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Host Hardening is exactly what it sounds like: the systematic strengthening of a host’s position with respect to potential security threats. To put in slightly militaristic terms, hardening is what you do when you’re digging in because you intend to be there for a while and you expect outside “interest.”
Hardening is necessary because all security systems have weaknesses. That, you might think, is what antivirus, firewall and intrusion-detection systems are for, and you’d be right. All of these things are a part of the host hardening process, but there is more to it than that. Host hardening involves a greater level of complexity than simply installing protection systems.
The fact is that pirates (excuse the dramatic term) and hackers get through security systems all the time and this fact seems mystifying given all the lengths people go through to protect themselves. What’s going wrong? Antivirus programs, firewalls and intrusion detection systems all work by looking for things they’ve seen before, or things that are similar to things they’ve seen before. A system can be impenetrable to all known threats, but all it takes is one new one and the jig is up, as they say.
Additionally, security is made difficult by the fact that we all want everything to work whenever we want it, with no effort. Computer systems, even server systems, come with all kinds of features and services that are ready-to go out of the box. Our computers are now so powerful, and our storage capacity is so large, that we can have all kinds of extra things going on, so systems are designed to cater to a huge range of “common” uses and computing profiles. The end result is that most of our systems are running all kinds of technology we barely understand that creates potential weak points for our security systems. An intrusion detection system won’t stop access that is normal for a given piece of software, but that software might, in normal usage, give access to a part of the system that should have been cut off from outside access.
Steps in the typical hardening process (aside from the typical firewall, intrusion detection steps) are systematically disabling all the services that are not specifically needed to do what you want to do. If you have any piece of software that isn’t specifically required, eliminate it from you system. Any communication protocol that isn’t necessary, disable it. Files that don’t need to be altered should be read only. Users that don’t need access shouldn’t have access. Any services that can be performed by a more secure piece of software should be replaced. The idea is to remove any back door to your system that might be exploited using legitimate software.
The extra benefit of hardening a system in this way is that it will be much more efficient and streamlined. There will be less potential for conflicts and errors. That is, of course, if it is done properly. To successfully harden a system you really have to know what you’re doing. You need to know how all the features you want to use work and make sure you don’t disable anything that is required. Many companies prefer to hire professional host hardening services to make proper analyses of their practices and act appropriately.
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If you’re thinking about signing up for Just Host hosting services, look no further as we’ve found a 20% discount for you on the 12 and 24 month plans. Just click the link below to get the rebate:
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If you’re looking for more information, you can check out our Just Host Review. This is a great deal for a good hosting company, take advantage while its still available! Enjoy!
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That’s right - Dreamhost is currently offering 2 years of free “unlimited” bandwidth/storage. All the bells and whistles are included in this deal, you even get free domain registration.
Too good to be true?
Well… not if you have a geocities account. That’s the only catch with this offer, you have to have an active geocities account and you have to be one of the first 1000 customers to sign up for the offer.
Yahoo!, one of the first web hosting providers on the internet recently announced that they are shutting down their famous Geocities. After 14 years of free hosting, Geocities is going the way of the Do-Do. So Dreamhost has taken the opportunity to try to get an influx of Geocities customers, they’re offering 2 years of free hosting in the hopes that people will stay on and move to paid hosting after the 2 free years are over. But 2 free years is still 2 free years 
How does it work?
If you have a Geocities site, all you have to do is the following:
That’s it! You are now set-up with 2 years of free Dreamhost hosting.
Enjoy!
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The term “dynamic virtual host” is a fairly simple concept that is surprisingly hard to describe. There are a few related ideas that will have to be explained first in order to create a clear picture of the concept.
One of the most economical forms of hosting for small-scale applications is virtual hosting, which is a deviation from the normal hosting setup. The Internet usually assumes that a given IP address represents a simple, isolated machine. In this ideal setup, every website on the Internet would require its own machine and its own IP address. Such a system would create two problems: each website would require a lot of hardware and each site would eat up an IP address. Virtual hosting consolidates the use of resources by making it possible for a single server, and often a single IP address, to maintain different domains and web sites.
On the server side of the operation, each machine is partitioned so that the data corresponding to multiple domains and websites are stored on one system. Sometimes the server operating system will associate each partition with a specific network adapter so that each domain will be able to have its own IP address (as in IP-based virtual hosting). An even cheaper method is to make each partition accessible through as single network adapter and IP address by having connection requests include the IP address and the hostname (name-based virtual hosting).
Traditionally, and in the most reliable setups, the IP address involved will be static, which is to say the machine always uses the same IP address. The difference in the case of a dynamic virtual host is that the server software used to maintain the system is designed to dynamically configure the necessary connections. The advantage of this kind of server implementation is that it will automatically assign IP address to resources that require them. This makes the setup process, in some ways, much simpler and it also allows different IP-based functions to be activated without restarting the server or manually entering IP addresses.
The difficulty is that, if you want to host webpages on such a server, the software will also need the capability to update a DNS server with the relevant IP addresses as they change and every time they change. Changes in the IP address assigned to a domain can potentially make resources difficult to find until DNS servers that have cached the old IP address are updated or reset.
The main advantage of a dynamic virtual host is that it simplifies the administration of servers that typically run many temporary IP-based applications that would otherwise each require complicated setup procedures. There is a certain plug-and-play quality to the functionality to a dynamically configured virtual host that makes them attractive in certain circumstances.
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Our top recommended Reseller Host is Hostgator starting at $24.95/mo and 250GB of bandwidth and 24GB of Storage Space.
Everyone is looking for new ways to make money online these days, webhosting is one way you can make passive income to help pay the bills. There are many established webhosting companies offering “reseller hosting” packages that allow you to become your own webhost and offer hosting services to your own clientele. Basically you set up your own hosting package that includes a certain amount of bandwidth and storage space, then you can sub-divide that package into smaller hosting plans for your own clients.
What are some of the benefits of reseller hosting?
Unlike most business models, reselling hosting services has almost no overhead whatsoever so you can get started right away without having the initial costs that usually come with a traditional business. There is no need to pay rent for commercial space, no need for employees, and no need to purchase any type of equipment like servers or state-of-the-art computers. The infrastructure is in place already, the established webhost has their own team of technical experts charged with the task of ensuring that the servers are working and that the service is available at all times.
Most hosting companies allow you to quickly and easily set up new accounts for your customers, so they each have control of their own cpanel. Even the billing of your customers is made effortless with assorted customer billing systems, that way you can easily receive your monthly payments through a service like paypal.
So bottom line, as a reseller it is very attainable to be profitable even on a very small scale and as your customer-base grows so will your profits.
What are the challenges of being a reseller?
The main challenge in reselling is acquiring new customers, the webhosting market is extremely competitive and the is no shortage of webhosting companies to choose from. What many people do is provide hosting services within their own network of family and friends. Another option is to avoid the over saturated hosting advertising online by simply advertising locally in media like local newspapers. You don’t need hundreds of customers to turn a profit, your company can be as big or as small you you want.
Does this actually make money?
Start out small with a few customers and make some passive income, even with just a couple of customers you can get your own hosting payed for and maybe make a little money in the meantime. You can start out with a standard $24.95/mo reseller plan, which would provide you with 250GB of bandwidth and sub-divide it in amounts that make sense for your customers. You can upgrade your plan easily if you outgrow it, allowing you to grow incrementally as your customer-base grows.
For Example: If you have a Hostgator reseller account at $24.95/mo and 250 GB of bandwidth, you can easily sub-divide that into 15 hosting packages for $10/mo (each account gets over 16GB of bandwidth/mo). Your investment of $24.95 just became $150 with very little effort. Even on this small scale, that’s $1500 of profit for the year AND no charge to host your own websites. Not bad!
Now go out there and make some money! This is a great way for you to generate passive monthly revenue without having to spend all the time and effort to maintain a traditional business.
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When we were doing all the research that goes into creating a new site, I don’t even want to think about the hours we spent going back and forth over different hosting options and site structures. We were fortunate enough to come by Chris Pearson’s THESIS theme for wordpress and we were blown away.
For starters the THESIS theme is really intuitive and customizable, even if you have only limited knowledge of CSS and HTML you can create a great looking site. If you’re more advanced, all the better to completely customize the theme and make a site which is second to none. Right out of the box it is really easy to get your site up and running, just install a few free plugins and you’re ready to go. It even has a lot of SEO-friendly code built-in, and that never hurts.
With THESIS you can control most of the functionality of the site directly from a control panel interface without having to change any of the actual wordpress code. You can control the layout, meta/alt image tags, your feed link, fonts and style… all the the use of simple tick boxes and drop-down menus. You can even install your Google Analytics or Mint tracking code with some handy pre-made fields… very easy.
The creators of THESIS even included a multimedia box where you can put random rotating pictures, advertising, video, or any custom code that you could want. They even made it easy to decide which ads or picture to run on individual pages, you can have one default setting for the site and override that setting for a specific page if you want to match the multimedia box with the articles/post.
Some major names in the blogging world use THESIS, and you really can’t go wrong to follow their example. To name a few… there is Chris Brogan, Sugarrae, Copyblogger and the list goes on…
The support offered by the DIYthemes forums is amazing, any design or functionality questions we had were answered within an hour or two after posting to the support forums. They have built themselves an excellent community of THESIS users, its a real confidence builder to know you that kind of support.
All in all, we highly recommend the THESIS theme from DIYthemes. If you’re looking for a solution for your site, this theme may be the answer to your prayers. At the price of $87 for individual license and $164 for the developper option, it’s a steal. The purchase price allows you not only to use the theme, but also entitles you to all future releases of this continuously evolving theme.
The 1.5 beta version of THESIS has been out for some time, and is scheduled to be released officially sometime this week.
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As you probably know, Virtual Hosting is system whereby many website are hosted on a single server, sometimes even located at a single IP address. For a more comprehensive description of Virtual Hosting, you can check out other posts on the topic here at a GoodHost.org. A PHP Virtual Host is, simply, is one of these partitioned parts of a server that host a domain on which PHP has been installed. What is less simple is understanding exactly what that means.
A PHP Virtual Host employs the PHP, or “Personal Home Page” scripting language to enable a subscribing webmaster to create dynamic web pages. A traditional web page is an HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) document, which is to say it is a static (which signifies unchanging) document that contains links to other, similar pages. For any of the content on such a page to change, the webmaster must manually change the code in the HTML file and upload that file to the server. That’s fine for many purposes, but if everything were done like that the Internet would really only be a collection of books and pamphlets similar to the print industry.
What sets the online medium apart is that it is dominated by sites that engage their audiences by allowing them to interact with the content and get continually updated information. PHP is one of the many scripting languages that make this dynamic quality of the online medium possible. A scripting language derives from the common use of the word “script” which is a document that directs a performance. A movie, for example, is scripted. The characters may appear to interact naturally, but they are filmed performing a predetermined script. A scripting language, similarly, is what allows web developers to plan out the steps performed by a computer before generating the final output, in this case an HTML code which is rendered into what we see as a webpage by an Internet browser.
One of the simplest dynamic features that can be incorporated into a webpage through the use of PHP is a counter. You may have seen web pages that display the number of hits they have received, or received on a given day, and this is achieved by a script that instructs the server to record an event each time the page is accessed. The number you see displayed in a counter is presented through HTML code, but before that code was delivered to your browser, the server processed the information, added “1″ to the number value in reference to the latest request, inserted that number into the final HTML code delivered to your browser.
What makes a script a script rather than a program is that it functions independently of the programs it is accessing, it sets the order in which programs are accessed and input the required data to get the desired results, then performs the next step in the scripted chain of events. Naturally, PHP has many more uses than generating a counter, but the example serves to illustrate how basic such scripts are to the experience we have of the Internet.
There are many other scripting languages out there, such as ASP (Active Server Pages), but PHP has been around for a long time and is popular for its simplicity. A PHP script can be contained in a basic text file, integrated, for example, into the same file containing regular HTML code and it will be processed by any PHP enabled server. A PHP Virtual Host is easy to come by and easy to implement, but it may be something you’ll need to have your webhost install for you.
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Ventrilo is a VoIP program. VoIP stand for “Voice over IP,” which is to say it is a voice exchange application that works on top of Internet Protocol. The software works, essentially, by allowing the users of distinct IP addresses to connect to a server which puts them in direct voice contact with other users. Anyone can host a Ventrilo server on their home computer, but there are certain advantages to having a Ventrilo dedicated server.
Voice over IP applications are becoming more and more common. It is, for example, now possible to integrate VoIP programs into regular telecommunications networks. Skype was one on of the first services that popularized the medium. The interface looks much like any of the many other instant messaging applications that are commonly used on the Internet like ICQ, MSN Messenger or Yahoo Messenger. In fact, many of these applications now also allow you to create voice or even video connection so you can keep in touch with your friend over the Internet. The innovation of Skype is that the service allows user to dial regular telephone numbers. Now, VoIP services can be installed in a home that works independently of any home computers and effectively replaces regular telephone services. Ventrilo dedicated servers use the same technology to fulfill a different communication niche.
Whereas VoIP phone accounts and Skype-like systems act more like personal and private communications interfaces, Ventrilo is a platform for geared toward public communication networks. The client interface, for example, is reminiscent of IRC (Internet Relay Chat). You can create channels on a voice server that can be accessed by multiple users at once. The effect is much like a conference call, but anyone can drop in or out of the channel at will. Passwords can be setup to limit users, or channels can be left open to public access.
One of the major uses of Ventrilo, or “vent” as it is often known, is for people to communicate collectively while playing online games. Many games have integrated VoIP functionality, but Ventrilo allows you to easily setup teams prior to joining servers and maintain communications regardless of what happens in game. The program boasts very minimal bandwidth and CPU usage while offering good-quality sound reproduction, making it particularly well suited to complementing in-game communication while not interfering with the computer’s processing power which is required by the game.
For the purpose of a team that plays in a regular, pre-arrange window of time, it is perfectly possible to run the server software needed to operate Ventrilo on a home computer. However, having a host maintain a Ventrilo dedicated server means that all your settings will stay the same each time you need to log in: the same server name, the same target IP address. Further, the communication network doesn’t depend on any one user maintaining the server. Any member of the group can login anytime and find the channel waiting for them, making it easier to arrange impromptu games. Naturally, Ventrilo systems aren’t only useful to gamers. Anyone wanting to enable a remotely accessible, cheap and public forum that allows for voice communication will find the software useful.
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Microsoft Speech Server is the software giant’s contribution to every Science fiction fan’s dream of a computer you can talk to, and which can talk back. Speech recognition has been around for a while in various forms. The ability to control your computer with spoken words is, for example, incorporated into Microsoft’s latest operating system, Vista. It is one of the more functional examples of the technology, but anyone who has used it will no doubt have been frustrated from time to time by misinterpreted commands. The software boasts the ability to adapt itself to individual user’s speech patterns, but it isn’t seamless. Speech Server purports to be much more than speech recognition software: the objective is primarily to allow businesses to develop communications platforms that can act as their first point of contact with clients.
One might also fairly say that Microsoft Speech Server is the organization’s contribution to the continued development of annoying telemarketing. IRV (Interactive Voice Response) platforms have becoming more and more prevalent. Whether you’re calling to have your phone line installed or trying to find a number from directory services, you are very likely to come into contact with an automated system. You’ll be greeted by a simulated or recorded human voice, and you will be asked for voice input in order to query a database.
The main problems associated with such communications systems is that they have trouble compensating for varying accents or individual peculiarities of speech. For individual computers with known users, the problem can be effectively surmounted by having the user read known command words into a microphone and having the software cue its responses accordingly. For a remotely operated system with multiple users, the challenge is to create a system flexible enough to handles the wide variety of different users.
One of the larger problems that hinders voice response systems is that people are not computers: they don’t always respond the same way, even to the same stimulus, and they make mistakes. Hesitation halfway through a word and a person’s natural tendency to correct themselves in mid speech, can all result in a system’s inability to respond correctly to users. The technology is constantly developing and new algorithms are constantly being devised in an attempt to overcome such difficulties.
Some would question the desirability of such systems. They benefit companies because they reduce the amount of workload that falls on call center agents, allowing them to save on staffing costs. Ostensibly, the voice response system retains enough of a personal touch to make customers feel that been treated with human consideration. However, unless the system is as easier to use than a touch-tone menus or some other kind of user input and IRV isn’t likely to meet all of its objectives. Much research is being put into programs that can help such a systems be more intimately responsive, adapting on the fly to individual users, but one can’t help but wonder if people would rather interact with a machine that doesn’t pretend to be more than it is. If one is a science fiction fan, the horrific example of the Genuine People Personalities from Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy springs immediately to mind.
Still, as the technology continually develops its viability as a genuinely desirable type of system interface becomes more and more conceivable. For anyone interested in adapting the current technology to current business needs, Microsoft Speech Server is worth investigating further.
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