Category: Domain Related

August 16, 2021

Domain Related

Reading Time: 6 minutes

The appeal of VPNs won’t need much explanation, and as data storage and access needs continue to grow all the time we will see more and more organizations making the move to them. There’s been plenty of times the masses have been told that some new wrinkle in their digital product is innocuous or harmless, but at least some of the time that’s just not the truth. Many VPNs employ tracker apps, and the reasoning given for them is that they are part of offering you a more personalized experience and the like. That in itself is true in the bigger picture, but in the smaller one for some it may be that tracker apps are actually putting you at risk. Here at 4GoodHosting we’re a Canadian web hosting provider that takes the well being of our customers to heart and given that some of you may the ones making IT decisions for your business, venture, or interest then this is a topic that’s worthy of discussion. The industry consensus very much seems to be that tolerating VPNs with tracker apps is something you shouldn’t be so indifferent to. But of course, convincing is always required and so with that understood let’s get right to laying out why that’s the consensus, and why a less intrusive VPN may be best for you. Important Protocols Most of these types of people will be at least somewhat familiar with protocols and encryption methods used by VPNs. Usually that level of understanding doesn’t make it at all clear as to why VPNs with trackers are creating risks. But let’s start at the start and begin with what a tracker is and what a tracker does. It’s actually a fairly basic explanation – a tracker is something that tracks the choices you make when moving around the Internet. It’s true that most websites and apps use trackers in some way and they’re inclined to follow you nearly everywhere you go. The information gathered by the trackers about you is then used for targeted advertisements and the like. The trackers are built by software developers at the behest of businesses that want to create greater...

August 9, 2021

Domain Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

It’s best to be cool, and we’re not talking at all about ‘being’ anything at all outside of not to being too hot. Anyone who’s ever had no choice but to put a computer through its paces will know what it’s like to hear the cooling fan whirring furiously and failing to make much difference with a PC that’s running too hot, but there are things you can do to try to have yours be cool and have nothing to do with shades and a leather jacket. CPUs aren’t the only component that get run a little ragged and start feeling the heat. There’s a whole lot of people who are harder on their GPUs than anything else, and if you’re an avid gamer you also probably don’t need to be told what it’s like to have a fan that sounds like it’s seize up and die if it’s made to go any harder. Here at 4GoodHosting we’re like most good Canadian web hosting providers in that there’s but a few of us here who are real hardware experts. Most are more savvy on the soft side, but even if you’re not the type who could do open-heart surgery on a PC you can still make your PC less likely to overheat and perhaps shut down at the worst time possible. That’s what we’ll share with our entry this week – 7 ways to keep your work or gaming station from overheating. Clean out your PC When we talk about cleaning here, we’re talking about it literally and not meaning getting rid of superfluous files and scripts and the like. Through those vents goes a lot of dust and dirt that ends up settling on the interior components of your PC. That can have negative effects depending on where the bulk of that crud builds up. Pet fur can be a part of it too. So actually opening up the casing and using a fine brush and / or some isopropyl alcohol to clean up problem spots can be a good idea. Make Sure Fans are Properly Installed It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes cooling fans are facing the wrong...

August 3, 2021

Domain Related

Reading Time: 4 minutes

To say much has been made of the potential of quantum computing would be a big understatement. We’re really only just scratching the surface of what its reach can be, and it holds so much promise for improving our lives along with major contributions to the efficiency of business. And nowadays quantum computing is coming on leaps and bounds. Previously the capacity of it meant that the physical hardware was expansive and the farthest thing from portable, but now that’s changed and having quantum computing go desktop is a big development. This has the potential to reach into every industry and interest, and here at 4GoodHosting we are like any quality Canadian web hosting provider in that it has the potential to revise our landscape and those of the people who choose us to host their websites. Computing industry experts are calling an operating system available on a chip to be a ‘sensational breakthrough’ About 50 quantum computers have been built up to this point, and all of them use different software, as a quantum equivalent of Windows, IOS or Linux doesn’t exist. But this new development means an OS enabling the same quantum software to run on different quantum computing hardware types. Let It Flow The system has been named Deltaflow.OS and runs on a chip developed by consortium member SEEQC using almost nothing of the space required with previous hardware. The chip is about the size of a coin, and has all the same power and capacities as previous versions that were much larger. This new quantum computing chip is said to be about the size of a coin, and its relevance for the future of quantum computers is huge, especially as it look like they can be produced cost-effectively and at scale. A little bit of explanation may be required here - quantum computers store information in the form of quantum bits, or ‘qubits’ as they are called. Qubits can exist in a pair of different information states at the same time. Being truly powerful requires scaling up to include many more qubits in order for it to make solving seriously challenging problems possible. Racks full of...

July 26, 2021

Domain Related

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Cloud computing is now nearly ubiquitous with its role in digital operations for all businesses, and what it’s done to replace the need for physical storage and a whole host of other benefits has obviously been a great development. It’s not often that a technological advance of this kind works so well when still in its infancy, but in fairness the cloud is something that was a natural outgrowth of many other pivotal gains in computing technology coming together and brining in other key components. Evolution is always a part of these developments too, and when a new way of ‘doing thing’s is so eagerly adopted by so many people those evolutions tend to come fairly fast and furious. Here at 4GoodHosting we’re like every good Canadian web hosting provider in that we’re a little more front row than others for watching these types of major advances as they take shape, and some of us also have the web and computer savvy to have a better handle on what it all means and how it promises to add positive changes to the digital work world. Being agile is an absolute necessity in the IT world, and especially considering the roadmap is always changing. Not to say that full one-80s are often required, but sometimes there is a need to plant your foot in the grass and pivot hard. Revisiting cloud infrastructure is always going to be a part of this, and more often than not it’s caused by workloads increasing massively in size overnight. That’s a term used loosely, and while it’s not exactly overnight the message is that big change requirements can come around surprisingly quickly and you need to be able to pivot and rechart without inflexibility. At the forefront of all of this is a trend where multi-cloud strategies are seen as ideal fits for businesses, and that’s what we’ll look at here today. Clearer Appeal What is being seen now is multi-Cloud strategies emerging as a dominant part of many organizations’ long-term IT roadmaps. A recent study conducted by an IT services firm in the US and UK came back with some interesting findings regarding what’s...

July 19, 2021

Domain Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

You might not know it, but the word hygiene has Greek mythology roots. Hygieia was a daughter of Asclepius, who you probably also didn’t know was the Greek god of medicine. Hygieia was the goddess of health, cleanliness and sanitation, and so that pretty much makes sense in as far as where the word comes from. We all know how it’s important to brush our teeth everyday, but apparently it’s possible to be healthy, clean, and entirely sanitized with those digital gatekeepers we call passwords. We’ve all seen password suggesters that give you an idea of how suitably strong your password is, but maybe far to many people are going with 54321 or something of the sort. Here at 4GoodHosting we’re like any other good Canadian web hosting provider in that we’ve come across all sorts of stories of password failures over the years and we try to make a point of giving customers some insights into good practices for the digital world if they need them. And apparently the need is there. Passwords are still the primary form of authentication, but done poorly they can leave you vulnerable to attacks if your cybersecurity is not up to scratch. Passwords get stolen, and it’s happening a lot more often nowadays. They’re obtained by all sorts of underhanded means, and you may have some of yours that aren’t exclusively in your possession anymore too. Billions Out There At present there are billions of passwords available on the Dark Web, collected via various attack methods ranging from malware to phishing for them. Many are then used in password spraying and credential stuffing attacks. The primary reason this is able to happen, according to web security experts, is that around 65% of users re use some of their passwords. That’s highly inadvisable, and if you do it then you put yourself at risk of stolen or compromised credentials. There’s another estimate that 1 in 5 companies who suffered a malicious data breach had it happen because of stolen or compromised credentials. So what is poor password hygiene? It’s really any type of choice or omission with setting or sharing passwords that leaves doors...

July 12, 2021

Domain Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

There’s no debating the fact that a higher population means higher power consumption. In the same way greater demands on data servers caused by so many more people using them indirectly are unavoidable too, and the way data centers are already using way too much power is definitely not good for the environment. Denmark isn’t anywhere close to being one of the most populated countries in Europe, but even there a single large data center consumes the equivalent of four percent of Denmark's total electricity consumption. That’s according to the Danish Council on Climate Change, and when you consider what that means you can imagine what the number would be like for much more heavily populated countries around the world. The growth of IoT and SaaS applications is going to increase this consumption and in the big picture it’s really not good. Here at 4GoodHosting, the nature of what we do as a quality Canadian web hosting provider means we can 100% relate to anything connected to operating large-scale data centers. Plus, we prefer good to news to any news that is not as good and that’s why this particular piece of news out of Denmark made the cut for our blog entry this week. Let’s get into it, and it might make us all feel a little more at ease about our own small but significant contributions to power usage. A+ Algorithm What’s behind all of this is a new algorithm developed by Danish researchers that’s able to promote major reductions with the world's computer servers and their resource consumption. We need to keep in mind that computer servers are every bit as taxing on the climate as all global airline traffic combined, and that is why green transitions in IT are so important. So why exactly is this such an issue? The world’s increasing internet usage has a very real and profound impact on climate due to the immense amount of electricity that’s demanded by computer servers. Current CO2 emissions from data centers are very high, and unfortunately they are expected to double within just a few years. Studies have indicated global data centers consume more than 400...

July 5, 2021

Domain Related

Reading Time: 11 minutes

In last week’s entry here we touched on ‘bounce’ rates, and how having higher ones can be hugely problematic for any website that’s serving an e-commerce function. If you’ve got a basic WordPress site for your blog on a basic shared web hosting package then you won’t be particularly concerned if those who enter choose to exit shortly thereafter. If your site is the avenue by which you sell products and services and make a livelihood for yourself, it’s going to be a much bigger issue if this becomes a trend. Bounce rates are something that all conscientious web masters are going to monitor, even the ones who aren’t much of a master at all. We’re like any good Canadian web hosting provider in that we make these analytics resources available to people through our control panel, and most other providers will do the same so that it’s made easier to see if there’s some deficiency to your website that’s causing visitors to leave far too soon. We found an interesting resource that puts the importance of website load times in real perspective for people who might not get the magnitude of it otherwise, and we thought we should share that here today. 2 or 3 at Most The general consensus is that a website should load in less than 2 to 3 seconds, and more simply your website should load as fast as possible. Anything more than this time frame and your risk losing potential customers. There was a study done by Google in 2017 that indicated that as page load time goes from 1 second to 3, the likelihood of that visitor ‘bouncing’ increases by 32%. It’s very possible that these numbers will have increased by this point 4 years later. The reality is the longer your page takes to load, the more likely it is users will find that to be unacceptable. There’s no getting around the fact a fast user experience is extremely important. And even more so with the increasing predominance of mobile browsing. An analysis of 900,000 landing pages across several countries and industry sectors found that the majority of mobile sites are too...

June 28, 2021

Domain Related

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Anyone who has a website serving as the primary point of contact between their goods and / or services and paying customers is probably going to want that site functioning as optimally as possible. As it relates to sales and incoming revenue, that’s going to be even more important if it’s an e-commerce website and you are as profit oriented as the next guy or gal. Most people have a lot invested in their business, and $ is only a part of that investment. People will want to get the maximum return on that investment, and good website navigation is definitely a factor. We can relate to all of this here at 4GoodHosting, as being a quality Canadian web hosting provider we’re equally interested in returns on investments and we tend to have something of an affinity for anything digital. The fact you’re reading this means you’ve visited our website at least once, and we’ve put the same priority on solid website navigation that many others have to ensure we have as many new web hosting in Canada customers signing up with as possible. Yes, the lowest prices on reliable web hosting in Canada do the lion’s share of the work there for bringing new customers into the fold, but the design of the site is a factor just like it is for any e-commerce website where you want to be retaining customers and making sure as few as possible become ‘bounce rate’ statistics. Orders Up, Bouncers Down So we’ll refer to those people who leave a website shortly after arriving as ‘bouncers’ then, with absolutely no relation to the huge man who’ll throw you out of the club if you get out of line in there. These people usually bounce because the website is a) visually unappealing to them to the point it suggest a lack of professionalism for the business, or b) the way they’re able to move through the site’s pages isn’t what they like. Fortunately very little of the ‘like’ part of the equation has little to do with personal preferences or anything else of the sort. It has more to do with their inherent belief...

June 21, 2021

Domain Related

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Trends are trends, and the reason there’s often no stopping trends is because there’s a darn good reason everyone’s doing whatever it is. These days one such trend that’s got solid legitimacy behind it is moving from an on-premises Microsoft Exchange deployment to Exchange, and for most people it is nothing short of a huge undertaking. It’s often full of major issues along with considerations and decisions galore, and for a lot of people they won’t know what they’ve gotten into with moving to hosted Exchange until they’re well into the process. But you’re going to do what you’re going to do, and especially if it’s something you feel you need to do. I remember when I was very young and my grandfather said to me ‘some birds do, and some birds don’t. Some birds will, and some birds won’t.’ I had absolutely no idea what on earth he was talking about but I stared up into the sky anyways. The few birds I saw were flying around being birds like any other and I remember thinking what is it they would or wouldn’t be doing in the first place. But enough about that. Our discussion today is not necessarily about trends and about who is going to do what. It’s about getting your organization into Exchange Online and for some people it’s full of pitfalls that can make the whole thing far too unpleasant, especially if you have on choice but to continue on with it. So here’s what we know about what you should do, and what you shouldn’t do. Don’t underestimate the time required for moving the entirety of data over A whole bunch of factors can make this a lengthy ordeal. How many users do you have? How much data does each mailbox have stored? Do you have bandwidth constraints? The list can go on. Migrating email to the cloud can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks. In fact, Microsoft can contribute one major slowdown of their own – a less-obvious protective feature of Exchange Online makes it so that inbound sustained connections are throttled in order to prevent system overwhelm risk. A...