Web Hosting Blog From Pixel Internet

Megaupload Could See All Data Erased This Week

Tanya — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:22:10 +0000

If you’ve been following the news recently then you’ve no doubt heard about the arrest of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom (otherwise known as Kim Schmitz), on multiple charges of copyright infringement.

What might surprise some of you however (particularly those who have uploaded data or media to the website), is that all the data located on the site could be erased as early as Thursday this week, according to the Associated Press.

The potential removal of all the data stems from the fact that all Megaupload assets have been frozen, meaning they can’t pay their hosting companies (Cogent Communications Group and Carpathia Hosting, who supply all of Megaupload’s storage). As a result, the hosting providers may begin deleting all data this week, which is bad news for all Megaupload’s users (particularly those who are hosting data legally).

Despite the potential of losing all their user’s data, Ira Rothken (Megaupload’s lawyer) remains confident that an agreement can be put in place to keep the data safe.

Megaupload was shut down in early January by the United States Department of Justice, with the Megaupload founders being charged with making $175million on the back of the distribution of copyright protected materials (most notably films and television programs). If Kim Dotcom and his accomplices are found guilty of the charges levied against them, they could face a maximum penalty of 20 years in US prison.

No related posts.

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.

The Anatomy Of A Perfect Website [INFOGRAPHIC]

Doug — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:36:52 +0000

Even for the most talented amongst us, web design can be a tricky business at the best of times. It’s not just a case of being able to create something that’s pleasing to the eye, you have to consider usability, navigation, social media integration, validated mark-up, search engine optimisation, conversion optimisation and a whole host of other elements in order to put the together the perfect modern website.

So to help you put together a fantastic site, ROI Media has produced the following infographic, entitled ‘The Anatomy Of A Perfect Website’:

If you enjoyed this infographic, please consider sharing it using our social media sharing buttons. Feel free to repost this infographic on your own site, just please link back to ROI Media or Pixel Internet if you do.

No related posts.

Mozilla Continues With Google Search Partnership

Doug — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:51:27 +0000

Anyone who’s familiar with the Mozilla Firefox browser will have seen that Google has been the browser’s default search engine for some time, allowing users to make Google searches directly from the taskbar. This relationship has been hugely positive for both Google (helping to ensure their market dominance by featuring so prominently on one of the most popular western browsers) and Mozilla (adding user functionality, improving brand awareness and making them a considerable sum of money), so news of the pair continuing their relationship at first doesn’t seem too surprising.

However, with the current deal between the two major brands expiring in November, plus Mozilla’s recently released ‘Firefox with Bing’, many people had begun to speculate that the deal between Mozilla and Google could be coming to an end (with many suggesting an imminent switch to Bing as the primary search provider). Considering the growing rivalry between Firefox and Google’s own Chrome web browser, this didn’t sound completely outside the realms of possibility.

According to an announcement from Mozilla, the new deal between the company and Google will run for a minimum of three more years, with Google continuing as the Firefox default browser.

Although the monetary elements of the new deal weren’t disclosed, one can expect it to be extremely lucrative for Mozilla, with their relationship with Google accounting for more than 80% of their revenue in 2010.

No related posts.

How The Panda Update Has Changed SEO [INFOGRAPHIC]

Doug — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:00:05 +0000

SEO can be a difficult business at the best of times, but with Google’s recent Panda updates, many people have seen significant drops in their search engine rankings and subsequent website traffic. As a result, many people are looking to improve their online marketing techniques in order to stay on the right side of Google’s algorithm.

So how has the Panda algorithm update changed SEO? How can you alter your SEO campaigns in order to ensure you not only avoid ranking drops, but improve your overall search visibility?

Well now you can find out exactly how to do just that, with a recent infographic published by Custard Media:

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.

Best Retro Inspired Fonts of 2011

Doug — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 12:25:19 +0000

As designers we all love fonts, and some more so than others. They can easily be the making or breaking of great graphics, and matter a lot more than you might think. From legibility, display and compatibility on various devices to the style of the font, there is a lot to consider. With the huge proliferation of designers and material available on the internet today, there is a more baffling choice today then ever before. We’ve picked through and tested a lot of fonts this year, and here are just some of our favourites:

- Weston
From the excellent ‘League Of Movable Type’ collective (who have some other great offerings like Chunk 5 and Ostrich Sans) comes Weston. It’s retro, yet futuristic somehow, which is the perfect combination for me at the moment. A really lovely font.

- Pompadour
Although these are only numbers, I really love this set. The beautiful slab serifs are inspired by retro imagery from the 1950s, but look fantastic in all kinds of modern layouts. They’re really stylish and very versatile as well.

- Ranger
From the stunning collection of the Lost Type co-op comes Ranger, a beautiful bold italic font with subtle little points. It’s apparently inspired by old Colorado sign writing, and designed by Colorado native Evan Huwa.

- Highlands
Again from the Lost Type co-op, Highlands is another font inspired by retro posters; this time from National parks in America. The bold slab serif is very versatile and works really for headlines and posters.

- Bebas Neue
The fantastic Dharma Type are the creators of the final entry here, and again have lots of other really great retro fonts, many inspired by advertising and posters of the 40s and 50s. Bebas is a very simple narrow slab serif that echoes woodcut type of the past, and works in a huge range of situations.

- Duke
Finally, something quite similar to Bebas above, but with some lovely subtle shading to give it a 3D effect. It works just as well in the same situations, and makes really great looking titles and bold headers.

The Current State Of Cloud Computing [INFOGRAPHIC]

Doug — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 13:26:21 +0000

When it comes to online storage and data hosting, cloud computing has become a major industry as more and more businesses (as well as the public) look to take advantage of secure storage and virtualised applications.

So what is the current state of cloud computing in the UK and further afield? Well, you can now find out with the following infographic, commissioned by the team at GuruOnline.

The Current State Of Cloud Computing:

United States To Build Online ‘Cyber Range’

Tanya — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 13:20:57 +0000

As technology permeates our everyday lives more and more, so in turn we rely on it more. We’re getting towards the stage where we cannot live without it, and even being without the internet today can seem like a huge inconvenience.

However, as more and more people get online and with an ever wider variety of devices, the amount of people looking to take advantage of them increases. In the past few years there have been an unprecedented amount of high profile hacking cases, ranging from Lulzsec taking hacking requests via Twitter to forged security certificates mentioned in one of the last posts, it’s a constant game of cat and mouse.

It’s a concern that is shared by the US government with the amount of highly sensitive data that they hold globally, as highlighted by some facts that came to light recently. In a bid to keep ahead of the game the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, the tech arm of the US government, is creating a huge virtual environment as a cyber weapon testing range. This massive creation will simulate a complete virtual world, populated with virtual people like network managers and sys admins, and will host epic cyber battles to test the latest programs (The Matrix anyone?). It has also been rumoured that they have been trying to recruit the best hacking minds around to do battle with to try and get as much real world experience as possible.

A cool $10 million has been given to Lockheed Martin to build the latest section of the project, named ‘Phase B II’, but exactly what it entails will likely never be known. It’s probably fair to assume that as well as testing programs to improve safety this system will be used for R&D to develop offences as well, which is where more and more silent wars of the future will be fought.

Facebook Upgrades To Keep In Line With Google+

Doug — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 10:15:18 +0000

Social networks are big business today, as we all know from the well documented story of Facebook co-creator and 14^th richest person in the world, Mark Zuckerberg. With the launch of Facebook’s main competitor, Google+, in July this year, some updates to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ were surely close behind.

So low and behold, people were greeted with a revised and updated Facebook layout last week, but with such sweeping changes will people be put off? Some of the main differences and new introductions were:

Changes to the news feed mean that you now see ‘top stories’ above the most recent ones, with a button on the top right of the feed to change to most recent instead.
Facebook now features a ‘subscribe’ button in addition to the ‘friend’ option. It’s very similar to the way Twitter works, and ‘circles’ within Google+. It allows you to follow someone and see their public posts without them returning the favour.
Currently in testing is a ‘smart list’ feature, that groups your friends into categories, much like the ‘circles’ in Google+. It’s not clear how they are going to make this work, but it will enable you to see all posts within a certain category like ‘work’ or ‘school friends’.
A separate feed in the top right of the homepage has been added that lists all comments, pics, status updates and other information from all of your friends, and constantly ticks over with new information, much like the stream on Twitter.

We have also been given a glimpse of future layout changes by Digg founder Kevin Rose, who seems to have pre-release access to the new profile. He was kind enough to post a picture of it on his page, so this is what the future profile will look like:

With all updates like this there is a certain backlash, but it usually dies down after a week or two as people settle in to the changes. However, with the privacy issues they faced earlier in the year where your details were displayed to others automatically, combined with other problems and these new changes, could it signal a move away from Facebook?

When the last round of changes was made several years back, there was little alternative for users who didn’t like them. Myspace was on the way out and other networks had so few members as not to be worth it, but Google+ certainly represents a good alternative. Despite the best efforts of the Facebook team to compete with Google+, you have to ask, will the changes ultimately end up pushing more people towards it?