We are delighted that CannyBill has been invited to join the SingleHop Tandem reseller program (more info will be posted shortly) and very excited about their latest data canter expansion. We look forward to working with SingleHop and integrating with their revolutionary API.

(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Web hosting provider SingleHop (www.singlehop.com) announced on Wednesday it will implement a five-year, $7 million program to expand its data centers in the Chicago market, according to a report by Data Center Knowledge.

The announcement comes just 11 months after SingleHop moved into 10,000 square feet of space in a $2.5 million agreement with ServerCentral, at the data center in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, a Chicago suburb near O’Hare International Airport.

The expansion doubles the company’s worldwide network capacity, as well as its footprint at the Elk Grove facility where its second data center is located.

“Our current data center has provided our clients with exceptional service and 100 percent uptime since we opened late in May of 2009,” says Zak Boca, president and CEO of SingleHop. “To continue our aggressive 2010 expansions, we have doubled our capacity both in data center space as well as in bandwidth. The technological advancements of this location, combined with our stellar networking engineering, have proven to be a winning combination that can support and benefit current and future clients with the most advanced and stable hosting environment possible.”

SingleHop now has three locations in the Chicago area.

Want to learn from the best about jQuery and Designing for Mobile with CSS3? Places are still available on For A Beautiful Web workshops: Designing for Mobile with CSS3 with Dan Rubin and jQuery for Designers with Remy Sharp.

Designing for Mobile with CSS3 with Dan Rubin

Join world-renowned mobile designer and author Dan Rubin for a full day learning the key steps to transform your site for mobile users, from content strategy to CSS3 to device detection and optimisation. In this comprehensive full-day workshop, interface and user experience designer Dan Rubin will teach you the key steps to transform your site for mobile users, from content strategy to CSS3 to device detection and optimisation.

Birmingham April 1st 2010. Book your place for only £325.00+VAT.

jQuery for Designers with Remy Sharp

Join JavaScript expert and author of jQuery for Designers Remy Sharp for a full day learning how to do beautiful things with jQuery.

This workshop will ease you in to adding jQuery to your projects. It will cover what jQuery has to offer and how you can make best use of it in your projects. You ’ll be learning jQuery from a practical point of view and you will quickly understand what you can use right out of the box, to quickly add effects and interactions to your wireframes, prototypes and web sites. The aim isn ’t to teach you JavaScript, but instead to teach you what you need to know to leverage jQuery to make the best work that you can for the web.

London May 14th 2010. Book your place from only £325.00+VAT.

Date:         Tuesday 20 October
Time:        5.30–9pm (event begins at 6pm sharp)
Venue:     The County Thistle Hotel, Newcastle (opposite Central Station)
Cost:         Free

Software companies of the North East: working internationally could be the next exciting step for your business.  Discover opportunities available and how to take the next step at the “International Working” seminar on 20 October.

Run by Codeworks Connect the trade association for digital businesses in North East England, in partnership with Sunderland Software City this free seminar will give you real life expertise from local businesses who are successfully trading internationally.

Why should you attend?

A full line up of engaging speakers from local businesses will take you through the peaks and troughs on the road to becoming successful international traders.  Learn from their mistakes and get one step ahead at the beginning of the journey!

Listen and learn from local businesses that ultimately succeeded after finding out what not to do the hard way. There are many routes into international working find out which path best suits your company.

•    Using a reseller hear how Ross Cooney at Rozmic currently does it
•    Acting as a reseller Derek Curtis explains what worked for Bond Solutions
•    Joint ventures knowledge of local culture is the key says Andrew Charlton of Back Consulting
•    Legal aspects Speechly Bircham’s Mark Bailey takes you through the legal minefield in a “bite size” presentation
•    Hands on an informative workshop with help from local solicitors WardHadaway, Crutes, WatsonBurton, Muckles and Mincoff Jackson

All our speakers and solicitors are available for questions and answers during the networking session.  Anything you need to know, we will have the answer!

Book your company’s free place today

Places for this free event are strictly limited and we expect them to go quickly. To book yours, call Alison Wilson at Codeworks Connect on 0191 556 1138 or email alison.wilson@codeworks.net

FREELANCE coders and developers are being invited to brush up on their skills at a networking event.

Headed by Sunderland Software City, the event aims to bring together the region’s freelance software coders and developers.

The event, at the Thistle Hotel, Newcastle, will include an informative talk from a leading freelancer, a talk on current software market trends, future job prospects, training and skills and stalls from networking exhibitors.
Food and drink will also be provided.

The event runs from 5.30pm to 9pm on October 14.

To register, or for more details, contact Alison Wilson on 0191 556 1138 or email alison.wilson@codeworks.net.

Think you’ve secured yourself against online hackers with a foolproof password?

Well think again because with the number of cases of reported hack attacks on the rise, hackers are getting even craftier at cracking those codes.

But fear not, here at DpiVision we’ve been busy trawling the Internet to find out ways to keep hackers at bay and we’ve stumbled across web geek John P’s top tips on protecting yourself from online crime.

After extensively researching the subject, John’s pretty clued up on how to smash those passwords you and I reckon are rock solid, and now he’s using his knowledge to help fellow friends online.

His first tip is to ditch obvious passwords like your partner, pet or sibling’s name.
Lose naming your password after your hometown, school or favourite football team, and don’t use date of births.

Secondly, use a different password for each log-in you set up.

Many people make the mistake of using identical or similar passwords for all online accounts, meaning that hackers don’t need to attempt to take on steel-ringed websites like banks, they can just hack into the softer site you used years ago to buy your aunt that hat.

Pay particular attention to the difference between using only lowercase characters and using all possible characters (uppercase, lowercase, and special characters – like @#$%^&*). Adding just one capital letter and one asterisk would change the processing time for an 8 character password from 2.4 days to 2.1 centuries.

John has also compiled a list of tips to toughen up your password:

1.    Randomly substitute numbers for letters that look similar. The letter ‘o’ becomes the number ‘0′, or even better an ‘@’ or ‘*’. (i.e. – m0d3ltf0rd… like modelTford)
2.    Randomly throw in capital letters (i.e. – Mod3lTF0rd)
3.    Think of something you were attached to when you were younger, but don’t choose a person’s name! Every name plus every word in the dictionary will fail under a simple brute force attack.
4.    Maybe a place you loved, or a specific car, an attraction from a holiday, or a favourite restaurant?
5.    You really need to have different username / password combinations for everything. Remember, the technique is to break into anything you access just to figure out your standard password, then compromise everything else. This doesn’t work if you don’t use the same password everywhere
6.    Since it can be difficult to remember a ton of passwords, John recommends using Roboform. It will store all of your passwords in an encrypted format and allow you to use just one master password to access all of them.
7.    Once you’ve thought of a password, try Microsoft’s password strength tester to find out how secure it is.

To read John’s full blog, visit http://onemansblog.com/2007/03/26/how-id-hack-your-weak-passwords/

About the workshop

Join designer and author Andy Clarke for a full day learning how to use the most up-to-date CSS in your work today. Be inspired to find new ways of designing using CSS.

Modern web browsers now better capable of rendering advanced CSS than ever before. From highly targeted CSS selectors to new ways to work with layout, colour and typography, if you are a web designer or developer, working with CSS has never been more exciting.

‘Advanced CSS Styling’ is a unique one-day master class presented by Andy Clarke, designer and author of the best-selling Transcending CSS. Spend the day with Andy learning how to use the most up-to-date CSS techniques in your everyday work.

What you will learn

• How to design balanced, inspired layouts using advanced CSS positioning techniques
• New ways to work with colour using RGBa
• Using multiple background and border images
• How to use text and box shadows
• About CSS gradients, reflections and transitions

Of course the browser landscape is varied and each browser supports different CSS properties. You will learn how to design around, rather than hack around these natural differences to create experiences that are enjoyable for everyone, no matter which browser they use. You will learn:

• How to improve a browser’s CSS support using Javascript
• Modernizr and how it will help you to design around browser support
• When using Universal Internet Explorer 6 is appropriate

Web typography is one of the hottest topics in web design and development. As a self-confessed typography perfectionist, Andy will teach you:

• Working with font embedding solutions including Typekit, Kernest and Cufon
• Creating striking, readable type with typographic hierarchies
• How to improve typography with kerning, leading and baseline shifts

In this full day master class, you will also learn the latest techniques for designing in a browser and how to test your designs for web accessibility throughout your design process.

Don’t miss out

Don’t miss this opportunity to be inspired to find new ways of using CSS and how to use the most up-to-date CSS techniques. Places for each workshop are limited to thirty and prices start at only £275.00+VAT for limited early bird places.

Schedule

The current economic situation represents the greatest adversity to face the North East for decades. The North East Chamber of Commerce (NECC) is working to ensure that all businesses in the region receive the vital support required to provide stability to their businesses during this period.

It is vital that the region’s businesses stand firm during these turbulent times and at the NECC they feel it is their responsibility, as your regional Chamber of Commerce, to provide a firm foundation on which businesses can meet the challenge of recession head-on.

Please find a help guide below with topics that include:

• Controlling Costs
• Improving Cash Flow
• Increase Your Marketing
• Maintain Service Levels
• Preparing For the Up Turn
• General Tips

Top tips for business during the economic downturn (PDF)

Being-Digital ‘09 – June 9th, London
www.being-digital.com

Being-Digital ‘09 is just under 4 weeks away on the 9th June at the CBI Centre, Centre Point, London.

There is a packed programme lined up with speakers, panel sessions, interviews, roundtables, and some of the most innovative early stage companies that will be demonstrating throughout the event. Its aim is to make it a highly valuable and enjoyable day for the 250+ executives, entrepreneurs & investors who will attend.

Contributors this year include: Simone Brummelhuis – thenextwomen.com, Rory Sutherland – Ogilvy One, Doug Richard – School for Startups, Justine Roberts – Mumsnet, Charles Cohen – Probability, and many more great people – please see the website for more details: www.being-digital.com

Also expecting around 40 innovative Demo Companies and for those seeking investment there will be an “Angels Den” in association with www.angelsden.co.uk where companies seeking early-stage funding will be pitching to active angel investors.

For registering through a partner, there are special discount prices available:

Demo Company discounted price of £295+VAT (down from £395). Packages include 2 tickets, main stage pitches, a dedicated space in our demo room for the full event, and a chance to pitch to Angels Den (limited places) – please contact team@mashupevent.com  quoting discount code SSE for more details.

Standard Delegate discounted price of £195+VAT (down from £245) accessible here:

Entrepreneur Delegate (limited amount only – for startups, sole traders and small businesses) discounted price of £95+VAT (down from £125) accessible here:

If you want more information and wish to see the full speaker lineup and testimonials from other companies please click here.

This month Culture Lab will be hosting Super Mondays, a strong and vibrant community of IT enthusiasts based in The North East of England who meet up once a month for a range of IT user group meetings and some unstructured discussions.

Register Now >

The event will start at 18:00 with tea and coffee and demonstration of several of the innovative technology projects including the ambient kitchen and surface computing.

At 19:00 we will then go upstairs where we will hear from the following speakers:

1.    Patrick Olivier – Cultural Technologies

Patrick will talk about the work of his lab at Newcastle University on cultural technologies and human-computer interaction.

2.    Jayne Wallace — Meaningful Technologies

Jayne is a post-doctoral researcher in the School of Computing Science at Newcastle University and has been developing her practice of digital jewellery design as a means of exploring how we can use digital technologies to create objects that can hold more significance and meaning for us than mobile phones and the usual gadgets. Jayne will talk about her methods, designs and how the space for digital technology design is much wider than we might at first think.

3.    Andrew Waite — Honeypotting with Nepenthes

Andrew has been running a Nepenthes honeypot for over 12 months. During this time has has collected over 800 unique varients of malware. Andrew will bring you through how he did this and more importantly why!

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS MONTHS EVENT IS BEING HELD ON A TUESDAY!

This months event has been sponsored by Northern Film and Media.

With the credit crunch biting hard many businesses are finding it tough to keep themselves afloat.

But Business Link is dishing out some top tips on how to keep going in the current climate. By taking a few simple steps like managing your efficiency, cash-flow and debts, as well as looking at employment opportunities and carefully considering your finances, you can tighten the reins on your business and ride through the recession.

Please find some more information below with some useful online tools and advise:

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/advice…