WDTalk

Just today, I was asked for a recommendation in coming up with a name for a new forum - in a custom niche. I know this sounds easy, but it seems that every conceivable combination of English words has been taken, and is currently either active or parked. The registrar always suggests other combinations, but I’ve yet to find one in my queries that fits what I’m  searching for.

Maybe this is just one of my many pet peeves - but an astonishing number of domains are parked, especially with highly competitive keywords. Cracking that egg requires a sledge hammer the size of my SUV. I did find one this morning I really liked, but the sale price was over $6000.00. My budget is around $12

There are services where you can sell and purchase domain names - like SEDO, but then I’d miss the challenge and frustration, and sometimes the thrill of finding a name that is actually available.

Xen™ – is a virtual machine environment that supports execution of multiple guest operating systems with outstanding levels of performance and resource isolation. Xen is Open Source software, released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

Servers with – quad core processors and GB’s of RAM are ideally suited to employ virtualization to present the illusion of many smaller virtual machines, each running a separate operating system.

Virtual machines – on one dedicated server are isolated from one another, allowing concurrent execution of multiple operating systems – without allowing the execution of one to adversely affect the performance of another partition.

XEN Hypervisor – is a layer of software running directly on the server’s hardware, replacing the operating system, which allows that server’s hardware to run multiple guest operating systems concurrently. It becomes the interface for all hardware requests such as CPU, I/O, and disk for the guest operating systems.

Server virtualization benefits

• dynamic fault tolerance against software failures (through rapid bootstrapping or rebooting)
• hardware fault tolerance (through migration of a virtual machine to different hardware)
• the ability to securely separate virtual operating systems
• the ability to support legacy software as well as new OS instances on the same computer

I remember when I first learned how to use print screen - to capture screen images. I thought to myself, “Wow, imagine the possibilities!” Technology has advanced so rapidly, it’s impossible for one person to keep pace with new developments and software, even with something as seemingly simple as screen capture programs.

Doing a Google search for “screen capture programs” just now returned over  – 37 million results. Some of the more highly recommended programs are:

SnagIt 10 by TechSmith® (free trial/$39.95)

Snagit gives you the tools you need to create engaging images for presentations, feedback, tutorials, and training documents.

The only con I saw was that it could only save video files in .AVI format.

FullShot 2012 by InBit. (free trial/$49.99+)

FullShot is a professional screen capture (print screen) application designed for any Windows user who needs an effortless, effective way to take screenshots of Windows screens. It’s perfect for capturing on-screen images you want to include in manuals, training handouts,presentations, marketing materials, and web pages.

Cons - This product doesn’t seem to offer the ability to capture video clips.

Jing and Jing Pro - by TechSmith® (free versus $14.95/year)

Jing Free - SWF Video | 5-Minutes of Screen Recording | Mark-Up Tools for Images | Screencast.com Free Account

What do I use? – the FREE version of Jing because it fits what I do for now. If you need to produce MPEG-4 videos, I highly recommend Jing Pro as it offers the best combination of features vs price.

Five nines or 99.999% relates to - the up time availability of data centers. Prospective clients look for uninterruptable uptime as a prerequisite to constitute reliability of a data center, but what is acceptable to one may be inadequate to another. Accordingly, this expectation of uptime relates to a demand for computer reliability. Data center infrastuctures include a variety of critical physical layer environmental sub-systems that must integrate cohesively. Among those are power and cooling. If a system is deemed ‘fault tolerant,” this means it can sustain a worst case, unplanned event and NOT disrupt the end user.

The Four Tiers of Data Centers

Tier 1

It has non-redundant capacity components and single non-redundant path distribution paths serving the site’s computer equipment.

Tier 2

A tier 2 data center has redundant capacity components and single non-redundant distribution paths serving the site’s computer equipment.

Tier 3

A tier 3 data center has redundant capacity components and multiple distribution paths serving the site’s computer equipment.

Tier 4

This is a fault tolerant data center with redundant capacity systems and multiple distribution paths simultaneously serving the site’s computer equipment.

A tier rating for an entire site is limited to the rating of the weakest subsystem that will impact their operations.

Hostirian is named Best VPS Host by Best Free Web Space because of the quality of service and the best virtual private server (VPS) technology they use. In this Hostirian review we will take a look at some of the best web hosting services they have to offer as well as a little about the Hostirian company, in an effort to help webmasters figure out if this is the best web hosting service for his/her needs. Hostirian was started in 2001 and is part of the River City Internet Group. Hostirian manages over 5,000 servers in a 30,000 square foot datacenter, making it possible for them to offer top of the line VPS hosting options. In addition to top of the line technology, Hostirian focuses on providing the very best web hosting customer support.

At Hostirian,  customers will have the option to contact customer service through their toll free 800 number, integrated ticket system, and live chat options for both pre and post sales service. These are just a couple of the elements that Best Free Web Space feels makes Hostirian one of the best web hosting services around. In addition, Hostirian offers several web hosting options to meet the needs of the most customers. Choose from shared web hosting, cloud hosting, a virtual private server, dedicated server and more. Having so many options makes it possible for many different websites to perform very well on the Hostirian web hosting service.

VPS hosting plans start as low as $4.95 per month and include 256 MB dedicated memory, 10 GB disk space, 100 GB monthly bandwidth and a 2.4 GHz Xeon processor. In addition to the Hostirian VPS Starter Package they have four other VPS plans to choose from, each offering additional dedicated memory, disk space, monthly bandwidth, and Xeon processors. For a webmaster that has an established website that is having performance issues, because of the available resources on a shared web hosting plan, moving to a VPS plan could be the perfect answer. A virtual private server uses a partition to provide each VPS account with dedicated allotments of resources as well as the ability to choose the operating system, reboot the server, or take advantage of other administrative rights that one would usually only have with a dedicated server.

The fact that Hostirian has more than 10 years of experience in the web hosting industry is a good indication that they provide a reliable web hosting service that is stable and secure. Hostirian reviews from actual customers tell about the reliable uptime and exceptional customer service they have enjoyed with Hostirian.  Whether you are new to the web hosting business and just need a basic shared web hosting plan or if you have been around for a while and are looking for a more specialized service like a managed server, disaster recovery, cloud hosting and more; Hostirian offers affordable, professional services to meet all your web hosting needs. Signing up with Hostirian is easy and secure. Visit the Hostirian website to learn more about the best VPS hosting options. Watch for Hostirian promos like the current 20% off new VPS hosting plans, when you “like” Hostirian on Facebook.

For any other questions about the Hostirian service, contact them by phone, email or live chat. The Hostirian support is available all the time and they take pride in providing every customer with the tools and service needed to build and maintain a successful website. Take a few minutes to read the hosting articles and  the frequently asked questions to learn more about the Hostirian web hosting service.

I read an article a few days ago describing in-depth comparisons – of the major search engines ability to recognize and combat phishing.  To my surprise, IE ranked much higher than Google, but since I’m always on Google, I thought I should research some third party tools to help secure my online travels.

The following four anti-phishing tools are presented for your review:

• AVG LinkScanner - AVG LinkScanner is a free must have for computer only running a traditional anti-virus program to prevent you from visiting bogus or infected web sites.
• TrendProtect - TrendProtect is a FREE browser plug-in that helps you avoid Web pages with unwanted content and hidden threats. TrendProtect rates the current page and pages listed in Google, MSN, and Yahoo search results. You can use the rating to decide if you want to visit or avoid a given Web page. To rate Web pages, TrendProtect refers to an extensive database that covers the following information for billions of Web pages:  Content category, Phishing scam detection, Site reputation and Page reputation.
• Norton Safe Web Lite – Norton Safe Web Lite provides a safer search experience by warning you of dangerous Web sites right in your search results, so you can search, browse, and shop online without worry. Norton Safe Web Lite is FREE to anyone who wants protection from unsafe Web sites and disreputable online merchants. It’s our way of giving back to the online community.
• BitDefender Anti-Phishing Free Edition - Committed To Stopping Cyber-criminals In Their Tracks! Whether you’re a current Bitdefender customer or not, our goal is that everyone remains safeguarded from cyber-criminals’ tactics. That’s why we offer free virus removal tools and other free antivirus products, to ensure that every journey online is a safe one!

First, RAID is not a backup solution – always employ disaster recovery options.

I field queries about – RAID 1 (mirror) software versus hardware solutions from time to time. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Some say adding a hardware RAID controller introduces another point of failure, but the most popular reason by far to use software RAID is cost. If you do go with hardware RAID, make sure that card is compatible with your motherboard.

With BIOS (basic input output system) RAID – you may encounter a few quirks. Essentially, it’s a poor man’s version of software RAID. Motherboards do fail, so if yours gets fried, you’ll probably have to replace it with a similar board. Taking a mirrored drive to another system won’t work if that system can’t track the drive’s volumes.

Do you want – redundancy or performance? Most of us would prefer both. I think software and hardware RAID solutions work fine for redundancy, but hardware RAID holds the advantage in performance, especially if your server is database intensive.

There are other perks to – hardware RAID solutions as well, like notification of specific drive failures. Software RAID solutions typically have problems identifying bad drives, and normally do NOT support hot swaps. The most obvious drawback to software RAID is that it uses cycles from your CPU to manage the array, and while this isn’t quite so bad in RAID 1, it can significantly slow down your server in RAID solutions that involve striping with parity.

For those of you who use multiple operating system environments, hardware RAID is the way to go. If you set up RAID using a specific operating system, only that operating system can (normally) access that array.

Software boot volume limitations – since the operating system has to be running to enable the array, (obviously) the operating system cannot boot from the array.

My recommendation – do what makes sense for your pocketbook and priorities. Software RAID is definitely less expensive, but has performance drawbacks. Hardware RAID costs more, but is feature rich and generally worth the investment.