Cheap Windows ASP.NET Tutorial – Growth Hack Tips for Startup Business
CheapWindowsHosting.com | Growth Hacking is seen by some as the marketing part of Lean Startup. More precisely, growth hacking is about experimenting to find creative, data-driven ways of growing your business. either by users or by profits. Those two are not the same by the way. That’s one of the things I learned very quickly from watching Growth Hacker TV.
There are some growth hack tips for startup business.
Use Built-In Sharing
One of the most important ways to use growth hacks to grow your small startup is by incorporating sharing into its functionality. Sharing means that your content can be directly linked to on social media platforms, allowing your users to do the work of marketing for you.
Incentivize Distribution
Since you want people to share your site, it may encourage people to share if you offer them some incentive. You can give your users something nice if they do something extra for you, like a discount if they choose to e-mail friends or additional services if they post about you on a social media platform.
Encourage Sharing on Your Actual Product
If your company makes a product, one great way to help spread its popularity is to incorporate a mechanism into the product to encourage sharing it or to create a companion product that spurs distribution.
Tap into Places Where Potential Customers Might Congregate
One of the most important ways to discover new users is by finding the right audience and where they hang out online. Do some research about what places your target audience frequents online, then spend your time, resources and energy spreading the word there.
Offer Free Products that Go Well with Paid Products
One of the best ways to convert a potential customer to a paying customer is to offer free services or products, as well as products for purchase. Moz does this well with their SEO services. You can sign up on Moz to receive a ton of free SEO tools, advice and information. However, you have to pay for their premium SEO service. The free offer is a great way to bring more people in, and the paid offer is an excellent way to bump people up to paying customers.
Piggyback
One of the best ways to grow your startup quickly and easily is to piggyback on a company that already exists and has tons of users. Perhaps the most famous example of this technique is PayPal and eBay. eBay was already in existence when PayPal started up, and the way that the online payment company grew so quickly is that it appealed to eBay buyers who were looking for a safe, fast and easy way to send money to vendors. As eBay grew, so did PayPal because they were able to reach users of one service who needed the service of the other.
Get Endorsed
If you want your company to grow virally, a great way to do it is to get endorsed by someone whom the public loves and trusts. Endorsements are a paid relationship between your company and a celebrity or well-known expert who endorses your product, writes about it on a blog or social media platform, or even makes ads for it.
Celebrities and thought-leaders tend to have other important friends, so when they share and talk about your product, chances are other influential people will be attracted to it and talk about it, resulting in multiple celebrity endorsements and a huge amount of encouragement for everyday people to check out your company.
Reward Power Users
The best sales people for a company are the people who love, support, and use it. So, if you have longtime or frequent users, reward them with deals, meetups or special offers. Retaining your best customers is important, and the happier they remain with the site or service, the more likely they are to continue to preach its goodness to the world.
Cheap Windows ASP.NET Hosting Tutorial – How to Publishing an ASP.NET 5 Project to a Local IIS Server
CheapWindowsHosting.com | In this post we will show you how to publishing an ASP.NET 5 project to a local IIS server. Recently I deployed a new ASP.NET 5 web application to a local IIS server. Though there are several online resources available about deployment, I encountered some problems that were difficult to diagnose and fix. In this post I will talk about the general deployment process and the steps I followed for a successful deployment.
ASP.NET 5 applications are meant to be cross-platform. Included in this cross-platform effort is the development of a new, cross-platform web server, named Kestrel. The Kestrel web server can be activated from the command line and can be used on any operating system.
Of course, ASP.NET 5 applications can still be hosted in IIS. But even in this case, the underlying web server will still be Kestrel. The role of IIS is greatly minimized.
In this post we will be deploying a web application using Kestrel as a web host first. Afterwards, we will be deploying to IIS.
Deployment to Kestrel
Let’s say that we have an existing ASP.NET 5 application. We can publish the application from the command line. First, navigate to the root web folder of the application (the folder where the project.json file is in). Then, type in the following command:
dnu publish --runtime active -o ..\publishWhat this will do is create a new folder named ‘publish’ alongside the root web folder. Inside this ‘publish’ folder , there will be three subfolders: ‘approot’, ‘logs’, and ‘wwwroot’. The ‘approot’ folder will contain the source files and packages needed by the application. The ‘logs’ folder will contain any logs that the application emits. The ‘wwwroot’ folder will contain javascript, html, css files, etc. as well as the web.config file.
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Now we can start the Kestrel web server. First, navigate to the ‘approot’ folder. There will be a file named web.cmd. Start it by typing ‘web’ from the command line or double-clicking on it from a windows explorer window.
You might notice that a lot of text appears on the command line as soon as the command is run. This is especially true when there are Entity Framework migrations involved. Among the sea of text, the URL of the localhost web server will be displayed, and will look something like this:
Hosting Environment: Production
Now listening on: http://localhost:5000
Application started. Press Ctrl+C to shut down.Once we find this text, we can just navigate to the appropriate URL using a browser. There we should see the web app up and running.
Congratulations, we have just deployed our ASP.NET 5 web application!
Deployment to IIS
Once we successfully launch the app through Kestrel, we can go for deploying in IIS. We need to do a few things for it to work properly.
- Use an application pool with
No Managed Codeas the .NET CLR Version. - Create a Login in SQL Server with the login name as
IIS APPPOOL\{apppoolname}. This Login should have access to whatever database the web application will use. - Create access rights to the ‘wwwroot’ folder for the user group
IIS_IUSRS.
In addition, if we are going to put the application inside IIS Default Web Site and use a virtual directory, we need to modify the Startup.cs to handle this.
The first step is to rename the Configure method to something else, for example Configure1.
Then, we need to create a new Configure method. This would have the same signature as the original Configure method. The implementation would look something like this:
public async void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IHostingEnvironment env, ILoggerFactory loggerFactory)
{
app.Map("/virtualdirectoryname", (app1) => this.Configure1(app1, env, loggerFactory));
}So we see that this new Configure method just calls the Configure1 method, taking into account the virtual directory name.
Once all of these are in place, we can go ahead and deploy to IIS using the usual process. We can add a new application in IIS Default Web Site and use the application pool we created earlier (using No Managed Code). The physical path should point to the ‘wwwroot’ location. The alias should be the same as the one we put in the Configure method in Startup.cs.
Afterwards, just browse to the website and it should all be good!
Conclusion
Although the concept of deployment stayed the same, the process and tools involved for deploying ASP.NET 5 applications has changed. In this post we took a look at how to deploy to the Kestrel web server, then later to IIS. Though it might seem like a long process, most of the steps should only be performed the first time around. Subsequent deployments should be faster and more straightforward.
Cheap Windows Tutorial – Tips to Make Drupal Hosting Better
CheapWindowsHosting.com | What is Drupal? Drupal is the #1 platform for web content management among global enterprises, governments, higher education institutions, and NGOs. Flexible and highly scalable, Drupal publishes a single web site or shares content in multiple languages across many devices. Technology and business leaders transform content management into powerful digital solutions with Drupal, backed by one of the world’s most innovative open source communities.
Drupal, the powerful and easy-to-use content management system, written in PHP is extremely popular among web designers. The reason why they go for Drupal hosting is its modular approach – every thing, including the core system files are in the form of modules. Barring the core ones, web admins can install, uninstall any module from the vast list of modules available in the Drupal website.
However, certain small tweaks and modifications can do wonder over and above the existing benefits you get. Here are some of the tips and tricks which can optimize your website:
Maintain the structure of the code
Organizing the program code by maintaining the structure and adding comments can help in further modifications and updates as the program gets larger.
Cron tasks should be done on off-peak hours
If your site needs you to do cron jobs, the preferred time would be when the traffic on the website is minimum.
Use English-readable URLs
Instead of using the default URLs provided by Drupal, one should enable Clean URLs, and install which enable English-readable URLs
Enable the used modules only
More the modules more would be the time to load a page. Thus, modules that are currently in use should be disabled from the administration section.
ASPHostPortal provides fast and reliable Drupal Hosting.
Cheap Windows Tutorial – How To Improved Drupal Security ?
CheapWindowsHosting.com | Today we will learn about how to improved drupal security. As we know Drupal is one of the most popular free and open source web application frameworks. Drupal is almost infinitely extensible through not only various theme possibilities but also the vast library of modules or add-ons. However, this great extensibility is also a point of weakness should insecure or vulnerable code be used in either themes or community contributed modules that can result in compromise. The following guide on best practices for Drupal covers main areas of attention in regards to security for any Drupal web administrator.
How To Improved Drupal Security ?
1. Upgrade to Drupal 8
Even though Drupal 7 is still supported, upgrading to Drupal 8 is recommended for the many security enhancements as well as usability enhancements.
Because of core coding changes in Drupal 8, existing modules have to be re-written to support Drupal 8. This has unfortunately caused a delay in adoption of Drupal 8 as many sites rely on various contributed modules which in some cases have no Drupal 8 counterpart or only experimental versions still testing in Drupal 8.
Drupal 8 finally includes the ability to update modules from the web interface. Drupal 7 security has been perceived as poor in large part because of many sites not updating Drupal core or any associated modules. With Drupal 7, applying updates for general maintenance was somewhat problematic and inconvenient. This is perhaps what led to many sites putting off updates leading to many Drupal installations being compromised. Updating is improved in Drupal 8, and is somewhat similar to the web-based updates that WordPress users have been enjoying.
Other Drupal 8 security benefits include:
- Stronger security for stored user passwords
Passwords in Drupal 8 are hashed with phpass, combining multiple rounds and salted hashes. Drupal 7 and prior stored user passwords in MD5 in the database which is now considered weak and easily crackable. - Update notifications
Drupal 8 incorporates automated email notifications of any pending module or core security updates. This is also available in Drupal 7 via a module, but is now built in as functionality in Drupal 8. - Login Rate-Limiting
Drupal 8 now incorporates brute force login protection. Defaults are rate limiting for five failed attempts in a six hour window as well as rate limiting 50 failed attempts from one IP address per hour. This is configurable in modules/user/user.module.
2. Keep Drupal up-to-date
Keeping Drupal up-to-date is the fundamentally most important security consideration.
Drupal security consists of three areas to maintain security updates:
- Drupal Core updates
- Contributed Module security updates
- Theme security updates
Drupal Core update announcements are available from http://drupal.org/security.
As of Drupal 8, every window in the Administration interface notifies of a pending Drupal Core update.
- Modules
Drupal module update announcements are available from http://drupal.org/security/contrib. Drupal 8 has built-in email notification for any outstanding module security updates as well to notify admins of pending updates. Resist the temptation to develop or write custom email forms or other elements for Drupal, but rather look for existing well-established modules that are written to serve various purposes. Existing modules have been tested for the most part in a wide install base and have had more eyeballs on the code to check for security flaws.
Completely remove any disabled modules from the server so as not to have any older vulnerable code live and present in web directories. - Check your sources
In choosing a Drupal theme, consider building upon or using a tested well used theme that has continued updates from the developer. Often users will pick a theme that is ‘pretty’ or meets other cosmetic requirements. However it is critical to inspect if the theme is currently being maintained for security updates. Do not install themes found randomly on the internet; only choose themes from Drupal’s Download & Extend which have been recently maintained. Even then, closely inspect the source to be vetted before launching the code live in a Drupal installation.
Drupal XSS exploits through themes are not uncommon. For example the following theme is susceptible to XSS as one illustration: http://drupal.org/node/1608780
If creating a custom theme, thoroughly test the theme in an installation with various web application scanners, either open source or commercial, that test for XSS or SQLi prior to deployment.
- Drush
Drush is the ultimate command line utility to manage Drupal. With drush, it is possible to do such tasks as clearing all Drupal caches, upgrade Drupal core and modules, apply database upgrades (similar to running update.php), enable/disable modules, and much more.
If not already using drush, this is a valuable tool to be on top of and easily patch any outstanding Drupal security updates. More information is at the following URL http://drupal.org/project/drush/.
3. Enable SSH for Update Manager
The built-in Update Manager for updating through the web interface or installing modules in Drupal 7 has the ability to use SSH to connect to the host. This is of course the preferred way to transfer files instead of FTP. If SSH does not show up as an option in Drupal 8′s Update Manager, install the following PHP library:
Debian / Ubuntu:
$ sudo apt-get install libssh2-php |
Red Hat / CentOS:
Red Hat and CentOS do not include ssh libraries for PHP. The required package php-pecl-ssh2 can however be installed from the EPEL repository (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL).
4. HTTPS and Drupal
Drupal by default operates only over HTTP, including sending any login credentials in plain text. One solution is to have the entire site operate over HTTPS. But while perhaps having an entire site over HTTPS is not ideal as of date, steps can be taken to at least have credentials and other form submissions in Drupal to occur over HTTPS.
Drupal 7 by default uses the secure flag for HTTPS cookies to prevent session hijacking. The module Secure Login (http://drupal.org/project/securelogin) is a required module to help further take advantage of this feature. The Secure Login module allows not only logins but also form submissions in Drupal to occur over HTTPS and have a unique HTTPS session cookie that cannot be hijacked.
Along with the secure cookie flag, the httponly cookie flag can be set in php.ini on the server for another layer of security. In Debian or Ubuntu, edit the following file:
/etc/php5/apache2/php.ini |
Red Hat or CentOS, edit the following file:
/etc/php.ini |
Use the following values to enforce the httponly flag for PHP session cookies:
session.cookie_httponly = 1
session.use_only_cookies = 1 |
Without these above changes, one could potentially intercept and steal the authenticated cookie to then gain authenticated access to the Drupal installation.
5. Web server permissions
Permissions of the directories and files in Drupal are critical for security. Files or directories should never be 777, nor are 777 permissions required for Drupal to operate. Directories should be 750 or 755 and files should be 644 or 640.
The Drupal directory and files should be owned by a regular user, and the group of the apache user. This can cause problems for automated updates. Temporarily changing permissions to have the apache user own the Drupal directory so to install updates may be required. Once updates are complete, change the Drupal directory back to be owned by a regular user.
This example command changes the owner to jsmith (example username) and group of the Apache user on Debian and Ubuntu for all files in the Drupal installation:
$ sudochown -R jsmith:www-data /var/www/drupal |
To temporarily switch permissions to allow updates, change the owner to the apache user:
$ sudochown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/drupal |
Next perform updates, then set permissions back:
$ sudochown -R jsmith:www-data /var/www/drupal |
6. Recommended Modules
In the security area, two recommended modules should be part of a Drupal installation.
The Security Review module (http://drupal.org/project/security_review) inspects various aspects of a Drupal installation including file system permissions, user auditing, database and other errors, as well as things such as input formats allowed. This module is also useful in that the interactive results detail how to fix or remedy various issues that apply to the Drupal installation.
Secure Login (http://drupal.org/project/securelogin) as mentioned above is a critical plugin to keep the security of authenticated sessions and form submissions free from session hijacking.
If still on Drupal 6, making use of a phpass module addon (http://drupal.org/project/phpass) will strengthen password hashes for users that are stored in the database.
7. Backups
Regular backups are a part of any system administration and that includes running and administering a Drupal web application. Two backups are required for Drupal: regular full database dumps and also regular snapshot backups of the entire Drupal directory. Should compromise occur, having the ability to roll back to a previous snapshot or compare files to a previous snapshot is invaluable. Creating either automated cron jobs to make backups or using a module such as Backup and Migrate (http://drupal.org/project/backup_migrate) is critical and should be part of the security administration for a Drupal installation.
8. Scanning and Auditing
Regular scanning of the Drupal site with web application scanners or vulnerability scanners is required today to be on top of security. At least monthly scanning at a minimum is a good interval if not more frequently. Many open source as well as commercial web application scanners are able to test sites for XSS and SQL injection which is very relevant to web applications such as Drupal.
9. Operating System Updates and Logs
Drupal security extends to operating system security, which is the host running the web server Apache as well as PHP. If Drupal is installed in a self-managed VPS or other similar installation, staying on top of OS security updates and patches are critical to ensure that the entire host is secure and free from compromise. Subscribe to various Linux distribution security update mailing lists or Twitter feeds to keep on top of any pending updates or security issues for the operating system that is hosting the Drupal installation.
Reviewing Apache or other operating system server logs daily is part of general security no matter what application or software is in use. Make use of logwatch or other automated log alert software to be on top of any trending patterns in logs from would-be attackers.
Conclusions
Drupal security is achievable by keeping on top of security updates for Drupal core and contributed modules as well as taking advantage of SSH and HTTPS options that are available. Most default Drupal installs provided by scripts in hosting companies do not have many of the above mentioned security notes installed or available, which leaves most Drupal users unknowingly connecting and managing their site via insecure protocols. Upgrading to Drupal 8 as soon as possible is strongly encouraged by this author for the many security benefits outlined. The problematic maintenance and upgrading of Drupal 7 is much improved in Drupal 8 which will help users to keep sites and code more up-to-date against today’s seemingly growing threat of attack against web applications. For a deeper look into Drupal and other web application security, check out the web application penetration testing course offered by the InfoSec Institute.
Cheap Windows Tutorial – 3 Things That Make Umbraco More Unique than Another CMS
CheapWindowsHosting.com | A good CMS or a blogging platform often makes publishing of web content easier and cost effective for managers. And today, publishing content on a regular basis makes a great part of marketing your business online. Umbraco CMS is a leading CMS that is based upon Microsoft’s ASP.Net framework. Its great flexibility, integration capabilities and functionalities is why experts choose it to create various business apps. It is an open source publishing platform that is incredibly powerful and one of the finest CMS platforms available for .Net.
It offers an ultimate web experience for users and is a good option because it is highly reliable and secured and also offers a better performance.
What makes Umbraco development unique?
The excellent features that Umbraco has to offer make it stand out from the rest of the others
- Member management : Managing the users of your site is very easy as with this tool the users can get either restricted or exclusive access to the site. This is the much needed feature for the stores, portals, organizations that need to give different types of access to its users or members.
- HTML/CSS templates : Your Umbraco development company can help you to create a site by using your favorite HTML/CSS templates and have the website of your dreams. The framework also offers various tools that can transform your online site into a fully functional and robust online podium that facilitates you to easily sync up with other environments. Concierge is another great tool that helps to boost Umbraco customization. It allows the programmers to keep a track of all that is installed and the things that are in use currently. It also helps to monitor action handlers together with any third party tools and helps to know what is working in the site.
- Umbraco customization is easy : Umbraco developers can easily design and offer customized solutions by using various tools. In contrast to other ASP.Net CMSs like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, developers can easily provide dynamic solutions that are perfect solutions for business owners. It is because of its endless possibilities that a business can drive to great lengths by using this platform.
Some other features that are not mentioned above:
- Even if your original business site is written in English, Umbraco offers multilingual support to add many other languages to target a wider market.
- It is by using Umbraco that you can easily schedule the content to appear at specific times with ease and automatically get it published at the time you set.
- The framework also has a version control system that helps users to easily roll back to any previous version or a page with great ease.
- The Umbraco editor is designed to be as simple as possible and offers a familiar look and feel with the toolbars and buttons.
Umbraco is a popular open source.NET CMS that is used by major brands all over the world and it offers great flexibility over other CMS systems.
Cheap Windows Hosting – Security Tips to protect your Website
CheapWindowsHosting | Hi today we will share article about security tips for your website. We will look at the 6 simplest ways to help improve your website security. Not only for web developers, but also for anyone who has, and maintains a website and users who use the internet.
1. Strong Passwords
To keep your account passwords safe, you need to use a unique password for each of your important accounts e.g. social media accounts, bank account, your email password and your WordPress (or other platform) password, also do not use ‘admin’ as the username for your website’s backend. Here’s tips how to create a strong password:
- Use a mix of letters, numbers, symbols, capital letters and lowercase letters
- 12 characters minimum
- Don’t substitute obvious number and letters
- Don’t use consecutive numbers like “123” or simple dictionary words, personal information or part of your domain name.
There are automated robots out there that will try to guess your passwords. Don’t make it easy for them
2. Security Review
Do you want to keep your website safe and increase website performance? That’s a loaded question since every site owner wants their site to be safe and fast, but what are you doing to protect your website from hackers? Here’s our recommendations to start with:
- Scanning your website for malware and vulnerabilities with Sucuri’s Site Check, Byte’s MageReport.com for check Magento site security, and wprecon.com for check WordPress site security.
- Ask your developer to check for vulnerabilities on any of his/her coding using the vulnerability scanning tools.
- Check your WordPress or Magento’s admin users, make sure you don’t use ‘admin’ as the username but change to a strong password.
- Install and run ant-virus software. There is a popular free software from Avira’s Antivirus for both Mac and PC.
- Keep your computer softwares updated to the latest versions and update WordPress and plugins (or other platforms).
- For WordPress site, consider adding Wordfence or iTheme Security and WP Super Cache plugins to improve site security and performance.
We also suggest a reminder in you calendar every 6 months to review your website security. Remember to ask your developer to help with improving site performance as every user wants their website to load faster.
3. Update WordPress, Plugins or any of other platforms
Running the latest versions of the software you use is important, see our FAQ for more information on how to update WordPress and plugins. This also includes any of the platforms or security patches on Magento which provide fixing known bugs or security.
We recommend to completely uninstall and delete any unused plugins / modules / addons / files from the server. Do not just deactivate them and do not leave the “old version” of your website on the server. Old sites get neglected and forgotten and it becomes an easy target for malware and hackers.
4. Secure Hosting with Regular Backups
Beware of cheaper hosting as they are not all equal. It depends on the level of support, regular maintenance and keep up to date with server software and regularly patched to ensure the highest security.
Here at ASPHostPortal.com offer reasonable hosting solutions to clients with their reseller hosting, which they use to manage web hosting on behalf of their clients. With personality and fast support from the hosting company this can provide some cost saving for web development.
When choosing your own hosting, ensure the service includes regular backups (daily) and restore.
5. Use SSL
SSL (Secure Socket Layer) or HTTPS is commonly used on eCommerce or credit card payment pages for sending secure data across the web browser and server, securely with an encrypted link between those. But in reality, SSL would be a great security step for whenever a user is passing sensitive information to the web server such as username and password, as you can see this in the url bar at top of the browser window with mark by https// instead of http:// with a little security lock.
To use SSL you need to purchase a SSL certificate from a web host and install it on the server. Google is encouraged for all website owners to change from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web and give the website a lightweight ranking signal.
We recommend talking with your web developer to install SSL on your website and enable all pages on HTTPS. Also it helps users to trust your website as genuine and safe!
6. For Developers
A basic understanding of those security tips for your website from your web developer is important. Their job is ensuring your website is safe and protected such as;
- File and folder permission
- Server configuration file to protect from brute force attack
- Preventing of Sql injection and XSS
- Disabled server’s error message or server’s software information
- Using of validation forms and captcha
- Secured and restriction on file upload
- Use of MD5 encrypt on password when saved or use for verify login
Cheap Windows Hosting – How to Choosing The Right CMS for Your Business
CheapWindowsHosting.com | Hello today I will share the tips about how to choosing the right cms for your business. Lets start it. Content Management Systems have come, and changed the entire Internet landscape. They have not only made designing and maintaining websites easy but also the sites more engaging and interesting. The biggest USP of this technology is the fact that it offers site owners complete control over the website unlike in the past. Once a CMS development company has built the site, you can easily manage the design and content in a code-free ecosystem. Before doing so you need to choose a CMS platform that suits your business needs and here is a short and crisp guide into making the perfect choice.
Know What You Need
As someone said, finding the right CMS is equivalent to finding the right spouse in life. Every individual is good, but you don’t share the same wavelength with everyone! So it’s important for you to know what you need and for that you must start by making a checklist of what all features & functionalities you expect from a CMS and what are your priorities. For instance, if ease-of-use is your top priority, you need to go with WordPress, but if you are looking to manage multiple internet properties Drupal and Joomla would be better choices. Also, there are little-known CMS tools that cater to niche business demands. If the popular ones don’t offer what your business needs, you need to go deep down into the market and opt for such solutions.
Core Functionality
What is the core functionality of the CMS? If you want to haul goods you should buy a truck not a luxury car. While most Content Management Systems are multi-functional you need to always look at their core functionality. Every CMS tool has evolved from its core functionality and to be honest it best where its roots are. For instance if you want to merely create a blog, WordPress would fit your bill perfectly as it emerged as a blogging platform, while for an e-commerce site Magento or PrestaShop would be a better pick. These are dedicated e-commerce platforms and would help you get the best out of the platform. Joomla on the other hand is a go-between which can be used to manage blogs and also offers you awesome e-commerce integration features.
Mobile Responsive
Chances are that you are reading this article on a mobile like more that 50% of the users who have switched to smartphones and tablets for Internet browsing. In less than 5 years, mobile traffic has increased from below 10% to over 50% of total traffic. A mobile responsive website has become the basic necessity these days. While all CMS platforms allow you to build mobile-responsive websites WordPress surely holds the edge over others. If you are planning to use free or premium themes, you would find the largest choice of responsive themes for WordPress. This really makes the task just a shade easy for you.
Scalability
Web development isn’t a project; it’s a process where you build a website brick by brick. To attract users and avoid your web property from appearing stale, you would need to regularly make design changes and add new security features and functionality to the site. This is where Drupal wins over WordPress and Joomla as it is enterprise-ready and can be scaled up more easily. This is the reason some of the most complex business websites in the world are powered by Drupal. Talking on the same lines Magento would be a better platform than PrestaShop for an online store if you are considering scalability.
Security
This is something that you can’t take lightly as the attacks on digital assets have increased with more and more businesses digitizing their work process and relying on websites to interact with the customers. Every new version of CMS tool comes with stronger security features, but if we are to come to a verdict Drupal surely holds the edge over WordPress. This is the reason mega businesses around the world rely on this CMS for their website. This however isn’t to suggest that WordPress and Joomla lack security features.
User Interaction
Gone are the days when businesses would create a website and users would consume what was served to them. Today it’s a two-way traffic where the users exercise enough power to be choosy about the sites and services they use. Chat Tools, Social Media, VoIP etc. have allowed users to communicate and interact with businesses in real-time. While you choose a CMS always keep user-interaction as one of your top priorities. Take look at the tools and plugins available in different ecosystems that improve customer interaction and choose one that offers you and your customers the best interactive platform.
The choice of the Content Management System is just the first step to creating a strong presence on the Internet. You need to choose an agency for CMS customization service that helps you derive the best out of the CMS solutions. At Semaphore Software, we have handled hundreds of projects across industries and specialize in all the leading CMS tools.
Cheap Windows Hosting – Tips to Protect your Ecommerce Site from Cyber Criminals
CheapWindowsHosting.com | With the festive season fast approaching, online retailers everywhere will be busily preparing themselves to meet the bulk demands of customers but another community is also waiting in the wings. The festive season is a primetime for nefarious cyber criminals or hackers looking to steal important data of your customers. With passage of time, hackers are improving their skills and are founding quite innovative ways to trace online behavior and steal credentials of the customers.
From stealing debit/credit card information to attacking privacy and poaching ecommerce data, this online nuisance has many shapes and names. But, with the right security approach you can save your e-commerce website from these cyber criminals. In this article, you can read some effective ways to protect your Ecommerce site from these cyber criminals. Let’s start.
1. Choose ecommerce web hosting service provider wisely
People often think that the e-commerce site security is mainly based on the software they write. Although the web application itself must also be secure, the other chief factor is the Web Hosting being used. Between shared and dedicated hosting, dedicated is more secure and ideal for ecommerce business. Shared hosting has multiple users all are accessing the same server: running under the same operating system, using the same resources, etc. Dedicated hosting plan, whether it be a co-located server, a dedicated server, or a VPS, only a single user is using the server (or in the VPS case, the virtual server).
Having multiple users on the same server (shared hosting) is dangerous in two ways. First, if any of the shared users has wrong intentions, he could exploit what your site has to offer. For example, if your site has a world-writeable directory, that directory is writable by some other users on the server (unless extra steps are taken). Second, if any of the shared users has right intentions, but is running a website or software that has security flaws, your website is also vulnerable to the threats. Therefore, it is recommended to choose dedicated VPS hosting providers. In addition to this, you must know how to secure virtual private server so that no hacker can break into it.
While selecting good web hosting service providers, you should also check out the type of software and hardware that they use. Those hosting service providers which use advanced and updated software should be your prime choice because this software is not easy to hack and comprise all essential security features. Similarly, you should be well aware of your web host’s hardware. Web hosting hardware requirements include storage and it is imperative to know what kind of storage hardware your service provider is offering. If you are planning for e-commerce website, then hardware plays a crucial role in it.
2. Keep Data Encrypted
All the data that flows between the web server of company and the website of customers should have encryption in order to stay away from eavesdropping or a phishing attack. SSL authentication is a must-have for e-commerce sites from small as well as large retailers. SSL effectively protects sensitive data that travels across the web and encrypts sensitive information such as credit card details and passwords. The SSL certificate makes these important data unreadable to everyone apart from the intended recipient, protecting it from cyber criminals and hackers.
3. Be PCI Compliant
In addition to using SSL protection, it is recommended to ensure that your ecommerce website is PCI compliant. Any merchant who accepts debit/credit cards, both offline and online, must be compliant with the PCI Security Standards Council and meet all the regulations in order to ensure they are keeping the payment data of customers secure. Merchants who are not in compliance with PCI Security Standards Council face tough penalties.
4. No Need to Store Sensitive Data
It is quite risky to keep confidential information, such as credit and debit card details,of your customer on your server because it can possibly entice an attacker to steal such sensitive information. Further, in accordance to PCI Standards it is forbidden to store such sensitive data. You should keep only the minimal amount of data to complete refunds and charge backs, and clear out stores regularly so as to comply with the PCI Standards and to give identity thieves nothing to steal. You can also prevent online fraud by verifying addresses and CVV2 codes for all the online transactions.
5. Insist on Strong Passwords
Many people fail to create a strong password that is designed to protect. As an online retailer it is your responsibility to insist on strong passwords when your customers set up accounts on your site. It’ll not only protect all the sensitive information retained at the back end of your ecommerce website, but also minimize site breaches. A strong password has a minimum amount of characters and contains a mixture of symbols, letters and numbers.
6. Penetration testing
Penetration testing or ethical hacking is a necessary step in ensuring your ecommerce site is inaccessible to the hackers and fraudsters. There are many penetration testing companies out there offering the services you need to put protection and customer privacy at the top of your agenda as a retailer. The ethical hackers will attack on your server with the intention of finding security weaknesses. After the penetration testing, they will make a report to enlist all the weakness in your security threats. This report helps to make your website completely secure and keep your web assets safe.
Cheap Windows Hosting Tutorial – How to Migrate an OSCommerce Store to a New Server / Web Host
CheapWindowsHosting.com | This article covers how to move an existing OSCommerce shop from one web host or server to a new web host or server. Use this guide to help you.
1) Download ALL files from server.
Connect to the old server and download all files for exact copies.
2) Create backup of Database through MYphpAdmin
Log into MYphpAdmin and export the store database, uncompressed to a location on your PC. Also log into the OSCommerce store admin area, click tools and create a backup of the database to also save to your PC. The database created through MYphpAdmin will probably be called localhost.sql
3) FTP files to NEW SERVER
Log onto your new web server via ftp and upload all store files in binary. Note the includes/configure.php file may re-write its permissions which will need to be corrected later.
You may need to correct permissions on other oscommerce files and folders as per the oscommerce installation guide.
Files and folders include; catalog/images to 777, catalog/includes/configuration.php to 644 (444 on some servers) catalog/admin/includes/configuration.php to 644 (444 on some servers), catalog/admin/backups to 777 and catalog/admin/images/graphs to 777. See OSCommerce installation manual for correct permission settings on this file.
If you use the HeaderTags SEO contribution you may need to change the file permission for catalog/includes/header_tags.php to 755 (or 777). See documentation for Header Tags SEO.
4) Install Database on NEW SERVER through MYphpAdmin
Log onto your MYphpAdmin and create a NEW DATABASE, this will be your new database for your oscommerce store, you can use the same name as your old database if possible as this will make things easier.
Assign a user to the database, again if you can use the same user as your old database it will keep things simpler.
We now need to edit the exported database of your old store. We’ll be using the localhost.sql file generated by MYphpAdmin previously.
Open this file in notepad, dreamweaver or your preferred html/code editing application and find the following entries.
- Find the entry on line 19: ” — Database: `database_name` ” and change to the correct name of your NEW DATABASE you created earlier. eg: `newdatabase_name`
- Then find the entry on line 21: ” CREATE DATABASE `database_name` DEFAULT CHARACTER SET latin1 COLLATE latin1_swedish_ci; ” and change to the correct name of your NEW DATABASE. eg: `newdatabase_name`
- Then find the entry on line 22: ” USE `olddatabase_name`; ” and change to the correct name of your NEW DATABASE you created earlier. eg: `newdatabase_name`
- Lastly find line 21 & 22 where it says ” CREATE DATABASE `database_name` DEFAULT CHARACTER SET latin1 COLLATE latin1_swedish_ci;
USE `database_name`; “
Delete these two lines. This prevents MYphpAdmin creating the database again.
Note: If you have ever restored your OScommerce database you will find entries of this in the sql file as well. Just search for your database_name within the sql file to find all entries. Dreamweaver’s search results feature is good for this.
Note2: It’s probably possible to create the new database using the localhost.sql file and not deleting the entry on line 21 & 22 as described above. This was merely the procedure we took and have explained here.
5) Change variables in 2 configure.php files
In includes/configure.php and admin/includes/configure.php you need to change some variables to make the store re-install work. Open these files in notepad, dreamweaver or your preferred html/code editing application.
If your store is going to be installed in the root on your new server you only need to edit a few values. These would include DB_DATABASE, DB_SERVER_PASSWORD, DB_DATABASE_USERNAME, DIR_FS_CATALOG, HTTPS_COOKIE_DOMAIN, HTTP_COOKIE_DOMAIN, HTTPS_SERVER, HTTP_SERVER.
If you want to install your OSCommerce store into a DIRECTORY on your NEW SERVER and previously it was installed in the ROOT of your OLD SERVER then do the following.
- If you are uploading the copied site to a Directory you need to specify this in the following files: includes/configure.php – admin/includes/configure.php.
### includes/configure.php ###
[where ‘store’ is the new directory name. where ‘user’ is your server account address. where ‘yourdomainname.co.uk’ is the web domain of your new website.]
<?php
define('HTTP_SERVER', 'http://yourdomainname.co.uk');
define('HTTPS_SERVER', 'http://yourdomainname.co.uk');
define('ENABLE_SSL', false);
define('HTTP_COOKIE_DOMAIN', 'yourdomainname.co.uk');
define('HTTPS_COOKIE_DOMAIN', 'yourdomainname.co.uk');
define('HTTP_COOKIE_PATH', '/store/');
define('HTTPS_COOKIE_PATH', '/store/');
define('DIR_WS_HTTP_CATALOG', '/store/');
define('DIR_WS_HTTPS_CATALOG', '/store/');
define('DIR_WS_IMAGES', 'images/');
define('DIR_WS_ICONS', DIR_WS_IMAGES . 'icons/');
define('DIR_WS_INCLUDES', 'includes/');
define('DIR_WS_BOXES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'boxes/');
define('DIR_WS_FUNCTIONS', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'functions/');
define('DIR_WS_CLASSES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'classes/');
define('DIR_WS_MODULES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'modules/');
define('DIR_WS_LANGUAGES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'languages/');
define('DIR_WS_DOWNLOAD_PUBLIC', 'pub/');
define('DIR_FS_CATALOG', '/home/user/public_html/store');
define('DIR_FS_DOWNLOAD', DIR_FS_CATALOG . 'download/');
define('DIR_FS_DOWNLOAD_PUBLIC', DIR_FS_CATALOG . 'pub/');
define('DB_SERVER', 'localhost');
define('DB_SERVER_USERNAME', 'database_user');
define('DB_SERVER_PASSWORD', 'userpa33word');
define('DB_DATABASE', 'database_name');
define('USE_PCONNECT', 'false');
define('STORE_SESSIONS', 'mysql');
?> ### admin/includes/configure.php ###
[where ‘store’ is the new directory name. where ‘user’ is your server account address. where ‘yourdomainname.co.uk’ is the web domain of your new website.]
<?php
define('HTTP_SERVER', 'http://yourdomainname.co.uk/store');
define('HTTP_CATALOG_SERVER', 'http://yourdomainname.co.uk');
define('HTTPS_CATALOG_SERVER', 'http://yourdomainname.co.uk/store/');
define('ENABLE_SSL_CATALOG', 'false');
define('DIR_FS_DOCUMENT_ROOT', '/home/user/public_html/store/');
define('DIR_WS_ADMIN', '/admin/');
define('DIR_FS_ADMIN', '/home/user/public_html/store/admin/');
define('DIR_WS_CATALOG', '/store/');
define('DIR_FS_CATALOG', '/home/user/public_html/store/');
define('DIR_WS_IMAGES', 'images/');
define('DIR_WS_ICONS', DIR_WS_IMAGES . 'icons/');
define('DIR_WS_CATALOG_IMAGES', DIR_WS_CATALOG . 'images/');
define('DIR_WS_INCLUDES', 'includes/');
define('DIR_WS_BOXES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'boxes/');
define('DIR_WS_FUNCTIONS', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'functions/');
define('DIR_WS_CLASSES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'classes/');
define('DIR_WS_MODULES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'modules/');
define('DIR_WS_LANGUAGES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'languages/');
define('DIR_WS_CATALOG_LANGUAGES', DIR_WS_CATALOG . 'includes/languages/');
define('DIR_FS_CATALOG_LANGUAGES', DIR_FS_CATALOG . 'includes/languages/');
define('DIR_FS_CATALOG_IMAGES', DIR_FS_CATALOG . 'images/');
define('DIR_FS_CATALOG_MODULES', DIR_FS_CATALOG . 'includes/modules/');
define('DIR_FS_BACKUP', DIR_FS_ADMIN . 'backups/');
define('DB_SERVER', 'localhost');
define('DB_SERVER_USERNAME', 'database_username');
define('DB_SERVER_PASSWORD', 'userpa33word');
define('DB_DATABASE', 'database_name');
define('USE_PCONNECT', 'false');
define('STORE_SESSIONS', 'mysql');
?>
--------------------------------6) Edit .htaccess file for SEO Url’s Contribution.
If you are using the SEO Url’s Contribution
[http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,2823] and your NEW SITE is installed in a SUB FOLDER on your NEW SERVER where previously it was in the ROOT of your OLD SERVER you need to make changes to your .htaccess file in the catalog/ directory.
Open the .htaccess file in your preferred html/code editing application and find this entry on line 4: RewriteBase /
and change to: RewriteBase /store/
[where ‘store’ is the directory name]
Conclusion:
We hope you found this useful and informative. We accept there may be better methods or approaches to moving an OSCommerce Store to a New Server but please feel free to comment below with any additional information.
Equally please feel free to link to this article as it may be of interest to others facing a similar problem.
Cheap Windows Tutorial – Tips for Using Facebook To Boost Your Ecommerce Store
CheapWindowsHosting.com | In this post I will share about Tips for Using Facebook To Boost Your Ecommerce Store. With more than 1.5 billion registered users, a figure continuously rising, Facebook is a social networking powerhouse. It’s worth more than the annual output of many countries and has users from all across the globe. The amount of data Facebook has, and the detail with which people willingly share information about them on Facebook, makes it any marketer’s dream platform. Just look at some of these stats.
- Facebook has more than 1.5 billion registered users.
- More than 699 million people log in to Facebook every day.
- An average person spends around 15 hours and 33 minutes on Facebook every month. This makes it a total of 700 billion minutes globally.
- More than 2.5 million websites have integrated with Facebook.
Currently there are thousands of Facebook pages where people are selling products directly to their fans. While it’s not always the best strategy to depend completely on Facebook for ecommerce sales, it certainly can be a part of your broader ecommerce plan.
If you have an ecommerce website or an online store, you can use the power of Facebook to reach your target customers much more effectively and drive them to your online store and boost sales.
Here are a few tips for using Facebook to strengthen your ecommerce store.
1. Content is the King – Even on Facebook
Quality content is the king everywhere. But the kind of content that resonates with Facebook users is very different from blog content or articles. Here, if you write 1000 word status updates, very few of your fans will have the patience to read till the end.
Facebook users like short, catchy, visually appealing and action oriented posts created in a fun way. Above all your posts should provide users value. Demonstrate your knowledge about your niche and products in your status updates.
Also, don’t be obsessed with your own product images, links and blog posts all the time. Regularly share stuff from other blogs and websites that your fans may find useful (not from your competitor’s site, of course).
2. Optimize Your Store for Facebook Engagement
Your ecommerce store should also be optimized for maximum Facebook engagement (Likes, Comments, Shares). You can do that in a number of ways. Offer sign up via Facebook. Make sure your store’s product pages have clearly visible social media sharing widgets. Add the Facebook comments widget to your product pages so that the user comments are visible on their Facebook profiles as well. Add a small statement below the product images encouraging users to share on Facebook.
These are basic things but many ecommerce stores don’t have them in place because of which they fail to take advantage of Facebook.
3. Use Engaging Descriptions and Smart Calls To Action
Whenever you add new products to your store, you’d most likely share them on your Facebook page. When you do that, make sure you add an engaging 1-2 line description with your links. Engaging or catchy descriptions drive more clicks as compared to simple link shares.
Use high engagement words in your posts. Research shows that status updates that include the words Facebook, Why, Most, World, How, Health, Bill, Big, Says and Best get most engagement and shares. Similarly,
- Posts with less than 80 characters attract 23% more engagement.
- Using emoticons increases comments by 33%.
- Question posts get 100% more comments.
- Quotes get 26% more Likes and 19% more shares.
Also, make your descriptions action oriented and add clear calls to action with them. Facebook recently introduced the “Add Call to Action” option with status updates. Always use it with your status updates and link shares.
4. Boost Sales With Contests, Deals and Special Offers
Facebook users love contests and discount deals. Running competitions is found to be the most effective engagement technique for ecommerce stores. Almost 35% users “Like” Facebook pages to participate in contests. So give them what they want. Ask questions and use “Like for Yes, Comment for No” type techniques for feedback. These small fun activities can boost your engagement significantly.
5. Focus on High Quality Visual Content
I’ve already mentioned the importance of content, but visual content deserves a separate mention. Facebook users love visual content like images, info graphics, videos, memes etc. Image based content gets almost 40% more interaction as compared to simple text posts.
But to get the best results, you need to mix up your updates with a combination of text only, text+image and image/video only updates. For ecommerce stores, product images get the highest engagement.
6. Run Targeted Facebook Advertisements
There’s no better paid advertisement mode for ecommerce stores than Facebook advertisements. Facebook Ads have improved drastically over the last couple of years. They’re not only much simpler to configure but also bring much more targeted results as compared to other advertisement modes. You can target users based on their location, interests, gender, like/dislikes, recent activity, pages liked and dozens of other criteria. Start with a small budget of around $50 and test different ads to see what works well for you. Once you understand how it works, increase your budgets gradually.
7. Simplify the Buying Process
One important thing is to make the payment and buying process as simple as possible for your customers. Normally ecommerce stores add a link to the product pages with their Facebook status updates. There’s nothing wrong in doing this, but since it involves multiple redirections, there are high chances that buyers would abandon the purchase mid-way through. A smart option is to use a direct link to the checkout page or, even better, use a Facebook app to accept payments directly on Facebook. There are several Facebook ecommerce store apps where you can configure your products for direct selling on Facebook.
8. Use Facebook for Customer Support
A great way to show your fans and prospective buyers that you care about them, is to move the customer support to your Facebook page. Ask users to share their product feedback, compliments/complaints and concerns of your Facebook page. Actively respond to such comments, and ensure quick problem resolution. This will show the world that you really care about your customers.
9. Use a Combination of Manual and Automated Posts
Most ecommerce stores serve customers belonging to multiple countries, due to which they need to operate in different time zones. Of course you can’t stay on Facebook all the time. So it’s recommended that you automate some of your posts to stay in touch with customers from all time zones. You can use the BufferApp or HootSuite for this purpose. But keep posting manually as well.
Research shows that the engagement levels are 18% higher on Thursday and Friday, and 32% higher on weekends. Every day, around 1PM gets the most shares and 3PM gets the most clicks. Keep these time slots and days in mind while scheduling your automated posts.
Conclusion
Like any other social network, Facebook thrives on user engagement. The more closely you engage your audience through high quality visual content, contests and comment responses, the more action you’d be able to drive from them. But remember that your goal is to route users from your Facebook page to your store, because that is where you can convert them into subscribers – your biggest online asset.
