As some of you may have noticed, we have recently launched our redesigned website which hasn’t been updated for years.
Our new design employs the latest web technologies and it is mobile responsive. You can now use your mobile devices to browse through our website, order new services, pay your invoices or contact support at our Client Area, read our Company Blog and manage your website with cPanel. Continue reading “New Website Design and Cloud Hosting Plans”
AutoSSL is going to change how webmasters secure data transferred to and from their sites. For the longest time SSL was an additional expense that many webmasters chose to forego as it wasn’t required for the operation of their websites. The time when not having SSL is the norm for most sites is coming to an end. Generally SSL has been reserved for usage by those that send or receive private information such as your name, address, email address, and phone number or even your credit card information.
Google and other search engines are already giving preferable ranking to sites with SSL. For quite some time we’ve offered Let’s Encrypt to our customers so that everybody has access to freely accessible SSL for any site they wish. cPanel has taken this a step further and created what they refer to as AutoSSL. AutoSSL generates and installs a domain validated SSL certificate on all active domains on a server that are not already protected with SSL. Continue reading “cPanel AutoSSL – Automatic Free SSL for All Domains”
We recently identified a bug in the latest versions of WHMCS including version 6.3.1. The bug consists of unexpected behavior when modifying a client’s product details and using the “Enter” key to submit the changes when the product is a cPanel Account. In previous versions of WHMCS you could change a field, such as the renewal price, and press “Enter” to submit the form. Over the years we had become accustomed to changing client product settings in this manner as we found it was the most efficient way to do it.
Due to this bug when modifying the details of a client’s product you have to use the “Save” button at the bottom of the form or WHMCS attempts the new “cPanel Single Sign-On” to access the cPanel account of the product. On the surface this may not sound like a huge deal but over the course of the day the productivity lost over such a simple issue can add up fast. In some cases the changes entered into the product are lost and even worse the representative may not notice it happened!
As we have also identified a fix we could put in place prior to WHMCS resolving this internally – we wanted to make that available. This fix applies to both the “blend” as well as the “v4” WHMCS Administration templates. Continue reading “Running WHMCS v6.3? Saving Product Details Bug & Resolution”
What is the HOSTS file?The HOSTS file is used by your computer’s Operating System (Windows, OS X, Linux, etc) to map hostnames to IP Addresses. In layman’s terms your computer will check this file for any domain it needs to resolve to an IP Address prior to querying public DNS resolvers. The HOSTS file can be used to point a domain name to an IP Address regardless of the DNS settings for the domain.
An example of a HOSTS entry to load “www.example.com” and “example.com” from the IP address “93.184.216.34“:
93.184.216.34 www.example.com example.com
Windows may require two separate lines like so:
93.184.216.34 www.example.com
93.184.216.34 example.com
When the above records are added to your HOSTS file the result is that if you try to load that domain in your browser it will connect to that IP to make the request. If you try pinging the domain you will find that it pings that IP as well. What this means is that you can use this to test your site on a new server before you point your world-wide DNS there. Continue reading “What is the HOSTS file & when should I use it?”
Over the last few years I have seen more accounts compromised due to outdated default themes like “Twenty Twelve”, “Twenty Thirteen”, “Twenty Fourteen”, etc. When a user installs a new copy of WordPress more often than not they proceed to install a new theme that they prefer over the default offerings. The big issue is the result of two missing steps that all webmasters should perform.
First and foremost is keeping everything up-to-date which can prevent the vast majority of account compromises we have seen over the years. We keep the servers themselves secure from intrusion and we even work to protect your usernames, passwords, email accounts, etc. but there is a limit to how much we can shelter you. If, for example, you have an outdated theme or plugin installed even if you aren’t using it – it can be used against you and your site.
Continue reading “WordPress Security – Plugins & Themes – If you’re not using it, remove it!”