Bluehost – What Do You Get With This Web Hosting Provider?

By Bart | Published: September 26, 2011



Today, when the competition in web hosting industry is so intense, finding a reliable web host may not be as easy as one many think. To keep up with the competition many web hosting providers constantly lower their price or continue to increase disk space, data transfer and even number of websites you can host in one account while keeping prices down.

What can you find with Bluehost?

Bluehost has been in businesses since 1996, and since that time has earned strong reputation of a leader in web hosting industry. Customers are offered 24/7 live support, great reliability, opportunity to host multiple websites in one account and even free promotional credits valid for advertising on Google Adwords and Yahoo! Sponsored Search.

Web Hosting Features Highlight.

At the time of writing of this article following features were the highlight of Bluehost’s web hosting plan:

web hosting space of 50 GB data transfer of 999 GB per month free domain name host 6 domains in 1 account 2500 POP3 e-mail accounts 5 add-on domains 20 parked domains 20 sub-domains 50 MySQL databases 50 PostgreSQL databases Other features included support for PHP, Frontpage extensions, Ruby On Rails, Spam protection. It is worth mentioning that with Bluehost you will be able to install variety of scripts via Fantastco installer which include leading blogging platforms and content management systems.

Are there any risks involved with hosting your websites at Bluehost?

While Bluehost has earned reputation for offering reliable service, there is not a single web hosting provider in the industry that can assure you of 100% server up-time. Unexpected, and sometimes due to no provider’s fault, things can happened that may crush the server and temporarily interrupt access to your website. With Bluehost you are able to backup your websites data on a regular basis just in case you will even need to replace it.

One of the downfall of Bluehosts plan is, as with any web hosting provider that offers to host multiple domains in one account, that when the server is down it is very likely that all of you websites associated with your account will not be accessible. So whenever you need to host multiple websites it is a good idea to spread them through few different but reliable web hosting providers.

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Ruby On Rails Outsourcing

By Bart | Published: September 26, 2011



Quintessential extracts of Open source Technology ……Do not roll up your sleeves before having sound knowledge about OOPs (Object Oriented Programming Language). Ruby on Rails is a proven tool and architecture for the fastest growing business solutions and investors are scaling up in developing nations with low cost resources, minimal investment and maximum throughput.

Ruby is an object oriented programming language that makes programming easy and interesting. It is amalgamation of Smalltalk’s concept, Python’s ease of use and learning concepts, Perl’s pragmatism. Ruby on rails, RoR, Rails all these terms are used interchangeably. Rails has revolutionized the web with its sagacity and provided programmers with tools to meliorate by effacing long coding techniques and augmenting ruby programming.

Rails is a full-stack, free, web application, open source ruby web framework for developing database-backed web applications according to the Model-View-Control pattern that is optimized for sustainable productivity. From the Ajax in the view, to the request and response in the controller, to the domain model wrapping the database, Rails gives you a pure-Ruby development environment. To go live, all you need to add is a database and a web server. RoR uses Ruby programming language and Model view programming paradigm (multi-paradigm).

It follows principle of least surprise (POLS) and has lowered the barrier in entry to programming. Rails provides scaffolding programming (software application is built that is well supported by database and programmer has the flexibility to write about application database using model view controller framework) which helps to quickly and easily construct model views. Its effects are not confined to rails community but have also affected other communities globally.

Why Rails?? Every developer wants to speed up the development process at the same reducing error occurrence. Rails provide fast and easy development with quality results. If quality is retained but the speed is increased multifold you don’t need to think over it but just go for it, here comes RoR. With Ruby programming language you need to write few lines of code in comparison to other programming language to reach the same result. ‘Convention over configuration’ is the RoR mantra i.e. with less software usage or consumption you generate more codes efficiently. The aim is to speed up development of web applications and database driven websites by providing programming convention and eliminating verbose xml configuration files.

System Requirement – Ruby and Rail Framework software; Database (e.g. MySQL, Oracle, DB2, SQL Server GUI client for Windows OS, differ for Linux, Macintosh); Joyent is the official RoR host; Web Server – Apache is most common

Ruby on Rails CMS is also becoming popular these days admin section can be focused to target design sites, it is easy to define new page elements – RSS, Atom, Tag clouds, overlay, file management, API are very common features. RoR CMS provides very flexible solutions, final output depends on user choice no pre-format is mandatory, image cropping, resizing, multi-language support, excellent usability, sort able tree-based admin interface, layout editor, scaffold template is created. Rails applications are Tailor made to perfection for an individual or an enterprise and best fit for all kind of web application. Rails architecture is used and most preferred for development of cms, e-commerce, portals, collaboration, and community.

Let’s obliterate local boundaries and create world community by congregating Rails and other communities with smearing RoR, escalated web development solutions. Offshore outsourcing business model has helped SMEs to keep pace in spirit of the IT advancement and day to day competition. Growing online communities are stronger driving workforce as they get going by sharing their knowledge and are most privilege to be a contributing member of the community and share a common direction; they are traveling on the thrust of each other.

With India as an offshore development centre RoR development companies are mushrooming and the rise of regional blogs, social networking websites has created a common linking hub for everyone. Standing on the front wave of ubiquitous connectivity, I can say that RoR will dominate the web application development web world with its killer instinct. Indian Rails developers are harnessing existing and emerging opportunities and creating vast investment potentials for Indians to walk hand in hand with giant players. With landing of Indian Economy and globalization more offshore and big companies are setting up their development centers in India and outsource their software development, ruby on rails development to India. Outsourcing has become indispensable part of offshoring trades.

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Two Critical Areas to Focus on When Designing Your Website

By Bart | Published: September 19, 2011



Regardless of the subject matter your website is dedicated to, there are two areas of the site that will determine its success. Unfortunately, many people give their full attention to site content, images, video clips, and backlinks. In many cases, if you discover a flaw in these areas, not paying attention to the following two aspects of your site can lead to an enormous amount of frustration if you need to make changes.

Content Management and Modules

As you may be aware, most modern websites look very different from sites designed with frames and templates. Interestingly enough, there are also some very important changes that have occurred in the way individuals add content to the site. For example, many sties today are built on platforms that allow content to be added without needing to know HTML. As a general rule of thumb, if you know how to respond to emails or interact on a social networking site, then you can easily manage content on web pages that make use of certain platforms. The three most popular platforms today include:

· Joomla

· Ruby on Rails

· WordPress

Overall Site Professionalism

Even though content is very important, there are some parts of a website that can be glaringly obvious when they are absent. For example, if your site does not have an “about author” page, “terms of use”, and “privacy” section, your site will not have a professional appearance. While many people will not click on these pages, their absence makes your site look like it was thrown together instead of carefully planned out. Under those circumstances, site viewers may have a harder time accepting the credibility of your information

If you are building your first website, or having one designed for you, then you may think there is a specific date when it will be finished. While that may hold true for the basic structure and initial content, you will always be making changes to the site in order to keep it interesting and active. On the other hand, you will always need to make sure that visitors can feel confident about the credibility of the site.

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E-Government and Web 2.0

By Bart | Published: September 11, 2011



Dr Alexiei Dingli defines e-government as: “The use of information and communication technology to provide and improve government services, transactions and interactions with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government.”

The idea behind this article is to explain the approach I have adopted to create a Web 2.0 e-government website which aims to gather data from existing services (both government and private) in order to provide additional value to the end user. In my project I have integrated the popular AutoTrader website with the local car valuation website.

First and foremost these are the main features of the website:
A highly scalable website – the website is flexible enough to be integrated with any private car imports website. For the time being, it has been integrated with the popular the AutoTrader website. Extremely user friendly – The user is not required to fill in long forms as in the current government car registration website. Fast and effective – Searching and valuation of cars is done efficiently and fast with a small, known sacrifice in accuracy. Search Engine Friendly - SEO was taken into consideration as from the initial stages of the project. Accessible - Intuitive yet accessible user interface which conforms to the FITA accessibility audit check list.

Despite of the ongoing Web 2.0 buzz, the absolute majority of the Web pages are still very Web 1.0: They heavily mix presentation with content. This makes hard for a computer to extract meaningful data from the rest of the elements. To remedy this problem, some sites provide access to their content through web services or RSS.

Unfortunately, neither the ADT (car valuation website) nor the AutoTrader website provides access in this manner. As a solution to this problem, web scraping techniques have been adopted. Web Scraping involves observing the page structure and wrapping out the relevant records. Since the website has been developed using Ruby on Rails, a ruby library called Hpricot has been used to make web scraping easy and fast. For more information about this library check this website: www.rubyrailways.com/data-extraction-for-web-20-screen-scraping-in-rubyrails/

As in the case of the ADT website, web scraping is even more complex than that. The website is wizard driven having data scattered over multiple pages (i.e. multiple HTTP requests). Also, since the website is stateful (using the traditional ASP.NET web forms), the web scraping algorithm needed to take into consideration the ASP.NET view state, event validation and cookies.

Links: The project: www.karozzi.co.uk

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Interesting Facts on Twitter History

By Bart | Published: September 5, 2011



In Twitter History, you will find that it has served well to provide critical information such as eyewitness accounts on troubling events like the Mumbai attacks in 2008. The micro-blogging service has become one of the quickest ways to receive news and other information.

Details of the creation of twitter are as indicated – Jack Dorsey had grown interested in knowing what his friends were doing. Jack wondered if there existed an opportunity to build something around this ‘status’ concept. At a time when Odeo Corp’s future was looking bleak, Odeo Corp (now known as Obvious Corp) members held a day-long brainstorming session. Jack described an idea that using SMS (Short Messaging Service) one can communicate to small groups, a concept partly inspired by the SMS group messaging service.

Jack claims that project actually took on the name ‘Status’ for quite a while. The hunt for a suitable name was on. Mobile played a major aspect, as Jack liked the SMS aspect, and using which updates could be sent to and received from anywhere. He wished to have that feeling captured – the physical sensation that one is being buzzed by a friend and came up with the word “twitch”, because the phone kind of vibrates when it moves. The word twitch was not a good product name and they searched for words around it in dictionary and thus came up with the word “Twitter”. Twitter was defined as ‘a series of chirps’.

The original name of the product or the code name was ‘twttr’, inspired by the fact that American short codes are five characters. Work on the project start on March 21 2006 when Jack Dorsey published the first twitter message – “just setting up my twttr”.

Twitter was publicly launched in July 2006. Jack Dorsey along with Evan Williams, Biz Stone and other Odeo Corp members, formed Obvious Corporation in October of 2006 and got themselves all the assets Odeo including Odeo itself.com and Twitter.com from the share holders and investors.

The twitter web interface uses a web application framework called ‘Ruby on Rails’. Using Omnigraffle and Photoshop, the Twitter website and user interface were made to look as it is now. Ruby on Rails was used to provide skeleton frameworks which would allow quick and easy ways to work, there by avoiding re-inventing the wheel every time a new feature is added.

Twitter’s popularity soared in the 2007 South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival held in Austin, Texas. At the event tweets rose from 20,000 to 60,000. Soon, everyone around the world were buzzing and posting about this new thing called Twitter which was sort of instant messaging and blogging. With the users having the opportunity to call the shots and decide from whom to receive the tweets and when to receive them apart from the fact that no installation is necessary to start tweeting, it has caught on like a fire, spreading far and wide. Twitter provides a way to stay connected to friends, relatives and others and stay updated of what’s happening around the world.

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CakePHP – The Star of PHP Framework

By Bart | Published: September 3, 2011



If you are looking into using a framework for your PHP development, you bet it can be no better that CakePHP. This framework is an open-source development tool minimizing the architectural headaches and employing many features from Ruby on rails; although not exactly a port of RoR to PHP. The star feature is the MVC architechture i.e. Model-View-Controller. This is a three part way of programming and designing your apps so that code does not interfere with design. It keeps your code clean. It lets you leave all the low level tasks you needed to do when building your app from scratch. Sounds great, doesn’t it. But there is a huge learning curve with this framework. This kind of architechture needs time getting used to plus all the conventions and rules that have to be adhered. The CakePHP team provides online tutorials and documentation for beginners reaching to the intermediate level. For some, it has been quite easy to survive the shift while there have been few with no hope.

CakePHP was started in 2005 amidst the monopoly of Ruby on Rails. Since then it has faired well largely owing to the spread of PHP and the need for a framework with standardized features and good support. What People loved about this framework was that with all that powered, it did not need any eXtra expenses; you could have a 5 bucks a month server host any kind of CakePHP app. CakePHP shows compatibility with both PHP 4 and PHP 5. That was some good news to me of course. CakePHP offers database management in a better manner via CRUD integration. All you basic DB needs are taken care of, thanks to the bakery. Application scaffolding was a major like among the programmers. Application scaffolding helps you to generate CRUD templates automatically which is good enough for testing you DB with the app. Scaffolding cannot be easily modified so its not something for deployment. Its a feature you’d love while prototyping. Built-in validation can save you loads of time and leave the hassles of taking inputs and interacting with the user. Data sanitization saves you from all that unnecessary code needed for protecting your app from injection attacks. Such small and handy features have saved a lot of my time building apps and focusing on what really matters; the quality. An yes, they also provide Helpers. These are small routines to integrate various often-needed functionalities to your app. Helpers save the majority of your development time when compared to coding from scratch.

Somethings that were needed are still not implemented yet. My favourite from RoR was Migrations. It allows you to change your database in any manner without worrying about your SQL queries. Now I have to keep track of every query that had been made in the entire app.

Also, when comparing to Ruby on Rails, I find CakePHP to be quite dry with syntax. CakePHP has too much of array usage. It can irritate any beginner or seasoned programmer easily. Deployment is although a Cake forte. Any app on CakePHP requires minimum configuration time when deploying on a server. Compared to Ruby on Rails, its ‘cakewalk’. With all that said, I hope you try out CakePHP to forge out good quality apps.

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Five Features You Need For Successful Web Hosting

By Bart | Published: August 27, 2011



So you need hosting for that great website you have planned. You did the obligatory Google search and found out there are a gazillion web hosting companies. They all are offering what you need (web hosting) and you found the price varies from free to sky’s the limit. You also found that there are a ton of features some of which you have no idea of what they are. So now what you thought was going to be an easy task has just turned into a semester of study at your local junior college. Well believe me I know what you’re going through. Through trail, error and mistake I have learned that not all web hosting is created equal. While there area ton of features and hosting plans offered by web hosting companies, there are five basics factors you will want to make sure you are getting when selecting your hosting provider.   

1. Databases

Be sure you are getting ample databases to support and expand your website. All blogging, forum, and Websites that use any form of dynamic data applications or capture user data require a database to function. Unfortunately, most shared hosting packages only offer one to five databases; this can limit your ability to expand and may not be enough to carry out the planned functions of your website. The minimum number of databases you should look for is ten. Granted you may not need that many but if you do they will be readily available without spending additional money to add on databases. Usually the higher priced hosing plans offer more databases but you should not have to opt for a more expensive plan to get 10 databases.

2. Multiple Domains

Web hosting companies usually limit the number of domains you can serve from your hosting plan. Some hosting plans, usually the lower cost or free plans, only allow one domain name per plan. If you are for sure you will only have one website then this will be of no consequence. However, if you plan on having multiple websites then you should look for a hosting plan that offers the ability to host multiple sites from a single hosting plan. A hosting plan that offers at least 5 domains is a minimum. You should be aware that the resources of your hosting server will be shared by all domains assigned to the web hosting plan. Make sure the plan you get provides ample disk space, bandwidth and databases to keep multiple sites up and running.    

3. Developer Support

Developer support is the litmus test for any Web host. You may be starting with a simple website but as time goes on many times you may want to add additional functionality or features to your site. Also when adding new websites to your hosting plan additional capabilities may be needed. This is where a hosting provider can easily make or break your plans. If your web hosting provider is limited on developer languages or web application offerings you may have to find a new hosting provider. This is something you do not want to do. Having multiple hosting accounts or hosting providers is a sure way for confusion and frustration. Most hosting companies offer various language support and misc. application support but why not get it all. Yes there are hosting providers that offer everything you will ever need and it doesn’t cost any more.

No matter what hosting package you are considering, make sure you are getting the most support possible. Below is a list of the most popular website development items available:

o PHP

o MySQL

o Ruby on Rails

o Python

o CGI

o Perl

o Java

o ASP.net

o Coldfusion

o Frontpage Server Extensions

o Content Managment Tools

o eCommerce Solutions

o Project Management Tools

o Blogs

o Message Board/Forum Tools

o Photo Gallery Tools

o Admin Tools

o Misc. web-site add-ons

4. Customer support

Working late at night on that website, or perhaps on the weekend (Sunday Night)? Got a deadline to get a site up and running but just ran into a problem. Perhaps you just discovered you need an additional web app or database. It can be very frustrating and sometimes costly if you cannot get customer support from your hosting company when you need it (on your schedule). Always look for a web hosting service provider that provides 24×7 customer support. That is 24 hours a day 7 days a week and I don’t mean just Email support. Email support is important and should be part of the customer support package but what you really want is phone support. Many times problems or issues need to be discussed to reach a quick resolution, passing Emails around can takes days or sometimes weeks. Your number one tool for support should be the phone, make sure your web hosting company is awake and working when you are. You will want to make sure there is an on-line knowledge base as well. Not only is a knowledge base good for answering questions, it is also very useful for use as a learning tool.  

5. Server Uptime

Your website should be up and running 24×7. However things do happen in the real world that can sometimes cause a website to go down. In spite of real world problems, your web hosting provider should offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee. With today’s internet technology there are ways to insure websites stay functional virtually every minute of every day. Don’t settle for a hosting company that cannot guarantee your website is up and running around the clock.   

Web hosting is the backbone of the success of your website. While the content of your site is vitally important, any short coming in your web hosting service is sure to translate to failure at your site. The hosting company you start with is most likely the one you will stay with, so take the time to choose the right web hosting company from the start, you’ll be glad you did.     

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How to Find a Job Using Work at Home Dot Com Sites

By Bart | Published: August 27, 2011



With the popularity of telecommuting jobs on the rise, many new work at home dot com sites have arisen. Tailored to industry, gender, parenting status or other affiliations, these sites allow like-minded job seekers to have assistance finding a home-based job. In addition to job leads, professional information regarding given industries, and off-topic discussions, these sites allow for virtual networking which helps telecommuting job seekers stay on top of the latest trends and requirements in the virtual job market.

Finding a job using a home-based job site usually means belonging to more than one site. This is essential, as many job discussions and leads are only posted to one specific site. To better a job seeker’s chance of securing a telecommuting position, it is important to be an active member on as many work at home dot come job sites as possible.

While there are general home-based business sites, there are also others specifically suited for moms and dads. Additionally, these sites are also customized to assist various industries with professional development, trends and updates in a specified industry, and industry-related telecommuting jobs. To find the right home-based work site, perform an Internet search using your desired search term and other qualifying information. For example, if you were a computer professional looking for a home-based work site geared toward computer professionals, the search terms “work at home” “Ruby on Rails” (or other specialty) “forum”. This would help a job seeker find a home-based work site that is industry-specific and provide relevant job resources.

When joining a home-based work site, always remember proper forum behavior. Read all posts designed for new members to help answer any potential questions. Introduce yourself and listen to what others have to say. Many times job leads, recommended home-based companies and other relevant discussions occur. Home-based job sites are a great resource for the telecommuting employee; so be sure to take advantage of as many sites as you can to help land that perfect job.

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IT Staff Augmentation and IT Staffing Services in Offshore Software Development

By Bart | Published: August 27, 2011



Today many offshore software companies prefer IT staffing services to achieve competency and qualified human resources to match standard of working.

The need for dedicated developers, competent staff, skilled Indian programmers, adequate human resource, competitive pricing, considerable marginal profit, additional staff, efficiency in work process, manpower to work with subsidiary task and human resource management to improve the working standards of the staff urges OSD companies to go for IT staff augmentation.

Programmers who are hired in large number through IT staff augmentation are

1. PHP programmers
2. Dot-net programmers
3. Ruby on Rails developers
4. CMS developers
5. vTiger CRM developers
6. Sugar CRM developers
7. Open source developers
8. Java programmers and
9. Share-point programmers

Business with the right staffing strategy and the right outsourcing partner can reap substantial rewards, as many have already witnessed success. In current challenging economic environment IT Staff Augmentation is even more strategic than ever before and can help you stay competitive and survive the challenging market conditions.

Countries like India, Ireland, Canada and Israel are doing good IT at providing effective staff augmentation services. These countries supply the hidden talents, specialized programmers and experts with their advanced search techniques and recruitment policies.

Companies who offer this service have been growing in huge number today. Most of the offshore development companies have understood the demand for human resource, mismatching work-standards, intention of outsourcing companies who are ready to hire programmers from anywhere around the world. This triggers them to supply developers and programmers to the IT and ITES industries.

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Web Content Management Systems

By Bart | Published: August 14, 2011



In general, a Content Management System (CMS) is a system that manages work flow, usually in a collaborative environment. This system is a collection of procedures that simplify some complex or repetitive tasks. These procedures can be manual or computer-based. Website management is one of the tasks that needs some system to create, edit and manage content. Web pages are a typical example of content. You need some editor to create pages, some database to store them and some system to generate and retrieve pages when they are needed.

Web Content Management System (CMS) is a web application designed for creating and managing HTML content–web pages. Web CMS is used to manage a large collection of web resources (text, HTML code, images, PHP scripts, etc). Web CMS functions usually include: content creation, content control, content editing, maintenance functions, and functions special to each CMS. In general, web content management software applications provide authoring tools designed to allow users with little or no knowledge of programming languages or markup languages to create and manage content with relative ease. Therefore you don’t have to know anything about HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, AJAX or other fancy codes.

Web content management systems use a database to store content, metadata, or additional data that might be needed by the system. A web CMS usually contains a presentation layer which displays the content to web-site visitors based on a set of templates. A template is a basic page layout that contains content place holders, page styles and other page data that does not change.

Most web CMS applications use server side caching to boost performance. This works best when the web content is not changed often but visits happen on a regular basis. Administration of web CMS is typically done through web-based interfaces, but some systems require the use of a desktop client. A web CMS typically requires an experienced administrator to set up and add features, but is primarily a Web-site maintenance tool for non-technical administrators. It allows non-technical users to easily make changes to a website with little or no training.

There are many open-source web Content Management Systems you can download and use for free. Some well known free CMS systems are WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal to mention only the most popular. Those mentioned are based on PHP scripting language. There are also other CMS applications based on other languages like.NET, ASP.NET, Java, Java Bundle, Perl, Python, Ruby on Rails, etc.

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