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Kenny is owner of webhostpark and has been working in hosting industry since 2006. We provide unbiased hosting reviews and release the latest promo news. Follow me on Google plus

BetterLinux Review

betterlinux review

In hostingcon 2012, there's a newly released product called "BetterLinux". It's well known not only because of the great features it brought to us but also the great name of the project leader "Matt Heaton" – Founder of Bluehost, Hostmonster and Fastdomain!

Betterlinux Introduction

From the official explanation, BetterLinux is a collection of system resource management and monitoring tools intended for hosting providers, data centers, SaaS companies, and cloud environments. Basically, we can call it the Linux server optimizer. BetterLinux was officially released at Hostingcon 2012.

What does betterlinux exactly do?

The purpose of BL is to make linux better by allowing a system administrator to be in complete control of the linux system. The spotlights of BL are focused on following

The optimization over system I/O and can be fully customized based our real needs. From the official announcement, BL can triple (3X) the customers per hosting server.

Support for most popular linux distributions. CentOS 6.x, RHEL 6.x, 2.6.32.x custom build, 3.4.x custom build, OpenSUSE 12.x. Others like Debian, Ubuntu Server, OracleLinux etc are being worked on and will be available shortly!

Fully customizable. BetterLinux is pre-packaged and only few commands to get it installed on existing servers. However, if you don't like the way it developed, you can request the BL team to build your own kernel by following your exact requirements.

FREE to use. BetterLinux is 100% free for private and qualified non-profit use. For commercial purpose use, we only need to pay $9/mo per server!

For full list of BL features, simply check out it's official site at http://www.betterlinux.com

Betterlinux vs Cloudlinux, which is better?

While we're talking about linux server optimization, there's another popular name called "cloudlinux" which is an optimized CentOS destribution. From many hosting production server experience, cloudlinux is approved to be stable and reliable server system. But how is it compared to BetterLinux? Well, to compare a proven product with a new one is really hard. But we can still compare something based on their difference.

First of all, the cloudlinux is a complete pre-optimized linux system and can be used instantly after installation. On the other hand, BetterLinux is just an independant linux optimizer, we have to get the base OS installed in order to run it.

Secondly, cloudlinux has almost everything pre-configured. If we need to make further customization we have to edit everything manually. However, the BetterLinux is actually a manager over system tools so we can easily change configurations over the specific service.

Lastly, cloudlinux is 100% CentOS based which means we have to switch to this OS if we're currently use other linux distributions. Instead of that, BetterLinux is an independant optimizer and can be applied to many different Linux os, this greatly convenienced people in using it.

But what about their actual performance on live server? It's so far a secret since there's not a sample yet. The BL is a result of multi-years working project. From BL official site, it says BL already deployed to bluehost/hostmonster and other EIG brands.. Based on the recent less complaint over EIG service, the BL might have helped some.

From the up to date feedbacks over BL, seems it does work great and could optimize deeper than cloudlinux. If you're server admin and would ike to keep everything under control, it's highly suggested to try out this product.

Google Killed a Donkey

From one CNET reporting, someone found a doneky lying apparently motionless in the road in Kweneng, Botswana. It's hotly discussed if it's hit by the google street view car.

From the Google side, a spokesperson insisted: "Our Street View teams take the safety of people and donkeys very seriously." So is that doneky killed by google streat view car? It's hard to judge by a single picture, we might compare several ones from this event map.

On this map, the donkey was walking from previous picture

google street view car hit a donkey

Now, it's lying on the road

google street view car hit a donkey

From the next ones we could see the donkey is struggling.

google street view car hit a donkey

Obviously, the doneky was down there before and possiblely was hit by google car. However, according to Melbourne University's Adjunct Professor of Zoology, that donkey was walking backwards in street view images, it could be already lying down and then subsequently got up and wandered off when the car was driving more and more close.

So, possiblely the donkey was merely enjoying something we all occasionally need — a dust bath.

TOP 10 Microsoft Business Nightmare

Microsoft has been leading the PC market for many years. However, as tech improvements and more and more competitors are joining in. Businessinsider site listed the top 10 nightmare scenarios that could lead to its business collapsing.

1. The iPad eats the consumer PC market

ipad

This is happening right now. In the third quarter of 2012, PC sales were down 8% on a year-over-year basis worldwide. In the U.S., sales were down 14%. A big chunk of the decline can be attributed to the rise of the iPad. Apple sold 14 million iPads last quarter, which is more than the top PC maker, Lenovo, which shipped 13.7 million PCs. Throw in Apple's 4.9 million Macs, and it's the top computer maker by a mile.

As the personal computer market goes …

2. Employees gradually switch away from using Windows PCs for work

MS employee drop windows pc

This trend has not played out that dramatically in 2012. However, British bank Barclays bought 8,500 iPads at employees' insistence this year.

And a recent survey showed that the iPhone has overtaken RIM as the smartphone of choice for enterprises. As more people get comfortable with Apple's mobile products at work, Microsoft will have to worry about them converting their Windows-based computers to Macs at work, too.

Microsoft has a plan to combat this but …

3. Windows 8 fails to stop the iPad

Windows 8 fails to stop the iPad

Gulp. It's still early, but every most data points say Windows 8 is not going to make a dent in the iPad.

— NPD says Windows tablet sales were "nonexistent" between 10/21 and 11/17.
— It also says Windows sales were down 21% over that period on a year-over-year basis.
— Piper analyst Gene Munster was in a Microsoft store for two hours on Black Friday and saw zero Surface sales.
— Microsoft reportedly cut its Surface order in half.
— Ballmer said Surface sales were "modest."

Meanwhile, we can't think of any analyst who has cut his or her iPad estimate for the quarter based on Surface sales. In Microsoft's defense, it says it sold 40 million licenses, which it says is out pacing Windows 7. There's a chance analysts are wrong.

4. Loyal developers start to leave the Microsoft platform

Loyal developers start to leave the Microsoft platform

We're not sure if this happening or not. So far, the early signs are actually positive for Microsoft. It has over 20,000 apps in its Windows app store. Windows 8 is only a month old. At the same time, Microsoft doesn't have a Facebook app for the Surface, and one of the biggest complaints from reviewers was the lack of good apps for Windows 8.

Windows Phone has over 100,000 apps, but iOS has 700,000 apps, with 275,000 made specifically for the iPad.

5. Windows Phone gets no traction despite the Nokia deal and RIM's collapse

Windows Phone gets no traction despite the Nokia deal and RIM's collapse

This has happened. Despite everything Microsoft has tried in mobile for the last two years, consumers aren't buying it. The latest data from IDC says Microsoft has 2% of the global mobile market share. And the latest phone from Nokia is thick and heavy compared to phones from Apple and Samsung. We don't expect it to be a blockbuster.

Suddenly, all the dominoes are in place for a lot of bad things to start happening. …

6. Office loses relevance

Office loses relevance

Microsoft's Office has been a juggernaut. In fiscal 2012, the Microsoft business division did ~$24 billion in sales.

Last year, we cautioned, "Office runs only on Microsoft platforms and the Mac. As employees start to do more and more work from non-Windows smartphones and iPads, companies may start to question why they're still buying Office for every employee and upgrading it every two or three releases."

The death of Office, has not happened, though. Despite Google's attempt to create Docs, companies aren't giving up on Excel.

7. Microsoft's other business applications start to erode

Microsoft's other business applications start to erode

If Windows continues to fade, and if Office starts to fade, then corporations have less reason to adopt Microsoft technologies on the back end like Exchange Server for email, SharePoint Server for collaboration, Lync for videoconferencing and real-time communication, and Dynamics for CRM and accounting.

Exchange, SharePoint, and Dynamics all bring in more than $1 billion per year, and Lync is Microsoft's fastest growing business application. Plus, they pull through a lot of other Microsoft products. …

8. The platform business collapses

MS platform business collapses

For the last decade, Microsoft's fastest growing business segment has been Server & Tools, which did $7.4 billion in sales last year.

A lot of these sales come because Microsoft business apps — Exchange, SharePoint, and Dynamics — require these products. But as companies stop buying these apps, they will have less reason to buy the Microsoft platform products that run them, and the System Center ($1 billion+) products used to manage them.

9. The Xbox was never going to make up the slack, and Microsoft can no longer afford to keep investing in it

The Xbox was never going to make up the slack

In a year of relative gloom, Microsoft's Xbox has become a big bright spot for the company. Kinect is great technology, people are still buying the console, and it's been a great entry point for Microsoft to take over the living room. But, for a company like Microsoft, Xbox isn't enough. Microsoft had $21 billion in operating income last year. The Entertainment and Devices division, which is home to the Xbox had $364 million in operating income. So, as nice as Xbox is, it's not going to be enough to boost Microsoft if the rest of the business collapses.

10. Microsoft suffers a huge quarterly loss. Ballmer retires to play golf

Microsoft suffers a huge quarterly loss. Ballmer retires to play golf

Let's not kid ourselves — it's going to take a sudden, unexpected disaster at Microsoft to get Ballmer out of the company.

In 2012, Microsoft had its first ever quarterly loss as a public company because it had to write down the $6.2 billion acquisition of aQuantive. Investors mostly shrugged. If Microsoft posted a real loss people would freak out. But that's going to be nearly impossible in the near term.

In the long term …

Is this just a bad dream?

Last year, we concluded by saying, "Fortunately for Microsoft, none of this is going to happen. Windows 8 will reassert the dominance of the Windows PC. Office and other business products will remain corporate necessities, and developers will never be able to ignore Microsoft. Windows Phone will become a viable third mobile platform, the Xbox will continue to dominate the living room, and new products will surprise the pundits who thought Microsoft couldn't innovate. Even Bing will finally make a profit someday."

This year, it's a lot harder to say much of that. Windows 8 doesn't seem to be reasserting the dominance of the PC. Windows Phone is not a viable third platform. Bing is still burning money. The Microsoft nightmare scenario is actually becoming a reality.

Increase Recurring Purchase Rate

improve recurring purchase on your website

Online marketing is the same as traditional shop, we always need to make lots of efforts to be profitable. To get recurring customer order on website is pretty essential to improve our sales. We need a perfect website and communicate with clients professionally so they will visit our store frequently and make recurring purchase. Here we're going to share several golden tips from a successful website owner. Use it with your wisdom and hopefully you'll be the next millionaire!

Tip 1
Free trial before purchasing – It's a popular trick for most people. We always see numorous free tasting or free drink promotion in food stores. Most of the time, if the customer accepted your free offer, they will pay to continue with your further offers. The point is we must offer "Quarlity Free Products" to satisfy our potential clients, and the most important is we do give our customer what they pay or else we're just cheaters.

Tip 2
Keep communication with existing clients – Why? Because customers are easy to forget us, if we don't track them in time, they might completely forget who we are.

From traditional business, we can call our customers or visit them directly. But what we do for online sales? Email is absolutely the perfect solution. We can easily send our latest promotions and contact tunnels to people via email. Remember, we must be honest and sincere in writing the letter or else people will simply treat it as SPAM and delete it with no glance! Why do we use email? Because it's free and many people would not like to leave TEL numbers to avoid disturbance, but email is true. At the end of our email letter, we must provide a good reason for people to purchase our products so they might re-visit our website and make orders.

Tip 3
Encourage customer to advertise our products – Because of the competition, it's more and more hard to find a new customer. If our existing clients could introduce for us, that would be great and most of the time it will be successful. How to do it? Here're several detailed methods

a. Member score program – Many stores have such programes. It means customer will get scores by purchasing our products. The scores can be used for further discounts or exchange other products. Use it wisely but not limited, for example people will get scores for introducing other people to join and buy, more purchase/introductions means higher level and they will get more privileges.

b. Give out – It's popularly used for affiliate program by many companies.

c. Find visitor really needs – Sometimes our customer is brought to us by other people's experience. They are interested with the promotion or privileges from those people. For example we're selling credit cards and offer some discount by purchase via our cards, if one of our clients showed our advantages to families/friends, they will be our potential clients.

It's hard for marketing, we don't have that much time and engergy in client exploitation. If we can encourage our existing clients to be our advertiser, sales will get flying increase and our company can really grow up. No matter how hard it is, we must do it if we want to be successful!

Mobile Ads Blocker

Mobile ads blocker

Unlike the computer's big screen, it's very limited for mobile devices. That's why most mobile websites are pretty simple. However, many websites don't have mobile version and filled with lots of ads. In order to navigate smoothly, it's necessary to filter those ads. In this article we're going to discuss how to filter mobile ads for Android.

Universal method
Adblock Plus for Android – Developed by adblockplus.org, professional in wifi ads filtering. 3G mode filtering is supported as Root. The rules can be found/edited at "/data/data/org.adblockplus.android/files/patterns.ini"

Root: hosts – The same as windows hosts file. We can block any domain names or IPs by redirecting to 217.0.0.0 or any invalid ip. The default location for Android hosts file: /etc/hosts

Chrome for Android(root)
We can define custom CSS for desktop Chrome. Chrome for Android comes with the same features. You can visit google chrome docs about how to customize the layouts. Custom.css location: /data/data/com.android.chrome/app_chrome/Default/User StyleSheets/Custom.css

Firefox for Android
Adblock Plus is almost the standard ads filtering plugin for firefox (both desktop and mobile device). Custom rules can be edited in Root. File location: /data/data/org.mozilla.firefox/files/mozilla/xxxxxxx.dafault/adblockplus/patterns.ini

There're several other popular plugins like NoScript, Sylish etc. They are all mobile compatible.

Opera Mobile
Opera Mobile is the same as desktop version. Ads filtering is configured via urlfilter.ini and custom.css. How to configure? Just follow the tips below

opera:config – network- url filter file, select the urlfilter.ini location -> save
opera:config – user prefs – local css file, select the custom.css location -> save

There're also existing rules available on net, for ex http://www.enkoo.net/adblock-in-opera-mobile.html

Best Web Development Tools & Frameworks

Web development has continued it's rapid progress in 2012, HTML5 showed it's advantages for cross-platforms, CSS3 is being applied to more and more real-world projects, responsive design techniques were known and used by more and more people. In this article we collected the most representative fron-end web development tools and frameworks. It's absolutely a great list of favorite tools either from full-featured IDE to small frameworks and tools, they will help reduce the development complexity and save our time greatly.

NO.01 Foundation 3
Foundation 3 is developed by ZURB corporation, known as the world's most advanced front-end frame. By using flexible grid system, developers can design the page layouts in quick time. The grid could be any size we need and easily to adapt to a variety of screen sizes.

foundation 3

NO.02 Proto.io
Proto.io is a new interface design tool, specially designed for mobile applications. The web based online environment let developers create all popular screen prototype projects easily such as iPhone, iPad, Android apps.

The spotlight of Proto.io is it's interactive abilities with pre-designed pages. It supports all touch gestures as well as slides, flips and fade animations etc. It's simple to use and available for free!

Proto.io

NO.03 Fontello
Why is it so difficult to find a group of icons that cover all basic functions? No need to confuse any more, Fontello has all our needed icons and we can choose to compile our own sets. You can download all icon set from Github. This project is opensource and highly recommended to donate if you liked!

Fontello

NO.04 Bugherd
Bugherd provides a clean, well-organized approach to deal with feedback and bug fix etc. We no longer need the complex email feedback method but simply add a JS button on website so visitors be able to submit comments or suggestions efficiently. Bugherd provides us a friendly and intuitive interface to manage all stuff.

Bugherd

NO.05 Sencha Touch 2
There is no doubt that mobile touch-screen devices have brought great impact to Web development. Sencha Touch is an HTML5 based mobile application development framework. It's designed to attrack HTML5 developers to use this platform to develop web apps for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry such devices. The improved API, complete docs and tutorials as well as reliable local integration let Sencha Touch 2 strong competitor in Mobile frameworks.

Sencha Touch

NO.06 Dreamweaver CS6
Dreamweaver is a classic Web design software, the latest release Dreamweaver CS6 supports HTML5 and CSS3 coding. The JQuery extended support for mobile and Adobe PhoneGap framework can help you establish projects for various screens, mobile phones and tablet computers. CS6 is integrated with lots of functions including Adobe Business Catalyst, FTPS, FTPeS support, Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe BrowserLab and many other features.

Dreamweaver CS6

NO.07 Cloud9 IDE
Cloud 9 is NodeJS based online integrated development tool. Syntax highlighting supported for C#, C++, Python, Perl, Ruby, Scala and many common development languages.

The friendly built-in Vim modes support for popular version control system, like Git,Mercurial and SVN. It also has very powerful plugin system to extend its functions, for example with CSSLint and JSBeautify, Cloud9 becomes a very useful code beautifier.

Cloud9 IDE

NO.08 Adobe Edge Inspect
Formerly known as Adobe Shadow, Edge Inspect is a very useful tool for mobile developers. You only need to connect your device (Android and iOS) and your computer, then your site will be displayed on each of these devices. This absolutely let debug more effectively. Developers will see how website being displayed on the different devices.

Adobe Edge Inspect

NO.09 Adobe Brackets
You might feel that all code editors are very similar and no further innovation available. Brackets let us know there're still lots of features to explore. Brackets is open source HTML, CSS and JavaScript development tool from Adobe. The core effort of bracket is to reduce duplication in development process such as browser refresh, element style editing and so on.

Adobe Brackets

NO.10 Modernizr 2.6
Modernizr is an open source JavaScript library. It's used to detect users' browser compatibility over HTML5 and CSS3. By doing that, developers can make full use of the advanced features from HTML5 and CSS3 but not to worry about compatibility issues among different browsers.

Modernizr

NO.11 Sublime Text 2
If you want to enjoy the pleasure by fluent coding, Sublime Text 2 is absolutely something you should try out! Sublime Text comes with nice user interface and powerful functions such as code-thumbnails, multi selections, shortcut command etc. Custom key bindings, menus and toolbars are also available. The Sublime Text's main features include: spelling check, bookmarks, Python API, Goto and instant project switching, multi windows etc.

Sublime Text is a cross-platform editor, while supporting Windows, Linux, Mac OS x and other operating systems, it is commercial software but available with endless trial period.

Sublime Text 2

NO.12 PhoneGap 2.0
PhoneGap is a free and open source development framework, allowing web developers to use our familiared HTML,CSS and JavaScript to build cross-platform mobile applications locally. PhoneGap support iOS, Android, Palm WebOS, Symbian, Blackberry, Windows Phone and Bada platforms.

PhoneGap 2.0

NO.13 Emmet
Emmet is formerly known as Zen Coding, provides a quick way to write HTML/CSS codes. Emmet uses dynamic CSS expression-like syntax to generate code, it means that you do not need to edit and create your own fixed code fragment. Emmet greatly improves our coding efficiency.

Using Emmet with excellent editor will make your code fly! Supported editors include:

Emmet

NO.14 Yeoman
Yeoman provides a powerful set of tools, libraries and the workflow that can help developers to quickly build a beautiful, compelling Web applications. The Yeoman main features include:

  • Build framework in light speed(Support custom templates including HTML5 Boilerplate, Twitter Bootstrap etc).
  • Auto compile CoffeeScrip & Compass – While editing source codes, Yeoman LiveReload monitoring process will auto compile codes and refresh your browser. Developers don't have to do it manually.
  • Code Auto checking – It will auto run jshint cheker to make sure the codes are following the best language practice.
  • Build-in preview server – Developers don't have to start their own http server, the build in server can be started with a single command.
  • Efficient picture optimization – Yeoman uses OptPNG and JPEGTran to optimize all pictures to reduce load waiting.
  • Generate Appcache list – Yeoman will generate appcache manifest as you build the application.
  • Killer level construction – Yeoman will auto complete most of the work and save us lots of time and efforts.
  • Package management – Developers can easily find new packages or update via command lines without opening explorer.
  • ES6 module syntax support – You can compile modules using the latest ECMAScript 6 syntax.
  • PhantomJS unit testing – Run unit testing easily with PhamtomJS. When creating new applications, it will also automatically create a test framework for you.

Yeoman

NO.15 TypeCast
With TypeCast, developers can choose word fonts from Fonts.com, TypeKit, FontDeck and google. We can easily compare the actual results. Website layouts becomes more and more essential part in development due to the great improvements on fonts. TypeCast is to simplify the process in choosing the perfect font for your website.

Typecast

NO.16 Gridset
Gridset lets us easily add columns, define set etc without knowing the underlying mathematical calculations.

Grid systems are becoming the focus of Web design. Web page grid system needs to be more flexible, more responsive. Gridset allows us to use a grid system pretty simple.

Gridset

NO.17 Microsoft WebMatrix 2
WebMatrix is a new Web development platform, it's featured by one-stop and simplified development process, providing developers a simple, integrated web solution.

WebMatrix provides all the tools required for Web site: Web Server, database, Web frameworks, and development environment including: IIS Developer Express, SQL Server Compact Edition, asp.net "Razor".

Microsoft Webmatrix 2

NO.18 Trello
Trello is a team collaboration platform that was developed by Joel Spolsky, It's officially released at the TechCrunch Disrupt Conference 2012. Trello is designed to track everyone's working situation in a team. Trello team work system can be used by anyone in any industry. It can be used as a corporate collaboration tools, or as a list of personal management tool.

Trello

NO.19 Firefox 18
Firefox has many powerful development tools plug-ins and many of them are must-have debugging tools for developers. Starting from Firefox 18, Mozilla will officially open the next-generation JavaScript engine – IonMonkey. It will significantly improve Firefox's JavaScript performance and improve browser security.

Latest version added support for OSX 10.7+ and WebRTC. It introduced the new HTML stretch algorithm to improve the picture quality. Achieved the CSS3 Flexbox and the touch implementation of W3C standards. Startup speed is improved by intelligent processing signatures.

Firefox 18

NO.20 Photon
Photon is a very interesting project. Add lighting effects to DOM element in solid space by JavaScript libraries, and CSS3 transforms.

Author Tom Giannattasio provided three examples, including the effect of a very good paper cranes, you can move the mouse to rotate, the Photon switching button provided below allows us to feel the differences between the two states.

Photon