If you thought that the recently announced Google Chrome browser was the fastest browser on earth, then it could be shortlived by Minefiled from Mozilla. Minefield is Mozilla’s code-name for the next generation of Firefox, and the code name is used for unofficial builds to avoid infringing upon the Firefox name. So it’s basically just Mozilla’s testing ground for its pre-alpha nightly builds of future browser ideas.
What makes Minefield so fast?
Minefield introduces a new Javascript engine which is super fast and has tested at speeds 10% faster than Google Chrome. After downloading it, you do have to manually enable its souped-up Javascript engine to reap the full benefits (type “about:config” into the address bar, find the “javascript.options.jit.content” line, and click it to toggle it to “true”). The general buzz around the web by alpha testers regarding the “speed” factor of Minefield has been “excellent”!
Availability?
Since Firefox 3.1 is already in its first beta, the Minefield concepts could likely branch into the second beta, though it could also be reserved for its next major version release. Firefox 3.x is currently being developed under the code name Gran Paradiso.
If you are very excited about it and want to test it and give feedback to Mozilla, you can create a QMO account with Mozilla and then download the browser from:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/
It is currently available for Windows, Max OS X and Linux.
Being a nightly build, you will likely find that new versions are available every day (nightly rather). Mozilla makes the process of upgrading to the latest version virtually painless by using the built-in version monitoring process that Firefox uses.
If you’re interested in getting a glimpse into Mozilla’s future development and trying its latest and (theoretically) greatest stuff, it’s worth giving a go. Testers have reported many bugs and errors with Minefield, but that is normal with early alpha build versions. It doesn’t support some popular Firefox extensions (like Adblock Plus) for now, but it actually has surprisingly good support for extensions, given that it’s a fast-moving project.
Your website is ready and traffic has increased as well. Once you have a a steady amount of traffic, you can start thinking about monetizing your website. There are many revenue generating programs available and you just need to place a simple code in your website, and you can focus on building your site with good content and growing your traffic. We will review various revenue generating programs available and their pros & cons in this blog.
PPC (Pay Per Click) ads
Pay Per Clicks ads are the most preferred and popular type of ad programs. You will receive a certain amount of money for every advertisement that is clicked on. One of the most popular PPC program is Google Adsense. They serve contextual ads (image or text) based on your content, and you will get paid when someone clicks on the advertisement displayed in your website. Since Google Adsense serves contextual ads, the ads shown will be relevant to the content in your website. It is more likely for the visitor to click on the advertisement since it is related to your content. Google Adsense relies on its advertisor program called Google Adwords to server the ads. Advertisers bid on keywords, so if you happen to write about a topic that has high paying keywords, then each click will be worth a lot more than another topic with low valued keywords (keywords that has really low bids). The profitability of PPC advertising depends on the general traffic levels of the website and, most importantly, on the click-through rate (CTR) and cost per click (CPC). The CTR depends on the design of the website. CPC, on the other hand, depends on the niche of the website.
CPM ads (Cost Per Thousand)
Unlike CPC ads, CPM ads pay per impression. Visitors don’t need to do anything for you to be paid. You just need to serve the ads to them by displaying them in your website. The downside is that you are paid almost nothing for each impression. Rates can go as low as $0.10 per thousand impressions. But it is still a good option to use in conjunction with CPC based ads or as an alternative. Most ad networks that offer CPM ads have CPC ads thrown in as well. You can even set your own prices.
CPA ads (Cost Per Action)
CPA ads pay per action. You will not get paid when visitors view or click your ads. They actually have to do something, either sign up/register or make a purchase. Not surprisingly, they are the highest paying ads. So it is important that you show relevant ads in your website For example, a site about digital photography may do very well showing digital camera CPA ads. Some sites are much better suited for CPA ads.
Text Links
Text links work the same way as the above. You set aside a space on your page and text links will start showing up when they are purchased. You need to submit specific pages into the inventory, so enter your most popular pages (homepage, category pages, and very popular articles). Rates are based on your PR, which has to do with how many other sites link to your page. If you often get linked and mentioned, text links may be profitable for your site.
Direct Banner Advertising
Selling your own advertising space is one of the most lucrative monetization methods. First and foremost because it enables you to cut out the middleman commissions and to determine your own rates. The most popular banner formats on the web are the 728×90 leaderboard, the 120×600 skyscraper, the 300×250 rectangle and the 125×125 button. The downside of direct banner advertising is that you need to have a big audience to get qualified advertisers, and you will need to spend time managing the sales process, the banners and the payments.
RSS Feed Ads
With the quick adoption of the RSS technology by millions of Internet users, website owners are starting to find ways to monetize this new content distribution channel.
Here are our picks for some of the best CPC/CPM/Text based revenue generator programs:
Google AdSense
Yahoo! Publisher Network
AdForce
AdHearUs
AdKnowledge
AdSonar
Affiliate Sensor
All Clicks
AllFeeds
BannerBoxes
BClick
BidClix
Bidvertiser
CBprosense
Clicksor
ExpoActive
IndustryBrains
Mirago
Miva
Nixxie
One Monkey
Oxado
TargetPoint
Textads Dot Biz
TextWise
Text Link Ads
Vibrant Media
WebAdvertising.ca
AdBright
HyperBidder
Fantastico is just how the name implies – it’s fantastic! Fantastico De Luxe, developed by Netenberg, is an auto installer software will allows you to install various scripts easily through cPanel. Installing scripts may be a tedious job for the novice web master. Fantastico allows you to install more than 40 open source (free) software applications with minimum hassle. No technical knowledge is required to install the scripts. The script installation procedure just takes a couple of minutes to complete and can be performed by novices without the need of setting up MySQL databases, importing structure, chmoding files and without the need of other tasks usually associated with script installations.
Fantastico is integrated into cPanel and is available through the user’s cPanel. Fantastico will typically create tables in a database, install files, adjust permissions, and modify web server configuration files. Although Fantastico is typically associated with open-source software, a handful of scripts are also available that install commercial products; such as SohoLaunch (web site builder), PerlDesk (customer support software), and AccountLab Plus (billing software). Fantastico is the leading auto script installed in the web hosting industry due to its popularity and its tight integration with cPanel.
The following scripts are currently available for installation through Fantastico:
Blogs:
b2evolution (2.4.2)
Nucleus (3.32)
WordPress (2.6.1)
Portals/CMS:
Drupal (6.4)
Geeklog (1.4.1)
Joomla 1.5 (1.5.6)
Joomla (1.0.15)
Mambo Open Source (4.6.5)
PHP-Nuke (7.9)
phpWCMS (1.1-RC4 Rev. A)
phpWebSite (0.10.2)
Post-Nuke (0.764)
Siteframe (3.2.3)
Typo3 (4.1.5)
Xoops (2.0.18.1)
Customer Support:
Crafty Syntax Live Help (2.14.6)
Help Center Live (2.1.4)
osTicket (1.3.1)
PerlDesk (4.012.2) (Commercial, needs license)
PHP Support Tickets (1.9)
Support Logic Helpdesk (1.2)
Support Services Manager (1.0b)
Discussion Boards:
phpBB (3.0.1)
SMF (1.1.5)
E-Commerce:
CubeCart (3.0.17)
OS Commerce (2.2 Release Candidate 2a + buySAFE)
Zen Cart (1.3.8a)
FAQ:
FAQMasterFlex (1.51)
Hosting Billing:
AccountLab Plus (2.8 r14) (Commercial, needs license)
phpCOIN (1.4.1)
Image Galleries:
4images Gallery (1.7.6)
Coppermine Photo Gallery (1.4.19)
Gallery (2.2.5)
Mailing List:
PHPlist (2.10.5)
Polls and Surveys:
Advanced Poll (2.03)
phpESP (1.8.2)
PHPSurveyor (1.0)
Project Management:
PHProjekt (5.2.2)
dotProject (2.1.2)
Site Builders:
Soholaunch Pro Edition (4.9.1 r10) (Commercial, needs license)
Templates Express
Wiki:
PhpWiki (1.2.11)
TikiWiki (2.0)
Other Scripts:
Dew-NewPHPLinks (2.0.1.0b SEF w/Thumbshots)
Moodle (1.9.2)
Noah’s Classifieds (1.3 [Patched-1])
Open-Realty (2.5.2)
phpAdsNew (2.0.11-pr1)
PHPauction (3.2)
phpFormGenerator (2.09c)
WebCalendar (1.0.5)
Netenberg does a good job in keeping the scripts version updated with new releases for Fantastico DeLuxe frequently. Fantastico will not auto update the scripts, so you have to keep tab of the new script versions and update them through Fantastico when it is available.
Fantastico has grown massively over its time, and its made itself part of the Web Hosting industry for users who aren’t sure on installing some types of scripts. It certainly makes things easier for everyone.
It has been a week since Google’s much hyped “Chrome” browser was launched as a beta version. It has already claimed to have grabbed more than 1% of the global browser market. It created a record of sort by taking over 1% share of the global market within four days of its launch. But analysts say it will take a long while to unseat Microsoft’s Internet Explorer which controls over 72% of the market. Analysts say the user group mainly belongs to the tech fraternity and users who actively use only Google web search, Gmail, Google reader and blogs.
Although Google has been working on Chrome for two years, it still considers the browser a beta version. The company was using the browser internally among its employees for some time, but its surprise unveiling last week set the browser loose to the general public in more than two dozen languages.
To start with, where the browser totally justifies its cutting-edge claim is the user interface: shiny and squeaky clean. The tabs are arrayed on top instead of in the traditional toolbar, giving the illusion of a wider browsing area. Users can also drag and drop the tabs on the desktop outside the browser if they choose to.
Chrome is speedy. Google co-founder Sergey Brin calls it a “lightweight, fast engine for executing web applications” . In the preliminary tests, the browser trampled Firefox and Internet Explorer. The credit for the speediness should go to WebKit, the open-source engine at the core of Apple’s Safari and Google’s Android . The browser also has a new JavaScript virtual machine, V8, which is said to be a better solution for complex and rich web applications.
This should bring better performance and a smoother ‘drag and drop’ option in interactive applications . With this move, Google, now in its tenth year, is clearly counting on Chrome to become a key player in its effort to distribute widely used computer programmes like word processing, spreadsheets and calendars through the browser instead of as applications installed on standalone PCs.
Then, there is the winning Google touch of simpler the better when it comes to search solutions. Therefore Chrome’s navigation bar, Ominibox, where you type in the web address, serves a dual purpose. Users can either enter an address in the space bar or a search request, which will be processed using a search engine of their choice. There is also a way to make an icon for GMail and google calendar on your desktop.
Chrome with its simple looks and equipped with the most basic of browser functionalities is precisely what a no-frills user would want. But it lacks several features like bookmark managers which allow users to save files and webpages and view them anytime. Also the RSS reader which feeds users with news from the web is missing. Users have grown accustomed to these features and will want it on the Chrome. However, the clean and clear-cut browser makes the screen look uncluttered and larger in content area when compared to other browsers. Also, the tab feature on Chrome stands apart from the other browsers. It runs each tab in isolation from the other thus preventing the other tab from crashing it.
A Vietnamese security company has already found a critical vulnerability in Google’s new browser Chrome, but Google has already released patch for that problem and at least one more. The latest version of Google Chrome is: 0.2.149.29.
However, Google said it believes in making the web an open platform for everyone to innovate on. “Our efforts are targeted at making the web better for everyone and further advance the openness of the web. Towards this objective Google Chrome has been developed and is being released as an open source project under the name Chromium. The intent is that Google will help make future browsers better by contributing the underlying technology in Google Chrome to the market, while continuing to develop additional features.
Many of you may be aware that SharkSpace is now implementing suPHP on shared hosting servers, which was announced here recently. Through this blog, we will try to explain to you what suPHP is about and how it is beneficial for everyone.
Securing a shared hosting server is a challenging task as it has to be secured from outside and from inside a website. Vulnerable scripts or incorrect permissions can cause compromises from inside a server. PHP has built-in features to help, but ultimately it’s the wrong place to address the problem. Apache has built-in features too, but the performance cost of these features is prohibitive. This is where suPHP, created by Sebastian Marsching comes to the rescue.
Like Apache’s own suexec, suphp is a solution that allows PHP to run as the user and group that owns any particular website on a shared hosting server. Technically, suPHP is a tool for executing PHP scripts with the permissions of their owners. It consists of an Apache module (mod_suphp) and a setuid root binary (suphp) that is called by the Apache module to change the UID of the process executing the PHP interpreter.
suphp consists of two components:
* mod_suphp, an Apache module that replaces mod_php
* suphp, a setuid binary that replaces Apache’s suexec
Every time a PHP script is run, suphp has to fork Apache and then execute another copy of the PHP/CGI binary. This approach provides the absolute security benefits that we seek. It means that if a script contains a vulnerability, and got exploited, then only that particular user will be affected.
suPHP has the following advantages:
* PHP runs as your user/group
* PHP files can have permissions of 640 (hiding things like passwords from other accounts)
* Files/folders written by PHP are written as user/group (no Apache or other global user)
* Custom php.ini file per site (can add/remove security options)
Please note that suPHP does not allow permissions 666 and 777.
Some users make use of .htaccess files to set php configuration lines using php_flag var setting. Having a .htaccess file use the php_flag directive will result in a 500 error be produced. PHP flags no longer work in the .htaccess file. If you need to enable things such as register globals you can follow the below guide:
In .htaccess under public_html, add the following:
suPHP_ConfigPath /home/user/public_html
order allow,deny
deny from all
Note: You must change user to your account username.
Create a php.ini file under public_html add any of the below settings that you need:
register_globals = On
upload_max_filesize = 30M
post_max_size = 30M
memory_limit = 30M
upload_tmp_dir = 30M
max_execution_time = 180
Using a php.ini file may cause issues if your scripts use Zend Optomizer or IonCube encoding. You then just need to add the following to your php.ini file to resolve the issue:
Note: this may not be needed. Please test before using.
[Zend]
zend_extension=/usr/local/ioncube/ioncube_loader_lin_4.4.so
zend_optimizer.optimization_level=15
zend_extension_manager.optimizer=/usr/local/Zend/lib/Optimizer-3.2.6
zend_extension_manager.optimizer_ts=/usr/local/Zend/lib/Optimizer_TS-3.2.6
zend_extension=/usr/local/Zend/lib/ZendExtensionManager.so
zend_extension_ts=/usr/local/Zend/lib/ZendExtensionManager_TS.so
For the PHP settings you do not have in your php.ini file, PHP will use our default configurations. It will not use the server php.ini but rather a default one. You may need to set other settings. You may create a phpinfo.php file in public_html with the beginning and ending php tags and the following in between to see any changes by browsing it:
phpinfo();
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