Hosting Blog

I’ve updated the site today, fixing a few small things. Mainly the reason was due to a huge amount of comment spam that we’ve been receiving. Check this out:

Total Unapproved Comments: 1,177

That’s a lot of comment spam! I was getting really sick of all the junk links and stuff I had to sort through so I broke down and added a custom Captcha part to comments which should stop a large majority of spam bots.

Mod Security Ruleset Update
To those who are using my mod_security ruleset I’ve released another update. If you would like me to install this on your server please fill out the quote request section and I’d be happy to.

Few new articles are under the works as well which will be posted shortly. Also Nobody Check 1.03 will be released this week. I’ve decided to charge for this version since I have put a lot of work in it and the script is a life saver for your server.

I’ll be working on WebHostGear more frequently these days now. I recently left my position with HostGator after being their Tech. Support Manager for over a year. It was a good company to work with and I’m glad I had the chance to. Now I’ll be spending more of my energy on my own projects and on this site! You’re probably thinking w00t!

There is a lot of buzz on WHT these days about the Mosso launch with their new kind of scalable hosting - check it out http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=492340

Symantec has a fancy ThreatCon bar on all their pages now. I can’t seem to find out how webmasters can syndicate this on their own pages however. It looks like the US terror alert idea to me. I don’t really see how having a green or red bar will make a difference when Uncle Ned checks his Outlook mail and opens attachments….

Signing off for the night,
Steve

Techs like myself are starting to feel the burn after a non stop Friday
and has stretched all the way until Monday. I know I’ve got about 5
hours sleep each day and am completely burnt. When someone asks me
simple questions I have a hard time focusing……. i ….am soooo,,,…
t..ri..ed…. =(

So folks, don’t be so quick to jump on staff for not answering your
tickets in the first 3 minutes we get them. I feel bad for any hosting
companies affected with the recent 0 day exploit and all the strain on
server updates which seemingly break things. Give the tech guys a break,
they’re doing their best for you.

Cpanel managed to release 3 versions of their patch so far, all in a 3
day period lol. I wonder if we’ll have 7 at the weeks end?

Keep some energy drinks on stand by at all times!

Steve

Moving just about sucks. Unfortunately we need to move again. West coast living expenses are pretty high out here in B.C. so we’re moving on up, to the east side and going to get a nice deluxe apartment lol Actually I’m sick of apartments to and looking to get my first house. By the way none of this is related to technical stuff, so you can stop reading now if you’re bored of my ramblings! Anyway, I’m really pumped to find my first house - something with a nice little garage to work on my truck and get some toys (sled, atv, etc). Being able to tear down walls, if I don’t like them, that day without loosing my damage deposite would also be a nice bonus.
I’m excited to have a full basement full of techie stuff like a couple servers and a nice house network. It is time.. Then not having to worry about moving it all in 6 months down the road. Man am I tired of moving crap, buying crap and selling crap. /end rant.
For anyone wasting money, like me, by renting then I urge you to get a house while they’re still cheap and quit moving around like me, its just a waste of time, money and really stressful.

Celebrate Sysadmin Day!

I just wanted to wish all the hard working system administrators a happy system admin day! It’s apparently the 7th annual sysadminday today, or so I read at http://www.sysadminday.com/ which makes me feel better. Everyone take a minute and tell your overworked techs how much you appreciate them, it will make the year go by a lot easier.

Site Update:

I’ve fixed the comments for the site. For some reason they were not getting thrown in the correct order so people were getting all confused.

Nobody Check 1.03 is almost ready and supports some cool new features
like improved logging, the ability to kill detected processes,
DirectAdmin support and Plesk support!

I’m having a hard time getting it working correctly for DA and Plesk
since it was originally intended for cPanel boxes only.

Let me know if you want to test out the new version before its released
to public.

Steve

Today I received an email from one of the account representatives at
Yahoo! who informed me that one of my other sites was in violation of
their program policies and that ad units cannot be obscured in any way.
Specifically:

* The ad unit must be clearly labeled as ?Ads by Yahoo!? and this label
should not be confused with other advertising or links on your page

* The user must be able to tell the difference between the ad unit and
other content on your page

* Images or other media cannot be associated with the ad unit

So to all those publishers out there trying to simply increase your CTR
by putting smaller images near the YPN ads, don’t do it. You might have
the account removed if you are found in violation. I was lucky and they
warned me first but I’ve heard of others who weren’t so fortunate as me!

Just a little FYI, follow the rules and read them over carefully. I
figured I could do it since I’ve seen many sites with images near the
ads… I guessed wrong.

Over the past 16 years of being paid to make computers and people work together in perfect harmony, I have collected a number of incidents that make me wince and blush in embarrassment when I think of them. The mistakes I’ve made fall roughly into three categories: technical, political, and career management.

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ScanSafe has released its latest Global Threat Report on Web filtering, spyware and viruses. The report is based on real-time analysis of more than five billion Web requests processed by the company in June and represents the largest analysis of Web security threats based on real-world Web traffic. This is a pdf link.

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