Blog (Archive Year: 2012)
We Were Right about FreshDirect.com: Don’t Stumble into These Website Pitfalls
It turns out we were right about FreshDirect.com. The site did indeed go down because someone forgot to renew the company’s domain name.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 27 Dec 2012
A Simple Oversight Causes Not-So-Simple Website Downtime for FreshDirect.com
The recent FreshDirect website downtime is a perfect example of an outage that could have been avoided with proper planning and adequate hosting.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 27 Dec 2012
Amazon AWS Infrastructure Takes Netflix Services Down Yet Again
As millions of people across the nation just wanted to relax and watch some movies on Netflix this Christmas Eve, they suddenly find the service is down. The reason for the Netflix outage?
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 27 Dec 2012
Anonymous Is as Active as Ever: Hacktivist Group Takes Revenge on Delhi Police by Taking Site Down
Most of us know about the horrible incident that occurred in Delhi and the majority of the public wants the rapist to be punished.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 26 Dec 2012
What Happened to Wells Fargo’s Plan to Counter Cyber-Attacks?
We’ve talked quite a bit about the new form of terrorism in the past couple of months. As cyber-terrorists target major U.S. financial institutions, you’d think that a bank as big as Wells Fargo would have been doing everything they could to avoid the ramifications of a DDoS attack.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 26 Dec 2012
You Just Can’t Keep a Pirate Down: One Pirate Bay Site Taken Down and Two More Pop Up
Whether you agree with the ethics of the site or not, one must applaud the way the site handles an outage. It seems that no matter how hard they try, even the authorities can’t keep Pirate Bay down for long.
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 21 Dec 2012
What Does That Website Uptime That You’ve Been Promised Really Mean?
Over the past few months we’ve published a few posts about finding the right hosting service. We’ve explained that there really is a big difference between an uptime rate of 95 percent and a rate of 99.9 percent.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 19 Dec 2012
The Latest Anonymous Escapade: Westboro Baptist Church Website Goes Down
We all know that Anonymous has become somewhat of a vigilante justice organization. What many don’t realize is that you don’t have to do something related to the World Wide Web to get them to turn their eyes your way.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 19 Dec 2012
Google Teaches Us Why It’s Important to Plan Maintenance and Upgrades Properly
One would think that an Internet giant like Google would have their game together when it comes to providing uninterrupted services to the general public.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 19 Dec 2012
Do You Use a CDN to Hide Your Website’s IP Address?
Many people use proxy servers to hide their personal IPs when they are surfing the Internet. What some Internet surfers don’t’ realize is that websites can do the very same thing.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 19 Dec 2012
And the Tumbler Website Outage Just Keeps Getting Worse
We recently informed you of the outages faced by Tumblr and Facebook. While the Facebook outage only lasted 20 minutes, it appears that Tumblr is still down for the count, more than a day later, and Tumblr users are getting frustrated.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 19 Dec 2012
Facebook and Tumblr: Two Internet Giants Go Down the Same Week
In the past we’ve talked about using Social Media sites to communicate with your customers when your website goes down. We’ve touted the benefits of Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 19 Dec 2012
How to Protect Your Site (and Your Profits) from a DDoS Attack
In past weeks we’ve discussed a number of DDoS attacks that have taken websites down – websites that should have been protected from such things considering the nature of the sites.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 19 Dec 2012
Some Things You May Not Have Considered about Website Uptime
We here at Alertra talk a lot about website uptime, website monitoring and what happens when websites go down.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 19 Dec 2012
Cyber-Attack Against ITU – Is Anonymous At It Again?
We’ve discussed in past weeks that Anonymous has become what some would call the “Robin Hood” of the Internet, while others may call them advocators of vigilante Internet justice.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 19 Dec 2012
How Much Website Downtime Is Acceptable?
Within the pages of this blog we talk a lot about maximizing your website uptime and what to do when the inevitable downtime occurs. What many of our readers wonder is just how much downtime is acceptable.
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 07 Dec 2012
Crazy Domains Is At It Again: Widespread Site and Email Outages
Back in October we discussed how it is possible for your website to go down through no fault of your own. When things go awry at your hosting company, you either have backup hosting in place or Tumblr pages and other social media tools to work with or you are at the mercy of your site host to get things back up and running in a timely manner.
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 07 Dec 2012
How Much Will Downtime Really Cost Your Website?
We’ve discussed in past posts that website downtime can and will cost your company money. The question is, just how much will your planned downtime cost you?
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 07 Dec 2012
Alertra’s Guide to Handling Website Downtime Due to Site Maintenance
Throughout the pages of this blog we have mentioned that website downtime is inevitable. It’s not a question of “if” – it’s merely a matter of when. Why do we assume your site will go down at one point or another?
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 04 Dec 2012
Your Website Has to Be Ready for Anything!
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – your website has to be ready for anything; especially if you want to avoid dreaded website downtime.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 03 Dec 2012
How to Make Customers Happy after an Episode of Website Downtime
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – website downtime isn’t a matter of “if”, it’s merely a matter of “when”. Throughout the pages of this blog we’ve given our customers and the public quite a bit of advice regarding how to prevent downtime, how to minimize downtime damage and how to prepare for the inevitable.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 03 Dec 2012
The Alertra Downtime Survival Guide
Yesterday we discussed the different types of website downtime, what causes downtime and why it is so detrimental to your business. We also promised to provide you with a survival guide for those inevitable times when your website will go down – and trust us, it is indeed a matter of when, not if.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 29 Nov 2012
Understanding Website Downtime
We talk a lot about website downtime in this blog. We are, after all, the uptime experts and we do everything we can to ensure that our customers have as little downtime as possible.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 28 Nov 2012
What Did We Say About Cyber Monday and Website Downtime?
Here at Alertra we like our customers to be ready for anything – and that includes the madness of Cyber Monday. We have to say, we saw it coming.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 27 Nov 2012
Is Anonymous the New Internet Police? Be Careful Not to Offend!
In the World Wide Web, there really is no governing body that tells us what we can and cannot do. Words can be thrown around and no one can really say or do anything about it. People can do what they want (for the most part) and not have to worry about paying any repercussions – until now.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 26 Nov 2012
Is Your Website Ready for the Cyber Monday Madness?
We’ve talked about how important it is for your site to be capable of handling traffic spikes and steadily-increasing website traffic. If your site is a retail site, this time of year the message couldn’t be more important.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 26 Nov 2012
Plan on Traveling for the Holidays? Don’t Count on the FAA Website for Updates!
Yesterday we talked about the importance of a website monitoring service to let you know when your website goes down. It seems as though the FAA should have taken our advice. With travelers around the United States relying on the FAA to provide them with updates regarding their flights, the FAA website went down for the count the day before Thanksgiving.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 26 Nov 2012
What to Look for When Choosing a Website Monitoring Service
Over the past weeks we have talked about the importance of knowing when your website goes down. After all, it’s quite embarrassing if your customers are the ones who have to tell you that your website is experiencing issues and it’s even worse if you don’t receive those customer emails because there are also issues with your email server.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 26 Nov 2012
If You’re Going to Do Something, Do It Right – Disney Shutting Down Web Movie Service
It appears that Disney has announced they will be discontinuing their Web movie service as of December 31, 2012. What is the reason behind the decision?
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 20 Nov 2012
The U.S. Isn’t the Only Target of Cyber-Terrorism
A little while back we discussed a new form of terrorism that has been taking place across the globe. Millions of people “live” online, using the Internet to bank, pay bills, socialize, go to school and even work from home.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 19 Nov 2012
Skype Security Loophole Exploited – Some Customer Operations and Information Put at Risk
There are a number of widgets, tools and add-ons that website owners are now using to make their sites more vibrant and interactive than ever.
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 16 Nov 2012
How Can a 503 Error Page Save Your Google Ranking When Your Site is Down?
Website downtime is an inevitable fact of life. It happens to the best of sites and, more frequently, it also happens to the worst of them.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 15 Nov 2012
What’s the Difference Between Free Website Monitoring and a Real Website Monitoring Service?
A lot of people ask why they should pay for website monitoring services when they can simply sign up for one of the many free website monitoring services available on the Web.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 14 Nov 2012
Fatcow Servers Go Down Again Taking Numerous Sites with Them
Many website owners woke up Monday to discover that their websites were not online. Those who are Alertra customers were already aware of this fact as we sent notifications when websites went down.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 13 Nov 2012
Yahoo! Sports Website Outages – Fantasy Football Fans in an Uproar
For some fans, football is serious business. With the advent of the Internet, the excitement of football made its way to the World Wide Web and fantasy football was born.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 12 Nov 2012
What Does Bandwidth Have to Do with Your Website Uptime?
Over the past week we’ve talked quite a bit about website uptime and how an inadequate hosting plan can affect that uptime. Bandwidth has been mentioned quite a few times in regards to finding a hosting plan that will accommodate your website’s needs.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 08 Nov 2012
Avoid Website Downtime by Changing to the Right Hosting Plan
Over the past few days we’ve mentioned that it’s important to ensure that your website’s hosting plan is adequate enough to support any spikes in traffic, or even steadily increasing traffic, that your website may receive.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 08 Nov 2012
Widespread Website Downtime as Election Day Arrives
It was just a few days ago we blogged about ensuring that your website was ready for growth and success. It seems that some should have implemented that advice as political sites across the World Wide Web were being taken down on Tuesday due to an overload of traffic.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 08 Nov 2012
Can You Really Make Your Website Bulletproof?
In light of Hurricane Sandy, we have to ask ourselves one simple, straightforward and honest question – can you really bulletproof your website from downtime 100 percent of the time? Yes, disaster recovery plans are crucial.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 06 Nov 2012
Is Your Website Ready for Success?
It seems like a simple enough question… Are you ready for your website to become successful? Most people would answer, “Yes, of course!” Increased success equates to increased profits and an improved lifestyle.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 05 Nov 2012
A Little Help with Your Contingency Plan for Website Downtime
This week we’ve seen numerous websites go down due to Hurricane Sandy, including the sites of some of our very own customers.
Posted by Alertra, Sun, 04 Nov 2012
Website Outages Make Us Realize Just How Much We Rely on the Internet
There’s no doubt about it. Hurricane Sandy has taken a toll on the nation due to the website outages it caused this past week. While the stress and frustration that ensued was unavoidable, many website owners took measures to mitigate the damage done and comminicated via other mediums, such as social media sites.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 01 Nov 2012
Hurricane Sandy Continues to Wreak Internet Havoc
Some Alertra customers are facing mixed emotions this week as Hurricane Sandy has taken out their websites. We’re assuming these customers had a sense of security, knowing that they would be notified if their websites did indeed go down.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 31 Oct 2012
Hurricane Sandy is Taking Websites Down as Predicted
As we predicted the other day, Hurricane Sandy has taken down a number of websites. Some of the sites are doing their job and are keeping consumers updated.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 30 Oct 2012
Can Your Website Weather the Storm?
You may be smiling in sunny Los Angeles or enduring the chill of the coming winter in Chicago as the East Coast huddles down for the coming storm that is soon to be upon them.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 29 Oct 2012
Cabela’s Offers a Discount: A Compensation Fail?
With all of the outages that occurred this week due to Amazon’s server issues we’ve discussed taking the appropriate measures to make your customers happy and what some companies did (or failed to do) in that regard.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 29 Oct 2012
The Day the Internet Died
Maybe we’re being a little melodramatic, but we’re not the only ones who feel like the Amazon outage caused a death (albeit a temporary one) of the Internet on Monday.
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 26 Oct 2012
Fast Company’s Website Traffic Hits Zero Due to Amazon Outage
It seems that a number of high-profile websites were affected by the most recent Amazon cloud server outage – one of five outages experienced by the company in the past year and a half.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 24 Oct 2012
Pinterest Goes Down with Amazon Cloud Outage
Yesterday we told you how some of the sites that are hosted by Amazon’s cloud services went down due to “degraded performance for a small number of EBS volumes in a single Availability Zone”. At least that’s the reason Amazon is giving.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 24 Oct 2012
Another Amazon Outage Is Affecting Websites and Consumers
When the outage issue arose it wasn’t a widespread problem. It was a small problem that affected some of Amazon’s EC2 services in North Virginia. However, that small outage quickly turned into a full-blown problem.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 23 Oct 2012
Crazy Domains Goes Down – Customers Left in the Dark
Halloween is almost here. It’s a time for chills, thrills and nightmares. Crazy Domains customers, however, are currently experiencing the kind of nightmare that isn’t fun or thrilling.
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 19 Oct 2012
The Cyber-Attacks Continue – Capital One the Latest Victim
True to their word, the cyber-terrorists have not stopped their attacks on major U.S. financial institutions. Capital One, a leading credit card provider, is one of the latest targets of the increasingly widespread attacks.
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 19 Oct 2012
Even Amazon.com Goes Down
Every website experiences downtime. When it’s your site that is down, it can be hard to remember that you’re not the only one who goes through the frustration and stress of downtime.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 17 Oct 2012
Who’s Telling You about Your Website Downtime?
The LA ShoeGirl blog and website has been experiencing some technical difficulties that took the site down and then brought it back up, although it’s still not fully functional.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 16 Oct 2012
Not All Pirates Are Out At Sea: The Pirate Bay Website Goes Down
Sometimes it’s not terrorists taking sites down in cyber-attacks. Sometimes it’s governments taking sites down in an effort to thwart seeding efforts on torrent websites. What is seeding, you may ask?
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 15 Oct 2012
Chunk Host Successfully Mitigates a DDoS Attack
Chunk Host, a provider of virtual server services, was recently the target of a DDoS attack. The services did indeed go down for a while, but the company was on the ball and took measures to correct the issue quickly while communicating their efforts to customers.
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 12 Oct 2012
Websites Aren’t the Only Thing to Go Down When a Server Outage Occurs
It seems that Fasthosts has been experiencing some significant issues with downtime today. The company, based in the UK, provides web hosting and email services.
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 12 Oct 2012
Google and Yahoo: Even the Greats Can Fall
In the world of the Internet, you don’t expect giants like Google and Yahoo! to take a fall – but that’s exactly what happened this week.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 11 Oct 2012
Informing Customers of an Outage Before Your Site Goes Down
We’ve talked a lot about what to do when your site goes down unexpectedly. Communication is key, as we’ve mentioned quite a few times in the past.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 11 Oct 2012
Communicating with Your Customers via Twitter
We all know that when customers aren’t happy about something, they tweet about it or go elsewhere on the Web to vent.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 08 Oct 2012
Rogers Communications Service Outage Leaves Customers Frustrated
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – when a website or service goes down, you have to communicate with your customers or your reputation is going to take a hit.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 04 Oct 2012
The Cyber Attacks Continue: US Bank and PNC Are Newest Targets
Last week we discussed a new form of terrorism – the cyber-attacks that are now targeting many major U.S. financial institutions.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 02 Oct 2012
When Your Website Is Facing an Outage, Communication is Key
When it comes to consumer relations, communication is everything. A website like Consumerist.com should know this. After all, their website is dedicated to consumer relations.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 25 Sep 2012
Terrorism Takes on a New Form Causing Website Downtime for Big Businesses
It seems that terrorism has taken on a new form and the Bank of America and J.P Morgan Chase websites have been the most recent target of the terrorists’ cyber-attacks.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 24 Sep 2012
Can A Single Tweet Bring Down Your Website?
It used to be that the biggest such threat was being mentioned in a post on Slashdot.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 20 Sep 2012
CloudFlare Goes Down, But Does Another One Bite the Dust?
It seemed that Internet downtime troubles, for the most part, were behind us when GoDaddy got back up and running. Just a few days ago, however, CloudFlare was facing troubles of its own and websites across the Internet were yet again being affected by outages that were out of their control.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 19 Sep 2012
What Do GoDaddy and Guy Fieri Have in Common?
When one thinks of Guy Fieri, they usually think of the popular Food Network television show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives or the amazing Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar, which Guy Fieri has very recently opened.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 17 Sep 2012
GoDaddy.com: When Bad Things Happen to Good DNS Hosts
As we mentioned earlier this week, GoDaddy.com, one of the world’s largest domain registrars and website hosting providers, experienced some significant issues with its DNS hosting services.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 12 Sep 2012
Amazon’s Infamous Downtime – Mother Nature Wasn’t the Only One To Blame
Cloud computing has changed the World Wide Web forever – and in many ways it has been for the better. There is, however, a downside to computing in the “clouds”.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 11 Sep 2012
The GoDaddy Outage (Part 1)
GoDaddy hasn’t publicly said what’s going on yet, but the rumors are swirling. A hacker associated with Anonymous has claimed credit, but who knows.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 10 Sep 2012
What Do Apple, The FBI, And Anonymous Have In Common?
Well, Anonymous says they hacked an FBI laptop and stole Apple information over Labor Day weekend, and Apple and the FBI are both denying it.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 06 Sep 2012
Were Romney’s Tax Returns Really Stolen?
An anonymous group, not to be confused with Anonymous, is claiming that they have hacked into and stolen Romney’s tax return information.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 06 Sep 2012
Apache Bugs Fixed!
The Apache Software Foundation has discovered and fixed a couple of weak spots in its web server.
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 31 Aug 2012
Dyn Attack
At 11:52 a.m. Tuesday UTC, Dyn, a worldwide Domain Name System (DNS) and email delivery company, underwent a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, according to the company’s recent blog post.
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 24 Aug 2012
Spoof Apple!
Apple security researcher discovered a flaw in the iPhone messaging system last week.
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 24 Aug 2012
Google Bug Bounty
Google is paying people to hack into their web browser.
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 17 Aug 2012
WikiLeaks Attack
Wikileaks, a non-profit media organization, and several WikiLeaks mirror sites, have undergone a 10-day online attack from an entity known as “Anti Leaks”.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 15 Aug 2012
Can Defensive Hacking be Sexy?
Will convincing hackers that defensive systems are sexy really change how the community feels about hacking versus defending?
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 01 Aug 2012
Frenzy Over Olympic Streaming
Is it NBC, or the underlying technology to blame for people's bad experiences streaming the Olympics online?
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 01 Aug 2012
Do you want to be in a Fiberhood?
Google Fiber: Will it make it out of Kansas City?
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 01 Aug 2012
Is it Too Soon to Dump IE 6/7/8 Support?
Did the jQuery Project make the right decision to stop supporting older versions of IE?
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 23 Jul 2012
Mixed Reviews for Windows 8 on Tablets
Initial reveiws for Windows 8 and Office 2013 are starting to appear - and everyone has something different to say about it.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 23 Jul 2012
Google’s World Dominating Supercomputer
How big could Google's Compute Engine really get?
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 23 Jul 2012
Where did my “Joomla! Update” go?
Latest update to Joomla! can make the Joomla! Update component disappear - here's how to get it back.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 17 Jul 2012
Django 1.4: Swatting Those Pesky DST Bugs
The latest release of Django introduces support for time zones and the tools to eliminate DST related bugs.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 17 Jul 2012
Agile Toolkit 4.2 Includes a New Data Model
Agile Toolkit 4.2 adds a new datamodel and database support to improve efficiency and extensibility and make any project faster.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 17 Jul 2012
Website Performance Monitoring: Going Beyond the 6 Nines
Let's say you've done all the "due diligence" you can possibly stand in making your website as reliable as possible. What's next?
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 03 Jul 2012
Padrino, When You Find You Need “A Little More”
When you love Sinatra, but want more power, you turn to Padrino. Here's a quick overview on why Padrino might be the web application framework for you.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 03 Jul 2012
Flash'In'App - Add Flash to Your Mac App without Writing a Single Line of Code
Adding Flash support to your Mac application is simple if you use Eltima software's Flash'In'App
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 03 Jul 2012
Canvas, a Native Drawing Mechanism in HTML5
Canvas is one of the coolest elements of HTML5. Here's a quick overview and a link to some awesome examples of how it's used.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 03 Jul 2012
The Evil Domain Name System (DNS): Why Your Monitoring Solution May Be Defective
We couldn't live without DNS, just make sure you're using a monitoring solution that understands how it works.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 27 Jun 2012
The Next Web Development Paradigm Shift
The tides of application development are changing again. What's in store and why.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 26 Jun 2012
Could the Surface Stop the Flood of BYOD?
Could the Microsoft Surface tablet be what enterprises need to stop the BYOD flood?
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 26 Jun 2012
Patent Craziness
Over 8 million patents are being litigated by the big tech companies. Is this a sign of innovation, or just plain craziness?
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 26 Jun 2012
Don’t Let the Cyber-wolves Get You
In a world full of cyber-wolves hunting us down, the only weapon the individual has is to create and maintain secure passwords. But users haven't learned that lesson as seen in the most recent LinkedIn breech.
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 22 Jun 2012
The Real Possible Cost of Flame
Could a secure Internet put an end to nation sponsored cyber attacks?
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 22 Jun 2012
The Internet Didn’t End, but It Didn’t Jump into IPV6 Either
How did World IPV6 Launch Day go? Test your connection and find out.
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 22 Jun 2012
First Look at Windows 8
A review of Windows 8 from a non-technial point of view. Will the average user be able to adapt, or will support centers be flooded with calls?
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 21 Jun 2012
Why Ruby on Rails?
When is it a good time to pitch Ruby on Rails for a project?
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 21 Jun 2012
Google Snags Quickoffice. What Does that Mean for Office Apps on iOS?
What impact will Google's purchase of Quickoffice have to productivity users on iOS?
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 21 Jun 2012
J!OSCAR Winners Announced at the J! and Beyond 2012 Conference
Last month J! and Beyond awarded the 2012 J!OSCARS. Find out who won.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 21 Jun 2012
6 reasons why you need website monitoring
6 reasons why you need website monitoring (and a few more reasons for choosing Alertra)
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 20 Jun 2012
Website Maintenance: Plan for problems and you’ll save time and money
So you’ve built your website. You have a beautiful design, killer content and intuitive functionality. Sure, there were a few challenges along the way, but you’ve overcome them.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 20 Jun 2012
Be Careful What You Say: Monitoring Web Activity
Our web monitoring service is about helping you stay in control of your web presence, ensuring your service is always up and running for your customers.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 20 Jun 2012
Need funding for your cool new internet startup idea?
Need funding for your cool new internet startup idea? Why don’t you pass the hat around and get everyone to chip in?
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 20 Jun 2012
It’s 3 A.M. Your website is down. Didn’t you get the email?
Website monitoring services typically offer email or SMS alerts, but Alertra is one of the only ones to offer this tried and true method that could just save you a lot of time and money.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 14 Jun 2012
Developers, Get Ready for iOS 6
A quick roundup of our favorite iOS 6 and iPhone 5 rumors for developers.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 14 Jun 2012
Is It True? Is IPv6 Really about to Get Turned On?
The world has just about exhausted our IPv4 addresses. Will June 6th mark the official transition to IPv6?
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 12 Jun 2012
Being RESTful. How to Explain REST So Even Your Mother Can Understand
Ever struggle to explain what a web developer does? Here's an analogy describing RESTful applications that your mother would understand.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 12 Jun 2012
Windows 8: Dull and Boring
What exactly is Microsoft up to as it dumps Aero, and Metroizes Windows 8?
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 12 Jun 2012
Wireshark, the Network Administrator’s Best Friend
Wireshark can be a network adminstrators best friend. Here's a quick overview of what it can do.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 11 Jun 2012
KDiff3: When You Need to Know What the Diff Is
KDiff3 is an open source file comparison tool with a little something extra.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 11 Jun 2012
Could Adobe be Setting A Bad Precedent?
Will Adobe's move to force users to upgrade to CS6 in order to get security patches ultimately be a bad PR move, or will it signal the start of a new trend where companies charge for security fixes?
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 11 Jun 2012
VMware Octopus Beta Launches
VMware Octopus sets the stage for the enterprise battles over filesharing applications.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 07 Jun 2012
The Disappearing SysAdmin
The future of sysadmins in an age where companies of all sizes are transitioning to the cloud and converging their infrastructure.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 07 Jun 2012
Uptime: Should We Be Jaded by the Statistics?
What is the difference between uptime percentages in practical terms? Is 99.999% really that much better than 99.99%?
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 07 Jun 2012
You’re Programming in What?
A quick overview of EditPlus 3's custom syntax file feature.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 07 Jun 2012
iOS Mobile Advertising: Where does it go after UDID?
A brief discussion of three mobile advertising companies and their SDKs that offer alternatives to Apple's deprecated UDID.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 04 Jun 2012
BYOD: Surprising Results in the Enterprise
According to Good Technology Apple dominates the enterprise BYOD market. Why is that?
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 04 Jun 2012
Website Monitoring Services: 5 Tips on Choosing a Provider
5 tips on choosing the right website monitoring service.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 04 Jun 2012
Is 2012 the year of HTML5?
A quick review of current browser support for HTML5 and some example websites that make the most of what is implemented so far.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 17 May 2012
Can Technology Save the Overworked Sys Admin?
IT workers are being asked to do more with less compensation. Can technology offer a solution to alieviate your over-loaded schedule?
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 16 May 2012
Control access to Wordpress Content with Restrict Access
If you’re looking for a simple, easy way to restrict website content to logged-in members, then consider the Restrict Content plugin.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 16 May 2012
Drupal's Path to Easier Development and Adoption
In an interview with Business Insider published just a day after DrupalCon 2012, Dries Buytaert discussed Drupal and the huge following it has. Almost 800,000 people in 228 countries contribute to the open source CMS platform.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 15 May 2012
Kindle Fire: Dancing to the Beat of its Own Developer Drum
On the heels of hearing the Amazon Appstore for Android is more profitable for developers than Google Play, we decided to do a brief overview of developing for the Kindle Fire.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 15 May 2012
Windows Phone: Can Microsoft Convince Consumers and Developers?
It’s no secret that Microsoft and its manufacturing partners have struggled to gain traction in the mobile market.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 15 May 2012
Corona SDK: One size fits all?
Choosing whether to develop for iOS or Android can be a tough decision for some.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 08 May 2012
Stopping Hackers on Your WordPress Blog
There are few things worse in the online world than getting hacked.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 07 May 2012
Should You Worry About Someone Hacking Your Website?
With recent high-profile arrests of computer hackers across the world, perhaps we should all be doing more to understand this activity.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 19 Apr 2012
High Up in The Cloud: How Safe is Your Data and Website?
With cloud computing more and more of our lives are being stored in the cloud. But have you considered the safety of your website and your data?
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 13 Apr 2012
How Does the Internet Work?
Have you ever considered how the internet actually works, about how all these machines talk and share information with each other?
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 12 Apr 2012
What do you do when your website goes down?
When you're sure there is a problem, the very first step should be to implement your social media PR plan for website downtime.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 11 Apr 2012
The CMS Wars: Why WordPress is Winning
Not that long ago anyone who needed a content management system (CMS) had to shell out a ton of money for a custom developed system.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 10 Apr 2012
ReCAPTCHA: Making the World an Accurately Known Place
How reCAPTCHA works and Google's new experiment.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 05 Apr 2012
Top 3 Windows Text Editors for Developers
Text editors have come a long way from the basic note taking software years ago (or Windows Notepad).
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 04 Apr 2012
Monitoring Mobile Websites
If you don’t know about mobile websites by now, you must have just been rescued from Gilligan’s Island.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 29 Mar 2012
To Android, or Not to Android. That’s the Developer’s Question
Keeping with the mobile theme this week, we’re going to talk about Android. Particularly Android development.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 28 Mar 2012
5 Must Have System Admin Apps
In our last blog post we offered some ideas on how to get your boss to buy you, their ever reliable systems administrator, an iPad.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 27 Mar 2012
How To Get Your Boss To Buy You A New iPad
It’s new, it’s cool, and you want one. But you just can’t find a way to justify a new iPad purchase.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 26 Mar 2012
Server Monitoring Amazon: EC2’s Thursday Outage
At Alertra, we knew EC2 had an issue in just 15 seconds. And that's when we started notifying our customers with servers in Amazon's cloud.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 20 Mar 2012
Radar Detectors and Bug Bounties
Generally the consensus is that the more the companies know about bugs, the quicker they can fix them, and create a safer environment for us, the users.
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 16 Mar 2012
The White House Floppy Drive
It was 2009 and the first African American President took office in January. The new CTO of the White House started that same day.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 15 Mar 2012
Has Microsoft Done it Again?
The consumer preview of Windows 8 has been out for a few weeks now. Long enough for users and reviewers to start offering opinions based on experience vs. rumor.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 14 Mar 2012
Google Strives for World Domination
A world without borders, nations, or citizens. Just friends and interests.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 12 Mar 2012
3 Takeaways from the RSA Security Conference
Security is always an important topic, made more so this year as several large profile security organizations were hacked including RSA Security and Verisign.
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 09 Mar 2012
Why You Should Care About Supercomputers
Later this year at Oak Ridge National Laboratory the world’s fastest supercomputer will be turned on.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 06 Mar 2012
Philosophy of Web Development
Are you a scripter or a coder? Do you take exception to being called either?
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 02 Mar 2012
Server Monitoring, the Last Line of Defense
You’ve been hacked! You feel violated, angry, and frustrated.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 01 Mar 2012
Alertra Offers 30-Day Free Website Monitoring Trial
With Alertra's 30-day free website monitoring trial, get notified when your site goes down. The trial package includes monitoring websites, e-mail servers, routers and any other servers or hardware connected to the Internet.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 29 Feb 2012
Is it Really a Question of Tape vs. Disk Backup?
A DTI/PricewaterhouseCoopers study revealed that 70% of businesses that suffered a major data loss went out of business within one year.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 28 Feb 2012
A Sampling of IT Humor
You know all this IT stuff can get awful serious sometimes. Training, deployments, integration, technical support, development schedules, monitoring – I’m tired. Are you?
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 24 Feb 2012
A Revolution in a Can
Imagine a world where cellular broadband is available everywhere – no dead spots due to geography or lack of infrastructure.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 23 Feb 2012
SQL Server 2012 Release Date Approaches
Though the final beta for SQL Server 2012 has been out for some time, IT admins and users are anticipating the new release.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 22 Feb 2012
Website Monitoring in the Cloud
Just like an ISP that monitors their hardware and connectivity, cloud hosting providers do the same – but neither will keep track of your internal processes, protocols or website availability.
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 17 Feb 2012
Systems Administrators: Are you plagued by a tech-savvy workforce?
It used to be that systems administrators expressed their frustration over tech novices by recounting tales of users asking about the cup holder on their desktop- you know, the CD drive.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 16 Feb 2012
The Risks of Green Data Centers
The push to be green is everywhere. When it comes to IT, what that means is a little bit unclear.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 15 Feb 2012
Mozilla Makes Plans not to be Left Behind
Battling a steady decline in usage, Mozilla is gearing up to make Firefox a native Windows 8 Metro application.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 14 Feb 2012
It’s in the Cloud, Man
You’re rushing to put together a brief for the CIO on the new IT outsourcing projects and you realize you don’t know where your company data is.
Posted by Alertra, Mon, 13 Feb 2012
Developers are lining up to create new apps for Windows 8. Aren’t they?
After Microsoft’s BUILD conference last fall much of the buzz around Windows 8 was generally positive.
Posted by Alertra, Fri, 10 Feb 2012
Website Uptime: How Important is Your Website?
Your website is important to your business, right? It's either somewhat important or it's crucial, depending on what you do.
Posted by Alertra, Thu, 09 Feb 2012
Server Response Time - How Much Does it Really Matter?
It’s easy to see how uptime or page load time can impact a visitor’s experience. Server response time though, is just one component of each of these higher level metrics, one possibly overlooked when optimizing a website.
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 10 Jan 2012
Website Uptime, Your Reputation, and Your Bottomline
Your customers and prospects are online and they are comfortable completing sales online. So what happens when your website isn’t available?
Posted by Alertra, Tue, 10 Jan 2012
What Can Cloud Computing Do For Your Business?
If you haven’t heard of the term ‘cloud computing’ yet (where have you been?), think of the cloud as simply a metaphor for the internet. It’s a catch-all term for storing data or completing tasks through off-site servers.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 04 Jan 2012
Social Media PR: What to do When Your Website Goes Down
Website monitoring is essential in our digital age. If your website goes down your audience is just a few clicks away from influencing a large number of potential customers.
Posted by Alertra, Wed, 04 Jan 2012
