Since Marilyn and I use Google Calendar to keep track of each other and High Aspirations, Inc. has a Gmail account for backup and troubleshooting, I thought this news was pretty cool and wanted to share.

At the end of August 2011, Google announced that it was working on offering their Google Apps offline. Yes, you heard me right, offline. Google is already offering Gmail and Calendar offline and Docs has some offline functionality with more coming in the future. To access these, click the gear icon in the top right corner of the web app and choose the offline access option.

To find out more information, read Google’s blog post Using Gmail, Calendar and Docs without an internet connection.

On January 15, 2012, VeriSign®, the registry for .COM and .NET, will increase prices.

.COM will go up by 7% and .NET by 10%.

The increase will be passed to registrars (like HAI Hosting) and then, unfortunately, to customers.

So, as of January 15, we will be forced to raise prices for both .COM and .NET domain name registrations and renewals.

If you want to avoid this price increase, at least for a while, renew your domain name now for a year or more. But, you have to let us know before the end of the day on Friday, January 13, 2012.

High Aspirations, Inc. have been members in good standing at the Better Business Bureau (BBB) for years. Feel free to check out our BBB Business Review. Yesterday we received an email warning us of an email scam making the rounds. Since we know that a lot of our clients are also in the BBB, we thought it best to pass on the news…

The BBB has issued an urgent scam alert to businesses and consumers. Fraudulent emails are being sent that appear to come from the BBB. The emails have the subject of "Complaint from your customers," return addresses that the BBB does not use (for example: riskmanager@bbb.org), and are signed with the address of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. The email contains a link to a non-BBB web site.

If you receive an email like this, delete it immediately! If you have already clicked on a link in the email, run a full virus scan. You can also report any information received to the BBB via their Report a Scam form.

The BBB is working with law enforcement to determine its source and stop the fraudulent campaign.

Visit the BBB News Center for more information as well as a copy of an example email.