Microsoft Windows is the most popular operating system (OS); thus, most web hosting companies cater to sites running on Windows, as expected. However, there is an increasing demand for hosts that can support websites running on other platforms such as Mac OS and Linux, just to name a few. For this article, we will focus on Linux web hosting.

Why do some people choose Linux web hosting? To start with, Linux is an open source OS designed after Unix. It means Linux is free, which is a fact that is easily a factor in some people’s choice of operating system. Aside from being free, Linux is also known to be very stable even in the midst of some heavy-duty multitasking. It’s also known to be flexible, powerful, and portable. The graphical user interface (GUI) looks great, too.

Whatever the reason may be, there’s no denying that more and more people are turning to Linux web hosting. If you’re comfortable with using Linux with Perl programming language, now is the right time to go for Linux web hosting. It has its place in mainstream, so any worries you may have about lack of suitable choices for Linux web hosting should be thrown out the window. There are a lot of affordable packages being marketed by web hosting companies for the Linux user.

Surprisingly, even if Windows is the most popular OS, Linux web hosting has more presence on the internet than Windows web hosting. The reason behind this is Linux’s open source nature. A lot of technological developments in web hosting are also open source. It’s easier for developers and programmers to experiment with different innovations when high fees and licenses are not part of the equation. Thus, Linux web hosting provides you with a lot of flexibility at almost no cost. When technologies update, you can go along with them without worrying about your budget because they are free.

Linux web hosting is also highly standardized because Linux, as an OS, is a standard platform. Thus, you can easily add to your website without too much hassle since everything is streamlined. You’ll appreciate this more as your website steadily and quickly grows. Long-term management with diligent maintenance is one of the most difficult things you need to do as a webmaster; luckily Linux web hosting can help in that aspect.

Take note, though, that there’s a downside to all the good stuff, and it’s up to you if it’s worth looking over when you finally choose Linux web hosting. Since Windows still dominates as the number one OS, Linux web hosting does not have a lot of technical support available for applications and languages that are based on Windows. Sure, you have a wide range of Linux-based applications and languages to choose from, but there are very useful ones that are Windows-based. You either don’t use them at all, or prepare yourself to encounter difficulties when you do.

Weigh your needs and wants before choosing Linux web hosting over Windows web hosting. Both have positive and negative aspects to them, and choosing what works better for your website is something only you can decide.

Author: Charles Yarbrough
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Import duty tariff

Ubuntu Mobile is an Ubuntu edition targeting an exciting new range of computers known as Mobile Internet Devices. It is based on the world’s most popular Linux distribution with MID hardware from OEMs and ODMs and is all set to redefine mobile computing.

The biggest utility of this model is that it gives full Internet to its users. The following are some of the main features of this model:

1. Full Web 2.0/AJAX fidelity, with custom options of Adobe Flash, Java.

2. Outstanding media playback in order to provide full enjoyment to videos, music and photos with best quality and easy navigation.

3. Set of applications that work seamlessly to meet need of every age group of people.

4. Full Web 2.0 experience etc. It is the product of Canonical collaboration with Intel and the open source community.

All in one:

This mobile is just the right applications providing Web 2.0 experience. User can do at his ease Web browsing, email, media, camera, VoIP, instant messaging, GPS, blogging, digital TV, games, contacts, dates/calendar, simple software updates and much more. Thus it is all in one set.

Structure and feel:

It is a finger friendly, with no stylus needed. It works on just gentle touch. One is just required to tap the screen or drag a finger to make gestures for intuitive navigation and control. It’s very easy to operate as well.

Following are the ways to operate it:

1. One needs just to tap an application with his/her finger to launch it, and have to use tap menus and buttons to use them.

2. Just what all is required is simply to swipe a web page to pan up, down or sideways.

3. In addition just one needs to swipe a video, photo, song or thumbnail page to move to the next or the previous one.

Author: Bill Pratt
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Benefits of electric pressure cooker

I spoke about IDS (Intrusion Detection Systems) and IPS (Intrusion Prevention Systems) a few days ago in a question posted by a user. So I thought I would dive a little deeper into the subject with a specific application that I have personally used – Snort. Snort is a very powerful IDS that in later versions can act like an IPS. Snort is free to download and use in the personal environment as well as in the business environment. In fact Snort is used by many enterprises as a very effective option for their business because not only is it free, but it is one of the most powerful IDS’s out there if you know what you are doing when you configure it. Snort can be created as a program that you run when you want on a personal computer or it can be setup to run when your OS starts and protect all computers on your network from attacks.

If you want to use Snort to protect your entire network it will need to be placed in line with your Internet connection. So as an example lets say that you have a business Internet account with your local cable company and you want to protect it with a computer running Snort. The computer running Snort needs to be placed between the cable modem and the router, this way Snort is able to monitor every piece of traffic that comes into your network and is in the best place to discover possible attacks.

Installation:

We are going to be installing Snort on a computer running Ubuntu 9.04 which at the time of this article is the newest version of Ubuntu. Ubuntu is also a free OS that is available to download, making this IDS a totally free appliance for you, except the cost of the computer. There are two ways to install Snort onto a Ubuntu Distribution and the easiest is to do it through a command line. If your computer is up to date you can simply type:

sudo apt-get install snort

This will then download and install the newest version of snort on your computer through command line. As soon as it is done you will be ready to use snort. But if you run into an error or cannot install Snort through command line you can always go to the Snort website and download the newest version, but make sure that you are downloading the tar.gz file and follow their installation guide to completely setup Snort.

Once installed you can run snort as just a sniffer and have all packets captured and logged but that will create an enormous log file that you would then have to view. Snort works so well because of its use of rules to know which traffic to log and which traffic to ignore. Rules are going to be beyond the scope of this article but I plan on writing an article in the near future on creating rules for Snort.

How Snort runs depends on the flags that you specify when you launch Snort from command line.

Flag Function

-v View packet headers at the console.
-d View application data with IP headers.
-D Run Snort as a daemon.
-e Show data-link layer headers.
-l Run in packet logger mode.
-h Log information relative to the home network.
-b Log information to a single binary file in the logging directory.
-r Read packets contained in a log file.
N Disable packet logging.
-c Specifies which file will be used to provide a rule-set for intrusion detection.
-i Specifies which port you would like Snort to look at when running.

As you can see from above we have a few different options when it comes to flags used with Snort. Lets start with just viewing IP packet headers by using the command sudo snort -v. Be sure to use the sudo command before snort so that it runs in administrative mode, this is needed to open the appropriate port. Now since we did not specify a port for snort to look at it is going to use the eth0 port by default, well I am not using the eth0 port right now as I write this article I am using the wlan0 port which is my wireless card. We will need to us the -i flag to tell Snort to use my wireless card to check for traffic, sudo snort -v -i wlan0. Now Snort will run and display on the screen every packet header that comes across my wlan0 or wireless card, as you can see this is very useful if you want to monitor all traffic across your network but very impractical if you want to protect your network. To end the application once it has started you can simply hit CTRL+C to end the program and bring you back to a command prompt.

We have quickly discussed installing Snort and then running some basic Snort commands to get some output from the program onto our screen. Stay tuned for the next article on configuring Snort rules and running Snort as true IDS with alerting.

Author: Mike L Walton
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: PCB Prototype & Manufacturing

Regular Ubuntu Linux Users and the (Lack of Use of the) root User

When you install Ubuntu Linux, you create a user, which is the “first” user and you can also create more users if you need to. When you create the “first” user, you assign this user a password – and this one is very important!

It is required to log in to the desktop (at the Linux GUI login prompt) as the “regular” (non-root) user – and this password is also required to be able to do the equivalent of logging in as the root user – when you’re working at the Linux prompt a terminal emulation window on the desktop.

By default, the root use is not “enabled” (not available) in Ubuntu and so you can’t log in as this user – which is an innovative thing – as it stops anyone from logging in to the desktop as this user – which should never be done!

Example of Running the Linux sudo Command – To Start Working as the root User

You type in: sudo -i and then press Enter to change from working as a “regular” user to working as (the equivalent of) the root user in Ubuntu (and variations or derivatives, such as Kubuntu – see more on this further below).

And then you provide the password of the first user that was created on the system. After running the Linux sudo command, the prompt changes from a dollar sign to a number or hash sign (press Shift 3). To “go back” to working as a “regular”, run the exit command by entering the command name and pressing the Enter key.

This Linux version has its own “derivatives” (variations), and many of these end in “ubuntu”, such as Kubuntu.

Linux Commands Training Tips: The “K” in Kubuntu stands for “KDE” – it is the “K” in “KDE”, for the KDE desktop.

The Ubuntu distro uses the GNOME desktop by default and Kubuntu uses the KDE desktop by default.

Ubuntu Linux and it’s derivatives are some of the few distributions that require the use of the sudo command with the -i option as shown above – as opposed to using the su command with the – “dash” option and then typing in the password of the root user.

Author: Clyde E. Boom
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Electric Pressure Cooker

I ran across an online store today that sells top name brand merchandise with a pay-as-you-go plan.

I suppose stores like this serve a useful purpose, but I certainly cant endorse them and you’ll never find them on my web site.
Obviously they are legal, but they certainly aren’t ethical

Here’s their headline: No credit, Bad credit, No problem.

Their feature desktop computer is an entry level, top name brand computer. This computer or one exactly like it sells for $349.00 from the manufacturer, who will sell it for $11.00 per month. Of course I assume you have to have some level of credit to take advantage of that plan.

But heres the penalty you pay with this pay-as-you-go program: They require a $150.00 down payment, then $30.00 twice per month for 12 months. That figures out to $870.00, which calculates out to an interest payment of $521.00 for a $350.00 purchase.

And worse ,in effect what you are doing if you make a down payment of $150.00 for a $350.00 item you are borrowing $200.00. Therefore you are paying $520.00 in interest to borrow $200.00. This defies logic.

I haven’t bothered to calculate the APR but it sure appears to me to be usury in disguise, and its outrageous, another example of the poor being exploited.

This isnt a new scheme they’ve been using it for years with furniture and appliances and I suppose it s necessary for some unfortunates to have to employ such a scheme in order to buy something that’s vital.

I’m not out to punish businesses but some common sense needs to be instilled in some people. This is not a good deal In my opinion it’s fraud.

To buy a computer this way is utterly ridiculous. I just bought a used computer in mint condition, for a back up machine. I purchased it in an eBay auction for $93.00 including shipping.

This machine has a 1.03GB processor, 184MB RAM, 20GB Maxtor H/D, a 32X CD-RW and runs Windows XP Home. It will do anything the average person needs to do with a PC.

This is just one example. There are many perfectly good used computers available. There are used computer stores in most areas. If you attend computer shows they always have pre-owned Pc’s at affordable prices. Even the major online stores have PCs that almost anyone can afford.

Walmart sells a model with a Linux operating system for under $200.00 brand new. There’s no need to pay an exorbitant price for a computer.

So for someone in poor circumstances to get involved in such a deal is ridiculous. I believe in free enterprise, but not at the expense of the unfortunate.

Caveat Emptor- Let the buyer beware. Use my shopping Guide on: http://www.caveatemptorus.com
I’m sure you can find a Pc within your means.

Author: George W. Cannata
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Bumper guardian

What is a web application? A web application, also known as the ‘webapp’, is an application that can be easily accessible through a web browser over the internet. It is coded in languages such as PHP, ColdFusion, and Asp.net combined with in a markup language like HTML. What are the many benefits of a webapp? For one thing, web applications are cross platform compatible. Unlike certain software, which may only work on a Windows machine of a Mac machine, web applications have the ability to work across many different kinds of software such as internet explorer, Firefox, Safari as well as many different kinds of operating systems such as Windows, Linux, or Mac OS. Web applications are also extremely cost efficient. They have much lower maintenance and support costs than software as well.

Another benefit of the webapp is that you will never have to install an application on your computer to take up hard drive space. A webapp will always occupy a virtual cloud of space on the internet. Web Apps also allow you to constantly have the most up-to-date software. No more upgrade fees!

They are also available anywhere and anytime! This is huge – similar to the way you can access your email from any browser, any computer, etc., you can also access any web applications from anywhere.

With webapps you can also stress less about viruses. Webapps require no installation, which means no viruses (unless you were to just get a Mac then you would never have that problem). The biggest benefit of all (in my opinion) is that mobile has arrived- allowing us to take our web apps anywhere our cell phones go.

Some Applications:
1. Facebook (social networking site)
2. Google Wave (an email and collaboration tool)
3. Mint (a site to keep track of all your finances)
4. Kuler (a color application to find colors that match and work good together)
5. Google Maps (a map application)
6. YouTube (Video application)
7. Go To meeting (a virtual meeting application)
8. WordPress (blogging application)

Author: Alexa Dagostino
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Pressure cooker

If you are using Ubuntu, you can actually sync you data between multiple installations of the operating system. This is nice because you have the freedom to use this data and settings on as many machines as you like.

Generally speaking, to get everything to work this way, you need to buy multiple copies of an operating system. With Ubuntu since it’s free, the installation becomes a bit more flexible since you can do whatever you want with it.

The first way to sync are to use free programs like Ubuntu One or DropBox. Both of these have a free version that allow you to use about 2 gigabytes of data. This data can be changed on one computer and will upload itself to the server when the changes are made. When you boot up on the other computer, the changed data will be downloaded. This will make it seem that you are working on the same machine even if it’s multiple stations.

Another way of doing this is to backup your home folder. If you view hidden folders in your install, you will see that there are many folders that start with a period. What’s useful about these is that your user settings are there. You can sync these between computers if you want your Firefox settings to be the same on all of them for example.

Another way of doing this is using Ubuntu’s default USB disk creator tool. This will let you take your install and put it onto a USB device. You can boot from this USB on any computer and use your data that way. You can even install from this USB and your settings will come over with it.

Author: Lance Esondi
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Duty on LCD/Plasma TV