Between 08:50 and 09:10GMT this morning and again at 11:45 to 14:43GMT, our DNS provider suffered a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack. A DDoS attack is an attempt to make a service unavailable by sending so many messages to it that it can not respond efficiently. 

As a result some Webjam users had problems reaching the site (www.webjam.com) during this time. This event was not targeted specifically at Webjam, and all sites supplied by this DNS provider were also affected. Domain mapped sites would not have noticed this downtime.

The DNS provider worked to block the systems generating the attack and Webjam could only wait until the DNS provider resolved the issue.

Webjam intends to look at other ways to minimise such issues in the future.

We apologise for the inconvenience this may have caused you.

Beginning on Monday 1st December 2008, Webjam Premium Services will begin offering increased storage and branding options, as well as domain mapping and ad control. At this time you will be able to upgrade your webjam to include all these features for the introductory price of £12.95 per month or £99 per year. To view a feature comparison between a free webjam and a Premium webjam, please visit the Premium Services pages.

We are making it easier to upgrade to Premium Services by allowing you to upgrade from within your webjam. Once launched, you will be able to view the Premium Services and an explanation of each feature from the 'settings' tab of your webjam. If you choose a Premium Services plan, payment is easy. You will be able to choose from three currencies: British pound, US dollar, or the Euro, and for your online security & convenience we have integrated PayPal into our payment system.

We are excited about introducing the new Premium Services to Webjam. For existing Webjammers you have until the end of November to take advantage of the chance to upgrade your webjam to Premium (domain mapping and ad control) for free, forever. Visit the Premium Services pages to learn more & apply.

The Webjam office just got a whole lot busier today as we welcomed four fresh faces to the Webjam team. We are delighted to have Sjors, Caroline, Luke and Francesco join our ranks! With four new people I bet you're wondering who they are and what they'll be getting their teeth into. To find out read each person's introduction and perhaps visit their webjam:

Firstly let me introduce Sjors because he actually started a full week ago! Sjors' name is taking some of us a while to get right but we're learning. My best pronunciation tip is to start saying 'George' but with your tongue in the roof of your mouth. Sjors hails from a tiny Dutch Island called Texel. He left the cold Texal winters in favour of studying digital media design in Utrecht. From University Sjors went to work as the first designer at a Dutch automotive start-up then came across the channel to do (more!) study, this time a MA at Goldsmiths, University of London. From there Webjam snapped him up as our new User Experience Designer. Besides pushing pixels Sjors is also a big fan of seventies rock music and mid-century modernism. Visit his webjam at: http://www.webjam.com/svirsk

Caroline is our new Business Development Intern, and she also started a week ago. Caroline joins Webjam for two days a week when she isn't studying second year Classics at UCL. Caroline came to London from Essex for her studies and if she wasn't in the office on this cold, dreary Monday night, she'd would be kayaking on the Thames. Caroline's profile webjam can be found at: http://www.webjam.com/cjones

Luke takes up the new role of Webjam's Testing and Quality Assurance Lead and has the impressive task of checking, double and triple checking that the Webjam platform is behaving as it should. Luke is originally from Norwich in Norfolk and his background is in the financial services. He was working as part of Test and QA Teams for mortgage companies which has helped fine tune his eye for detail. Luke's biggest passion in life is music, in fact he's played in semi-professional bands in the past, and is beginning a new and exciting project here in London. Watch this space: http://www.webjam.com/luke_jermy

And last-but-not-least is Francesco who is Webjam's new part-time Data Miner/Data Analyst. Francesco only came to London from Naples, Italy in September. He is a post-graduate student at Westminster University where he is studying Data Mining, which is a helpful tie-in to his new role! Francesco's interests include swimming, skiing and cooking... so we are hoping to sample some Italian home cooking sometime soon! To learn more about Francesco visit his profile webjam: http://www.webjam.com/kikko78

Welcome to all the new members of the team. With two new nationalities joining Webjam our diversity tally now sits at eight countries and seven languages represented! To meet the whole team, visit Our team page.

From today you can allow people to rate the blog posts you write on your webjam. Rating is a fun way to see what people think of your post. We've added two types of rating styles - star rating and thumbs up. 

The default setting of your Blog module is not to show ratings so you'll need to enable the rating system by following these easy instructions:

• Sign into your webjam, click edit site
• Click the EDIT button in the header of your Blog module
• Go to the Comments tab
• In the Show ratings drop down, select the rating system you prefer (Star Rating or Thumbs Up) & Save

So, go on, rate what you think of this post!