Hype is in every industry, but in technology this is even more common than in other industries. Or perhaps because technology can often be hard to understand, the lure of easy, fast, simple, and FREE is even harder to pass up. But when you buy the hype, it is likely to hurt later, so you may want to carefully consider a couple things we’re seeing become more common in technology as a whole.
With the hype of the cloud and software-as-a-service, many vendors now tout their API-driven products as the key to simple programming or online-success. Open APIs fall fall short of open source brings up some great points related to how the owner of the APIs really controls this game. If you are not in control of your platform, it leaves you to be forced into change that may not be good for you.
Another area we see this is in the use of “unlimited.” Many people get upset when their DSL or iPhone data stream is throttled, yet they happily accept (usually without reading the fine print) limitations that the many “unlimited” hosting companies offer. We think here is another train-wreck waiting to happen. While it may feel good to complain, ultimately if you run a high profile or important web site, we think having hosting that’s worthy of your site is critical. With no hidden catch.
SRI is here for those that realize there is no free lunch, that want a platform that can deliver upon its specifications, and not a gimmick that cannot possibly be attained. To put it another way, if you brought a sleeping bag inside of a “all you can eat buffet” would you really expect to eat, sleep, and live there for a few weeks while you finish your meal?
Feel free to call or email our support team if you have questions about how we compare, we’re proud of our offerings and are not afraid of unlimited.
Code ownership is one critical item to address when you hire a web development firm.
In one recent case, after having trouble with bugs and server performance, a client decided to move to SRI Hosting’s managed VPS with their site. Unfortunately the client did not have server access or the site code/database, and the firm they used would not give access to this. Without documented ownership of the code (or even site data) it was a difficult negotiation for them, and ultimately it cost them more money.
So as you start your project you should be sure to have a contract showing ownership of the site and code, then continue to get code updates as you pay for the site. Asking a 3rd party to review the code may be another good idea if the project is sizable and you are not able to be sure what you are getting is real. SRI is more than happy to review any hosted code regardless of whether or not we have developed it.
SRI is converting all of there shared hosting users to FastCGI, which will be great news for all of our shared hosting clients. This will make your life easier as you install and use web apps like Joomla/Drupal/Wordpress and also add another layer of security between you and the other users on our server.
You do not need to do anything for this to go into effect. Further we have seen no negative impact for clients who have had this change in our first “beta” round. We will simply email you in advance of when the change will happen, and then within a day it will be live for you.
What does this mean for you?
- Setting up new web apps like Joomla/Drupal/Wordpress is easier.
- You won’t need to try and use the difficult FTP plugins these apps may or may not provide.
- Even if other websites get hacked all your files are out of there reach.
- You can restrict the permissions on your files more aggressively and still have a functional website.
For those of you interested in the technical details here is some information:
When PHP runs from FastCGI, your server runs the PHP interpreter like an Apache module, but with the rights of your user account. Usually, the PHP interpreter is either running as the user of the webserver (which is fast, but insecure, since everyone’s scripts run with the same rights), or as a CGI program, which is slow. Thus, FastCGI is a good solution for shared hosting.
If you have never needed a Joomla! shopping cart, finding a good one your very first try can be difficult and waste a lot of time. Skip to the very end for the conclusion, if you’re not interested in the full details.
There are currently twenty-seven shopping carts listed in the Joomla! Extension Directory (JED). I am going to narrow the list down to based on a few criteria.
- Must be available for Joomla 1.7!
- Must show signs of continued support into Joomla 2.5
Must offer a Non-Commercial version— EDIT- Must offer a Non-Commercial version that is “Easy to locate and download”!
Doubling Disk Space Quota’s for shared hosting clients
If you are one of our many shared hosting clients we have doubled your disk space quota’s. You can now have double the emails, pictures and etc. as before and there’s no catch! Your cost, support and all other services will remain the same! If you are curious about what your plan includes you can go to our website srihosting.com and click on hosting > shared hosting for a comparison chart.
FREE 6 Months Hosting
Also, anyone that signs up for new standard or silver hosting and mentions our “Christmas Offer” will get their first 6 months free. This applies to both existing clients and new clients so tell your friends…if you like them.
April Ingle had the following to say about SRI…
“We struggled for too long trying to figure out how to fix this problem. While searching yet again for a solution I stumbled upon SRI’s blog post. At that moment it was clear that rather than trying to fix this ourselves we needed to just call SRI and ask them if they could fix it and for how much. We were ecstatic with the price, speed, and expertise in which SRI was able to fix our problem. If anyone else ever finds themselves in this unfortunate predicament – call SRI – they’ll fix you up fast and for a really good price.”
Thank you,
April Ingle
We Recived a call from April Ingle – Executive Director of The Georgia River Network (GARivers) early on a Thursday afternoon. She simply said that the Georgia River Network site had been hacked months earlier and they needed help.
Joomla has made a fairly major change in their releases cycle and it has gotten a lot of criticism.
In the past the Joomla team did a major release every 2.5-3 years. This often meant waiting a long time, even for features that were ready for use. Instead now they are doing an incremental update every 6 months, but for customers that wish for more “stability” or less change they are also doing a long term support (LTS) release every 1.5 years.
The biggest benefit is that companies may now take advantage of Joomla upgrades months (or years!) sooner than in the past, without having to run on a development version of the software. This is huge for anybody wishing to have a very feature-packed and fresh site.
Another benefit is more subtle. Each version of Joomla gives component/module/plugin developers new tools to approach the problems they will encounter. What this means for you is that you will find better, more powerful and more secure components/module/plugins in the Joomla extension directory. Another big win.
All this being said, it is still possible to focus on the negative aspects of this. The biggest one is that it increases the amount of time a Joomla user has to spend maintaining their site. For users who aren’t interested in the latest features that Joomla has to offer, they can still feel safe and security on the Joomla LTS release upgrading every 1.5 years. While that is a year sooner than the old “release cycle,” we feel this will make sense for most companies if they wish to stay current. For the rest … well, we’re glad Joomla is moving faster and feel that a stripped down CMS maybe be the way to go if you don’t want do have a small upgrade every 18 months. Also, take comfort in the fact that the Joomla team has made the upgrade processes much easier.
There’s another way to get through this, hire us! Our team has consistently been able to upgrade sites from 1.6 to 1.7 in less than 30 minutes. Even ones using custom components and custom templates. While this certainly will not be the case for every upgrade and every site, we do believe that over all the Joomla team has done an incredible job of making upgrades easier.
If you are worried about the upgrade process or you just need help getting the newest features you can, please feel free to give us a call: (209) 257-1706 x3
We just completed a smooth upgrade to PHP 5.3 on our Plesk infrastructure. This was a big upgrade, since our PHP version had not changed for several years (security patches were of course applied- but no upgrade to the PHP version). We’re also happy to say that due to careful planning and early notification to clients, it was very smooth.
This is a part of the SRI advantage, really … We are intentional about keeping software versions stable, hearing customers ask over and over for a stable platform where they know their existing code will not break due to an unexpected change.
So Joomla 1.7, WordPress 3.2, and other software packages which requires PHP 5.3 are now fully supported! Please feel free to call about upgrades on this if you would prefer the process to be managed by our team, or if you are curious about the benefits that these packages may provide to you.
If you are a Desktop Linux user, you’ll probably like everything about the new Fedora 15 …
My only gripe is that I found that I hate the new “alt – tab” behavior clunky and meant I had to use my mouse more. Specifically when navigating many terminal windows, rather than alt +tab (which changes apps, but does not rotate windows of the same app as on most operating systems) I had to use my mouse. This grew old quickly, and made me re-discover how helpful multiple tabs in one window were. But I still missed being able to open a window, send it to the background, then quickly (without my mouse) open it back up.
I was glad to find there is a great solution, and I think it makes for a better interface. Now instead use “Alt + ~” which will scroll only between windows of the same app … it will take some getting used to, but I’ve already found it saves the number of keys I must use to go where I want.
Detailed Upgrade Instructions for WordPress 3.1.4
The following are the instructions that explain the WordPress upgrade you will need to do before our PHP upgrade August 20th. If you would prefer we would be willing to do the upgrade for you for $50 (which includes an initial update to make your site ready for our PHP upgrade and then a follow up update to get your site on the newest version of wordpress). If you chose to do the upgrade yourself please read all of these instructions before starting. Continue reading
