TCH-Mike

This is pretty interesting, figured I would share http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/business/27novel.html

Proud / happy customer here too!! Funny to see this thread, hope to see it for many years to come

+1, my thoughts exactly

Happy birthday!!

It looks like WordPress 3.1 has been released The long-awaited fourteenth release of WordPress is now available. WordPress 3.1 “Reinhardt” is named in honor of the jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. Version 3.1 is available for download, or you can update from within your dashboard. This release features a lightning fast redesigned linking workflow which makes it easy to link to your existing posts and pages, an admin bar so you’re never more than a click away from your most-used dashboard pages, a streamlined writing interface that hides many of the seldom-used panels by default to create a simpler and less intimidating writing experience for new bloggers (visit Screen Options in the top right to get old panels back), and a refreshed blue admin scheme available for selection under your personal options. There’s a bucket of candy for developers as well, including our new Post Formats support which makes it easy for themes to create portable tumblelogs with different styling for different types of posts, new CMS capabilities like archive pages for custom content types, a new Network Admin, an overhaul of the import and export system, and the ability to perform advanced taxonomy and custom fields queries. With the 3.1 release, WordPress is more of a CMS than ever before. The only limit to what you can build is your imagination. (No video yet for 3.1, we’re going to add it later.) By the Numbers There were over two thousand commits to the codebase in the 3.1 cycle! For a more comprehensive look at everything that has improved in 3.1, check out 3.1’s Codex page or the more than 820 closed issues in Trac. Now is the time to drop by our development channels if you are interested in being involved with 3.2, as the agenda will be under discussion shortly. We’re hoping to get the 3.2 release out in a shorter development cycle (3.1 took too long) and include some fun improvements around plugins and the speed of the admin. (Don’t worry, we’re still planning on using PHP.) http://wordpress.org/news/2011/02/threeone/

Peggy is a heck of a guy! I agree, this kind of customer support is rare these days. TCH has always been like this and always will

Thanks Bill and the rest of TCH for finding this and resolving it lightening fast! Hello DustyDuck

This is interesting. Groupon turned down $6 billion from Google who was looking to purchase Groupon a month or two ago. I read about this today. I wonder if the people at Groupon are kicking themselves? Mashable on Thursday night reported Google will launch Google Offers, a new service that will take on group discount sites such as Groupon and LivingSocial. Mashable was leaked the fact sheet on the new venture, which indicates that Google Offers subscribers will receive a daily e-mail offer for a buy-in discount. According to its sources, businesses will get 80 percent of revenue derived from the coupon three days after a deal runs. Google will send the rest in 60 days, after processing any returns. The company's desire to get into the coupon business is well-known, especially since Groupon turned down a $6 billion buyout offer from Google. Google has all but confirmed that the new feature is real, telling Mashable, "Google is communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and participation in a test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program. This initiative is part of an ongoing effort at Google to make new products, such as the recent Offer Ads beta, that connect businesses with customers in new ways. We do not have more details to share at this time, but will keep you posted." Source: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2011/01/google_offers_confirmed_google.html

Happy Birthday!! Have a great one

Happy Birthday, Terri!!!

Interesting, figured I would share: Google's Eric Schmidt has been replaced as CEO by co-founder Larry Page. Photograph: Paul Sakuma/AP Eric Schmidt's departure after nearly 10 years as chief executive of Google, to be replaced by the intense Larry Page (after whom Google's PageRank algorithm, the system for determining where web pages should rank in search results, is named), has been quite a while coming...... Read the rest here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jan/21/google-eric-schmidt-larry-page

Despite denials from Google, a security researcher continues to assert that the Search King’s reCAPTCHA system for protecting Web sites from spammers can be successfully exploited by Internet junk mail panderers. Researcher Jonathan Wilkins published a paper recently that included an analysis of reCAPTCHA’s security. In automated attacks he conducted against the system, he reported he had an alarming success rate of 17.5 percent. CAPTCHA–which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart–is a method for foiling automated attacks by spammers on Web sites. Before a Net surfer can perform at a site a task, such as setting up an email account or adding comments to a blog posting, he or she is presented with the image of a word or phrase that has been distressed in some way. The warped image is intended to thwart scanners and optical recognition software programs used to automate the compromising of web sites by spammers. The idea is that humans can read the characters in the image and type them into a form while machines can’t. Some simple math reveals just how alarming Wilkins’ findings are. The operator of even a modest botnet of 10,000 machines would be perfectly happy with a success rate of 0.01 percent. That would mean 10 new gmail accounts could be created every second or 864,000 new accounts a day from which spam could be launched. Google counters that Wilkins test targeted an old form of reCAPTCHA from 2008 that’s been changed. “[T]his study does not reflect the effectiveness of reCAPTCHA’s current technology against machine solvers,” a Google spokesperson told The Register. “We’ve found reCAPTCHA to be far more resilient while also striking a good balance with human usability, and we’ve received very positive feedback from customers.” Wilkins acknowledged that his initial tests were on an older version of reCAPTCHA, but since that time, he has conducted tests on the new images produced by the system and found them to be even weaker than the older ones. In one of his original tests on the system, his success rate was five in 200. When that test was run on the new reCAPTCHA, the rate was 23 in 100. The major difference between the old and new versions of reCAPTCHA, according to Wilkins, is the use of horizontal lines to obscure the characters in the image. While the use of the lines makes it harder for machines to recognize a reCAPTCHA phrase–although Wilkins asserts the lines can be subverted easily by spammers–it also makes the phrase harder to read by humans, too. New reCAPTCHA images drop the lines but add distortion to the image. They’re easier to read for humans, but, alas, they’re also easier for machines to crack. Unlike most CAPTCHA systems, Google’s uses images with two words. That’s because Google uses reCAPTCHA for two purposes. Like other CAPTCHA systems, it’s designed to frustrate spammers, but it’s also incorporated into Google’s efforts to digitize books. When a word in a book scan can’t be recognized by Google’s OCR software, it’s sent to the reCAPTCHA pool. So when a person enters a reCAPTCHA phrase into a form, Google can discover what its OCR program couldn’t, without having to hire human editors to review scanning results. One weakness of CAPTCHA schemes, though is that they use words that can be found in a dictionary. This makes it easier for machines to crack the phrases because they have something to compare them to for errors. In addition, reCAPTCHA uses a “one-off” system. That means a letter in a word can be incorrect, and it will still be accepted by the system. So if the reCAPTCHA phrase contains the word “meat” and a Webster enters “peat,” his or her response will still be interpreted as a valid one. Some alternatives to CAPTCHA avoid words entirely. Microsoft, for instance, has developed a scheme called Asirra that is totally based on images of cats and dogs. To perform a task protected by Asirra, a netizen is presented with an array of 12 pictures and asked to identify each as either a canine or feline. This method is called Human Interactive Proof, or HIP. To be effective, HIP systems need to be supported by large databases that tax the computational power of an attacking spammer. Microsoft does that by using the picture database at Petfinder.com, which contains some three million photos. All information from: http://www.allspammedup.com/2010/01/google-recaptcha-cracked/ Written by John P Mello

Thank you guys for making it that easy!

I would just like to extend a huge THANK YOU to Bill, Dick, Alex, Carl, Ryan and the rest of TCH for going above and beyond for me once again. I have been with TCH for....geez I guess closer to 10 years now. I started off with a basic shared package and have moved my way up to my second dedicated server. Over the weekend they migrated everything from my first dedicated server over to my second without a hitch. The downtime was virtually unnoticeable, every last file and bit of SQL databases were switched over with zero data loss or issues. The process could not have been smoother and I know that I would not receive that type of server anywhere else. This is the exact reason why I will remain a Total Choice Hosting customer for the rest of my life Another job well done by TCH.

Does anybody have any experience with Sphinx Search? (www.sphinxsearch.com) I'm looking for a way to search and yield results from a vBulletin database and WordPress database. I'm open to suggestions and don't care if I use Sphinx or not, I have just heard good things about it. Thanks for the help.

Oops sorry about that. I will change that in a bit and get back to you!

I'm starting up BrownStStudios.com which is basically going to be a site where the 13 artists of Brown Street Studios (local to me) will have a place to go online, blog, post pictures, interact with other artists on the site / people who are viewing the site, to let the world know about upcoming artist events in the area, and more. I will need a system where each artist can register and be able to go online and seamlessly post pictures into some sort of gallery, and to also be able to blog all they want and have regular site surfers blog as well. I would like each artist to have a profile as well. I'm thinking maybe for the blogging part I can use something like wordpress, but I'm not 100% sure. What do you all think the best thing would be for the gallery and blog tool to accomplish something like this? Thanks!

Thomas, Sounds good. Here's where TCH is on New York Mustangs.com - http://newyorkmustangs.com/forums/partners.php - Linked from all forum pages I will add it to Ford Piano later on

Private Message sent

Good find Thomas! I'll have to upgrade to 3.8.2 tonight (even though I just upgraded to 3.8.1). There was a security flaw in the 3.8.1 when it was first released which required a patch but this one seems like basic bug fixes / minor updates.

I have a bunch of sites w/ you but the 2 most important ones are FordPiano.com and NewYorkMustangs.com. Ford Piano is my families business that was start in the 1890's by my great grandfather and has fed us for 4 generations now (me being the fourth). It would probably belong in the Commercial section. www.FordPiano.com New York Mustangs is a web site dedicated to Mustang drivers in NYS that I started. There's a forum averaging 20-30 new members a day, an interactive events map, member discounts @ various shops / stores, and much more. I'm thinking blog page? But not sure. www.NewYorkMustangs.com Thanks a lot!