Cloud Hosting
CariNet provides the best private cloud hosting services period. We provide hosting, training and consulting on private server clusters, private clouds and hybrid cluster / cloud hosting environments. We provide custom hosting solutions with seamless scalability, increased reliability, and unparalleled ease of management. While our focus is trained on the future, we never lose sight of what made us the premier cloud hosting provider we are today; top-notch support for all of our customers. CariNet has continued growing since 1997 primarily on word of mouth referrals from our global base of customers. CariNet’s datacenters host customers from over 150 countries. We know that all of our customers are our partners because our continued success and growth is 100% dependent on your continued success and growth.
CariNet has become a leader in the cloud hosting field with a wide variety of cloud offerings to supplement our traditional servers and server clusters. Whether you work in Linux or Windows, you will love CariNet. We are partners with 3tera in offering their AppLogic Cloud Operating System and we are the only hosting company in the world with an Intel Premier Partnership. We have hosted the world for well over a decade, and are fluent in all things Internet and server related. We build, own and operate all of our datacenters and facilities in the United States and are capable of handling customers and demands of any size. We have also expanded our global footprint through partnerships with other datacenters around the world. Contact CariNet; your Complete Cloud Computing Center.
Understanding Your Wordpress Database in Your Control Panel
WordPress has become the most popular content management system in the world over the past five years, although it was originally meant to be a blogging platform. Users around the world now use WordPress to setup and manage websites in nearly every niche in existence. The most appealing aspect of WordPress is undoubtedly the countless plugins that can be used to modify and enhance the functionality of the WordPress interface. Upon first using WordPress, most people are impressed at how simple the interface is designed and how accessible all of the information and settings pertaining to their website is.
Flexibility of WordPress
As you begin to use the platform as a content management system to manage a website instead of a blog, you’ll quickly realize that there are many features that do not allow for simple management of static pages that are necessary in the construction of a regular website. This means your latest post will always appear at the top of your home page. Although this seems like a game breaker, the fact is, there is a plugin for this that lets you make any post a sticky and place it at any point on the page. There is even a plugin that lets you remove the date form the side of the post, to completely remove the blog look and feel. This is just a small example of the flexibility of WordPress.
The Dynamic Nature of a WordPress Database
In order to maintain the above flexibility, WordPress needs to store all your site’s data in a dynamic MySQL database. This means your files are located in a secure database that cannot be modified externally, other than modifying it within your hosting control panel. This means you cannot access your site’s pages within an FTP client, and instead you must access the database directly within your control panel’s MyPHPAdmin section. There you will find all of the WordPress installations you have active on your server.
Adding Directories to Your WordPress Website
Since you cannot directly access your sites web pages through FTP, you cannot upload new information to your site’s pages through an FTP client. Instead you have to upload the page or post within your site’s WordPress admin. You can however upload completely new pages to a new directory on your site. By creating a directory for your site in your FTP client you can easily add new pages to that directory and then link to those pages within the internal structure of your WordPress site. This is useful when you would like to create reference popup pages within your site that can be linked to via anchor text within your site’s articles.
To create a new directory for your site in your FTP client, simply left-click any blank area in the bottom of the remote side of the FTP client (the bottom quadrant of the right side), then click on ?new directory? or ?create new directory?. The exact option will vary depending on your FTP client, but you see this command in the left-click menu. Then name the directory and you’re done! Now you can upload custom web pages to that directory that you can link to in your WordPress site!
Ecommerce Hosting and Digital Product Sales
Selling something online is relatively easy, considering you have access to the entire population of the internet at your fingertips. Once you know how to get traffic, the money is going to come eventually, as it becomes a numbers game eventually. Although getting traffic is not extremely easy, once this is accomplished, you then have to find a way to convert that traffic into money.
If you’re trying to sell physical products then you’ll definitely need an eCommerce hosting account. If you want to sell digital products, an eCommerce account would help but is not absolutely necessary.
Do I Need eCommerce Hosting to Sell my Product?
The answer to this question depends upon what you’re selling, and how much you plan on selling. If you are selling actual products that need to be shipped to an address, then having a eCommerce hosting account linked to a merchant account would be optimally. If you are selling a small amount of physical products and you do not have a large product catalog, then you could settle for a regular hosting account, and accept payments via a payment processor such as PayPal or AlertPay. On the other hand, if you’re selling digital products such as eBooks or down-loadable software then the choice is entirely up to you. Once again, the more products you are trying to sell, the more beneficial it would be for you to have an eCommerce hosting account.
How Can an eCommerce Hosting Account Help You?
Ecommerce hosting accounts do several things that contribute to the overall success and organization of your online business. Perhaps the most important feature offered by an eCommerce hosting account would be the amount of server resources you’re given, and the per-installed software that helps you build product catalogs and accept orders easily. One such software that no serious internet merchant should go without is a shopping cart. If you have ever shopped online then you have probably used a shopping cart, maybe without even realizing it. The shopping cart is simply the application that lets users buy several products at once and conduct a variety of other interactive activities within your web site.
Safely Selling Digital Files
If you’re selling digital files then you need to be concerned about people sharing your digital files online. One of the ways people share digital files easily is by linking people to the download page that you supply upon payment. To protect yourself from such an occurrence you need to find a way to lock the file so that only one person can download it. You can do this by signing up for eJunkie, which will let you host your digital products online without having to worry about more than one person downloading the file. When a person submits payment to your eJunkie account they are automatically taken to a secured page that only works for one user.
Using Your Hosting Account to Run Software
The software industry is very diverse, offering solutions to just about every digital problem in existence. Learning how to use a very complex piece of software is enough to drive anyone crazy, and the sad part is ? many people do not even know how to run their software. This is especially true for software that needs to be run on web server.
Almost any software that requires constant access to the internet can be hosted on an Apache server and run using your hosting account. This not only saves your computer system resources, thus speeding up your computer, it also expedites the overall efficiency of the software itself.
Installing the Software on Your Server
Installing software onto a web server is relatively simple if you know what you are doing. You can even run several software at once on the same web server. The problem occurs when you realize that not all software can be installed in the same way. That’s when you encounter various terms such as PHP, MySQl, and more. Although the installation process differs depending upon the software or script, in general you will need to use an FTP client for every installation.
Uploading Software to Web Server
The first step in uploading the software to the web server is to download a good FTP client. I would recommend FileZilla because it is free, popular, reliable, and easy to use. Once you have FTP client installed you can then navigate to the software files on the hard driver side of the FTP client (the left side). Right click on it and then press upload. It is important to note that you need to read the README file of your software to see where you need to install the software on your web server. Most software will do just fine if they are installed in the route folder of web server.
Running the Software
Once again this process differs depending upon the software you are running and what it is intended to do. A basic script can be run simply by visiting the web page that the script was installed to. For example, if you installed a very simple script that generates random names, you would simply visit the page that the script is installed on and click the generate button. Of course this is a basic example, however the concept remains the same for any script or software that you install or use on a web server. The program is accessed the same way a web page would be accessed, this means it is important for you to know which directory the software is installed in.
Conclusion
Not all software can be run on a web server, however if you have extra server resources available and you are trying to run a powerful piece of software on a constant basis, then you should definitely consider running any demanding software remotely using your web server, this is especially true if you are already paying a lot for a dedicated or VPS server.
Could Your Hosting Account Get Banned?
Web hosting companies do their best to display an image of customer oriented service that aims only to please the customer. While this is true for the most part there are some limitations as to what you can do with your web hosting account. These limitations include bandwidth and disk space, which are limited on every web server regardless of what your web hosting service provider tells you. Nearly all web hosting companies will tell you that you have unlimited resources, however this is simply a marketing gimmick to get you to buy. The reality is you are limited in what you can do with any web hosting account. If you surpass these limits you may get a warning form your web hosting company.
The Warning
The warning that you usually receive from the web hosting company will tell you that you have exceeded your terms of service and that you need to reduce server load or else your account will be temporarily suspended or permanently banned if you fail to comply with these conditions. While this may seem like it is unfair, and in man cases it is, you must understand that the web hosting company has an obligation to fulfill for all of it?s clients, not just you. These means they have to make sure their network is running at optimal speeds for all of their clients. If the network allows too many users to violate their bandwidth and disk space restrictions then the rest of the clients on the service will suffer, especially on a shared hosting service plan.
Why Does This Happen?
You will usually get a message like this when your site has too many files on it or when you get too much traffic in a short period of time with the later usually being the most common problem. If you get too many visitors in a short period of time suddenly, then you will put a large burden on the server which can send a red flag for your hosting company. When the hosting company sees this they become aware of the fact that you are drawing a great amount of server resources, and in some cases they may even deem this as ?suspicious activity?.
How to Fix It
The best way to rectify the situation is to call your hosting company and talk with them personally on the phone. Sending an email will also work, however it is usually not as effective. Talking to a customer service rep is the best way to get your voice heard by far. Make sure you let them know that you want to do whatever it takes to fix the situation. They will usually walk you through the process of lowering your server load. You may need to purchase an extra hosting account or a dedicated server to accommodate your recent surge in server usage.
Web Hosting and Fraud ? How to Safeguard Your Business
The web hosting industry is often the target of fraudsters around the world in a variety of ways. Instead of scamming people by stealing their financial information like most scam artists, web hosting scammers will actually pose as real companies, gaining the trust of the victim before making the final move to steal their funds and possibly tarnish their reputations as well. Without knowing the ins and outs of the web hosting industry it can be very difficult to counteract such an attack, especially if you are dealing with a web hosting company that does not take the proper precautions to protect you form such risks.
Email Fraud
The main method used by scam artists to defraud web hosting account holders is email ?marketing.? Many times the scam artist may even send you an email posing to be your current web hosting company, and convince you to sign up for additional services. They may even tell you that your hosting account is about to expire and that you need to renew your plan immediately before all of your sites are taken offline. Regardless of which method they use there is usually an urgent call to action that prompts the web hosting account holder to take immediate action. Sometimes they may not even want your money, they may be looking for a way to steal your web domains by gaining access to your hosting account’s login credentials. Once the perpetrator is logged into your account they can transfer domain ownership to themselves, and it would be very difficult to prove that you did not take this action yourself.
How do they Get Away With It?
The short answer to this question is ? they don’t. In the long run they will almost all be caught and shut down, however they can and do get away with a lot of money before they are caught. Once you have given them your credit card they can use it for whatever they’d like until you decide to deactivate your card. To keep something like this from happening to you, you’ll need to make sure you only deal with reputable hosting company that safeguards their email file transfer protocol correctly.
Verifying Email Origins
While this may seem obvious to most people, all of this fraud usually happens because people fail to check the origin of the email messages from their hosting company. The scam artists are smart enough to completely clone the template of a hosting company’s email and then send it to you posing as the company itself. The quickest and easiest way to stop this from happening to you is to check the originating email address of the sender. If the address is different form the one that you usually receive emails form your hosting company at, then it may be a fraud attempt.
Conclusion
Aside from taking precautions yourself, make sure you have advanced security notifications in place with your web hosting company. Tell your web hosting company that you would like to be notified via phone every time a change is made to your account.
Top 15 Open Source CMS Systems
You have all heard about the more popular open source content management systems such as Joomla and Drupal. However, there are many more open source content management systems out there that are more than capable of accommodating the needs of your website. In fact, some of the less popular CMSs actually provide features that cannot be found in the standard CMS. Not all CMS live up to their developer’s hype though, so we’ve compiled a comprehensive list of the top 20 open source content management systems.
1. Drupal: One of the most popular and powerful content management systems available. Many believe Drupal is the best.
2. WordPress: While this CMS was originally made for blog publishing, it has quickly become a one of the most popular CMSs on the planet.
3. Joomla: Considered to be in the top three of any CMS list, by any CMS user. Joomla has been used to build many corporate and professional websites, such as the United Nations page.
4. b2Evolution: A fully functional weblog creation utility/CMS that provides support for several categories/sub-categories, skins, multiple blogs, comments, statistics, photo management, and anti-spam filters.
5. Movable Type: Similar to WordPress, Movable Type is also a very capable blog creation utility which is commonly used for creating dynamic sites.
6.Alfresco: A very capable professional CMS providing a variety of document management features.
7. Xoops: This expandable object-oriented CMS is extremely simple to use, and is very popular amongst PHP coders.
8. e107: Another popular PHP-based CMS specifically designed simple and fast creation of community portals and professional sites.
9. DotCMS: A Java wCMS (Web Content Management System) with included events management e-communications, and personalization/CRM tools, an AJAX calendar, eCommerce hooks and much more.
10. ImpressCMS: An open source CMS designed for efficient site building and maintenance. This CMS is supposed to be an excellent solution for business users who are building a business oriented community website.
11. Exponent: A competent CMS that lets webmaster conveniently create and maintain dynamic sites with absolutely zero coding experience.
12. KnowledgeTree Document Management System: A comprehensive document management system specifically designed for business collaboration and easy document storage and organization.
13. Liferay: This CMS provides an enterprise portal solution using Web 2.0 and Java technologies.
14. Pivot: A CMS utility designed for the management of dynamic websites, blogs and online journals. Includes a variety of post organization features.
15. Magnolia: Commonly used by Government websites, this CMS provides a user-friendly editing interface that lets authors preview content exactly as it would be seen by the website visitor. This CMS has the top of the line (best-breed) JAVA technology.
Conclusion
The above list is by no means a comprehensive one, however. There are many more open source CMS available, and the only way to make a fully informed decision would be to review every CMS you can find. If you;re not willing to do so, then the above list will help you decide which CMS is right for you based on the key features of each CMS listed.
HyperVM and VPS Hosting ? A Winning Combination
VPS(Virtual Private Server) hosting is a popular alternative to dedicated hosting, which is slightly more expensive than other hosting solutions. Choosing the right web host can be difficult if you are not aware of the various kinds of hosting and their benefits. If you have been doing the necessary research then I am sure you’ve already read about VPS hosting and it’s benefits.
VPS hosting lets you lease a private server that you can control from a remote location using the web hosting manager (WHM, or control panel that is given to you by the hosting company. Although VPS hosting is cheaper than dedicated hosting, it offers many of the same benefits, including increased bandwidth and disk space, as well as included access to dedicated IP addresses. Since VPS hosting is such a unique solution, it requires a unique control panel to effectively administrate. One of the most popular control panels used in VPS hosting is the HyperVM control panel.
What is HyperVM?
HyperVM is a very competent control panel that is specifically designed for the virtual private server hosting environment. With HyperVM, users can easily manage nearly all aspects of their server and website, without having direct access to the server. HyperVM is not as comprehensive as other control panels, such as cPanel, primarily because it is a compact yet fully capable solution that focuses on functionality combined with usability.
What is Special About HyperVM?
One of the aspects that sets HyperVM apart from other control panels is it’s ability to show server usage in neatly organized and easy-to-understand graphs. HyperVM effectively shows the amount of memory usage, disk usage, and bandwidth usage, accurately depicting the amount of load that is being place don the server. Users can also conduct tests on their server to see how their server is performing without having to risk site performance by pushing the limits of their web server. Using the test features within HyperVM, users can conduct boot tests, shutdown tests, and reboot tests. The IP address used in the test is also displayed and the rest of the control panel can easily be accessed from within the test module.
How Much Does HyperVM Cost?
Usually HyperVM is automatically integrated into your monthly web hosting expense, so there is no expensive startup cost involved with HyperVM. If your web host does not include HyperVM in your hosting package, then you can talk to them about switching from your current control panel to HyperVM. Some web hosts will not allow you to do this, so it is important that you contact your web hosting provider before making the decision to purchase HyperVM. If you do decide to purchase HyperVM for use on your server(s), then you’ll be relieved to know that the it only costs a few dollars per month extra.
Conclusion
Due to it’s unique user-interface, VPS-based functionality, and low cost, HyperVM is a suitable solution for anyone using a virtual private server to host their websites. Using HyperVM, you’ll be able to easily control nearly every aspect of your websites and your server without having any prior experience in server management. In fact, HyperVM even provides email support and remote server administration for a set hourly fee.
Using Your FTP Client To Host Images
Creating a website without images is unheard of in today?s day and age, especially if you are trying to visually appealing site that will attract visitors. Having a site with high quality images and other multimedia files is absolutely essential if you?re trying to keep visitors at your site for an extended period of time. Aside from putting interactive images and videos on your site, you may also want to amend the theme of your website and make some decorative site changes. The problem that most people have is that they don?t know how to host images online.
The quick and easy solution to hosting your images would be to use a free image hosting service like photobucket, and then linking to your images within the internal structure of your site. However, this may not be a very reliable solution since the images are not hosted on your web server. If you want to have your images load quickly, and not have to worry about third party servers losing your images, then you will need to host the images on your own web server using an FTP client.
What is an FTP Client?
An FTP client is a program that lets you transfer information from your computer?s hard drive to your website. This lets you easily make adjustments to your sites files and upload many files at once to your site. FTP clients make it easy for you to interact with your web server and make any kind of adjustments you want to your website.
How to Host Images on the Web Server
Hosting images on your web server is as easy as uploading a normal file to your site, however you will need to know how to link to your image once you have uploaded it to your site. The way you link to the image is going to depend upon what the image is used for. If you want the image to be embedded on a specific page, then you will need to add an image source tag to your html page. If you are using WordPress then you will need to embed it in your post using the options in the WordPress WYSIWYG editor. If you want the image to be a part of your site?s background then you will need to add some code to the CSS style sheet of your site so that the site will call back to the image file when your background loads.
Creating Image Directories
In some cases you may need to create a new directory to host your image in. This is especially useful if you want to keep the images well organized in a specific order. You may also want to do this if you are hosting images that you want to keep hidden, such as private images that are accessible only to a member section of your website. In this case you could create an image directory and then assign specific file permissions to that directory.
Conclusion
Hosting images on your website is a far more reliable and plausible solution than hosting the images on a free third party server. If you decide to host on a third party server then you are taking the risk of losing your images permanently, having them disappear from your site temporarily, or having them load slowly for your visitors.
A Guide to SEO Web Hosting
Perfecting the art of search engine optimization is not easy in any regards, especially if you are not using the right tools and resources. Trying to do search engine optimization manually will almost always result in wasted time and plenty of frustration, within a minimal return on your investment. If you want to be successful and bring your site to the top of the search engine in the least amount of time possible, then you’ll want to be utilizing the right tools to keep you ahead of your competition. Most people see these tools as being particular kinds of software that help you monopolize markets and do keyword research. However, you should not overlook the importance of a good web hosting company when executing your search engine optimization campaigns.
What Can a Web Host Do For My SEO Campaign?
The important question is, what can you do with your web hosting account to make your job as a site owner and search engine optimization specialist easier? The answer to this question is simple ? diversification. Does your web host allow adequate diversification. If the answer is no, then you will need to find another web host that will. What do I mean by adequate diversification? Well, you have to understand that search engine optimization can not be optimal by utilizing only one website.
The Backlink Game
The reason why you need the help of other websites is because you cannot effectively get the amount of backlinks needed for your main site through one website. Search engine optimization is like a team game. You need other websites to be successful, because you need them to link back to you. This doesn’t mean that you need to own all of these websites, it just means that you need to have your link on them, and this is why link exchanges exist. However, imagine how much easier this practice would be if you owned the majority of the websites that link back to your site! You would be able to get many backlinks without having anyone’s approval!
Why Can’t I Do This With Any Web Host?
The main reason why this can’t be done with any web host, is because all web hosts do not allow you to have different IP addresses for each site that you own. This is where SEO web hosting comes in. You see, if Google (or any other search engine) sees that there are many sites linking back to your main site, and all of these sites are on the same IP address, then you run the risk of having your site de-indexed from Google. However, if the sites that link back to your site are located on different IP address, then they appear to be completely separate entities! What an SEO web hosting company does is give you access to as many class C IP addresses as you need, so that you can create as many websites as you would like form different IP addresses, and create a network of links that you have complete control over!
The Benefits of Web Servers and Custom Scripts
The purpose of a web hosting plan is to give you access to a web server that will let you store information that can be broadcasted onto the internet. However, there are more uses for your hosting account than just storing your website’s information. Web server’s let you take advantage of a variety of online databases and programming languages such as PHP. These programming languages are often used to create programs and scripts that can be run on your web server to carry out a plethora of automated functions. Literally everything that you can do on the internet can bee automated using a programming language. These programs are known as scripts, and in order to run them you need a server, whether it be a local server or a web server. Some scripts need internet connectivity, in which case the script must be hosted on a web server in order to accomplish the full functionality of the script.
Will Any Web Server Work?
The answer to this question depends entirely upon how powerful the script you are trying to run is. If you are running a standard script that requires minimal threading then you should be able to run it on just about any web server that allows for PHP compatibility. However if you are trying to run a script that is extremely powerful and requires multi-threading then you are going to need a more powerful server. In this case using a shared web server would not be an option, as you would not have enough bandwidth and RAM to execute all of the tasks that are being executed by the script. Therefore you may need to consider a powerful web server such as a VPS or dedicated server.
VPS Servers and Scripts
VPS servers are Virtual Private Servers, which means they are not shared between users, and therefore give you access to more system resources. However, this server does not belong to you completely, and since you are only leasing it you have limited control over what you can do with the web server. The limits that are imposed upon a virtual private server are ones that pertain to your configuration permissions within the server. This means you cannot go in and change the configuration of the server beyond what your hosting company allows you to do. If you want to run several powerful scripts, then this may be possible with a VPS, however you will need to check with the hosting company about the specific details of your configuration permissions.
Dedicated Hosting
If you want to have as much control over your server as possible, then you will want a dedicated hosting account. A dedicated server bears its name because it is dedicated to you and no one else. This means you have much more control over your server so you can control the configuration settings of the server to fit your particular script. If you want to run the most powerful scripts then you would need to use an unmanaged dedicated hosting account. Although this kind of hosting account is not cheap, it will allow you to do practically whatever you would like.
name: MAGPIE