Month: December 2021

Pros & Cons for Undervolting Graphics Cards

December 27, 2021

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Hoping that everyone is enjoying the holidays, had a good Christmas, and has an enjoyable NYE 2022 on deck. During the Xmas holidays a lot of people find time for entertaining themselves that’s not as easily found during the rest of the year. For some people that entertaining is best done via their computer, and for many there’s nothing better than enjoying games. They’ve come a long way over the last decade +, and usually in order to get all the visual pop and immersive experience the game developers want you to have you need a good GPU. Lots of people are perfectly fine with the one that came in their desktop, and not many of them will be the type inclined to perform invasive surgery on computing devices in the first place. For others with the know how and no hesitation to perform ‘tweaks’ it is possible to make small changes to computer components that will alter how they function. One of these procedures that gamers will probably at least have heard of is undervolting the GPU. To describe in plainly, it means to restrict the power that the card has access too and gain specific performance benefits because of it. This is not something that would generally be among the familiarities for a Canadian web hosting provider, but here at 4GoodHosting we are good at identifying what might be of interest for people who are tech-savvy in this way, and it turns out that undervolting isn’t especially difficult to do. So it’s something that might be possible for you if you’re an avid gamer, and what we’ll do here with the last entry for 2021 is talk about advantages and disadvantages to undervolting graphics cards. Efficiency Boost Your GPU is going to have a few important calibrations that are open to manual adjustment with software like MSI Afterburner. These include power limit, core and memory clocks, plus the voltage. The entirety work in unison to provide the performance and power needed for what’s expected in regard to out-of-box operation. So what exactly is undervolting? Simply, it is a reduction of the voltage your GPU has access to and...

You may find this interesting too.

Rent Out Computing Power for Access to Apps and Services

December 21, 2021

Domain Related

Reading Time: 4 minutes

There’s the old expression ‘take only what you need’ and it’s good advice to follow in all sorts of situations. It may be followable when you’re at an all-you-can-eat buffet and you’ve eaten all you can, but when it comes the processing power in your computers at home you get what’s given to you when the device was put together. Some people put the entirety of that processing power to work for them, but most people don’t use anywhere near the total of it. And in truth the majority of people may not even know what it is they actually have at their disposal. Some will though, and it’s these people who will want to take note of a new decentralized Internet platform that will let people pay for their apps and services by making their idle computing power available to those who could put it to use. As a quality Canadian web hosting provider, this is something that resonates with us here at 4GoodHosting because like any host we can relate to what it’s like to have real constraints based around this and in the industry there’s been much in the way of roundabout talk along the lines if something like this might become possible someday. It has made a lot of sense for a long time, but like many things it takes time to get the wheels sufficiently in motion to see things start to happen. But that’s what’s happening now with Massive, an app monetization startup that’s set to make some serious waves. Smart Decentralization Massive has just recently closed a $11 million seed round, which will let it move forward with a monetization software development kit that will be able to support the project and move forward with s small yet noteworthy step in decentralizing the internet and making it possible for people to pay for apps using their idle compute power. This is an impressively unique potential solution, one that will benefit the individual consumer but also improve on how app developers and service providers make money for the work they do. As it is now they usually charge users money, and it’s fairly standard...

You may find this interesting too.

New Log4Shell Open-Source Apache Software Vulnerability a Major Problem

December 13, 2021

Domain Related

Reading Time: 4 minutes

It has certainly been a while since we’ve had a nasty bug making enough of a stink that it warrants being the subject of one of our weekly blog posts, but here we are again. The good thing has always been that these software vulnerabilities are usually quite limited in the scope of what they’re capable of, and that means they usually don’t get much fanfare and they’re also usually fairly easily dealt with via patches and the like. The problem becomes when the bug is rooting in software that is ubiquitous as far as being used in cloud serves and enterprise software used as much for government as it is in industry. That’s the scenario with the new Log4Shell Software Vulnerability that has the Internet ‘On Fire’ according to those who are qualified to determine whether something is on fire or not. All joking aside, this is apparently a critical vulnerability in a widely used software tool, and – interestingly enough - one that was quickly exploited in Minecraft. But now it emerging as a serious threat to organizations around the world, and here at 4GoodHosting like most quality Canadian web hosting providers we like to keep our people in the know when it comes to anything that’s so far-reaching it might apply to a good number of them. Quick to be Weaponized Cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike is as good as any for staying well on top of these things, and reading what they have to say about Log4Shell is that within 12 hours of the bug announcing itself it’s been fully weaponized. That means that tools have been developed and distributed for the purpose of exploiting it. Apparently all sorts of people are scrambling to patch, but just as many are scrambling to exploit. It’s believed this software flaw may be the worst computer vulnerability to come along in years. As hinted at, it was discovered in a utility that’s ubiquitous in cloud servers and enterprise software used across industry and government. If allowed to continue unchecked it has the potential to enable criminals, spies, pimps and programming novices alike for no-hassle access to internal networks. Once in they...

You may find this interesting too.

The Case Against Sideloading Apps onto iOS

December 7, 2021

Domain Related

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Android and iOS are definitely two entirely different worlds when it comes to the default choices between mobile devices, and you’d have trouble finding any more than just a few people who don’t take advantage of apps for their smartphones nowadays. Depending on who you are that may be for entertainment or personal pursuit aims, or it may be for making your workdays that much more productive and streamlined. All sorts of possibilities out there for what you can do with apps and it sure is a whole lot different from where we were just 10 or so years ago. Once you’ve got a taste for them it’s hard to go back, and you won’t want to be thwarted in your attempts to get one into your device if you see the need for it. The reason that sideloading apps – installing apps without getting them from office ial sources (namely Android Market or the App Store) – is as popular as it is because both Google and Apple have been fairly free with allowing certain carriers to block certain applications based on model and network. There’s plenty of people with phone only a couple years of old that are already encountering roadblocks, and sideloading the app allows them to get around that. In the bigger picture though it’s not good for the development of better app versions in the future, as those developers don’t get what they should for their work and that’s something we can relate to in a roundabout way as a good Canadian web hosting provider. We certainly know all that goes into allowing people to enjoy the digital connectivity they do nowadays. So not to pick sides, but recent information seems to suggest that sideloading apps for Android is not so bad as it might be for iOS devices. Let’s look at why that is. Privacy & Security Concerns Apple has come right out and made it clear that there’s plenty of evidence indicating sideloading apps through direct downloads and 3rd-party app stores would weaken privacy and security protections that have made their iPhone as secure as it’s been regarded to be all these years....

You may find this interesting too.