Month: November 2021

November 22, 2021

Domain Related

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Safe to say audiophiles of today aren’t cut from the same cloth as those that came well before them, and it’s also true that there’s less of a focus on good and pure sound today than there was even a couple of decades ago. It is whf4at it is, and in fairness all of this has nothing to do with new technological advances related to the devices we love to use or need to use. Where we’re going with this is Solid State receivers - the ones with the tubes inside that would give off a light orange glow when lit with power – delivered clear, crisp, and authoritative sound in a way that lesser receivers couldn’t even come close to. Solid State amplifiers have long been the preferred choice for professional musicians too for the exact same reason. They just sound a whole lot better, and it seems that all the power goodness that comes with Solid State electrical engineering is about to flip reality on its head once again with batteries for digital devices. Mass produced solid-state batteries are going to change everything, and we’re all going to be thrilled with it. Any quality Canadian web hosting provider is going to be able to appreciate what it is to need big power, and look no further than the fact that most of the others will be just like us at 4GoodHosting in that we know what goes into powering massive data centres and the like. That’s macro scale stuff for sure, but there is plenty we already know about these solid-state batteries that are just around the corner and it is really promising stuff for sure. Meeting CPU Needs There is no getting around the fact that even the most power frugal processor is going to put serious demands on battery power. From phones to cars to cameras and beyond, battery power is usually going to be an issue and more of than not because there’s just not enough of it in 1 full charge. Lithium-ion batteries aren’t as safe as they need to be and producing them is nasty for the environment with all the rare earth...

November 15, 2021

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Reading Time: 5 minutes

Artificial Intelligence has been a work long in progress, but in recent years we are definitely starting to see it begin to make more of a mark. The capacities of it were never in question, but the speed with which those capacities could be undertaken were sometimes. Not that performance speeds are always necessary with AI-related tasks, but sometimes their speediness is definitely of the essence. For example AI is earmarked for an extensive role in healthcare in the future and that’s one area where both accuracy and quick results are definitely going to be required. Recent AI performance testing results came out over a little more than a month back, and what they’ve shown is that AI is getting faster, and that’s something that is great news for the increasingly digital modern world. The future of it is something that is of great interest to us here at 4GoodHosting, and in the same way it would be for any Canadian web hosting provider who enjoys having an eye on the future and what it will entail for IT and all that grows along with it. This measuring of general AI performance follows the first official set of benchmarks much earlier and lays out 350 measurements of energy efficiency. Most systems measured improved by between 5-30% from previous testing, and some were more than 2x better than their previous performance stats. So what is the significance of this, and what will it mean in relation to development? That’s what we’ll look at here this week. 6-Way Performance Testing This testing involved systems made up of combinations of CPUs and GPUs or other accelerator chips being tested on six different neural networks and performing an array of common functions—image classification, speech recognition, object detection, 3D medical imaging, processing of natural language, and ability to make logical recommendation. Computers meant to work onsite instead of in the data center had their measurements made in the offline state to recreate their receiving a single stream of data to measure against least ideal pathway instances. When it comes to AI accelerator chips used in the tested machines, most notable were software improvements to them...

November 8, 2021

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Reading Time: 6 minutes

There’s always been two tribes when it comes to computing device preferences, and you’re either a Mac or a PC. Those who prefer Macs will usually have a long list of reasons why they prefer to them, and some will point out their perception of more solidity when it comes to defending against web-based threats. They’re ones you are not going to be able to steer clear of if you’re accessing the web, and that’s why robust virus threat protection and other types of protection are super important no matter when type of device you’re using. Whether Macs are more secure than PCs certainly hasn’t been proven definitively, and people who prefer PCs will have their own long list of reasons as to why they prefer them. Neither type is completely impervious to threats of these sorts, but recently a lot has been made about the shortcomings of Windows 11 when it comes to device security. Here at 4GoodHosting we are definitely attuned to how this is a top priority for a lot of people, and like any other Canadian web hosting provider we can relate to how it’s not something your brush aside if operating your business means collecting and retaining sensitive data. Which leads us to the good news we’re choosing to dedicate this week’s entry to – there are ways that users can improve threat protection for Windows 11 devices and they are not overly challenging, even for people who aren’t the most tech savvy. Minimal Protection Built In Windows 11 is an upgrade on its predecessor when it comes to devices security, and particularly with TPM and Secure Boot plus the guarantee of future security updates that come with them. The problems is that TPM and Secure boot only protect against two types of threats, and the effectiveness of it is entirely related to hardware configuration. If detection can’t be done based on the signature of the BIOS drivers and their relation to the OS then you’re out of luck when it comes to threat detections. So here are the threats, and what you can do to improve security on a Windows 11 device to defend...

November 1, 2021

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Reading Time: 5 minutes

Obsolescence is real, and it’s an unavoidable reality for nearly all type of technology eventually. Even what is especially practical today will likely one day become useless, and as it has often been said ‘you can’t stop progress.’ When it comes to the digital world and the ever-greater demands we have for data storage, the way the Cloud has started physical storage down the road to obsolescence is definitely a good thing, and especially considering that physical data storage comes with a whole whack of costs that go profoundly beyond what it costs to lease the space. The migration from tape storage to cloud has been underway for the better part of 2 decades now, and here at 4GoodHosting we are like any good Canadian web hosting provider in that we know all about the pros and cons of data storage means given the nature of what we do for our customers and the fact that we have 2 major data centers of our own in both Vancouver and Toronto. Cloud storage is the way of the future, and all things considered it 100% is a better choice for data storage. The merits of tape storage for certain types of data continue to exist, however, and in particular it has a lot going for it when it comes to storing petabyte data. If you don’t know what that is, we can explain. You almost certainly know what a gigabyte is, and how there’s 1000 of them in a terabyte. Well, a petabyte is 1,024 terabytes. So needless to say we’re talking about a very large amount of data, but what is that makes tape storage preferable in some instances with this data? Is it just the sheer size of it that is the primary factor? This is what we’ll look at with the week’s entry, and why the use of tape storage resists going entirely extinct. Slow to Dwindle Here in late 2021 only 4% still use tape as their only backup method, and all the while the use of cloud and online backups has gone up to 51%. It is estimated that 15% use a combination of disk and...