We would like to update that the 23 domains that were seized by Microsoft has been returned to No-IP ! 

However, as time is needed for the DNS to fully propagate, please allow up to 24 hours for your sub-domains to be fully functional again.

For more information, please refer to No-IP’s blog at http://www.noip.com/blog/2014/07/03/update-microsoft-takedown/

We were surprised to receive a couple of calls from our customers this morning, all of which are using dynamic IP broadband or fibre plans from their respective ISPs. These customers have called and all of which are due to the same reason:

They are unable to access their remote devices, including their servers, printers, CCTVs and many others.

When we test with our office systems, we have no problem accessing them, and pinging the devices also yield positive results. And yet, when we remote access to our customers’ system, they are not as lucky as us.

Upon further investigations with our different systems, some of which are located geographically far apart and in different countries, it seems that those devices which has their DNS pointing to Google’s DNS server, namely google-public-dns-a.google.com (8.8.8.8) and google-public-dns-b.google.com (8.8.4.4), are unable to ping nor locate the subdomains using the Dynamic Domain Name Service (DDNS) provided by No-IP.com

It seems that Google’s DNS server has refused or unable to reply when comes to these domains and subdomains. In total, about 23 domains were affected.

In the end, we managed to find out the reason and it is NOT because of any technical issue. For that would be rather easy and fast to resolve by No-IP or Google itself.

The reason is because Microsoft served a federal court order and seized 23 of No-IP most commonly used domains because they claimed that some of the subdomains have been abused by creators of malware.

To aggravate the matter, Microsoft did not bothered to contact nor ask No-IP to block these subdomains, and that’s despite the fact that No-IP and Microsoft have an open line of communications between their corporate executives!

As it is of now, Microsoft claim that their intent is to only filter out the known bad hostnames in each seized domain, while continuing to allow the good hostnames to resolve. However, this is not happening. Apparently, the Microsoft infrastructure is not able to handle the billions of queries from No-IP customers. Millions of innocent users are experiencing outages to their services because of Microsoft’s attempt to remediate hostnames associated with a few bad actors.

To summarise, this heavy-handed action by Microsoft benefits no one. Not at all !!

For the time being, we have managed to inform our customers to either purchase the DDNS from No-IP and use their other domains which are not affected, or to move some of our customers to use the services from DynDNS, which cost a little more. Those that prefers to use the free services from No-IP will have to content with accessing their remote devices via IP addresses instead of DDNS, and pray hard that their ISP do not change their IP addresses during these period of time.

To read more about the statement from No-IP, please visit their blog at http://www.noip.com/blog/2014/06/30/ips-formal-statement-microsoft-takedown/

This scheme does not affect your existing “.sg” domain names. However, from 2 May 2013 onwards, if you register a new “.sg” domain name or if you are appointed as an administrative contact for new “.sg” domain names, the scheme will affect you.

Under the VerifiedID@SG scheme, registrants will continue with the existing practice to appoint an “administrative contact” person to register “.sg” domain names through respective registrars of the registrant’s choice. After completing the registration of the domain name, the domain name will be activated by SGNIC and becomes “live” on the Internet. At this stage, the administrative contact person of the domain name will be requested by SGNIC via email to visit the VerifiedID@SG portal and to perform a two-step verification task:

1. To login to the portal using his SingPass; and
2. To verify the identity and contact information of the domain name registrant.

The administrative contact will be given a grace period of 21 calendar days from the date of registration to verify the registrant’s identity and contact information. During this period, if verification is not done, SGNIC will send daily reminders to the administrative contact’s email address to highlight that the domain name is pending his verification. The due date and time will also be highlighted in the email.

SGNIC’s policy is to suspend the domain name if the administrative contact does not perform the verification within 21 calendar days. Such suspension is considered necessary to minimise any possible abuse of domain names by owners who use fake or stolen identity, or whose identity have not been properly verified. To allow .sg registrants and administrative contacts to familiarise with the new scheme, SGNIC will work closely with our accredited registrars to remind and help the administrative contact concerned and the registrant. If the administrative contact still has not performed the verification after the grace period, SGNIC will suspend the domain name.

For more information on the VerifiedID@SG scheme, please refer to the FAQs at http://verifiedid.sgnic.sg/faq.html.

If you need any clarification, please feel free to contact us.

This price increase is global and the increment will be 7% for .COM domains and 10% for .NET domains. This increase will be passed on to domain registrars and unfortunately, to consumers like you. The price increase is for new registration and renewal of current holding domains of yours.

We understand your need for these domains and we understand that the price increment might be too sudden for you to take action with it, so, in order to smoother the price increase, we will NOT make any changes to our prices for the .COM and .NET domains until August 1st, 2010, and during this time, you still get to enjoy the same price for your new registration or renewal for the .COM and .NET domains.

Yes, we are absorbing the price increment for ONE whole month and as many domains as you need!

Do act now before we increase our price too and you can even purchase or renew for multiple years to lock in long-term savings. Don’t wait to pay more.

Contact us here and tell us which domains you are eyeing on and we’ll give you a quotation for it.

Our new office address is now at:-

10 Ubi Crescent, #06-72 (opp. #06-70)
Ubi TechPark (Lobby D)
Singapore 408564

Please update your contact records. Thank you.

The WORM component spreads through computer devices that are detected by infected systems and will automatically execute an autorun.inf file as soon as a user activates an infected device. In addition, the malware deploys a stealth technique by using a rootkit component to prevent itself from being discovered.

The main payload of this attack is an URL to establish a connection to a malicious website that may enable cyber-criminals to gather information and to further compromise an infected system.

If you have receive such an email, please delete the mail without opening the attachment. If you suspect your system is already infected or you have already open the attachment and not sure whether your system is infected, please contact us so that we can schedule our technician to check your system.

End of Life: As of January 4, 2010, Symantec Corporation will begin to End of Life (“EOL”) the product(s) identified in this notification, including any Maintenance Packs and/or patches for each version, in all released languages.

End of Availability: End of Availability will be January 4, 2011. At this time no additional product licenses will be available for purchase.

Standard Support: Provided the customer maintains a current maintenance contract for the products, Symantec will provide Standard Support for issues at all severity levels until July 4, 2012.

End of Support Life: As of July 4, 2012, Symantec will cease providing any and all levels of Standard Support for all versions of Symantec AntiVirus 10.X and Symantec Client Security 3.X.

* The End of Standard Support will also be the End of Support Life for the products identified in this notification. Partial Support will not be made available for Symantec AntiVirus 10.X or Symantec Client Security 3.X.

Additional resources

For more information regarding Content Updates or the services provided in Standard Support or Partial Support, please refer to the Symantec Enterprise Technical Support Policy at the link below or contact your Symantec Account Manager:

http://pacificlanworks.com/contact-us

To receive timely notification on updates and the support lifecycle for your Symantec product, please sign up at the following link to receive Symantec Technical Support News Bulletins:

http://www.symantec.com/enterprise/support/news_bulletins/

We also recommend that you periodically check Symantec’s website for End of Life and End of Support Life information for your specific Licensed Software:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/all_products.jsp

How to get more information

We are committed to helping our customers achieve success with their Symantec solutions. If you have any questions regarding this notice, please contact us.

Thank you for using Symantec products and services.

“It signals the Government’s ongoing committment to help businesses create a pro-family environment for Singapore and reaffirms the Government’s goal in making Singapore the best place for families and children,” said Mrs Mildred Tan, Co-chair of Business For Families Council (BFC).

Businesses can apply for funding support to help defray costs incurred in infrastructure, traning and business consultancy to make their business more family-friendly. Since introduced in 2007, 30 buinesses have received funding support under the grant.

This scheme was actually enhanced in January 2010 to allow firms to claim up to 70% instead of 50%, of the costs incurred in adopting family-friendly measures for customers.

Car Times human resource manager Agnes Cheng said the local car dealership plans to use the grant to make showrooms safer for children and more comfortable for the elderly, who sometimes accompany their customers.

For more information regarding the grant, please visit Business for Families Grant website.

To determine whether you are eligible for the grant, let’s go through the following checklists:-

• Are you a GST-registered merchant/trader?
• Are you still using Microsoft Excel and NOT using any other proper accounting software for your accounting and book-keeping function?
• Are you pondering over the possible purchase of an accounting software but was put back by its high cost?
• Do you wish that the Singapore government will help you to fund part of your accounting software purchase in order to lighten up your load?

If you answer ‘Yes’ to every one of the question above, you are in luck!!

Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) has partnered with each other and spearhead a new government grant called the Accounting Software Assistance Scheme.

This scheme will be valid only from July 1st, 2009 to March 31st, 2012 and it is to encourage businesses to implement accounting software so that SMEs can improve their record keeping practises and GST (Goods & Services Tax) compliances.

This scheme will be helping the SMEs to defray the cost of purchasing and setting up of the accounting software, as well as training on the use of the software.

For more information regarding this scheme, please feel free to contact us. We’ll be able to assist you from the initial consultation to the implementation and the final training and application for the scheme.

You may also go to http://asas.sg for more information.

Following are the Windows® 7 products released on March 1st 2010:

• MYOB Accounting 18.3.2
• MYOB Premier version 12.3.2
• MYOB Premier Plus version 12.3.2

The benefits of using a Compatible with Windows 7 product:

• Passed Microsoft designed tests to minimize the possibility of crashes, hangs, and reboots.
• Represents a commitment that the product will continue to work over the life of Windows 7.
• Meets privacy standards set forth by the Anti-Spyware Coalition.
• Installs cleanly and reliably.
• Eliminates unnecessary reboots.

Following is the message from MYOB to our customers:

“ You have enough to think about with your business – your technology should not be a worry. Save time and money by purchasing “Compatible with Windows 7” applications such as MYOB Accounting and MYOB Premier. Applications that carry the Windows 7 logo have signed executables and drivers for authencity, and have passed Microsoft designed tests to help ensure they install readily and run reliably with minimal number of hangs, crashes or restarts.”

McAfee, the wold’s leading dedicated security company, and Facebook announced an unprecedented collaboration in which McAfee will offer for FREE their flagship McAfee Internet Security to all of Facebook 350 million users, irregardless regardless of your country of origin and irregardless whether you are a previous McAfee customer or not.

The only disappointing news is that this FREE software is only for PC users and is not extended to Mac users (as if you need it … ;p )

The software will come with 6 months of FREE subscriptions to the McAfee Internet Security and you can decide to keep the software after that or hopefully wait for any other offers then.

Once you join McAfee as their fan in their Official Facebook Page for McAfee, you are entitled to their FREE software from their website.

Do note that you will need to submit your credit card details in order to get your FREE copy of the software, and they will not charge you until 6 months later, which you MUST remember to cancel it if you decide not to continue with using McAfee Internet Security.

If you decide to continue with the software, do nothing and they’ll automatically credit the software cost from you then. No such thing as totally free lunch

Head on over to McAfee’s Official Facebook Page and claim your FREE copy now!!!

Free McAfee Internet Security Software For All Facebook Users