Frequently Asked Questions

See the blog post on “What is Laughing Squid?” for a full breakdown.

Please note the correct name is “Laughing Squid”. There is no preceding “The” or “.com” at the end. Also, it is two words, not one.

Everything related to our web hosting operations can be found at Laughing Squid Web Hosting. If you have any sales or support questions, please enter a support ticket through our Help Desk.

Our contact info is listed on, well you guessed it, our contact page.

The front of Laughing Squid is our main blog.

Laughing Squid Links is our link blog for all of the stuff that doesn’t make the main blog.

Please see The Squid List FAQ.

Here’s the main RSS feed for Laughing Squid

Here’s the RSS feed for Laughing Squid comments

Here’s the RSS feed for Laughing Squid Links

We have also setup an option to send Laughing Squid RSS updates via email using FeedBurner:

Here’s the RSS feed for The Squid List

We have also setup a subscription service where you can receive RSS updates via email.

For more information on The Squid List, please see The Squid List FAQ

We have serveral Twitter account for Laughing Squid:

- main Laughing Squid account

- Laughing Squid Links

- The Squid List

- Laughing Squid Web Hosting

Speaking of Twitter, please do not use Direct Messages to contact us, email is always the best way. Our friend Robert Scoble has a great blog post on why Twitter Direct Messages suck. We agree with him 100% on this.

The same is true if you are asking us a specific question via @reply, email is better in that situation as well.

If your question is related to a link that was posted, check that first. The answer to you question might be there.

Oh and no we will not promote your product or service on Twitter, this includes requests to re-Tweet things (yes, people actually ask us to do that).

Our contact page has a list of some of the social networks that we use.

You can purchase ads on Laughing Squid through Federated Media Publishing and AdSense.

You can purchase ads on The Squid List through AdSense.

No we do not accept link exchanges or accept paid text links.

Yes, here are some traffic and blog metrics for Laughing Squid from various live reporting sources.

You can purchase our t-shirts through Noonaco.

You can purchase our coffee mugs through Noonaco.

Please see our Laughing Squid sticker page for more info.

The following comments will NOT be approved:

- Irrelevant, obnoxious or abusive comments. Let’s keep things civil and on topic. Basically what we are saying, if your comment does not add to the conversation, it will not be approved. Oh and we don’t feed trolls.

- Spam in all forms, including overly self-promotional comments and comments that specifically exist to promote links to other websites or attempts at SEO. Only comments with links that are directly relevant to the post itself will be approved.

Another thing we look for is people who leave comments for the sole purpose of trying to visibility to their linked website using a keyword combo for their name instead of their actual name. We see this quite a bit on old posts, especially those that come up high in search results. Therefore it will take us longer to approve comments on old posts since we need to manually verify that they are not spam.

Please make sure that you list your actual name, if not, then chances are your comment will not be approved.

- Typo corrections. If you want to point out a typo correction, please email us instead. Typo correction comments will not be approved since they are pretty much useless once the typo has been corrected and then only tend to confuse things.

Also when moderating comments, people who are verified through Disqus receive priory over those that are unverified. Anonymous comments are rarely approved unless they add value to the discussion. If you truly believe in what you are saying then you should be willing to stand behind your words.

Please use our Laughing Squid Blog Suggestion form for any suggestions for the blog.

No, we do not do reviews on the blog or accept items to be reviewed. Please do not send us products to review. This includes books, music, artwork, electronic devices, camera & video equipment and so on.

Companies and PR firms can send us information about a products and services or an invite to try out a new web service, but we do not do any kind of reviews or give feedback and we will not be able to respond to your inquiry whether we are interested or not in your product or service.

Sorry, we do not get involved with any partnerships.

It may be possible for you to use our photos in a publication, but when contacting us, please make sure you include the answers to the following questions:

1) What is the url for the photo(s) you are interested in (please provide a link to our photo(s) on Flickr, not an attached photo, this will make it easier to locate the photo).

2) What is the name and url of the publication?

3) How much does your publication pay for each photo? This is required if you are requesting a hi-res image. If you are looking to use the photo for free, then your only option would be the version of the photo that has been uploaded to Flickr.

Also please note that we do not run a stock photography service, so we do not have pricing for our photos. You would need to let us know how much you pay photographers to print their photos in your publication.

4) Will you be be able to provide attribution for the photo (ie. photo credit)? This is required in order to use any of our photos.

5) Will the photos be used in print, online or both?

If we come to an agreement regarding the use of the photos, you will need to provide a written agreement confirming the amount paid for each photo, the attribution that will be used (both in print and online) and confirmation that the photo(s) will only be used for that single use only. Permission to use photos will not be provided until we have received the agreement from you.

Please note if you are asking for a hi-res version of a photos, then you will need to make payment arrangements. If you are unable to pay, then you would need to contact us regarding using the version of the photo that has been uploaded to Flickr.

Also when contacting us, please avoid using terms like ASAP. It was your decision to wait until the last minute to contact us.

Please list the photo credit as "Scott Beale / Laughing Squid" and link the credit to laughingsquid.com.

It’s pretty simple really. If we come across something that we haven’t seen before and think it’s interesting enough to post on the blog, chances are that there are other people who missed it the first time around as well and would like to see it. Our suggestion, just skip to the next post.

Yes, here’s a list of Laughing Squid Vendors.

Yes, check out TechCrunch’s write-up on how to access audio and video outside the US using Hotspot Shield.

The Co-Conspirators list is really just like it sounds, a list of our friends and organization that we have collaborated with in the past. It’s not an open list that takes outside submissions and it’s not a list of everyone that we know who has a blog or website (that would be an impossibly long list).

If you are a Laughing Squid Web Hosting customer, then maybe you are looking for our customer list.

Glad you asked, we have a special blog just for squid info: squid.us

Check out the The Tentacle Sessions website for the archives of Laughing Squid’s artist series which ran from February 21, 1999 through December 15, 2002.