I have been looking for a new office in Sanbach for about a month now.

I’m just tired of driving 30+ miles every day to Manchester, just to then have to tackle one of the worst car parks I have even seen, when i used to live 4 miles from work, it used to take me longer to park, than to drive there.

Anyway, I found a nice office a mile from home, even has canal views and all .. but like everything else in Britain when it comes to business … nothing comes easy.

At around the 12th of last month I made an offer for the office and it was accepted, I explained the realtor I need to be in by July 1st (who by the way SUCKS .. Butters John Bee .. worst realtor I even dealt with, the are slow slow slow, and didn’t even remember at the beginning they represented suck offices in Sandbach to lease …)

So they tell me .. “no problem”, “we will send out for some references and draft the contract”.

They sent for the reference, got them back, never acted on it, I had to constantly call and push them to get anything done, then comes June 30th .. and still no contract.

Since I had had it with them, I decided to track down the building owner .. which I did, only to find out he is in the process of selling the office building and no new leases can be drafted.

So the realtor had kept me on the dark, and July 1st came and I had no office, I called them furious, ad after a ton of apologies from them, they promised to get me in there ASAP.

But why could they have not told me this weeks ago, I would have planned for it, I dont understand the ideology behind it, didn’t they knew July 1st come and I would be knocking on the door ?

Anyway, my problem is, there is no other offices in Sandbach which meet my requirements like those, I could get a place in Crewe, but I want a local office so I can ride my bike to work on good days, so the closer the better.

So now I am waiting for the new owner to pay the old, so we can proceed with the Lease .. sheesh …

Technorati Tags: Work, SandBach

Popularity: 16% [?]

Day 1:

I took the train from Mancs to London, then then London to Brussels .. from Brussels to Cologne I got to travel 1st class … and it’s true, there is no better way to travel .. we even got beer for free.

yay, wide seats
Upon Arriving at Cologne I was suppose to have a taxi waiting for me, after 30 minutes and no Taxi, I decided to just get a cab myself ad head to the hotel, by then I had no cell phone battery and the laptop battery was dead also, lucly I rembered the hotel/resort name, and luckly, I was right

they tell me this is some famous church.
I got this Turkish taxy driver, who was bit weird, but pleasant, while driving he was going crazy to find a match for his cigarete .. we even jumped the curb once .. after going the wrong way for a while, we finally made it to the hotel .. and what a nice place .. it’s got this Oriental theme, very classy.

China in Cologne
I meet up with the gys from thewhir.com and we made our way to one of the restaurants, there we had a meal and drinks on the house, and entertanemnt by this group called interfi…. err, forgot, .. they were quite funny … overall an excellent night.

Technorati Tags: Cologne, Germany, phantasialand, WebHosting, WebHostingDay, Work

Read more…

Popularity: 16% [?]

One of our new products being developed at Comodo is called “HackerGuardian”

This is a vulnerability scanner based on the Nessus Engine, the product is still in late beta status, but already somebody found a way to use it in malicious ways

Technorati Tags: Comodo, HackerGuardian, Hacker

Read more…

Popularity: 15% [?]

I have just booked my train tickets today, I’m off to Cologne (Germany) at the end of the month.

There is a WebHosting Day conference in Cologne on the 28th, this is the sort of conference that’s important for me to attend, so I started to look for the dreaded plain tickets .. after sorting it al out, I decided, just for curiosity, to see if I could get there from manchester by train instead.

Yep, I can, and for about the same price .. so I take off on Monday, 27th from Manchester to London Waterloo, get to the Eurostar train to Brussels at 10:43, arrive on Brussels at 14:05 .. then take the next train to Cologne at 14:28 in First Class (heck, it was just 5£ more) and arrive on Cologne at 16:45

The plain would have taken almost as long due to a long exchange at Frankfurt

I will then stay on a .. err .. Chinese hotel called “Hotel Phantasia” on Phantasialand

I then return on the 29th, once again First Class from Cologne to Brussels, leave at 12:14, arrive at 14:32 .. I then decided to take a few hours to check Brussels .. i never been there, so this is a good chance to sightseeing, later at 17:56 I take the train to London and arrive at 19:28 .. the train to manchester follows an hour later.

I’m very excited .. several reasons, this conference is a must be for us (PSoft/Comodo) .. and Serguei Beloussov (SWsoft CEO) will be one of the speakers and they will have a booth, it will be a good chance to rub shoulders with the competition and learn what they are up to … and of course, the chance to add Brussels and Cologne to my “Have visited” list.

I started a tradition of buying a Teddy Bear with the country I am on stamped on it somehow a while back, my task while there is to get one from Germany and one from Brussels to add to the French, American and Scottish ones I have … yep, I am missing quite a few

Technorati Tags: Germany, WebHostingDay, Travel, WebHosting Day

Popularity: 26% [?]

Today I was promoted to COO of Comodo EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Asia).

I am quite proud, and happy, Comodo Europe is the nerve center of our operations, so while the HQ is in the USA, the real action is here, and the job a demanding and respected one.

We merged (Psoft) with Comodo last January, and I didn’t got in as a full time Comodo employee until 6 months ago, so I feel I have achieved allot in such a short period of time, but not being the modest kind, i also know that there is merit to my work, and I deserve it ..

So a new chapter opens up in my life, but this time I hit the ground running, we have a helluva team in Europe, both offices (MANCS and Bradford) have the creme de la creme of our techs, everybody is very capable .. which makes my job so much easier.

I was also pleasantly surprised with the staff, they all welcome me, and seem genuinely happy to have me lead them, I know I wont disappoint them.

But now we have allot of work ahead of us, especially me, i need to learn every single bit and bob about our operations, streamline it, make sure we continue on the right path and dont do mistaques.

People have asked me if I wanted to the COO of the USA office as well .. my answer is NO .. honesty, the US office is more sales and marketing at the moment, and we have a VP of sales there already (the fact I dont think he does his job well is a different story) .. there is nothing for me there, here (Europe) we have the core of support, sales and development, and I much rather be were the action is

Technorati Tags: Comodo, COO, Promotion, Work

Popularity: 20% [?]

I just tested the updated enom API for H-Sphere, with Maxim’s help, we ironed out some bugs on my cluster, and I cant be any more pleased.

Being about to go more into the domain registration arena, I wanted to do as much as possible thru H-Sphere .. but unfortunately we could only use the API to register 11 domain TLD’s .. and it did not include some vital ones like .co.uk

Before - Only 11 TLD’s

But now with the new version, we can register ALL 38 TLD’s .. means I can really setup a total Domain Registry offer based on H-Sphere

After - a whopping 38 TLD’s

This is great, I want to have a offer that includes domain + domain parking + 1 e-mail account .. all thru H-Sphere .. with this I wont need to use 3rd party products to register the domain automatically, or have to resort to “e-mail” registration, which means no API for some domains and added workload for us .. simply “marvelous” as the brits say

Technorati Tags: enom, H-Sphere, Relio

Popularity: 20% [?]

For the past 6 years I been working in the Web-Hosting industry.

During that time I created 3 companies, WizardsHosting, DataColo and Relio, the latter is simply a re-branding of the first. And while WizardsHosting and Relio worked great as a Shared Hosting outfit, DataColo was a disaster.

At the time I put DataColo up (end of 2000 / beginning of 2001), we offered dedicated servers and co-locations, and at that time, we could package a server with 50GB of bandwidth for $500 a month, or sell 1Mbs of traffic for $500-$700, the profit margins were great, and we made good money.

But then a shift on the market, sometime in 2001, RackShack (EV1) came along and started to offer servers for $99 per month with a staggering (back then) 100GB of transfer, clients flocked in, and outfits like ours started to feel the pain……

Technorati Tags: Computers, DataColo, tired, WebHosting

Read more…

Popularity: 20% [?]