SOPA – What does it all mean?

Last Updated on Tuesday, 3 January 2012 05:28 Written by Mike Hoffman Friday, 30 December 2011 04:41

The official position of Arvixe is against SOPA. This is an educational article informing blog readers about the current SOPA bill and its potential impact on the web hosting industry.

Over the span of the last two months, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) [1] has garnered much attention and criticism. In a nutshell, this bill was designed and proposed to help protect artists and intellectual property owners. Sharing and illegal downloading of music, movies, and software  has been very prevalent since the inception of the internet, and even beforehand – some of our older readers might remember swapping floppy discs for the latest computer games. This bill also extends to the realm of counterfeit goods, such as purses and perscription drugs sold online.

SOPA would allow the US Justice Department to seek court orders against websites that host or provide access to these illegal goods. Proposed on October 26th, the CEO of the BBB says that online piracy costs companies billions of dollars a year [2]. We are all very familiar with the suits brought against sites like Napster, which were easy to bring down under US law since all facets of the website were in the US domain [3].

Editing DNS Zone Records using WebsitePanel (ASP Hosting)

Last Updated on Tuesday, 29 November 2011 03:45 Written by Mike Hoffman Tuesday, 29 November 2011 03:45

Hello fellow hosters! In response to a comment left on my most recent article (Making DNS Record Changes in cPanel), I decided to blog about how to change DNS zones in an ASP hosting environment. Specifically, using Arvixe’s WebsitePanel. This is a quick and easy procedure, but PLEASE DO YOUR HOMEWORK! Changing DNS records can cause all kinds of havoc if done improperly.  I’ll repeat what was said last time:

ATTENTION: Do not attempt to modify these fields unless you are absolutely sure what you are doing! This tutorial will provide a bit of background on each type of record, but is not for beginners. Please contact Arvixe support if you are not 100% comfortable with these actions and their consequences.

The bold text means it’s serious! Okay now that the disclaimer is out of the way, let’s move forward to navigating the user interface to find the controls.

Making DNS Record Changes in cPanel

Last Updated on Thursday, 1 December 2011 02:12 Written by Mike Hoffman Friday, 25 November 2011 04:19

This article is for those looking to make changes to their DNS zone using Arvixe’s cPanel software. It is an update of an older blog instruction set from 2009. The “simple” and “advanced” DNS Zone Editors allow users to add, remove, and modify A, CNAME, and TXT type records.

ATTENTION: Do not attempt to modify these fields unless you are absolutely sure what you are doing! This tutorial will provide a bit of background on each type of record, but is not for beginners. Please contact Arvixe support if you are not 100% comfortable with these actions and their consequences.

 

First, let’s look at what each record type means. Then, where to access the editor pages.

What is a Personal Learning Environment?

Last Updated on Tuesday, 22 November 2011 01:20 Written by Mike Hoffman Friday, 18 November 2011 05:25

Main article content courtesy of w3PLE: http://w3ple.org

Arvixe is trying to help introduce a new paradigm to academe – the Personal Learning Environment. The PLE is a topic that has already gained quite a following and interest internationally, but is just beginning to take hold in the United States. Ames Brown of Post University is working to create a PLE consortium and formally define the PLE for all to access at w3ple.org.

The basic idea is that students are given a web platform to create and share their own knowledge. Post University, a traditional New England university with an excellent online program, is a notable example of how the PLE can be implemented today – all incoming students in the university’s Master of Education program create a personal website and unique domain name that they continually build upon throughout their degree curriculum.

Arvixe is uniquely prepared to serve the needs of universities, right now. Just as the M.Ed. program at Post University has a special Arvixe landing page with a simple sign-up process and custom billing, Arvixe is also expanding to make registration portals available for other universities nationwide, such as:

• arvixe.com/calpoly
• arvixe.com/asu

Let’s start by learning about the history of the PLE and it’s role on the web, and how hosting companies such as Arvixe can help the process!

Create Your Own Name Server to Use as Name Server Record

Last Updated on Sunday, 30 January 2011 01:26 Written by Naveed Ashraf Friday, 21 January 2011 11:23

By using WebsitePanel (windows hosting), this tutorial will guide you through using A record as a server name.

Requirement: You should have a constant or dedicated IP address on the server that your domain is being hosted on. This could be a CONSTANT shared IP at the server. You will need to contact your registrar to register your domain as a nameserver.  In most cases, you can log in to your domain management page to set this up.