” Well, my friends, we live in a world with a digital economy now, and it seems that everyone and their mother has a website. Almost every major retailer has some sort of ad space where they post their upcoming deals for Black Friday. With so many consumers looking for the best deal, you can imagine that sites will receive heavy traffic spikes due to the demand of finding the best deals.

These large spikes of traffic need to be handled as smoothly as possible, so that retailers and consumers do not experience any downtime during this whirl-wind of a day. Enter stage left—expandable cloud servers, multiple VPS’s (virtual private servers), or another dedicated server to handle the increase of traffic. All of which you can find here, at TurnKey Internet.

Each solution has its unique benefits. For example, let’s say you have a cloud server. On Black Friday, your traffic quadruples. Well, one of the main benefits of a TurnKey cloud is the ability to add more resources without incurring downtime. You could have more RAM allocated, increased disk space, or even increased bandwidth. The scalability is very enticing. Then, after Black Friday has concluded, you can downgrade your cloud server with no issues.

Or, let’s say you purchase an additional TurnKey VPS to handle your increase of traffic. You could then have those extra VPS’s decommissioned. You see, the real winners on Black Friday are the consumers/retailers that plan ahead. They purchase the additional bandwidth or add another server before the day occurs. As my college professor would say, “Prior preparation prevents poor performance.” That could be increasing your Turnkey cloud resources, adding an additional Turnkey VPS, or purchasing a new Turnkey dedicated server ahead of time. That way, you can keep your sales flowing in and your customers happy.

Now, my chicken nuggets are calling. Until next time, TurnKey lovers!