Spam Fighters Throw Off The Gloves

ISPs have been urged in new guidelines from the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) to block port 25.Although, the idea of blocking port 25 is by no means new, take a look at Larry Seltzer's article 'Shutting down the Highway to Internet Hell’ from back in 2005.Many ISP’s already provide email filtering tools to protect their users and offer advice about limiting and reporting spam but according to the BBC "Even if the guidelines are taken up by a majority of ISPs, experts admit it is unlikely that people will see a drastic reduction in spam any time soon."

Spam Fighters Throw Off The Gloves

ISPs have been urged in new guidelines from the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) to block port 25.Although, the idea of blocking port 25 is by no means new, take a look at Larry Seltzer's article 'Shutting down the Highway to Internet Hell’ from back in 2005.Many ISP’s already provide email filtering tools to protect their users and offer advice about limiting and reporting spam but according to the BBC "Even if the guidelines are taken up by a majority of ISPs, experts admit it is unlikely that people will see a drastic reduction in spam any time soon."

Home Resales Decline to 10-Year Low in the US

Latest Bloomberg reports suggest that sales of previously owned U.S. homes fell to the lowest levels this June. This is the worst hit in the last ten years and due to plummeting real estate prices and buyers confidence the housing recession is now in its third year and there are no signals of things looking up. Full article

Caribbean beaches can look at $25 million worth of investment and 1.4 million cubic metres of sand

The Dominican Republic is spending $25 million improving its beaches to make them more attractive to visitors. It is part of a wider plan to boost tourism as officials are worried that cuts in flights from the US and other problems such as the recent power cuts could seriously hit the number of people interested in investing in the country, the second largest island in the Caribbean. Full article

£18,000 drop in property prices in the UK

Daily Mail, in its latest article about property prices in the UK discusses a new report from property website Rightmove. The report said that in the past two months the average asking price across England and Wales has dropped by £7,281 to £235,219. Just two per cent below the average in July last year, this is the first time Rightmove has recorded an annual drop since it began in 2002. Full article

Aparthotels: the safer property investment option

The latest trend in property investment: an Apartment + a Hotel = AparthotelAparthotels are typically a three-star or higher hotel property looked after by a management company that takes care of all the hassles of ownership, including maintenance and finding hotel users. They typically offer the investor the opportunity to own a plush hotel room that can provide a monthly income.While the natural choice for a lot of the property investors in the UK would be to invest in London, with the 2012 Olympics on its way, many investors are also looking abroad at holiday hot spots where hotels rooms are in demand all year long.This trend is still setting in but a few early adopters such as GuestInvest and HomesGoFast are already profiting from it. In their blog, HomesGoFast mention the surprising speed with which these properties sell out highlighting the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, a 576-unit condo hotel, which was expected to sell out in two years but instead sold out in two months! The Platinum, a 255-unit property in Las Vegas, also sold out in just a matter of a couple months. The reason, they feel is that the armchair investor feels secure in this type of development and one that appears to look after itself.As for us, we think only time will tell. In the current property climate one has to tread with care. The lack of flexibility, the concept of selling a hotel room to another buyer, renovations, and most importantly chances that the hotel might not do very well might make Aparthotels a less exciting proposition than it seems at the moment.

Stars of the Little Screen Continue to Arrive on Your Monitor

It seems that everyone is jumping on the IPTV band wagon with the latest addition being Channel 5’s Demand FiveISPs are already questioning who’s going to pay for the large amounts of bandwidth being taken up by these new services and now another one appears on the scene.PlusNet has revealed that broadband streaming TV services now account for nearly a tenth of all evening downloaded traffic on their network and it looks like this is set to continue.Will BT’s £1.5bn investment into a fibre-optic network save the UK’s bandwidth woes or will Ofcom step in and stifle the project by not allowing them the return on investment they’re looking for?