Archive for December, 2010
Let’s start with explaining what is a VPS. It’s a virtual server (or VPS, Virtual Private Server), which allows to overcome the limitations of traditional hosting configuration. A VPS provides some of the features of a dedicated server for all applications that require high performance, extreme configurability and complete isolation, proper of this last service. The virtual server is supplying an independent portion of a powerful server that is safely shared with other customers.
A cheap solution
The VPS may be an adequate solution for system administrator or web developers who don’t want to invest into a dedicated server but need something more than the basic hosting. On a VPS it is possible to host websites and databases, test server environment and enjoy low cost web space.
What to evaluate? Some considerations
1. Contract duration
Many times providers enter constraints in the acquisition of VPS which force you to buy their service for an imposed, minimum period. For example, the minimum period can be the monthly contract with obligatory payment per 3 months in advance. However, a more flexible solution is much better, as it allows you to test the virtual server for a short period and you can evaluate the performance and reliability of the system. For this reason we suggest you to choose a provider that offers contract with no constraints, and allows you to use your VPS for few days or weeks.
2. Activation costs
In some cases providers add fixed cost of activation to the monthly service fee. Furthermore, the activation is not always immediate – usually it takes few days before you can use the VPS. Choosing a provider that will not impose such costs is undoubtedly an advantage, especially when combined with the ability to have instant activation to start testing the environment.
3. RAM and CPU resources
The guarantee of this resources is highly important. Verify if servers are based on Xen technology (an open source software distributed under GNU/GPL license that offers performance comparable to non-virtualized solutions — ~ 8% overhead) or VMware virtualization.
4. Physical servers quality
When it comes to the technology, it’s not only a matter of brand image. Provider, which uses branded hardware, definitely offers better reliability than those opting for assembled servers. Also the computing power plays a very important role. A 16 core server, for example, is an excellent reliability guarantee.
5. Distributions
It’s easy to find VPS with various Linux distributions but only a few that provide Windows. It’s true that it’s a less wanted product – it can be useful for those, who have particular needs or personally prefer to use Microsoft operating system.
6. Administrative access to the server
Many developers and system administrators are accustomed to shared hosting services that provide a limited control panel. On the contrary, VPS complete distributions with unlimited access allow users to work freely and fully customize their environment.
7. The IP management
The standard solution available on the market is undoubtedly the one that provides shared public IP. A web hosting provider that offers dedicated public IP guarantees better warranty. You should also check if they plan to introduce private IP as well as High Availability (HA).
8. Location of the physical machines
Make sure your provider owns a Server Farm or is supported by an external Data Center. Names of the major telecom companies are undoubtedly a guarantee of safety and reliability. Check the redundant connectivity and if they are certified with ISO27001 (SLA should exceed 99%.).
9. Additional services
Does the VPS have additional services like firewall? Can you set and customize your own rules? It can play a crucial role if you want to assure maximum protection for your server. Does your provider offer service and machine resource monitoring? Is it also configurable to your needs?
10. Backup
A scheduled server backup can definitely be a service you cannot neglect. It’s also true, however, that if the provider offers a certain quality in the choice of hardware and configuration of the machines, there is a guarantee from the outset.
For example, using RAID10 disks is synonymous with reliability and protection from failures of the disks themselves, which can lead you to choose a provider that offers a such quality level of service.
WordPress is a tool worth getting acquainted with, whether its following online tutorials or investing into knowledge, i.e. purchasing an eBook. Rockstar WordPress Designer VS Digging Into WordPress is a review on two well known eBooks by two groups of authors, Collis Ta’eed & Harley Alexander and Chris Coyier & Jeff Starr. They both offer breakdowns on the WordPress CMS, taking the beginner by hand and showing them some practical lessons in the hope that they will get better and be motivated to improve their WordPress coding skills. The reason why I titled this as a ‘versus’ match is because I wanted to compare what the authors were offering and which one would be best, in my opinion, to have on your virtual bookshelf.
ROCKSTAR WORDPRESS DESIGNER (Collis Ta’eed & Harley Alexander)
So first up we have Rockstar WordPress Designer(fullname ‘How to be a Rockstar WordPress Designer’) by Collis Ta’eed & Harley Alexander. The 2010 Revised Edition eBook aims to help you “learn step by step how to take a straight HTML website and power it with WordPress”. This extract below from the website sums up what you are going to get from this eBook:
During the course of the book you’ll build THREE WordPress themes, a blog, a portfolio site and a general site with menus and submenus. Each theme demonstrates different aspects of WordPress theming and all three are packaged in with the book so you’ll have Photoshop, HTML, CSS and WordPress PHP files to refer to.
All they ask is that you have , a solid understanding of HTML/CSS, and not necessarily PHP. How to be a Rockstar WordPress Designer is split into 9 chapters with just over 310 pages of content. The early chapters will help you understand the general terms and concepts in WordPress, such as posts, categories, tags, permalinks etc… and the later chapters deal with building three themes and provides resources to Innovative Ways to Using WordPress to build Membership Directories, E-Commerce Store, Social Media Feed Aggregators, Musician/Band Website, Design Gallery, Review Sites and more.
DIGGING INTO WORDPRESS (Chris Coyier & Jeff Starr)
On the opposite shelf we have Digging into WordPress by Chris Coyier & Jeff Starr. The WordPress Version 3.0 Launch gives a comprehensive knowledge into the core WordPress System, with useful tips and tricks like “Keeping sites secure and optimized” and “Best practices for maintaining a healthy site”. This summary explains what you learn in this eBook:
We go into depth about the anatomy of a WordPress theme. How they work, and how to write the code you need to do the things you want. This means real code that you can sink your teeth into, as well as copy and paste. Beyond theme building, we introduce many tricks your functions.php file can pull off and show you ways to increase performance and security through HTAccess.
I have not grabbed a copy yet of their eBook, although I have read their free PDF Sample, and must say that I was straightaway impressed with the content they were giving, compared to Rockstar WordPress Designer, for the eBook is really a no-brainer! The purchase comes with 12 huge, colour-coded Chapters, split into roughly 71 sections with over 420 pages of content.
Digging into WordPress is perfect for WordPress users in the beginner to intermediate range, but contains plenty of great information for the advanced user as well. If you have any level of experience working with web design or WordPress, this book is written to help you take WordPress to the next level.
If you are not sure which will work for you, how about you read an expanded Rockstar WordPress Designer VS Digging Into WordPress review.
The market position of Google, the biggest digital marketing search engine company is at stake with the emergence of new search consultancy of Microsoft, Bing. Initially it was though that the presence of Bing will pose some problems for relatively comparable company like Yahoo search engine. Though that expectation was fulfilled with a report drop in Yahoo’s market share; but now Bing is shaking the share of even bigger digital marketing agencies like Google. Microsoft has invested hard on the sustainability of Bing and has succeeded when in June comScore broke news of Bing search consultancy stealing market share of big competitor Google.
Bing market share has risen pace since the last one year. Since its entry into search digital marketing industry; from last June up till now in just a small span of time, its share has reached 88%. The present market share of Bing in U.S is 9.85% as compared to 5.25% share when Bing started its digital marketing search engine. Calculations by Hitwise show that Bing has disturbed its competitor’s digital market where percentage in Yahoo’s share has gone down by 11.24 whereas Google’s digital marketing has been affected by 3.2% during that time period.
Further decline in Google digital marketing is witnessed by comScore, when it compares the present market share with that of previous. In February Google disclosed its share to be 65.5% which has now dropped to 63.7% in May, further down in June by 62.6%. Thus in a series of these four months, Google has lost some of its market to its small competitor.
Not all search engine focus on the use of numbers to get an estimation of their market share. Microsoft (Bing) and Yahoo digital marketing search engines rather stress upon context and content use. But both are beyond Google in either case. Imran Khan an analyst at JPMorgan presented his argument by saying that during the period between May and June, in contextual sense; Google share went down by 110bps while Yahoo and Microsoft are up by 60 bps. If take into consideration individual contextual ratings then Microsoft rose by 20 bps, and Yahoo at 10bps up; on the other hand Google suffered and came down by 20 bps.
Revenue at digital marketing search engines also comes from advertisement placement and click.com. Bing led in getting more revenue coming from both these sources when compared with Google and Microsoft.
The overall U.S digital marketing industry in search engine sectors has shown an increase by 16.9% in June as compared to 11.2% in May. Bing is not imposing any negative influence rather use of online market has gone up from 11% first quarter to 14% in the second quarter. (ComScore)
CEO Search Ignite has reported that there is an increase willingness by marketers to invest in digital marketing to promote their products.
Asian market is an opportunity for Google to regain its lost revenue. After license and ICP approval from China, Google can return to its lost glory. But this news may not be good for Bing.
There are so many people all over the universe who like to learn foreign languages. Besides English, Spanish is one of the most popular languages, which the people from different countries like to learn. It is no longer a constraint for you to be far off from Spain. It is possible to learn Spanish online. Internet has eliminated the distances and its innovation is a blessing in many respects.
If you want to learn Spanish, it could not have been possible for you to learn Spanish online sitting at home, if internet was not innovated. The only way available was that you had to sit in a classroom in some institute teaching the foreign languages or Spanish. Here we give you a couple of simple tips to proceed to learn Spanish online. Of course, being motivated is the first requirement to learn Spanish as is true for anything else.
You can accomplish your goal to learn Spanish online, if you keep up your motivation even if you find it hard at times. You will learn Spanish on line. You get additional benefit by visiting Spain on your holiday trip. It is worthwhile visiting the native countryside where you can talk to the people who speak the real Spanish language.
People in Spain are very cordial and they will honor you with a warm reception when they know you are learning Spanish and try to converse with them. No one is perfect. All of us do some mistakes. When you learn Spanish online and find some difficulty, do not worry if you make some errors, people will appreciate your motivation and effort. You will soon be almost perfect if you continue to learn Spanish online.
When you understand this and know that you have your own dignity and values, you will unquestionably be determined to put all your efforts and learn Spanish. If you opt to learn Spanish online, you get many alternatives including the different Spanish language sites and software to choose from. Learners should try to master over the flow of the language when it is spoken. If you follow this step, it becomes simpler to pronounce Spanish words and you can be expert to follow the accent.
To get better job opportunities in the United States, knowledge of Spanish is very important as it is the second most commonly spoken language. The number of people who learn Spanish is increasing very fast day by day. It is estimated that in next ten years there will be about 20% increase in Spanish speaking people in USA alone.
When you are in employment, it is not feasible to join a regular class to learn Spanish because of shortage of time; to learn Spanish online is the best option for employed people. Moreover, it does not restrict you anyway and you can learn it at any convenient time on internet. You are free to multitask. You can learn Spanish online at home, or while traveling or camping somewhere. If you learn from a recognized institute approved by Spanish authorities, you receive a certificate after completion of your course and that certificate authenticates your qualification in the Spanish language.
These tips can be used to learn Spanish online.
Creating a new blog is an excellent hobby. Whether or not you create it simply for fun as well as amusement or if you would love to go after a job in blogging, publishing a blog offers lots of advantages. While it might seem as though everyone has a blog and you might not know where to begin, setting up a blog is usually quite easy and straight forward!
First you should choose is whether you would like to own a free blog or to host it yourself. You will find pluses and minuses for both options. A blog that is hosted for free means that you don’t need to pay but you have less flexibility to individualize the style and a lesser amount of memory to save photographs and documents on the Internet. Hosting the site yourself needs more work and you have to purchase an Internet domain and some web hosting but it could be worth it if you would like a personalized blog with more creative flexibility. Plenty of blog owners start with a free blog and then progress to hosting it. This is actually a good approach to discover what blogging is actually about and if you enjoy keeping a blog before needing to spend any cash.
The next thing is to think about precisely what you would like to post. This could seem like a stupid issue but it really is important and will have a large influence on how your blog evolves as time passes. If it is a private blog then you will probably blog about life and what you get up to etc. Blogs like this may very well be interesting to read and write yet they can also sometimes be tough to get famous simply because the majority of people on the web are browsing for something in particular. A good guideline to adhere to though is to put your blog in a particular subject and adhere to the topic. This can be anything – television shows, movies, music, sports, traveling, cooking, learning, business, health, fitness and so on. What is important is to pick an area which you are interested in and will maintain a level of interest. Picking a topic helps on three levels. Firstly, readers will know exactly what it is about when they visit the site. Furthermore, you will find that your site fits nicely into a network of already established blogs that gives a greater feeling of community. Additionally, this should also help you get found by search engines as they can understand the site better if you have a strong identity. This in turn will mean you get more traffic.
The next thing you need to consider is how you are going to write entries. Will they be funny, informative or political? You may enjoy writing each post differently and really show your personality or stick to one style, the choice is up to you. It is very important to show some personality – this is what makes people like you and come back. Other things to consider are images, sound clips and video clips. These can all add depth to your website. If you are reviewing a movie, why not include a video for the trailer? Similarly, if you are discussing a place you have been to, take a few pictures and include them in your article. It will help make your blog much more appealing.
The next thing people may possibly want to consider is becoming traffic for your website. This can be accomplished with several methods. Overtime, your site should steadily find a rise in visitors if you find a way to publish on a regular basis and with great content. Nevertheless, there are several techniques to produce more visitors. You can buy advertisements on websites and search engines or try to position your website higher in search engines. This is called SEO (or Search Engine Optimization). Search engines have sophisticated algorithms to assess how appropriate your website is to specific searches. If your website is very relevant than it will get displayed higher by search engines. One of the most significant techniques search engines position sites is by the number of high-quality, in-bound, one-way links. You can obtain these by creating content for article websites, presenting your site to web directories and making use of social book marking to get inbound links. You can also target certain keywords and phrases within these links to get even more benefit.
It is additionally important to be a part of the blogosphere. Having a blog is far more enjoyable when you feel you belong to a network and can engage with writers. It is also good to leave replies and send messages to other bloggers. It’s also a really good idea to bookmark blogs you frequently visit. Store your favorites with an online bookmark manager and you will be able to navigate the blogosphere much more efficiently.