Archive for the 'General' Category
We’re thrilled to present you the third episode in the infograhic series we started a few weeks ago. Thanks a lot for sharing the other two and feel free to do the same if you like this one as well!
Aimed to inform & entertain developers, designers, geeks and infographic addicts alike, in this new piece we’re discussing the evolution of search engines, going in-depth from 1990 to 2012! Yup, of course we can predict the future! Click here to see the full size version. As usual, enjoy and let us know what you think!
640 pixels wide version
800 pixels wide version
WebHostingBuzz will run a trivia contest on Twitter starting tomorrow. We’ll offer Adwords vouchers, Amazon & iTunes coupons so stay tuned!
The contest begins Tuesday, June 14th at 2:00 p.m. EST (1800 GMT/UTC), running for two weeks with a new trivia question posted each weekday (Mon-Fri) at that time.
Rules
- New question posted each weekday (Mon-Fri) at 2:00 p.m. EST (1800 GMT/UTC).
- Each day’s contest closes after 12 hours
- All questions will be posted with #buzztrivia hashtag. For your answer to qualify, it needs to be done in a form of @webhostingbuzz reply and contain this tag.
- We’ll pick a random winner (using random.org) and announce him/her the next day, before posting the new question.
- The winner must send a DM to WebHostingBuzz with his/her contact e-mail address. WebHostingBuzz will contact the winner via e-mail.
Exercise your memory and test your trivia skills with the #WHBtrivia challenge. Be sure to follow us on Twitter and good luck to all!
Every month we’ll be featuring one of our clients on our blog. This month we take a look at www.SpiralMedia.co.uk, a UK based web design and seo firm who are a VPS and dedicated server client. Spiral Media provide a wide range of web design, graphic design, web development and seo services to a UK and European audience.
In Spiral Media’s own words, they are
Spiral Media Ltd are a leading website consultancy business based in the historic city of Lincoln, East Midlands. We provide a full range of website serevices including website design, website development, e-commerce and search engine optimisation (SEO).
We are a resutls-drive business who pride ourselves on delivering high-quality websites that meet and exceed customer goals. We are open and honest in our working methods and supportive as we help you acheive your online goals.
Spiral Media have been WebHostingBuzz clients for almost three years. Starting off with just a small Virtual Private Server (VPS), they have grown to a larger VPS as well as dedicated servers to host all of their customer sites. WebHostingBuzz provide management services for the servers and also manage the Exchange email setup that Spiral Media use.
WebHostingBuzz and Spiral Media look forward to a long and prosperous business partnership. View more at www.webhostingbuzz.co.uk and www.spiralmedia.co.uk
I often want to turn off my laptop display without sleeping it or closing the lid. I may be listening to music and either don’t need the display or don’t want to drain the battery. I could be in a meeting and want to temporarily eliminate the distracting display without waiting the two minutes for power saving to dim the screen.
Shopping for laptops the other day, I saw a Sony that includes a hardware button to instantly turns off the display. Brilliant! Why don’t all laptops have that useful feature? (If you’re on a Macintosh, Ctrl+Shift+Eject will turn off your display.)
Fortunately, I found two free utilities to perform this function. Each instantly turns off a Windows laptop’s LCD display:
Neither requires installation. Just save the executable to somewhere accessible such as your desktop, or save it anywhere and place a shortcut to it in the Start menu. Launching the executable turns off the screen, moving the mouse or clicking any key turns it back on.
I have both on my laptop, and they work equally well. They use different methods to accomplish their task, but the result is the same. The only visible difference is that Turn Off LCD fires up a command window which can be seen for a split second before the screen goes black, while MonitorOff is instant. The difference is only a split second, so either is a good choice.
I dragged the icon onto the Quick Launch bar in the Windows taskbar, for single-click launching. You could also use a hotkey or macro utility to launch MonitorOff or Turn Off LCD from a keyboard shortcut.
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) was one of the best things ever to happen to web site development. CSS makes it easier to define the look and format of web pages, and it enables layout and behaviour not possible with HTML alone. I used CSS even on my first web site, in spite of limited browser support, and would never consider coding a site without it.
I’m surprised at how many web developers still write CSS into each web page. This can be seen by viewing the HTML of the pages, easily done with the View > Source command in Internet Explorer, View > Page Source in Firefox, or similar commands in other browsers. Many sites still write their style declarations into the HEAD of each page. This is not an efficient way to use CSS, and is certainly not my preferred method. Here’s an example of this poor practice:
Even worse, I see sites that write their styles as HTML attributes in each element on the web page, e.g.:
What a waste of great potential.
CSS is more powerful if you use an external stylesheet. If you want to make all H1 headers larger or a different colour, or change the layout of the navigation bar, those properties may be altered for all page of the site by editing just a single stylesheet. To me, this is one of the great benefits of CSS: small edits in a single file can change the look of the entire web site.
You might want to employ more than one stylesheet for the site, perhaps one as default for most browsers and another targetting mobile browsers. You may want all layout in one stylesheet and all font properties in another. No problem. A web page can link to and load multiple stylesheets.
To apply an external stylesheet to a web page, insert a “link” element in the HTML HEAD, e.g.:
I created a web site for a small business. One day the client asked me to change the site’s colour theme. This involved the colours of page titles, various levels of text headings, highlighted text, corporate logo on every page, and other elements. Had this information been coded into each page, this would have been a lot of work. As it was, all colour specifications were in a single site-wide stylesheet.
I even had the logo images called from within the stylesheet, so once I had altered the logo colour in graphics software, replacing the logo and changing all element colours was simple. I just changed the colour values in the CSS declarations. A few quick edits to that single .css file and the entire site changed. By using CSS properly when I designed the site, I saved much work later on.
This is the second episode in a the infographic series WebHostingBuzz started last month, aimed to inform & entertain developers, designers, geeks and infographic addicts alike. In this piece we’re taking a look at the history of the the most trafficked websites, as reported by Alexa, Wikipedia and Archive.org Click here to see the full size version. Enjoy and let us know what you think!
640 pixels wide version
800 pixels wide version
And we have a 1 day spectacular sale to celebrate 
That’s right. Enjoy a 50% saving on all web hosting, reseller hosting and business web hosting plans on www.WebHostingBuzz.co.uk on Friday 29th April to celebrate the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton!
To our customers and potential customers in the UK (and further afar!) who are celebrating the Royal Wedding, we hope that you have a wonderful day.
Yesterday I received an incredible offer. A director of an investment funds company has siphoned off millions of dollars illegally, and needs someone to help him get it out of the country. If I help him, I will earn a fortune. I am so excited. I love the thought of easy money.
I can’t believe that I need to write this blog article, but apparently there are still lots of people who fall for this. These schemes are often called the “Nigerian currency scam”, as for decades Nigeria has been the source of most of these and Nigerian government officials have been implicated in their operation. It’s also referred to as “Advance Fee Fraud” and “419 Fraud”, 419 being a former section of Nigeria’s Criminal Code. According to published reports, it’s estimated that this scam is the third to fifth largest industry in Nigeria, having “earned” several billion dollars.
While these scams are usually distributed by e-mail, they predate the Internet. For many years solicitations were sent via postal mail. I remember receiving one, on nice letterhead, at my business address many years ago.
While the specific details in the letters vary, they tend to share these characteristics:
- The sender claims to be in a position of authority or trust with a government or large organization.
- Sender has managed to hide millions of dollars.
- Your help is needed to claim or receive this money.
- In exchange for your help in retrieving this money, you will be given a huge commission or reward, usually hundreds of thousands of dollars or more.
- You must keep everything confidential, and you cannot contact the sender through normal channels at his organization, but only through the e-mail address provided (usually a free webmail address).
Once you are hooked, various messages are exchanged between you and the scammer. You will likely be asked for your phone number, address, bank account number, and more. Even at this point you will be vulnerable because your identity may be stolen and used for fraudulent or illegal purposes.
At some point you will be asked for money. There is always a good explanation: funds are required to bribe a government official; a clearing fee is needed for the bank to release the funds; or some other excuse.
Surprisingly, many people send the money. Then, more money is requested, to take care of some other unexpected hitch. Their eyes blinded by visions of earning a huge, undeserved fortune, many people continue to send money.
The people who lose money in these scams are normally referred to as “victims”, but I haven’t used that term. These are not like innocent victims of a robbery. The suckers in these scams willingly participate in the scheme to obtain money they know to be unlawfully obtained. They become partners in the fraud or criminal plan, in hopes of a payoff.
If you receive one of these messages, just delete it. If you think that the one you received is legitimate, and that you can make some money, go for it. As the old adage goes, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
Below are excerpts from a few of these scam letters, beginning with the one I recently received.
I am Mr. Arthur Morris, an Associate Director, and investment expert with ‘Aurum Funds Limited, a Private Limited Liability Company established as a non-financial institution and licensed by Bank of England in 1994 to operate as a ‘Finance House/Hedge Fund Builder, (Non-Deposit Taking Category). Aurum Funds Limited Popularly known as London leading Funds Management Company with over 2.1 Billion GBP Capital Investment Funds.
As Aurum Funds Limited Associate Director and Investment expert, I handle all our Investors Direct Capital Funds and to be frank with you, I developed a flawless scheme that electronically extract 1.2% Excess Maximum Return Capital Profit (EMRCP) per transaction on each of the investor’s Marginal Capital Funds. I have made reasonable amount of money from this scheme which I have discreetly placed the beneficiary anonymous. These funds are lying fallow with a reliable Safe Deposit Firm here in Europe, I will want to entrust it with a reliable person, if we can come to an agreement on the issue and if you can prove to be trusted and stand as an investor to receive the funds as annual Investment Proceeds from Aurum Funds Limited paying centre.
Another one:
My name is MR GARUBA USENI the eldest son of Rtd General JEREMAIAH. J. T. USENI who was the est. while Minister of the Federal Capital territory Abuja in the late General Sani Abacha’s Regime of 1993-1998.
I am contacting you in a benevolent spirit; utmost confidence and trust to enable us provide a solution to a money transfer of $60M that is presently putting my entire family into great disarray. You may be quite surprised at my sudden contact to you but do not despair, I got your contact from a business site on the internet and following the information I gathered about you, I was convinced that you could be of assistance to me. So, decided to contact you at once due to the urgency required for us to immediately transfer the said funds out of the country.
… [paragraphs removed] …
Right now, my father has been arrested and detained for interrogation. As the eldest son of my Father, I believe that I owe the entire family an obligation to ensure that the $60M is successfully transferred abroad for investment purposes. With the present situation, I cannot do it all by myself. It is based on this that I am making this contact with you. I have done a thorough homework and fine-tuned the best way to create you as the beneficiary to the funds and effect the transfer accordingly. Is rest assured that the modalities I have resolved to finalize the entire project guarantees our safety and the successful transfer of the funds. So, you will be absolutely right when you say that this project is risk free and viable. If you are capable and willing to assist, contact me at once via email for more details.
Another one:
I am a highly placed Government official working for the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology.
My committe – The Niger Delta Development Corporation(NDDC)-which is in charge of managing and supervising the disbursement of oil sales revenues for the Nigerian government. The revenues under our control runs into several hundred of millions of dollars monthly. My self and other colleagues in the NDDC are currently in need of a silent foreign partner with whose bank account we shall transfer the sum of Forty Nine Million Five Hundred Thosand United States Dollars($49.5m). This fund accrued to us as commission for oil sales contracts handled under our supervision.
The fund is presently waiting to be transferred by our offshore fund managers to the beneficiary submitted to us as the funds receiver. However, by virtue of our position as civil servants and members of the NDDC, we cannot acquire this funds in our name. This is because as top civil servants, we are not allowed by law of the land to own or operate bank accounts outside our shores.
Another one:
It is my great pleasure writing you this letter on behalf of myself and my colleagues.
Your particulars were given to me by a member of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) who was at the Federal Government Delegation to your country during a trade exhibition. I have decided to seek a confidential cooperation with you in the execution of the deal described hereunder for the benefit of all parties and hope you will keep it as top secret because of the nature of this business.
Within the Ministry of Petroleum Resources where I work as a Director, Project Implementation and with the cooperation of four other top officials, we have in our possession as overdue payment bills totalling Twenty Seven Million, Five Hundred Thousand U. S. Dollars (US$27,500,000.00) which we want to transfer abroad with assistance and cooperation of a foreign company/individual to receive the said fund on our behalf or a reliable foreign non-company account to receive such funds. Moreso, we are handicapped in the circumstances as the Nigerian Civil Service Code of Conduct does not allow us to operate offshore account hence your importance in the whole transaction.
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Score one for the good guys. U.S. authorities last week took action against a huge criminal botnet.
A botnet is a network in which servers run for illicit purposes control home and office computers whose owners are unaware they have been compromised. Desktop computers, often with inadequate virus and network protection, become infected with programs that allow the machines to be controlled remotely by servers.
U.S. police and prosecutors seized servers in five states, and created their own server to attack and disable the larger network.
This particular botnet, known as Coreflood, was used by criminals to steal millions of dollars from owners of hundreds of thousands of infected computers. Data were stolen to allow identify theft of the owners. At its peak, this network was thought to have attacked two million computers worldwide. Keyloggers running on infected computers passed sensitive information such as banking passwords and credit card numbers to botnet operators.
No arrests have been made yet, but it’s possible that authorities know who they are looking for. Prosecutors filed court documents naming 13 “John Doe” defendants. Those anonymous names may be place holders, so as not to alert the criminals until authorities are ready to arrest them.
Let’s hope this makes a major impact against criminal botnets. Now, if only we could get clueless computer users to update their virus protection and secure their wireless routers.