So first – to help out:  Your “domain name” is the actual web address (mine is www.speckleddogmedia.com).  Then, your “hosting account” is with the company that can host both your domain name and your website’s data.

Many of you have registered your domain name and subsequent hosting account with BlueHost.com.  The first year, you received free “domain privacy” for your account.  So when anyone looked up your domain name, it did not show your personal information.  Instead, it directed the attention to BlueHost.com.

If you chose not to pay for domain privacy when you renewed, your contact information for your domain name is now part of the public records.  And, this is how spammers can have access to it.

If you receive an email saying it’s absolutely mandatory for you to renew your domain name/hosting account, make sure the sender has a domain name of BlueHost.com (or whatever your hosting service is).  The clients who’ve received spam in this area are hearing from – for example – “wichitalawnservice…com” (I’m putting three dots to make sure there are no links!) and “czj123…com.”

If you have any doubts about an email you’ve received re: account expiration and renewal, you can log onto your BlueHost account/personal hosting account or call them (they’re wonderful on the phone).

Domain privacy cost around $10/year – depending on your host.

I hope this helps – please contact me with any questions!

A few clients expressed interest in having more slide show options.  I finally found a great program from a group of developers who love WordPress.  The program is quite intuitive and something I can use either to create slide shows in a relatively short amount of time…or teach you to use.

Here’s a link to an example.  Believe it or not, it took me around a half hour to create.  (excluding taking the pictures of my new Guernsey heifer meeting the llamas)

New Slide Show Program

I’d also like to call attention to a beautiful blog created by Judith Irven:  North Country Reflections.  She helped me learn quite a bit about setting up a blog — including the fact that – if you’re using Blue Host as your sever, you can add another website for only $10/year.  We sorted through the issues of opening up a website to comments from the general public, and how to arrange the posts.  I understand that a blog is more work than many of you want (!), but if you’re interested, look at what’s she’s done and contact me anytime.

Also – there’s a new update to WordPress if you haven’t checked recently (and a great opportunity to back up your site, too).

And, as always, please let me know if you’d like any help.  My hourly rate is $40 and I’m more than willing to do little jobs that might only take 15 minutes!

~Kinna Ohman, Speckled Dog Media