Around The Business

At IX Web Hosting, and all of the other Ecommerce Inc. brands, mod_wrap2 has been installed on all webservers. The joy of this module is to provide you with allow and deny access lists for all ftp accounts. It will make it possible as a user to define what IP addresses can, and the best part which cannot, your account through FTP.

How Does It Work?

During the login process, your ftp daemon looks for two specific files, ftp.allow and ftp.deny. After reviewing those two files, the system will check to see if the IP address trying to connect to the server at that moment is on the approved access list. If the IP address is not allowed to login into the server, they will receive warm and loving 503 error.

530 User ‘username’ denied by access rules

Right now you are thinking, “What if I lock myself out?” Something to remember, the ip address 127.0.0.1 is ALWAYS allowed, meaning access from webshell within your IX Web Hosting control panel will always be permitted.

What If I choose not to use FTP Allow and Deny

If you have not created any allow.ftp or deny.ftp files within your home directory, then the ftp behaviour of your account is not changed. No really if you do not want to use, it your site will still work correctly.

Quick words of Wisdom

The files ftp.allow and ftp.deny *MUST* be created in the home directory of the user, as it is seen by the ftp daemon:

1. for the main ftp login, this directory is: /hsphere/local/home/username/
2. for the ftp sub-users, this directory is /hsphere/local/home/username/some/path/set/by/customer/ (if the relative path set by customer is /some/path/set/by/customer)

Also, if 2 different users have the same home directory, the ftp.allow and ftp.deny contents will affect BOTH users.

If the ftp main user has strict rules defined that only allow certain IPs to connect, but a ftp subuser doesn’t have any rules defined, the ftp sub-user will be allowed to connect from anywhere. Vice-versa is also true.

Both ftp.deny and ftp.allow files *MUST* end with an empty line.
Both ftp.deny and ftp.allow should have read permissions for owner&group&others.

Hint from the Pros

If you do not know your IP address, you can obtain by visiting the site, What is my IP address. Also remember many Internet Providers are assigning what is call a dynamic IP address to many of their clients. If you are given a Dynamic IP it is highly recommended to whitelist your C-Class subnet. Here is a quick example

Your IP address i 88.182.14.24, so you would want to whitelist 88.182.14.

Examples of the Files

Here are the two files you would upload into your home directory if you plan to use allow.ftp and deny.ftp on your hosting server. When you upload these files to your account, make sure they are saved as allow.ftp and deny.ftp not allow.ftp.txt

allow.ftp

deny.ftp

ionCube is a PHP Loader that is used for executing PHP scripts previously encoded with the ionCube PHP Encoder software, which renders them non-humanly readable. Which also means any documentation, electronic or online is also non-humanly readable.

Which sometimes is a good thing.

Currently at IX Web Hosting, ioncube can be installed on all servers, both Windows and Linux.

How to install it to a windows-based server

1. Visit ioncube’s site, and download the Windows x86 package.
2. After you have downloaded the zip file, upload it to your domain folder. The domain folder is the file inside your FTP that is titled the same as your website address (example in my control panel it would be aroundthebusiness.com)

After you have uploaded and extracted your files, you should see a folder inside your domain folder titled “ioncube”. Inside this ioncube folder you will a file called, “ioncube_loader_win_XXX.dll” inside. Also, there is “ioncube-encoded-file.php” file in the package for testing purposes.

How to install to a Linux-based server

1. Visit ioncube’s site, and download the Windows x86 package.
2. After you have downloaded the zip file, upload it to your domain folder. The domain folder is the file inside your FTP that is titled the same as your website address (example in my control panel it would be aroundthebusiness.com)
3. After you have uploaded your files, add this link of coding to your php.ini file located inside your cgi-bin.

zend_extension=/hsphere/local/home/(USER)/(DomainFolder)/ioncube/ioncube_loader_lin_5.2.so

After you have successfully installed ioncube to either server, run the ioncube test page at

http://domainname.com/ioncube/Domain name/ ioncube-encoded-file.php. If ioncube is working correctly you should receive a message congratulating you on your happy install.

If you have any problems installing ioncube, you can contact IX Web Hosting, at any time at 1-800-385-0450.

Throughout my life I have used a lot of different internet providers. I have had a good services and I must admit I have had really bad, I mean really, really bad service providers.

My first high speed internet service came when I was in college (don’t life I was excited about dial-up while I was in high school). I had this little white box that I had to plug into my phone jack and for some reason that created high speed internet. Or most of the time it at least created internet.

For the majority of my one year service contact I couldn’t connect with to the World Wide Web, I could barely connect to the modem itself. I went from the buzzing of dial connection bliss, to no internet connection of any kind what so ever. But heck it was high speed internet so who was I to judge.

Now 8 years later, I have a high speed wireless internet connection that allows me to the pleasure to connect easily to the no longer called World Wide Web from room in my house. Isn’t luxury grand. With the advancement of technology from internet providers such as wild blue high speed internet the online world just seems to keep getting better.

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of wild blue high speed internet. All opinions are 100% mine.

WordPress is a relatively SEO friendly blogging tool to begin with. It offers a linking structure that makes it relatively easy for spiders to crawl your pages, and the code contains very little validation errors if any at all. However, there are a few additional steps that you can follow in order to make your WordPress blog even more SEO friendly, and most are so simple to implement that there is absolutely no reason not to.

To read the rest of this article click HERE.

OK, it’s 2010 and we all know the most important information you own is no longer your birthdate or social security number, it is now your password. But is your password, the gate keeper to your business, personal and social life, as strong as it should be? The online company Imperva recently posted the top 10 most used passwords currently used online and ladies and gentlemen if you see your password, change it now.

• 123456
• 12345
• 123456789
• Password
• Iloveyou
• Princess
• Rockyou
• 1234567
• 12345678
• abc123

If you are having problems coming up with passwords that you feel are strong enough, check out GoodPassword.com to help you create a password strong enough to protect you.

Yesterday Apple released the first images and specs of their newest baby the iPad, I know the worst name ever. Here is a break down of what the pricing will look like of the iPad.

Here is a list of the Top 10 Social Media Resources online today. How many are you on?

1. Facebook.com
2. YouTube.com
3. Myspace.com
4. Twitter.com
5. Flickr.com
6. Photobucket.com
7. Linkedin.com
8. Digg.com
9. Ning.com
10. Yelp.com

On Friday January 15^th 2009, McDonald’s added another addition to their ever growing extra value meal, Free Wi-Fi.

Most US locations, a total of 11,500 new Wi-Fi hotspots around the country, has recently changed their previously $2.95 happy of two hours of internet access, to hot be so hard on the pocket. I am said to say that so far there are 14,000 McDonalds across the nation not offering free Wi-Fi, but like all McDonalds I’m sure it’s coming soon.

As a parent, I see myself grabbing a cup of coffee and letting my children play a lot longer in the McDonalds Playland with free Wi-Fi at my finger tips.

One of the countries largest newspapers, The New York Times, is looking to announce within the next few weeks, a metered subscription service  will be used to allow viewers to read some articles before being prompted to subscribe.

The motivation behind the New York Times taking the stance “pay us now please”, is simple, money. Online ad revenues have not proven to be able to replace the plummeting revenues lost within the last five years of printed ad pages.

As everything on the internet, opinions are very divided on the subject of subscription news services. On one side of the great debate by the New York Times erecting subscription channels it may drive readers toward, less creditable but completely free outlets for their news. Another large problem the New York Times will run into quickly is a drop in their Google PageRank. With bloggers and other users online not able to link to subscribed pages, because one they or their readers are unable to read most of the articles posted by the New York Times.

In the past the New York Times established TimesSelect, which seemed to be a complete failure online. If the readers are ever to be sold on the payment model, which the New York Times has reported that TimesSelect was a complete success, The main argument of those supporting the subscription service is that by maintaining a high level of revenue is key to keeping the quality standards we are used to seeing from the New York Times.

Do you feel this is a smart move by the team at the New York Times, or do you think it’s just another vain attempt to add additional revenue for a struggling newspaper company?

Adobe Flash CS4 is by far the most used web-based and broadcast animation tool. Also of all the new upgrades to the Adobe CS4 Creative Suite family Adobe Flash CS4 has changed the most. Adobe has changed Many of Adobe Flash CS3 fundamentals and for many former users, Adobe Flash CS4 may have a learning curve.

Adobe Flash CS4 has mastered ease of use for many of the basic day to day functions. The new motion models interface is more based on individual objects instead of time line. Many tweening steps have become abbreviated for faster and easier use. One note of concern for many of you that have not learned Actionscript 3.0, you are not going to be able to avoid in Adobe Flash CS4.

Another great change to Adobe Flash CS4 is the now vertical properties panel is now integrated with the other tool panels. Also you get a hint of big brother, Adobe After Effects, with the newly designed motion editor panel. This allows for a much faster, and better fine tuned, custom motions.

Also with new 3D object rotation in space and character animation bones Adobe Flash has surpased earlier verisons of Flash and establish itself as the flash editor to beat.