Welcome to the LCNews

Dear $name[$cnt], Welcome to the latest edition of LCNews. You have received this newsletter as a customer of Low Cost Names (LCN), The newsletter is designed to keep you up to date with the services and products that LCN offers.

We would like you to view this as your newsletter too and we would love to hear from you with any comments, suggestions or ideas for items you would like to see covered in the next issue. If you have anything to say then please email us at email us at lcnews\@lcn.com

IN THIS ISSUE...

LCN strengthens position

Fast growth for young company

Design Service

Update on enquiry in last months newsletter

We’ll answer it

If you have a question we have the answer.

What’s in a name?

A domain name

Getting Away with it….

Planning to get away? Make sure all angles are covered.

May Motivations

Are you hosting a Summer event?

Hobbies

Share your inspiration

May Days

Dates in May

LCN strengthens position

In July LCN will celebrate it’s 2nd birthday. Although we started life back in November 1999 it was in July 2001 that the LCN’s website, as you know it today, was launched and we began offering competitively priced domain names and web hosting.

As a young company we are proud to report that we are one of the fastest growing registrars of domain names in the UK.

We recognise our growth is down to your support. By providing you with a high quality competitive service this has led to recommendations, which have allowed us to grow and reinvest time and money to constantly improve and develop new services.

LCN regularly receives comments and support from customers and we value your views. Your views have helped with some of the new services, which are planned to be launched over the next few months.

During the next few months you will see many changes and new initiatives from the LCN team. The first of which will be the launch of the new design service, which is aimed to complement the services, we already provide.

The design service will allow customers to purchase domain names and hosting and with the assistance of our designers launch their own site. It will mirror all the LCN services – as the best quality at the most competitive price.

As we strive to improve our offering we have been concentrating on the behind the scenes services and have strengthened our customer support team to ensure that your queries are answered faster and in full.

We have opened a new office in London to support the launch of our dedicated servers. We are now offering Windows and Unix based servers and will soon be able to extend the service to include co-location services too.

Above all we will continue to ensure that our prices stay at the same competitive level, that our offerings are clear-cut and there are no hidden charges. We will not be following the examples of some of our competitors and introduce premium call rates, charges for forwarding services or transfer fees.

If you have a comment, question, or query about our services please email us at feedback\@lcn.com.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Design Service

Further to our enquiry in last month’s newsletter relating to web design services and your responses we are pleased to announce that we will be introducing this service very soon.

The new web design package will complement LCN’s current services.

We can reassure all customers that the launch of this new package will not have any negative impact on any of our other services i.e. an increase in domain name prices.

For those who asked about the resellers service this will be up and running in the next few months.

If you would like to be notified of the launch please send a short email to feedback\@lcn.com.

We’ll answer it

If you have a question our support team are happy to answer it by email or phone but have you visited the website to see if the question you wish to ask has already been answered in our FAQ section? Visit www.lcn.com/help/faq.asp to find out.

The FAQ section features the 10 most asked questions but also includes a search facility, which you can use to query the full FAQ database.

Our support department are frequently asked the following questions and our team are happy to answer them but there’s also a detailed answer on the FAQ page

What is hosting?

How do I set up my email POP accounts?

What can I do with my domain name?

Visit www.lcn.com/help/faq.asp for further assistance or for a visual guide to how to set up your email account, which can be printed out for ease of use visit http://www.lcn.com/help/contents.asp. The support section also offers assistance with uploading files and example scripts.

What’s in a name – a domain name – the dots……

Ever wondered what the differences are between domain names? Why did you select .co.uk, .com or .me.uk? Maybe it was the only one available or you decided to cover all the options – the technical explanation is below.

The domain-name system (DNS) allows Internet users to refer to web sites by words and phrases - domain names such as www.lcn.com which can be typed straight into your tool bar rather than the all-numeric IP addresses (such as “62.115.254.7") assigned to each computer on the Internet. Each domain name is made up of a series of character strings (called "labels") separated by dots. The right-most label in a domain name is referred to as its "top-level domain" (TLD). .i.e. .com

The DNS works like a tree. TLD – top level domain = .org, SLD – second level domain name = .org.uk and so on.

The responsibility for operating each TLD is delegated to a particular organisation.

These organisations are referred to as "registry operators“ or "sponsors“.

Nominet is the registry operator for all .UK Internet names.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was formed to assume responsibility for the IP address for global domain names.

Many global TLD’s are sponsored by an organisation. The sponsors have rules to which they must adhere and which defines the purpose for which the sponsored TLD has been created and will be operated. i.e. .mil which is intended for use by US military organisations.

The most commonly registered domain names are .co.uk and .com. In March Nominet registered over 60,000 .co.uk domain names.

Visit http://www.nominet.org.uk/Statistics/RegistrationStatistics/ for further details. Unfortunately ICANN don’t publish figures on the level of registrations.

LCN offers customers the opportunity to register eight of the most well know domain names.
All of these have unrestricted use. Customers can either register multiple domain names to ensure no one else can register a similar domain name i.e. yourname.biz, yourname.co.uk, yourname.com, or yourname.org or as an alternative if the .com/.co.uk is already taken.

Getting away with it….

If you’re going away for business or pleasure during May and want to stay in contact Webmail is the answer. Available on all UN hosting plans, Webmail works in a similar way to hotmail.

You can log on to your mail account using any computer with Internet access. To access webmail type www.yourdomainname.com/webmail into your browser .i.e www.lcn.com/webmail. You can then view your email messages, and respond as necessary from anywhere in the world.

If you don’t currently have UN hosting then you can upgrade your hosting options by calling our support department on 0870 744 0823. To upgrade you simply pay the difference.

With two Bank Holiday’s in May you’re bound to be going somewhere. If you’ve got nothing planned then here are a few suggestions of places you may want to visit.

The English Heritage website suggests a variety of places to visit during long weekends. With various events around the country including Spring Garden Weekend, Audley End House and Gardens; Sweeps Festival, Rochester Castle Kent and Falcons & Flutes, Farleigh Hungerford Castle Somerset, there’s something for everyone to coincide with the 1st Bank Holiday. Visit http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/ to find out more.

Find out what’s on in your local area or plan your visits ahead – the seaside is always a firm favourite http://www.visiteastbourne.org.uk/.

A recent survey indicated that residents in the UK are missing out on key places of interest. Visit the capital. To find out what’s on and where to go visit http://www.londonvisit.org.uk/

Suffolk County Council invite you to Relax, refresh and return via their tourism site http://www.suffolkcc.gov.uk/tourism/index.shtml

Something for the children - Lets go fly a kite - Beverley Race Course 4-5 May http://www.bloomsa1events.co.uk/

Disclaimer: The above sites were selected at random for inclusion in this article.

May Motivations

How do you keep your staff/team happy? January is traditionally the month when staff change jobs but people can walk at any time of year.

Put the feel good factor back into your office/business. You could even publish the results online. It’s always interesting to see the evidence. Limit it to your staff or share it with customers.

Why not invite customers to join in the fun and build relationships with corporate entertaining.
Host a cricket match for a customer or customers, invite valued staff and customers to a Summer party or Summer event.
Use an awayday to communicate the company’s plans and lighten the day with a game of rounders or sporting event/challenge.

Happy staff make happy managers and mean happy customers.

Hobbies

Pass the time online. Whatever your passion you can be sure that there’s a website about it from classic cars to gardening, drinking real ale or ailments. You can, spend hours surfing and finding ideas and sites of interest but what about your own hobbies and interests and publishing them online?

With .co.uk domain name from only £3.75pa you can share your passion for horses, houses or horticulture with friends, family and the rest of the universe.

Start off by registering your domain name, purchasing hosting and planning your site at www.lcn.com.
Ideas as follows…..

May Days

The merry month of May is also…..

Asparagus Month

BBQ Month

Asthma & Allergy Awareness month.

May words of wisdom

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. Martin Luther King, American civil rights leader 1929-1968

They say travel broadens the mind; but you must have the mind. G K Chesterton, 1874-1936 English writer.

You’re not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on. Dean Martin, 1917-1995, American singer and actor.

Never cry over spilt milk, because it may have been poisoned. W C Fields, 1880 – 1946, American humorist.

One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say. Will Durant, 1885 – 1981, American historian.

Please do not reply directly to this newsletter. You can view previous issues at http://www.lcn.com/lcnews

This newsletter may be freely redistributed by email in its unedited form. Please do share it with others.

LCN would like to thank you in advance for your continued support.

Kind regards

The LCN Team