Your choice of hosting for your website is arguably the most important decision you’ll make in the lifetime of the site. The quality and features of your chosen hosting service will directly influence the performance and availability of your site for you and your customers.

A good hosting package will give you the services you need to run your current website, as well as access to extra services should you decide to expand or reposition your online presence.

A better hosting package will give you piece of mind – knowing your site is secure and regularly backed up means you can focus on running your business.

WDL offer several types of hosting, at varying levels of scale and feature sets. The most common of these are Shared Hosting, Virtual Private servers (VPS) and Dedicated servers.

1) Shared hosting
This is the most commonly used service – we rent you space on one of our managed servers for the hosting of your site. The package cost will depend on the level of services, drive space, and bandwidth your site requires. You can upgrade or downgrade your hosting package to suit the changing needs of your site.
This type of hosting is most suitable for small to medium static or ecommerce websites.

2) VPS hosting
A VPS is ideal if your site needs more resources than is available under a shared hosting package. It allows us to customise the server operating system and hosting environment to allow for specific or unusual requirements. It also offers the improved security of a private server with limited shared systems or resources.
This hosting is ideal for larger ecommerce sites or complex high-load applications like video/media sharing platforms.

3) Dedicated servers
These are physical server machines rented exclusively for the use of a customer. You can put as few or as many of your sites on these machines as you like. Unlimited access to the full resources of a dedicated server can make a great deal of difference to the performance of the hosted sites and applications. The advantages of Dedicated server hosting are similar to VPS hosting, with the added advantage of hosting all your sites and services on your own server where no-one else can influence it’s performance or availability.
Dedicated server packages are offered with or without ongoing maintenance/management agreements as these machines are rented ‘as is’ – you will need someone to look after them to keep them secure and up to date.
This type of hosting is aimed at customers running one or more high-load sites, possibly with additional online services or applications.

WDL will discuss the best hosting option with you when you approach us for a new site, or when you’re moving an existing site to us. Aside from the options above, we can source specific hosting services to match any unusual or specialist needs, such as:

• overseas hosting accounts for localised websites
• cloud hosting for 100% uptime, scalable, business-critical services
• secure online data storage for resource / document hosting
• online media storage with distributed upload systems – capable of uninterrupted uploading of GB’s of data

Acronyms and buzzwords aside, we appreciate that what our customers really want from our hosting is high availability, effective and invisible backups, and the ability to provide a real response if something does go wrong. Knowing this, all of our hosting servers are located in industry-leading datacentres, protected by next-generation security and served by multiple-redundant fibre backbone internet access. Our backup systems image each server several times a day, and can provide a worst-case bare metal recovery in a matter of hours.

We haven’t lost many hosting customers; of those who have left no-one has gone because of poor service provision or support. That makes us proud and more than a little happy.

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Unless you have been in hiding without access to any kind of media whatsoever it would have been hard to miss a QR code over the last few years. You will no doubt be aware of the strange looking little collection of black and white squares that adorn advertisements on bus shelters in magazines, shops and even on the television.

These little square blocks are QR codes and are a ways to embed information. QR codes are now used for any number of reasons by businesses and individuals alike. Dan Smigrod has a comprehensive list in his post ‘101 Uses For Quick Response (QR) Codes‘, which includes business cards with imbedded contact information, websites with secret/extra areas, discount codes for products and to release more content on dvd’s.

Wikipedia states “A QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code) first designed for the automotive industry. More recently, the system has become popular outside of the industry due to its fast readability and comparatively large storage capacity. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded can be made up of any kind of data (e.g., binary, alphanumeric, or Kanji symbols).The beauty of these codes lies in the fact that they are completely unobtrusive but can provide direct, location specific information when requested.”

A traditional barcode is scanned and directly turned into a series of binary values read from left to right. Examples of these can be found on any product you find any any shop. QR codes allow the information to be read both left and right, but also vertically. This means it can store far more information.

The four squares in each corner (see image above) provide information to the QR reader (you can download an app on any smart phone – for an Android version try QR Reader for Android , for IPhone try QR Reader for iPhone. They give the camera “anchors” in the image so that it can determine its orientation, alignment, and other features.

Many businesses are developing their own QR codes as smartphones become increasingly more popular and people want faster and more direct lines of communication between the products and services that they they’re interested in.

QR codes provide a quick and easy way for consumers and individuals to interact with the world around them and will no doubt continue to grow as medium of conveying information. WDL recognises the importance of new ways to promote your business and can create a unique QR Code for your business or product and add it to your website, your printed materials, or indeed anywhere you want it!

Contact us for more information about QR Codes.

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Internet scammers are becoming smarter, ever more complex ways to steal your information are commonplace and making safety and security online is paramount. Last week Facebook launched a new security guide for parents, teens and teachers – the “Guide to Facebook Security”.

The downloadable handbook written by internet security experts Linda McCarthy, Keith Watson and Denise Weldon-Siviy and covers topics such as choosing the best password to make your Facebook account secure; taking back control of a hacked account and avoiding phishing (a way of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication).

The team at Facebook say “If you’re not using one-time passwords, secure browsing, or even tracking your account activity, this guide shows you how. It even explains why account thieves and malware pushers want your account.”

Top Tips for Staying Secure on Facebook;

• Only Friend people you know.
• Create a good password and use it only for Facebook.
• Don’t share your password.
• Change your password on a regular basis.
• Share your personal information only with people and companies that need it.
• Log into Facebook only ONCE each session. If it looks like Facebook is asking you to log in a second time, skip the links and  directly type www.facebook.com into your browser address bar.
• Use a one-time password when using someone else’s computer. •  Log out of Facebook after using someone else’s computer. •  Use secure browsing whenever possible.  •  Only download Apps from sites you trust.
• Keep your anti-virus software updated.
• Keep your browser and other applications up to date.
• Don’t paste script (code) in your browser address bar.
• Use browser add-ons like Web of Trust and Firefox’s NoScript to keep your account from being hijacked.
• Beware of “goofy” posts from anyone—even Friends. If it looks like something your Friend wouldn’t post, don’t click  on it.
• Scammers might hack your Friends’ accounts and send links from their accounts. Beware of enticing links coming from  your Friends.

You can download your copy from the Facebook Security Page.

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Last night saw the Colchester Digital group meet for the 3rd time in it’s short 3-month history. Around 25 members attended the informal get together at the River Lodge bar in Colchester.

Members from many different areas of the digital spectrum – software developers, social media guru’s, web developers, digital marketers, SEO practitioners and graphic designers – were among the attendees. Topics of conversation ranged from the Google + social platform to the new html5 markup language and the various projects that members are working on.

Colchester Digital is a Meetup group for individuals and businesses in and around the Colchester area.

Spanning the digital sectors, our members are developers, designers, digital image and video specialists, marketers, PR, social media and SEO experts, and everything between.

The group welcomes freelancers, graduates, experts, professionals and anybody who feels that they could gain from the group, or add something to it.

Colchester Digital members meet once a month (usually the 1st Wednesday) at various locations in and around the Colchester area. We get together to share knowledge, experience and information, and where possible to collaborate on a wider scale. It’s essentially a group of like-minded people who want to grow a bigger and better foundation for the digital community in Colchester.
Please note that you can still join the group even if you are unable to attend a Meetup or event. The group pages allow for interaction with other members and for dialogue to occur, and your suggestions on future Meetups or events are more than welcome. There are no expectations if you join, all we ask is that you give us your feedback and input your ideas when you can.

Future Colchester Digital Meetups will include speakers, trainers and workshops on various aspects of the internet and associated industries. So tell your friends and colleagues to join Colchester Digital. The more members there are, the more you can get out of it.
To join the group, and keep up-to-date, simply go to www.colchesterdigital.co.uk and click the button in the top right-hand corner of the page.

If you have any questions email us at social@colchesterdigital.co.uk, or join and leave a comment.

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Every now and again we come across a quirky little idea that tries to make our lives easier, but sometimes we come across an application – or app as the cool kids are putting it – that is just designed to take away a little bit of stress.

For all Photoshop users this app could be a blessing. How many times have you yelled words not fit to be heard until after the watershed whilst Photoshop is loading and saving your work. This particular app brings in all your RSS feeds each time the loading bar appears, so instead of getting irate you can catch up on your latest news without leaving the confines of Photoshop, making your work a little less stressful – hopefully!

http://www.popuload.com/

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The team here at WDL have decided to set up and launch a Meetup group for like-minded digital professionals in Colchester, and the surrounding areas – www.colchesterdigital.co.uk.

The thinking behind the group is to get as many of us together so we can collaborate, share knowledge, experience and information. Essentially, an opportunity to regularly catch up and meet others who earn their living (or want to earn their living…) from the Internet. Somewhere to discuss issues that have a direct effect on our businesses, or just a time and place to have a drink and a chat. We know there are enough of us out there to justify this Meetup, so we thought why not; it’s not hurting anybody and it has the potential to be really useful for the members.

Initially we’ll get together once a month (1st Meetup – 8th June, 2011 at WDL, East Street, Colchester), but there is scope to meet more often, and at different places, it’s up to you – it’s your group! There will be no expectations so just bring yourself, a friend if you want, and perhaps a few business cards – you never know who might be there.

To join the group, go to our Meetup page at www.colchesterdigital.co.uk

If you have any questions don’t hesitate to contact us

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Recently our Business Administrator Natalie, had some issues with losing her saved tabs in her Firefox and Chrome browsers.  If you don’t know Natalie this kind of problem can often result in the stamping of feet, the muttering of swear words (nice ones) and in worst cases, shouting at Craig, who according to Natalie, is “responsible for anything to do with computers.”

Anyway, this time on the instruction of Elliot – whose ears were hurting – she embarked on some research to find a fix to her problem. Thankfully it didn’t take long to discover a solution as she quickly came across ‘Tabcloud’ – a browser tab and session manager that allows you save groups of open tabs to access later. With Tabclouds for both Firefox and Chrome, Natalie’s nightmare was over (phew!).

We just thought we’d let you know as Natalie has calmed down now and peace has been restored – so it must be good. Check it out for yourself – http://chrometabcloud.appspot.com

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Following the failure of the Olympic Ticketmaster site to cope with the rush for tickets last night, I was among many thousands of potential customers who discovered two things: the power of television, and the consequences of poor technical planning.

Like many others (it turned out) I left it till virtually the last minute to register for tickets for the 2012 Olympics. Obviously that isn’t the best time to register, but I felt sure that the organisers and their technical partner Ticketmaster had anticipated a late surge for tickets, and would have enough redundancy in their systems to cope. All was going swimmingly until the BBC news ran an item on the ticket deadline. Immediately, the website crashed, and the remainder of the process was painful. The site crashed repeatedly, sometimes gracefully with an apology message, but sometimes with a cryptic technical message. I persevered, because I knew that my bookings would probably be OK if I refreshed the page – but I do wonder how many people simply gave up, and will miss out on their tickets as a consequence.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a lot of anger today aimed at the organisers. No doubt they will point the finger at the public, saying we’re daft to leave booking to the last minute. Surely though, they could have foreseen this rush? Anyway, I got to the end of the process. All I have to do now is wait to see if I win the ticket lottery and get the chance to go, even if it’s to the qualifying rounds of the Greco-Roman wrestling!

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We’re all a bit over excited in the office today as a van load of big boxes have been dropped off this morning. It didn’t take any of us long to work out what was in them though, as last week Elliot informed the team that he had ordered new 21.5” iMacs for everyone. When he delivered this momentous news, I think you could probably hear the cheers and whoops of delight as far away as Wivenhoe. Nearly everyone is happy to see the old and frankly troublesome PCs leaving – preferably on the back of a horse and cart as soon as possible. We do have our suspicions however that Russ may try to sneak one out the fire exit or secret one under his desk, in a bid to rescue it.

Those who already love their own Macs, in particular, Matt, Dave, Richard, Lloyd and Daniel can’t wait to get their mitts on the lovingly designed and beautifully crafted toys (erm, I mean work stations).

Craig will be dishing out the Macs, one by one, to those of us who can show the most restraint first. Hopefully, fingers crossed, we will all be in possession of one by the end of the week. Web Developer Dave contained his excitement by stating, “Macs are an investment for life and can change your lifestyle.” Internet Marketer Daniel said, “Using a Mac is ultimately a nicer computer experience. It makes my work more enjoyable.” Whatever you’re opinion of Macs, it’s difficult to escape the fact that they are beautiful, the screen quality is stunning and they’re so easy to use.

Elliot and Craig justified the switch by listing some of the benefits as follows; “They’re allegedly greener and therefore better for the environment. They have a longer and more productive lifespan. Less system downtime means less support. They look nicer and make people happier. Less wires and peripheries mean less clutter. They’re not as noisy as PC’s. And finally, and most importantly, the majority of the team prefer them.”

We’ll keep you updated on how the pretty little bundles of joy are settling in to their new home as soon as we can.

“Once you go Mac, you never go back”.

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