Jun 20 2008
Last week theWHIR was at cPanel's third annual partner conference at the Westin Oaks Galleria in Houston. Here's a written recap of my thoughts from the event as well as some pictures from the various activities throughout the three days.
We also bring you some feedback from the exhibitors and attendees we met in Houston, where we gained some insight into the value they found in attending this particular annual event.
Jun 20 2008
Many webmasters who utilize dedicated server hosting use it for media servers or, more exactly, for streaming video servers. It might be helpful for those of you in the market to run the next YouTube.com to be aware of what you’ll need to accomplish this.
Firstly, you may be wondering what the heck streaming servers or streaming video is! A streaming video server is just a dedicated web server setup to stream videos on demand. Your dedicated server needs to be configured to stream media effectively, by offering a compressed file version that can be easily viewed and listened to by your customers, fans, or regular surfers at the same time that it’s being delivered and processed on the server.
Methods of Streaming Media
You can use a true streaming method, which means your video is almost constantly streamed exactly while it’s being downloaded. Think of YouTube.com for this example. In true media streaming, the dedicated server and streaming video software does all the work, which produces a great end result for the user but which can also be very costly for management! Oftentimes, adding streaming media software to an already existing dedicated server is the most affordable option.
The other option is downloading, which we’re all pretty familiar with. This is far cheaper because the entire video file is downloaded and saved as a temporary file on the computer. However, this method is not suitable for a YouTube.com type dedicated server.
There is a plethora of free streaming media software available on the internet for your perusal and use.
Why Stream Media Live?
If you are running any of the following server types on your dedicated server, your visitors will appreciate live streaming of video or audio for their convenience:
* A YouTube.com clone
* An adult website (make sure you choose an adult web host)
* A video-sharing website
* A podcasting server
* Silverlight media server
What kind of dedicated server do I need?
Go with something BIG because you will need it! I would recommend the following features:
* Dual or Quad Core Xeon Processor
* at least 2 x 1024 MB RAM
* at least 2 x 500 GB SATA Hard Drives
* Raid 4 or 5
* at least 3,000GB bandwidth
Please take a look at our dedicated hosting coupons for the best dedicated server deals you can find, which are sure to knock down the primarily steep price for you!
Jun 20 2008
A recent email communication has been sent to the customer based of FastServers.Net. It is important enough that we wanted to reach out via various mediums, including this blog post to establish updates to both existing and potential new customers. We appreciate your business and if you have any questions do not hesitate to give us a call or discuss this with us.
Jun 20 2008
There was a bug in versions of Plesk prior to 8.3 where the AWStats statistics for the previous months were unavailable. It was a bug within Plesk’s AWStat’s implementation, and it was fixed in Plesk 8.3.
However, the fix only corrected the issue moving forward after the upgrade. There was no automated way to rebuild the previous months’ statistics, even though the AWStats data was right there on the disk!
I saw this blog post about the issue, and the fix is quite elegant:
Plesk 8.3 AWStats on Linux - Rebuilding Previous Month Statistics
Jun 20 2008
I just want to make sure WHIR readers are informed about all that theWHIR has to offer. In case you were not aware the Web Host Industry Review (thewhir.com) provides a wealth of information on Green IT over at GreenDataCenterInfo.com featuring news, features, articles, videos and whitepapers that are relevant to the Green IT movement. It is regularly updated with information from various sources. When you have a moment you may want to check that out and let us know what you think, we welcome your thoughts and suggestions. I also want to thank our sponsors Glowhost and SoftLayer for their support. Our latest issue of WHIR Magazine is also our first Green Issue and you can read the digital edition online now or subscribe to the free publication.
If that is not enough, you can also find current Web hosting jobs over at Webhostingjobs.com, the official job board for the web hosting industry. You can post and search for jobs all for free, subscribe to the job rss feed and more. Current jobs are also listed on theWHIR blogs section of our website to ensure maximum visibility for your job listing. As always your thoughts and suggestions are also welcome.
