Have you ever been looking for a new domain, found it is available, then the next day you’ve gone to purchase it and found it has been registered? I’ve noticed this happen a few times recently and think you should be aware of this practice as it isn’t talked about that much. This is called ‘domain tasting’.

It seems a number of whois services are infiltrated or run by companies who will go ahead and register certain domain names if they are checked on whois and turn out to be available then try to extort a lot of money from you.

A loophole with COM NET and ORG domains (maybe others, haven’t checked) mean that a company can actually register a domain then drop it within a 5 day grace period and get their money back. To get around this I suggest you use only companies that you trust to check for domains.

I personally use these sites and have had no problems:
Evohosting Domain Registration | Psychic Whois | Who.is | Nameboy

Wikipedia states “In April 2006, out of 35 million registrations, only a little more than 2 million were permanent or actually purchased. By February 2007, the CEO of GoDaddy reported that of 55.1 million domain names registered, 51.5 million were canceled and refunded just before the 5 day grace period expired and only 3.6 million domain names were actually kept.”

Remember, this does happen quite frequently - be careful when you are searching for your perfect domain name and don’t give these people a penny.

It amazes me sometimes as to how much we’ve grown over the last few years and how diverse our customer base is, it really is interesting to work with such creative people. From hosting regular web designers, business and home users to bloggers, forum owners, car modders, self proclaimed Linux geeks, radio stations, record labels, musicians/bands and even other hosting companies, the list is pretty much endless - I thought it’d be pretty neat to take a snapshot of 60 (about 2%) of the websites we host.

Some might say its taken forever, others haven’t even heard about it but most know its here now!

This game started out as a modification for the almost legendary game Half-Life and was greatly enjoyed by its fans, and is still today. Team Fortress Classic is known for the variety of ways you can defeat your enemy, whom by the way is brilliantly separated with a different team color then your own. Take for example the spy who can disguise him self as an enemy and infiltrate their base and complete objectives.

In this new installation of Team Fortress you get to experience the full capacity of the amazing Source engine. Even though some might think of this game as a step back graphically due to the cartoony style its still looking pretty awesome, but lets not forgot the actual gameplay.

I’ve heard the gameplay described as diving into a bathtub of jello, refreshing and smooth. The different characters are very well balanced which makes the game so much more enjoyable and you really get the feeling that each role has its place in the team. Everyone has their advantages as well as their disadvantages such as the Heavy, who with his 300 health and minigun can deliver a field of death downrange, is incredibly slow.

If you want to join the online battles between the red and blue team you can now order your very own server from Evohosting. You can find the Team Fortress 2 product page here.

Until the end of October07 you can get 50% off the first month of your hosting plan at Evohosting, simply enter the following coupon code when signing up: OCTOBER50

The new v3 plans have been tweaked to include more as standard, also the business plan now comes with unlimited email addresses, databases etc as standard. To upgrade the home plans to have unlimited email addresses and databases is now just £1.00 extra on top of the original plan prices.

One of the more anticipated games of this year was released not to long ago. For those of you who know the story of Quake knows that the game(s) is set in a not so distant future where an evil race called the Strog has decided to make a move on Earth. This will result in a full scale war with the Global Defence Force, also known as GDF, where its survival of the fittest.

The Storg is race of cyborgs who’s sole purpose is to travel around the universe and obliterate any and all worlds they come across and to expand there own forces by assimilating other races into there own.

The GDF who originally was created to fight terrorism and the elevated state of distress in the world was the only militarised force that had the strength and power to withstand the horrifying Strog invasion.

In this newest edition of the Quake franchise you get to take up the fight as either Strog or GDF and wield a variety of weapons and vehicles. What will it be, will you be the only hope of mankind? Or the source of its destruction?

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars servers are now available for order here at Evohosting at £2 per slot.