Erich Stauffer

Tag: Linux

  • Self-Hosting Tips for WordPress

    Thinking about hosting your own WordPress domain on your own server? Here are a few things to consider.

    If you use our hosting you are using a linux-based server running WordPress on a SQL database. If you hosted it yourself you would still have to have a linux server with access to a SQL database unless you wanted to convert the site to flat files that could run on any type of server. WordPress is a content management system originally developed for blogging that allows a user to login and make changes to their site, add, or remove content. Flat files are the old way of displaying a web site, which requires manually editing a file, then uploading it via FTP.

    The domain is hosted and registered with 1and1, the largest hosting company in the world. The actual server is in a data center in Kansas City, Kansas. It gets regular maintenance, backups, and has redundant power and cooling systems. We are happy to facilitate the change of your domain, but you should know the requirements of the website first.

    My recommendation is for you or your new IT department to get full FTP and WordPress access to the current account as a first measure followed by signing up for their own hosting account with 1and1, BlueHost, or HostGator (which all support WordPress) before buying and setting up your own Linux server with access to a SQL database. There are other security concerns too to take in consideration when you invite the public into your private network. A capable IT technician should be able to build adequate ‘DMZ’s and firewalls, but the safest, easiest, and cheapest route is to have your own hosting account.

    What we offer is management of a hosted account. This includes keeping WordPresss’ software up to date, checking to make sure your plugins (WordPress programs like web forms) still work properly, checking for uptime, and sending monthly reports. This also allows us to make minor changes to text when you need it. We charge $125 a year for this service. Compare that to buying your own hosting account for $60 a year then having to do all of the maintenance and reporting yourself. If you have the trained manpower and it makes sense to go that route, we will provide the files to do so and unlock your domain when ready. Your IT department would be responsible for pulling the domain over, setting up the SQL database, installing WordPress, and installing the theme. Any assistance to these items would be billed at our $65 an hour rate.

    Just let us know what you decide to do. We are here to help.

  • Review of Wired 19.01

    Wired 19.01 (January 2011) has an article entitled “Y2K + 11: Will Asian Computers Freeze on January 1?” where Patrick Di Justo reveals how both China (including Taiwan) and North Korea may have Y2K11 problems due to both cultures resetting their calendars in 1912 to Year 1. 2011 is thereby the first three-digit year (100) and both countries use flavors of Linux that only allow two digits for the year. With the current tinderbox that exists between North and South Korea, you would think this would get more play in the media, but this is the first I had heard of it. Well done, WIRED.

    In the middle of the magazine is a section on aliens. There is an article by Mike Ryan called “Space Race” that talks about the three alien movies coming out in 2011. The first one is Battle: Los Angeles, the second is Paul, and the third is Cowboys & Aliens (check out all the trailers on our Facebook page). I see this as more preparedness for the upcoming disclosures about the ongoing UFO wars that the world has been engaged in for the last 80 years. Paul features a gray, which is the top-right one in the Ken Grimes picture on the “Alien Entities Who Have Been Seen Visiting Our Planet” picture in the section below.

    Rachel Somerstein wrote an article about Ken Grimes’ art being featured in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Outsider Art Fair, and New York’s Ricco/Maresca Gallery. Grimes uses art to display his ideas about extraterrestrial life and from what I can see, he’s done a pretty good job of identifying alien space ships and entities.  The picture on the left, just below “Cheshire Eng Jodrell Bank Lovell”, which refers to the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire, England, which is ran by Lovell, features icons of alien space craft.  It covers the six standard crafts, some of which I mentioned on October 1, 2010.  The top hats (third from the left) have been seen in the northwest United States with the cigar-shaped craft (second from the right) being seen over Indiana.  The saucers (far right) were seen over Washington DC.  I wasn’t able to find much information out about Ken Grimes other than this article by Charles Russell.