We are fortunate enough to have some very loyal followers who like to show their appreciation in unusual and creative ways.  This goes all the way back to the early days of HostGator, when none other than crunk rapper Lil Jon offered to introduce Brent to some ladies at his show in Florida, in appreciation for Brent having personally assisted him with some technical issues.  Another random caller once offered to send Brent some weed, via the US Postal Service for the same reason.  For the record, both of these offers were respectfully declined.  These days, it’s not terribly unusual to receive the occasional gift basket at the office, but please no more offers of groupies or drugs.

Here’s a couple examples of the art we’ve received:

This Snappy was done by a child of
one of our Customers.

Back when we sponsored the Joe Nemecheck
nascar, we received a few racing-themed
comic strips starring Snappy. Please click
on the image to see the whole series.

More recently, a Customer named Richard called us up for some assistance on his account and ended up singing us a song he wrote by the name of “GatorBill Me.”  The recording of the call is posted below along with the lyrics. By way of explanation, the acronym “PSR” stands for Preferred Support Representatives; Richard’s term for our Jr. Admins.  Without further ado, please enjoy:

GatorBill Me

I love my webhost
I love my VPS
Just like I love my mom
And I love my PSRs at my host
They teach me “how to host”

But best of all
I love the hosting HostGator gives me
Don’t talk; shut up
Just GatorBill me
‘Cause I’m feeling kind of creative today
And the business plan makes it easier

My PSRs are great
All they do is help and they encourage me
And I love the Help desk
They’re always available
Even on Christmas day.

But best of all
I love the hosting HostGator gives me
Don’t talk; shut up
Just GatorBill me
‘Cause I’m feeling kind of creative today
And the reseller plans makes it easier

Better off on a VPS
Than to use the shared plan
The control, the ease, the price
Host my site on Gator server one

I love the hosting HostGator gives me
Don’t talk; shut up
Just GatorBill me
‘Cause I’m feeling kind of creative today
And the dedis plan makes it easier

QuickInstall!

QuickInstall!

If you’d like to hear some more “GatorBill Me,” Richard also sent us an .mp3 that he recorded himself:

This saga does not end here. Having been inspired by “GatorBill Me,” a certain HostGator employee, who has requested to remain anonymous, decided to pen their own Gator song as well. Though a recording of this does not exist at this time, perhaps enough public outcry could convince this employee to grace us with a recorded version of their song:

Ode to HostGator

One, two, three and to tha four
Everything you need comes knockin’ at your door
Not really at your door, through your internet connection
Sitebuilders, templates…. what’s that, you need lessons?
Video tutorials; don’t forget the KB
Check it for yourself, don’t take it from me!

What’s that you say, you need a web host?
I’ll tell ya one time, who’s the host with the most
Go on sign up, you can thank me later
Wicky-wicky, wut-wut, check out HostGator

The top-notch staff, always happy to assist
Via chats, phones, twitter and tickets!
twenty-four seven, three sixty-five
Never chat bots, this help is alive!
Money back guarantee, never any hidden fees
If you can find a better host, sign up with them, please!

What’s that you say, you need a web host?
I’ll tell ya one time, who’s the host with the most
Go on sign up, you can thank me later
Wicky-wicky, wut-wut, check out HostGator

If these artistic offerings happen to have inspired you, we’d love to hear your Gator-themed musical stylings or see your Gator-themed artwork.  Feel absolutely free to leave a poem in the comments, or you can certainly always email us at feedback@hostgator.com, ATTN: Blog.

We’ve been having a lot of fun with our blog lately, and we promise to continue to do so.  However, we need to address some serious business once again.  Back in December, we posted about SOPA.  That beast has changed forms, returned and is now attacking more forcefully.  CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, aka H.R. 3523) was passed by the United Stated House of Representatives on April 26th, by a vote of 248 to 168.

Ostensibly, CISPA exists to “help the U.S Government investigate cyber threats and ensure the security of networks against cyber attack.”  However, this wolf in sheep’s clothing also allows complete, unfettered access to your online activities without regard to existing privacy laws, provided the government suspects you of having committed some type of cyber crime.  Criminals should absolutely be investigated, prosecuted and punished if found guilty.  However, the scope of this bill is far too broad to be an effective piece of legislation and lacks any clear parameters as to what would constitute a justifiable suspicion, or when and how the government can monitor your internet browsing information; basically making all of us potential suspects, guilty until proven innocent.

Representative Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat and onetime web entrepreneur, stated during the debate that ”allowing the military and NSA to spy on Americans on American soil goes against every principle this country was founded on,” and that CISPA would “…waive every single privacy law ever enacted in the name of cybersecurity.”

The author of CISPA, Representative Mike Rogers (R – Michigan) responded by asking his colleagues to ignore “all the things they’re saying about the bill that are not true.”  That statement itself is curiously representative of the bill and an excellent example of stereotypical politician-speak; it moves towards the desired goal without identifying any parameters or setting any limitations.

The ACLU and Mozilla have both spoken out against CISPA, and the Obama administration has thus far maintained that it would veto the bill, due to it lacking confidentiality and civil liberties safeguards.  However, this fight is not over.  We at HostGator still very much support an Internet whereby free information and the unhindered distribution of said information is an unalienable human right; we do not want to lose this right, signed away as part of a malformed and ultimately counter-productive piece of legislation.

Please contact your Congressional Representative and let them know how you feel on this important issue.  Vote no on CISPA!

Recently, HostGator began our transition into a new building in Houston.  Presently, we occupy two floors while the remaining floors continue to be built out.  Our Houston buildings are only a short distance apart, in fact you can see each from the other.  The geography makes it convenient to dispatch teams from one building to the other, as needed.  Though we’ve been executing practice drills of this nature for many years, some of us veterans had grown complacent, thinking there would never be any true need to exercise our finely-honed emergency-response skills.

As explained in the recent Internet Speak post, one of the primary means of inter-office communication is via instant message and conference rooms.  The story told here will be best conveyed via excerpts from these conference rooms, for historical accuracy.

Saturday April 21st, 2012 was a day not unlike any other. Until the late afternoon brought with it a distress call received from HTX2:

(04:59:18 PM) Sundeep: we have a situation at the new building.

The years of training immediately roused the team from their aforementioned complacency and they began gathering the necessary data in order to spring into action, like a… spring… that goes… into action!  The situation was explained further:

(05:00:18 PM) Sundeep: My windows programmer is working out of there, programming, minding his own business and a possum just walked into his office and is chilling in the corner…

It was now clear that an intruder had successfully breached our security perimeter, gained entry into HTX2 and was now on the hunt for our Windows Development Team.  We had heard stories, but never believed them to be true, of this type of industrial espionage in the early days of web hosting, but we thought our parents were just trying to scare us with those tales.  This was actually happening!  The initial fear experienced by the team was quickly replaced with resolve; they’ve been trained, they could handle this!

(06:44:07 PM) Steve: soooooo
(06:44:25 PM) Steve: what do we do if we need to remove an opossum from the new building?
(06:44:37 PM) Steve: anyone have the number for animal control?
(06:44:46 PM) Steve: should I call Farrar?

Fortunately, we have several former members of the United States military on staff. Brendan, one of our Migrations Supervisors, quickly assembled a strike force of fearless warriors who were mentally and physically prepared to meet this threat head-on and save not only HTX2, but likely even the entire world, from certain destruction.  As the strike force mounted up at the designated staging area at HTX1, tensions were understandably running quite high in anticipation of the five-minute trip to HTX2.  This is what all those years of training were leading up to; this was the time to shine!

The ride to HTX2 was sprinkled with nervous laughter as the team prepared themselves for what would prove to be an undeniably epic battle.  The Band of Brothers pulled into the HTX2 parking lot amidst screams of fear emanating from the building.  Grown men were sobbing uncontrollably, it was utter bedlam!

The team entered the building to the tune of “Lose Yourself” by Eminem, or maybe it was the Theme from Rocky… either way, their senses heightened in preparation for the battle.  Upon exiting the elevator, they transformed into the warriors they had been trained to be.  The actual battle was brief, though glorious!  Unfortunately, the mere English language does not contain the necessary words to accurately describe the briefness and gloriousness of this particular battle, so we simply cannot appropriately describe it herein.  Trust us, though, brief and glorious it was!  The briefest and most glorious of any battle ever fought since the dawn of time, pretty much.

When the dust settled, HostGator’s strike force was declared victorious; the beast was sated and peace restored to HTX2 and the surrounding countryside.

(07:36:44 PM) Steve: Brendan has returned victorious from animal control detail
(07:37:39 PM) Brendan: I should win the HG medal of valor though
(07:51:23 PM) Jon: Brendan, on behalf of HostGator, I award you one whole internet

It was a triumphant return to HTX1 for our heroes.  Three separate ticker-tape parades, sailors kissing ladies, like in that famous old picture of a sailor kissing a lady.  Special colored wristbands were immediately procured to celebrate the remembrance of this spectacular event.

As the sun set on this most momentous of days, our warriors faded back into their more traditional roles.  However, not only did they gain One Whole Internet today, but also the knowledge that no task was too large, no creature too vicious and no battle too insurmountable for the team at HostGator.

It should go without saying, but we still want to make it known for the record, that the little guy was captured and released back into the wild unharmed and that no animals shall ever be harmed in the making of this blog.

Toilet paper is serious business. It’s genuinely a severely overlooked and under-appreciated medium of information distribution; believe that! Fortunately, http://www.getshitter.com can assist in elevating toilet paper to a more appropriate level of respect, by taking your twitter feed and turning it into toilet paper. What you subsequently do with said toilet paper would then be completely up to you.

As we all learned from the classic Pauly Shore cinematic masterpiece Bio-Dome, the most effective means of instituting change, or raising awareness, is to think globally and act locally. The month of April contains both Earth Day (April 22nd) and Arbor Day (April 27th).  As you may already know, back in 2008 HostGator took the initiative of becoming a Green webhost, which you can read even more about here.  With environmentalism in the air this month, we thought it would be appropriate to discuss toilet paper and the trees that make toilet paper possible. Because like toilet paper, trees are also serious business.

I’m going to stop beating around the bush, not because a bush could potentially make for decent TP, but because toilet paper conservation is something that deserves significantly more attention than it presently receives.  At least once per day, you hold in your hand a number of 4.25 inch squares that could change the world, if you held less of them at a time.  Twenty-seven thousand trees give their lives daily to supply the world with toilet paper.  That is not a typo; that’s a 27, followed by a comma and 3 zeros.  Don’t take my word for it; go ask National Geographic.

Thinking globally may lead you to discover General Sherman, a giant sequoia tree located in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park in Tulare County, California.  The General is one of the tallest, widest, longest-lived and most famous trees in existence, therefore unlikely to ever become toilet paper.  Another unlikely TP candidate would be a certain White Cedar located in the Great Lakes area of Canada: it’s 155 years old and less than 4 inches tall.

In acting locally, we began here in our own offices by purchasing GetShitter toilet paper for our restrooms to further educate all HostGator employees on trees and toilet paper conservation. To see the twitter feed we used for this purpose, click here, and please be sure that you are not easily-offended by juvenile bathroom humor… after all, Gators can be found in the sewers from time to time…

Now that we’ve appropriately addressed thinking globally and acting locally, we’re on a roll (so to speak)!  How though can we thus act globally?  Our thoughts turned to our HostGator India office, India being widely known for having a culture that does not utilize toilet paper.  In the spirit of educating, enlightening and raising awareness about environmental issues, we present this series of photos to explain how that culture accomplishes this goal:

How is showing you those pictures acting globally, you ask?  Well, it’s not.  But encouraging you to adopt the same behavior is!  Because if we want to change the world, and save some trees, then we need to take action; one ply at a time!  Interestingly, the above-pictured method is considered even more sanitary than using toilet paper.

The Arbor Day Foundation began in 1972 and now plants and distributes more than 10 million trees annually. Earth Day began in 1970 and is largely credited with launching the modern environmental movement. Please visit both of their websites to further educate yourself about potentially making a difference that could impact the entire world. What’s been around longer than both Earth Day and the Arbor Day Foundation, combined? Toilet paper, which dates back to the 6th century AD, in early medieval China. Feel free to print that fact on your roll of GetShitter.com toilet paper! Happy Earth Day and Happy Arbor Day from HostGator!

The lack of Newsletters for the past several months has been palpable; we do apologize.  Ideally, this circumstance will not occur again.  It is true that things have been very busy in the Gator’hood, but maintaining  a proper level of direct contact with you fine folks is a priority to us and we genuinely care about presenting information directly to you and interacting with you via this medium.

Historically speaking, our monthly Newsletters have occasionally displayed a tendency to place the proverbial cart before the horse, by announcing some things a tad bit pre-maturely, *cough*LaunchPad*cough*!  The fact is that we love what we do and we get excited about new technologies or services and we naturally want to share them with you.  Being more conscious of the potentiality for unexpected delays to occur, from this point forward we intend to not bait you with any “Coming Soon!” things.  Rather, we’re going to utilize this time to inform you about what is already available to you and try our best to keep you up on any new happenings around the Company each month.

GatorDesk Mobile: A New Way to Get Support!

GatorDesk Mobile is now live, in beta!  You can fully manage your HostGator support tickets (read, update, create and even add attachments!), completely via your mobile device, at http://mgatordesk.hostgator.com.  This is the first of a series of mobile solutions to better assist you with your HostGator account.  Should you encounter any issues at all while using this new tool, please email us at feedback@hostgator.com so that we can take immediate action to resolve any issues you may experience.

Sale on Windows Dedicated Servers!

We are very pleased to now be offering $100 off your first month with a new Windows Dedicated Server.  Every Windows Dedicated Server includes Microsoft WebMatrix, an excellent tool for creating, customizing and publishing websites!  Visit http://www.hostgator.com/windows-dedicated-servers.shtml to get started today!

BaseKit: Have You Used it Yet?

We are pretty excited about BaseKit!  Many of us have been testing it out around the office, and many Customers have created some impressive sites already as well.  BaseKit’s primarily drag-n-drop functionality is super easy to use and includes many powerful widgets and app integration: Facebook, Twitter, Google Maps, YouTube and many more!  Also, enjoy the variety of professional templates, customizable designs and full HTML/CSS control for you more savvy web designers, or those desiring to learn more about design!

BaseKit is presently available on all Hatchling, Baby, Business & Reseller accounts.

Some Numbers:

Back in December, we announced that on November 29th, 2011 at 9:21:23 CST, we hit our 5,000,000th LiveChat.  That was a milestone of which we were fairly proud.  Here are some of our Support statistics for the month of March, 2012:

139,012 Chats

68,362 Calls

265,572 Tickets

We will return next month with a new Newsletter, we promise!  Until then, remember: We are always hiring!  For more information, please visit http://hostgator.com/jobs.shtml

Once upon a time, people communicated with each other in complete sentences.  Or at least, I assume people used to communicate with each other in complete sentences.  Then along came the technology that spawned the phenomenon of communicating via text.  This effectively butchered the English language.  At least we thought so, at the time.  Then along came IRC and Instant Messaging which thus took language into depths of fail that were never before imaginable.  OMG, LOL!

Instant Messaging is one of the primary means of communication within, and between, HostGator offices.  This leads to much butchering of the English language internally, whilst (hopefully) maintaining proper grammar within the LiveChats with Customers; this occurs simultaneously, behind the scenes.  I’m not going to reveal too much of the inter-office shenanigans, but there are various conference rooms utilized by various departments to effectively communicate as a group with one another.  This is a snippet of a conversation that took place in one of these conference rooms:

(05:38:01 AM) Preston: bacon are desireable
(05:38:06 AM) Preston: i want some bacon
(05:38:43 AM) Adam: proper spelling is desirable.
(05:38:49 AM) Adam: i want some proper spelling.
(05:38:53 AM) Adam: wrapped in bacon.
(05:38:56 AM) Preston: then read a book
(05:38:58 AM) Preston: this is the internet
(05:39:07 AM) Adam: I WANT THE INTERNET WRAPPED IN BACON

It was the above exchange specifically that prompted the creation of this blog post.  It got me thinking about how we have truncated our language to make it far more immediate, far more bite-sized… far more streamlined, or far more primitive?  TLAs, or “Three-Letter Acronyms” have become the norm.  The aforementioned OMG and LOL, also: SMH, BRB, BRT, BFF, AFK… even the dreaded twosome of WTF and FML.  This is clearly by no means an exhaustive list of TLAs.

There is no way to know the manner in which language will evolve in the future, but if Future Man looks back at the HostGator conference room logs and compares them with the LiveChat logs of the same people having Customer interactions, he may very well think that two completely separate languages are being spoken… and perhaps that is relatively true.  What’s interesting is the two gentlemen quoted above are both highly intelligent and articulate individuals, which you may not necessarily be able to infer based on the snippet presented.

This all begs the question, should we consciously continue down this path of effectively disassembling language down to it’s most basic and minimally-communicative parts, or do we purposely not do that in order to maintain the present arc of lingual evolution, so to speak?  As always, when the future becomes the present, the victors will have written the history, amirite?  ZOMG, fosho!  LOL.

All hard drives will crash; there is no such thing as a crash-proof hard drive.  When (not if) this happens, how much data will be lost is a flip of the coin.  It could be 0%, or it could be 100%.  World Backup Day is March 31st. and encourages you to maintain current backups of your data: financial information or other important documents, digital media collection (music/movies/ebooks), and perhaps most importantly your memories (pictures/home movies).

One in ten laptops will be stolen in their lifetime; one is stolen every 53 seconds.  Fifty percent of all hard drives will crash within five years.  Couple those statistics with the fact that 89.1% of PC users do not perform regular backups.  This is essentially a recipe for massive data loss.  A recent study found that 90 percent of companies that experience data loss go out of business within two years, with 70% of companies going out of business following a major data loss.  These are significant numbers.

Are you able to place a dollar amount on your data?  Exactly how much value does it have?  For many people, their data is priceless.  If the only pictures of your children that you have are on a hard drive that crashes, they’re gone.  Forever.  Unless you have a small fortune to pay in hopes of having the data professionally recovered.  This situation though instantly becomes a non-issue the moment you have a safe backup of the data.  Ideally, you’ll maintain current backups of all important data locally and at a remote location.

Texas, where the HostGator offices are, has been hit by both hurricanes and wildfires in recent years.  If a computer and the external hard drive that contained the backups are both within a house that is destroyed, that data is gone.  This is a catastrophic circumstance regardless, but there are many ways to ensure that even under similar conditions your data will remain safe.  HostGator customers are encouraged to visit http://justcloud.com/hostgator for a free trial for cloud storage.  Come what may, with cloud storage you can be confident that your data remains safe.

Please visit http://www.worldbackupday.com for more information and tips on backing up your data.

The simple truth is that the web hosting industry is the target of, and host (pun intended?) to, a large percentage of individuals who attempt to perpetrate identity theft. This is an unfortunate situation, but sadly people often attempt to purchase web-hosting with fraudulent credit cards and other stolen credentials. Generally the motivating factor in using a stolen identity to purchase hosting involve things like warez or other copyrighted materials such as music and movies, or for spamming or phishing purposes; none of which HostGator tolerates on our network.

The efforts of our Pending Department prevent upwards of 6,000 fraudulent sign-ups each month. One of the means used to prevent such sign-ups is a request to provide us with a copy of a government-issued identification card. In that we are a global company with Customers in virtually every non-embargoed nation in the world, we are dealing with countless types of identification cards. Sometimes, they are genuine. Other times, not so much. Below are a few of the more interesting responses we’ve received to our request for the aforementioned identification cards. These images are exactly as we received then, save for the black boxes covering the personal information of those who did not actually intend to sign up for web hosting.

This unfortunate gentleman appears to suffer from some type of carnival funhouse mirror condition… or perhaps an inability to properly use the crop and resize functions of Photoshop. He may, or may not, be named Megan:

Obviously a fake, but what is most concerning is his mouth and nose seem to be fading out of existence. Never mind his height being listed as “7.2”:

What may not be clearly visible in this image is the text under the picture, which says “See How Cute Is The New Addition To Our Family.” Also note “Restrictions: Must Wear Diaper”:

Moving right along, to “Lara” here, who was apparently born in 2009 and has a rather unique height of “19”:

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you “Batman Bin Suparman,” from Singapore:

We’ve also had a few notable individuals attempt to sign up for hosting. You may be familiar with Mr. Brendan Frasier:

Here’s “Connie,” from Delaware, whom vaguely resembles Brad Pitt. I’m not too certain the relevance of including Graduation Celebration instructions on an ID, but I digress:

The lovely and talented Keira Knightley. I was under the impression that she was from the UK, but apparently she’s actually from Florida. Obviously a conscientious individual who cares about her fellow man, being an organ donor and all:

Agent Mulder, surely desiring to create a site involving aliens. The truth is out there, and so forth:

The grand finale is a two-parter. This individual sent in not only their “ID,” but also a picture of themselves holding the ID, to further prove their identity.  So, initially we received this:

Followed shortly thereafter by:

All of the above were clearly failed attempts to Jedi Mind-Trick us.  Fortunately, The Force is strong within The Gator!

Imagine if you were able to genetically combine Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Darth Vader and Barbara Streisand into one horrifically terrifying being. Now imagine that being is actually a piece of proposed legislature — the terrifying creation in your midst would then be the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) which is currently being considered by the House.

SOPA, aka H.R. 3261 is a bill right now in the House sponsored by R-TX Lamar Smith. It’s not just any bill though, it’s a bill that would allow the USDOJ, RIAA, MPAA and anyone else who lobbies for the entertainment industry to effectively censor the internet to suit their needs.

James Allworth recently wrote “Is this really what we want to do to the internet? Shut it down every time it doesn’t fit someone’s business model?” and I couldn’t agree more. Censorship is a slippery slope. Not only that but it also creates an absurd amount of bureaucratic busy work. Here at HostGator we already spend a HUGE amount of time answering DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) requests. If we allow our representatives to begin deciding what is and what isn’t ok for you to view on the internet then where will it end?

The bill itself is absurdly broad, creates a ton of liability for small to mid size e-commerce based businesses and will serve to stifle the tech industry in order to cater to lobbying groups paid by companies who refuse to adapt to a world in which free information is king (and almost as unstoppable as a force of nature).

A couple months back Godaddy CEO Bob Parsons decided to head to africa to help out the good african citizens by murdering elephants (pesky elephants!). They received so much hate in response to that you’d think they would take a more neutral tact in their views going forward. NOPE! Today Godaddy came out in support of SOPA (which is mind blowing to us as we’re both in the same sector) and they’re receiving a good amount of (well deserved) lashback:

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/nmnie/godaddy_supports_sopa_im_transferring_51_domains/

We here at HostGator support a free internet. An Internet in which free information and unhindered distribution of said information is an unalienable human right. Do the same, contact your representative and tell them to vote NO on SOPA.

50% off Shared / Reseller / VPS first month. Coupon code: NOSOPA

Snappy here with an important announcement!

HostGator.com has sent me a company memo this morning confirming that they are once again participating in National Breast Cancer Awareness Month this October and I wanted to pass the good news along to you.

Memo:
“In 1985, the search for a cure for Breast Cancer was gaining headway and AstraZeneca founded National Breast Cancer Awareness Month to raise awareness of this growing cause. Thanks to the establishment of NBCAM, in October of each year, organizations across the nation focus on the fight, helping to promote mammography as the most effective weapon in the race against breast cancer. HostGator.com is proud to join these organizations in their support for a cure.

So it looks like I’m going pink for October! For those of you who have loved ones who have experienced or are going through this, please give them a Snappyrific hug for me.

Have a great day and think pink.