On any website it is always important to ensure all your links, be they internal or external are active and functioning, something which is often overlooked.
A great tool i discovered is Dead-Links.com this great little tool is simple and easy to use, will show most dead links within a few minutes it crawled every page of XDnet, including the expansive knowledgebase and every page of this blog.
So Check it out and check yoursite out. – Dead-Links.com
Google is getting ever closer to their goal “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” Google has developed arguably the best technology for indexing text, they have developed the idea of the Google Image Label which frankly proved to be rather addictive when i first came across it and now they are in the beta stages of developing technology to “listen” to audio in videos, convert whats said into text and then use their search technology to display the most relevant content.
Of course there’s a little snag, at the moment all videos must be uploaded to the Google owned video sharing site YouTube, and they are only indexing political videos and still with bugs in the conversion from speech to text which could prove difficult, for instance:
If shows a video where instead the speaker actually says: “What I have learned from the pain of
my loss and from my journey…”
However this is something new, one day not so far in the future we can expect to be able to find videos not on tags or text around the video but words spoken by people in the video, and when mixed with Google’s advanced search technology this brings us ever closer to their goal… World domination… i mean to index the worlds content.
So will video without sound soon follow? will technology ever get that far? that a computer can “watch” a video AND understand what its about?
Hopefully soon this technology will open up to the whole of YouTube, so everyone’s videos will be able to be indexed using this, but is that a good thing? remember it is this very technology which means your home-made video of you and your friends with that clip of music to go with it is being taken down for copyright infringement… as with all things there’s the downside.
XDnet, and web hosting in general has a lot of different types of hosting and finding whats right for you can be hard, hopefully this guide should help to break down the different types of hosting which XDnet offers, examples of it’s usage and what might suit you.
No Choice… While there are many choices sometimes, sometimes you simply don’t have that luxury. If your site is getting thousands of hits, or if XDnet has advised you need to upgrade to dedicated, also if you run large amounts of dynamic PHP/MySQL sites which requires lots of memory (RAM) and processing power (CPU). Then you need dedicated, there are a couple of different types of dedicated servers which are explained below.
Fully Dedicated Server:
A fully dedicated server, as the name suggests is when you have ful control over the entire server computer, you can do anything you like to it and it won’t effect anyone else other than you.
With dedicated you not only have all the choices of which server specifications will best suit you, which you can consult XDnet and we can advise you which is best for your situation, but there is also the choice for managed and unmanaged servers.
Managed:
A managed server is one in which XDnet gives you a helping hand with, we will help keep your server up-to-date, patched up and online. This is the default server type, and all our advertised plans (unless otherwise stated) are managed.
Unmanaged:
An unmanaged server is one which you, the client, are fully responsible for, you update it and it is solely your responsibility to keep it running smoothly and in working order.
But don’t worry, this decision isn’t as important as selecting the right specs for your server, as you can easily switch to and from the different types so, if you dive in with unmanaged and find it all a bit too confusing, we can help, and vice versa, if you start off like most with a managed server and after a while start getting your teeth into the nitty gritty feel free to ask to be changed to unmanged
XDnet offers many differenet Dedicated server packages, ranging from basic set ups to advanced systems, as well as custom builds on request – Just Ask for details!
A Virtual Private Server (VPS), AKA Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS), appears to be identical to a fully dedicated server. VPS provides the same features, but without the cost. XDnet’sVPS’s usually have around 2-6 other users sharing the same physical server, but each is virtually divided, so Bob can run Cent OS, shutdown, restart and do a whole lot more to his VPS without effecting Fred’s VPS, even though they are on the same physical server.
The only situation where one user can effect the other is through hogging the RAM, each user is given a portion of the total RAM they may use, and sometimes users whose sites run intensive scripts and get an unexpected spike of users can cause excessive usage, but don’t worry, it shouldn’t effect you too long and we actively monitor servers to ensure users are on the appropriate package.
The VPS alternative is often chosen by small businesses that wants full control over their website(s) but cannot afford a dedicated server. Some advanced users may like to run multiple VPS servers so they can run multiple configurations for testing purposes for instance they might use one server for the development-level site, another for testing seeing how a new idea works without putting it live and another for the live site.
XDnet offers both Windows and Linux VPS hosting, in both the UK and the US, however Windows hosting is currently only available on UK servers.
Shared Hosting is by far the most popular choice and the large majority of websites function perfectly fine, shared hosting is great for websites from small to medium.
Shared hosting or derive host is when multiple websites are hosted on the same server, each website (account) has its own partition, and is assigned different permissions and features depending on the package the user has signed up for. This is generally the best option because server maintenance costs are shared, administration, including updates, patches and module installation etc is taken care of by XDnet (the host) and users can focus on their website.
Power hungry users who need or want the extra control over their account and hosting, firsly may wish to consider reseller hosting, which is the same as shared hosting except you have the ability to create, delete and modify accounts and have greater control, and then the next step is VPS hosting (details above).
Sometimes you need something special, like Streaming. We offer excellent SHOUTcast packages, which include additional features and software which isn’t included with shared or even dedicated hosting, such as WHMsonic Admin Pro to manage your stream or Web Cast, these packages are designed for streaming media, the servers are specifically built with it in mind and you have much larger bandwidth to disk space ratios compared to other packages.
Not only do we offer streaming packages but for those which need the extra resources dedicated maybe the only option, we can equip your server with everything you need to be streaming an array of media and can suit almost any requirment – Just Ask and we will do our best to accomodate your need for as cheap as possible.
Weighing the differences:
Sometimes the choice is clear cut, if money is the issue shared is your answer, cheap reliable and hassle free. However if power is your driving need you will need a variety of dedicated or VPS but the cost will be much higher when compared to shared, but remember you pay for the power, you pay for more, you will get a lot more.
Still not sure, don’t worry – Just Ask…
XDnet is more than happy to help you find the package which suits your needs, just drop us an email to sales@xdnet.co.uk
XDnet has just updated the client/billing system, so please feel free to report anything which isnt quite right or something which can be improved please do email us and we will take a look and see about getting it working smoothly.
This upgrade will not affect your account or billing, all will continue as usual.
Google Chrome is here, but what is it like? Is it really better than Internet Explorer 7, FireFox or even Internet explorer 8 (which passes the Acid test BETTER than FireFox 3)? Let’s take a look…
Now I have to admit I am not my usual self and have been wrapped up with starting new things and developing XDnet more recently and have not been reading much from my RSS gadget and it slipped my attention Google’s Browser was even close to release, so when a friend began questioning me about it I thought it best to download and check it out! However my first thought was “O no, not another browser to worry about!” however so far I have not come across any browser compatibility issues with Google Chrome… yet.
Now with as with any new software comes a whole host of new exciting features. Google realised “the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications” and have come at creating Chrome from a whole new angle, it’s very different to most browsers, and from my experience so far makes the browsing easier.
Under the hood:
Okay so unlike most I will go through a brief over view of what is under the hood.
Chrome was built using components of Apple’s WebKit and uses Mozilla’s FireFox and uses Google Gears among others so it has a good base, also Google has developed their powerful JavaScript engine, dubbed V8, developed in Denmark the V8 engine runs on a VM (Virtual Machine) giving it platform independence. The V8 engine is rather special in that unlike other JavaScript engines which generate internal representations of it, the V8 engine compiles it into Machine Code which runs directly on your CPU, without going into more extreme detail, Google’s V8 engine is also much cleaner compared to other JavaScript engines, which are messy and leave unused fragments of code hanging around and generally can be disorganised and causes lag, of course V8 is not like that its clean and dumps waste so it runs a lot faster. So a quick round up of the V8 is that it should run JavaScript a lot faster, meaning as scripts and web-apps, such as Google Gmail etc, evolve into more and more advanced interfaces the V8 can and will cope fine and “power the next generation of web applications which aren’t even possible in today’s browsers”
Tabs:
I won’t try to give a balanced view here. Google has done it.
The tab structure is perfect, and incorporates a feature I myself have been greatly anticipating from a browser, the ability to detach a tab, you can either detach and just drag into an empty space where it will open into its own window or if you drop it over an existing window it will attach to that, it’s simply superb.
EDIT: Yes i know FireFox can get a plugin to do the movable tags, but still surly having it built in is better?
Separate Processes:
Of course this ability is greatly to thank for because of the independency of each tab, each tab has its very own process so when a page decides it will munch a little too much CPU you can terminate the tab and (in theory) the browser should not crash and cause you to lose other tabs (and work), you can also easily manage the processes using Google Chromes Task Manager which shows each process as well as plugins’ enabling you to easily see the offending part and terminate it accordingly. You may also notice on the Task Manager you have a small link which says “Stats for nerds” … so me being a nerd I checked it out, this opens up a new tab with full memory stats not only for the Google Chrome tabs but also for other browsers you may be running at the time, as you can see in the screenshot – Please note my IE7 had 10 tabs open, Google Chrome 4 and FireFox 1 hence the hugely varied memory usage.
Compared to other browsers:
Personally, design wise Google Chrome beats all others hands down, it’s sleek, simple and flows nicely, and because Google has used Mozilla FireFox as part of Chromes base you will notice some similarities between the two browsers.
Both FireFox and Google Chrome share an almost identical remember passwords bar,
Google Chrome:
FireFox:
Security:
Because virtually ALL browsers on the market have grown from back in the day when there was no viruses, no threats and geeks ruled the web security wasn’t such an issue, however as we all know… times have changed, and Google took this approach when building Google Chrome the glass isn’t half full, it’s half empty you will get attacked at some point by malware, virus and many other nasties lurking on the world wide web, it’s a fact of life when using the Internet. So once again we come back to Chromes multi-process feature, each tab has its own process which has had its rights stripped away, meaning it can’t access your personal files, can’t write to your hard drive. Your browsing tab is happy playing in a sandbox with armed guards on each side.
However while Google Chrome itself is in a jail there is one small problem… Plugins. Google simply has no control over how high the privileges these run at, a plugin could easily let in the nasties, Google is trying to work with plugin makers to get them to run at lower privileges meaning they can run more securely making a safer browsing environment.
Phishing Lists:
Google Chrome automatically downloads two lists of harmful websites, Phishing (ones which try to steal your information, and in the long run your identity and or money) and those which will damage your computer, if you come across one of the websites on the list while browsing you will be alerted of the danger.
New Tab:
One of the great things about Google Chrome is when you open a new tab you are presented with a useful page, not a blank page, not your homepage which you have to wait for it to load, instead you are shown a page with the top 9 sites you visited book marks easily accessible making it easy and fast to find what you want.
Gears:
Possibly Google’s answer to Microsoft’s Sliver Light, Google Gears aims to make browsers better for developers, in their own words there is no point on browser being able to have all the bells and whistles if another one can’t and this is where gears comes in gears can help developers get the most out of their web apps.
Omnibox:
Google refers to their URL bar as an “omnibox” simply because it does everything, this one text field displays suggested searches, top pages you have visited as well as pages you haven’t visited but which are popular to others this is one of the many features aiming to make your browsing experience easy, quick and painless.
Open Source:
As I mentioned above Chrome is completely open source, it uses open source elements and Google are giving this to the world and other developers, and are actively encouraging developers to take the good parts of it to use within their own browsers and to tinker and play with this interesting new browser.
The down side:
Nothing perfect and neither is Google Chrome, while I have only been using Chrome for a few hours over the past few days and I have noticed a few problems and for me, they are big two of the key functions which I use video streaming and RSS.
So far every time I have tried to watch programs on iPlayer it has worked but seems to lag and stop and start and just doesn’t work, where as in FireFox or Internet Explorer 7 this works fine and works perfectly, so possibly some buffer issues or it could just be Chrome not quite handling the process smoothly.
And as for RSS… where is it? Google claim this browser is to lead the web and is designed for today, so why not include Google’s feed reader or something to enable users to read feeds within the browser environment. Personally I like the RSS features and reader included in Internet Explorer 7.
“Started from scratch and built on the best elements out there.” Google Chrome is here, and it looks like it has put its feet up and is here to stay.
But I am eager to hear your feedback and find out what you think about what you like, dislike and what you would like to see in Chrome in the future.
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On any website it is always important to ensure all your links, be they internal or external are active and functioning, something which is often overlooked.
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