GoDaddy Wants to Save You Money

Like any business, GoDaddy frequently tries to attract new customers and keep old ones by offering special discounted rates for many of its services. Since my renewal dates were coming up and I wanted to buy additional domains, I decided to browse the web for awesome savings on hosting and domains purchases. I was blown away by the number of coupon codes I found and was left wondering, “Why didn’t I do this earlier?!” After picking myself up off the floor, I began comparing the various coupons available.

While there are many coupons available, as far as I know you can only use one coupon code per order and the codes can only be used once per customer. In addition to this, it is worthwhile to have pen and paper available (or a calculator) to compare the offerings. Some codes offer a set discount, such as $1.00, while others reduce the cost by a percentage. What is best for you is going to depend on the grand total as well as the products you are ordering. For example, you cannot use a hosting coupon code for domain purchases and vice versa. To keep this short, without further adieu I present you with the following codes, courtesy of GoDaddy.com and livecodes.blogspot.com.

Godaddy Coupon Codes

•  Register any domain for just $1.00: biggame1
• Up to three domains for $4.95 each (can do multiple years!): gfnf2tu01
• 20% off all hosting plans: cjcchp20
• 27% off orders: gdx124a
• Save more than 50% off SSL certificates: cjcssl12t2

There are many more codes around the web and the ones above won’t last forever! To find out the latest and greatest in coupon codes, come back to this post often, Google or check out the page where I found many of the codes listed here: http://livecodes.blogspot.com/

Hot Tip: GoDaddy will frequently display available coupon codes in a yellow box on the screen just before the Order Summary page.

I have also attached this because I noticed this to be popping up quite a lot in different places with new twists every time and have had to a few machines of it now. Some variants will spread through flash ads, some will spread through the network, or both. Some variants use different types of root kits. I’ve seen 3 flavors. The virus changes its name based on the OS installed. It does no real damage except that it will break services and you will need to fix the registry.

Many antivirus programs do not detect it because it is not a virus per se. To prevent future infection, run Minix (jk!), use NoScript, FlashBlock and AdBlock in Firefox and /or set up privoxy or similar correctly. Run good AV and AM software and keep Windows up to date (or run Debian!).

NB: Be VERY careful using UVK. It may delete things you don’t want it to since when executed it can operate in a streamlined fashion with no user interaction. I included Sophos in addition to TDSSKiller because I found that sometimes Sophos found more than TDSSKiller. You should run them both to be sure.

EditPad delivers everything you need to accomplish tasks in a timely, efficient manner. One of the problems I had using multiple operating systems is transferring and editing files without corrupting them because of the differences in how Windows and Linux handle carriage returns.

For example, imagine you have an Apache web server with various shell scripts you want to execute. If you need to edit those scripts and–for whatever reason–only have access to Windows, just use Notepad and you’re good to go, right? Save your changes and upload the file again. Wrong! Opening the file in most Windows text editors will show a jumble of smashed together text. Instead of having separate lines of code, it will essentially be one continuous line of text with no breaks. Take a look:

Whoops! Looks like you’re going to have the loathed HTTP Error 500 Internal Service screen if you’re modifying your .htaccess file. We all know how picky Apache can be if you make a mistake in spacing, etc. Plus, there is the remote chance some garbled line may actually be executed and do … god only knows what!

Normally, you can get around this problem with text documents by using DOS2UNIX or UNIX2DOS. These programs, available for *nix systems and Windows, convert text documents to their appropriate formatting. While this is an effective solution, why not have the ability to simply save the document into *nix format natively in a text editor? This is one feature where EditPad really shines. Not only can you convert files to *nix format using the Convert > To UNIX (LF Only) menu option, but it will also convert to Windows and Macintosh formats. In fact, if you simply paste the smashed together text into EditPad from a lesser text editor, it will fix it for you–on the fly!

In addition to supporting multiple file formats, the paid version of EditPad, EditPad Pro, supports syntax for HTML, XML, CSS, Delphi, Java, C#, C++, VB, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Eiffel and even SQL! Ah, a programmers dream. Take a look at how it neatly colors functions and keywords:

PHP Syntax Coloring

SQL Syntax Coloring

While the syntax coloring options shown (which are fully customizable) only come with EditPad Pro, which costs $49.95, EditPad Lite comes with many of the features the average user would need to edit documents:

1. Open as many files in EditPad at a time as you want.
2. Change between the open files by clicking on their tabs. No hassle with heaps of overlapping windows.
3. Unlimited undo and redo.
4. Undo changes after saving them, as long as you did not close the file.
5. Directly edit Unicode text files and text files.
6. EditPad supports all Windows and ISO-8859 as well as DOS, KOI8 and EBCDIC code pages.
7. Block functions: save parts of the text to disk and insert a file in the current text.
8. You have the option to keep the EditPad window on top of all other windows.
9. Fully supports double byte character systems (DBCS) such as Chinese, Japanese or Korean.
10. Word wrap, line numbering and auto indent can be made for each file type individually.
11. Configure appearance to your own taste and eyesight.
12. Uppercase, lowercase, invert case and initial caps conversion.
13. Free for non-commercial use. (Professionals should use EditPad Pro).
14. Quite a bit more!

As you can see, no matter which version of EditPad you try, there are features available which are intelligently designed to help you get things done simply, smartly and effectively. I encourage you to check out EditPad Lite. If you like it and want the syntax coloring or other advanced options, go ahead and buy the Pro version. It will be money well spent.

Back it up!

Backing up your database is a very important step in preventing the mayhem that could ensue if you have issues with your server in the future. If your database goes, in most cases you’ll have nothing. Zilch. Zero. Nada. No posts, no users, no links, no tags. You get the point. Thankfully, this is fairly easy to do using a shell script.

Instructions

You may have problems copying and pasting the code into your text editor. Windows uses a different format for carriage returns than Linux, so use a Linux-compatible editor or convert the saved file with dos2unix. If you have problems, please use the first set of instructions!

1. Create a directory called ‘database’ inside your /html/backups directory (your directory structure may differ).
2. Download the backupdb.sh file at the bottom of this post and put it in the /html/backups directory.
3. Set the folder permissions to this directory as 0700 (if you get permission errors, try 0755 or 0777, but password protect your directory).

-or-

1. Create a directory called ‘database’ inside your /html/backups directory (your directory structure may differ).
2. Create an empty file called backupdb.sh and put it inside the /html/backups directory.
3. Set the folder permissions to this directory as 0700 (if you get permission errors, try 0755 or 0777, but password protect your directory).
4. Copy and paste the following code into the bottom of the backupdb.sh script:

#!/bin/bash
#Compliments of www.fortasse.com
#Displays a greeting and backs up files
#Begin Script
TERM=linux
export TERM
NOWDATE=`date +%m%d%y` # Sets the date variable format for zipped file: MMddyy
clear # clears terminal window
echo
echo "Backing up WordPress database"
mysqldump -h YOUR.DBSERVER.COM -uUSERNAME -pPASSWORD DATABASENAME > $HOME/html/backups/database/$NOWDATE.sql
gzip -9 $HOME/html/backups/database/$NOWDATE.sql
echo
echo "Job finished!"

Customization

Replace YOUR.DBSERVER.COM with wherever your database is stored. It might be locally stored on the machine, or it could be located on a remote server in the case of Godaddy. Replace USERNAME with your username, PASSWORD with your actual password and DATABASENAME with the name of the database you want to backup. Keep the spaces, all dashes and everything else you see intact. -p and PASSWORD are supposed to be connected. Do not make a space between them, or it may not work. Like the file backup script, this will back up the database, zip it and put it in an archive with a time stamped file name.

Final steps

You will need to set this script to run through your hosts CRON Job manager. In Godaddy, this is a very simple task. You need to upload the script, open up your Hosting Control Center, go to Cron Jobs and select the file and time you wish to run the shell script. NOTE: You may get a ‘Permission Denied Error!’ In this case, try setting the permissions of the backup.sh file to 755.
Summary

So to briefly summarize everything, the script backs your SQL database and zips it in a nice little time-stamped file using gzip. Simple enough, huh?

Do You Need to Get Tested?

In a word: yes! Everyone who has been or is currently involved in a sexual relationship–regardless of gender, sexual identity or age–should be tested at some point in their lifetime. That is not to say that individuals should be tested if there is no reason to think that disease could be present. For instance, if you have never had sex, or are in a committed, long term, monogamous relationship, there is generally no reason to test unless circumstances dictate otherwise.

Currently it is thought that at risk populations should consider annual or bi-annual testing to screen for STDs. Several STDs, such as Hepatitis C and Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), may not present symptoms even though you are actually infected. In general, at risk groups would include: individuals who participate in open relationships or who have multiple partners, couples where one partner has cheated on his or her spouse with someone who has an unknown infection status, individuals who identify themselves as homosexuals, and individuals who are beginning a new relationship with someone with an unknown status (preferably before intercourse has taken place).

Where To Get Tests Done

Many state and local governments offer free HIV and Hepatitis C prevention programs. As part of these programs, free condoms and blood tests are generally available at your local health department. In addition to this, lab testing companies, such as LabCorp and Quest, offer testing to individuals who would like to have it done through online resellers. One of the most popular of these, STDTESTEXPRESS, is currently offering private tests for $79.

However, if you have insurance, you might be better off asking for a test when you see your doctor again for a physical. It is often cheap or free, and will be kept in your private record as a reference in case a problem arises in the future. In some cases, insurance companies will not cover this unless you sign paperwork that implies that you have reason to believe you may have had sex with a person with a STD positive status. That’s fine. It shouldn’t be held against you, and if you really do not know the status of your partner(s), it should be assumed that they do potentially have a sexually-transmitted disease.

Are there Alternatives?

Absolutely. The Home Access Health Corporation has unveiled an in-home STDs test kit. It is the only test kit currently on the market that is FDA approved. You should NOT use a test kit which is not FDA approved as they may have unreliable results. Home Access Health offers testing for HIV and Hepatitis C, with the former coming with the options to have next day results versus results in 2-4 days.

The kit comes with a special envelope, pre-paid posted, two lancets used to get blood samples and a special identification number. This number is given to you in two copies: one is on the blotter that you send to the lab company for testing, and the other is on a piece of paper you keep for yourself.

A few days after sending in the sample, you simply call a 1-800 number and punch in your identification number. After a few prompts, you will be given your test results. If you have a positive status, you will be connected to a counselor who will talk to you about your results, offer suggestions and possibly a re-test, and get you connected to places where you can find out about assistance programs and treatment.

The Home Access Kit is a quality product with reliable testing procedures. In addition to being available in your local pharmacy (behind the counter), you can also order it from the online stores of Walgreen’s and CVS. In other words, if you are ashamed or embarrassed about asking for test kits from the pharmacist, or lab orders from your doctor, or a lab company, you can get all of your testing done in the comfort and security of your own home.

The Home Access Kit currently retails for around $59.99 at the Walgreen’s website and $44.99 at the CVS website.

Testing, 1,2,3

There is absolutely no reason to not get tested, especially if you are part of an at-risk demographic. There are many options available to individuals regardless of income or location and testing has never been easier, more reliable and discrete as it is today.

Michio Kaku

Professor Michio Kaku, one of the leading physicists currently engaged in defining the ‘Theory of Everything,’ (which seeks to unify the strong force, the weak force, gravity and electromagnetism) has been busy igniting imaginations with his radio program and now his recently debuted television series, Sci-Fi Science.

Kaku is the author of many textbooks and over 160 journal articles covering string theory and hadronic physics among other topics. He is also author of the wildly popular science books Hyperspace, Parallel Worlds, Visions and Physics of the Impossible. Physics of the Impossible, his most recent book, discusses the possibility of time travel, invisibility cloaks and other topics once thought of as only in the realm of science fiction. Now, Dr. Kaku is at it again with his upcoming Keynote Address the annual ESC conference at the McEnry Convention Center in San Jose, California. In his recently released interview, he highlights just a few of the many topics he will be discussing:

The importance of running a thorough, regularly scheduled back up cannot be overstressed regardless of whether your site is just starting out or has hundreds of viewers per day. Backing up your important files goes a long way towards preventing or easily repairing many headaches that may come along with broken installations or updates, hacking attempts or if you simply want to move to another domain or hosting provider. After all, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In this post, I will show you a basic script you can use as part of your scheduled back up. It will copy your website to a backup folder, zip the contents of the folder and optionally keep a working mirror of your website–automatically!

Why backup?

The problem with backing files up is that most people just don’t see the need to do so until something has happened. Unfortunately, by then it’s usually too late to fix the problem. In reality, if you do not have your website scheduled for a regular daily backup, you are playing a dangerous game Russian roulette with your information. Once a routine backup plan is put into effect, it will give you the peace of mind that comes along with knowing that if problems should occur, you will have… a back up!

Most hosting providers do back up everything on their servers, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they do it often. They may backup the operating system and important information to keep the server running on a daily basis, but most don’t run daily backups of the websites they are hosting. To be honest, it’s just not worth the disk space for them–there could literally be hundreds, even a thousand websites being hosting on a shared server. Of those that do run backups, many charge for restoring the back up they have on copy and it may be weeks or a month old at best. To be honest, they maintain back ups for themselves. It’s your responsibility to back up your own information.

Paid versus shell scripts

There are many back up solutions that rely on the software you have installed on your site. A quick search will bring up a plethora of paid and free plugins available for OsCommerce, WordPress, CRE Loaded, Joomla, etc. There is a problem with these plugins, though: most rely on your installation to work or be somewhat functional and they run the risk of breaking if you update the plugin or the software. While they are generally much easier to use, they are not the most effective way to back up your site and some only back up the specific software installation, not any other files you may be hosting.

So, how do you get around this? The answer is very simple: good, old reliable shell scripts. Shell scripts have been around forever and they are without a doubt the most reliable way of backing up your information. They aren’t as user friendly as web site plugins, but they are free, fast, have a proven track record and there is a wealth of information available about how to use them. They do not rely on anything to be installed except, of course, the operating system your host is running, but that’s assumed. Since they run locally where your information is stored, they are faster than downloading and backing up your site via FTP. It is nice to have a copy of your site downloaded via FTP on hand in case of a major disaster and I do recommend this as well, but that’s for another topic.

Getting started

Before you do anything, though, you need to make sure you have: SSH (shell access) and the ability to run CRON jobs. Godaddy, for example, requires you to activate SSH by phone before you can run CRON jobs, and since you need both, you should go ahead and get it activated before continuing to read. The back up I will show you has been tested on Godaddy via SSH and their CRON job manager, but should work just as well on any other hosting provider that runs Linux with little or no modification necessary. The first script is designed for WordPress and selectively backs up only WordPress and any files in the immediate root directory. It assumes that you have installed WordPress in the root directory. For example: http://www.yourblog.com NOT http://www.yourblog.com/wordpress. The second script can be used for backing up your entire web site–it merely backs up everything in the public html directory. Again, you can easily modify these scripts to suit your needs. You need only to change the directory or directories that you wish to back up in the scripts.

Plan of action

1. Create a directory in your root called ‘backups’
2. Create another directory inside backups called ‘dailyback.’
3. Protect backups with a user name and password using .htaccess and .htpasswd.
4. Create an empty file inside backups with a plain text editor (no Microsoft Word et al–Notepad or gedit are good enough!) call it backup.sh since this is a shell script we’re creating.
5. Into the contents of this file, copy and paste the following script (if you have problems copying and pasting the script, you can download the whole script at the bottom of this page):

#!/bin/bash
#Compliments of www.fortasse.com
#Displays a greeting and backs up files
#Begin Script
TERM=linux
export TERM
NOWDATE=`date +%m%d%y` # Sets the date variable format for zipped file: MMddyy
clear # clears terminal window
echo
echo "Hi, $USER!"
echo
echo "Beginning backup of files @ `date`"
echo "Backing up wp-content..."
#Copy wp-content
cp -r $HOME/html/wp-content $HOME/html/backups/dailyback
echo "Done!"
echo
#Copy wp-admin
echo "Backing up wp-admin..."
cp -r $HOME/html/wp-admin $HOME/html/backups/dailyback
echo "Done!"
echo
echo "Backing up wp-includes..."
#Copy wp-includes
cp -r $HOME/html/wp-includes $HOME/html/backups/dailyback
echo "Done!"
echo
echo "Backing up files in WordPress the root folder /html/ ..."
#Copy miscellaneous files in /html/ only
cp $HOME/html/*.* $HOME/html/backups/dailyback
echo "Done!"
echo
echo "Zipping directory structure..."
tar -cvzf $HOME/html/backups/$NOWDATE.tar.gz $HOME/html/backups/dailyback/*
echo "Backup complete!"
#Uncomment the following lines if you DO NOT want to keep a mirror of your site:
#echo "Cleansing backup folder..."
#rm -r $HOME/html/admin/dailyback/*


You will need to do a couple of things before you can run this. If you’re on Godaddy, you shouldn’t need to make any changes to the script. If you’re not on Godaddy, you might need to change the /html/ folder to /public_html/ or whatever it is that your host uses. Make any other changes you need to the directory structure and uncomment the last two lines if you don’t want to keep a working mirror of your WordPress blog. Upload it to your web site and test it out by opening an SSH connection and going to the directory you uploaded it to and type:
cd ~/html/backups
sh backup.sh

Technically, you don’t need to do all of that copying. You could simply remove almost everything but the last line and tell the script what directory you want to backup. However, I prefer to keep both a working copy (aka mirror) and a zip at all times. It’s a lot faster to simply copy the mirror back over if something broke than to have to unzip and restore the archive. Let’s look at an example of a barebones script that simply zips everything in the public html folder:

#!/bin/bash
#Compliments of www.fortasse.com
#Displays a greeting and backs up files
#Begin Script
TERM=linux
export TERM
NOWDATE=`date +%m%d%y` # Sets the date variable format for zipped file: MMddyy
clear # clears terminal window
echo
echo "Hi, $USER!"
echo
echo "Beginning backup of files @ `date`"
echo
echo "Zipping directory structure..."
#Remove the v in -cvzf below if you don't want to see the output
tar -cvzf $HOME/html/backups/$NOWDATE.tar.gz $HOME/html/*
echo "Backup complete!"


In this case, everything in the public html folder was zipped and the corresponding zip file placed in the ~/html/backups/ directory. This is really effective if you don’t want to selectively back up certain files or directories. I run several backups on my server, at different rates and times and for specific files or directories. Not every web site hosted on my account will necessarily go down at the same time. Therefore, making individual back ups of different installations and/or web sites allows me to have a much finer degree of control over my backups. If I zipped the entire site in one file, I would have to worry about over-writing new content on other unaffected web sites contained in the same root when I expand the zip file. That would be another nightmare altogether!

Backing up your database with MySQLDump

Backing up your database is also very important. If your database goes, in most cases you’ll having nothing. Zilch. Zero. No posts, no users, no links, no tags. You get the point. Thankfully, this is fairly easy to do using a shell script.

Do it!

1. Create a directory called ‘database’ inside the the /html/backups directory.
2. Copy and paste the following code into the bottom of the backup.sh script.

echo "Backing up WordPress database"
mysqldump -h YOUR.DBSERVER.COM -uUSERNAME -pPASSWORD DATABASENAME > $HOME/html/backups/database/$NOWDATE.sql
gzip -9 $HOME/html/backups/database/$NOWDATE.sql
echo
echo "Job finished!"

Replace YOUR.DBSERVER.COM with wherever your database is stored. It might be locally stored on the machine, or it could be located on a remote server in the case of Godaddy. Replace USERNAME with your username, PASSWORD with your actual password and DATABASENAME with the name of the database you want to backup. Keep the spaces, all dashes and everything else you see intact. -p and PASSWORD are supposed to be connected. Do not make a space between them, or it may not work. Like the file back up script, this will back up the database, zip it and put it in an archive with a time stamped file name.

Final steps

You will need to set this script to run through your hosts CRON Job manager. In Godaddy, this is a very simple task. You need to upload the file, open up your Hosting Control Center, go to Cron Jobs and select the file and time you wish to run the shell script. NOTE: You may get a ‘Permission Denied Error!’ In this case, try setting the permissions of the backup.sh file to 755. For other hosting companies, you may or may not have to use CRON Tab or some other CRON job manager. The commands are simple, but call your hosting company if you have any questions. In either case, you should set up the job to send you an e-mail upon completion. At least for the first few days, to make sure the script is working properly. Caveat: If you left to verbose (-v option) on for tar, you may get a very large e-mail.

Summary

So to briefly summarize everything, the first script copies specific directories, creates a mirror and zips the mirrored backup and places it in a backup directory. The file name is the time stamp of the backup date. The second script backs up everything in your public html file (all websites, subdomains, and anything else) and zips it up and does not create a mirror image of your site. The third will backup your SQL database and zip it in a nice little file using gzip. Simple enough, huh?

If all went as planned, you should have a working back up script for your website. I recommend using the script at least daily for the best protection. Enjoy!

I was very unhappy when I heard that, in 2006, Google was going to stop boycotting the Chinese market. I remember feeling upset, thinking that capitalistic ideals had won out against the hope for a definitive change in the human rights policies of China. After all, Google was a long-time hold out before entering the Chinese market. However, Google left us with a glimmer of hope when it said:  “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”

The thought was that, by cooperating with China, Google could slowly help crack open the iron doors and lead the way to a more democratic state of affairs. It has started to work elsewhere, even when internet access has been almost entirely shut down. Think of the massive onslaught of communication via Twitter, Facebook and various other clients when Iran was pressing down hard on it’s demonstrators in the wake of its’ latest election. They organized; they fought back through the internet.

But this is different. China has allegedly hired hackers to break into computers in the United States for the sole purpose of outing human rights activists. How has Google responded? It’s probably better if I let them speak for themselves:

We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

That’s right! They are going to attempt to remove the filtering software that has long been placed on Google.cn, even if it results in Google having to exit the Chinese market. While this is not nearly as significant an event as removal of the Berlin Wall, it is, without a doubt, a step toward the best internet equivalent thus far.

Fortasse.com website 1/12/2010

So you’re designing a really cool website, want to know how it will look on different operating systems and browsers? While most pages will show up fine from one browser to another, there are always certain codes that just won’t work the same from one browser to another. Sometimes it’s more complicated than that: maybe you want to know if it shows up the same way in Firefox for Ubuntu Karmic Koala as it does for Windows XP. What’s a web designer to do? You could ask your friends to check out your site for you on their operating system / browser combinations whilst you test the site on yours. You could also install every conceivable operating system inside your current OS via Virtual Box. Or, you could drop by BrowserShots, type in your URL and wait a few minutes for it to parse your request.

Once you’re at the page, there are a plethora of options to choose from. You can select the screen size, color depth, and whether you want, Java, Javascript and Flash enabled.

Simple, fast, effective. After plugging in my URL, I had 53 browser / OS combinations in about 25 minutes. You don’t have to wait 25 minutes to start seeing them, though. The screen shots will be gradually uploaded one by one, so you can view them as they come in. The site literally directs a computer to view your site, takes a snap shot and uploads it. So you are, in effect, seeing exactly how it would look if someone loaded it up in the selected browser and operating system. Once the process is completed, you can save the pictures if you want. You can continue to view them for a while, but they will expire eventually.

So there you have it: next time you need to find out if there are any problems viewing your page on another browser or operating system, head on over to BrowserShots and take a peek for yourself!