Web Hosting Blog From Pixel Internet » Website Resources

Why You Should Consider Domain Privacy

Tanya — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:24:01 +0000

When you register a website domain, the personal information you fill out (often including name, address, contact email and phone number) is then made publicly viewable via the WHOIS information available on all domains. Performing a WHOIS lookup is very simple, and will reveal the personal information of whoever registered the website.

This information is made available for a few simple reasons; if you publish a website containing illegal material, or a website encouraging terrorism or similar anti-social behaviour, then the police (or relevant authority) will use the WHOIS information to locate the individual responsible for publishing the content. There’s also the simple (and far less nefarious) situation of someone simply wanting to get in touch with the owner of a website to request a link, a content swap, etc.

However, in recent times, hackers, spammers and identity thieves have been using this information to aid their illegal activities, potentially putting you at risk (at least easily placing your name on spam email lists).

As a result, domain WHOIS privacy – which is available via Pixel Internet – has become increasingly popular in recent times. This simple add-on will remove all your personal information from the WHOIS registration page, ensuring it’s no longer viewable via a WHOIS lookup. Not only will this simple add-on help keep you (and your domain) protected from hackers and identity thieves, but can dramatically reduce the amount of spam you receive almost immediately.

If you’d like to add domain WHOIS privacy to your website, get in touch with Pixel Internet to discuss including the add-on in your hosting package.

No related posts.

5 Brand New One-Click Installs Available From Pixel Internet

Doug — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 22:27:54 +0000

We try and incorporate as many one-click installs into our hosting control panel as possible – allowing our customers to easily integrate the most popular platforms, content management systems and website elements into their site without any prior knowledge of coding or web development.

After hearing some of your suggestions for future one-click installs, we’ve added five brand new integrated platforms into our web hosting control panel. Here’s the complete list:

1. Pixelpost
Pixelpost is a fantastic new website platform aimed at photographers or anyone who wants an online photo gallery. With simple navigation and customisation, lots of free templates and our one-click install, you can have an online gallery up and running in no time at all.

2. Mantis
A great tool for those who need to keep an eye on bugs and glitches in their internal systems, website or software, Mantis offers users high-functionality bug-tracking with a variety of features and a simple, clear user dashboard.

3. PHP MyFAQ
PHP MyFAQ is a excellent integration tool, allowing users to quickly and easily add a FAQ or knowledge base to their website. This scalable open source FAQ software also allows complete customisation, allowing for simple website integration without any knowledge of coding.

4. Text Pattern
Text Pattern is a flexible, elegant and easy-to-use content management system with an extremely active support community. Whilst the majority of people stick to WordPress and other high profile CMS’s, many others are taking advantage of the intuitive dashboard and high level functionality of the growing Text Pattern CMS.

5. PHProjekt
PHProjekt is a high-level project management system designed for creative agencies and freelancers with numerous clients and campaigns to keep track of. Particularly useful if you’ve got a large creative staff who need to collaborate on client projects.

5 More One-Click Installs Added!

Steve — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 13:01:41 +0000

We are on a roll this month! Only a few weeks back we added 8 new editions to our 1 click install list…. Now we have another 5 to add to the list.

They are:

Piwik Analytics - website analytics (try online demo)
Simple Machines Forums - message board solution (try online demo)
Zen Photo - online photo gallery (try online demo)
Status.net - microblogging (try online demo)
Lime Survey - survey software (try online demo)

8 New One-Click Installs Added!

Steve — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 10:44:38 +0000

At Pixel Internet we always do are best to listen to our customers and the feedback they leave.

That’s why we’ve launched no less that 8 new one click installs following feedback and suggestions from our customers. These are now available to install, completely free via the customers Host Control Panel.

They are:

Open Cart - e-commerce solution (try online demo)
Open Web Analytics – website analytics (try online demo)
PrestaShop – ecommerce solution (try online demo)
TomatoCart – ecommerce solution (try online demo)
Simple Invoices – customer billing (try online demo)
Vanilla Forums – forum software (try online demo)
Pligg – create a ‘Digg’ style website (try online demo)
Moodle – learning-based content management system (try online demo)

Please login to your account and visit your Host Control Panel for more information on the products and how to install them.

Adding The Google +1 Button To Your WordPress Website

Doug — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 11:35:26 +0000

If you’ve been following the activities of Google in recent months (or you’re an SEO engineer), you’ll have undoubtedly come across the +1 concept recently introduced by the search giant.

Initially an experiment in utilising user-based recommendations to inform search results, Google has rolled out the +1 button more comprehensively by allowing the integration of a +1 button into your blogs and websites.

There will undoubtedly be numerous WordPress plugins in the coming months featuring simple +1 button integration, but in the meantime here’s a simple guide to adding the Google +1 button to your WordPress-based blogs and websites yourself in two simple steps:

1. Editing your WordPress theme files

You will need to add a line of Javascript to your WP theme files, but this isn’t as difficult as it may sound to some people. Simply login to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Appearances > Editor.

On the next screen, locate and select ‘Footer.php’, which should reveal the coding for your website’s footer. You’ll need to locate the closing body tag, which will look like this:

Then simply paste in the following line of Javascript immediately before the closing body tag:

To help you out, here’s a screenshot of what you’ll need to do:

Once you’ve placed the code in the right place, simply hit ‘update’ and you’re ready to move on to the next step.

2. Adding the +1 button to your website

Once the javascript is added to your Footer.php file, you’ll be able to add the +1 button with a simple shortcode:

This can be added to individual posts and pages easily, by simply adding the shortcode into the body of the post or page. However, you might find it a better option to add the button into the sidebar of your blog, post, page, etc. To do this, simply navigate to Appearances > Widgets in your WordPress dashboard.

From here, you can simply select a widget market ‘Text’, drag it into the appropriate sidebar section and add the +1 shortcode. This will give you a permanent +1 button in the corresponding sidebar, allowing users to recommend your site via the new Google button.

–

If you have any questions at all on installing the +1 button on your own WordPress website, simply leave us a comment with the issues you’re having and we’ll do our best to help.

Hype: Building Animations With HTML5 Instead Of Flash

Steve — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 18:26:39 +0000

“It’s pretty clear HTML5 is the future of the web” says Jonathan Deutsch, co-owner and founder of tech startup Tumult, who have just released the Hype app on Apple’s iTunes App Store, “The problem is that there are no good designer apps for creating animations in HTML5 like there are for Flash.”

The team hope to have solved that problem with Hype, which allows you to create complex, bespoke animations in HTML5 using an intuitive, easy-to-use interface. The app utilises WebKit to render pages, and is designed in such a way that it’s extremely easy to learn – allowing even beginners with a basic knowledge of presentation programs (such as Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple’s own Keynote) to produce impressive looking animations.

The application utilises drag-and-drop functionality, requiring no knowledge of coding. The user is initially presented with a blank canvas and an empty timeline, from where you can drag and drop images, text and video and arrange them as required. When it comes to animating the elements, you can either manually add, remove and re-arrange keyframes as required, or you can take advantage of Hype’s Record function, which will watch what you’re doing and automatically create animation keyframes.

“This is a very designer friendly process,” says Deutsch, “The intuitive recording interface means you don’t have laboriously place every individual keyframe. You just hit record, move your objects and go.”

The developers of Hype have also worked extremely hard to ensure that the created animations can be used for all forms of browsers, including mobile devices. Hype outputs not only in HTML5, but also in CSS3 and Javascript, giving an extremely high level of fidelity across all browsers – if the CSS3 transitions aren’t supported in a particular browser for example, the application will ‘fall back’ onto Javascript-based animations. In the rare instance that none of the fall back options are compatible, Hype will let you know via browser incompatibility warnings.

Hype is currently available for $29.99 via the App Store; although this price is set to increase in the near future.

No related posts.

The Best Social Media Plugins For WordPress

Freya — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 18:02:36 +0000

It’s all well and good putting huge amount of efforts into your content and your blog posts, but if nobody’s seeing or sharing that content, then all that hard work could have been for nothing.

Fortunately, if you’re a WordPress user then you don’t need to be an expert with coding or programming to add some social elements to your website; there are a whole host of plugins available with a range of different applications and functionality.

To save you the time of trawling through the seemingly infinite list of WordPress plugins looking for the right one for your website, we’ve put together brief list of some of the best social media plugins available for WordPress:

1. Sexy Bookmarks

Sexy Bookmarks is one of the most exhaustive social media plugins available, with an extremely large number of social networking platforms available for inclusion at the top or bottom of your blog posts. If you’re looking to offer your readers as wide a range of options as possible when it comes to sharing your content, then Sexy Bookmarks should certainly be one of the first plugins you install.

2. Smart Sharing

Smart Sharing is one of my personal favourite social media plugins; whilst it doesn’t have the variety of platforms available via the Sexy Bookmarks plugin, Smart Sharing gives you a social sharing box (pictured above) that scrolls down the left hand side of your blog post with the user. This means the social media options are always available to the reader, rather than just at the top or bottom of the post; resulting in a higher conversion rate (in terms of reader clicks) and increased social sharing metrics.

3. WP Greet Box

WP Greet Box (as you may well have gathered from the name) provides a greeting box to visitors to your blog, post, page or website. What makes the plugin special is that the displayed greeting changes depending on the website that referred the visitor – for example. if you visitor comes to your website via Twitter, then the plugin will display a tailored greeting for Twitter users, as well as offering the reader the option to share the content via whichever platform referred them (see the image above for the Twitter example). What’s great about this is it provides a direct call to action to the reader, which is known to improve conversion rates and should help you get your content out there much more effectively (particularly when combined with other social media plugins such as Sexy Bookmarks or Smart Sharing).

4. Active Share

Active Share is another of my own personal favourites, as it provides an effective call to action for readers who have taken the time to read your blog post. Active Share provides a Javascript drop-down box with social media sharing options – the box drops down as readers reach the end of a post, giving a clear call to action at the perfect time. Whilst Active Share may not offer the same volume of platforms as something like Sexy Bookmarks, it boasts the major platforms, provides a clear call to action and looks particularly impressive (compared to other social media plugins).

There are plenty more social media plugins available for WordPress – a quick search via the plugin section of your WP dashboard will reveal hundreds of options – but these four are the ones I’ve personally found to be most effective (in terms of design, functionality and conversions).

Do you have use a great social media plugin that we’ve missed in this list? Let us know in the comments below!

An Infographic Explanation Of Server Headers

Steve — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:19:56 +0000

For anyone new to web design, there’s a huge amount to take on-board – there are numerous different programming languages you can get involved in, a range of content management systems, experimentation with flash, javascript, HTML5, etc.

As a result, things that are relatively simple for experienced web designers can get overlooked; like server headers and their applications. The following infographic will hopefully help anyone new to the discipline looking to improve their grasp on the different server headers and their functions:

Creators: SEO Gadget

No related posts.

The Best Places To Find Premium WordPress Themes

Freya — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 18:13:56 +0000

WordPress has become one of the most popular content management systems around over the last few years – and rightly so; it’s extremely versatile and features an incredible range of plugins, widgets, features and access to all the HTML and CSS, making the whole system hugely customisable.

Not everyone is proficient enough at web design to put together their own WordPress theme however, and as a result the market for pre-made, premium WordPress themes has become hugely competitive. No matter what type of website you’re looking for (business, personal blog, portfolio, forum, etc), you’ll be able to find a premium WordPress theme online that gives you all the design elements and functionality you’re looking for.

Searching through the thousands of themes available isn’t always fun however, so to save you a potentially frustrating couple of hours, here are our favourite places for premium, high quality WordPress themes:

WooThemes

WooThemes has an incredible variety of free and paid themes, although the majority of the really good ones will require a paid download. For $125 you can gain access to all WordPress themes (this doesn’t include Joomla or Magento themes), or you can take advantage or their permanent 3-for-the-price-of-1 if you don’t have the budget to join the theme club.
The WooThemes backend editor is particularly strong, making the themes hugely customisable and very easy to use. Along with Templatic, the backend is one of the best I’ve come across.

Templatic

Another particularly strong set of themes, the Templatic themes are excellent and of an extremely high quality. They’re some of the most visually appealing and professional themes I’ve come across, and the backend is particularly well set up.
The only downside to the Templatic themes is that they’re quite expensive – costing $299 for access to all their themes (more than double the price of WooThemes).

Elegant Themes

ElegantThemes contains a good range of themes for a variety of purposes, and they’re all designed by the same guy (who’s really good). ElegantThemes is one of the most affordable premium WordPress options I’ve come across, and is a great place to start for those with a smaller budget.
The downside to the ElegantThemes designs in the backend, which isn’t as easy-to-use as some of the previous options. As a result, customising the themes past a certain points gets a little tricky, but they’re great if you know what you’re doing.

ThemeForest

ThemeForest don’t put together their own themes, but rather it’s a dedicated search engine for finding CMS themes (including WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc). All the themes are generally well priced and they have an amazingly wide selection of themes and designers – a great place to start if you’re looking for an idea of the sort of themes available.

Using Social Media Links To Better Your SEO – An Infographic

Freya — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 10:26:02 +0000

Search engine optimisation (often referred to as SEO) is a tricky game at the best of times; throw in a new algorithm update and an increased reliance on social media, and it’s extremely easy to quickly find yourself lost.

Two of the major search engines operating in the UK – Google and Bing – have both confirmed that they’re using social media signals as part of their ranking algorithm, meaning you need to start putting a greater emphasis on social media activities during your ongoing SEO campaigns.

So how are social media links considered by search engines? How can they impact on your overall rankings and subsequent organic traffic?

Rather than write an extremely long post on using social media links to better your SEO, I came across the following infographic that explains the whole thing rather well: