Having your website hacked is one of the worst feelings in the world. It can do major damage to your site’s reputation, especially if Google puts a “This site may harm your computer” warning on it. You aren’t alone as a new website gets hacked every five seconds. There goes another one. And another. But breathe easy, HostDime has you and your website’s back. Follow these steps to fix your malware infested or hacked website.

Find Out Exactly What Happened

The more you know about the hack, the more your host and the Internet will be able to help you. How did the hackers get in? Did this hack affect numerous sites, or were you the lone target? Was it a cPanel hack, FTP password entrance, remote file inclusion, or a code injection? Check to see if any of your data is missing, or if anything’s been added to your database, like strange uploaded files you don’t recognize. Once you have thoroughly checked your site, it’s time to ask for help.

Contact your host

Tell your host your site has been attacked and is currently down before you begin diagnosing the problem. Your host will make sure their other customers on the same server will not be compromised. They may also help find out what happened to your site and how to recover it. If you are a HostDime client, you know we are here to help 24/7/365 with any problem you encounter.

Search Twitter and Google for Help

If your host’s support team informs you of nothing wrong with your server, it’s time to reach out to the Internet for relevant answers. Twitter is filled with mostly friendly programmers and IT experts ready to help you out. Briefly explain your hack in 140 characters, with accompanying relevant hashtags. You may be lucky enough to find someone who went through the same issue you’re going through.

If Twitter comes up short, do a few Google searches for your hacking problem. You may stumble upon a forum discussion describing your hack or a similar one. More than 75% of forum posts on webmaster help site Badware Busters receives a reply back.

Google has also created a comprehensive section of links and videos called Webmaster Tools to help you clean up your site, prevent malware infection, and fix your hacked site. If you haven’t already, sign up for Webmaster Tools. You will need this for verification and recovery soon.

Check Your User Accounts

Scan your site’s users accounts to see if there’s been a new user created. Delete that new account to prevent future damage from the hacker. Change the passwords for all your users and accounts. ALL YOUR PASSWORDS: FTP, database access, system administrators, and content management system accounts.

Take Your Site Offline

You must take your site offline for two important reasons. One, prevent the hacker from causing further damage to your site, and two, users do not want to come to a site that gives them a scary malware alert. Stop your webserver or point your website’s DNS entries to a static page on an entirely different server that uses a 503 HTTP response code. Google promises that having your site offline briefly will not affect future ranking of your site in search results. The 503 code is a useful signal that the site will be unavailable momentarily, and the signal will work because it’s outside your compromised site.

If you are unsure on how to take your site completely offline, again, contact your host for assistance.

GOOGLE COMES TO THE RESCUE OF YOUR HACKED SITE

Verify Ownership of Your Site

The majority of users find you site through Google, so if there’s a malware label attached to your site in search, no one will be visiting you. Start the road to recovery by verifying ownership of your site. Sign into Webmaster Tools using your Google account (or create a new one). Click add a site, enter in your site’s URL, and click continue. Use Google’s Recommended tab or use an Alternative method.

Bring your site back online if the verification method needs access to your site for a certain meta tag or file. Once you have clicked Verify, you’ll see a screen mentioning you’re the verified owner. You can then take your site back offline.

Back in Webmaster Tools, click Manage Site, then Add or Remove Users. Determine whether the hacker already claimed ownership of your site. If there is an user you are unaware of, delete them immediately.

Determine How You Were Hacked

Once Verified, the geniuses at Google will post a message in your Webmaster Tools letting you know how your site was hacked. Either spam content decreased your relevance and quality in Google’s search, it was a phishing attack, or it was malware related.

Fortunately, last week Google released a series of videos to help webmasters recover their site after being hacked. If the Webmaster Tools message discusses “suspected hacking” or “phishing notification”, you were hacked with spam. Read this tutorial and watch this Google video which highlights spam techniques, how to investigate your site for spam, and how to find all the affected files.

If the Webmaster Tools message mentions “infected with malware”, then the hacker could be using your site to harm visitors with malware software designed to create havoc and steal information from your computer. Read this Google tutorial and watch the accompanying video, which discusses how to investigate the malware and finding out which files were affected.

Clean Your Server

Start by removing anything that was added by the hacker, then restore your latest backup. Install all software and program updates. Eliminate third party widgets you seldom use.

Perform a clean installation on your server. Transfer good content from the backup file copy to the recently installed server. Upload only the files you know are clean.

If you have newly updated clean pages, use the Fetch as Google feature to submit pages straight to Google for crawling.

Ask Google for a Review

Have you verified ownership? Have you cleaned your site of any trace of the hacker? Have you brought your clean site back online? If you answered YES to all of these questions, it’s time for a Google review. Reviews are approved if Google determines your site shows no signs of being harmful to visitors.

If you were a victim of phishing, complete the review here.
Phishing reviews take a day or two to process, which will cause the warning to be removed from the search engine.

If you were a victim of a malware attack, go into Webmaster Tools, then Heath, then Malware. Select Request Review, which will allow Google to scan your site with anti malware software. This process also takes a day or two to complete; this will remove your malware label. If the process finds malware still, the message will show you what URL’s are still infected.

If you were hit with spam, go to this reconsideration page. Write a paragraph or two explaining your spam situation. Then click “Request reconsideration”. Spam reviews can take a few days. Once your review is approved, the label will be removed in about 24 hours.

Hopefully your site is now hack-free! Now let’s make sure this doesn’t happening again.

Backup All Data and Files

Save and back up your data as often as your schedule allows. This is important because you may be able to restore your latest backup if your site goes down. If your site includes regularly visited forums, backing up your data should be done daily, so the latest posts won’t disappear if a hack occurs.

Stop Using Generic Usernames & Passwords

A hacker’s job will be much easier if your log-in username is something like “admin”, “adminstrator”, or “site owner”. Try to make your username as unique as your password. Your new password must be very hard to guess. If you can memorize the password, it’s probably not secure enough. Fill your passwords up with some non-alphanumeric characters.

Protect the Comment Section

Comment sections are a great relationship between owner and consumer, but it’s also an easy place for hackers to invade. Validate the form input before any comment is accepted to strip out most HTML tags. WordPress has a keyword filter you can tinker with to prevent any malicious code.

Update EVERYTHING

Make sure you have the most updated programs on both your hosting account and desktop. Update WordPress and Joomla to the most recent version. Flash can also cause problems on your desktop if it’s not the latest update. These programs are used by millions, so it’s no wonder many hackers try to hack it.

Always keep an eye out for the latest fixes and releases for all active scripts. Monitor the web sites of the developers whose scripts you are running. Add their sites to your RSS feed to immediately get the bug fix patches and other tweaked releases. Don’t hesitate to install these because hackers will try to exploit recently outdated scripts with confirmed security flaws.

If one person on your server gets hacked or sends out harmful spam e-mail, there’s a possibility all websites and data on the server become compromised. Consider upgrading to your own secure dedicated server to prevent this potential disaster from happening again.

HostDime is one of the top 50 web hosts in the world. Check out HostDime’s product line and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Jared S. is HostDime’s Technology Writer. Follow him on Google+ and Twitter.

The post The Ultimate Guide to Fixing and Recovering Your Hacked Website appeared first on HostDime Blog.

It’s time to add some more value to your hosting or web-design business with HostDime’s domain reseller account. Thanks to a partnership with powerful domain registrar OpenSRS.com, HostDime offers you an easy and affordable domain reselling solution.

Right now it is FREE for HostDime users to sign up for your domain reseller account. An OpenSRS.com domain reseller account allows you to register domains for your customers and give them their own control panel for the domain. Cut out the middle man and start directly selling domains to your clients.

Regardless of your specific needs, there are no additional costs, annual fees, or tiers of service. Each account includes access to the control panel and access to the full OpenSRS API. The comprehensive API allows you to build complete integration with many hosting control panels such as ModernBill, WHM Autopilot, ClientExec, AWBS, and more. Plugins are also avaliable for Parallels, WHMCS, and others.

There’s over 20 domains to choose from, ranging from $11.50 to $39.95 for registration, renewal, or transfer. Fill out this domain reseller request form to get started.

The post Cut Out the Middle Man by Selling Domains Directly to Your Clients appeared first on HostDime Blog.

When considering a host’s VPS offerings, basic specs like RAM and Disk Space must be compared. But there’s another factor that many people do not take into consideration and often overlooked, and that is “which type of virtualization the host utilizes to serve and control the VPS?” In the commercial hosting world, there are a few virtualization options which are far more common than others: OpenVZ and Xen. Let’s examine the OpenVZ and Xen differences as you consider which platform to resell VPS accounts to your clients.

One of the most meaningful differences between OpenVZ and Xen is that OpenVZ can only host Linux operating systems, while Xen can host both Linux and Windows operating systems. OpenVZ is an operating system level hyper-visor which uses a shared kernel providing a thin layer of virtualization on top of the actual OS. Since the kernel is shared among all of VPS accounts hosted on the node, the kernel is non-customizable. All VPS accounts have “guaranteed” RAM allocated to them by their host based on what package you need.

Some hosts offer “burstable” RAM which can be allocated if the node is being underutilized at any given time. Although “burstable” RAM sounds nice, it is only available when the server has those resources to spare. CPU, similar to RAM, is shared “equally” among the VPS accounts on the node giving way to a higher chance of CPU abuse by a single VPS account on the node. Because of the loose nature of the resources on OpenVZ providing “guaranteed” and “burstable” RAM as well as “equal share CPU”, overselling is an option with OpenVZ. Overselling is the process of over committing resources to client accounts in hopes that not every account actually consumes those resources. Since OpenVZ hosts are often oversold, or at least partially, OpenVZ accounts are often more affordable than Xen-based accounts. With OpenVZ, since it is not “true virtualization”, RAM and Disk are very easily expandable and require no downtime for RAM / Disk changes to take effect.

The other common virtual platform being compared is Xen. Xen is a true virtualization platform which completely isolates each individual VPS account to their own disk LV (Logical Volume). Since each individual VPS account is on it’s own disk “partition”, each account has a dedicated kernel and completely separate and isolated Kernel modules. Having separate and isolated kernel modules provides for a much more isolated, customizable, and dedicated solution. Xen also has the ability to schedule CPU resources and provides dedicated and virtualized memory. This means that Xen is not affected by the same “shared” CPU issues as OpenVZ accounts since it can physically allocate dedicated CPU resources to your account. The same goes for memory; you do not have the “dedicated, when available” issues as you do with OpenVZ. You have a strict guarantee of the resources received from the system and nothing less. Dedicated virtual memory also provides the ability to enable swap. Due to the enhanced level of isolation, opportunity for customization, and dedicated resources, Xen is normally a slightly more costly but more reliable solution.

If you are looking to cheaply resell semi-shared environments to your clients (if your clients want an affordable solution which includes root-level access), OpenVZ may be a great solution for you since you can oversell the resources allocated and provide an affordable and profit-generating solution. If you are not looking to resell services and / or looking for the most isolated and reliable virtual solution, Xen would be your best bet.

VPS are ideal for a single or few sites. If you are a reseller looking to upgrade from a shared server, a small dedicated server will benefit you more than a VPS. VPS are for users who need a different version of PHP or mySQL or some third party plug-in that can not be installed on a shared server.

There are 3 bottleneck issues to a VPS that HostDime techs see frequently:

The first concern is CPU. With OpenVZ, you do not get a full CPU core, while you do with Xen.

Another bottleneck issue is your numproc limit, which is the number of processes you can run. When you hit the package limit, the VPS can not perform another process, which disallows all other required processes.

Burstable RAM and memory is the last limit to keep an eye on. The VPS stops its processes again if the package and node’s amount is exceeded.

• Provides account with Full Root Access
• Provides ability to offer “guaranteed” and “burst” RAM
• Upgrades to RAM and Disk are extremely easy and can be done without reboot
• Simple to use and more user friendly due to lightweight virtualization platform
• Inexpensive solution
• OS-level virtualization
• Shared CPU
• No dedicated Kernel
• Linux operating systems only

XEN:

• Provides accounts with Full Root Access
• Provides totally dedicated RAM resources
• Supports Swap space
• Provides totally dedicated CPU resources
• Provides fully independent Logical Disk Volume
• Provides fully independent Kernel install and related modules
• High level of customization
• Supports Linux as well as Windows operating systems
• Upgrades require reboot
• Disk upgrade extremely difficult (you must expand your LV then re-size your FS)
• May lead to data loss if done incorrectly
• To circumnavigate this, it is common to simply add another LV to your VPS (another disk slice)

Check out HostDime Resources, a treasure trove of hosting information, tutorials, FAQs, How To’s, and software manuals. Follow HostDime on Facebook and Twitter.

This article was written by Dennis F, HostDime Support Technician and edited by Jared S, Technology Writer.

The post OpenVZ or XEN: Learn Which VPS Software You Need appeared first on HostDime Blog.

Since June 2010, I have read a grand total of 95,155 news items in my personalized Google Reader. Over 100 informative sites can be combed through in a half hour thanks to Google’s feed reader. The service acted as many people’s digital newspaper, but apparently not enough people. Google is removing everyone’s feeds on July 1, 2013 due to “declined usage”. That seems hard to believe as a Change.org petition already has over 100,000 supporters in three days.

Google hasn’t fully committed to their new “We’re Now Evil” motto yet, as they provide a three month sunset period to export your information to an alternative feed. If you want to keep your Reader data and subscriptions, use Google Takeout.

While Google Reader was the best RSS service, rumors of RSS demise has been greatly exaggerated. You have four months to find a good alternative to Reader. Here’s the 15 best RSS feed readers, and you can expect plenty more to pop up to help fill the void.

The Best Google Reader Cloud-Based Alternatives

Feedly

Feedly may have the most to gain with Reader’s passing, as it’s one of the most popular cloud-based RSS feeds. They just upgraded their bandwidth and added new servers to account for the new influx of users. Feedly has been working on a Google Reader API clone called Normandy. When July 1st rolls around, Feedly will “seamlessly transition” to Normandy’s back end.

Feedly is available for iOS, Android, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.

Flipboard

Flipboard has arguably the most beautiful interface for any RSS feed. Available for iPad, iPhone, and Android (no web or desktop version), this app looks like a social magazine, where you can view the latest news and your social media news feeds all in one location.

The Old Reader

The Old Reader bills itself as “the old Google Reader, only better”. They are currently in beta mode, constantly working on new features and improving the old ones. Take a test drive to see how it stacks up to Google Reader.

NewsBlur

NewsBlur is a responsive news reader for the web, iOS, and Android. You can even read the content in “original site” mode to see it in context. The free version is limited to 64 feeds, so if you subscribe to more than that, pay the $1 a month to feed the developers dog Shiloh and unlock an unlimited number of sites.

Pulse

Pulse is another RSS feed with a beautiful user interface. This is available free for iOS, android, and the web. Pulse is quite popular right now, with over 20 million users, and an additional million new users each month. Just this week, LinkedIn acquired Pulse in a deal rumored to be between 50 and 100 million dollars.

Digg
Digg is the popular social news website that lets you vote up or down on new web content. They are throwing their hat into the RSS ring and announcing their own Google Reader replacement, complete with an API that mirrors Google’s own. Digg says they want to take the best of Reader’s features, and copy and modernize them. Sign up now to get Digg’s new RSS feed first.

Reddit
Another incredibly popular social news voting site is Reddit, which boasts literally billions of monthly views. Reddit has subreddits (like reddit.com/r/webhosting) for pretty much any topic and subject you can think of. Did you know you can take any subreddit and make it an RSS feed? Simply add .rss at the end of the URL (reddit.com/r/webhosting/.rss) and Voilà!

RSSOwl – Windows, Linux, and OS

RSSOwl desktop client does not discriminate, appearing on all operating systems, and can even be formatted into a browser plug-in. The program is available in over 10 languages, and has Google Reader synchronicity built-in. RSSOwl has too many features to list, head over to their site to check out the rest.

RSS Bandit – Windows

RSS Bandit is another way to view your favorite sites without a browser. An intriguing aspect of RSS Bandit is you can get a podcast feed and download podcasts straight from your desktop, to your desktop. Speaking of podcasts, check out our recent list of the 15 best technology podcasts for 2013.

Fuzzy Duck Reader – Windows

Fuzzy Duck Reader is a fast and small reader designed to lay on your desktop. Simplicity is the name of the game as this reader gives you just the latest headlines from the feeds you subscribed to. Click the headline and it opens your browser. No bells and whistles, so this is ideal for minimalists.

FeedDemon – Windows

There’s good news and bad news with FeedDemon. Good news: FeedDemon is the most popular RSS reader for Windows users. Bad news: FeedDemon is ceasing their services soon because they rely exclusively on Google Reader. Bummer.

Vienna – Mac

Vienna is a free OS client that is open source, so tinker and improve on it if you’d like. The tabs are beautiful, and there’s blogging and emailing capabilities built right into this RSS feed.

NetNewsWire – Mac

NetNewsWire is another desktop client that syncs with Google Reader. You can also grab the app for your iPad and iPhone. You can integrate many platforms into NetNewsWire like Twitter, Instapaper, VoodooPad and more.

News Life – Mac

News Life handles your RSS and Atom feeds and keeps them up-to-date. You can choose from 11 selectable color themes filled with hi-res icons. Get notified when new content is published, track what you’ve already read, and share stories with friends all inside the News Life client. There’s also a Photo Mode for Flickr fans who have RSS feeds.

Liferea – Linux

Liferea is a free and open source Linux desktop client with full Google Reader and TinyTinyRSS sync. Grab the 1.10 release, which dropped last month, enabling offline reading of any website.

HostDime just scratched the surface of RSS Feeds. What is your favorite way to get news?

HostDime.com specializes in reseller, VPS, and dedicated servers. Check our product line now. Follow HostDime on Facebook and Twitter.

Jared S. is a former Google Reader addict. Add him on Twitter.

The post The 15 Best RSS Alternatives to Google Reader appeared first on HostDime Blog.

Tired of listening to the fluorescent light above your head hum all day? Need something to listen to while on the treadmill? Sick of car radio? Podcasts are the perfect solution to these problems. If you are good at multitasking, you can accomplish simple tasks while learning at the same time. HostDime has compiled a mega list of 15 consistently updated technology podcasts that you should be listening to right now.

1. WebmasterRadio.FM

WebmasterRadio.FM is our current podcast addiction, producing a few dozen podcasts a week. 24 hours, 7 days a week of new content aimed at affiliate and Internet marketers, SEO pros (and novices), and content creators. You could come up with a top 15 podcasts from this broadcasting network alone. Some of my recent favorites include SEO 101, Marketing Nirvana, and Search Kingdom. Check out the weekly lineup.

Pro Tip: If you are using a smartphone, you can listen to podcasts at 2x speed. The voices are understandable, and you can get through them much faster.

2. The TwiT.tv Netcast Network with Leo Laporte

The TwiT.tv Network is another wonderful network of over 25 tech related podcasts, headed by Emmy Award winning technology broadcaster Leo Laporte. Laporte’s “This Week in Tech” is regarded as the number 1 ranked technology podcast. A full staff produces over 30 hours of intriguing content a week. Peek their full list of shows.

3. The Verge Podcasts

Most podcasts on this list are fairly straightforward facts and opinions about the technology world. This is not the case with The Verge podcasts. The Vergecast (and the spinoff Mobile Show about, you guessed it, mobile phones) are light and humorous in tone, often going wildly off topic into pop culture avenues.

4. NPR Technology

You can’t go wrong with some National Public Radio. The NPR Technology podcast is a host-less collection of tech related extracts from other various NPR shows. It’s easy listening entertainment even for those who aren’t obsessed with tech culture.

5. The JavaScript Show

Peter Cooper and Jason Seifer host The JavaScript Show, which covers the latest in frameworks, development techniques, quick scripts, and many more topics in the JavaScript community. Extensive show notes are provided with each episode, which is awesome if you want to jump ahead to a topic you are more interested in.

6. TEDTalks Technology

Many of the world’s leading inventors and researchers share their breakthroughs and visions onstage at the TED conference in these TEDTalks Technology sessions. Each and every one of these talks has the potential to blow your brain wide open and look at things completely differently. Itunes has the 80 most recent episodes, while TED.com has over 400.

7. Adsense Flippers Podcast

Justin Cooke and Joe Magnotti took their internet business from $30 a month in December 2010 to over $40,000 in January 2012. The information on how they did this is laid out for you for free in their 40 Adsense Flippers podcasts. The guys are gifted teachers and speakers, so you’ll learn a lot more about online marketing quickly.

8. Wired Podcast

From the creators of Wired Magazine comes the Wired Podcast, which covers tech headlines, how-to, business, and culture. Wired covers it all; The last episode featured the new Tomb Raider game, Samsung’s eyeball smartphone rumor, the first child cured by HIV, and a tangent about camels.

9. CBC Radio: Spark with Nora Young

Technology used to exist outside our daily lives. Now it is part of everything we do, our work, our schools, our downtime, and how we connect with others. Weekly podcast Spark with Nora Young features rock star guests that examine this dynamic era of technology led change.

10. WordPress Plugins from A to Z

There are thousands of WordPress plugins, which makes it impossible to keep up with. Well, almost impossible, as helpful weekly podcast WordPress Plugins from A to Z helps out immensely. You’ll hear about features you didn’t even think you’d need for your website. The audio is kind of rough in the early podcasts, but they have stepped their game up as of late.

11. Your Website Engineer
Dustin Hartzler’s Your Website Engineer podcast, with over 100 episodes already, will help you create and maintain a high quality website without having to hire a web guru. The show gets released every Wednesday, with one main helpful topic to implement on your site. If you are new to WordPress, check out the first six episodes so you have the necessary background.

12. Nitch

Nitch, hosted by Jonathan Stark and Kelli Shaver, is a weekly podcast about creating apps using open web standards like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, REST, and JSON.

13. The Guardian’s Tech Weekly

The Guardian’s Tech Weekly with Aleks Krotoski provides a good roundup of knowledge concerning the ever changing future of technology. Their aren’t too many tech podcasts hosted by women, so this is a refreshing breath of fresh air. Some information is specific to the United Kingdom for our UK friends.

14. Tech Talker

Tech Talker is Eric Escobar’s podcast for Quick and Dirty Tips. You can have it both ways with Tech Talker, by either listening to the podcast or reading the helpful transcript that comes along with it. If you are in a hurry, you can read the brief “quick and dirty tips” that sum up the whole episode.

15. The Big Web Show

The award winning Big Web Show, created by 5by5 and hosted by Jeffrey Zeldman, tackles topics like web publishing, content strategy, web technology, art direction and everything else that matters on the Interwebz. 5By5 is another amazing online broadcasting network, home to The Talk Show, Back to Work, Build and Analyze, and other shows created for designers, developers, sysadmins, and various other technophiles.

There’s many more podcasts out there; which ones do you enjoy listening to?

HostDime is one of the top 50 web hosts in the world. Follow HostDime on Facebook and Twitter.

Jared S is HostDime’s Technology Writer.

The post The 15 Best Technology Podcasts for 2013 appeared first on HostDime Blog.

Do you live in or around Orlando, Florida? Is Internet Technology your thing? Come join our team!

Are you the person that is always solving computer and internet problems for your friends? Do you love helping others and creating solutions? Join our team and obtain valuable training in the field of web hosting. Gain powerful experience with web and email servers, systems administration, systems development, network connectivity, and more.

The Support Technician position is our entry-level technical support position. In this position, you will be working with fellow technicians resolving technical support issues with technology ranging from various Linux Distributions to Windows Server, from Apache to Nginx, and from PHP to MySQL, encompassing all technology required to run a web business. An ideal candidate for this position should have an open mind and a hungry appetite to learn more about the world of Web Hosting and the exciting field of Information Technology.

Click here for a full job description

HostDime’s Support Center is located near the campus of the University of Central Florida. HostDime provides dedicated servers, co-location, and web hosting solutions for a domestic and international market.

All open positions are Orlando-based and will be required to work in our office. There are no telecommuting opportunities at this time.

Send your resume to hr@hostdime.com.

The post HostDime.com in Orlando, FL is seeking local Support Technicians! appeared first on HostDime Blog.

Once again, it is contest time here at HostDime! Above is a picture of HostDime Alex and his many clones. We want you to guess how many Alex’s are in the basket. Whoever is closest (without going over) will win $40 in Amazon gift cards!

Head to HostDime’s Pinterest for a close up of the basket and a better look at the new and improved HostDime Alex. Also the Vine video embedded below might help you out as well.

Contest Rules:

1. All rules must be followed or you are ineligible.
2. Decide how many HostDime Alex’s you think are in the basket.
3. Tweet to HostDime: “Hey @hostdime I think there are (blank) HostDime Alex’s in the basket.” Fill in the blank with your guess.
4. If you don’t have a Twitter, you can post your guess on HostDime’s Facebook wall.
5. All countries are eligible for the prize!
6. One answer per Twitter Handle / Facebook Profile. If you guess more than once we will use your first guess.
7. No HostDime employees, employees of affiliated companies, former employees or their immediate families are eligible to win.
8. Contest ends Wednesday, March 20th at Noon EST.

3/20/13/UPDATE – The winner is Tanner G. with a guess of 108! There was 113 Alex’s in the basket.

HostDime is one of the top 50 web hosts in the world. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for more contests.

Jared S. is HostDime’s Content Marketer. You can find him on Google Plus and Twitter.

The post CONTEST ALERT! Guess How Many HostDime Alex’s and Win $40! appeared first on HostDime Blog.

HostDime has compiled a directory of the best blog conferences, web hosting trade shows, and other technology events relevant to our industry. If you want your event to be listed, promote and recommend it in the comments or at our Facebook and we will add it to the list.

This directory will be constantly updated so be sure to bookmark and come back often. Let us know what event you’re looking forward to and which shows we overlooked.

CIO Summit 2013 – March 17-19, 2013 – Atlanta, GA
CIO summit is a forum for innovative IT thought leaders. Attending CIOs and IT executives participate in peer-on-peer networking, while discussing the issues currently affecting CIOs from all industries.

World Hosting Days Global – March 19 to March 21, 2013 – Germany
The self proclaimed “largest and most important meeting of the international hosting industry” enters its ninth year in Germany. Over 4200 attendees from around the world gather to exchange views with some of the brightest minds in the industry.

Structure GigaOM Data – March 20 to March 21, 2013 – New York, New York
Here’s another big data conference, where discussions on storage needs and data analysis are commonplace. Hear keynote speeches from the Vice President of Goldman Sachs and the General Manager of Windows Embedded at Microsoft.

SES Conference & Expo – March 25 to March 28, 2013 – New York, New York
The SES Conference and Expo has been expertly crafted for the experienced marketing and advertising professional. Become more knowledgeable about social media, mobile marketing, SEO, demand generation, e-Commerce, content marketing, keyword research, paid search, and other topics of the dynamic digital landscape.

Social Slam – April 5th, 2013 – Knoxville, TN
Social Slam is a one day event exploring the evolution of digital media for business. For the third year in a row, listen to some of the brightest minds in social media.

Social Media Marketing World – April 7th to April 9th, 2013 – San Diego, CA
Join 1000 fellow marketers at the Social Media Marketing World mega conference, created by Social Media Examiner, the world’s leading online social media magazine for businesses. Social Media Examiner is in a unique position to recruit the best presenters and host the industry’s largest social media marketing conference.

World Wide Web Conference – May 13 to May 17, 2013 – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Travel to beautiful Rio de Janeiro for the 2013 WWW Conference. Passionate internet researchers, developers, and users discuss the direction of the world wide web and the impact of evolving technology on society and culture.

Artifact Conference – May 13 to May 15, 2013 – Austin, TX
Artifact is a two day conference for designers adapting to the challenge of designing for a multi device world. Learn about evolving code, web font designs, new responsive frameworks, and much more.

The Blog Workshop – May 17 to May 19, 2013 – ONLINE
The Blog Workshop is a 3 day ONLINE conference for bloggers and vloggers providing information that will allow them to take their blogging and video blogging ventures to the next level. The Blog Workshop will help bridge the gap between bloggers, brands, PR professionals and more. In addition to the conference, there is also scholarship and grant opportunities for bloggers and vloggers.

DrupalCon – May 20 to May 24 – Portland, Oregon
Who wants four days of open source in “Silicon Forest”? DrupalCon Portland 2013 brings together those who use, develop, design, and support the Drupal open source content management platform. DrupalCon, Symfony Live, and WebVisions have combined this year to give you three conferences for the price of one.

Windows Hosting Summit – May 21 to May 23, 2013 – Seattle, WA
The Microsoft Hosting Summit provides an unparalleled opportunity for leaders across the industry to connect and share ideas on how to expand and build new services, drive innovation, and create new business opportunities. This is an exclusive, invitation-only event so hopefully you’re a big wig.

Big Data Expo 2013 – June 10 to June 13, 2013 – New York, NY
Cloud Computing and Big Data converge in New York City for the 12th annual cloud Expo at the Javits Center. Cloud Expo is dubbed the largest cloud conference and the most important tech expo on the planet.

HostingCon – June 17 to June 19, 2013 – Austin, Texas
Learn the latest news, ideas, and technology affecting your hosting business from the brightest minds in the industry with 52 educational sessions. With over 140 exhibitors and an audience of C-level executives, this is the place to meet with your fellow peers.

Cisco Live – June 23 to June 27, 2013 – Orlando, FL
Cisco Live is heading to Orlando, home of HostDime headquarters! Cisco Live is the single largest educational and training event of the year, offering a range of content tailored to your role, responsibilities and interests. Over 17,000 IT and communications professionals attended the 2012 session.

MozCon – July 8th to July 10, 2013 – Seattle, Washington
The web’s best SEO resource community, SEO Moz, presents MozCon! This three day event featuring industry leaders diving deep into SEO, social media, analytics, content strategy, data science, and a bunch more. Get your tickets early as the last few conferences have sold out.

Haven Conference – August 1st to August 3rd, 2013 – Atlanta, GA
Haven Conference focuses on DIY instruction with a mix of blogging and social media. You will find hands-on sessions led by some of the top DIY bloggers who will share their knowledge on subjects such as painting furniture and using power tools.

cPanel – Sept. 30 to Oct. 2, 2013 – New Orleans, Louisiana
The annual cPanel convention provides up-to-the-second information, training, and application for users of cPanel and WHM Automation software.cPanel owns the single largest footprint in the hosting business, with roughly 20 percent of the worlds websites running on a cPanel-equipped server. The growth this event has seen the last few years highlights how important this show is to our industry.

ResellerClub Hosting Summit – Likely Fall 2013
ResellerClub Hosting Summit will likely take place in India again this year. The 2012 conference was officially the largest web hosting conference Asia has ever seen, with 4150 registrations. 2013 may very well top that.

WHIR Events
Web Hosting Industry Review (WHIR) has 13 events planned for 2013 all around the globe. This is your chance to do personal business and networking with industry leaders and decision makers in a relaxed environment. RSVP is free and you can bring a guest along. Find which event is closest to you:

January 24 – Dallas, TX
March 14 – Chicago, IL
April 18 – Phoenix, AZ
May 16 – Toronto, Canada
May 21 – Amsterdam, Netherlands
May 23 – Frankfurt, Germany
May 28 – Brussels, BE
May 30 – London, UK
July 18 – Denver, CO
August 22 – Washington, DC
October 24 – Los Angeles, CA
November 14 – Houston, TX

WordCamp Conferences
Wordcamp is a casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress, the free and open source publishing software that powers over 25 million websites.

Upcoming Events:
Atlanta – March 15-16
Copenhagen – March 16-17
San Diego – March 23-24
Miami – April 6-7
Seoul – April 20

Jared S. is HostDime’s technology writer. Add him on Google+ and Twitter.

Follow HostDime on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest.

The post 2013 Blog Conferences & Web Hosting Events Directory appeared first on HostDime Blog.

HostDime is committed to providing the global community the most powerful managed hosting services in the industry today. To do that, we need a little help from our friends. The following organizations help us achieve our mission to provide innovative, cost-effective, and powerful hosting services internationally.

Usman A. is HostDime’s Director of Business Development. Here’s his thoughts on HostDime’s critical partnerships:

“Partnerships are very important in the way that they potentially offer a company more revenue streams if both organizations are able to work together very well. We have quite a few partners, and we have maintained our relationships with them to offer services to our clients that we are not able to do ourselves such as control panels, domain registration, SSL certificates, and bandwidth providers just to name a few.

“As a datacenter, we rely on our hardware/software partners, along with bandwidth providers to keep our business going. Without any of these partnerships, it would be hard to succeed at any level. With other 3rd party products such as domain registration or SSL certificates, these are all products that our clients look for and have created additional revenue for us while making us the “one-stop shop” that our clients have come to appreciate.

“Customers value a company that is able to offer them anything for their needs, and this is where as a hosting company, we rely on our partnerships to make this happen. Our business would not be where it is if it was not for any of the strong partnerships we have initiated and maintained over the last decade.”

cPanel

cPanel is the industry leading web host control panel. HostDime is an authorized license distributor, providing instant cPanel licenses to our clients. Most control panels offer relatively the same options and tools, while cPanel allows you to manage every aspect of your hosting account as well as a full server.

HostDime is currently offering huge discounts on instant cPanel licenses until the end of March!

Parallels

As a Parallels Gold Partner, HostDime provides customers leading virtualization and automation software such as Virtuozzo and the Parallels® Plesk control panel. Parallels Plesk Sitebuilder is an easy to use, scalable web application designed to create and manage websites, as well as the ideal marketing tool for converting your site traffic into a new client base.

OpenSRS

By partnering with OpenSRS, HostDime can provide cost effective domain names and services. Sign up now for our domain reseller package. Cut out the middle man and sell your clients domains yourself.

eNom

Thanks to the partnership with eNom, HostDime customers receive robust domain registration accounts and services. Register a domain now or transfer your existing domain from another domain registrar.

Comodo

Protect your site and gain visitor trust with HostDime’s cost effective fully validated Comodo SSL Certificates. Grab an essential SSL for 30$ annually.

CentOS

CentOS is an Enterprise-class Linux Distribution derived from sources freely provided to the public by a prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor. CentOS conforms fully with the upstream vendor’s redistribution policy and aims to be 100% binary compatible.

Microsoft

HostDime partners with Microsoft to provide Windows Server hosting solutions to our clients. Have a look at HostDime’s powerful and redundant Windows VPS plans.

e-onlinedata

HostDime, through e-onlinedata, is proud to offer access to the highest quality Credit Card Processing and Payment solutions. Featuring instant establishment of your Merchant ID Number, your live Visa/MasterCard Merchant ID is issued to you immediately. Get started now.

Cashie Commerce

Cashie Commerce, integrated with Paypal, includes endless customization to give your site a professional and secure shopping experience. Sell unlimited physical goods, downloadable products, and services effortlessly after a few minutes of set-up. Read more about our partnership here.

MightyCall

HostDime has partnered with MightyCall (formerly Infratel) to offer a professional phone presence for entrepreneurs and small business owners alike. Get a dedicated business phone number, connect your team using their existing phones, have a 24/7/365 automated receptionist, and increase web conversions with “Click to Call” for your website. Read more about our partnership here.

WHMXtra

WHMxtra is a unique add-on module for cPanel servers, designed to turbo charge your WHM, adding many features you could normally do only via command line or not at all. Install firewalls, DDOS protection, and many more tasks designed to save you time and money.

Level 3

HostDime obtains connectivity from Level3, one of the largest IP networks operating in North America and Europe. Level 3 is one of only 6 Tier 1 Internet providers in the world, constantly ranked as one of the most connected ISPs.

FPL FiberNet

HostDime partners with FPL FiberNet for lightning fast transport and high bandwidth services. FPL delivers telecommunication services on its independently owned and operated fiber-optic network throughout Florida and Texas with additional long haul connectivity throughout the United States.

Savvis

HostDime is proud to be partnered with Savvis, a premier managed hosting and colocation provider with truly global scale positioned for leadership in meeting dynamic customer demand for cloud services.

Inteliquent

Inteliquent (formerly Tinet and Tiscali) is the only global carrier exclusively committed to the IP and Ethernet wholesale market, providing a range of voice, data, and Ethernet services to customers in more than 80 countries.

APC

APC provides leading power and infrastructure solutions that HostDime utilizes in our 20,000 square foot DimeNOC datacenter.

RioRey

RioRey, the DDOS Specialist, are experts in the design and manufacture of internet security solutions that protect HostDime against Denial of Service and Distributed Denial of Service attacks.

Brocade

Brocade is the industry leader in providing network solutions that help the world’s leading organizations like HostDime transition smoothly to a virtualized world where applications and information reside anywhere. Brocade facilitates strategic business objectives such as consolidation, network convergence, virtualization, and cloud computing.

Cisco

Our network is 100% powered by Cisco routers and switches. The network utilizes star topology consisting of two Cisco Catalyst 6500 core routers with distribution handled by Cisco 3750 and access by 2950 switches. This results in a load balanced network with no single point of failure.

Supermicro

HostDime’s latest line of Supermicro dedicated servers come with IMPI so you’re able to manage your server remotely. Supermicro designs, develops, manufactures, and sells energy efficient, application optimized server solutions based on the x86 architecture. Supermicro combines more than 18 years of advanced engineering experience with efficient production and integration expertise to develop first-to-market green computing solutions.

HostDime is one of the top 50 web hosts in the world. Follow HostDime on Facebook and Twitter.

Jared S. is HostDime’s Content Marketer. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

The post Meet the HostDime Partners! appeared first on HostDime Blog.

Google Plus is still the new kid on the social media block. With 500 million users registered as of January 2013, most users still treat + as the red headed step child. This may be due to slow adoption and a tricky interface. Here are some useful tips, tricks, hacks, extensions, and apps for novices and experts alike to enhance your Google Plus experience and maximize the most out of your account.

Circles
If you are a Plus Pro, skip ahead to the next section while we get some basics out of the way. Your circles, descriptions of circles, and the people in the circles are not visible to anyone else but you. Choose which circles to be visible on your page by editing your profile and going into “Circles”.

+1 Tab
This is the equivalent of the Facebook “Like”. Everything you have ever +1 can be viewed and managed with the +1 tab on the top, horizontal column.

Name Link
Talk to and highlight anyone in a post by adding + or @ before their name

Profile Pics
Click on a user’s profile pic to scroll through their pictures.

Private Messages
Send a private message by removing all circles from your upcoming post. Then type the name of the person or circle you want to see the post, and make sure to disable resharing.

Add Media
You can add photos, videos, and links to your posts by dragging the links directly to the share box.

Mute Posts
Quit receiving notifications for any post buy clicking “Mute this post” in the top right corner

Edit Posts and Pictures
One of the wonderful things about Google+ posts and pictures is the endless editing. Click the “Edit” button to do this. Delete posts by clicking “Delete this Post” in the top-right corner; delete any comment by clicking the “X”.

Disable Comments
You can disable comments or reshare for posts written by you. Click on the triangle in the right corner of the post and select “Disable Comments” or “Disable Reshare”.

See How Others View Your Profile
Input any user’s name, select “Edit Profile”, and make the alterations to your profile for only that specific person.

Bold: *word*
Italics: _word _
Strikethrough: -word-
Scroll down: space
Scroll up: shift + space
Scroll down one post: J
Scroll up one post: K
Start a comment: enter/return
End a comment: tab + enter/return

Surplus for Google+
Get real time Google Plus notifications of updates and messages with the Surplus extension. You can reply from within the Surplus extension and create new posts without leaving the website you are currently on.

Plus Minus for Google+
Have you seen your circle number decrease? Install Plus Minus to see who unfollows or removes you from their Google Plus circle. A pop up automatically appears on your browser whenever someone cuts the cord with you.

Golden View for Google+
Let’s be honest, some people can be annoying on social media. This notification mutes all posts for specific users. These users won’t be notified. Hooray!

Circloscope (Inactives+) for Google Plus
There’s a limit of 5,000 for the total number of profiles that can be included across all your circles. This includes +pages. There’s also an unknown daily limit to prevent spammers. If either of these penalties happen to you, there’s a sweet app called Circloscope that lets you clean out inactive Google Plus users. Set a “No Posts Since” date to remove people who aren’t posting.

Share for Google+
This nifty extension lets you share content to Twitter, Facebook and / or LinkedIn when posting a status or media on Google Plus.

Google Plus App (Free)
The official Google Plus App just got a brand new update and it’s impressive in speed and beauty. Share your life as it happens with Google+ for iPhone, iPad, and Android. Join a Hangout, post a photo, or see what friends are sharing while you’re on the go.

iStatus Plus (.99)
Post to Google+, Facebook, and Twitter at the same time thanks to iStatus Plus. Choose which circles to share with when posting to Google +. Toggle services with just one click.

Move2Plus for Facebook and Google Plus ($1.99)
Move2Plus is a sweet and simple app that copies over all of your Facebook albums, photos, and captions to your Google Plus account. This is done without losing album structure or creating any duplicates. None of your Facebook or Google+ albums or photos will be edited or deleted.

Dating for Google Plus (.99)
Ever get catfished or fooled by online dating? First of all, I’m so sorry, and secondly, this dating networking app allows users to connect to Google Plus in order to verify that you are a real person. This app is strictly used for confidence in knowing who you are talking to his (maybe) real.

“Hangouts” are video calls perfect for a live presentation, small business meeting or get together with friends. Simply click “Start a Hangout”, send out the invitations, confirm your settings, then “Hang Out”.

You can invite up to ten people; adding people once the hangout has started is allowed.

One amazing thing about “Hangouts” is interacting with people speaking different languages. Translate their talk with Google’s “Listen” feature.

Every hour in a Google Hangout you spend 720MB of bandwidth, so keep an eye out on your bandwidth consumption.

“Hangouts” are not available for mobile yet.

Hashtags aren’t for Twitter or Instagram any more! Hashtags for Google Plus are a great way to get noticed in Google Plus’ Search. Google Plus is a giant search engine, so hashtags are extremely helpful for searching whatever you’d like.

Add a # before any word you want to be searched for. You can literally hashtag any word you’d like. This works on both posts and now comments.

You can search for hashtags by your friends only by filtering Google Plus search using Hashtags and Circles. Search for your hashtags only by filtering the search results by choosing the “From You” option.

Vanity Google Plus URL (Sorta)
To have a better vanity URL, check out http://GPlus.to. HostDime’s URL went from the nonsensical https://plus.google.com/102937091588156594835/ to the more useful http://gplus.to/hostdime

Import Instagram Pictures
If you want to move your Instagram pictures over to Google Plus, use Instagram archive website Instaport.

Import Facebook Pictures
Move your Facebook pictures to Google Plus with web application Picasa.

Facebook Stream Inside Google Plus
Thanks to “Social Anywhere”, connect your Facebook stream to your Google Plus and never leave Google again. UPDATE: Seems like Social Anywhere does not work anymore.

Google Plus to RSS
Is Google Plus blocked at work? Use this clever work-around that turns your Google Plus into an RSS feed.

Bookmark Circle
Here’s a fun little way to keep track of your bookmarks. Create a new circle and name it “Bookmarks” or whatever you want. Don’t add anyone in it. Any links you want to save, share them with this circle.

Topsy for Google+
Interested in seeing what people are saying about you or your brand on Google Plus? Check out Topsy’s Google Plus Beta Search. Topsy provides instant search results and analytics for Google Plus and Twitter as well. Topsy is also great for checking out what’s currently trending on Google Plus.

Turn Google Plus Chat into HD Chat
The Google Plus video chat uses standard definition. You shouldn’t have to stand for that in 2013. Enable High Definition if your webcam is built for it. Click the triangle next to the chat and choose “Enable High Resolution Video” in the settings.

Now that you are a Google Plus pro, add HostDime on Google Plus.

Jared S. is HostDime’s Technology Writer. Follow him on Google Plus as well.

The post 30 Tricks, Apps, and Extensions for Google Plus You Don’t Know About appeared first on HostDime Blog.