Microsoft expects to release beta2 of Internet Explorer 8.0 (IE8.0) in August. As a current tester of IE8.0 beta 1, I am looking forward to beta 2 to resolve some of the bugs & compatibility issues I have run into.
Microsoft’s strategy with IE8.0 is interoperability – follow internet standards to display content by default on IE. For us website developers, this should have been the defacto way IE should have operated from the beginning, write once, run anywhere. Unfortunately this is not the case, and in order to properly render websites built for IE7.0 some modifications need to be made.
Microsoft has released some resources to help prepare us for the release of IE8.0, web site developers & owners need to start preparing and ensuring websites continue to operate normally under IE 8.0.
The scenario is that you already have a web site (http://magento.myhosting.com) and want to add a new domain name (http://www.blue.com.tc ) to your account that acts as an ALIAS to your existing site, meaning that both domains points to the same site. This process is called “Domain Aliasing” and our Community Wiki Site says the following about it:
DNS (Domain) Aliasing: DNS Aliasing allows you to host more than one domain name on a single hosting account. By typing your DNS Alias address (http://www.aliasdomain.com) in the browser, your visitors will automatically see the content on your primary website (http://www.primarysite.com).
This redirection is performed at the Domain Name Server level and does not involve any script or redirection. It’s fast, reliable, and will work with any web browser. The DNS Alias does not change your existing address or web site in any way. Additionally, since the DNS Alias is implemented on the DNS level, not only are HTTP and FTP connections forwarded to your primary site content, but also your e-mail is delivered to your mailbox on your primary domain name. For example, if you send an e-mail to joe@aliasdomain.com, it will be delivered to joe@primarysite.com.
Once logged in, you will be presented with the options below. Simply click on “Domain Name” link.
This page will let you sign-up for your alias domain name below. I will go ahead and type “blue” and click on “Search”.
Next page will show me all the available domain names, I will go ahead and choose the cheapest one as I am buying it only for tutorial purposes.
Next page is about accepting “Policy and Agreements”. Read them carefully and accept them if you agree.
Next page is about filling out domain registration information. When someone registers a domain name, information about the registrant (name, business name, email, phone number, address) is required. An example could be seen below:
If you do not want us to publish your registration info then simply click on “Please enable WHOIS Privacy on my behalf”. Otherwise check the latter.
If you select “Use my account information in myhosting.com’s database” then myhosting.com will use the info they have on file. If that is not what you want then go ahead and type your new info.
Next page will let you confirm your order. Make sure that you do not exceed your Domain Alias limit. Our basic plan comes with 5; premium plan comes with 10; and professional plan comes with 25 domain alias limit. Additional aliases will cost you $6.00/month plus $4.00/setup fee. For more info please visit our hosting plan details located at: http://myhosting.com/Web-Hosting/compare-plans.aspx
Once you place your order, you now have to wait for myhosting.com to double check your information, register the domain name then get back to you.
Once our Support Team completes their end of the work, you will receive a notification email and your alias will be ready to go.
This blog entry will look at SQL injection attacks and what you can do as website owner/developer to mitigate this type of attack.
What is a SQL injection Attack?
Too often developers/system administrators focus only on Operating System and Web Server application as attack vectors and ignore the code that a website uses. With more and more sites being dynamic and database driven, SQL injection attacks are on the rise. In a successful SQL injection attack, an attacker can compromise the data stored in the database, deface a website or execute remote code.
A SQL injection attack takes advantage of poor data sanitation during user input. When user data input is not validated for syntax, SQL code can be injected to a query and thereby compromising the system/website. This is illustrated on Microsoft’s website.
In the example, when user input is not sanitized during a logon page, a malicious user can input SQL commands such as “‘ Or 1=1 –”. As described on the MSDN website, by injecting the above code a malicious user can bypass the authentication mechanism.
How to mitigate SQL Injection attacks
SQL injection attacks can be mitigated by using better coding techniques that utilize input validation controls. In the above example, a malicious user was able to manipulate the input parameter by using a single quote. To mitigate this type of attack you can escape the single quotes by using a replace function to change ‘ to “. Additionally, limit the permissions granted to the database user the web application is running under.
Customers that use third party content management systems should endeavour to upgrade to the latest build and be on the lookout for any security hotfixes/updates from the vendor.
More information:
I was pretty happy with my Blackberry and did not have any plans to switch to iPhone but after reading more about it’s new features (such as 3G Speed; Enterprise Integration using Microsoft Exchange; and access to Application Store), my gadget-lover spirit got in charge and ordered me to buy one.
I started with calling my near by Apple Store and after the 20thtry someone finally answered. When I asked if they had iPhones on hand, she told me that they do but added that there was a 3 hour long line wait to purchase one and they couldn’t guarantee availability. She also recommended that I should check availability using Apple’s web site and then make a decision accordingly. Every Apple Store now publishes their iPhone availability on their site. They usually do this after 9pm PST.
Based on my conversation with the Apple Store lady, I got the feeling that they had enough iPhones for anyone that is ready to wait couple of hours but they didn’t have enough selections.
Next morning I was in line (7thperson) in front of Emeryville, CA Apple Store 8am in the morning. Apple Stores open at 10am so I was thinking that 2 hours of chilly, foggy wait was ahead of me but suddenly they opened up the doors to the store. Apparently, to control the demand, Apple Stores were unofficially opening up early. That was good news.
But as I mentioned before, they had limited availability. They only had White, 16GB iPhones available. That was OK for me as I liked the white version more than the black anyway. My only disappointment was about the price. I found out that the only way to get the $299 price ($199 is for 8GB) was, I either had to be a new AT&T customer or hadn’t done any recent changes to my AT&T account. As I added a new phone number to my account a month ago, this voided my discount and I ended up paying the full price of $499 + tax = $540.
I spent close to 30 minutes in the store. First 10 minutes was related to rejecting the $60 extended warranty and choosing a belt buckled case for my new iPhone. Rest of the time was spent on registering the phone with AT&T.
AT&T asks you to sign up for a $30/month unlimited data plan. This goes on top of your voice plan. Most likely you will also be interested in a SMS plan which starts at $5/month for 200 SMS messages. Otherwise you end up paying $0.20/msg.
Once arrived in my office, I started the registration and configuration process using iTunes. iPhone requires iTunes to operate so make sure that you have it installed, updated and ready to go before plugging in your iPhone.
Once you connect your iPhone to iTunes, configuration process automatically pulls your email account settings from your email application (Outlook, Outlook Express and more). This is very convenient for non-techies.
Currently I do have 3 email accounts: One is a mail2web Exchange Account, the other is a regular myhosting.com email account and a gmail account. For Exchange accounts, iPhone can wirelessly sync your Emails, Contacts and Calendar information using the Push technology. If you are not familiar with it then I recommend that you read the following blog posting.
Not everyone has an Exchange Account; if that is the case, you can easily get started by signing-up for a Mail2Web’s Free Microsoft Exchange Email Account. I guarantee that you will love the wireless syncing with your iPhone. Imagine entering a new contact on the go and it automatically gets synced to your Outlook.
Setting up myhosting.com email account using iPhone 3G
If you already have your myhosting.com email account setup in your email program then iTunes will pull your account information automatically. In my case it didn’t bring the password, so I ended up entering it once for each account.
If you want to set up your email account manually then touch “Settings” button on the “Home Screen”.
On the Settings window, touch “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” option.
If you have other accounts setup then you will see them all in this window. To continue, touch “Add Account” option…
“Add Account” window will present you all the options you have. In our case we will continue with touching “OTHER”. New account window will ask you the following:
Name
Email Address
Password
Description
Then it will ask for POP3 and SMTP information which are labeled as Incoming and Outgoing Mail Server.
This page will give you all the necessary info that you will need in order to setup your account.
This is how you setup your myhosting.com email account using iPhone 3G. Once you are done you can access your emails simply by touching Mail button on the home screen…
Setting up Mail2Web Microsoft Exchange Account using your iPhone 3G
Our next step is to setup our Exchange Account with iPhone. To do this simply touch “Microsoft Exchange” button on “Add new account” window.
You will need your mail server name, username and password. In order to access this information, simply login to your control panel at:https://support.mail2web.com
Once logged in, click on “Business Exchange” link…
On the next screen, click on “GO” button (End-User Management) for the user you want to setup the account.
Next, click on “View ActiveSync Settings” link for the selected user.
This window will give you all the information you need to setup your account. The only part I would pay attention is that, in iPhone enter the username as: domain\username
I hope that you will find this guide useful. I am sure I forgot to mention small details here and there so keep the comments coming. If you already own an iPhone or planning to buy one then visit our Community Portal located at http://portal.myhosting.com and share your experiences or ideas…
The folks over at Wordpress have released the latest version of their blogging product, aptly labeled “Tyner” (named after a Jazz Pianist, not the Cleveland Indians outfielder). Myhosting.com’s one click install version of Wordpress has been updated to this version as well.
Notable changes to this version of Wordpress include a Wiki-like tracking of edits, word count, theme preview and image captioning. For a full list of changes and more detail about the update, visit the Wordpress blog here.
Here is a video related to the changes in Wordpress 2.6:
Wordpress can be installed on our Linux-based hosting platform, which is included with our Basic, Premium and Professional accounts. You can install Wordpress either manually or using our easy to use application installer. For those who have already installed Wordpress, here is a handy guide on how to update your blog.
Happy Blogging!
Ricky
Software Developer
SoftCom Technology Consulting Inc.
If you are already a myhosting.com user then you may skip to the part where you login to “Control Panel” otherwise read on…
Before you do anything go ahead and subscribe to a “Linux Hosting Account” plan at myhosting.com. Cheapest plan is $6.45/month. You can’t beat that.
The sign-up process is pretty straight forward. You can transfer a domain name, register a new domain name, create a new subdomain name or you can get a vanity domain name.
I chose “Vanity Domain Name” as I did not want to bother with domain registration. Plus I didn’t want to spend money on buying a domain name anyway.
Once you submit your registration details, you immediately receive a confirmation email from myhosting.com customer support. 10-30 minutes later, you receive a second email with your Account Details.
Once you receive the second email, go ahead and navigate to “http://support.myhosting.com” and login with your credentials.
Click on “Site Management” and then “Application Manager”
Once you are on the “Application Manager” page click on “GO” button for Magento as show below.
On the next page, simply click on “Continue” button.
Clicking on “Continue” button will open up a new window. Make sure that you notice this new window otherwise you may think that the setup process is not working. On this new window, pay special attention to two points and they are as follows:
1- If you want to install Magento to your root folder then leave the text field next to your domain name blank.
2- Also don’t forget to delete your index.html file from your root folder. You can do this by either logging in to your account via FTP or using File Manager (Site Management > File Manager)
Clicking on “Continue” button will start the installation process. Be patient.
Once the installation is completed, you will then be presented with Magento’s Installation Wizard as seen below. Check the “I agree…” box and then click on “Continue” button.
On the next screen, set your localization settings and click on “Continue” button.
Next page is a breeze, all your database information will be imported already, and all you need to do is to enter your password. Your password is the same as your myhosting.com account password.
I always check “Use Web Server Rewrites” as it is a great way for search engines to index your site.
Final step is to enter your contact information and admin username password. Once you are done click on “Continue” and woilaa you are done.
Make sure that you make a note of the encryption key as you will need it for credit card decryption.
I hope you enjoyed this easy installation of Magento Commerce on your myhosting.com account. As always please let us know if you have any questions or comments.
We are now offering Microsoft SQL 2008 Beta databases. A SQL database allows you to store and retrieve data. This is useful for web applications that are designed to take information from users and store it. For example, a web application can be designed to ask visitors for their email address. When a visitor enters their email address the application can save it to a database. At a later time, a list of email addresses can be retrieved from the database to be used.
Previously we only offered support for Microsoft Access databases and Microsoft SQL 2000 databases. For high volume sites with large databases, Microsoft Access is perhaps not the most ideal solution. It is also incompatible with ASP.NET web sites running on a Windows 2003 server. Microsoft SQL 2000 works well, but customers who develop their database on a newer version of the Microsoft SQL platform may find it difficult to transfer their data to myhosting.com.
With Microsoft SQL 2008, we have introduced new tools to make working with your database easier. One of these is the SQL Web Administration tool. It allows you to create and delete tables, retrieve and edit data, work with stored procedures, and run queries. This is great if you need to make a change quickly and would like to do it through your web browser.
The SQL Web Administration Tool
Most databases are developed and tested on a local workstation. When it is working correctly it is copied to the hosting company’s server. To assist with this we are now offering a SQL Web Backup tool. To get your database on our server, first backup the database on your computer, then start the SQL Web Backup tool, upload your backup file, and finally restore it. This feature is available for both SQL 2000 and SQL 2008 databases. For a SQL 2000 database you can only restore a database that was created on a SQL 2000 server. For a SQL 2008 database you can restore a database that was created on a SQL 2000 server, a SQL 2005 server, or a SQL 2008 server.
The SQL Web Backup Tool
Microsoft is providing a free preview version of SQL Server 2008 Beta. The preview includes a copy of the latest SQL Server Management Studio. SQL Server Management Studio allows you to develop and work with a database. With this program you can connect to a SQL Server that is running on your local computer or connect to our SQL Server. If you would like to use SQL Server Management Studio to work with a SQL 2008 database, you will need to use the preview version from Microsoft. You can obtain the free download here.
myhosting.com offers a 25 megabyte database for free with all Premium and Professional hosting plans. If you would like to test out the new SQL 2008 Beta, why not sign up for your free account and then install an application such as DotNetNuke? DotNetNuke is a web application that can be used to build a web site. You can add features such as account login, banners, site search, and RSS feeds. You can build a web site that has all these features without DotNetNuke but it would take a lot of time to create. DotNetNuke is an open source application which means many developers contribute to it and you can download and modify the source code if you wish. We offer an auto-installer for the DotNetNuke application so you can get it up and running on your site in just a few minutes.
And if you outgrow the database it can be upgraded to a larger size for a fee. And if you run into any problems or have any questions, you can always contact our 24/7 Customer Support department for assistance!
Tony P
Software Developer
SoftCom Technology Consulting Inc.
As a part of the SQL Server 2008 Go Live Program, myhosting.com now offering accounts on the SQL Server 2008 platform. By joining the Beta program and trying out SQL 2008, you’re getting an opportunity to test out the software before it is available to the public. Your SQL 2008 database can be activated through the Control Panel once your web hosting account has been activated. If you want to read more about this offering then please visit our SQL Server 2008 page.
How to activate your Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2008 Database using your myhosting.com Account
2- Once you log in, take a look at the top left portion of the page and make sure that your hosting plan says either Premium Web Hosting or Professional Web Hosting. You also need to be on a Windows Hosting plan in order to use MS SQL Server 2008.
3- Once you verified your hosting plan then click on “Site Management” tab at the top.
4- On the “Site Management” page, notice the left menu and click on “Microsoft SQL Database” link located under “Database” category.
5- You are now on “SQL Databases Page”. If you haven’t added any SQL Databases then the page will say “You currently do not have any SQL databases.” so click on “Click here to add a new SQL database.” link.
6- Next page will ask you to choose the platform you would like your database created on. Click on “SQL Server 2008 Beta” link.
7- Next page will be “Microsoft SQL 2008 Beta Database Signup” page. Although you may sign-up for a free version of SQL 2008, you may also consider paid versions if your project require more disk space. For this guide, we will go ahead and click on first option (Free). Select the first option, scroll down and click on “Continue” button.
8- This page requires you to enter a password for your database. Make sure that you read the password guidelines on the page. We will go ahead and enter a password.
9- Next you will be presented with a billing summary of your selection. As we chose the free version, your summary will indicate zero dollars (as seen below). Simply click on “Confirm” button to continue.
10- Congratulations, your database has been created. Make a note of your SQL Server information, you may need them in the future. If you want to manage your database then click on “Click here to manage your database.” link.
11- This page will let you manage various aspects of your database. If you want to access myLittleAdmin for your database then simply click on “SQL Web Administration” link.
And that is it, now you have added the latest and greatest database solution to your account.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.
As part of the Microsoft SQL 2008 Go Live program, myhosting.com has now launched SQL 2008 Beta Databases for all of our customers to try. Our Premium and Professional Windows-based hosting plans even include a 25 MB SQL 2008 Beta Database for free! Please note that the SQL 2008 Beta database won’t work with our Linux-based hosting plans, such as the Basic plan, but these accounts all include a free MySQL database.
If you are already using a SQL 2000 database or want to get a head start with SQL 2008, you can sign up from our Control Panel today. SQL 2008 databases are set up in real-time, and in a matter of a few minutes you’ll be up and running with your new database.
Once activated, you can use the web-based SQL Manager utility provided by myLittleAdmin for no extra charge, or you can use SQL Server Management Studio to access your database remotely.
Microsoft SQL 2008 includes many of the features you have become used to in SQL 2000/2005, plus the following new and improved features:
Auditing of Data Changes
Entity Data Services
LINQ Support
Data Synchronization Features
No size restriction on User Defined Types
Improved Date and Time data types and new Spatial Data Types
XML Enhancements
Table Valued Parameters
And just a few of the advantages of using Microsoft SQL 2008 include the following:
Build next generation data-centric applications with the ADO.NET Entity Framework
Revolutionize data access queries with LINQ
Harness Data Platform technologies with Visual Studio
Take advantage of a full range of data connectivity technologies
Store any kind of data in SQL Server 2008
Build highly scalable applications with SQL Server 2008
We have now officially launched domain name registrations for the new .ASIA domain name at myhosting.com. If you have not already heard about .ASIA, it is the new top-level domain name for residents and organizations located within the Asia Pacific region.
.ASIA domain names are available at myhosting.com for $11.45/year. And if you are signing up for a new hosting plan, you can receive your .ASIA domain name registration for FREE!
At first glance, it may seem that registration of .ASIA domain names would be restricted to the Asian continent only, but the availability is much wider than expected. Registration is open to anyone in the entire Asia/Australia/Pacific region. This even includes many countries outside of the Asian continent, like Australia and New Zealand. Of course this also includes other Asian countries including Turkey, Japan, Korea, China, Russia and many more. To see if your country is eligible, simply refer to the geo-region list at ICANN. If your country is listed within the “AP” region, then you are eligible!
To sign up for a .ASIA domain name you can visit myhosting.com and use our domain name lookup tool in the top-left corner. After your search results are completed, click on “Show More” on the left side of the page and the look-up will be performed for all available domain name types, including .ASIA.
Thanks,
Tim Attwood
Product Manager
Softcom Technology Consulting Inc.
I was pretty happy with my Blackberry and did not have any plans to switch to iPhone but after reading more about it’s new features (such as 3G Speed; Enterprise Integration using Microsoft Exchange; and access to Application Store), my gadget-lover spirit got in charge and ordered me to buy one.
