OpenSim needs a installer bundle – Hypergrid Business

I attended UMass in the early eighties when access to DARPAnet first became available to students. in the beginning, all we had was terminal-based FTP access to download TeX markup documents that we could send to the batch printers. It wasn’t until almost ten years later that Mosaic based graphical browsers became common on personal computers that were powerful enough to run Windows 3.1.

For people not in the academic community connecting to the Internet meant dialing-up to a large service provider like Prodigy or CompuServe, and later AOL. These service providers offered access to their limited enclave of data, and as a member, this was all you could use. At the time the argument for these closed systems was that they were limiting access to proprietary content. in time, the cost needed to build low cost Internet Service Providers (ISPs) came down, providing anyone with a dial-up modem the inexpensive option of having server space to post their own web pages. in conjunction with this low cost hosting came the development of an improved markup language that allowed hypertext linking, HTML.

This meant that even individuals who created the simplest web pages could link to other sites located anywhere on the Internet. It was this availability of inexpensive web page hosting and unlimited connectivity that spurred the explosive growth of the Internet to become the ubiquitous feature of our technological lives that it is today. further promoting this growth has been the increase in high-speed Internet connectivity and low-cost consumer computer hardware.

Parallel to the growth of the Internet, we can follow the development of virtual worlds. the earliest text based virtual worlds were chat applications that ran across the DARPAnet. Prior to the big ISPs, individuals could build their own dial-up electronic bulletin board systems. many of these systems eventually included chat capability and multiple chat rooms. in time, these chat rooms became more graphical. I remember the excitement I felt when I logged onto my first crude virtual world using my Atari 1040ST on my 320×240 pixel color monitor.

It is clear that Second Life has played the role of AOL in promoting virtual worlds to larger populations. now with the growth of OpenSim, it is possible for anyone with a web server to host a virtual world, similar to the advent of reduced-cost of web page hosting in the past. this now puts us at that familiar juncture where the keepers of enclave-based systems prevent inter-system linking in the name of proprietary content. Worse, there are new owners of virtual worlds with slick front-end web sites that are creating new closed worlds in an attempt to become the successor to Second Life. the collapse of AOL answers the question of how successful this approach will be.

What is needed now is a standard of OpenSim packaging, management, and inter-grid connection that will allow individuals to install and run their own hypergrid connected sites. this package management could be modeled after the refinement and ease that users can install other open source software using scripted installers. with this advancement, current web developers can then extend their services to include the personalization and customization of virtual worlds. For individuals and companies with web sites, having their own virtual world can simply be an extension of their existing web presence.

The specification for this easy-install virtual world is clear. this development effort is at a similar place to where the development of the Apache web server was in its early stages. many of the pieces needed are either under construction or well underway and just need to be assembled together. the final product will be a single package that can be installed by a single click using QuickInstall, or Fantastico De Luxe, the standard installers supplied by many ISPs.

Nine easy pieces

There are nine components that already exist within OpenSim, but are not yet bundled:

1. Mono

Since the cost of Linux-based hosting is lower and more common than Windows-based hosting, a Mono installer needs to be part of the standard package to allow for the Microsoft .NET framework that OpenSim is now written on to run on Linux servers. For widest distribution, OpenSim needs to run through this emulation layer since most web hosting now uses Linux servers. in time, OpenSim will need to be rewritten from the ground up completely Linux-native and open source. this is the most labor intensive item on this list, but is essential for the wider distribution of OpenSim to allow installations to run without the memory or processor boundaries in both private and public clouds imposed by the .NET framework.

2.  Templates

On installation, a virtual world will be provided which will have stock attributes, including a virtual conference space, a virtual social space, and a virtual storefront. a virtual world owner can delete the areas that they don’t need and duplicate the stock buildings as needed. It is almost valueless for a new virtual world owner to arrive to a completely barren space. Most web sites today are built using templates, and so should virtual worlds. in time, there should be web sites of themed virtual worlds as there are now web sites of CMS (Content Management System) graphical front ends.

3. Stock inventory

Every virtual world needs to come with a library of stock open source buildings, furniture, vehicles, avatars, clothing, and textures. further, there needs to be one or more large central repositories of OpenSim objects. what is stifling to new virtual world development is the requirement that every new world needs to create all of their objects for themselves. Access to these open source items needs to be provided out-of-world by file download and in-world by standard zero cost purchase.

4. Backup & migration tools

A built in Second-Inventory type tool needs to be included with OpenSim to allow users to download their inventories, and to be able to download items from a variety of websites and upload them as needed to their virtual worlds. Inventory backup and maintenance needs to be provided to users on their own computers. Limiting control of inventory only to in-world is part of the non-distributed virtual world model of Second Life.

5. Easy control panel

It is essential that virtual world owners be provided with an easy to use virtual world control panel. without this control panel, management of virtual grids will be limited to people who have the interest and skill to adjust user rights by navigating the layers of a Microsoft SQL database and editing values in the tables. the best control panel that I have seen has been distributed by PioneerX. this will either need to be licensed or rewritten as open source. the best scenario will be for a version of this control panel to be released for free to grid owners who don’t need to collect in-world rent, and for a commercial version to be licensed for grids that need recurring billing options.

6. Browser-based viewer

The threshold to new virtual world visitors needs to be reduced. For many software developers, it is hard to keep in mind that most computer users still feel uncomfortable or are unwilling to install new software on their machines. the requirement that virtual worlds can only be accessed by installing a standalone browser creates too high a barrier to entry for many would-be virtual world visitors. At least the initial access to virtual worlds needs to be web browser-based. Second Life is currently in beta for a browser-based viewer and the version that I tested worked well. SpotON3D has an interesting workaround that makes it look to the user as if they are only installing a browser plug-in when they are actually installing a virtual world browser and a utility that allows for a Windows-based application to be viewed through a window in a browser. whatever the solution, virtual worlds need to become part of the standard web browser interface, not relegated to their own software installations like computer games.

7. Built-in voice

To secure OpenSim as another viable social media service, it needs to provide voice communication. There are a couple of OpenSim add-on voice options available, however both of them require licensing. as with the PioneerX control panel, there need to be free versions of this software available with the stock OpenSim install, and there also need to be licensed versions available to commercial vendors. If entirely open source versions of this software cannot be made available, in time there will need to be ground-up rewrites of OpenSim that include voice. one recommendation I have is that these in-world voice functions need to work uniformly as they do in Second Life, with proximity allowing voice communication. one OpenSim grid that I visited had voice that was region-wide, making it hard to know who was speaking when disembodied voices could be heard out of mini-map range.

8. Web front end

New OpenSim installations need to come with a stock web site front end. For virtual worlds to be an extension of web sites, the barriers between in-world and out-of-world communication need to be brought down. the best solution would be an integration with existing and well established Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress or Drupal as the PioneerX currently is. Ideally the web-based control panel for the virtual world management would be plug-ins for these standard CMS tools. These plug-ins could include functions like avatar creation and the ability to see who is in-world from the web site front end. this would allow users who were installing new virtual worlds to have access to the huge existing libraries of front-end site templates, helping them create out-of-world look and feel, and giving them access to well-defined plug-ins. If OpenSim plug-ins could be made available for WordPress, the 55,000,000+ users of this CMS could then develop front-ends to their own virtual worlds.

9. Hypergrid access

It is essential that every grid provide hypergrid transport. many current grids consider that by providing hypergrid transport, they are leaving themselves open to claims of supporting intellectual property theft. however, by failing to provide this support, they are defeating the purpose of the Internet itself. Web pages would be fairly valueless if they had no external links, and search engines would not exist. For each new grid, there needs to be an option of joining a centralized hypergrid listing, and this list needs to be made available to all grids, both in-world and out-of-world. further, this hypergrid listing needs to have a rating system that describes quality of the grids, based on available bandwidth and popularity. of course there will always be the option of having completely private grids that are not linked to the system, in the same way that there are web pages that are only used internally within companies. this would be a good use of Google’s existing search engine indexing, a technology that they already have a clear licensing model for.

Three harder pieces

There are three components that do not yet exist and will need to be incorporated into OpenSim:

1. Distributed inventories

Inventory control needs to be distributed among many grids. with the current big grid model, assets are kept in one location and are generally not accessible through the hypergrid system. My proposal is that assets for each avatar be kept in a home grid and then referenced wherever that avatar travels by hypergrid. this would mean that inventory pointers would not point to local SQL databases, but would point to inventories stored on remote machines. These inventories could be backed up by the user and be moved to another home grid if needed. this would also solve licensing issues. All objects would be paid for and owned by the avatar, and would not be the responsibility of the specific grid. Owners of the grids would not be responsible for any inventory not on their server, allowing universal hypergrid transport without risk.

2. Multi-grid currency

There needs to be a universal handling of currency. this is essential for all in-world transactions, such as tip-based activities in music venues. Universal currency handling is also essential for the purchase of real world products sold through a virtual world interface. I can imagine an in-world clothing store where an avatar can try on items and then have this merchandise sent to them in real life. rather than creating universal currency specifically for OpenSim, I propose using the existing Google Checkout. this already existing infrastructure allows shoppers to visit various e-commerce web sites, collect items in their cart, and pay in one centralized location. I would imagine that Google would be interested in participating in this integration.

3. Cloud plugin

Finally, with the completely open source rewrite of OpenSim, there should be a restructuring of the underlying databases so that resources can be made cloud-based. Using a cloud-based computing environment, OpenSim installs could use little resources when not in use and then have near infinite resources when needed. SpotOn3D is offering this technology in-world, but I have not tested this feature of their grid. For stand-alone grid installations, I am proposing that there be a CMS plug-in that would enable commercial cloud access. I have been impressed with the power and flexibility of Amazon Web Services and would recommend that when OpenSim is restructured to function better on distributed systems, there be standard controls incorporated to link directly to such commercial clouds.

Keeping it open

Several people with whom I have shared these ideas have proposed that I develop these projects as a private commercial venture. I feel, however, that this is antithetical to the growth of OpenSim.

The growth of the Internet was based on inexpensive, open, and unregulated communication. when open source projects have become regulated and commercial, the open source community has quickly abandoned them.

What I have proposed here is the development of OpenSim as I would like to see it. If and when this virtual world infrastructure is created, it will be determined by the OpenSim community, not by one enterprising individual. I look forward to hearing people’s comments and discussion on these ideas.

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Web Hosting Provider Host Europe Group Acquires Heart Internet

Greatresponder.com – 2011-08-24 – On Monday, the web hosting provider and innovator Host Europe Group made the announcement that it has made the acquisition of the Nottingham-based web hosting provider Heart Internet. Although an announcement has been made, the terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.

One of the many advantages of this acquisition is that the web hosting company, Host Europe Group, will become the UK’s largest provider of reseller hosting products, according to the press release.

Heart Internet will be simply one addition to an already packed portfolio of Host Europe. this portfolio also includes big named companies such as 123-reg, Host Europe and Webfusion.

Heart Internet will now be able to reach a customer base of nearly one million with the combined infrastructure of Host Europe’s operation.

Through combining and integrating the complementary product ranges and infrastructure, Host Europe extends its capabilities and footprint.

In the meantime, Heart Internet have the benefit of having Host Europe’s cloud platform and suite of virtualization services.

Heart Internet will continue to operate from its Nottingham base, all while benefiting from access to Webfusion’s data center.

“this is a great opportunity for both businesses and our customers, who will benefit from a full suite of complementary product ranges from a one stop shop that will cater for all their hosting requirements,” said Thomas Vollrath, CEO of the Host Europe Group. “we have jointly developed a product integration plan for all customers, ranging from domains, value added-services, shared hosting, cloud hosting, VPS and dedicated servers to customised and managed hosting solutions which will deliver additional growth for the new combined Group. Heart has won numerous awards for its reseller programme, so combining its expertise with our infrastructure will result in a new centre of excellence within the industry, for both customers and resellers alike.”

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    Filed Under: News , Web Hosting

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Google Apache mod speeds into outside world • The Register

Though Google is loath to open source the foundations of its massive online infrastructure, it does share code for tools at the edge of its network, tools designed to accelerate the actual delivery of web stuff. Mountain View doesn’t want Facebook rebuilding the Googlenet. But it is intent on accelerating the web as a whole. Ultimately, this juices the Google bottom line.

In June 2009, Google unveiled SPDY, an application layer protocol designed to improve the speed of the existing HTTP protocol, and last fall, it open sourced something it rather inelegantly calls mod_pagespeed, an Apache web server module that accelerates page delivery by optimizing content as it is served. It’s yet to been seen how widely either will be used, but both are making at least some headway outside the Googleplex.

Fastsoft â€" a Pasadena, California company offering hardware appliances and software that speed the delivery of beefy internet content â€" is working to roll mod_pagespeed into its existing technologies. this outfit has built a prototype that pairs mod_pagespeed with its own software on the same server, and according to chief technology officer Cheng Jin, the aim is to “jointly optimize” the two tools and release them as a single product.

Based on work that originated with Jin and mentor Steven Low at the California Institute of Technology, Fastsoft’s existing software seeks to optimize the operation of good old TCP solely from the server side. In essence, the technology takes algorithms that economists have traditionally used to better allocate physical resources among human beings and applies them to internet applications trying to share bandwidth among client machines.

“If you look at the network resource allocation and resource sharing problem, it’s very similar to an existing problem in economics, where you have a fixed resource to be shared among multiple people,” Jin tells The Register. “With TCP, you have all these application users sharing a limited resource: bandwidth.”

With raw TCP, he explains, end user machines operate in their own self interest, without really considering the behavior of other machines. FastSoft seeks to accelerate the content delivery by encouraging users to pull in the same direction.

“You have all these parties, individual application users, trying to figure out how many resources they’re going to take, and each one is optimizing based on his own objective or utility, rather than optimizing for some global objective,” Jin says. “What we do is look for a reasonably fair allocation of bandwidth for all users.”

The mod_pagespeed tool is a natural compliment to this effort. Google’s open source Apache module optimizes page caching, minimizes client-server round trips, and reduces payload size for websites. it rejigs what objects go into a page and the content of each object. once this is done, FastSoft can work to facilitate the actual transfer. “modpagespeed deals with how the content is put together,” Jin says, “Then our job is to overcome issues such as packet loss, latency, and congestion.”

When mod_pagespeed was first unveiled, Google said it was working with web hosting service GoDaddy to run the technology with customer websites, and Contendo, the Israeli CDN, has also embraced the module, alongside SPDY. Ultimately, FastSoft will take the technology to CDNs as well. The company recently inked a deal to supply appliances for the Los Angeles-based content delivery network NetDNA.

According to Jin, FastSoft’s mod_pagespeed prototype was built independently of Google, though the two have since discussed the project. so, yes, there are at least some cases where Google is happy to open source its back-end work â€" and chat about it too. But the big secrets are still secrets. ®

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3 Cheap Domain Web Hosting Companies

You can find cheap domain web hosting for your websites, blogs, and other online content. These services are typically very reliable and cost effective (ie cheap). here are some recommendations.

GoDaddy is one of the most well known of its type. first of all this service is very well promoted since almost everyone has heard of the GoDaddy girls. GoDaddy is one of the largest and most success domain registrars in the world.

What this means is that you can search for and then purchase a domain name. once you have registered this domain name, you can host it with GoDaddy or another excellent web hosting service.

What makes this option so cheap is that they have special incentives where you can purchase your domain name at a very cheap price and then order hosting services packaged with it at great discounts.

Purchasing your domain names and having it hosted from the same service makes it much easier to establish a new website.

Otherwise you would have to set up the correct DNS addresses in the domain registrar service and then set it up as a domain to hosted in that service.

Another great cheap web hosting service is called Hostgator. they are a very well established and full featured company.

You can open up a hosting account for less than $5 per month. with this, you get advanced features like cPanel and a host of other enhancements to help to design and establish your website, promote it, or add eCommerce features.

Hostgator also has a very generous affiliate program so if you can introduce this service to just a few people, the net cost for your month web hosting services would be zero.

And if you were able to generate sufficient interest and traffic from visitors to your site who decided to enroll in a Hostgator account, you could conceivably make a nice part time or full time income.

This option is completely up to you and the results are highly dependent on how much traffic you can drive to your Hostgator affiliate site. In any case the web hosting service itself is excellent and they offer many packages to serve a broad range of needs.

And another excellent web hosting company is called NameCheap. they not only provide very low cost domain name registration, but they offer great cheap domain web hosting plans. the service is excellent and they have many dedicated and enthusiastic customers.

There are many cheap web hosting companies around. but you certainly won’t go wrong with any one of these three companies mentioned above.

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HP’s Tablet Failure: Big Fun for FOSS Fanatics

There may be life yet for the seemingly defunct HP (NYSE: HPQ) TouchPad. the company has discontinued its development of all webOS devices, leading retailers to drastically mark down prices on the TouchPads they have in stock. some buyers have been able to score one for as little as $100 — that’s $400 off the initial asking price when the device entered the market a couple of months ago.

Those TouchPads aren’t necessarily doomed to support a dead-ended OS, either. Open source hackers have launched efforts to port Android to the TouchPad, and at least one effort to port Ubuntu to the device is reportedly underway.

It’s not clear whether TouchPads running Android will become mainstream devices — after all, TouchPads are no longer being made. but at the very least, porting can provide hackers hours of fun, and it may result in a low-cost tablet that can live a long life with a vital and active OS like Android.

“People love to have a bit of hardware to toy around with,”Al Hilwa, a program director at IDC, told LinuxInsider. “The TouchPad is now so inexpensive that people may feel they’re not putting much at risk.”

The site Hack N Mod is offering prizes totaling US$2,100 to anyone porting Android — with various features like audio and WiFi intact — to a TouchPad.

Hack N Mod suggests potential contestants go to Rootzwiki or the XDA Developers’ Forum.

Rootzwiki has launched the Touchdroid project for porting Android to the TouchPad.

There have been reports of some squabbles among Touchdroid members, though project leader Thomas Sohmers, a 15-year-old self-described tech geek, did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

Early builds by the Rootzwiki team will reportedly be based on Android 2.3, a.k.a. “Gingerbread,” but later the team may use either Honeycomb or an upcoming version of Android known as “Ice Cream Sandwich,” according to the Lilliputing blog said.

Apparently, there are also efforts to port Ubuntu to the TouchPad. That’s not too far-fetched an idea.

“The new Ubuntu 11.04 release has been built with a scalable UI and would make a perfect operating system on a tablet, so long as the keyboard input method works well,” Bill Roth, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at LogLogic, told LinuxInsider. Roth describes himself as “a huge Ubuntu fan.”

Further, there are reports that at least one TouchPad actually came preinstalled with Android 2.2.1 on top of an Ubuntu-based system, and that this seemed to have been preinstalled by Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM).

Device manufacturers will test various operating systems on their products, and the speculation is that Qualcomm had been playing with this particular tablet.

Hack N Mod is dividing up the prize money by the function ported. for example, as of Thursday, the prize for a basic port was $950. Add WiFi to win $350, and anyone who can also get the camera to work could win $300.

Hack N Mod is seeking sponsors to increase the prize money.

Entrants have to post their source on GitHub, a Web-based hosting service for software development projects using the Git revision control system.

All work must be documented under an open source license, and ports must have a user-friendly installation process.

Hack N Mod contends that the TouchPad is a perfect tool for enhancing do-it-yourself projects, especially those using Arduino. Arduino is an open source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software that can be employed to create interactive objects or environments.

It can sense the environment through input from various sensors, and it can respond to that input by controlling lights, motors and other actuators.

The microcontroller on Arduino boards is programmed using the Arduino programming language, which is based on Wiring, and the Arduino development environment, which is based on Processing.

Wiring is an open source electronics prototyping platform. Processing is a programming language, development environment and online community initially developed to serve as a software sketchbook.

Could HP TouchPads running Android be used in the mainstream? Possibly.

“It’s like having a relatively high-quality Android tablet for a bargain,” IDC’s Hilwa said.

“Being able to run Android on TouchPads is about the only thing that will make those tablets usable at last,” Jim McGregor, chief technology strategist at In-Stat, told LinuxInsider. “HP was getting TouchPads returned from people who couldn’t get them to run apps in the first place.”

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Not All WordPress Hosting Plans Are Created Equal

WordPress hosting plans are not all created equal. There are a few ways to find out what hosting provider is worth your time and money. Choosing the wrong plan can lead to your website loading slowly, unresponsive and susceptible to long down times.

What to look For in a good WordPress Hosting Provider

Look for the ability to manage your own databases, scripts and installs. if a hosting service does not allow this, it means they are using hardware that is either close to capacity or limited in CPU power and storage.

Most service providers use what are called virtual environments. they are simply small spaces on one physical server that is rented out to one or hundreds of clients. It is like owning a large piece of land, cutting it up in pieces and renting out small pieces to individual land owners. The owners may own the individual pieces of land, yet still share the same water resources and electricity resources. if one owner uses up too much of the resources, a cap prevents them from impacting other land owners. this is the same idea for when you use a shared hosting environment.

There is nothing wrong with using a shared hosting environment. Many people use them including myself. they are inexpensive and if configured correctly provide the right resources to power many sites from the smallest to the largest.

Sites that load slow or unresponsive are a sure sign the resources allocated to the client are not appropriate to run a website. Resources should be able to easily handle two to seven processes running in parallel. a process is something that is dedicated to a task.

For instance let’s say the website may be running a widget that shows different products in a moving carousel fashion. That animated widget may take up three processes. if there are not enough resources, the site will run very slow when the carousel is in use. The website could also crash or be shut down by the provider for using up too much resources. this is something that happened to me long ago when I first started to build websites. I signed up for a very cheap hosting plan that did not support much.

WordPress Hosting Resources

Almost all hosting providers will boast unlimited bandwidth. this means nothing to the client. what the client should be looking for is how much storage, memory and CPU power is allocated to each individual client on the shared resource.

Some WordPress hosting providers may give the client the run around and state it is all shared. this can never be the case and the client should press the admin or sales rep to state the true allocation. if the answer is not available, then it is best to move on to another company. all virtual environments are managed and have a set amount of resources for a section of the server in use. To state the information is unknown, usually means it is not adequate to support your needs.

If you are not sure about the kind of support a hosting provider may have, it is better to ask up front then to test out a new site on an unstable server environment.

One last thing to look for is interface support. a WordPress hosting provider should never charge for something like a cPanel. It should always come with your hosting plan, as should 24/7 support. these are a few things to look out for when looking for a good hosting provider. a solid provider is worth their weight in gold.

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Zopim Invites Web Hosts to Resell Live Chat Customer Service Tool

A screenshot of Zopim’s Live Chat control panel

(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Customer service software provider Zopim (zopim.com) announced on Tuesday that it has launched a reseller program for web hosting providers to resell Live Chat to their customers.

The platform will be launched to select hosting companies, according to Zopim, and interested companies can apply for the program on its website to be evaluated and prequalified.

According to the press release, this product is ideal for customers with ecommerce functionality on their websites.

“Zopim has built a live chat product that is valuable for businesses selling online,” Qing Ru, vice president of marketing, Zopim said in a statement. “With our reseller program, we want to give web hosting companies an easy way to add Zopim into their existing suite of third party offerings, while making their packages more wholesome at the same time.”

Zopim says it will provide resellers with materials and promotional tools to sell and advertise Live Chat.

According to the press release, resellers bill their customers directly so they can have control over all customer communications to maintain a relationship with customers.

Zopim says there is no setup fee or minimum upfront purchase.

The reseller program will include a portal of business and technical information, reseller tools for managing business customers and reporting as well as integration API for automated account provisioning, billing, reporting and single sign-on.

Zopim integrates easily with Google analytics as well as IM integration so chats can be initiated from mobile devices. the chats provide information about a customer, such as where they are from, how long they have been on a website and which page they are looking at.

WordPress, Magento, Shopify and OSCommerce all provide one-click deployment of Zopim, according to its website.

Zopim has a booth at HostingCon 2011 in San Diego, California, from August 8 to August 10.

Recently, the WHIR interviewed Douglas Hanna, CEO of web hosting provider a Small Orange, about his approach to customer service. Hanna will speak about customer service best practices and trends, such as live chat support, at HostingCon on Wednesday, August 10, 2011.

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The Best and Secure WordPress Hosting

With WordPress hosting needs, the need for secure hosting and great performance is very high. the best level of security is crucial and advanced protection is what many companies lack. To make sure one has secure WordPress hosting from the best web host, it’s important to note some key characteristics.

Choose a host that takes security seriously and shows you how this is achieved. for critical enterprises such as healthcare organizations, high-traffic sites and online retailers, protection is a critical need. Such WordPress hosting must be secure and with virtualized servers such as offered by FireHost that aids in protecting online applications from hacking attempts, such as Cross-site scripting and SQL injections, attacks and Distributed Denial of Services (DDoS) invasions.

Look for hosting that has powerful and scalable servers. this is because servers, secure and virtualized provide WordPress users with great performance and security and scalability if demanded. Secure servers that can accommodate about 32GB Memory are highly recommended where as a client accesses redundant SAN needed storage running into terabytes.

If there is no promise of secure WordPress hosting, fully managed, look for another. Every webmaster is after a productive, healthy and secure online hosting environment. thus, 24/7 support for a whole year such as offered by FireHost is a great choice. In addition, enquire whether such a support comes with encrypted backup, OS patching and proactive response and monitoring of servers. this way, your website is secure and under splendid care all the year round.

Affordability is a reason why many choose a specific web host, and it should be a requirement. a secure WordPress hosting provider such as FireHost makes use of virtualization, thus servers are more secure as well as aptly cost effective whether for simple or complex hosting requirements. Hosting need not be so expensive or insecure, and you should have the chance to scale personal hosting resources to fit financial capacity.

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Tucows Acquires German Domain Registrar EPAG for $2.5 Million

A small selection of TLDs available in Europe from EPAG

(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) –Domain registrar Tucows (tucowsinc.com) announced on Tuesday that it has acquired all the shares of EPAG Domainservices GmBH (epag.de) from QSC AG (qsc.de) for about $2.5 million in cash.

German-based EPAG is an ICANN-accredited registrar that manages more than 400,000 domains. The registrar offers more than 200 TLDs as well, according to the press release.

This acquisition will increase Tucows exposure to the German reseller market, as well as bolster its OpenSRS wholesale domain registration services.

Tucows says it will continue serving EPAG customers and resellers via existing EPAG tools. Tucows will integrate EPAG’s domain services into its OpenSRS wholesale domain registration service, according to the report.

“We believe combining the power of OpenSRS’ 12,000 active resellers in over 120 countries with EPAG’s ability to register such a broad range of TLDs will make OpenSRS unique in the industry,” Tucows president and CEO Elliot Noss said in a statement. “We expect that the deep expertise in registry integration we gain from EPAG will add invaluable bench-strength to our team as we prepare for ICANN’s roll-out of new TLDs.”

In July, the WHIR interviewed OpenSRS director of product management Adam Eisner on ICANN’s decision to approve new TLDs. Eisner will present at HostingCon 2011 (hostingcon.com) on Monday, August 8, about what the new TLDs will mean to hosting.

With this acquisition, OpenSRS will now manage more than 11.5 million domain names and, by the end of the year, OpenSRS resellers will be able to access more than 200 TLDs.

Tucows says it had “relatively little exposure” to the German-language reseller market before this acquisition.

In an OpenSRS blog post on Tuesday, Eisner says existing resellers can expect to see “significant gTLD and ccTLD coverage improvements, with a particular focus on regions like Europe, South America and Asia.”

Since 2000, EPAG has specialized in the management of domains for domain resellers and  small and medium-sized enterprises.

Last month, web hosting provider ResellerClub launched customized programs in the UK and German markets to support the demand of domain and internet services.

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Affordable Web Site Hosting Services and Reseller Hosting

When it comes time to choose affordable web hosting services, the individual needs of your business could play a huge role in your decision. If you are looking for reseller hosting, then your needs will be substantially different from the average business person just looking for a company website. If you have the intention of offering web hosting to your customers as a reseller, then this is not generally feasible with an average hosting package. It is necessary to look for specialized reseller hosting which will give you the tools necessary to set up and maintain a website hosting business. this need not be expense and there are affordable web site hosting services available which can be used for the purposes of reseller hosting.

A good reseller hosting package will offer the wide range of tools and features which will allow you to compete as a hosting provider. with the internet expanding on a daily basis, it is possible to market affordable web site hosting services offering a large number of options for a very low monthly payment. Choosing the right reseller hosting will allow you to offer your customers desirable features such as shopping carts, forums and blogs at a low cost. If you are able to offer a large number of features while keeping the cost low, then your hosting will become very popular.

When a consumer is looking for affordable web site hosting services, they will not want to sacrifice quality for the sake of saving a few dollars. That is what makes it so important to focus on offering reliable services without jacking up the cost. when you move into hosting, you must be able to guarantee your customers stability for their web site, because whenever a site experiences down time, even for a short length of time, they risk losing customers and business. when looking for reseller hosting, you will want your own provider to offer an up time guarantee which you can then in turn offer to your own customers. the same goes for other features such as 24/7 technical support. If you know you are getting it from your host, then you can offer it to your customers and reassure them that any issues that arise will be dealt with promptly and professionally. you will not want to put your business’ reputation on the line without being sure that you have the reseller hosting to back it up.

When looking for reseller hosting, it is important to find a solid, reliable service which will allow you to offer your own customers affordable web site hosting services.

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Seafloor sensors listen to quake zone rumblings

They also occur with astonishing regularity.

Known as Episodic Tremor and Slip (ETS) in scientific parlance, the earthquakes amble along the Cascadia fault roughly every 14 months in near-predictable cycles â€" and in maddening contrast to their destructive counterparts, which are notoriously difficult to forecast.

Many scientists think the slow quakes deep inside the fault could be building up stress in Cascadia’s shallower regions, essentially prepping the fault for a large earthquake. However, the location of the slow earthquakes is important to this theory. “It depends on where it’s occurring,” Trehu said.

Answering that question will send scientists well on their way toward solving what amounts to a high-stakes seismic algebra problem.

Solve for x On one side of the equation is the fault’s overall movement over time. Scientists have a basic understanding of that figure. “We know what the large-scale motion should be,” Trehu said.

To complete the equation, scientists have to hunt down all the sources of that movement. Regular earthquakes are one source, and a source that scientists can measure with some degree of precision â€" even the tiniest earthquakes broadcast their activities loudly enough for instruments to hear them.

However, slow-motion earthquakes â€" ETS â€" are sneaky. Instruments must be close by to pick up on them.

The newly installed ocean seismometers are designed to listen for slow-motion quakes along the seaward, shallower regions of the fault. if they are indeed occurring there, it could be that the fault isn’t primed for disaster â€" at least not now.

“If the whole fault is slipping slowly, then it’s not locked,” and thus not storing up energy for a large earthquake, Trehu said.

Barclay said he’s looking forward to getting his hands on the data a year from now, hoping they’ll indicate whether the slow-motion earthquakes are occurring. “It’s exciting for me because it’s episodic â€" and up to now our idea of subduction zones is that things happen at random,” he said.

However, Trehu said, the project has even grander ambitions than sniffing out hard-to-detect quakes and imaging the subduction zone. Ultimately, the goal is to understand how the entire system works â€" how and why earthquakes happen at all.

“It’s poorly understood what factors control whether the rupture continues to propagate, what factors stop the rupture,” she said, “and it’s those factors that determine how big the earthquake is.”

Scientists from more than six universities and institutions around the country have banded together for the Cascadia project, a years-long undertaking that is funded, in part, by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The researchers will make the data freely available to anyone who wishes to use it.

In the meantime, Trehu and Atwater said, people who live within the reach of the Cascadia subduction zone should be aware of the fault’s potential. [Related: 7 most Dangerous Places on Earth ]

“People should definitely think about the fact that a large earthquake is probable, eventually,” Trehu said. “A tsunami that’s generated in Cascadia will only take tens of minutes to get to the coast. so if you’re at the beach and you feel an earthquake, the best thing to do is get to higher ground as fast as you can.”

• The 10 biggest Earthquakes in History
• Infographic: Tallest Mountain to Deepest Ocean Trench
• In Pictures: Japan Quake and Tsunami

Reach Andrea Mustain at . Follow her on Twitter @AndreaMustain.

© 2011 OurAmazingPlanet. all rights reserved. More from OurAmazingPlanet.

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Blogger and WordPress – Free Hosted Blogs Can Be Shutdown – So Own Your Own Blog

If you have a blog at a free host, such as Blogger.com or WordPress.com, then it can be shutdown by the free host if you violate its Terms of Service (TOS). You can prevent this by owning your own blog.

The trouble with a blog hosted on a free service like Blogger.com or WordPress.com is that you must agree to the free host’s TOS. if you violate the TOS, then the free host can pull the plug on your blog by shutting it down. Note: It is important to know that WordPress has a free service (which is WordPress.com), besides the self-hosted version of WordPress that is installed at your web host. see WordPress.org for the self-hosted version of WordPress.

It does not matter how much hard work and effort you put into your free blog, or how much income you might be earning from it, or how popular it is. if you violate the free host’s TOS, then poof Overnight, your blog may disappear with no warning.

I was recently busy searching for a WordPress theme for a client, when I followed a link to a blog about themes I wanted to check out. I had found the link on the second page results of a Google search, and I thought it might have something of interest for my client. to my surprise, instead of the blog appearing, the WordPress.com TOS Blog Shutdown notice appeared on my computer screen. I have no idea what this free WordPress.com blog did to get shutdown, but I imagine it somehow violated the WordPress.com TOS.

The one thing I know for sure is that WordPress.com pulled the plug on this blog. it’s gone. this would not have happened if the person who had the free hosted WordPress.com blog about WordPress themes instead had owned his or her own blog.

It is my opinion that if you are going to start blogging, and if you plan to put a lot of effort into your blog, then you should own your own blog and not depend on a free blog hosting service. I strongly recommend you own your own blog. only then are you the captain of your blogging ship, you will have complete control over all things regarding your blog.

How to own your own blog:

• Self-host. Purchase a web hosting plan from a web hosting service.
• Register a domain name at a domain registrar.
• Use the WordPress blogging platform available from WordPress.org.

A blog you own is a self-hosted blog you install at your chosen web hosting service. a self-hosted blog is often referred to as a paid blog. a self-hosted blog will usually, and should have, its own unique domain name (a URL – Uniform Resource Locator) associated with it. The WordPress blogging platform works wonderfully and is very, very popular amongst bloggers.

I happen to have some blogs that I own. I self-host and pay for my web hosting, and I have registered domain names for each of these blogs. in each blog, I use WordPress as my blogging platform. These are all standalone blogs. I own my own blogs and I am the only one who can choose to shut them down, assuming of course that I keep paying my web hosting account fees By the way, web hosting and domain registration fees are very affordable.

If you are going to have a blog, and if you plan to make it an endeavor where you put valuable time, energy, effort, and thought into it, if you plan or hope to make money from the blog, if you are going to provide a service, or sell goods and merchandise, if you want to establish professionalism and credibility, then for goodness sakes own your own blog. Don’t be at the mercy of a free blog service’s Terms of Service.

Do yourself a favor, own your own WordPress blog if you are going to be serious about blogging. have your own registered domain name and use a web host of your choosing. this gives you complete control over your blog. You are the big Kahuna, the Supreme Dictator, of this type of blog because you own it. You control how your blog looks, what gets posted, what topics you cover, what features the blog has, and. well, everything

Own your own blog and you are the one who decides its fate and future. It’s really that simple.

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Cheap Reliable Web Hosting

Putting the words cheap and reliable together doesn’t always mesh, but in the case of web hosting there are many services available now that are indeed both low cost and reliable. Cheap web hosting services are now an abundant thing on the Internet and you can find reliable service at a number of companies for under $5 per month.

While low cost is always a good thing you will still want to know what ‘reliable’ means. Here is what you should look for in a low cost and reliable web hosting company:

• Customer Service: This is the most important factor in reliability. almost every web host company out today says that they offer 24/7 support, but some only offer this support by way of e-mail or an automated phone service. when something goes wrong with your website you need it fixed immediately. Be sure that the web hosting service you choose has actual phone service with ‘live’ people taking the calls 24/7. At the very least, be sure that the web hosting service has live support via chat 24/7 if phone support is out.

• High Uptime: Uptime is how often you can expect your site to be running at full capacity. now ideally, 100 percent uptime would be perfect, but that just isn’t going to happen no matter how much money you pay. However, you can find a number of low cost web hosting services that will have an uptime of 99.9 percent and really you shouldn’t look at those that have any less than 99.5 percent. the reason is simple; when your site is down, you lose money. but with a 99.9 percent uptime if your site does go down, it will be fast and painless and you probably won’t even know that it was out.

• Transfer Speed: It used to be that low cost hosting meant low page loading because of a slow transfer speeds. These days however, the cheap web hosting services usually offer page loads via transfer speeds as good, if not better that their more expensive counterparts. Test this out by finding another website that is hosted with the web hosting service you are considering and see how fast their pages load for you.

• Disk Space: This is how much you are allowed to have on your website. a good website will always have content constantly being added. If you have a limit to your disk space then eventually you will be either out of luck, or charged a high amount of money because you go over your disk space allowance. there is no need for this scenario to ever happen as many low cost web hoisting companies now offer unlimited disk space.

It may sound too good to be true but there are cheap web hosting services that are just as reliable as the most expensive ones that are out today. but the fact is that it is true and as long as the low cost hosting company you are considering has good customer service, high uptime, fast transfer speeds, and unlimited disk space then there is no reason to pay more for it; unless you simply like to throw your money away.

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Deus Ex: Human Revolution, reviews from around the web

(Credit:Square Enix)

(CBS) – Deus ex: Human Revolution was released today to high praises from critics and fans alike.

In the game, we enter the world of ex-SWAT specialist Adam Jensen. Set in a beautiful dystopian future, the game is an action-filled adventure and role-playing thriller that requires players to make decisions that will resonate throughout the game.

Best video game trailers of all time

Unique in its excellence

GameSpot’s Kevin VanOrd sums up Deus ex: Human Revolution as “an excellent game with an unsettling vision of the future we face.”

“The longer you play, the more the story grabs you and the more you appreciate the customizability of the game.” Van Ord continues, “Hybrid games like this are uncommon. even more uncommon are games with Human Revolution’s power to eclipse its quirks with such enthralling atmosphere and exciting adaptability.”

This version does everything right

Ben Kuchera at Ars Technica has high praises for the PC version of the game, “Not only is the game an amazing return to form for Deus ex but the PC version does nearly everything right.”

Doesn’t drag

Ludwig Kietzmann at Joystiq points out the effort put forth by the design studio behind the game, “Eidos Montreal allows you to play freely within its intelligently layered systems, rather than dragging you by the nose through cinematic event after cinematic event. This is the difference between a game that is well made and one that is well designed.”

Missions are captivating

Gamers looking for intelligent content will be please. Tom Price at GamePro shed light on the psychological aspects of the game. “The consistent mental challenge of tackling each mission is what makes it so captivating, relying on strategy over spectacle.”

Metacritic reports a very impressive 38 positive critic reviews with no negative or mixed reviews.

It looks like the critics are all pleased. Aside from a few quirks mentioned in their respective reviews, the overall ratings were positive. Deus ex: Human Revolutionis available on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. 

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Great Dismal Swamp Fire Could Burn For Weeks

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Although rains have drenched the East Coast this weekend, the rainfall did little to slow the great Dismal Swamp Fire that has been sending smoke over Virginia and Maryland.

Firefighting teams have also begun pumping water from Drummond Lake onto the fire, but authorities warned that this operation would require time to yield any notable result.

"even if six inches of rain fell in a week," Timothy Craig, the great Dismal Swamp Wildlife Refuge’s fire management officer said, "we would still have to run the pumps for a month to put out this fire."

That’s because the fire is burning the peat of the swamp, transforming the ground into deep, extremely hot embers.  Firefighters have faced danger from falling trees, because as the heat penetrates the ground and spreads, roots are consumed and trees topple.

A Code Orange air quality alert has been issued for parts of Southern Virginia until midnight on Sunday, meaning that the level of fine particulates in the air is harmful to sensitive groups of adults, children, and seniors.

That smoke has billowed northward across Virginia and as far as Maryland.  Wind currents over the Chesapeake Bay provide a channel for the ash-heavy smoke to travel, and reports of smoke have come in as far north as Annapolis and Maryland.

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Ypsl.org » Benefit of Cheap Reseller Hosting

Benefit of Cheap Reseller Hosting

Before understanding cheap reseller hosting, we need to understand the concept of web hosting first. This is a special case of hosting in which a big plan’s obtained from the net host of a company. after obtaining, this is divided among various those who want the web-sources. now, when website hosting is carried out for many small amount of that’s known as cheap web hosting. Cheap web host reseller is, in turn, a subdivision of cheap web hosting. as we can understand in the term, in case of reseller hosting, a whole seller buys the program from an organization and then distributes it one of the retailers instead of money. There are a lot of benefits attached to the concept of cheap web host reseller. these are listed below and discussed 1 by 1.

Reduction of overhead associated with server maintenance: – the business of reseller hosting gets carried out in some fixed packages. so, the issue related to server maintenance is not present in this example.

Suitability for companies looking for multiple domain names: – There are a lot of big companies which need multiple domain names registration because they come up with several products or services. of these companies the web host reseller can be a useful tool as with such the entire process is going to be completed in a cheap rate.

Ease of doing reseller hosting: – Reseller hosting is one of the easiest businesses to complete in the online sector. It’s possible to start e-commerce without having much understanding of computers.

Wider operating area: – Opting for reseller hosting can provide an organization with a wider operating area compared to the area which may be covered without considering reseller hosting.

Low Cost: – Web host reseller involves a low cost with it and so it is a good choice to go for it.

Low maintenance cost: – because the overhead associated with the server maintenance is itself lower in this case the corresponding cost related to maintenance stuff also comes down and therefore the maintenance cost involved is pretty low here.

Low initial cost: – the first cost is pretty lower in this case as the initial invest required is very less here.

Free domain for life: – most of the reseller hosting service-providing companies offer a lifetime free domain. This makes the lives easy for the consumers.

24/7 based support: – the businesses which provide web host reseller service, generally, provide a twenty four hours service. so, in case, the companies opting for this service isn’t technically conscious of all the parameters concerned, they can completely rely on the reseller hosting service providers to find the on-time required help.

99.9% Uptime Guarantee: – the service providers promise a 99.9% uptime guarantee from the domains. so, the companies which are sceptical concerning the fact that once mom server starts creating problem all the packages will be under threat can feel safe and rely on these service providers.

So, cheap web host reseller is always a rewarding suggestion for all the new online organizations. To learn more visit:

For more information WordPress Hosting

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Skynyrd, ZZ Top coming to Charleston Civic Center – News – The Charleston Gazette – West Virginia News and Sports -

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Southern-rock icons Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ top will play the Charleston Civic Center on Oct. 30.

Founded in the mid-1960s, Lynyrd Skynyrd is one of the most beloved southern-rock bands. best known for songs like "Gimme Three Steps" and the classic rock anthem "Freebird," the bluesy country-rock sound helped shape the direction of rock in the early 1970s and is a root influence for many modern country musicians.

ZZ top is a Texas classic rock institution. With hits including "Sharp Dressed Man," "Legs" and "Cheap Sunglasses," the band has had a long musical career, but probably will be remembered best for their famous facial hair.

Tickets go on sale 10 a.m. Aug. 26. Reserved seats cost $25, $39.50 and $59.50. There will also be a limited number of premium reserved seats available for $102. Tickets are available through the Civic Center box office, all Ticketmaster locations or by calling 800-745-3000.

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What is the best steam game server host?

I've tried art of war central and i switched to gmod hosting but im looking for the best web host.

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2011 NFL Schedule: 3 Games To Avoid Watching at All Costs

While the NFL is indeed king of the United States sports world, the NFL schedule will sometimes feature a few games every now and then that are so boring they will make you cry.

It’s not the leagues fault, and it’s certainly not the teams’ fault that they are boring. the matchups are simply that; matchups.

They may just feature two teams that aren’t so good, or two teams with not a lot of star power and charisma about them.

It’s okay, it happens, but still as an NFL fan you may just want to end up avoiding watching these games all together.

Check out these three games, and make sure you check out when you see them on:

Week 1: Titans vs. Jaguars, EverBank Field, 1:00 PM EST, CBS

Unless you are a die-hard fan of one of these teams, I suggest this is a matchup that you steer far away from.

Matt Hasselbeck will most likely be leading the Titans in week one, and David Garrard for the Jaguars. A battle of two washed up quarterbacks doesn’t seem too fun to me. Also consider the fact that Chris Johnson may still be holding out on Tennessee, and that gives you absolutely no reason to watch. both rookie quarterbacks you’d want to watch will be holing clipboards in week one, as they should.

Week 8: Redskins vs. Bills, Rogers Centre, 4:05 PM EST, FOX

If you’re into two teams beating each other up to see who will end up being worse when all is said and done, than this is your game.

If you’re into sloppy defense, offenses that are decent at best, and field goals, than this will be your game.

Everybody else, just don’t watch.

Week 15: Steelers vs. 49ers, Candlestick Park, 8:30 PM, ESPN

While this game is on Monday Night Football, thus forcing you to watch it due to the fact that there will be nothing else on, it is easily the worst MNF game in the bunch.

The Steelers are going to be the Steelers, which means they will be one of the AFC’s best teams, and play some very nasty defense. the 49ers on the other hand will most likely struggle, and I cringe to think about Alex Smith going against the Steelers defense. This has all the makings of a blowout.

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