Category: Domain Related

October 26, 2020

Domain Related

Reading Time: 9 minutes

If there’s one thing those of us who do content and communications exclusively will know like the back our hands, it’s a CMS of one sort or another. If you don’t know what that abbreviation stands for, it’s Content Management System. Even if you’ve never used WordPress, you’ll almost certainly still have heard of it and it’s pretty much the original CMS and is the one most used by people all over the world. And that’s not just for blogs like this one. Here at 4GoodHosting, our expertise is in web hosting in the same way it will be for any good Canadian web hosting provider, but any and all of us will also know how integral content is to SERPs and the like. That’s why the KashmirBlack botnet is such a newsmaker in the digital world today, and for good reason. Now at this point you’re probably saying ‘what?’, and that’s to be expected given the exotic name given to this malicious little critter. Name aside, you may even be asking what exactly is a botnet? We can answer that. A botnet is a type of malicious attack where a series of connected computers are utilized to attack or promote failure of a network, network device, website or IT environment, and usually done with the intention to disrupt normal working operations or degrade the system’s service capacities. Now with this new KashmirBlack botnet, we shouldn’t assume that it has originated in India, or that those who created it are huge fans of the classic Led Zeppelin song. Really it’s just a name. What is worth talking about, though, is what this and why it’s showing itself to be so problematic. Mining, Malicious Redirects, and Defacing So let’s get into what you might need to know about this if you’re the person behind a website, any website and one being utilized for whatever aims. Imperva is a web security research organization that’s fairly reputable and held in high regard in the digital community worldwide, and they’re the ones who have discovered and tracked the KashmirBlack botnet. Their research has indicated that this botnet is responsible for infecting hundreds of thousands...

October 19, 2020

Domain Related

Reading Time: 7 minutes

If you’ve never heard of Elasticsearch, you can certainly be excused. Here at 4GoodHosting we’ve got some pretty smart cookies around, but as a whole we’re a Canadian web hosting provider who’ll never claim to be entirely full of digital wherewithal. Truth be told I hadn’t heard of it either until recently, but no one had ever suggested to me that I should give a second thought to whether or not I’ll trust it as base for searching online. Right then, get right to the definition you say. Elasticsearch is an open source search and analytics engine and data store developed by Elastic. The appeal of it has always been in the way it allows for searching through huge amounts of data with reasonable timeframes, and running calculations with resultant data in the blink of an eye. However, recent news indicates that there’s a potential downside to using Elasticsearch, and sharing what we know about that is going to be the subject of this week’s entry here. Legit Associations Elasticsearch has been all over the headlines – well, industry headlines at least – recently, and not in a good way. It seems like each new week brings along a new story about a breached Elasticsearch server resulting in troves of data being exposed. But why is this happening with Elasticsearch buckets as predominantly as it has been, and is it legit to associate Elasticsearch with an ever-present risk of this happening? The question then further becomes can businesses leveraging this otherwise very-helpful technology do so to the full extent while still avoid data leaks? Organizations have been using this platform en masse to store information in depositories (aka ‘buckets’), the contents of which then become emails, spreadsheets, social media posts, files and any and all matter of raw data in the form of text, numbers, or geospatial data. The problem for Elastic is that now it’s beyond debate that their storage option is leaving massive amounts of date unprotected and potentially exposed online. Sometimes this leak is disastrous, and the number of high-profile breaches attributed to use of Elasticsearch continues to grow. nvenient as this sounds, it can be disastrous...

October 12, 2020

Domain Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Soft consonant constructions are devilishly hard for people who are new to English to understand, and the colloquial form of fishing as ‘phishing’ to describe underhanded and fraudulent information requests on the web is a good example. But if we are to expand on that, many people of any first language will be confused as to why anyone would go to the trouble of ‘phishing’ in the first place. There’s always going to be people with bad intentions in any walk of life, and yes it does require a significant input of time and effort to set up, test, and then roll out a series of phishing emails or something similar. The reason they go to all of these efforts is - quite plainly - that’s there’s money to be made illicitly when they do find someone who’s gullible enough to click through or do whatever else it is that the phishing email requests of them. Most younger people who are increasingly more web savvy will be aware enough to avoid falling into the trap, but for others who aren’t that way and have still - like everyone - been forced to exist in an increasingly digital world it is actually a real risk. As a rule, anything that looks amiss with any type of web communication should be a red flag and reason to discard it. The same goes for any communication that seems ‘odd’ as to why the sender would be sending to you, whether it’s an unsolicited communication or one where it simply seems strange that they would be sending it to you. Here at 4GoodHosting, we can assure you that like any quality Canadian web hosting provider we’ve gone ‘fishing’ many times, but the interest was only ever in catching dinner and enjoying a quiet day on the lake. Obtaining info for fraudulent aims was never part of the equation! But in all seriousness, this is an ever-bigger issue and in response to it Google is introducing a wrinkle for it’s nearly-ubiquitous Chrome web browser that’s going to make it more difficult for ‘phishers’ to get anyone on the hook. October’s Here The Internet giant announced...

October 5, 2020

Domain Related

Reading Time: 6 minutes

If you’re one of the many people who enjoy twitter feeds or even the comments section at your favourite news websites, then you may already be well aware that some of the contributors aren’t exactly sitting or standing somewhere with a mobile device or notebook in front of them like you are. What we’re talking about here is ‘Bots’ and by that’s what means is an fabricated identity created in the digital space and armed with AI to be able to participate in convos and the like to further the interests of whatever interest group might be behind them. ‘Russian’ bots are the flavour of the years these days, and it’s believed that many of these non-animate opinion swayers come from Russia. Truth is, however, bots come from all over the place and these days they are all too commonplace. And they’re likely not going away anytime soon, so it’s good to know what these bots are, what they get up to, and – perhaps most importantly – how you can identify bots and put a whole lot less significance on what they have to say. Now it needs to be said that here at 4GoodHosting we’re like any other reputable Canadian web hosting provider in that we’ve never created a bot, and in truth despite our familiarity with all things web hosting we wouldn’t even know how to even if we tried. We imagine that’s there are at least a few of out web hosting customers in Canada who have these malevolent means, but that’s neither here nor there. Let’s spend today talking about what everyday, average individuals like you can actually do to distinguish between a bot and a legit, human contributor. Looks and Sounds Legit, But… Sophisticated bots look and act like human users, and it’s true that most bot activity indistinguishable from human activity to the naked eye. Even the majority of bot detection software struggles with being able to identify the entirety of them. This is a problem, and here’s why – with the ability to look like a million different humans at any time you could do a lot that wouldn’t be possible if...

September 28, 2020

Domain Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

2020 has been a roaring disappointment for all of us, but that’s coming at it from more socio-cultural and global perspective. A lot of the world has been hampered by the Global pandemic, but on the plus side (if there is one) the tech world hasn’t slowed down much if at all when it has come to advancing what the digital world is capable of offering us. The just-around-the-corner advent of 5G is getting the bulk of the hype, but major advances in AI (artificial intelligence) really need to be receiving some fanfare too. It’s fairly natural that 5G is going to be trumpeted most loudly by those of us who are a quality Canadian web hosting provider, and here at 4GoodHosting we fit the bill pretty nicely in that regard. When nearly everything you do is related to the workings of the Information Superhighway, it’s nearly impossible not to be wholly excited about what 5G has the potential to do for all of us. That’s likely why 5G has been a recurring theme in our content here, but today we can’t help but choose to go in an entirely different direction when it comes to be excited about something. It’s always been interesting to us that a bad dream is known as a ‘nightmare’, but there’s no exact term used for a good dream. Thankfully, most of us have good dreams more often than we have bad dreams, but most of the time our dreams are of the ordinary, unexceptional, forgotten by the time we wake up type. Sometimes, however, the dream we just had is something where we can’t get our minds off of it. Now imagine if there were a technological means of understanding what you can read into the dream you just had? It may be a reality before long, and that’s because of Dreamcatcher What’s All This? Just a few months back researchers from Nokia Bell Labs in Cambridge, U.K. made the announcement that they’ve created a tool called ‘Dreamcatcher’ that is able to use the latest NLP (Natural Language Processing) algorithms to identify themes from dreams as they are reported by the people who’ve...

September 21, 2020

Domain Related

Reading Time: 7 minutes

It’s always said there’s many different cogs to the machine, and that can be true of pretty much any machine. If you want to look at your online presence in this way, it’s a very conceptual understanding but it’s still there to be had. Your web designer or webmaster may be the most primary cog in it all, but there’s a whole lot of other valuable people too. Now I may be biased in this way being a copy and content writer here at , but I imagine that everyone who’s in a similar role with any good Canadian webs hosting provider is going to agree. Agree with what exactly? Well that good, smart, and – perhaps most importantly – strategic content is very much an integral component in the success of your business or venture being online. In fact we’re pretty confident in saying that, as quality content goes perhaps the longest way in getting you’re the SERP rankings that you’re after. Alright, maybe that’s a s t r e t c h to say the longest, but we certainly can’t just take a ‘whatever’ approach to what we write for the sites. Alright, enough patting ourselves on the back, but you get the point and it’s a very valid one. While there is an incredible volume of different content varieties that you can use for your website content – including blogs like this one – there are also a few types of content that might make sense given the context of your communications, but you should still avoid them. Here they are, and here’s why you need to avoid them. Content is king, marketers say – but not all of it. Indeed, some content can harm your website, slowing its performance, irritating visitors and badly affecting its search engine ranking. The way to deal with this is to check your site regularly and get rid of the damaging material. Here, we’ll explain what to look for. 1 - Heavy Images While it’s true that images are important elements of a website, and they do have a positive impact on user engagement, you really need to be choosy about...

September 14, 2020

Domain Related

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Lost to some extent in all the timely buzz and hubbub these days about 5G, Edge Computing and the like is the ongoing realization of quantum computing being put to work for the benefit of humanity. And considering what’s gone on so far in 2020, we could certainly use as much benefit as we can get right about now. We can go ahead and assume that most of you who’d be reading this blog have enough industry wherewithal to know what quantum computing is, but in case that’s not you we’ll go over that briefly before we proceed. And proceed to what? Well, it would appear that quantum computing is going to be making a whole host of ‘beyond our abilities’ largest scale computing stumbling blocks much less of stumbling blocks for countries and societies that are trying to get the very most of out of technological advances to make life better for all of us. We’re like any Canadian web hosting provider here at 4GoodHosting in that we can relate to just how big a deal this can be. But we promised a brief intro to quantum computing – What is Quantum Computing? Why don’t we go with old faithful and take a definition directly from Wikipedia - Quantum computing is the use of quantum phenomena such as superposition and entanglement to perform computation. By superpositioning Quantum bits, computer scientists are able to encode multiple values at the same time. For the last 40+ years they’ve only been able encode single values one by one, and this has hampered the speed with which certain equations can be put into use. That’s a very brief and perfunctory look at it, but it will suffice for now. To add a little more though, what computer scientists are looking to quantum computing to do is provide answers to the effective ways certain inapplicable solutions or equations can become applicable. Another relevant term here is constructive quantum interference, which is where quantum computers amplify certain signals over others to provide clues to as to finding these answers. It’s been suggested that quantum computers may well have the ability to counter climate change, provide...

September 7, 2020

Domain Related

Reading Time: 6 minutes

In the middle of march when all the international craziness of COVID started it’s very likely that most of the people who then started working from home didn’t expect that arrangement to last long. But here we are nearly 6 months later and a good many of those folks are still working from home. The truth is that those of us who have professions that allow us to be working remotely are fortunate to be able to do so, and then of course it’s a good time to say how important many people who haven’t been able to have been to the continuing of a functioning society and economy. One of the things that us here at 4Goodhosting have as a Canadian web hosting provider is that many of the people who choose us to host their websites will be among those who haven’t seen the office in many months. Now we’ll go ahead and assume you’re fairly good with adapting and finding new ways to maintain your productivity and satisfaction with new working arrangements, but surely you’re open to any suggestion that makes any aspect of that better. We’re living in the digital world, and among the many technological advances that have come with that is the virtual assistant. Whether yours is named Siri or Alexa is dependent on whether you’re an iOS or Android person, and whatever preference you have is fine as both are pretty darn good in the big picture of things. Today though what we’re going to do is deliver for iOS users who like to get the most with workday productivity via their iPhones, iPads, or Macs, and so here are a number of ways you can get more out of Siri as you go about that workday. It’s a good topic because if you’re an iOS device owner who still hasn’t figured out everything your super device is capable of, well - join the club! Opening Apps Couldn’t be any easier to open any application on any Apple platform that supports Siri. All you need to do is ask her to ‘Open [app name].’ It is that simple. Send Messages, Texts or Emails...

August 31, 2020

Domain Related

Reading Time: 6 minutes

We’ve all heard so much fanfare, excitement, and anticipation about the arrival of 5G network technology and what we can expect once it’s the new normal. There’s been some trepidation about it too, and most notably in who we’ll allow to build the 5G network in Canada. We’re going to steer well clear of that topic of discussion, but what we will do is have a look at a recent survey that found that 5G downloads in Canada are fairly darn speedy in comparison to elsewhere. Here at 4GoodHosting, that’s going to be quite promising for any good Canadian web hosting provider that has a fairly inherent understanding of all the potential that’s going to come with 5G and how pleasing it’s going to be to enjoy it with open-throttle operating speeds. However, the one thing that’s likely the most promising is probably the one aspect people are least enthusiastic about – the IoT (Internet of Things for anyone not familiar with the acronym) So back to the topic, what went into this determination, and what does all this suggest in the big picture once the rollout of 5G Networks is complete? All About the Signal We’ve been told all sorts of what 5G wireless technology may become, but not what it is exactly. Unless you’re a mega tech-savvy person, there might a need to start from the start. 5G networks are the next generation of mobile internet connectivity, and it’s promising to offer connections that are much, much faster and reliable than what was offered with previous mobile technology. You may not be familiar with what 1 Full gigabyte of download speeds entails, but trust us when we say it’s fast and a LOT faster than what most of us have enjoyed as a standard on 4G. And the good news being that 1Gbps (or darn close to it) speeds are set to become the new standard. Provided, that is, that you’re running on a good strong signal. What a 5G network is able to offer will depend in large part on what signal your 5G is running on, and there are three categories of signal bands. You’ll be...