WebsiteSpark is a program by Microsoft designed to help jumpstart website development for small web development / design companies and Individuals. To be eligible for WebsiteSpark, you must either be: An individual that does not own a company and does not work for a web design company. An employee for a privately held company whose primary business is providing web development / design services for its clients, and has no more than 10 employees. Surprisingly as an individual I was able to enrol in the WebsiteSpark program. Why would I want to enrol with WebsiteSpark? What intrested me about WebsiteSpark is that i could get a licence for Windows Server 2012, something which would cost £100’s if i wished to purchase it. When enrolled you will be able to obtain several licences for a couple of Microsoft Products, including: • Windows Server 2012 Standard (5x keys) • SQL Server 2012 Web Edition (Static activation key) • Visual Studio Professional 2012 (Static activation key) • Expression Studio 4 Premium (1x Key) • Expression Studio 4 Web Professional (1x Key) All the downloads are provided through MSDN. From reading the WebsiteSpark website i gather you will be enrolled in WebsiteSpark for three years, however you must re…
Personal information is worth a lot, especially to criminals. Over the last couple of years i have wondered if my personal information is really secure online, so many major website have been hacked, with users personal information uploaded online for all to see. To me it appears like large corporations and major websites you would expect to take the security of peoples personal information seriously, actually couldn’t care less about it, so it appears to me. Take Sony for example, last year the Sony PlayStation Network and Sony Qriocity on-demand entertainment services were hacked, in what was possibly the largest data breach ever. Intruders had accessed personal data of up to 77 million users, whose real names, email addresses, passwords, home addresses and telephone numbers had all been stored in unencrypted text. Hackers had even posted up Sony-associated credit-card numbers, despite Sony calming credit card details were encrypted. Now that is one massive amount of personal information out there in the wild. 77 million users personal information, stored in plain text. Great to know little effort was put in to securing users data on such a large scare. That makes me think how many other places my personal data is stored insecurely, and how many times my personal data has been stolen in hacks that have never been disclosed. Another example is LulzSec who hacked into…
So what is Forefront? basically think of it as free antivirus for Windows Server, like Microsoft Security Essentials is for client versions of Windows. As you might know Security Essentials refuses to install on Windows Server, however this will install perfectly on Windows Server with no problems. Once installed you will receive virus definition updates through Windows Update, just as Security Essentials does. So you have me interested, how do i go about installing? First you will need to open your en_forefront_client_security_x86_x64_cd_x13-62435.iso which can be downloaded from Technet or MSDN, go in to the /CLIENT/X64/ folder and extract MP_AMBITS.MSI. A good application that will extract content from ISO’s is WinRAR: Next click on MP_AMBITS.MSI and it will automatically install: After Forefront has installed on Windows Server you will be notified no new definitions or updates are available, don’t worry that is normal: Now load Windows Update from the start menu and click on “Findout more” where it says “get updates for other Microsoft Products”: A webpage will load up you will need to agree to the terms for Microsoft Update, then click the install button: All been well you should get a message saying Microsoft Update was successfully installed: Now load Windows Update again and you will see…
For .eu domains whois opt-out is easy, when you know how. You are not however allowed to use services such as namecheaps “whois guard” which essentially hides the whois information when someone runs a “whois” query on your domain. A whois query will return the personal information of the person who owns the domain, including there name, address, telephone number and email address. Example of a whois query on Google.eu: As can be seen the registrants details can easily be seen. For .com, .net, .me domains its easy to use a service, usually offered by the domain registrar to hide these details, however for .eu domains this is not allowed. .eu domain owners are however allowed to opt-out of there personal details been shown, and you will not even have to pay anything extra like you would with a .com domain. Basically when a .eu domain is registered, no matter who the domain registrar is the corresponding European Registry for Internet Domains (Eurid) account is created automatically. Eurid handles all registrations and disputes of .eu domains. This account will allow you to opt-out or select personal information shown on “whois” searches, In order to get access to this account you can…
For .uk based domains whois opt-out is easy, when you know how. You are not however allowed to use services such as namecheaps “whois guard” which essentially hides the whois information when someone runs a “whois” query on your domain. A whois query will return the personal information of the person who owns the domain, including there name, address, telephone number and email address. Example of a whois query on Google.co.uk: As can be seen the registrants details can easily be seen. For .com, .net, .me domains its easy to use a service, usually offered by the domain registrar to hide these details, however for .UK domains this is not allowed. There is a work around however, and you will not even have to pay anything extra like you would with a .com domain. If the domain is just been used for personal use e.g. a blog or a general website then you can whois opt-out to stop your personal information been show on whois query’s. Basically when a .UK domain is registered, no matter who the domain registrar is the corresponding Nominet Online Service account is created automatically. Nominet is the .uk domain name registry in the United Kingdom…