HostNine Review – HostNine Coupon

If you’re hosting your website on a Linux server (most hosting companies) you’ll receive a web-based control panel called CPanel. This allows you to manage your website using a graphical interface. This enables you to create e-mail accounts, FTP your files, install scripts, blogs and view your website statistics.

Let’s look at the most important features of CPanel in greater detail

1. Site statistics

CPanel provides AWstats to monitor your website’s performance. This software displays the number of visits and hits your site receives on a daily, weekly and yearly basis. AWstats shows you where your traffic is coming from e.g. countries, external links, browsers and search engines. It also tracks the keywords people are entering into the search engines to find your web pages. Monitoring your site statistics helps you to observe which traffic strategies attract the most visitors.

2. E-mail management

Your hosting control panel enables you to create and manage e-mail accounts. Here are some of the features associated with e-mail management:

• Spam assassin: install software to filter out spam e-mails from e-mail accounts
• Webmail manager: enables access to your e-mail accounts from a web-based control panel
• Auto responders: enables automatic messages to be sent back to the sender
• E-mail forwarders: enables a copy of all the e-mail from one e-mail account to be sent to another
• E-mail domain forwarders: allows forwarding of e-mail from one domain to another
• Create and manage email accounts associated with your domain name

3. File management

This allows you to create backups and transfer website files to the server using FTP (file transfer protocol).

• File backups: use the backup Wizard to download your entire website (files, databases, e-mail accounts) to a zipped file on your computer. It enables you to restore your files with one click.
• File manager: use this feature FTP or File Transfer Protocol) to transfer the website files on your computer to the server. Make sure all your files are uploaded to the public.html folder on the server. This occurs live within your browser so your uploaded files will appear immediately on the web.

4. Install MySQL databases

• Databases: these are needed for the installation of software such as WordPress, Joomla, scripts, etc.
• phpMyAdmin: this is a great tool for managing your databases, tables, fields, relations, indexes, users, permissions and so on).

5. Software installation

• Fantastico: enables easy installation of software that includes: blogs, forums, content management systems (CMS), e-commerce shopping carts, image galleries, mailing lists, polls, surveys, site builders and scripts. Your specific Web hosting plan may not have all these features enabled so check with your web host before utilizing them.

6. Domain management

• Parked domains: this is where you park one domain on top of another. For example if you register 2 domains for the same business you can direct both to the same web address by parking one on top of the other.
• Subdomains: this allows you to create another website in the subdirectory (or folder) of your current one.
• Redirects: enables you to redirect one web page to another. For example if you have a web page with a long URL you can redirect it to one that has a short, easy to remember URL.

7. Security

• Password protection: this allows you to limit access to a particular folder on your website by allocating a username and password. only those people who have the login information will be able to access that folder.

The reason that CPanel is widely used and very popular with web hosting companies is that it’s a quick and easy system for managing your website.

TorVPN is a Virtual Private Network service that allows users to hide their own IP address and encrypt their network activity. part of the Tor family of products—it’s available from the tor.hu Website—the goal is to provide a secure VPN service for users looking for a way to anonymize their activity online. Despite the name, TorVPN does not appear to be part of the official Tor Project.

Like many other VPN services such as AnchorFree’s HotSpot Shield Elite and Private WiFi from Private Communications, TorVPN is based on the open source OpenVPN software. By installing OpenVPN and signing up for TorVPN servicer, users get all of the following: OpenVPN and PPTP VPN servers to encrypt all network traffic leaving the computer, an SSH server to establish secure connection with other servers, a SOCKS proxy to use the browser to establish a VPN connection, and a Tor proxy to connect to other Tor relays. Users can also create a direct peer-to-peer connection over a VPN tunnel.

TorVPN can run on any platform that can run OpenVPN, including Mac OS X, Linux, iOS, and Android. there are several guides available on the TorVPN site for using the built-in PPTP protocol on Windows systems, but the documentation recommends OpenVPN for better compatibility and security. there are also instructions for using Tunnelblick, an OpenVPN implementation for the Mac OS X and iOS.

TorVPN FeaturesUsers connecting to the TorVPN service get a brand-new IP address to mask their original location. Anyone trying to look up the address gets the IP address and location of the service in Hungary. All the traffic passing through the tunnel is encrypted using OpenVPN.

TorVPN is available for free for up to one GB. Users who expect to use up more than one GB of network traffic need to pay for a plan with higher traffic caps. The caps are measured separately for sending and receiving data, and kick in when either one hits the quota.  The cheapest paid account is for five GB a month for three Euros ($3.95); rates can go up to 100 GB for 30 Euros ($40).

Paying customers can have up to three VPN accounts, increase their traffic quota, and have unlimited access to certain classes of websites, such as social networking and file sharing, and get a different IP address assigned. The tiers also offer unlimited access to certain types of sites. for example, paying for “Social” (three Euros) gives users on TorVPN unlimited access to Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Gmail, on top of their traffic quota. The “Data” tier provides unlimited access to file hosting providers Rapidshare and Hotfile, as well as Hungarian storage provider Data.hu.

The distinction between “Social” sites and “data” sites is a little confusing. when I am surfing the Web, I don’t track whether I’ve checked Gmail and Twitter, or if I was browsing other sites.

Unlike other VPN services, such as Hotspot Shield or PrivateWiFi, I didn’t see a way to get a quick feedback on how much traffic I’ve sent and received on the tunnel, making it harder to track my usage.

For this review, I looked at the free service, which gives me one VPN account, a traffic quota of just one GB over a month, with filters that block access to “high-risk sites” such as eBay, Paypal, and other SMTP services.

Like other VPN servers, TorVPN collects user statistics to know the amount of data being transferred (used towards determining traffic quotas) but promises no logging or monitoring. The statistics are also used to detect instances of abuse, such as if someone was flooding a server in a denial of service attack using the service.

Getting StartedI selected a username and a password on the TorVPN Website. A valid email address is required to validate the account. Once I had an account, I downloaded an OpenVPN installer (a link is provided on the page) and set up the software on a Windows 7 laptop. The site links to several guides and step-by-step instructions for setting up the VPN client on other platforms, including Mac OS X, Linux, Android, and iOS. after completing the OpenVPN installation, I downloaded a configuration file from my account page on the TorVPN Website and saved it inside OpenVPN’s config directory on my computer.

I started the OpenVPN client as an administrator and was prompted with a password dialog box. I entered the username and password I had created, and I was immediately connected to the VPN tunnel. when I checked my IP address, I found out that I had been assigned one in Hungary. The reverse DNS for my new IP address was vpn.torvpn.com.

According to the TorVPN documentation, I have to use the “run as an Administrator” option for the OpenVPN client in order to let the TorVPN configuration file change the routing settings.

Fulshear, TX (PRWEB) may 02, 2012 – JaguarPC, a provider of web hosting services including shared web hosting, virtual private server hosting (VPS hosting), and dedicated server hosting plans, announced today that it is accepting applications for new Technical Support Representative and Customer Service Representative positions. this latest recruitment drive is a direct response to the continued growth and popularity of JaguarPC?s competitive web hosting services, as well as the company?s determination to keep service standards high.

?JaguarPC continues to be a leading web host, with great web hosting services ranging from affordable shared hosting plans to professional VPS hosting solutions,? says Greg Landis, CEO at JaguarPC. ?Our success is the result of consistently excellent hardware performance, along with dependable customer support. To deliver both of those things, we rely on the great people at the heart of our business. To maintain the standards of service that JaguarPC has become known for, we need more people to join our team.?

Representing a significant investment in the continued growth of the company, JaguarPC?s recruitment of technical support representatives will help to ensure that the hardware and software customers rely on works efficiently. the key responsibilities of this role include proactive server monitoring to guarantee stability and reliability across every web hosting plan, migrating new customers to JaguarPC?s range of hosting solutions, and providing technical support to customers in need of assistance.

Applicants are expected to have an in-depth understanding of how web hosting services work, with experience in installing and using Apache, MySQL, Exim, cPanel & WHM, and Linux. in addition, knowledge of shell scripting and the software required to deploy VPS hosting plans would be an advantage to applicants looking to work for a fast-growing web hosting company. Additionally, JaguarPC is determined to find new team members who can combine their technical expertise with the ability to deliver this insight as excellent customer service to web hosting customers around the world.

?Essentially, our technical support representatives carry out routine administration on servers, as well as more complex, technical tasks as specific situations dictate,? says Landis. ?The people we recruit will be the people who really know web hosting servers inside-out and are willing to learn additional skills under the guidance of other team members. But hardware performance and software configuration is only one-half of JaguarPC?s offerings, and that is why it is important that our technical team can also work with customers to keep support standards high.?

Over the years, JaguarPC has become renowned for its customer support and service capabilities, offering help, advice, and assistance, 24/7/365. Whether customers have a technical issue or questions surrounding billing, it is important that the right help is always on-hand. Rather than letting the increased demand from new customers stretch the existing customer service team, JaguarPC plans to employ additional customer service representatives to work with web hosting users, whatever the nature of their inquiry. It is through this combination of the right technical staff and the best customer service staff that JaguarPC is able to provide customers with the service that they deserve.

?Servers, hardware, and software are all important things, but it?s the people that really make JaguarPC special,? says Landis. ?This includes our customers and our team. we believe that if we have the best staff, and the happiest staff, we will have the best web hosting services and the happiest customers in the industry. we are determined to find the best people for these new positions at JaguarPC and reward them with competitive compensation, paid vacation, as well as reward programs and bonuses.?

Best Friends’ Animal Society is hosting a Pet Super Adoption with local animal shelters and rescue organizations.  the event takes place Saturday, May 19, 10am to 7pm and Sunday, May 20, 11am to 5pm.

Hundreds of dogs, cats,  puppies and kittens will be available for adoption at the Adoption Center, 10503 San Jose Blvd., Jacksonville, Fl 32257.

All animals will be spayed, neutered, vaccinated and microchipped ready to begin their new life with you.  Pure breed and mixed breed pets will be available.  for directions and more information go to superadoption.org.

• Copyright 2012 by News4Jax.com. all rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Abacus Solutions Puffs Up An IBM i Cloud

Published: may 7, 2012

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

you can find a million places that offer you cloudy instances of Windows or Linux operating systems on X86 servers running out there on the Internet, but finding similarly cloudy slices of Power-based machinery sporting the OS/400 or IBM i operating systems can be a challenge. especially if you don’t want to make long-term commitments and only want to buy a relatively small slice of a machine. but this week at the COMMON midrange trade show, Abacus Solutions is throwing its data center in the ring with its i in the Cloud offering.

Yeah, it would be better if they could call it iCloud, but there are a number of people arguing over who has the trademark on that name and Apple has usurped iCloud (much as it did iOS) and has $100 billion in cash and big-time lawyers that want to get some of it. I know what you are thinking, but i in the Sky would have brought out the lawyers from the Alan Parsons Project, and probably CBS, too. So i in the Cloud it is.

Abacus has its roots in the secondhand market, peddling iSeries and pSeries iron back in the day and its affiliated company still does peddle such iron, giving Abacus access to relatively inexpensive and still technologically sound Power6 and Power6+ gear that is abundant on the market these days. according to Patrick Schutz, director of managed services and support at the company, about five years ago some customers buying backup machines for disaster recovery and high availability clustering asked if the reseller wouldn’t mind hosting the gear, and so it built a data center expressly for this purpose, offering HA as a service. it now has 50 customers using this service. The company also offers third party hardware support and has over 200 customers paying it, rather than IBM, to babysit their Power Systems iron and keep it humming along.

The hosted HA/DR offering has been refined over the years, and now Abacus is ready to reach for the clouds, offering slices of Power6 machines with a minimum commitment at a very low price for customers to either do development upon or to actually run production applications.

The i in the Cloud offering lets customers buy a slice of a 16-way Power6 with memory and disk. This particular box is sliced into 15 logical partitions, each with 1,000 CPWs of raw performance, 4GB of main memory, and 1 TB of disk capacity (917 GB of it is usable by OS/400 or IBM i). you can pick which operating system version and release Abacus throws onto the partition, including i5/OS V5R4 and V5R4M5 (also sometimes called IBM i 5.4 and 5.4.5 by big Blue these days) as well as the more recent IBM i 6.1 and 7.1. The cloudy i slice includes 9×5 tech support, weekly backups, and 1.5Mb/sec network access into the slice with an encrypted virtual private network (VPN) link. if you want to get started, you either send Abacus a tape or you can upload your applications and data over the VPN if that works better. The whole shebang costs $500 per month per 1,000 CPW slice, with a minimum 90-day commitment.

“When we brainstormed about this, we originally thought it would be for development environments,” says Schutz. “But we have been pleasantly surprised by the number of customers who want to move production IBM i environments to the cloud.”

At the moment, Abacus has 40 customers running on its cloudy infrastructure with over 75 total LPARs, and the numbers are growing fast, says Schutz. Most of the customers are in the United States, but there are a few in Canada and a number overseas. one customer, in Colombia, was looking at buying a slice of a Power 595 from IBM’s Global Services behemoth in Bogota decided instead to host its 400 JDE users on the Abacus cloud using a 10 Mbit/sec network link. and guess what? The users don’t know the machine driving their apps is sitting in Georgia. (Shhhh. Don’t tell them.)

Since Abacus is just ramping up production on the i in the Cloud product, it is restricting customers to two logical partitions on the cloud until they get their feet wet a little. After they get used to using it for a while, Abacus is happy to customize a solution for them. one early customer needed more oomph but not as much storage and is running three IBM i slices and only 917 GB of disk, for instance.

The Abacus Marietta, Georgia data center, fronted by its tech team: Christian Hilton, data center and support business manager; Patrick Schutz, director of managed services and support; Scott Johnson, iSeries senior account executive; and Josh Osborne, iSeries solution engineer.

Aside from offering IBM i and Power System slices on its cloud, another thing that makes Abacus distinct from Amazon is that it has people with deep skills running its operations in its two data centers (the primary is in Atlanta and the secondary is in Marietta on the outskirts of town). “Our average response time for tech support is under ten minutes,” says Schutz. “We are people, not some faceless cloud giant. we are big enough to matter and small enough to care.”

Abacus has over 75 people in total working at the company, including 25 engineers and 25 sales people. The IBM i tech team has eight dedicated people, and they are expert at all the new technologies.

“We’ve been using Virtual I/O Server and SANs for three years now, and it is old hat to us,” says Josh Osborne, iSeries solution engineer at Abacus. “This allows us to deliver hosting and cloud at an even lower cost because of the resource sharing it enables on Power Systems.” VIOS and SANs are exactly the things, of course, that are alien to most i5/OS and IBM i shops, who load a tape into a machine, use local disk, and don’t generally virtualize too much.

While the new Flex System converged chassis and server nodes and the PureSystems setups that IBM announced several weeks ago are interesting and quite possibly will be the foundation of future IBM i clouds, Abacus things that they are overkill for many IBM i shops.

“We thing the average customer will look at PureSystems and think it will be too much for them to bite off,” says Schutz. “And then they will look to the cloud.”

And Abacus will be there, ready to take that call.

Two Ask TPM questions: Real IBM i Clouds and Apple Buying IBM i

IBM i 7.1 Tech Refresh Sports Live Partition Mobility

AWS/400: Amazon Builds An AS/400-oid Cloud

Connectria Hosting Unveils an IBM i Cloud

The Abacus IBM i Test Drive Gains Renewed Relevance

Get Thee to The i Cloud, IBM’s Kugler Says

                     Post this story to del.icio.us                Post this story to Digg     Post this story to Slashdot