17th Aug 2015 | Domains, Web Hosting, Websites, WordPress
Imagine the scene, our hero is being held over a fire, having weights attached to his arms and legs to pull him apart, being pierced by torturous spears. Surely he risks certain death!
Fortunately the star of our next video is not Harrison Ford but is a teddy bear.
Which would you rather do?
a) Read articles about testing toys to comply with European rules on safety, or
b) Watch a video of a teddy in a variety of dangerous situations?
Then think, which is more likely to be shared on Facebook and Twitter… perhaps even going viral?
Unless you are one of my former bosses, you are likely to be saying, ‘show us the video’!
In response to the cries of, “you can’t do that to a TEDDY”, you can respond that you are obliged to, by law. That it is for the safety of children who will enjoy the teddy.
See what has happened, you have gone viral, you are engaging with potential customers and you are not only telling people how you test, but showing them.
Put the video onto Google and you will even help your website’s ranking… Soon you will be able to see the exploits of Harrison Bear – it is still in production (i.e. not available yet), but will be on https://henbethau.co.uk In the meantime, you can see the amazing bears (and other creatures) made from recycled Welsh blankets.
7th Jan 2015 | Web Hosting, Websites
This week we have taken two new websites live. Both of them were transfers from other companies but there the similarity ends.
The Finchley Reform Synagogue (FRS) site was handled by a bespoke Content Management System (CMS). This was fine until the company that wrote it didn’t want to support it any more. FRS were given an ultimatum to move from their existing hosting and existing CMS. They wanted to move everything to a modern, open-source CMS so that they would not face this issue again. They had a site with hundreds of pages and hundreds of posts, that delivered live video. They wanted the ‘new’ site to look identical to the old one. They also needed video training materials to train staff on the use of the website.
Cloud Genius worked with the FRS on a plan to move the entire site to WordPress. You can judge the results for yourself at https://frsonline.org. In the new year they hope to move to a more flexible layout – being on WordPress the foundations for that have all been laid.
The second site was Maynard Training Services (MTS). They wanted a new site that was easy to manage. They needed a calendar of events, sections highlighting their training in the areas of First Aid, Security and Hospitality. They needed to be able to maintain it themselves. Well the new site is live at https://maynardtrainingservices.com. Already they are actively updating the site.
26th Nov 2014 | Domains, Web Hosting, Websites
As many of you know, Cloud Genius is a reseller for one of the largest domain registries in the world. So, we can offer you even better prices than they can.
As part of their security & utility upgrade, the infrastructure of our website is moving.
You can still get you domains and other web services at webhost.cloud-genius.com but there is an outside possibility that you may experience some disruption. If that is the case, let us know – the contact details are on every page of our website.
Easier is to use the widget tool (see right if you are on a desktop, below if you are on a mobile).
30th Sep 2014 | cPanel, Email, General Information, Web Hosting, Websites, WordPress
Here at Cloud Genius we are always trying to make things easier for our customers, clients, friends, selves to buy domain names.
A number of our folk were having difficulty remembering where to buy domain names (and other web stuff) at the best price, so we have purchased a new domain to make things easier.
Old location: webhost.cloud-genius.com
New location: cloudgenius.domains
It’s easier, shorter and there is only one dot.
Tell us what you think? Better? No change? Worse? or constructive comments. We want to know 🙂
Forgot to say, we have now changed the default currency to pounds sterling (GBP). You may have to change the currency (top right) one last time. You should also be billed in GBP now, too.
15th Apr 2014 | Defeating spam, General Information, Salesforce, Security and Safety, Web Hosting, Websites
Some of you may have heard about a massive flaw in the security of the internet.
This is really serious and everyone should be aware of the implications.
Heartbleed is the sort of flaw that gives systems admins huge nightmares.
On vulnerable websites there is a significant possibility that your passwords have been revealed to hackers making use of the bug. Worse than that, if a site has been compromised there is no evidence!
It would be good practice to change all the passwords you use on the internet. Now.
…unless you have evidence that the services you use are not part of the problem.
At Cloud Genius, we have performed a full review of the services we use.
- Services to back up websites/update plug-ins. For clients that subscribe to this services one was not vulnerable, the other service has been secured and we have taken steps necessary to prevent any problems. No action required on your part.
- Website hosting – our provider has informed us that they are vulnerable. Until they update all their systems you may wish to change the password on your account at https://webhost.cloud-genius.com. Once their patching process is complete you should change your password again on the account. We will endeavour to let you know when this is.
- Paypal – our understanding is that Paypal is not affected.
- Teamviewer – our remote control solution of choice is not affected.
- Salesforce – To the best of our knowledge is not affected.
- LastPass – our password management software of choice is not affected. (And helped a lot in fixing services that were affected.)
Here is a list of other networks that were affected – these include people like Google, Yahoo and many others.
https://mashable.com/2014/04/09/heartbleed-bug-websites-affected/
This is really serious. Make sure you are not caught out!
One positive – LastPass was able to scan all the services we use, list the affected services and make password changing a doodle! Highly recommended… and much more secure than any other system we have come across.
10th Apr 2014 | Email, General Information, Transferring, Web Hosting, Websites
Many of you who have grown up with the internet will be aware of the DynDNS service.
This allowed you to host services from home and get to them with a website address that ended .dyndns.com (or one of a variety of other endings). Mine was jd10k.dyndns.com.
Very soon it will be no more. Dyn want you to subscribe to their ‘Pro’ service, at $25 per year! (There is a temporary, discount.)
There are other options. A similar free service is provided by no-ip for free!
But perhaps you were hosting your email and/or website from home (not the best idea), in that case you might want to check out our low-priced email and web services on WebHost. You may want to add a personal domain name to that, too. You can do all that and still save on the price of the Dyn offering (and a personal domain name will look far more professional).
Anyway, there are lots of better options that signing up for Dyn’s service. Good luck!
Time for a change.
