As an programmer / affliate marketer servers are extremely important to me. Sure I do take advantage of HostGator share hosting servers, but usually with quick and dirty web sites. Anything that involves thinking outside of the box will require my own server since there are packages, centralization, globalization of code that I would like to use. I also like to use my own servers for security and managing the traffic that hit my web sites. But, I’m talking production.

I always test my sites and develop my sites on several development servers. Those servers are here in my office and are an extremely valuable asset to my business. I also use servers as file servers. I’m sorta freaky about backups. I love backups. I love incremental backups. For me to maintain these backups, I need to have disk and servers to manage them. So.. you probably get it.. servers are important.

The reason for this post, is that I buy my servers (development and file servers) from Dell. I always wait for specials that they run, and you can get crazy awesome deals for servers. I just was notified about a deal going on right now.

Currently they’re offering a Dell PowerEdge T110 Server with a 24″ ViewSonice Widescreen Black LCD Monitor for only $479. This includes FREE 3-5 day shipping. Not bad at all! This will be a system without a operating system, which is perfect if you’re messing around with Linux, but it would be easy to install Windows if needed. You should be able to upgrade or customize the server directly from Dell, but obviously the price would go up.

Here are the specific details of the offer:

Dell PowerEdge T110 Server with 24″ ViewSonic Widescreen Black LCD Monitor
Intel Xeon X3430 Processor
2GB Memory
250GB Hard Drive
Free 3-5 Day Ground Shipping!

For more information Dell PowerEdge T110 Server with a 24″ ViewSonic Monitor offer for only $479, click here.

Incoming search terms:

• dell t110 server price
• dell poweredge t110 server price
• buy dell server t110
• DELL T110 ΤΙΜΗ
• dell t110 evalue server codes
• dell server t110 price
• dell poweredge t 110 price
• DELL EVALUE CODE SERVER
• dell e-value code 2011 poweredge t110
• no display on dell t110

Related posts:

1. Do you backup your data?
2. Monitor your sites – Watch your logs
3. FTP’ing files from CJ’s FTP server to your host

I’ve been managing various dedicated web servers for a few years now. I do this for web development clients as well as some of my affiliate marketing efforts. One company that I’ve been with for a while is Rackspace and I’ve been nothing but pleased with their services.  When I initially signed on with them about 6 years ago, their linux dedicated (unmanaged) servers were quite affordable, but since then, their prices have increased, so for new dedicated servers I’ve used other hosts. I’m not happy with those hosts, and always wished I could have additional servers at Rackspace.

Recently, my Rackspace server had a failing drive and a friend of mine told me that Rackspace offers cloud servers – and with the linux distro I prefer. I figured this would be a great opportunity to check out a new hosting solution, but something new that I have confidence in since it’s Rackspace. Additionally, looking at their price matrix, their pricing is great! They’ve changed the hosting payment paradigm by going with a hourly rate. I was a little hesitant of this, but after calculating their hourly rates.. it’s cheap. To calculate hosting, you determine how much RAM your server requires (includes disk space) and how much incoming/outgoing bandwidth is used.  The other great thing, is that you can scale down or ramp up if needed. Since it’s in a virtual environment you can do this.

I think I would be hesitant to go with anyone except Rackspace for this, since their network is unbelievably good, and their support is second to none. I’ve never been on hold. And a *real* person answers the phone EVERY time.

I’m going to be migrating the failing physical server to the cloud server and seriously consider moving my other servers to the cloud as well. For those that are not familiar with cloud servers, here is a video explaining it:

If this sounds interesting to you, check out their pricing. I’m personally.. super psyched so far. If you’re looking for a web host and after you Buy domain names, please consider Rackspace cloud for your hosting solution!

Incoming search terms:

• ffmpeg rackspace cloud

Related posts:

1. Hosting, let’s talk about hosting
2. Using FFMpeg to create YouTube clone script

I manage a few servers dedicated solely to my affiliate marketing efforts. As part of my daily routine, I monitor logs and activity of those servers. I do this for to maintain a level of security, but I also do this to keep an eye out for issues related to my affiliate sites.

Today for example, I started seeing ‘Warnings’ about undefined variables related to a eBay API processing script. This variable is defined when the server successfully communicated with eBay’s API and it then fills a array. The array was never created, yet, there were no errors with the API communication? This was odd, so I started to do some debugging.

I ‘echoed’ the response and saw the following:

Ah, so my authToken had expired. I didn’t even know they expired. Logging into eBay’s developer area, I saw that the token expired yesterday (7/11). The bottom line, is that I have many sites communicating to eBay using the API system there, and if I didn’t monitor my logs, I would have missed this. I’ll be re-writing my API function to alert on Ack=failure to avoid this. Normally, I was just looking at ‘complete’ failure in the communication string.

Related posts:

1. Using eBay’s API to search auctions and return results
2. Amazon Product API: SignatureDoesNotMatch error response
3. Pay Attention to your Roll-Your-Own EPN sites

It’s like the saying..

A ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

This was the saying generally for people to stay healthy by avoiding things that make you sick, be it lifestyle and behaviour or what you put into your body. This saying really applies to security as well.

I’m currently a web developer and server administrator, so I have a background of security. I’ve seen things when they’ve gone ‘bad’. I’ve also seen the damage that can be done to your business and way of life when a security breach directly affects you. To say a ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure really applies to internet security. This topic can fill a book, but I’ll try to keep it short and cover some basic points, from a affiliate marketer point of view.

Platforms
It seems like most affiliate marketers are using various application platforms like WordPress, Drupal or BANS, etc, etc. These tools are great. They’re free (open source) and are easy to install and configure. The problem is that since it is open source any one can download a version and reverse engineer or scour the code for potential security holes and vulnerabilities. From there, a attacker would only need to Google a specific ‘footprint’ to find the same application and version to attack.

The damage this can cause is catastrophic. A attacker could gain priviledge of the entire server and have access to all of your sites. If you’re running dedicated servers, this is even more of a threat, since you would be managing the server and the attacker would recruit this server as a potential tool in his bot army. If you’re on a shared environment, the hosting facility will most likely shut down your site and stop services for you until you correct the problem.

Normally when exploits are discovered the author of the application (WordPress, etc) would be notified, and their developers would create a fix and release a update to correct this issue, usually in a extremely timely manner. Plugins are outside of the WordPress relm, so I would recommend plugins that show ‘activity’ and a community or development team that actively works on it. Stale plugins could be a security vulnerability.

The ounce of cure in this case… UPDATE YOUR WORDPRESS PLATFORM AND PLUGINS! It is so simple and easy.

I know I’m focusing on WordPress in this example, but this would be applied to any 3rd party software application or platform.

Services
If you’re running a dedicated server you must stay on top of your service updates, specifically PHP, Apache, MySQL and SSH. Just like in Platforms, these are all open source products and have potential bugs or exploits that are discovered at times. Either work with your hosting provider or perform the updates themselves. Depending on your flavor of Linux there are various ways to perform these updates.

I’m only mentioning Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP) since you don’t see a lot of Windows based hosting at affordable costs. Plus.. I hate talking about Windows.

ACL (Access Control Lists)
This is something that is not mentioned often out there, but I really feel strong about. Using firewalls (iptables, etc) to manage access to your dedicated server is important. Limit SSH access to certain IPs (assuming you have a static IP at your home or office.. which you should). Along with SSH access to the servers, I also like to limit access to administrative areas and control panels. No reason these should be open to the world. This includes my wp-admin access as well.

Hardening Services
There are certain items you can do to ‘harden’ services. Basically making PHP harder to hack or limiting access to the system with a chroot, etc. Along with that you can control error messages (don’t display error messages) to prevent information disclosure. Usually attacks start with information gathering (finding versions, file path info, etc).

Passwords
Work on your passwords. Make them difficult. Think in pass phrases and include alpha numeric characters. DO NOT USE THE SAME PASSWORD FOR EVERYTHING! The more important the information, make the passwords more difficult. For instance, I don’t want people guessing my domain registrar passwords, etc. Think defensively with passwords, watch out for potential insecure Twitter applications, etc. 75% of people use the same password in other areas, so your Twitter password, could be quite valuable if you’re one of the 75%.

Okay, so those are a few items (many more actually while I’m thinking about it), but I wanted to talk about some worst case scenarios.

I had a client that was working on affiliate marketing. He was primarily working with AdSense and creating review and community sites (forums, etc) and was doing quite well. Some how a hacker was able to get is FTP password for the site and infiltrate his host. He had a dedicated server and was then locked out of all of his sites. My client also used the same password for his registrar and the hacker was able to take control of his domains.  This was when I was called in. The hacker tried to ransom the sites asking for $100K to return control of all his domains (over 100).

My client was able to start piecing over some of the domains, and even had the FBI involved. Unfortunately, the hacker was in Asia and little could be done. About 3 months later the client was able to get his domains back, but had to create a new hosting solution. After the client recovered the domains, the hacker began a very brutal DOS (Denial of Service) attack on his domains in a last stand type move, but the damage was severely done.

While the hacker had control of the domains, he was PMing invidivduals in the forums and causing mass havoc and confusion. Lots of members left, not to mention that the hacker probably stole all of there user credentials and emails. My client was also ranking very high in Google, and with content changes (pornographic and exploit software) he lost rank and had to start it up again. He also lost his AdSense account and had to re-apply and explain the situation. It was a major blow to his finances but he was able to recover  after about 6 months.

So the lesson? If he worked on his password management, this would have been avoided. A ounce of prevention, is worth a pound of cure.. or at least 6 months of cure.

Related posts:

1. Twitter Security
2. Update WordPress!
3. Build A Niche Store (bans) – Security issues are being addressed (continued)

This is hot off the presses. Yahoo is knocking off 35% off for their web hosting packages! That’s bringing the cost for awesome RELIABLE hosting down to $6.47/month. If you’re looking for a cheap reliable host, this could be a great start for some affiliate sites!

35% off Yahoo! Web Hosting packages + no setup fee (save $25)
Coupon Code: WHMS35OFF
Expiration: June 30, 2009

Related posts:

1. Hosting, let’s talk about hosting
2. CJ web service issues – unable to access WSDL
3. Amazon Associates Web Service Changes

So I constantly see discussions about people looking for hosting companies for their eBay store fronts or other affiliate ventures. Hosting is important, and should be thought through. This post is going to be a slight rant, but hopefully some of you will be able to see the big picture from it.

Item #1. There is no ‘perfect’ host! If you’re looking for a host for your applications, you need to look at three things, not the bells and whistles they offer. Here is what you need to look for.

1. Uptime and support
2. Compatible software platform
3. Unlimited domains

We don’t care about the gazillion bytes of transfer, the gazillion GBs of storage, the gazillion email accounts. This is a stupid trick that shared hosting account do to get you to compare offers with other hosting companies, and they know in the end you will never ever come close to ever reaching those numbers. So what happens, you begin to compare hosting accounts on these services that in the end never matter. These services is what you’re basing your decision on, which is completely wrong. Especially if you’re doing affiliate sites, you’ll have low bandwidth, no email accounts, and pretty low file storage anyway.

So the things to look for are the items listed above. Do a search in Google ‘HOST sucks’ (replace the HOST with the hosting company you’re looking at). You’ll be surprised by how many results some hosting companies will return. What we want is to find a company that’s based in the United States (and has tech support located here) that has quality uptime and excellent technical support.

Compatible software platform. If you’re using BANS you’ll want a host with MySQL and PHP.

Unlimited domains. This is important if you want to grow your affiliate network without adding additional hosting charges. Along with domains, it’s important to see if you get unlimited mysql databases, if not, you can work prefixed tables, etc… so that’s not a deal breaker.

Now, this is just talking about shared hosting, which in my opinion is the bottom of the barrel of hosting. As your affiliate empire grows, try to diversify with different hosts. I get so tired of people whining about hosting costs, etc. People spend more money on DVD rentals and fast food than they would ever spend on hosting.. and hosting returns you money in the end!!!! Quit being so cheap! If I was going to play in the shared hosting game, I would find at least 3 hosting accounts and spread my sites throughout these accounts. What will this achieve??

1. Redundancy. When a host goes down, you don’t lose ALL of your sites that day.
2. Experience. You’ll get a feel of different hosting companies and allows you to make good decisions for moving sites to what hosts, etc.
3. IPs on different subnets. This is for quality backlinks. Part of the algorithm that Google uses (not official) is to look at IPs. If a IP of one site is point to several sites on the same IP or subnet, Google will think that they’re on the same server. By having different hosting accounts on completely different subnets and cross linking each other can give you better quality backlinks within your own affiliate empire.

Personally, I don’t like shared hosting. I prefer dedicated servers. Do you think the biggies like Shoemoney, Chow, etc are using a crappy $5/month shared hosting account? No. They’re using dedicated servers. The benefits of dedicated servers is massive.

1. You get better support since you’re paying more a month for hosting.
2. You can customize your server with any packages you want or need. I was asked recently about the FLV (YouTube clone) scripts, and you would need to install various PEAR packages, etc. Dedicated is the best way for this.
3. You already get unlimited domains
4. Server tools (ie: data and MySql backups, automated scripts — cron for tasks, etc)

Dedicated does have it’s down sides though. I’m also a Linux systems administrator by profession (along with being a professional web developer), so I’m very comfortable working in Linux systems for optimization as well as for security. So updating my servers is of little concern to me. If you’re not familiar with administering a server, then this could be daunting. You could however go with a Managed Dedicated Server or Virtual Private Server and have the hosting company install and manage your server. Some hosts offer this bundled with their dedicated hosting, while others are completely ‘hands-off’, so you’ll need to do your research.

The other downside is price. You could spend anywhere from $100/month upwards to $400/month depending on what dedicated hosting facility you go with. I personally run a few dedicated servers that cost $149/month. These costs are easily absorbed in, but it might not be the best move initially for you. I would get a few revenue generating sites on shared hosts, then when it’s time to jump, push to the dedicated with those sites. I also run a few shared hosting accounts. For instance I run my BANS sites on the shared hosting sites, due to a few issues I have with BANS.

Notice I did not plug one host, or offer a affiliate link anywhere for hosting in this post? I wanted to totally give you the tools to make the right decision vs. trying to push a company, etc. If you did find this post valuable.. please by me a beer.

Hope this article will help you make some hosting decisions. Let me know if you have any questions.

Related posts:

1. 35% off Yahoo’s web hosting packages!
2. Rackspace Cloud Servers
3. Takes money to make money