Open Source Central: Concrete5

Have you used Concrete5 yet? I think it’s my new favorite thing ever. (Don’t tell WordPress I said that.)

What is Concrete5 you ask? It’s an up and coming content management system (CMS) and it is taking over. Quite frankly, I think I am ok with that.

It’s an ultra-lite, easy to use, über powerful CMS that caters to the broad range of site builders out there. From designers to developers, to people like me who just go into a software and clunk around until something works, Concrete5 has the power and features to fulfill all our needs.

I was able to think, “I wonder what all this Concrete5 hype is about?”, then install it through Softaculous, and begin working on my site in a matter of minutes. I kid you not. Within 2 hours, I had a good-looking website with customized CSS and full content on the home, about, and contact me pages.

Now that Concrete5 and I are in love, I figured I’d share some of this excitement with you, our lovely readers. Here is my list of the top 5 most awesome features of Concrete5.

The Top 5 Most Awesome Features of Concrete5

1. Most themes are Responsive.

Yep. Right out of the gate, most themes are built to be responsive or have a mobile version you can use. Even better? You can change the mobile theme to be different than the full site. That way, if you want something a little simpler for those tiny cellphone screens, you just pick a different theme for the mobile version. How cool is that?

2. Easy and optional SEO features.

Built right into the site format, you’ve got the ability to automatically add the Meta Title, Meta Description, and Meta Keywords! It’s a one click choice. This means you can select what to add and when, and it also means you have easy access to update your SEO keywords to ensure that you are meeting the needs of your customers and remaining competitive with search engines.

3. Direct, on-page editing.

Are you looking for a point and click style builder that is easy to customize, has a wide variety or templates to choose from, and has the power to allow full site development? Look no further. Concrete5 is set up in blocks which show up in black dotted lines.

You pick which blocks you want to add by clicking within the black dotted lines. Then, select add block. This will open a pop up window where you can select what you want it to be.

You can pick anything from adding navigation, to an image, even a YouTube video, right here on the page you’re working on!

You can see your site as you build it. Most content management systems require that you work on the content and coding of the site in the back end. That means you have to bounce back and forth between your code and the site to see the changes you are making. While you will have to do that to some extent with Concrete5, you can get a good feel for the layout before delving into the code.

4. The Marketplace.

Typically, when you want an add-on or theme, you have to look all over the internet to get all of your options. Concrete5 simplifies that. It’s all in one place, the Marketplace. Any plugins or themes that you would like can be found right in the software, so you don’t have to stop working to get the functionality you want.

5. Extreme Theme Customization.

You can customize your themes and add any CSS (custom style script) right in the theme. Through your themes page, click the “Customize” button next to your selected theme. This will open color options and the CSS entry.

Talk about easy control. I love that I can make changes to the CSS and see it change right in the same screen. Color matching on my site became so much easier when I didn’t have to open another window to see how the colors look together.

With its combination of simplicity and power, Concrete5 is an all in one CMS that is sure to meet your needs.

Go forth, give it a try, and tell us your thoughts in the comments below! We’d love to know what features you loved best.

Creating Content: Surefire Ways to Inspire Written Content for Your Site

I love to write, so for me, developing content for websites is easy. As a matter of fact, I do it here at InMotion for some of our clients.

However, that experience has taught me that not everyone has the ability to sit down and put words to thoughts. There’s nothing wrong with that, you know your business, if you’re a plumber, you know plumbing. I’m a writer, so I know writing.

So how do you, as a plumber, jeweler, baker, or other tradesman, communicate your knowledge to your website easily? It’s a big task, explaining what you do to a wide audience in writing for the world to see. I assure you, you can do it without having to hire a professional content writer to do it for you. After all, who knows your business better than you do?

I’m going to give you some tips and tricks for developing content for your website. You’re getting insider hints on how to inspire the words and pick the best information to include on your website and where to place it.

Above the fold on your home page is prime real estate on your website. So, keep the most important information there. Anything you want your customers to be aware of as soon as they go to your website needs to be front and center.

What does “above the fold” mean?

Above the fold is a term for the area on a website that shows up at the top of the page. Meaning, it’s the part of the site that you don’t have to scroll down to see.

Much like a newspaper headline, this information needs to be brief, to the point, and grab your visitor’s attention.

What to include above the fold:

Your company name and logo. Don’t leave any mystery about where the viewer is visiting.
An easy to navigate site menu. Anything to make getting around your site easier.
Contact information. If you want customers to call or email you as part of your business plan, put this up top. Include any social media links you may have.
A search feature. If you have a blog, or anything informational, a search bar will help customers immediately get the information they need.
Any promotions you are running. If you have a sale or special, this is where to highlight it. Make it big and brightly colored so it grabs attention.
1-3 important aspects of your business. Ask yourself, what is the one thing I want people to know about my business? Is it your customer service? Your pricing? Your credentials or knowledge? Focus on that. Then, in less than 200 words, explain it. Your above the fold information should be graphic-based, so keep your words brief.

Don’t get too wordy with your home page. Product or action images are great ways to get attention without overwhelming site visitors.

When writing your home page content, limit yourself to no more than 3 key aspects of your business. Brainstorm your business and services and make a list. Then narrow it down to the most important and of that list, pick the top three. Don’t worry, there will be a place for the other important features of your business, just not on the home page.

For example, the history of your company does not belong on the home page. If you are including that, great! This gives the customers something to connect to, but just make it a small phrase, not the whole history on the front of your site. Try something like, “Established in 1997…” or “Locally owned and operated in Virginia Beach…” Any more detail than that is more appropriate in the “About Us” section.

While making this list, call friends and family who know your business and ask them to describe it to you. This may seem silly, but it’s important to have a feel for what outside parties think of the services you offer. They may not fully match up with what you are trying to project. If this is the case, your web content is a great place to revamp the image of your company.

In order to actually write the content for your home page, ask yourself these questions to get the inspiration flowing:

Why is this important to me and my business?
How do I display this in daily business operations?
What have been the results of prioritizing this aspect of my business?

Keep your answers between 1 and 2 sentences here. You can elaborate more in other pages of the site. This is like teaser information.

Organize where you want your content laid out before you write. That list you made before of the most important aspects of your business? Use that as a starting point and outline where you want that information. For example, you don’t want to introduce your prices in the About Us page. Something that important deserves its own page.

Create an outline like this:

Home Page

Customer Service Focused
Guaranteed Pricing
Free Estimates

About Us

Family owned business.
Part of the local community for over 50 years.
Won best of local awards 12 years in a row.
Community Service projects.

Request A Quote

Free estimates
Guaranteed pricing
Contact form
Schedule and appointment

Get To Know Our Team

Staff photos
Staff credentials
Customer service focus
Short bios for staff members

Once you have those basic topics listed for each page, stick to them. Don’t try to put too much information on one page. This will make it difficult to follow and your customers will lose interest in that page. This makes finding information on your site tedious and can cause them to leave your site in search of another.

Even on pages further into your site, you want to keep the information short and sweet. Try to keep your pages around 500 words total. Break them up into short paragraphs, use lists to highlight important facts, and use images to depict things your words can’t.

Know your audience. This seems simple, but if you are catering only to others in your field, you will not have to explain as much as you would if you were catering to novices or customers who know little to nothing about what you do.

When in doubt, find someone who fits your goal audience and ask them if what you have written makes sense. Your site should be informative without being too complicated or too simple. When writing, an outside opinion is invaluable.

Still not sure where to go from here? Check below. I’ve included a list of the questions I typically ask my content clients. These questions usually give me enough understanding of my client’s business and goals that I can then use the answers to draft an entire site worth of content.

Answer the questions fully! Provide as much information as you can and make lists of all the features where applicable. This is not the place to cut words. Once you have answered all these questions and have of paragraphs and pages worth of information, highlight all the parts that are the most critical. If you’ve already made your list of SEO keywords, highlight any sentences where those keywords were used.

Once you’ve done that, all you have to do is string those highlighted sentences together in a way that makes sense. By using that information and just filling it into the pages you listed on your outline, you’ve got strong, relevant content.

Note: As you answer these questions, organize the answers, and think about the site layout, you may find that your original outline is not the best way to organize the site. You might discover that two aspects are related and should be introduced together, but you have them on separate pages in your outline. No worries. Just adjust the outline to fit your changing needs. It is a guide to keep your content focused, so it’s not set in stone.

Describe your company or business plan.
What services or products do you offer?
Describe your work flow. If you hand make products, what goes into it? If you offer a service, how do you proceed when responding to a call or appointment?
How long have you been in business?
What made you decide to open your business?
Have you won any awards or received any acknowledgements?
What are your credentials? What skills do you and your team bring to the business?
What are others saying about you? Include customer testimonials, local media, social media, and any word of mouth customers you are aware of.
What are your business goals?
What makes your business different from its competition?

Writing content is a lot of work, even when it comes easily to you. So, be prepared to take the time to do it properly. But, don’t be afraid to make changes and updates to your content whenever applicable. It is good to provide new information to your website regularly, so try to keep your site content fresh.

Team Member Profile: Joe Cartonia – Managed Hosting

Hometown: Buffalo, NY
Position: Managed Hosting Team – Level 2
InMotion team member since September 2009

How did you get started in this field?
My interest in technology started as a kid. I would take apart electronic devices to see how they worked, and of course put them back together. Soon I would be helping friends, neighbors, or anyone who asked, setup their computers and helped manage them.

Pretty soon, I took an interest in software and learned to code. I would build applications for people who needed something that didn’t exist — which is something I still enjoy doing.

Do you prefer working with hardware or software?
It’s hard for me to put one in favor of another. I enjoy hardware because I like building systems to move data. Whether over cable, Ethernet, satellite, or even radio. I really just like the challenges of setting these systems up.

With software, I get to take the hardware systems I built and create programs that use the data. I learned php fairly early, and it’s a language I understand pretty well.

Favorite online application?
There isn’t one application that I would say is my favorite. I’m not on social media, and I don’t use online applications all that often.

I would much rather build my own.

Coolest gadget?
Droid Razr Maxx HD. Fast. Thin. Has a Kevlar back. It’s a computer, TV, phone, all in your pocket.

Favorite thing about working at IMH?
You never know what you’re going to run into. With IMH, there are always new challenges and situations that need to be taken care of. Sometimes we get an issue that no one has dealt with before, so there is no answer because no one has found one yet. I really enjoy this part because I get to work with the customer to find the answer and get it working for them. I think it’s pretty cool that I get to be a part of the process.

Also, getting to work with new applications and the latest hardware is a lot of fun.

The Modern Blog and Your Business

Blog. It’s a weird word with a lot of meaning. Historically, blogs have been perceived as a digital journal for an individual to voice opinions, thoughts, or stories, and this definition holds true today, for some blogs. For example, I have three personal blogs that I update regularly and they are just that, an online journal of my life.

But, I also have a professional blog designed solely to display my skills and services to the internet. I use it to market my skills and display my knowledge. This concept of the professional blog is becoming a regular occurrence for many businesses with an online presence.

But why? Does it behoove your business to add a blog page to your website? What content should you include, and how often should you update it?

First, ABSOLUTELY, you should have a blog on your website. Groomers, caterers, graphic designers, even hosting companies (like this one) can benefit from a blog. There are several reasons the blog page will benefit your business.

1. Traffic: You can increase traffic to your site by posting relevant or interesting content to your site’s blog. Short posts full of interesting material, graphics, and media will draw more people to visit your site and see what’s going on. If they are interested in what you have in your blog, they will explore the rest of your site to get to know your company.

2. Social Media: Posts that are widely viewed are often shared on social media. You can cheaply and easily promote your site, or an upcoming event, or your brand simply by having a post go viral.

Twitter and Facebook are two of the most prominent social media outlets, but if you use videos, YouTube is a great addition to your social media repertoire and if you use a lot of images, Pinterest is one of the fastest growing sites on the web.

However, don’t stop there, use social media to your advantage, Google+, Reddit, Tumblr, and StumbleUpon are other options to broadcast fun and interesting information about your business to a seemingly endless variety of demographics you wouldn’t be able to reach anywhere else.

3. Search Engine Optimization: The big SEO. The reason we put our sites online is to be viewed, and strong search engine optimization is a way to introduce your website to like-minded people.

Your strongest asset to both increase your rankings and the frequency of being crawled by search engine bots? Content. Simple as that. There are other factors in optimizing your site for search engines, but number one, focus on your content. Interesting, keyword rich, relevant content will increase your rankings in your field.

However, there are some aspects of SEO worthy content that are best given by having a blog. First, regular and frequent updates. The more you update your site, the more it will be crawled. Because you are continually updating your content you are showing search engines that this site is active and regularly monitored, thus increasing your ranking.

Next, linkability. Remember when I mentioned a post going viral or driving traffic to your site? This means your content is interesting and something people will read and share. It’s linkable. It’s easy to find, and interesting to read. This will help increase backlinks and simultaneously improve your search engine ranking. We call this a win-win.

Finally, a blog gives you more space to talk about a wide variety of topics that relate to your business. Through this, you can also have a variety of keywords that you may not have been able to fit on your static pages. This will introduce different aspects of your business to people who may not have searched for you previously.

Now that you have a blog, what content should you use? Well, anything will work. Give a short tutorial, maybe an image of one of your recent projects, or introduce some of your employees. Let people get to know you and your business. Open up the personal aspects of what you do. This will give your readers someone to connect with. It’s a blog, so there is more freedom and range in your topics.

Have a restaurant? Give some cooking tips, recipes, or video tutorials. Work in finance? Have some of your experts offer budgeting tips, savings advice, or opinions on the current economy. Work in construction? Review the brands you use, show images of projects as they start, are in development, and the when completed. Any of these topics will bring interested parties to your site, and better than that, if they find something interesting they are likely to pass it on and keep coming back to see your updates.

So, how often should you update your blog. Ideally, you should update with a new post as frequently as possible. Weekly or daily is best, but monthly will work as well. Also, try to keep your updates on a regular schedule. Don’t forget, every time you update your blog you should submit your site to search engines to be crawled!

Go out, add a blog page to your site and introduce yourself to the world. Show the personal side of your company or show off all that knowledge you have on your field. Open your site to the online community and draw new customers to your business!

The New Norm in Cyber World

Being security aware is becoming more and more important in the web hosting world. Over the past year, it has been estimated that the damage caused by DDoS and Hackers is costing the global economy approximately $2.5 Trillion a year in losses. In the first quarter of 2013, DDoS attacks grew by over 700%. If you believe you have never been impacted by a DDoS or Hacker attack, you are wrong. You have been impacted by either a DDoS or Hacker Attack, and you probably lost revenue or customers due to the attack.

Although DDoS are not new and we’ve been hearing about them in the news for years, the types of DDoS attacks are becoming larger and more sophisticated. What is concerning to me is that most individuals and companies who have a web presence don’t even understand what a DDoS attack is or the fact that at some point in the past, their website has been impacted by a DDoS Attack.

What is a Denial of Service attack (DoS)? A DoS attack is quite simple. The attacker attempts to prevent a website from functioning properly by sending a large amount of requests or other traffic to the target website causing it to become unresponsive.

With all the great advances in technology, there is always someone trying to exploit the technology to do harm. When companies started using distributive technologies for business purposes, attackers started using distributive technologies to enhance their attacks. Just a few years ago, a large DDoS attack was 10-20mbs of traffic. Today, we regularly see DDoS attacks between 2-4gbs in size and we have seen attacks as large as 10gbs. There have been reports of DDoS attacks exceeding 100gbs.

DDoS attackers are extremely clever, and believe it or not, you may have unknowingly helped one of the attackers to attack another site. It’s true! You may be helping a DDoS attacker right now and don’t even know it. DDoS attackers are always looking for ways to exploit computer systems to host their attacks. Attackers use several techniques to gain access to systems. The most common are:

A malicious program is installed on your system and connects it to a hidden server, enabling the hacker to gain enough control of your system.
A malicious program is installed on your system allowing the hacker to monitor your key strokes, thus providing the hacker with account information.
Hackers gain access to systems through a security exploit in an application.

Once a system has been compromised, the attacker connects your systems to other compromised systems forming a botnet. Once the attacker has enough resources to take down the intended target, the attack is on! The next thing you know, your IP address is being blocked and your customers are no longer able to get to your website.

Not all hackers are interested in sending DDoS attacks. In many cases, the hackers are interested in using your compromised system to send out email SPAM. This has been a growing trend throughout the industry. Over the past year, we have seen a steady increase in customers’ sites being exploited to send SPAM.

The reason for this trend is quite simple. Most people who have an individual website don’t understand the need to keep their website application(s) up-to-date with the latest security patches, creating a bigger risk for a hacker to exploit the vulnerability. Recently one of the major content management systems (CMS) reported major security vulnerability in an older release. Within a few hours, hundreds of thousands of systems around the world were compromised by hackers exploiting the vulnerability.

The good news for our customers is that we take security very seriously and we work very hard to minimize hacks and DDoS attacks. With our recent upgrades to our networks, we have significantly reduced the number DDoS attacks. Unfortunately, there is only so much we can do and we need your help to be more security conscious.

We can block the DDoS attacks, we can tell you about the vulnerabilities with your website, but if you don’t act on our recommendations, there is a very good chance you will be the next victim of a hack attack. If your website has been hacked or you feel as though you may have been hacked, please feel free to contact us. We’re here to help you and we want to make sure you get the best service in the industry.

Domain Transfers, Pain Free

Hey everybody! It’s me again, the weird one who talks about Doctor Who and breaking things all the time.

I’m here to help.

Have you ever transferred a domain from one registrar to another? Has it ever gone easily?

I can already read your mind. It’s like we’re connected. If you said yes to the first question, you probably said no to the second question.

I know how domain transfers work, I’ve done them for customers before as well as transferred a domain myself. I’m not going to lie, it’s a pain.

First, you have to update all your WhoIs information to ensure that your contact information is up to date. Then, you have to unlock or release the domain you want to transfer at your current registrar. Then you have to get the EPP code and provide that to the registrar you are transferring to.

Then come the emails. There are probably about a million emails you have to go through (give or take a few hundred thousand) from both registrars. You will probably get an email from your current registrar asking if this is really what you want to do. You will probably have to reply to that email or log in to confirm this. Then you will get an email from your new registrar confirming that this is what you want to do.

Then you wait 5-10 days. Then you get some more emails. Then the old registrar tries to offer you a discount to stay.

Eventually, with enough tenacity, you will get that confirmation email from your new registrar confirming that the transfer has been completed.

Phew.

That’s a lot. If at any point in that process, you miss an email, or take too long to respond, or it doesn’t go through, you (or your registrar) can cause the transfer to fail and you have to start all over. I honestly believe that domain transfers are the leading cause for people being prescribed medication. (I could be wrong there, but if you have ever had a domain transfer fail, you get where I’m coming from.)

We saw that problem. We heard your frustrations. We understand and empathize with you. We’ve been there. We know that everything is out of your hands because it’s out of our hands too. All we can do is wait for the emails and let the registrars do their thing, and that is annoying.

So, we set out to fix it. And thus, Domain Concierge was born. It was like a technician’s fairy tale. Do you hate domain transfers? Do they make you Hulk furious? Let us do it for you.

With domain concierge, you give us the keys and all you have to do is sit back and relax while we handle the transfer and registrar negotiations for you.

As the weather warms up, this is a dream come true. You can sit on the beach, or at the lake, or take your family to Disney and not worry that you’ll miss one of the important emails from your registrar. Heck, if you’re up for it, you could take a total stranger to Disney and share the love; maybe someone who wrote a super informative and mildly entertaining post about InMotion Hosting’s Domain Concierge service. (You can reach me through the comments section.)

The best part of this? You can do it all from your AMP login. Yep. You don’t even have to pick up the phone and call us. A few clicks and we’ll take it from there.

I mean, you can pick up the phone and call us. Support is here 24/7/365. Call us if you have a question, or if you’re lonely, you know, whatever. We’re here for you.

Top Joomla Hosting Customers of the Month

At InMotion hosting, we would like to take the opportunity to show the great things our customers are doing with their hosting accounts. This month we are going to acknowledge our customers that are taking advantage of the Joomla Hosting. Joomla Hosting allows our customers to create a large array of websites with different goals – from faith based, business oriented, informational, gaming, associations, medical networks, biographical, sporting events and more. You can get your website up an running in no time using Joomla.

Joomla is supported on all our servers. You can get Joomla Hosting on Business Hosting, VPS, and Dedicated Servers. Here is our special thanks to the following customers for creating information rich and aesthetically pleasing Joomla websites. Each of these customers received a 3 month extension on their hosting for their achievement.

FPCMesa.org – Faith Based

Joomla Theme: Theme Church0150-5 Joomla Template Shop

Fpcmesa.org, or First Presbyterian Church Mesa, is a church in Mesa Arizona.This Joomla site has a nicely developed banners and logo. With an excellent use of Joomla banners, this Joomla Hosted site earns a Kudo from InMotion Hosting.

SaveologyIceplex.com – Sporting event

Joomla Theme: Rocket Themes Dominion

Saveology.com is the Iceplex official site for the Florida Panthers hockey practice facility. What nice graphics in this Joomla site. The webmaster Incorporated Graphics well and made use of the Joomla image slider effectively.

LotusCenter.com – Integrative Medicine Center

Joomla Theme: EECMPC DotJoomla

Lotuscenter.com, or The Lotus Center for Integrative Medicine, PC (“Lotus Center”), is a multidisciplinary clinic focusing on natural ways to restore and optimize health.
With the soft gentle graphics and excellent module positioning, this Joomla site hits the eye nicely. With the well designed Joomla menu, visitors can navigate through the site with ease.

TheSynapse.net – Medical Professional Network

Joomla Theme: Ja Teline Joomlart

The TheSynapse.net is a Medical Professional Network website built to list events for professionals in the Medical field. This site is filled with rich content and structured so the reader can find topics of interest. Here you will see a good use of Joomla module positioning.

NWO-Silvermoon.com – WoW Gaming guild

Joomla Theme: Mists of Pandaria WoW Theme

NWO-Silvermoon.com is a well established guild on Silvermoon (EU) WoW (World of Warcraft). The Flash banner that is incorporated into this Joomla template is stellar. A combination of Great graphics and Joomla module positioning makes this site a top InMotion Joomla Hosted site of the month.

Alverno-HS.org – High School Education

Joomla Theme: JSN Dome edition JoomlaShine

Alverno-HS.org is the website for Alverno High School. The Catholic, private, college preparatory school is centered around Women. This is another example of a good use of the JSN ImageShow image slider gallery module. Nice use of background color and images and the module positioning is done well.

dctc.org – Non Profit Fundraiser

Joomla Theme: Rocket Theme Voxel

DCTC.org is a Non Profit Organization to help raise funds for an End of Trail Horse Rescue. This Joomla site is a great example of customizing the look of the Voxel theme. Good use of Joomla background images and menu navigation.

NCHomeless.org- Housing Coalition

Joomla Theme: JSN Teki edition JoomlaShine

NcHomeless.org The Carolina Homeless Information Network, CHIN, is North Carolina’s centralized homeless management information system This Joomla site has a nice use of the JSN ImageShow image slider gallery module.

WPWestie.org – Club for White Terrier Canine

Joomla Theme: Rocket Theme Voxel

Wpwestie.org is the West Highland White Terrier Club of America (WHWTCA). Nice adaptation for their needs. The feature that stands out with this site is the Simplicity of theJoomla header and top navigation menu. Simple, easy to navigate, and effective.

PapersOfAbrahamLincoln.org – Biographical

Joomla Theme: Shape 5 Vertex

The PapersofAbrahamLincoln.org is a long-term project dedicated to all documents written by or to Abraham Lincoln during his entire lifetime. Good use of the Shape 5 Vertex template. Papers of Abraham Lincoln has good rich content as well.

Stay tuned for next month

InMotion Hosting wants your website to be successful. If you have a Joomla hosted website on an InMotion Hosting server, stay tuned as your site may be acknowledged by us and appear in our top Joomla Sites of the month.

The Daily Star: A Managed Hosting Case Study

If you are looking for fast Fully Managed Dedicated Servers and a great experience to go along with it, you’ll love our Dedicated Managed Hosting at InMotion Hosting. We are proud to present The Daily Star as a case study on how InMotion can deliver a highly optimized and reliable Dedicated Hosting solution.

The Daily Star is the number one online newspaper in Bangladesh, and their web site receives millions of hits per hour. Their previous hosting company was unable to provide a comprehensive Managed Hosting solution, so they decided to switch to InMotion Hosting.

The Daily Star – the number one online newspaper in Bangladesh and a proud customer of InMotion Hosting.

The custom Managed Hosting Solution

InMotion Hosting Managed Hosting specialists went through many steps to optimize The Daily Star‘s WordPress site. We employed several proven solutions to create a rock-solid hosting platform built on our Commercial Class Dedicated Servers. We set up two servers- a web server and a database server. Check out the following specifications.

Varnish caching

Varnish Cache (also known as caching HTTP reverse proxy) is a web application accelerator designed to optimize HTTP requests. Varnish is installed on the front end of the server to cache the Website contents. The performance of Varnish Cache is exceptional. It typically speeds up delivery with a factor of 300 – 1000x, depending on your architecture bringing the server load down.

NginX Web Server

Nginx is an Open Source Web Server and a Reverse Proxy Server. HTTP, SMTP, POP3 and IMAP protocols are optimized to run high concurrent processes with low memory usage. Instead of using a process driven server model, Nginx uses an asynchronous event model to handle requests. This allows higher performance under high server loads.

Apache DSO and mod_ruid2

Apache DSO is Dynamic Shared Objects (DSO) is a PHP handler that speeds up the server using opcode caches. The APache module mod_ruid2 is a suexec module for Apache that causes forked Apache processes to be run as a particular user. This allows for PHP to be run in DSO mode without the typical security problems of running PHP as DSO in an environment shared by multiple users.

Alternative PHP Cache (APC)

The PHP PECL module APC is Alternative PHP Cache. This allows the interpretation of PHP scripts to caches opcode. The cache can cache objects like database objects and full page views. Websites will speed up PHP with APC and perform even faster.

Commercial Class #1 for Databases

To optimized the databases for The Daily Star, we set them up on Commercial class Dedicated hosting. The database server uses a Commercial Class #1 server with the following specifications (Server specifications are subject to change).

Intel® Xeon® E5-2430 Turbo 2.2GHz, 15M Cache, 7.2GT/s QPI
6-Cores / 12-Threads
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 600GB SAS 15K (2 x 600GB)
RAID-1, 512MB NVCache Controller

Commercial Class #2 for Website

The website is set up on a Commercial Class #2 dedicated server. To reach maximum performance of the website, the files are all stored separate from the database server. This dedicated server has following specifications (Server specifications are subject to change).

Dual Intel® Xeon® E5-2430 Turbo 2.2GHz, 15M Cache, 7.2GT/s
12-Cores / 24-Threads
RAM: 32GB
Storage: 1200GB SAS 15K (3 x 600GB)
RAID-5, 512MB NVCache Controller

Managed Dedicated Hosting

The entire server set up was done by our Managed Hosting technicians. Our Managed Hosting support team is capable of providing complete solutions, even for the most high-traffic or problematic server-side situations. Each server can have different levels of support. The Daily Star trusts InMotion Hosting to manage their high performance hosting environment, so why shouldn’t you? Learn More about our Managed Hosting.

How To: Enable Zend Optimizer

The Zend Optimizer is a free application can boost the performance of your PHP sites. It works by going over your code and optimizing it for faster execution. This means your site can load faster for your users while also utilizing less of the server resources.

Zend Optimizer can be enabled on servers with PHP 5.2 or higher (this includes most of our servers). To enable this feature, first add the two lines below to your .htaccess file in order to enable use of custom PHP settings. Be sure to replace [username] with your actual cPanel username.

suphp_configpath /home/[username]/public_html
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php52 .php

Next, you will need to enable the Zend Optimizer extension by adding the following line to your custom php.ini file (read http://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/website/general-server-setup/update-local-php-settings for more information on how to do this). This line can be added anywhere, though we recommend having it at the bottom of the file.

zend_extension=/opt/php52/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20060613/ZendOptimizer.so

If configured correctly, a phpinfo page will then display “with Zend Optimizer v3.3.9″ as one of the available Zend modules. More information about creating a phpinfo page is available at http://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/website/general-server-setup/create-phpinfo-page-to-see-php-settings.

Introducing the NEW InMotionHosting.com!

InMotion Hosting is proud to announce the launch of our all new website, InMotionHosting.com! The process for revamping our eCommerce website was quite extensive and involved a team of over 20 associates located in both our California and Virginia offices to launch it successfully.

On top of our leadership team, this included multiple web designers, web developers, copywriters, systems architects and project managers! We also had input from our Sales, Customer Community, Customer Experience, Support and Human Resources departments. It was truly a company-wide effort.

The new website is built with modern HTML5, using tools such as GitHub, Typekit and Bootstrap. It is an improvement for our customers and prospective customers as it loads faster and employs a cleaner user interface. The new InMotionHosting.com also uses up to date accessibility standards that allow our users to easily navigate the website via keyboard.

We invite you to check out the brand new InMotionHosting.com!

Jeff Bishop is a Product Manager at InMotion Hosting. He has worked on building out InMotion Hosting’s product offerings including Web Design, Premier Support, Domain Concierge, Commercial Class Dedicated Servers and more. In the future he will be working on new and improved VPS packages, server clustering and more! When Jeff isn’t busy being a nerd at work he likes to hike at Runyon Canyon in Los Angeles and go bar hopping.

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