mail2web.com Blog » News & Announcements

Be Aware of Phishing and Malware attacks!

Tim Attwood — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:37:13 +0000

On Friday we reported some issues around phishing attempts against mail2web.com users. The phishing scam requested that mail2web.com users email their username and password to a websupport@mail2webmaster.com.

We have now received further reports of phishing emails sent that appear to be from “info@mail2web.com”. The email indicates that your account has been deactivated and asks you to run an attached utility in order to restore your mailbox. The attached file is in fact a malware utility which may be used to compromise your account.

As before, we recommend that all mail2web.com users exercise extreme caution when it comes to such suspicious notification emails. We will never ask you to send us your password, and we will never instruct you to run such a utility to restore your account.

If you receive any emails of this nature, please err on the side of caution and report it to abuse@mail2web.com or contact us at 1-877-MAIL2WEB before following any instructions.

If you have fallen victim to one of these phishing attempts, please contact us for further assistance.

Samsung’s bada mobile OS and SDK

Birge Basik — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:54:28 +0000

The world is ready for a new mobile operating system. Samsung has announced that its new open mobile operating system ‘bada’ will arrive in the first half of 2010. It will compete with existing open platform operating systems such Android and LiMO. bada’s software development kit will be available little bit earlier, but you’ll see this on the market in December.

It seems that Samsung will no longer be using other operating systems like Microsoft Windows Mobile OS, Symbian or even Android. The bada website states that: “Samsung bada includes a next generation UI framework with feature sets and design elements that facilitate leading-edge user interfaces for every bada application.” bada means ‘Ocean’ in Korean, the name is chosen due to the limitless variety of potential applications. This would seem to indicate that bada will also support Apps and its user interface could be altered to feature a more attractive design by its developer following.

There’s no clear word on whether it will support any Activesync method in order to sync to exchange based email accounts, but here’s hoping!

Unfortunately, we have to wait until December to see first screen shots of this new system.

Press Release of Samsung bada is below:

Samsung bada – The Next Wave Of The Mobile Industry

Developers get the chance to create mobile applications for millions of new Samsung handsets

November 10th, 2009, Seoul, Korea– Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., a leading mobile phone provider, today announced the launch of its own open mobile platform, Samsung bada [bada] in December. This new addition to Samsung’s mobile ecosystem enables developers to create applications for millions of new Samsung mobile phones, and consumers to enjoy a fun and diverse mobile experience.

In order to build a rich smartphone experience accessible to a wider range of consumers across the world, Samsung brings bada, a new platform with a variety of mobile applications and content.

The name ‘bada’, which means ‘ocean’ in Korean, was chosen to convey the limitless variety of potential applications which can be created using the new platform. It also alludes to Samsung’s commitment to a variety of open platforms in the mobile industry. Samsung bada also represents the fresh challenges and opportunities available to developers, as well as the entertainment which consumers will enjoy once the new platform is open.

Based on Samsung’s experience in developing previous proprietary platforms on Samsung mobile phones, Samsung can create the new platform and provide opportunities for developers. Samsung bada is also simple for developers to use, meaning it’s one of the most developer-friendly environments available, particularly in the area of applications using Web services. Lastly, bada’s ground-breaking User Interface (UI) can be transferred into a sophisticated and attractive UI design for developers.

Samsung will be able to expand the range of choices for mobile phone users to enjoy the smartphone experiences. By adopting Samsung bada, users will be able to easily enjoy various applications on their mobile.

Samsung bada also offers an easy-to-integrate platform for mobile operators so that mobile operators can provide unique and differentiated services to their customers.

Samsung established its mobile application ecosystem through the launch of Samsung Mobile Innovator in 2008 and the Samsung Application Seller Site followed by Samsung Application Store as another key element of this offering.

Dr Hosoo Lee, Executive Vice President and Head of Media Solution Center at Samsung Electronics said, “By opening Samsung’s mobile platforms we will be able to provide rich mobile experiences on an increasing number of accessible smartphones.” He added, “bada will be Samsung’s landmark, iconic new platform that brings an unprecedented opportunity for operators, developers and Samsung mobile phone users around the world.”

The official website (www.bada.com) will open on November 10th and will feature a range of information on bada including updates on product launches, features, and event notices. Samsung will also host an official launch event for bada in London, UK in December and will also unveil its bada software development kit (SDK) to developers for the first time on this date.

About Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2008 consolidated sales of US$96 billion. Employing approximately 164,600 people in 179 offices across 61 countries, the company consists of two business units: Digital Media & Communications and Device Solutions. Recognized as one of the fastest growing global brands, Samsung Electronics is a leading producer of digital TVs, memory chips, mobile phones and TFT-LCDs. For more information, please visit www.samsung.com

Palm Pre WebOS 1.2 and ActiveSync Issues

Birge Basik — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:25:47 +0000

The Palm WebOS 1.2 Update is now available although it is being reported that it contains some serious ‘Exchange Sync’ problems. It’s supposed to improve calendar syncing and e-mail capabilities but fails severely.

There are many people from different forums having Exchange Activesync problems after installing the web O.S 1.2 update. Palm is aware of the issue and they are working on it but unfortunately they haven’t found even a temporary quick fix. You can check their forums from time to time to stay updated. Plus we will share all the news on this subject with you. Don’t forget to check our forum, too!!

We believe that Palm will need a strong patch for webOS 1.2.1 to fix this syncing issue. If you haven’t yet updated to WebOS 1.2, we advise against doing so for the time being.

If you are also experiencing this problem breaking Exchange EAS on your Palm Pre, please share your thoughts with us!

The King of Viral

Melissa Smich — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:09:55 +0000

Once upon a time, print ruled the world, journalists were information gatekeepers, and we had to dial to get internet. Days have changed and this free flow of communication has rendered PR initiatives a daunting task. Communicating today means reaching out to entire online communities, as opposed to the handful of journalists one would contact in the past.

My boss, Celal, and I were discussing a strategy for creating a branded video that could spread virally throughout the online world. I must admit, I was distracted by the smell of my burnt Colombian coffee, secretly shaking my fist at Mark, our VP of Technology. He was taunting the office by enjoying a specially imported organic Brazilian, which he received that morning with great enthusiasm.

Celal continued, snapping me out of my coffee-trance, explaining that there’s no equation for a successful online viral campaign, but it must be interesting, easy to share and humorous in order to spread like wild fire.

He continued by suggesting a creative agency, with a professional demeanor, boasting years’ experience and proven results; All I could think was that it lacked imagination. Maybe it’s because I’m the kind of girl who loves American Psycho and The Game, but I’d prefer something with a little more edge and enthusiasm, controversy and creativity – something out-of-the-box and boundary pushing.

Where does one find that? I don’t know for sure, but I think I’ll find something fresh and original from university students and through the creative people within my social media circles.

There, over that Colombian house blend, he and I created a wager on which tactic will rein glorious ruler over the viral video world. Winner gets bragging rights and a theoretical crown.

Which brings us to this

Call For Entry: SoftCom Video Contest

SoftCom is holding its first video contest with Grand Prizes of $1,000 and paid contracts up for grabs

The idea is basic – create a video presenting our company or products/services (softcom Inc., mail2web.com and/or myhosting.com) in a unique and innovative fashion, then submit it to me.

My top three “Wish I Thought Of It First” include: Blendtec’s Will It Blend, Google’s Office Tour, and Burger King’s Whopper Virgins.

Please pass this along to someone you know who’d be interested in participating. The deadline for entries is 12:00 midnight Monday October 19, 2009 and winners will be announced Friday November 27, 2009.

Questions and comments are always welcome and appreciated: Melissa Smich, Social Media Specialist, SoftCom Inc. 10 Bay St, Suite 310 | Toronto, On | M5J2R8 |416.957.7422 | melissas@softcom.com

For full contest details, please check us out online or on Facebook

Call For Entry: SoftCom Video Contest

Melissa Smich — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:58:03 +0000

SoftCom is holding its first video contest with Grand Prizes of $1,000 and paid contracts up for grabs.

The Challenge: My boss wants a creative agency; I’m convinced more talent exists in university students and through the creative people within my social media circles. He and I now have a wager on which will rein glorious ruler over the viral video world.

The objective: To present our company or products/services (Softcom Inc., mail2web.com and/or myhosting.com) in a unique and innovative fashion.

Videos will be featured on our site, and possibly youtube, digg, etc.

Creativity Is King: Documentaries and mockumentaries; commercials and faux-mercials; serious or hilarious; any new, out-of-the-box way to present our company, services, and products. Even the ridiculous, like Blentec’s “will it blend” videos, will be appreciated.

Deadline: Deadline for entries is 12:00 midnight Monday October 19, 2009

Winners will be announced Friday November 27, 2009

Contact: Questions and comments are welcome and appreciated!

Submit: all questions and videos to Melissa Smich, Social Media Specialist, SoftCom Inc.

Mail/In Person: 10 Bay St, Suite 310 | Toronto, On | M5J2R8

Phone: 416.957.7422

Email: melissas@softcom.com

Note: By submitting a video file via email, it is best to use a free file sharing service like SendSpace or YouSendIt

Full Contest Details:http://myhosting.com/promotions/video-contest/

Cool Examples:Google’s Inside Look | Blendtec’s Will It Blend | Whopper Virgins

myhosting.com Offers Free Web Hosting Services to Community-Minded Organizations (Press Release)

Tim Attwood — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:51:17 +0000

myhosting.com announces Web Hosting Endowment Program and offers free email hosting, Web hosting and SharePoint to companies and organizations that bring a positive influence to the community.

Toronto (Vocus/PRWEB ) September 15, 2009 — myhosting.com, a leader in affordable and effective Web hosting services in more than 140 countries, today announced its Web Hosting Endowment program, which donates free Web hosting services to organizations that help the greater need.

“We believe in giving back to the community and help organizations that contribute to the greater good; it is part of our culture at myhosting.com.” said Celal Ulgen, chief marketing officer for myhosting.com.

Non-profits and other contribution-based organizations will receive Web hosting, Exchange Email and SharePoint through myhosting.com. More specifically, those organizations will receive the following free features…

FREE Professional Web Hosting which includes a dedicated IP address, both Windows 2008 and Linux hosting platforms which include generous storage, bandwidth, email accounts and all other standard Web hosting features.
FREE Hosted Exchange Email as an alternative to the email accounts included with Professional Web Hosting package. Includes full Exchange seats with a free Outlook 2007 or Entourage 2008 license.
FREE SharePoint Hosting with unlimited users and sub-sites to help team members and volunteers collaborate on projects.

“These days, Web hosting services are essential for any business or organization to thrive,” Ulgen said. “Non-profits and other groups will now have the chance to have all these things for absolutely no cost.”

The Web Hosting Endowment Program will be available to:

Registered Non-profit groups and organizations
Organizations making positive contributions to their communities
Educational or Governmental organizations providing for the greater good

myhosting.com aims to serve charitable organizations and non-profit groups, such as those with 501(c)(3) designations or charities registered with the CRA. But it won’t limit the program to only those organizations.

“We are also interested in helping any organization that selflessly provides services or contributions, and is working to make a positive change,” Ulgen said. “It’s tough in this economy to survive, no matter who you are. We hope the Web Hosting Endowment Program will be able to help make the difference between success and failure.”

To apply to the Web Hosting Endowment Program, go to http://myhosting.com/web-hosting/non-profit/apply.aspxand fill out the 5-minute application form.

About myhosting.com
myhosting.com is owned and managed by SoftCom Inc., a privately held company headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Founded in 1997, SoftCom provides reliable and cost effective email and Web Hosting services to more than 10 million customers with support of 26 languages in 140 countries worldwide. The myhosting.com name and the logo are registered trademarks of SoftCom Inc.

Enter to Win FREE Web Hosting from myhosting.com

Tim Attwood — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:54:14 +0000

Starting today, you can enter to win one of three FREE web hosting packages! All you have to do is follow myhosting.com on Twitter and retweet a message announcing the contest.

To visit the contest page, please click here!

Entourage 2008 EWS available and supported by mail2web.com

Tim Attwood — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:17:33 +0000

As we mentioned in our previous post, Entourage 2008 Exchange Web Services was due to be released soon… It has now been released and is available in 11 different languages from the Office 2008 for Mac website. The update has been tested with our mail2web Mobile Email Pro service as well as our Business Exchange service and myhosting.com Hosted Exchange Email service, and works well. For those users who have already configured their accounts in Entourage and have installed the updates, you do not need to make any changes. Your account will continue to function as before.

And if you are setting up your account in Entourage 2008 for the first time, you can take advantage of the improved AutoUpdate support, which makes configuring your account even easier! One of the other new features which you can take advantage of is Task and Note synchronization to and from the Exchange Server.

If you haven’t configured your account in Entourage yet, when you start it for the first time you should see the “Account Setup Assistant”. If you don’t see it, choose the “Tools” menu and click “Accounts…”. Then click on the “New” button. Then you can follow these steps below to set up your mail2web Mobile Email account.

1. If you see the “Welcome to Entourage” screen, if you need to import anything you can do it now, and then return to the set up process later. If not, select “Start using Entourage without importing anything” and then click the right arrow.
2. Enter your email address in the field provided, and check the “My account is on an Exchange server” option. Then click on the right arrow.
You will then be prompted for your account information. Leave the Domain field blank and enter your email address in the Account ID field, followed by your password. If you don’t want to be prompted for your password again, select the “Save password in my Mac OS keychain” option. Then click “OK”.
3. Entourage will then connect to the Exchange server to Automatically Discover your settings.
When Entourage connects to the AutoDiscover server, you may receive a prompt asking you Allow the AutoDiscover server to get your settings. Select the “Always use my response for this server” option and then click “Allow”. This will ensure that your settings are always kept up to date in the future too!
4. You should then receive a confirmation message that your settings were “successfully determined”. Click on the right arrow to proceed.
5. You’ll then be asked to Verify and Complete your settings. You can enter your Name as you want it to appear on your email and your full email address. Don’t change the settings in the “Exchange server” field, just leave it as it is. For the “LDAP server” field, remove the contents of the field and leave it blank. Then click the right arrow to proceed.
6. If you want, you can click on the “Verify My Settings” button to make sure your account is configured correctly. You can click on the right-arrow to complete your set up.
7. Now everything is complete! You can specify any account name you like, and even add it to your “Me” contact if you wish. Click “Finish” to exit the wizard and get started using Entourage 2008 EWS!

We recommend that all Entourage users install the update. If you are a Mac user and have a mail2web Mobile Email Pro account, a Business Exchange account, or a myhosting.com Hosted Exchange Email account and haven’t tried Entourage yet, now is the time!

Thanks,

Tim Attwood
Product Manager
mail2web.com

mail2web.com Updates, including Android Email and BlackBerry Email Service

Tim Attwood — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:15:06 +0000

Yesterday afternoon we released a number of new updates to mail2web.com that we weren’t able to complete in time for our last launch. Internally, we were calling this our “Phase II” update. Some of the changes and additions you might notice include:

An all new Check-Out process for our mail2web Mobile Email service. We’ve made a number of updates and improvements to the sign up pages which we feel helps streamline the process and make it easier to get activated with the preferences you want, and get started setting up your account. We’ve also prettied it up a bit with a little bit of Ajax and “Web 2.0″.

Along with the new sign up process, we’ve also made changes to allow you to sign up for the mail2web Mobile Email Pro service without entering billing information. This gives you the opportunity to try the full featured service without giving us a credit card.

We also reduced the pricing for our BlackBerry Service from $14.95/month to only $9.95/month. We hope this helps make it even more accessible than before. If you’re a BlackBerry user and haven’t yet tried out the BlackBerry (BES) Service, now is the time.

We also added a bunch of new content on our website, including an all new Android Email section. I had a chance to try out the new HTC Magic recently, and it’s a pretty slick device. And with support for Exchange ActiveSync, it allows you to configure your mail2web Mobile Email account or Hosted Exchange account very easily. Devices like the HTC Dream and the Magic include native support for Exchange ActiveSync, and hopefully the T-Mobile G1 will add this feature soon too. In the meantime, G1 users can use applications like NitroDesk Touchdown.

And last but not least, with this update we didn’t make any changes to mail2web Webmail. We know how loyal our users are and how even tiny changes can cause ripples, so you’ll be glad to hear that we didn’t make any changes with this release!

We’d love to hear your feedback, leave us a comment here, or on our forums or ideas page!

Thanks,

Tim Attwood
Product Manager
mail2web.com

Entourage 2008: Service Pack 2 and Exchange Web Services

Birge Basik — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 18:55:03 +0000

If you are a PC user, Entourage may sound foreign to you, but for Mac users it means a lot. You might think of Entourage as “Outlook for Macs”. Recently Microsoft announced the release of Service Pack 2. This update improves the stability and performance of Microsoft Office applications for Mac. It also includes new applications like Microsoft Document Connection which enables you to work with the files that are located on a SharePoint site or Microsoft Live Workspace.

This service pack has some critical updates for Entourage. It has an important file called Proxy auto-config (.pac), which supports proxy Network settings of automatically configured Mac OS X. The junk e-mail filtering definition file is also updated and improved. Finally this update adds support for automatically configuring POP access for new Windows Live Hotmail accounts in Entourage. For further information, you can check Microsoft’s Web site.

If you want to keep on top of your Microsoft Office updates more easily, you can use Microsoft AutoUpdate for Mac, which comes with Office. It keeps your Microsoft software up to date. If you set AutoUpdate to check automatically on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, it will automatically download critical updates and information directly to your computer.

Lastly, Microsoft is planning to release the “Entourage for Exchange Web Services” update. The Beta testing is already closed, but stay tuned for final release coming later this year. Entourage will finally use Exchange Web Services instead of WebDAV for better performance, reliability and compatibility. The update also improves email services and calendaring, synchronization for tasks, notes and categories. Some other features included in the update will be:

Enhanced AutoDiscover service to keep user account settings up to date after the account setup.
Synchronization between Exchange Server and Entourage 2008 Notes, Tasks, and Categories.
Addition of an Enable Logging (troubleshooting) preference, to log all events that can be used as diagnostic information.
Use of attachments in Entourage for Exchange calendar events.

You can read details from the Microsoft Web site or Officeformac.com.

We strongly suggest our myhosting.com Hosted Exchange Email and mail2web Mobile Email Pro users to download Service Pack 2 and enjoy the improvements.