5 Hosting providers that re-define “Managed”

“Managed hosting” is a term that most everyone in the web hosting industry understands, despite the fact that it is a bit vague.  We know that it means that you have a server, it’s hosted at the web host, and you have access to it but the majority of the maintenance is done by the host themselves.  However, there is an important question to ask yourself in consideration of this server, and that is this: what maintenance does this include?

There are certain items that will always come with it: rebooting stuck servers, load monitoring, and just about anything that relates to making sure that your server maintains a bare minimum standard of operation are just about always in there.  If nothing else, your host will need to do most of these things to make sure you don’t have a greater impact on their network. Continue Reading »

5 Hosts Running Macintosh Web Servers

Even a lot of us who are long time users of Windows, Linux or UNIX remember fondly our years with Macintosh.  It’s amazing to think that once they were known for something more than handheld touchscreen toys.

If you’re reading this article, in fact, it’s a good bet that you are familiar first-hand with the fact that Macintosh is still in the desktop market.  You may be wondering if there are any good Macintosh-based web hosts out there for you to call home. Yes, Virginia, there are.  We identify five of them here.

1) MacHighway

“Web Hosting for Mac Users, by Mac Users, since 1997” is their slogan.  It’s hard not to get enticed by that.  It’s even harder still not to notice their low rates: three of their five accounts can be had for under $5/month.  They have a great selection of 6 different content management systems, including TikiWiki and Xoops.  They also go into extensive detail about their efforts to be environmentally responsible.

2) MacHost

MacHost gives you the option of hosting your account on a OS 9, OS X or Apache UNIX server.  These services are available on shared, co-located and dedicated hosting plans.  They are rare in offering as part of their services support on web site design and marketing, as well as technical help.  Do note that while most of these are free there is a fee for some of it.  MacHost has also been online since the mid-90s.

3) MacDock

These guys have put a lot of effort into making themselves not just Mac-hosted but Mac-friendly.  They use a custom-written control panel specifically for Macintosh user accounts.  Their shopping cart package, CartLoom, is also Macintosh-specific.  In fact it appears that they’ve put thought into just about every software package that’s included with their accounts.

4) DogBark

Not every Macintosh web host has “Mac” in their company name.  DogBark puts a fun, personal face on their services.  It’s not every host that tells you that one of their employees has a closet full of capes and another one is well-groomed.  All silly trivia aside, there is an extremely long list of features available to their accounts Advanced and higher.  By “extremely long” we mean 15 different content management systems and 6 different types of Wiki software packages alone.  Each one of these is available for demo.

5) Server Logistics, Inc.

For whatever reason, Macintosh hosts in general seem to lag badly behind their Windows and Linux counterparts in terms of available disk space and bandwidth.  While not still meeting them entirely, Server Logistics, Inc. at least bridges the gap some.  Their Professional account gets you a (comparatively) respectable 10GB of disk space and 250GB/month of bandwidth.  Their accounts come with more than 55 web applications and they also support Quicktime streaming.

Macintosh hosting isn’t dead.  While it may not ever achieve the popularity of other operating systems, these hosts seem secure and professional enough to ensure that anyone who needs this type of hosting will be able to find it for a long time to come.

A Look at Common Cloud Hosting Lingo, Part One

If you haven’t heard about cloud computing yet, God bless you: We haven’t a clue how you missed out on the barrage of hip new trends, but we sure are proud of you! However, no matter how secluded your rock may be, you’ll have to come out into the open sooner or later, and cloud computing is here to stay. Services based in “the cloud” are becoming nearly ubiquitous, rocking our computers with everything from Google to Amazon, and we don’t see it going away anytime soon. So the real question is this: What the heck does all this techno jargon mean?

We’re glad you asked! We’ve got enough expertise under our belt to give you this quick guide to common cloud computing lingo. We’ll be looking at some standard phrases, giving you the low down on what in the heck of things all this really means. Check below, and keep your thinking caps on!

“The Cloud”: So, what in the heck is a cloud, anyway? A cloud is simply a different way of storing data and information. With a cloud host, the data, software, and code you upload are stored directly on the Internet, rather than the provider’s personal intranet. This means you can get at your data from anywhere in the world, and it also means you have the option to scale up as much as you need, and to release that scalability once you’ve completed whatever task you needed. This isn’t a new way of doing things—at least not very, anyway—but referring to this process as “the cloud” has only just now become standard.

Hybrid Hosting: This is a combination for both cloud hosting and standard dedicated hosting, in which more vital information, like the operating system, is saved to the hard drive. All the other stuff you put up is saved to the cloud. This is because a dedicated server is much sturdier, as well as safer, and is better suited to holding your vitals. The cloud, on the other hand, performs better under heavy load, and is perfect for holding all the extra junk—like your graphical website—that you want the users to see.

Cloudsourcing: Rather than having a traditional IT service that handles your support, a cloud service handles all of your troubleshooting needs.

Security Aspects to Watch for in Your Server Logs

If you’ve started taking a closer eye on security for your web site then you’ve probably at some point started looking at the actual logs of users visiting your web site.  These can go by a lot of different names: we’ll stick with the blunt “web logs” for this article.  These are files that show you exactly who is doing, or trying to do, what with your web site, where they’re doing it from, and how they’re doing it (what browser they are using, often what operating system, and more information depending on your host’s web server software).
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Understanding The Root User And How to Obtain It

If you’re new to the realm of dedicated web hosting, you may suddenly be inundated with a bunch of terms with which you’re unfamiliar. Believe it or not, there’s a lot more to web hosting than just disc space, bandwidth, and hardware: The Linux operating system underneath comes with a heap of terminology you’ll have to become acquainted with, as well as many different quirks and methods that must be learned about.

Don’t sweat it, though, Grasshopper. We understand what you’re going through, and to help you out, we’ve got a guide to one of Linux’ most important aspects ready to go: If you’re confused about what the root user does, keep reading. All is revealed in full detail just after the break.

So What is Root?

Just as a plant has foliage and flowers at the top, so does it have roots that anchor it beneath the surface. Linux operates in the same way, allowing users to perform surface level modifications to the system at the top, while a deeper administrative user (this is the “root”) sits just below, managing all the vital organs of the operating system. Most of everything you do will be done outside the root user, but when you need to do some heavy duty file management, or install a new script, you’ll want to dip below the surface and tap into the core of things.

Why Should I Care About The Root? Do I Need It?

The root is important, because the alternative is somewhat frightening: Imagine letting all the tenants of your dedicated server have total administrative access all the time. It’s a scary though, no? Who knows what an absentminded user could accidentally do. With that in mind, root is built into your system to ensure you only mess with the foundation when you want to. It also ensures only certain people have root access, and even then, only when they need it.

How Do I Go Rooting?

Simple! In most Linux systems (Red Hat, SUSE, CentOS, etc.) simply SSH to your server shell, and type the following command:

su

It’s that easy! Other distros, like Ubuntu Server, allow access to the superuser in slightly different ways. For example, with these, there is no permanent root access, but rather a single command to type before performing a root action. This command is:

sudo

Basic SSH Commands

Here is a list of some of the more common SSH commands.

<command> -h                 # The -h flag provides help on a command
ls                           # List the contents of the current directory
cd <directory or full path>  # Change to that directory or path
cp <source> <destination>    # Copy the source file to the destination
cp -r <source> <destination> # Copy the source directory to the destination directory
mv <source> <destination>    # Move the source file to the destination
mkdir <directory name>       # Create a new directory
pico <file>                  # Edit file in a friendly, easy to use file editor
grep <text> <file>           # Search for text within a file
wget <URI>                   # Download the file at the given URI to the current path
tar -xz -f <file>            # Un-gzip and un-tar the given *.tgz or *.tar.gz file
rm <file>                    # Delete the file
rm -r <directory>            # Delete the directory and all contents
killall <program name>       # Kill all running processes of the program
ps                           # Show running processes
top                          # Show running processes in a graphical frontend
netstat                      # Show all current network connections
du                           # Show disk usage

Need more commands? I recommend David Coe‘s http://www.sshcommands.co.uk/, an easy to understand list of SSH Commands (with examples).

Social Networking Wars – A Great Show, and an Educational One

Wars between major corporations are way more fun than we would perhaps like to admit.  We can’t help but view it like some football game between demi-gods whenever, say, Coke and Pepsi or McDonald’s and Burger King square off in some price or advertising war.  So even if one had no interest whatsoever in having any kind of social networking presence, from a game theory perspective alone it’s fascinating to watch what is going on right now between Google and Facebook.

Just in the last few months alone there have been a number of major news items in the war between these two behemoths.  Even for the webmaster who has no interest personally in taking part in them, there are a number of significant lessons that can be gleaned from these battles that every webmaster could potentially use.  Here are some of what’s gone down and why they’re important:

The Facebook redesign debacle

It’s common for multi-user web sites of any kind to partake in some redesign, usually unleashed with little forewarning.  Typically there’s not too much complaint about these, since the point of them is to ease usability, add features or make everything a little more pretty.

Try telling that to any of Facebook’s users right now.  The redesign met with such a thunder of boos that it made CNN.

Lessons:

1) Listen to user feedback at all times.

2) Don’t just copy a rival mindlessly (it’s generally felt that this was Facebook’s attempts to pilfer Google+’s ideas).

3) Don’t fix what isn’t broken.

Google+ API

Google+ API was released recently.  “API” stands for “Application programming interface”.  It’s sort of an open-source middle ground.  It doesn’t entirely reveal an application’s underlying code.  What it does instead is to tell programmers how to interface their own code with it, giving information on what routines and functions do what, and how.

For most programmers this is good enough.  The user community has responded with excitement to this development, one that Facebook has not so far followed.

Lessons:

1) Don’t fear letting your own users be a part of your own development.  This doesn’t apply to a whole lot of small-scale web sites, but, if nothing else, encourage discussion among the people who visit it via, say, a BBS or mailing list.

Privacy developments

Even when it was at its peak and there was no major competitor to it, privacy on Facebook has always been a major user concern.  They’ve typically responded to it about the same way that Microsoft has always responded to security concerns: “I’m the only game in town.  You’ll take it and like it.”

There’s a new game now, and the NY Times has already given Google+ a higher privacy rating than Facebook.  The cynic should arch an eyebrow at this development: blindly trusting the world’s largest information broker as a vanguard of privacy should be a curious development at best.  Nonetheless just making an observable point of pushing this ideal is already generating for Google positive word amongst users.

Lessons: Respect your user base, especially when it comes to their private data.

There is amongst all this one larger lesson that everyone in any field could well take to heart: all giants fall.  The world is littered with the corpses of kings who once seemed invincible.  Our modern attention span has has caused us to lose sight of this, but it remains true to this day.  If you are #1 in whatever area, don’t ever just rest on your laurels and expect to still be #1 tomorrow.  If you aren’t, there’s always a way to be so.

A Lightning Quick Guide To Intel Processors

Back in the golden days of web hosting, it was a simple task to figure out if your server’s processor was heartier than the chap’s down the street. Manufacturers kept things simple, and used basic naming patterns based around clocking speed. However, those days are long gone, leaving us with almost literal Power Processor 6500 XLT 3-Bit’s—we made that one up, obviously, but it’s not far from the truth. Thankfully, with a little bit of education, understanding Intel’s numbering system, as well as its current product line, isn’t too difficult.

We’ve got a quick guide to the company’s processors locked down below, and we highly encourage you to give it a go. No matter how well you think you know the line-up, you can always learn more about Intel’s taxonomy. With that in mind, the educating starts now:

Silly i7, Xeons Are For Servers!

You may recognize the i3, i5, and i7 processors from the world of desktop computing. These are the current (at press time) and cutting edge processors from Intel, the ones that come stock and recommended with every new Macintosh computer. Their rough equivalent in the server world is the Xeon processor. This delight comes in a similar number pattern, going from the Xeon E3, to the Xeon E5, and then finally to the Xeon E7.

From there, the exact name and number of the processor can be broken apart into seven elements. We’ve listed these below alongside explanations of each, hopefully simplifying the process of reading something like, “Intel Xeon Processor E3 – 1235 L v2”

1. Brand: This is the name of the processor itself. In this case, the brand is “Intel Xeon Processor.” Simple enough, right?
2. Product Line: Here we have the model of the brain, eg. E3 (single core) or E5 and E7 (multi-core).
3. Wayness, Maximum CPUs In A Node: This lists the total available number of sockets built into the processor.
4. Socket Type: The higher the number the more the socket can handle in load.
5. Processor SKU: The part number of the processor itself.
6. Power Usage: i.e. “L” means “low power usage.”
7. Version: The version number of the processor in relation to its predecessors.

Hopefully you should now understand a little better how to read a processor’s name. However, to fully understand how powerful the machine is, you’ll still need to check various online benchmarks.

What to Look for in Your Shopping Cart Software

To try to do a comparison of the different shopping cart software packages in this small space would be an exercise in futility.  There are just too many of them to even try to focus on the biggest ones.  Instead we’re going to go over a brief list of features that you’ll want to look for if you are in the market for one for your business. Continue Reading »

When Markup Languages Attack

You of course know HTML, you may know some XML and SGML, and you figure there are probably a handful others out there that a few people use.  If by “handful” you mean a few hundred, then yes, you are right.  All of them serve real technical needs and a great many of them enjoy widespread support.

Some of the ideas behind some of these markup languages are, shall we say, a bit more interesting.  As a break from some of our more serious articles, we figured you’d appreciate a trip down 21^st century web trivia.  Let’s see if you can guess what each of the acronyms below stands for before reading each section:

OFML

You’ll have a hard time with this one.  Even though it was created in 1995, you still may have never before heard of Office Furniture Modeling Language.  Its purpose is as it sounds.  It was meant to be a language that accomplished a lot of the same type of modeling techniques used by CAD but which took into account specific needs of the office furniture industry.  While it is still around today we were only able to find any significant use of it in Germany.

AIML

This one you might guess from the name.  Yes, AIML does indeed stand for “Artificial Intelligence Markup Language.”  Don’t worry, though, this language won’t bring about the end of the world just yet, though it may wind up in you getting fooled now and then: AIML exists primarily to aid in the development of natural language use by machines, and has shown some success with it.

AGML

You probably won’t find anything with as specific a use as AGML.  You could also try all day and probably not guess what it stands for.  Annotated Gel Markup Language exists solely to markup data obtained by a very specific chemical process called “two-dimensional gel electrophoresis.”  To be fair we’re kind of cheating here: there’s not a lot of evidence yet that this markup language is being used by much of anyone.  Then again, how much “everyone” for this is there?

WDTF

In terms of obscure uses WDTF might be a close second.  This is another one you won’t guess if you’re not an Australian meteorologist.  WDTF stands for Water Data Transfer Format, and was developed to transmit water data between private and public entities in Australia.  As oddly specific as it sounds, it’s actually already in use in some areas.

RecipeML

Yes, all of you budding chefs have guessed right.  You now have your own markup language.  While so far it hasn’t caught on much, you have to admit that it’s original name used one of the coolest acronyms ever: Document Encoding and Structuring Specification for Electronic Recipe Transfer … DESSERT.

EML

We’ll end with one that somehow sounds a bit creepier than AIML.  EML is designed to make more  efficient the communication that goes on between user and machine.  That may not seem so bad at first until its revealed to you exactly what this stands for: Emotion Markup Language.

We’d like to finish this by saying that now we’ve seen everything.  However, knowing man’s desire for technological innovation whether or not it’s actually a good idea, we’ll leave the door open on this one.  It’s not like we have much choice.

Tips for Designing a Web Site for the iPad

Apple has come out with the latest of its products to split the tech world down the middle.  Opinions about the iPad are diverse and often polarized.  For the webmaster looking to expand the reach of their web site, though, it doesn’t matter which side of the debate you find yourself on.  Like it or not, the iPad is here, and probably isn’t going away soon.

This means that you are going to have to take into account designing web sites for iPad.  Among the many technical points there are a few large-scale considerations that all webmasters should consider.

They will have it both ways

The biggest challenge from a programming perspective will be the fact that there is no natural preference in using the iPad in either portrait or landscape viewing format.  In fact, for those of you who haven’t used it yet, the iPad has orientation awareness, so when the user turns it, the web site automatically adjusts itself to its rotation.

This represents a set of unique challenges.  First, it means that web site simplicity jumps back up the priority list.  A user who is sitting there waiting every time they turn on their iPad is going to lose patience quickly.

Second, and related to that, is that it might well be necessary to create more than one site design.  Some site layouts will not translate well to portrait, especially ones that are heavily based around having lots of information in side bars.  In nothing else, it means that the webmaster has to take both orientations into account in all of their programming.

No Flash or Java!

This one will get your attention.  The iPad runs the Safari browser.  This browser does not support plug-ins for this platform.  So if your web site is based in any way on Flash, Java, or anything else that would require a plug-in, you will need to adjust your site design to find another way to present it.  HTML5 looks to be possibly taking over a lot of the features that are currently relying on these other methods.  Seeing as how you’ll probably want to learn it anyway, using it more in your page code might be one way to prepare for these restrictions.

The mouse has been caught

Users will not be using a mouse to navigate through your web site on this device.  They will instead be using their own fingers.  While the touch screen responsiveness and accuracy is described as being impressive, this type of browsing will require that things the user might click on be spread well apart.  Closely packed together lists of links won’t be easy to use.  Your design will likely have to change to include lots of large, hard-to-miss buttons.

Apple’s web site has extensive technical information to add to this guide: search for the phrase “iOS Human Interface Guidelines.”  There are also web sites that will preview what your site will look like on an iPad so that you don’t have to buy one.  This all may seem like a lot, but given how explosively past Apple products have taken off, it’s not unreasonable to think that the same might occur with the iPad.  If it does, you’ll want your web site to be ready for it.

WordPress Plugins – Making the Most of the Your Site

We recommend WebHostingHub as the best web hosting for your blog.

While we talk about the advantages of the different content management systems frequently, their strength is far more determined by how you use them.  Each CMS has a world of plugins that programmers all over the world have created.  Some of them are powerful enough to negate any problems inherent in your CMS of choice, and add functionality to it that you may have never considered.
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