One World Hosting

Migration!

admin — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:33:41 +0000

OK, it’s been a while; with everything going on, we’ve not had much time to get to our blog. Now that the dust has settled, we can again use it as a client update tool, and a general communication outlet. Today’s quick story is that we have migrated our servers and services from an aging Baltimore data center to a state of the art facility in Massachusetts. The new facility will give us the flexibility to make all sorts of needed improvements in capacity, speed, security, and new features.

The move itself was longer than expected, and complicated by a number of factors not foreseen before the process began. We’ll provide more details in the coming days and weeks, but we are over the hump now, and making great progress toward what we continue to firmly believe is a bright new future. Our customers have been sometimes frustrated with this process, and certainly concerned, but on the whole very supportive of us and our terrific technical staff as we work through the remaining details.

Stay tuned for more!
One World Hosting

Network Maintenance Scheduled for Wednesday, May 23, 2007

admin — Mon, 21 May 2007 19:25:11 +0000

As part of our on-going effort to provide our clients with the highest quality of service available, we will be performing maintenance on our network devices on Wednesday, May 23, 2007 between 12:00am and 4:00am EST. Some customers may experience degraded network performance (resulting in a slow connection), and at times, the network may not be accessible.

Confronting Content Theft

admin — Thu, 03 May 2007 00:27:09 +0000

Content theft is a problem many web sites owners will face at some point. Legal action, although tempting, is often the least effective and most costly response. There are better ways to handle the problem. First off, let us know - there may be simple changes in your code or site configuration that we can recommend that might minimize the problem. For more information on the topic, these three articles from the excellent Lorelle on WordPress blog are a great overview of the issues and best responses:

“What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content”
http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/04/10/
what-do-you-do-when-someone-steals-your-content/

“Finding Stolen Content and Copyright Infringements”
http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/04/11/
finding-stolen-content-and-copyright-infringements/

“The Growing Trends in Content Theft: Image Theft, Feed Scraping, and Website Hijacking”
http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/04/11/
the-growing-trends-in-content-theft/

Transparency Tyranny

admin — Tue, 01 May 2007 19:26:35 +0000

Trendwatching.com, always a reliable source for business and consumer trends and just great ideas from around the globe has a terrific piece this time around on the concept of “transparency” with respect to consumer purchase decisions. In their words,

“Old economy fog is clearing: no longer can incompetence, below-par performance, ignored global standards, anti-social & anti-eco behavior, or opaque pricing be obscured. In its place has come a transparent, fully informed marketplace, where producers have no excuse left to underperform. TRANSPARENCY TYRANNY for some, TRANSPARENCY TRIUMPH for others.”

Trendwatching: “TRANSPARENCY TYRANNY”
http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/transparency.htm

If your web site has customers and you expect to improve your interaction with them in the coming years, transparency will be a key factor in a number of areas. Take product/service reviews; if you’re not managing those now, then someone else is:

“Positive reviews will pop up more plentifully when you a) perform better, and b) give satisfied customers the tools to share their experiences. Either on your own site, or through syndication with third party review sites (like some independent hotels have started doing with TripAdvisor). If consumers are going to post about their experiences anyway, there’s definitely merit in presenting these reviews (all of them!) on your own site. At least this will give you a chance to immediately react, displaying your reaction (and how you solved an issue) for all to see. “

Network router maintenance April 25, 2007

admin — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 20:03:00 +0000

April 25, 2007: One World Hosting will perform preventative maintenance on the data center BGP routing systems during a scheduled maintenance window beginning at 12:00 am EDT and ending at 2:00 am EDT on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. During the maintenance window, we do not anticipate experiencing power outages or network downtime.

Earth Day special - CFL

admin — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 14:24:30 +0000

We rarely write about topics with no connection to web hosting or development, but this one is just a no-brainer; CFLs or compact fluorescent light bulbs save money, save energy, reduce fuel imports, and last many times longer than conventional bulbs. There’s just no reason not to make your next bulb a CFL, but if you feel uncertain about the choices, here’s a good review of some popular products:

Popular Mechanics: “The Best Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs: PM Lab Test”
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/home_improvement/4215199.html

If the cost (slightly higher than incandescent bulbs) is a concern, how does FREE sound? Home Depot is starting a new program to identify and promote products with “less of an impact on the environment than competing products.”

Home Depot Eco Options
http://www6.homedepot.com/ecooptions/index.html

“As part of its Eco Options launch, the company will give away 1 million CFL bulbs at its stores on Earth Day, April 22. Home Depot sold more than 50 million CFL bulbs in 2006.”

UPS Maintenance - April 20

admin — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 19:12:43 +0000

One World Hosting will perform preventative maintenance on the data center’s Universal Power Supply (UPS) systems during a scheduled maintenance window beginning at 12:00 am EDT and ending at 6:00 am EDT on Friday, April 20th, 2007.

During the maintenance window, we do not anticipate experiencing power outages or network downtime. A staff of system and facility technicians will be on-hand to oversee the maintenance and to ensure that your servers are operating at a healthy level during this time.

Apache and PHP upgrades - April 23

admin — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 19:09:44 +0000

On Monday, April 23, 2007, a maintenance window will be scheduled from 12:00 am to 6:00 am EDT for us to upgrade Apache and PHP on our servers.

NOTE! Please be aware that during the maintenance window, you may experience several minutes of downtime due to the restarting of Apache during the rollout. The new versions for Apache and PHP are:

Apache: 1.3.35
PHP: 4.4.4

The links below are the Release Notes and the Change Logs for the Apache and PHP upgrades:

Apache Change Log Version 1.3.35:
http://www.apache.org/dist/httpd/CHANGES_1.3
PHP Release Announcement Version 4.4.4:
http://us.php.net/releases/4_4_4.php
PHP Change Log Version 4.4.4:
http://us2.php.net/ChangeLog-4.php#4.4.4

NOTE! The PHP upgrade is backwards compatible. However, please be advised that these upgrades could potentially affect any custom scripts or applications you may have implemented. Therefore, we suggest that after the rollout, you test the functionality of any custom scripts and/or applications.

When the walls come tumbling down

admin — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 19:36:15 +0000

There are few things more frustrating than a crashed computer. Few of us ever backup as often as we should, and even the most casual computer user quickly discovers that some pretty desirable piece of information is suddenly inaccessible when the lights don’t come on. Whether you’ve got a very expensive paperweight on your hands, or just a lost password (product key, access code, etc.), there are solutions you can try before you through your fate to the computer repair shop guys.

Here’s a good place to start; the LifeHacker Top 10: Free Computer System Recovery Tools
http://www.lifehacker.com/software/lifehacker-top-10/
lh-top-10–free-computer-system-recovery-tools-251903.php

Check out the article comments too; LifeHacker readers are a smart bunch, and there are some good suggestions.

You’re never too secure

admin — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 20:00:43 +0000

If you want to use web pages that are capable of passing information to and from your users in a secure fashion, then you need a secure certificate. This enables you to utilize the security of up to 128-bit encryption designed to prevent anyone from intercepting the information passed to and from your website when accessed using https in the link URL.

One World Hosting offers GeoTrust secure certificates for your security needs, and purchasing/installing is a quick and easy process. GeoTrust “certs” are far less expensive than Verisign’s version, yet the encryption is indentical. Save even more with 2 or 3 year purchases!

GeoTrust Secure Certificates
http://oneworldhosting.com/support/control02_26.html