PSPINC Official Company Blog

NewsMAIL: Upcoming Logs Update

Apr

10

We’re happy to announce that we’re updating the logs feature for our email marketing service, NewsMAIL. When you download your email broadcast log, you’ll see columns that show (from left) the recipient’s emails, the broadcast start date, the broadcast finish date, the success or fail logs, and the mail transfer agent (SMTP server being delivered to).

This update is scheduled at the time below:

* USA Pacific Daylight Time

- April 11th (Thu) 9:00 - 9:30am

* Japan Time
- April 12th (Fri) 1:00 - 1:30am

With this new update, you’ll see more cases of why an email either failed or succeeded in sending. Instead of just seeing a “Pass for DKIM”, it’ll also show other success/fail cases, including:

Blacklisted: If your email fails to send because it’s blacklisted, it means ISPs (Internet Service Providers) have added your IP address and/or domain to a list of blocked emails because they have a reputation for sending spam. If this is the case, we suggest you change your “Mail From (Email)” when composing your broadcasts.

Pass for DKIM: Many email service providers (including Dreamersi!) implement a DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) authentication feature to guarantee the authenticity of an email sender. This log means the email broadcast has been sent to go through the DKIM authentication process.

Connect Failure > Re-Sent: A connection failure can mean the server is receiving too much mail at the time of sending, but NewsMAIL will try delivering the email broadcast again. If successful, it will show as another log entry wih "Success" in that column.
Connect Failure: After re-sending the email broadcast because of a connect failure issue, it failed to deliver the broadcast.

Deferred > Re-Sent: When the recipient’s email server temporarily delays an email, it’s referred to as a deferred email. Again, NewsMAIL will resend the email for you so your recipients will receive it.

DNS Failure: When the recipient’s server can’t receive an email because of a DNS (Domain Name System) problem, it’ll show as a DNS failure in your downloaded logs. Examples of DNS problems include:

The mail server is down
Set-up included a typo
The destination domain doesn’t exist
Internet or network connection problems
Misconfigured DNS settings
An outdated browser

Domain Failure: A domain failure means the sender’s email address failed the domain’s authentication check. Changing the “Mail From (Email)” to send from a different email address should fix this problem.

User Unknown: When a recipient’s email doesn’t exist or is invalid, your email broadcast will not deliver and show the User Unknown in the downloaded Logs file.

SMTP Startup Error > Re-Sent: An SMTP startup error means NewsMAIL couldn’t deliver your broadcast because of incorrect SMTP settings, firewall restrictions, or server connectivity issues, but NewsMAIL also resends the broadcast in this case so your recipients will still receive your email broadcast.

Greylisted > Re-Sent: Greylisting is a spam-preventing feature that temporarily rejects emails from unknown senders, but NewsMAIL will also resend your broadcast so your recipients will receive your broadcast.

Over Quota: An email that doesn’t send because of an “Over Quota” issue means you’re unable to send broadcasts to this email address because your recipient’s mailbox has reached its maximum capacity.

If you have any questions, please contact us at 1-800-232-3989 (preferred) or email us at support@pspinc.com.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#advertising #blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #digitalmarketing #dkim #dns #email #logs #marketing #marketingdigital #marketingtips #newsmail #pspinc #smallbusiness #statistics #tech #technology #update #web #webdevelopment #webtools

The DOJ’s Antitrust Lawsuit Against Apple: What it Means For Customers

Apr

2

For years now, the feud between iPhone and Android users has persisted. Many customers, especially those who consider themselves tech-savvy, are adamantly on whichever side they stand on, citing key differences between the competitors. Arguments for or against each brand have varied from favoring Apple’s simple user interface (UI) to slamming Apple for its lack of compatibility with other non-Apple devices.

On March 21, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) accused Apple of violating antitrust laws with a lawsuit. However, this isn’t the first time they’ve done so. In fact, this is actually the third time they’ve sued Apple for this exact reason in the past four years. So, what makes it different this time? According to antitrust experts, the DOJ has made an even stronger case than expected, giving them an even stronger lawsuit compared to past efforts.

The DOJ's Case Against Apple

In the DOJ’s case against Apple, Apple makes up 65-70 percent of smartphones, giving it dominance over the marketplace. In the lawsuit, the DOJ breaks down not just the harm Apple’s monopoly has to developers, but also customers, specifically by highlighting its pattern of behavior that further embeds users into the Apple ecosystem and makes it hard for users to switch.

One of the biggest complaints customers have been making about Apple is its lack of compatibility with other non-Apple devices. For example, if an Android user texts an iPhone user an image, it will look grainy because Apple lowers the quality of cross-platform texts. Apple, however, argues that this case will set a precedent over the government’s involvement in consumer technology designs.

What Does This Mean for iPhone Users?

woman holding an iphone and a credit card

Currently, Apple takes up to 30% of app revenue from third-party developers, which in turn leads many developers to charge their customers more in order to maintain the viability of their business. So, for developers, this case may just force Apple to lower the cost of app subscriptions, add more payment options, and give app developers more freedom on the App Store.

But overall, this case will be a lengthy legal battle that will probably take years to conclude, which is why many experts agree it will likely result in some kind of settlement. But because of how much more merit this lawsuit has compared to past ones, experts still expect Apple to change at least some of its practices.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#app #appdevelopment #apple #blog #business #businesstools #departmentofjustice #development #doj #iphone #lawsuit #marketing #mobile #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web #webdevelopment

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 213 “A Custom Web Development Case Study”

Mar

28

Custom web development can encompass several things, which can make it hard to explain. Every website owner needs something different, and they turn to custom web development when they require more than what’s traditionally offered by popular website builders. But they say it’s always better to show rather than tell, so we’ve included a case study of a large but recent custom development job we did recently with Don’s Group Attire.

Don’s Group Attire is a local group attire shop in South Seattle who were looking to fully customize their company e-commerce website system. If you go to our Web & App Development page, you’ll find the link to our case study on our custom development work for Don’s Group Attire, where we detail all the work we did for them and how the overall process went. For anyone curious about how the custom web development process works, check out our new case study!

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #digitalmarketing #ecommerce #marketing #marketingdigital #pspinc #searchengineoptimization #seo #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web #webdesign #webdevelopment #website #websitebuilder #websites #webtools

Dreamersi: Log Server OS Upgrade Announcement

Mar

15

We’re happy to announce that we’re upgrading our operating system (OS) for Dreamersi's log server for its web service. We’re upgrading our OS from Cent OS7 to Alma Linux 8 since there will no longer be technical support for Cent OS7 after June 30, 2024, in a continued effort to strive towards making sure our hosting service is the safest it can be. With this new upgrade, it will help patch any vulnerabilities to defend users against cyber threats and also support new encryption protocols.

However, updating the OS will result in about five minutes of downtime. You may see an error message when trying to download the access logs during this time, so we thought you should know ahead of time. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

This server upgrade will occur on:

*USA Pacific Daylight Time
- March 21 (Thursday) 11:00-11:30am

*Japan Time
- March 22 (Friday) 3:00-3:30am

If you have any questions, please contact us at 1-800-232-3989 (preferred) or email us at support@pspinc.com.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#announcement #b2b #blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #customerservice #customersupport #dreamersi #ecommerce #marketing #marketingdigital #pspinc #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web #webdevelopment #webhosting #website #websites #webtools

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 210 “Custom Web Development”

Mar

7

For decades now, we’ve worked with small businesses to develop custom websites to fit their unique business needs to help grow their business online. While many popular website builders work for others, it doesn’t mean it works for everyone. It can’t account for every customization a business may need, which is exactly where custom web development comes in. Website builders can only do so much for you when you need more customization over how you want your website to function and what you need to succeed online.

Custom features like robust reservation systems, the addition of multi-lingual content, and mobile app creation are just a few examples of the kinds of custom web development work we’ve done in the past for our customers. Every business is unique in what they offer and what they need to succeed. Get your website custom-designed by our experts at PSPINC to get a custom solution to your custom business needs.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#b2b #blog #branding #business #businesstips #businesstools #digitalmarketing #ecommerce #google #marketing #pspinc #searchengineoptimization #seo #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web #webdesign #webdevelopment #website #websitebuilder

Pass Wizard OS Upgrade Announcement

Mar

1

We’re happy to announce that we’re upgrading our operating system (OS) for our password manager, Pass Wizard. We’re upgrading our OS from Cent OS7 to Alma Linux 8 since there will no longer be technical support for Cent OS7 after June 30, 2024, and we continue striving towards making sure our password manager is the safest it can be. With this new upgrade, it will help patch any vulnerabilities to defend users against cyber threats.

However, updating the Pass Wizard OS will result in about 15 minutes of downtime, so we thought you should know ahead of time. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Update details

Before: Cent OS7

After: Alma Linux 8

This server upgrade will occur on:

*USA Pacific Daylight Time

- March 6 (Wednesday) 6:00-6:30am

*Japan Time

- March 6 (Wednesday) 11:00-11:30pm

If you have any questions about these changes or require more assistance, please email us at contact@pspinc.com or call us toll-free at 1-800-232-3989.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#announcement #b2b #blog #business #businesstips #customerservice #cybersecurity #mobile #passwizard #passwordmanager #pspinc #security #smallbusiness #softwaredevelopment #tech #technology #update #web #webdevelopment #website #websites #webtools

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 209 “Keep Your Data Safe with a Password Manager”

Feb

29

With how advanced cybersecurity has become, it’s important to make sure your personal data and online accounts are secure. Cybercrime unfortunately continues to rise as developers continue working on ways to protect users against hacks. So, what are some easy ways to keep your data safe?

Use a password manager: A password manager keeps your sensitive data safe in one place. With our password manager, Pass Wizard, it couldn’t be easier to keep your accounts safe.
Have varying passwords: Make sure you have a different password for every single one of your accounts. That way, in case of a hack, cybercriminals won’t be able to access all of them.
Use an authenticator app: Connect your online accounts, including your password manager (like Pass Wizard), with an authenticator app to add an extra layer of security to your account.

Get a head start on keeping data secure by signing up for our password manager, Pass Wizard. With Pass Wizard, you can rest assured that your online accounts are safe. With Pass Wizard Pro, you can protect your accounts even more by connecting your Pass Wizard account to an authenticator app. Pass Wizard is free for up to ten passwords, or $19.95 for a full year (that’s just $1.67/month!) for an unlimited number of passwords. Sign up today.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#authenticatorapp #blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #cybersecurity #marketing #mobile #pacificsoftwarepublishing #passwizard #passwordmanager #pspinc #security #smallbusiness #tech #web #webdevelopment #webtools

WebdeXpress: New Text Style Feature Out Now!

Feb

19

We’re happy to announce a new text-style feature on WebdeXpress, our website builder that comes included with our Dreamersi web hosting. With this new Text Style feature, you have more control over your website’s website design by choosing your site’s font family, text size, heading alignment, text color, link color, and/or link hover color for different regions of your website.

To access this new feature:

Log into your Dreamersi account.
Click on the WebdeXpress icon or on WebdeXpress in the left navigation bar.
Log into your WebdeXpress account.
Click on Appearance on the left navigation bar and click on Themes once the drop-down menu appears.
Either select one of the first six themes or click on Customize Theme if you already have one of them selected for your website.
Click on Text Style, which will open a drop-down menu with your text styling options.
Click on Show Advanced Options (if not already showing) to see all text styling options. With this new feature, you can change the font family, text size, text color, heading alignment, link color, and/or link hover color for the following regions: Website Title, Website Subtitle, Page Title, and Content.
To view your changes, enter your site’s URL in another tab and refresh the site after selecting your changes and clicking on Save at the bottom.
To reset your changes, click on the Reset Text Style option on the bottom right.

With more control over your site's overall design, you'll have more opportunity to add more branding to your website. If you have any questions or need some additional help, please contact us at 1-800-232-3989 or email us at support@pspinc.com.

*WebdeXpress’s new Text Style feature only applies to the first six theme choices and is only available for English and Japanese sites.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#b2b #blog #branding #business #businesstips #businesstools #digitalmarketing #dreamersi #ecommerce #pspinc #searchengineoptimization #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web #webdevelopment #webdexpress #webhosting #website #websites #webtools

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 206 “Evaluate Your Website for Free!”

Feb

8

We’re happy to announce that we’ve released a new website evaluation tool, free for everyone to try out! While many business owners today know how important having a good website is, it isn’t always easy to assess how secure and optimized for search engines your site is. Now, with our new website evaluation tool, you can!

Just enter your website URL in the text box and click on the Start Evaluation button and you’ll get an evaluation on your site in minutes! With our website evaluation tool, it’ll look at:

SSL certificate: without one, users will probably encounter an error page that encourages them to leave your site.
Mobile friendliness:if your site doesn’t look good on all devices (including mobile devices), search engines won’t make it as easy for users to find via search.
Title tag: having a title tag is vital to good SEO, which affects how search engines populate your site in their search results.
Meta tag: a website without a meta tag doesn’t look good in search results, making it less likely people will click on it.
Header tags: headings won’t just make your content look nicer to users, they’ll also help with your site’s SEO.
Sitemap: a file that lists all your website’s pages and how they relate to each other and another influential factor in SEO.
Page load time: if your site takes too long to load, search engines will rank it lower in the search results.
Image alt attribute: another SEO factor that tells the “why” of an image and is an important accessibility feature.

Check out our new free website evaluation tool by going to our Web Design page to try it out for yourself! If you want to know more about how to fix any issues your site may have, enter your email in the text box below and you'll receive your diagnostic results with more information.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #cybersecurity #ecommerce #marketing #marketingdigital #marketingtips #mobile #newsletter #pspinc #searchengineoptimization #security #seo #smallbusiness #technology #web #webdesign #webdevelopment #websites

What Every Successful Website Needs

Feb

6

Every website is different in what it looks like, what it offers, and its overall purpose, but a good website has several key qualities that will distinguish it from a poor site. For a business, a good website is vital to its success as it helps establish credibility, build trust, increase brand awareness, improve its customer experience, and keep the company competitive online.

A good website will attract more qualified visitors, keep people on your site for longer, give off a better impression on potential customers, and drive conversions like an increase in signups, readership, and sales. To do well online, a website needs to be secure and possess certain characteristics that every website needs to thrive online. While there are many types of websites (i.e. blogs, portfolio sites, business websites, etc.) available, they will all still need some of the same features needed to succeed.

Essential Features of a Good Website

Having a secure website is vital to attracting users to your website, not just to protect users while browsing, but also to prevent them from encountering error messages. The easiest way to do that is to have an SSL certificate for your site, which will guarantee users’ data is safe when they’re online. Without one, they’ll run into a page that informs them the connection is not secure and not private, and it will recommend users go “back to safety”.

While having a secure site is a start, other essential features include:

Mobile friendliness: how well a website looks on a mobile device. An easy way to make sure your website works and looks great on all devices (including mobile devices) is by using responsive design practices.
Search engine optimization: elements that affect how search engines rank your website in its search results.
- Page titles: the title of a web page.
- Meta tags: an HTML code snippet with information about a website.
- Alt tags on images: read-aloud text for users that conveys the “why” of images that search engines index to determine your site’s search ranking.
- Header tags: HTML tags that separate headings and subheadings on a webpage.
- Title tag: an HTML tag that defines a web page’s title.
- Sitemap: a file that lists all of a website’s pages and how they relate to each other.
- Page load time: how long it takes for a page to load. The longer it takes, the lower search engines will rank your site.
- Backlinks: a link on your website that links to another website.
- No broken links: If a link on your website doesn’t properly link to another web page, search engines will rank your site lower in the search results.
Clear calls-to-action (CTAs): a direct instruction on what you want users to do on your website. Without CTAs, website visitors won’t do anything on your site, which is a missed opportunity to convert them into customers.
Easy and helpful navigation: a menu of buttons and links that let users explore your website. Making it easy will lessen the possibility of users getting frustrated.
Fresh, high-quality content: new or updated content on your website will result in a more favorable search ranking, and exceptional content will encourage users to not just come and stay on your site, but it will also encourage them to come back.
Strong brand identity: A website is just another opportunity to create a cohesive brand identity with your company logo, color scheme, types of graphics, tone of voice, and brand messaging.

If you’re not sure how well your website fares or if it needs an update, check out our new free website evaluation tool that will help you assess your website at a basic level in just minutes. Just check out our Web Design page to try it out for yourself!

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.