Moving

I am combining my Hosting and Consulting blogs into one blog.  You can find the new blog at http://blog.dmbcllc.com

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MyWinHosting Upgrade Scheduled

We plan to upgrade our servers to HSphere 3.0 Patch 7 starting Thursday, October 25, 2007 at 3:30 AM EDT. There are several critical security fixes that needs to be immediately applied. Our apologies for the short notice. Control panel that will be stopped for 30 minutes for the upgrade to complete. Other services may be affected for 5 minutes or less.

Technorati Tags: hsphere , maintenance , comodo

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Make sure you own that domain!

It happens all the time.  And evidently, it just happened again.  The scenario goes something like this.  You want a web site and don't have any clue about the Internet and how it works.  But, you see this really great deal on the Web, "Host with us and get your domain free."  Or, you hire a developer to create your web site for you and he purchases the domain under his own name.

In both cases, you THINK you own the domain, when in fact you don't.  In the first case, the hosting company bought the domain in your behalf and they are the ones who own it.  There really isn't much you can do to recover from this.  If you decide to change hosting companies, it will probably take you around a month to get the hosting company to sign the domain over to you.

The second case is a little more dangerous, but not as intentional.  The developer knows all you really want is the web site.  You don't want to be bothered with the details.  So, he just goes ahead and does the work.  Unfortunately, if your developer goes away and leaves no forwarding address, when it comes time to renew the domain, you won't be able to.

So, when you start a web site, make sure YOU own the domain.

Monday, what to do if you don't own the domain.

del.icio.us Tags: domains , registration , web hosting

Technorati Tags: domains , registration , web hosting

Google is a big bad meany :-P

Well, that's how everyone feels when the big G decides they've violated the terms of service and take their site out of the index.  But, what most people fail to realize, especially when it happens to them, is that Google doesn't owe the site owner anything.  Google is a business, just like any other business.  Hopefully, they do what is good for the site owner.  That would mean if they think a site is doing something that would negatively impact their search results.  They not only have a right, but they have an obligation, to remove that site from their listings.

That being said, there are times that I wonder if Google hasn't gotten to be the new Microsoft.  Are they banning sites because it provides better results or are the banning sites simply because they can?  Are they banning first and asking questions later?  And, do they now have some system in place that is automatically banning sites algorithmically?  Is it possible for example that if I link out to a site that has nothing to do with the main theme of my site, that Google can pick that up and can "shoot first and ask questions later?"

It's just a hunch, but that seems to be what has happened recently to a site I know about.  Not one of my sites.  While one could visit the site and nit pick "violations."  There is nothing that stands out as absolutely evil.  Yet, it is no longer listed and is, in fact, officially banned according to Google Webmaster tools.

Anyone else experiencing this?

Technorati Tags: google , seo , search , banned

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CSS Basics - Making Cascading Style Sheets Easy to Understand

There are three things I wish I'd learned sooner in my career.  XML, Regular Expressions and Style Sheets.  CSS Basics is a way to learn one of the three.  Broken into 18 chapters, and available as a PDF, the site introduces you to the syntax, classes, rules, positioning, pseudo elements and more.

CSS Basics - Making Cascading Style Sheets Easy to Understand

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New features enabled

The upgrade to HSphere 3.0 gives us the ability now to enable:

• Web Directories
• Web Applications
• Sub Accounts
• Sub FTP Accounts

Web Directories allow you to create web directories with two authentication levels and different sets of permission right from the control panel.

Web Applications allow you to assign web applications to web directories.

Sub Accounts and Sub FTP Accounts allow you to create users that can access specific directories within your web site.  This is great if you need to be able to give your developers access to your web site.  Because of licensing fees for this feature we need to pass on a $1.00 per month charge per sub account for this feature.

Technorati Tags: web direcotires , web applications , sub accounts

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Sharing ASP.NET Sessions accross subdomains

Put this code in Global.asax as part of Application_Request

Response.Cookies["ASP.NET_SessionId"].Value = Session.SessionID;
Response.Cookies["ASP.NET_SessionId"].Domain = ".mydomain.com";

This will rewrite the session cookie so that it can be retrieved accross sub domains.  This is particularly useful when you are switching from www.domain.com to domain.com (same site, different urls) where you would otherwise loose the session variables even though they are still available.

del.icio.us Tags: asp.net , sessions , cookies

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Test your web design in different browsers

With all of the browser that are in existence this days, how's a web developer suppose to verify that his site renders correctly in all of them?

Enter Browsershots, a web site that will let you put in a web page and it will go to the page and create an image of what it will look like in each of the browsers you selected.

Now, if someone would just give me a way to test Web 2.0 / Javascript functionality on each of the browsers, life would be perfect.

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Create your Google Sitemap Online - XML Sitemaps

Tonight I found another interesting tool.  If you feel the need to create a site map in XML (Google) Text (Yahoo) or ROR (independent XML) format, XML-Sitemaps.com is the place to get that done.

Personally, I still believe in the old fashion sitemap that my human visitors can see as well because I don't want to endorse any particular standard and make any one search engine any more dominant than it already is.

Create your Google Sitemap Online - XML Sitemaps

Technorati Tags: Sitemap , Google , Yahoo

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HSphere 3.0 Up and Running

The upgrade this weekend went a lot smoother than anyone here expected.  Of course there are always a few bumps in the road when you do a major upgrade like this.  But, about the only bump we really got hit with is that the connection between HSphere and our merchant account went haywire.  We're working on that.

Now that it's up, you can change your own file access permissions, and switch versions of ASP.NET and PHP without having to send in a support ticket.

The other big news is that if you are not already on a SQL server, when you create a SQL database, you'll be on MS-SQL 2005.  Unfortunately, for now, if you already have a MS-SQL database created for your account, you'll be stuck on MS-SQL 2000.  We are looking into upgrade options, but we aren't making any promises.

HSphere 3.0 upgrade scheduled.

Just a quick reminder to everyone that this weekend is the big upgrade to 3.0 over on MyWinHosting.com

Keep in mind that there WILL be down time. Control panel will be unavailable until Monday and servers will be down as we apply upgrades.

Dynamic Drive DHTML(dynamic html) & JavaScript code library

I've known about dynamic drive for quite a while. And anyone who has ever needed javascript for their web site probably already does too.

But, just in case you've never heard of this site, here it is:

Dynamic Drive DHTML(dynamic html) & JavaScript code library

Don't waste your time trying to invent javascript for your web site. Chances are, someone else has already written exactly what you're looking for and it is on Dynamic Drive some place.

Another Great Directory of Web Development Resources

Sources for Royalty Free Images, Web Design, FireFox Plugins, Ruby, Ajax, PHP, Traffic, Flash, ASP.NET, Hosting, Fonts, XHTML, CSS, Color matching, Image editing, SQL, ColdFushion, Java, and CMS system.

85+ Free Killer Resources Every Designer Should Know

Tons of information for web designers. Hey, even a programmer might be able to pass as a designer by using some of these resources.

Looking for fonts? Icons? Web 2.0 material?

It's all here.

Clean CSS - A Resource for Web Designers - Optmize and Format your CSS

Here's a cool resource for everyone using CSS to control the presentation layer. That ought to be everyone. If you're not using CSS, start learning it NOW!

Anyhow, for the rest of us. We've had HTML/Javascript compressing apps for years. Now, introducing CSS clean. This will take your CSS and compress it so that all your duplicate entries have been merged together and otherwise optimizing your CSS to be as small as possible. Several options are available for you to pick from.

Note: this does not validate your CSS. Just compresses it.

1-800-GOOG-411

Yep Google fans. Google as yet another, "We're gonna take over the world." application.

Call up and find out where stuff is. Watch the video at the site http://www.google.com/goog411/

Pretty cool.

Login with these free web passwords to bypass compulsory registration

Now here's a great site that really has nothing to do with web site development, but it such a great site, I just have to share it with you.

Don't want to register to get into a site? You don't have to anymore. Here's a site that will allow you to share login information so that everyone can use the same login.

They also have a link to RetailMeNot, which provides coupon codes.