Category Archives: Industry News

App of the Week: Mailbox

Posted by on April 12, 2013 No comments

Mailbox is a new type of mail app. Created by the makers of Orchestra, a productivity management app, Mailbox claims to put traditional email in it’s place.

And that it does.

Think of the hundreds, if not thousands of emails that get lost in your inbox during a busy day at work (or normal day, if you’re important like that). You have to make a mental note to go back to them or flag them as important in order to follow up. Think of all the emails that simply aren’t important that clutter your inbox needlessly and distract you from getting your work done. Mailbox tackles these problems in an intuitive, clean and fast way. Here’s why the team at Hover loves Mailbox:


Swipe messages to archive or trash ‘em

Mailbox allows you to treat incoming emails in one of three ways: The one’s you’d like to keep in your inbox, those you’d like to save for later, and those you’d like to simply get rid of. Mailbox is all about simple gestures, so with one swipe, classify any email as one of the above.


Keep only what matters

You can choose to keep only the emails that are of most importance at that given time. For the rest, simply swipe to have them appear later (whether it be in ten minutes, a day or someday) or swipe to delete them altogether.


Reaching inbox zero… and keeping it there.

With Mailbox, only the things I need to address now are in my inbox. And I love the sense of accomplishment of getting my inbox to zero. Apart from feeling like I’ve gotten things done, my mailbox feels lighter and I have peace of mind in knowing that I can access any of my archived messages from the dock.


The Downsides

#1 There’s currently a queue to actually get the app. I waited approximately two weeks in ‘line’ (started at around 700,000th place), but the pace quickened as time went on. A couple of my coworkers were one of the ‘chosen ones’ picked at random to skip the line, though. So cross your fingers and hope for the best.

#2 For now, Mailbox will only support Gmail and Google Apps accounts. Other clients will be added as the app grows. Hover has a great tutorial on how to use your Hover mail with Gmail.



So if you don’t mind waiting in line and you primarily use Gmail for your email, this is a great app. Download it for the iPhone here.

Have you used Mailbox? Are you currently waiting in line? Let us know in the comments what you think of the app!

Introducing Squarespace Commerce

Posted by on February 19, 2013 No comments

The rumours are true! Squarespace, the ultimate tool for creating an awesome website, has launched a new ecommerce platform. We’ve been waiting for this, and are really excited about this launch.


Features:

  • Commerce will work on every template. It’s fully integrated with the rest of their content block system.
  • Squarespace won’t charge you per transaction. Commerce is essentially free with a Business Plan. Stripe, the integrated payment processor, charges a simple and transparent fee of $0.30 + 2.9% for every transaction made.
  • There are no limits on the amount of inventory (SKUs) you carry in your store, but the platform is ideal for smaller stores
  • Create coupons for your store. You can create coupons that apply to all orders, orders that meet a certain minimum, or for specific products
  • Express checkout mode
  • integrated MailChimp to let customers sign up for email communications from your store at checkout
  • Social integration
  • The order management interface lets you easily track outstanding orders, resend customer update emails and print packing slips from a single interface
  • Want multiple admins? The permissions system allows you to add admins that can only access your store, not your entire website


    • We think Hover customers will love this new commerce integration. The essence of Squarespace is simplicity and elegance, and their ecommerce platform fits perfectly into that mantra. Head on over to Squarespace to get started. If you already have an online store, easily transfer your inventory (including info and pictures) over from platforms such as Big Cartel and Shopify.

    Use the code ‘HOVER’ at checkout and they’ll take 10% off your entire purchase!

    Want to learn more? Squarespace is holding two live workshops to help you get started.

    ccTLD Registration Guidelines

    Posted by on January 8, 2013 No comments

    One of the most common questions we get asked here at Hover is what requirements are needed to register various ccTLDs. As they are all different, some having more requirements than others, it is important to know before you start the registration process the restrictions on your chosen domain.

    We’ve compiled a list of the ccTLDs we offer, and the requirements for each:

    .CA
    .US
    .EU
    .DE
    .ME
    .TV
    .UK
    .CC
    .WS
    .ES
    .IT

    .CA
    Registrants must have a Canadian presence. .CA domain names can only be registered by individuals or organizations with a presence in Canada. Meaning, to register a .CA domain name you need to be a Canadian Citizen, a permanent resident of Canada, or an organization in Canada such as a corporation, partnership, educational institution, or government entity.

    .US
    Prospective registrants of US domain names must fall in one of three U.S. Nexus categories and must certify that they have a “bona fide presence in the United States.”

    Nexus Category 1
    A natural person (i) who is a United States citizen, (ii) a permanent resident of the United States of America or any of its possessions or territories, or (iii) whose primary place of domicile is in the United States of America or any of its possessions.

    Nexus Category 2
    An United States entity or organization that is (i) incorporated within one of the fifty (50) U.S. states, the District of Columbia, or any of the United States possessions or territories or organized, or otherwise constituted under the laws of a state of the United States of America, the District of Columbia or any of its possessions or (including a federal, state, or local government of the United States, or a political subdivision thereof, and unincorporated organizations based in the United States).

    Nexus Category 3
    An entity or organization (including a federal, state, or local government of the United States, or a political subdivision thereof) that has a bona fide presence in the United States of America or any of its possessions or territories.

    .EU
    Any private person residing within the European Union (EU) and any organisation or company based in the EU is eligible to register a .eu domain name. Residency and NOT nationality determine whether you are allowed to register a .eu domain name.

    .DE
    All registrants of a .de domain name must have a presence in Germany and an address within Germany.

    .ME
    Anyone can register a .me domain name regardless of where you’re located.

    .TV
    A .tv domain name is restricted to registrants located within the European Union.

    .UK
    Anyone can register a .uk domain name regardless of where you are located.

    .CC
    Anyone can register a .cc domain name regardless of where you’re located

    .WS
    Because it is unrestricted, anyone can register a .WS domain regardless of location.

    .ES
    Anyone can register a .ES domain name.

    .IT
    When you place an order for a .IT domain, you need to complete the following additional fields in the Registrant Contact Information section of the order form:

    Entity Type:

    Persons, Foreign and Italian
    Italian Companies/One Man Companies
    Italian Freelance Worker/Professionals
    Italian Non-profit Organizations
    Italian Other subjects
    Non Italian, Non Persons

    Nationality — This field is required if Entity Type is Persons, Foreign and Italian. From the drop-down list, choose the Registrant’s nationality. For more information, see .IT Residency Requirements.

    VAT/Codice Fiscale — The value that you need to enter depends on the entity type of the registrant.

    *Italian citizens must enter their Codice Fiscale.
    Non Italians can enter n.a.
    Italian companies, freelancers and other subjects must enter their 11 digit VAT number or tax identification number.
    Italian non-profit organizations must enter their VAT number or tax identification number; if they do not have one,they can enter n.a.
    Non Italian entities other than persons (organizations, freelancers, companies, etc.) must enter their VAT number.

    If you have any questions about restrictions for ccTLDs, we’d be happy to answer them! Give us a call at 1-866-731-6556 or email us at help@hover.com.

    Top 5 Productivity Apps for the iPad

    Posted by on October 30, 2012 No comments

    With all of life’s distractions, it becomes easy to get a little bit side tracked. Simple, easy to use tools are key when it comes to efficiency and productivity.

    Here are our top 5 iPad apps that will simply help you get things done, no frills added.

    iA Writer

    We love iA writer because of it’s clean and easy to use design for word processing. The app allows you to concentrate on your text and nothing but your text. With zero background distractions such as format tools, this app is perfect for focussing on the content of your writing rather than getting distracted with styling. A great feature of the app is ‘Focus Mode’ which blurs out everything ecept the lines of text your working on, allowing you to channel your concentration to the most important part. 4
    Price: $0.99

    Wunderlist

    We know Wunderlist is good because we use it here at our offices! Wunderlist is an excellent collaboration tool for getting projects done and assigning tasks. It’s multi-platform and you can cloud sync on nearly every device. Collaborate on different things with colleagues and set due dates with ease. This is an app we’ll be using for a long time!
    Price: Free

    Planner Plus

    Keeping your thoughts, to-do’s and events organized has never been this simple. Planner Plus allows you to sync events with your iOS calendars, create infinite amounts of notes and to-dos, all with the elegant design of a paper-bound planner. What’s great about this app is you can see all of this in one glance without having to flip through a bunch of tabs.
    Price: $4.99

    Air Display 1.2

    Easily turn your iPad into an external monitor, while being able to use the touch screen functionality that a monitor doesn’t have. The Air Display allows you to spread your work onto more real estate with this handy app, and switch between tasks more efficiently. The app runs in both portrait or landscape mode.
    Price: $9.99

    1Password

    How many times have you forgotten or misplaced your password, only to waste time and energy resetting it? Have you ever thought of how much time you spend simply entering your password? Seriously, somebody needs to create a bar graph for those stats!
    1Password solves this problem by by storing your passwords and logging you in automatically to websites without compromising your security by saving the password in the browser.
    Price: $14.99

    TLD of the Week: .ASIA

    Posted by on October 15, 2012 No comments

    You may not know this (or you may already know, but humor us here) but Asia has over 60% of the world’s population. That equals approximately 4,243,200,000 people and counting! If you’re wondering if theres a domain extension that encompasses this very large and ever-expanding population, the answer to that question is yes.

    The .ASIA domains are targeted towards companies, organizations, and individuals in the Pan-Asia and Asia-Pacific region. .ASIA is specifically focused on the Asia identity, but is versatile enough that it can be used by businesses, organizations, or individuals across the region. In addition to being popular for regional companies.it can also be adopted by international NGOs operating in Asia or global companies expanding into Asian markets.

    “Legal entities” in the Pan-Asia and Asia-Pacific region can register for a .ASIA domain. A legal entity is considered an association, corporation, partnership, proprietorship, trust, or individual that has legal standing in the eyes of law.

    .ASIA domains with Hover are just $20. Head on over to www.Hover.com. If you have any questions on the requirements to register a .ASIA domain, give us a call at 1-866-731-6556 or send us an email at help@hover.com

    Top 5 Mobile Apps for Small Business

    Posted by on October 11, 2012 1 comment

    If you’re a small business owner it’s likely you’re always on the lookout for savvy tools that make your business – and life – run a little more smoothly. Hover realises that sometimes all you need is a simple app to help with planning, organization and communication. Here are our picks for the best apps that make day-to-day activities of small business a lot easier:

    5. Shoeboxed
    Price: Free
    What it is: Shoebox is a receipt tracker and reader for iPhone and Android. Turn huge piles of receipts into digital files for expense reporting, accounting, bookkeeping, and tax preparation.
    Why we like it: This app will save you hours of looking through paper receipts. Better yet, it’s great for tax season because all your information is ready for you.

    4. Evernote
    Price: Free (Premium for $45/year)
    What it is: Never forget something on your to-do list ever again! Save all your ideas, to-do’s and notes across your devices. You can even upload photos and record voice reminders.
    Why we like it: You can access your notes anywhere, from multiple devices. This makes it easy to add notes on your computer and then access them from your phone while on the road.

    3. Mint
    Price: Free
    What it is: Mint organizes your spending into categories. You can see all of your spending in one convenient place on your computer or phone. Mint helps keep your budget on track with email and mobile alerts as well as bill reminders.
    Why we like it: Mint not only helps you budget but also aids your business with its goals. By setting your financial goals, Mint will give you advice on how to get there, step-by-step.

    2. TripIt
    Price: Free
    What it is: TripIt allows you to organize and share your business and personal travel. Just hit forward on your flight, hotel and rental car confirmation emails and TripIt turns that information into one convenient itinerary.
    Why we like it: TripIt allows you to share your itinerary meaning your colleagues will always be in the loop. Admins can also create trip itineraries for other travellers!

    1. Dropbox
    Price: Free (Upgrade to Pro plan for $99.99/year for 100GB)
    What it is: Take your documents with you with 2GB of free storage, right on your phone, tablet or computer! Any document you save to your Dropbox will automatically save on all of your devices, making it easy to share with your colleagues.
    Why we like it: Because everything is saved to the cloud rather than to your devices, you can access your documents anywhere you have an Internet connection whether it be at the office or at home. Even if you lose your phone, you’ll know your stuff is secure.

    ccTLD of the week: .UK

    Posted by on October 5, 2012 No comments

    .UK is the country-code TLD for the United Kingdom, introduced in 1985 and administered by Nominet UK. It is the fourth most popular TLD after .COM, .DE, and .NET. This TLD is only publicly available as a second-level registration, the most popular of which is .co.uk. With over 8.6 million registrations in total, of which over 91% are .co.uk domains, .UK presents lots of opportunity, especially for small business!

    Who can register a .UK?

    .UK domains are only available to .UK entities. Meaning, you can only register a .UK if you reside in the UK or your business is out of the UK.

    How to choose a second-level domain

    .UK domains are only available as a second level registration. This means you’ve got to choose a second level domain. We recommend the domain reflects your type of business or the type of website you plan to use your domain name with. For example, .org.uk domains are most suitable for non / not for profits.

    Did you know? In the UK, 72% of adults visit a .uk website first when browsing or shopping online. Hover .uk domains are $10/year! Head over to www.hover.com to get started

    Domain Name Terminology Explained

    Posted by on October 2, 2012 No comments

    Mail servers, root servers… what’s the difference? With all the domain name jargon to keep up with, sometimes it can be difficult to separate Glue records from A records. Impress your friends with your breadth of internet knowledge with our handy domain name terminology guide:

    A Record: Maps hostnames to the IP address of the host. For example, the A record for hover.com points the domain hover.com at 64.99.80.27.

    ccTLD: Country code Top-Level Domains. These domains are used or reserved for a country, sovereign state or dependent territory.

    DNS: DNS is an acronym for Domain Name System or Domain Name Server. The Domain Name System assigns domain names to IP addresses. It allows humans to use simple domain names to load websites instead of having to remember cryptic IP addresses.

    Domain hacks: A domain hack is an unconventional domain name which creatively uses domain extensions to spell out names that would otherwise be already registered if by .COM and other popular TLDs. Examples include del.icio.us and bit.ly.

    Domain hijacking: The act of acquiring a second-level Internet domain name identical to a famous name or trademark for the purpose of obtaining a financial settlement from the owner for the name

    Email client: Through interaction with mail servers, email clients are used to send/receive/read and create email messages. An example is Outlook.

    Glue Record: A glue record is an A record created when you specify name servers for your domain.

    IP Address: stands for Internet Protocol address. This is a numeric address assigned to computers and servers on the Internet. It’s like a civic address for a computer. Computers need to have an IP address in order to find and communicate with each other over the Internet.

    Mail servers: a server that handles email traffic being sent and received across a network run by ISPs (internet service providers) and Webmail providers such as Hover :).

    MX Record: A MX record specifies where email should be delivered. Hover’s MX record is mx.hover.com.cust.hostedemail.com. An MX record also contains a numeric priority. The lower the priority number, the higher the priority (yes, it sounds a little backwards). Some mail systems have different MX records for different inbound servers. If the first server is busy, the email gets routed to the next available server.

    Name Servers: provide mapping of domain names to IP addresses.

    POP3 Mailbox: Meaning ‘Post Office Protocol 3’, this is the method by which emails are sent and received. POP3 allows you to send/receive emails via Webmail or an email client such as Outlook.

    Root Servers: One of several domain name system (DNS) servers on the Internet that contain the IP addresses of the top level domain (TLD) registry organizations that maintain gTLDs (.com, .net, .gov, etc.) and ccTLDs (.uk, .ca, .fr, etc.).

    Webmail: email that is accessed in a web browser. Hover customers can use Hover Webmail or download their email to the email client of their choice.

    Zone File: The zone file is a text file that contains a set of DNS records for the domain name. Each domain name that is registered in Hover is pointed at ns1.hover.com and ns2.hover.com. These are the Hover name servers. These name servers contain a zone file for every domain name registered in Hover. You can edit your zone file using the Manage DNS section under the Account tab when logged into your Hover account.

    Introducing PassRocket for iOS 6

    Posted by on September 29, 2012 No comments

    Taking advantage of iOS 6’s most notable new features, Passbook, many companies have already started building apps. Of particular interest to us is PassRocket, a new, free app that helps SMBs create loyalty cards and passes for their customers (did we mention it’s free?).

    PassRocket lets businesses design their own loyalty cards using an iPhone or iPod Touch. They can add their own logo, set rewards and track customers directly from the app. Businesses can then share their loyalty cards or passes with their customers on social media via a link created within the app. When a user clicks the link it then places the business’ loyalty card into the Passbook application, available on iOS 6. When a customer enters the store, they can scan their loyalty card on the business’ PassRock application, which in turn tracks each customer’s visit.

    Benefits of PassRocket for SMBs:

    1. Customers always have their loyalty cards on them via their iPhone or iPod Touch.
    2. Customer’s don’t have to carry around dozens of separate loyalty cards
    3. Deals and passes can be easily shared on social media
    4. Scanning speeds up customer experience
    5. Easily track every customer and access user analytics

    Check out PassRocket for yourself at www.PassRocket.com and twitter.com/passrocket.

    TLD of the Week: .INFO

    Posted by on September 28, 2012 No comments

    Launched in 2001, .INFO (for ‘information’) was the first unrestricted TLD since .COM. It was one of seven new TLDs introduced, and is operated by Afilias. Like .COM and .NET, .INFO domains are unrestricted,meaning that there are no restrictions to registration – anyone can own one!

    Of the seven new TLDs introduced in 2000, .INFO has become the most successful, with over 6.5 million registered. Since “info” is a recognized term in over 30 languages, this TLD is a truly global domain. Many organizations consider .INFO as the best way to provide information about their services to their customers.

    A great .INFO domain from Hover is only $15/year! Head over to www.hover.com to get yours.

    If you have any questions about .INFO or any other TLD, give us a call at 1-866-731-6556 Monday to Friday from 8am to 8pm EST.