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Just a quick update for anyone experiencing technical hiccups today. Namecheap is currently dealing with a major system-wide outage caused by a cooling system failure at their Phoenix data center.

​This is broadly impacting domains, hosting services, and Private Email. Their customer support help desk is also temporarily down, making live chat and email assistance unavailable right now.

​Their engineering teams are actively working on restoring the physical and virtual network devices.

If you rely on Namecheap for your domains or business email, hang tight while they bring their customer services back fully online.

MOST SERVICES ARE BACK TO OPERATIONAL...Except shared hosting. Good thing we are on Genesis, but just in case you've seen issues today.

Join https://community.estage.com once you have your Estage Genesis software set up and continue to learn more. I'll be there along with all the other founders of Estage.

I wanted to share a quick technical update regarding my platform infrastructure and email deliverability.

I am officially sunsetting Brevo as my primary email autoresponder and transitioning strictly to Estage Mail & Automation. I also use Namecheap as my Private Mail, too. The very first thing I did was remove all records that related to Brevo.

To make sure my emails land directly in your main inbox without hitting spam filters or getting flagged, I just finished re-architecting and testing my custom DNS setup for my site.

Here is what changed under the hood, why, and how you can apply it to your own setup:

What I Updated

• Separated Mail Infrastructure: I continue to run all my 1-on-1 personal, support, and administrative email inboxes (dave@, support@, info@, etc.) through Namecheap Private Email.

• Unified SPF Alignment: I merged my domain's SPF record to authorize both Namecheap Private Email and Amazon SES (the engine behind Estage Mail) within a single DNS rule.

• Strict DMARC Policy: Upgraded my DMARC policy to p=quarantine to strictly protect my domain reputation against spoofing and pass strict security checks across Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook.

• Custom DKIM Signing: Linked DKIM authentication directly to my site inside Estage, ensuring 100% domain alignment across every broadcast and automated sequence.

🛠️ Namecheap DNS Setup Guide (Step-by-Step)

If your domain is registered or managed at Namecheap, here is how to navigate and add these records:

Step 1: Access Advanced DNS

1. Log in to your Namecheap Account and go to your Domain List.

2. Click Manage next to your domain name.

3. Click the Advanced DNS tab at the top.

Step 2: Add or Update Your Records

• 1. SPF Record (TXT)

  • Click Add New Record (or edit your existing SPF record).

  • Type: TXT Record

  • Host: @

  • Value: v=spf1 include:amazonses.com ~all (If using Estage only)

  • Note for Private Email Users: Merge your hosts into one record: v=spf1 include:spf.privateemail.com include:amazonses.com ~all (this is what I did!!)

  • TTL: Automatic (or 300s)

• 2. DMARC Security Policy (TXT)

  • Click Add New Record.

  • Type: TXT Record

  • Host: _dmarc

  • Value: v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:dmarc@yourdomain.com

  • TTL: Automatic

• 3. Custom DKIM Records (CNAME / TXT)

  • Click Add New Record.

  • Type: TXT Record

  • Host: default._domainkey

  • Paste the DKIM provided by Namecheap (Under Email Security)

    • v=DKIM1;k=rsa;p=MIIBIjANBgkq.....

  • TTL: Automatic

Click the Save All Changes (green checkmark) button when done.

🔍 How to Test Your Email Authentication

Once your DNS records are saved, run this quick test using a personal Gmail account to confirm everything passes:

1. Send a Test Email: Send a message from Estage Mail to a personal Gmail address.

2. Open 'Show Original': Inside Gmail, open the test email, click the three vertical dots in the top-right corner, and select Show original.

3. Verify the Results: Check the summary table at the top of the page. You want to see PASS across all three lines:

   • SPF: PASS

   • DKIM: 'PASS' with domain yourdomain.com

   • DMARC: 'PASS'

If all three display PASS with your domain name listed, your email setup is 100% aligned and ready for broadcast campaigns!

If you do notice anything I may have done incorrectly, please let me know, but it looks like all has passed on my site and good to go! If you have Namecheap and Brevo and need assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me, but all I ask is that you try first and if you're stuck, then let me know!

The past month in AI was wild. We saw a massive shift from simple "chatbots" toward autonomous agents — and a big reality check on how we build online.

Here’s your quick breakdown of July’s biggest moves, what to expect in August, and how to keep your business ahead of the curve. 👇

⚡ JULY TAKEAWAYS: THE RISE OF AGENTS & THE "VIBE CODING" REALITY CHECK

1. The Price Wars & Model Drops:

   • OpenAI launched its GPT-5.6 lineup (Sol, Terra, Luna) and slashed API pricing by up to 80% to make agentic workflows affordable.

   • Anthropic released Claude Opus 5 and Sonnet 5, bringing frontier-level reasoning and self-verifying code generation at half the execution cost.

   • Google DeepMind pushed Gemini 3.6 Flash and expanded managed background agents that can interact directly with your desktop and browser.

2. The "Vibe Coding" Wall:

   • Building apps purely through chat prompts (like Lovable, Bolt, or v0) exploded in popularity — but thousands of creators ran into a wall.

   • Re-prompting AI to fix small bugs triggered massive token costs, and security audits revealed that up to 80% of unhardened, AI-generated code contained database leaks or broken API loops.

🔮 WHAT TO WATCH OUT FOR IN THE MONTH OF AUGUST!

• Cheaper, Always-On Automation: With inference costs plummeting, expect a wave of tools featuring persistent, background AI "workers" that execute multi-step tasks while you sleep.

• Security & Observability Overhaul: As new regulations (like the EU AI Omnibus) take effect, the narrative is pivoting hard toward data sovereignty, containment, and security —moving away from unhardened code.

📅 Key August AI Events to Watch 📅

• Ai4 2026 (Aug 4–6 | Las Vegas): One of the year's largest artificial intelligence conferences, featuring major announcements around enterprise implementation and agentic infrastructure. (https://ai4.io/)

• Enterprise AI Maturity Assemblies (Late August): Industry leaders converging to discuss scaling AI architecture, data sovereignty, and operational security.

💡 THE BIG LESSON FOR CREATORS & DIGITAL ENTREPRENEURS!

Use AI tools for creation, but don't build your house on shaky ground.

It’s tempting to try and prompt your way into building an entire business software stack from scratch. But when an AI updates or a script breaks, you get stuck playing unpaid tech support for your own tools instead of growing your brand.

The smart play? Use AI to draft copy, design concepts, and automate tasks — but anchor your core business (your hub, sales funnels, EMAILS, and community) on a unified, zero-maintenance hub platform like Estage.

When your foundation is secure and fully integrated, you can spend less time fixing code and more time closing sales. 🚀

🚨 Big news for creators! 🚨

You can create 10 videos in Gemini completely AT NO COST! 🎥✨

This promo is only open until August 4th at 11:59 PM PT, so don't miss your chance to test out the new video generation features before the deadline.

It's designed to let you try out Omni's conversational editing and features before committing to a paid plan. Just keep in mind that the 10 generations are a hard cap for the trial period, so it's a good idea to brainstorm your concepts in the chat before tapping the video creation button to save your credits.

What are you going to generate first? 👇

#GeminiAI #AIVideo #TechNews #VideoCreation #AI