Posts Tagged ‘Hosting’

Blue Host review

Last Updated on Tuesday, 10 November 2009 08:49 Written by Mike Monday, 9 November 2009 01:53

Here is a straight to the point review for BlueHost. Lately I have heard some pretty good things about them. There are so many hosts out there that this geek decided to check this one out. Here is my take on BlueHost…keep in mind I do not host with them I host with Media Temple. This is a non-sponsored post. However if you are considering signing up with blue host, feel free to sign up via my affiliate banner.

At first glance this company appears to be serious about web hosting. They have a visually appealing site and easy to find contact information. A great feature is that BlueHost allows a demo of their control panel which is a customized version of cPanel. It’s a nice feature that allows you to review how cPanel works before committing to an agreement.

Standard Features are all there with nothing lacking. All of the expected features of a web host using cPanel, including multiple database support, FTP, email, etc. BlueHost’s is the only one I could find, at least that has a package featuring unlimited disk space, and unlimited bandwidth. However there is a limited number of databases (50 each for MySQL and Postgre) but more FTP and email accounts than you could ever use. Pricing is dependent on how long you sign up for.

While not being a fan of minimum contract lengths, when you average the pricing out over a years time BlueHost is quite competitive.

cPanel Control Panel

After signing up and 2 clicks later, I was in my control panel. If you know about cPanel, you can probably skip this paragraph. It’s all very standard. You have the controls for SQL, sub domains, email, etc. features just like every other instance of cPanel. There’s a few nice customized add ons such as their domain manager, a quick click site builder, and some additional options to manage your account. BlueHost has Fantastico, which is up-to-date with the latest stable versions of the commonly installed apps. The cPanel worked very fast and performs flawlessly as is should.

Support

You can reach their support department using their toll-free number. Generally someone will respond within about 30 seconds after dialing. Support is friendly knowledgeable, and offer expert assistance across varying levels of tech support hierarchy. Even the basic tech support staff is able to handle over %95 of the support calls while routing more complicated issues to the most senior staff.

In comparison, BlueHost seems like a very good web host. The company has their act together and can be considered a top quality web host with great features and awesome support.

Compare more affordable web hosting providers.

Tags: affiliate, article marketing, Hosting, reviews | Posted under Geek Tech | No Comments

Media Temple DV vs Godaddy Hosting. A Review

Last Updated on Tuesday, 17 January 2012 07:45 Written by Mike Tuesday, 29 September 2009 07:26

After 6 months with media temple hosting, this former godaddy customer is completely impressed. Here are the key differences that should make a difference to you.

The Differences:

Email. Godaddy limits you to 1000 emails outbound per day. This is per hosting account. No matter how many domains you run, or whether you have a dedicated server or not. To get this limit raised you have to jump through hoops, comply with every can-spam policy requirement and restrictions. Your email’s must be approved and contain subscription list removal. As well as opt-in must agree to comply with their specs. Media Temple is no where near as restrictive with their shared service or grid service set to 50 per minute or 500 per hour. The DV servers have no outbound email restrictions. Abuse of this will just end up getting your domain black-listed.
Support. Hands down Media Temple’s customer service makes Godaddy seem like a small time operation. Knowledgeable staff, quick response via phone(longest hold time yet was 17 minutes). Even though having a DV with full access, the support team will help with issues on databases, backing up data, restoring snapshots. Knowledgeable would be on the bottom of the list for godaddy.
Price. $42 a month with Media Temple is my cost base for a DV with a dedicated 512M of Ram, 3 IP addresses and a Dedicated %10 CPU load. Root access, and a huge assortment of developers tool’s(including svn) make serving 200,000 dynamic pages per day a walk in the park. With 20 Gig of storage and a Terabyte of data transfer per month. It’s Media Temple for the Win!!! of course they have less costly plans with their GS (grid service) designed to handle large spikes in traffic at a base cost of $20 per month. There is also a cheaper shared plan. Click here and tell them jobshouts.com sent you a referral.
Godaddy’s plans: There cheaper with shared hosting accounts available for a base of around $8 a month. No dedicated Ram or IP. Shared resources with thousands of other websites. High latency times causing slow page loads. Plus that interface is designed to sell, not be helpful. Domain management is clunky and cumbersome.
Domain registration – This is godaddy’s only remaining feature that is worth something. They are by far the cheapest to register and maintain your domain names. As long as you don’t mind their repeated attempts at reselling their ‘other’ products, keep them as your registrar.

There that’s about it in a nutshell. I am very happy to have moved all of my web properties off Godaddy’s servers. You do truly get what you pay for.

If you decide to sign up with Media Temple, tell them jobshouts.com referred you. We get a perk from them when you do.

Geek out!

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Tags: Godaddy, Hosting, Media Temple, Server | Posted under Geek Tech, Reviews | 3 Comments

Securing & Hardening your Media Temple Server DV/DPV

Last Updated on Monday, 28 September 2009 12:09 Written by Mike Tuesday, 22 September 2009 01:27

If you have a DV/VPS from Media Temple you may want to take some steps to save yourself a lot of hassle down the road. In this age of web connectivity ease of access to the internet is often taken for granted. While this makes most people’s lives easier, it also makes life for hackers and script kiddies easy too.

One of the things Media Temple does not tell you, is that you need to take additional steps to secure your DV beyond its initial configuration. This is especially important if you enable root access and developers tools. Once root access is enabled your server is vulnerable to port scans, and dictionary type attacks.

Take these steps to eliminate the vulnerability and you will save your self a lot of headache from your server becoming compromised.

Step 1 USE A STRONG PASSWORD!!!! Dictionary type attacks use common names/terms to guess at what your login and password might be. Once the attacker knows what user name is in use. They can then proceed to attempt to guess a password. Never, ever use a password that is someone’s name, place, or event that could be guessed. Stick to passwords that contain letters, numbers, and even symbols a password that looks like !33$#me2x works way better than carmen.

Step 2. Configure Firewall rules. Log into your Plesk admin panel, then from the desktop page click on modules in the left navigation pane. You should see an option appear in the context window for Firewall. In the default configuration the firewall does not block much at all. Pay special attention to the SSH option. I have my DV set to only allow traffic from my IP block, while denying all other IP traffic. In an example of the rule I use. I allow 72.186.98.0/24 what this does is allow all traffic from the IP block of addresses including addresses 72.186.98.0 to 72.186.98.255. I did it this way in case my IP address changes.

Step 3. Block all non-essential services. If you are not using them turn them off or block them. Just be careful about which ones you block. You just might lock yourself out of your own server. Or a function such as email or web page serving may stop functioning.

Here is a snapshot of how my FW look, Click to view in full size.

As of this writing I have a support ticket in with Media Temple. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to implement the IP address blocking on the Plesk Admin interface. This should also be restricted in my opinion, but you could easily get locked out of your server and be unable to make any changes to the firewall configuration.

One thing to keep in mind if you do manage to somehow get locked out. You can reset your firewall rules to a default configuration by logging into Media Temples account center, selecting the DV admin and selecting advanced recovery tools. From there you can select an option to restore the firewall to a default configuration.

Here is some additional great advice from my friend and rum lover Aaron Saray. “There are all kinds of things that could be suggested. One of the biggest things I do on a VPS is disable root ssh. I make a user to log in with, and then they must sudo or su any action. Also, I like to create additional certificates to log in with my SSL connection”.