Malware is on the increase – and it’s not just your desktop PC that’s at risk of infection.

We all know how vital it is to keep our desktop computers up to date with the latest patches, updates, virus definitions and so on. But many forget that their webserver, and the software that runs on it, could also be prone to exploit and attack by unsavoury cyber-hackers.

Irish website owners need to be vigilant that their sites aren’t being compromised by unscrupulous hackers and malicious code.

We take care of most updates for you

At LetsHost the security of our servers, and your website, is a top priority. We’re constantly vigilant, and follow industry best practice when it comes to our server security set up.

All relevant patches and security updates are applied to all of our server software as soon as they become available, and we stay up-to-date with the latest security news, upcoming threats and solutions, giving you peace of mind.

There are, however, a few steps you, as a hosting customer, can take to help us make your website even more secure.

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So, you’ve  unboxed your shiny new Apple iPhone, connected it to iTunes and synchronised your music contacts and other bits and bobs… now you’re wondering how you go about collecting your e-mail on your brand new iPhone.

Well, there might not be an app for that… just yet – but here’s a handy YouTube video courtesy of those lovely people at Wiley Publishing who created the iconic “For Dummies” series of books.

All of your LetsHost email accounts support both IMAP or POP access, and your server for both incoming and outgoing mail is mail.yourdomain.com (where “yourdomain” is a primary or add-on domain associated with your LetsHost Irish hosting account).

Your username is the e-mail address you want to access (replace the @ with a + if you have problems logging in), and your password is the one you specified when you created the e-mail address in cpanel.

You’ll find lots of information on setting up new e-mail accounts and e-mail settings for IMAP, POP and SMTP access in the LetsHost Support FAQ/Knowledgebase.

Want more iPhone tips and tricks? You’ll find iPhone for dummies over on Amazon.

Dot IE (.ie) is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Ireland, and having one can benefit your Irish online business in a number of ways… but first, a bit of background.

What is a TLD

A TLD, or Top-Level Domain, is basically the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System that assigns human-readable addresses to specific resources on the internet.

Back in the formative years of computer networking individual computers were recognised by a unique number. Computers still use these complex number patterns to uniquely identify specific resources on the internet (they’re called IP addresses). But while computers have no problem with complex numeric addresses, as the internet grew people needed a much easier and more meaningful way to memorise locations on the network. The result is the Domain Name System that we know and love today.

In practice the TLD is the last portion of a fully qualified domain name like www.letshost.ie (where the TLD is .ie). Top level domains typically come in two “flavours” today — the generic or category level TLDs, which consist of three or more letters and include the popular .com, .net and .org domains; and country specific domains that typically (but with a few notable exceptions) consist of the two-letter ISO country code for that country.

Why choose a .ie domain for your business?

If you’re an Irish business, a business selling into Ireland or targeting a largely Irish audience, having a .ie domain makes sense for a number of reasons:

• Trust: it’s a small word, but one that’s invaluable to your online business. In common with many ccTLDs the IEDR, Ireland’s Domain Registry, requires individuals and business entities to meet certain criteria confirming their eligibility before they are allowed to register a .ie domain. Anyone from anywhere can pick up a generic .com, .net or .org, but there’s a widespread perception among Irish internet users that a .ie domain is somehow more intrinsically trustworthy.
• Instant local identity: any Irish internet user seeing a .ie domain immediately recognises that this is a business operating in Ireland, and knows instantly that the products, services or information outlined on the website are likely to be relevant to their particular needs. That can have a very positive impact on things like the number of people clicking through to your site from search engine results pages (SERPs), and helps to ensure that the traffic you do get is more targeted (i.e. interested in Irish products and services).
• Improved local search visibility: a .ie ccTLD will help search engines to determine that your site is Irish, and is likely to be of interest to internet users looking for Irish content. It is one of the factors that search engines use to deliver more relevant local search results to their customers, lending more weight to .ie pages in Irish search results, which again drives more targeted search engine traffic to your website.

As an approved .ie reseller, LetsHost can manage all of your .ie domain needs. Coupled with one of the most comprehensive, feature-rich and reliable hosting solutions in Ireland today, we offer the perfect package for all your Irish domain registration and hosting needs.

Your LetsHost hosting account gives you as many e-mail addresses as you’re ever likely to need, but how do you create a new e-mail address and then configure your desktop e-mail client to collect mail form it? Let’s take a look.

Creating a new e-mail address

Creating a new e-mail address in your LetsHost hosting account is very straightforward:

1. Log in to your letshost control panel (typically accessed through http://cpanel.yourdomain.com, where “yourdomain.com” is the primary domain associated with your LetsHost web hosting account).
2. Under “Mail”, click “E-Mail Accounts”.
3. In the text box before the @ symbol type the name you’d like to use for the new e-mail account
4. In the dropdown selection box after the @ symbol select the domain you’d like the new e-mail address assigned to (if you only have one domain registered it will default to that)
5. Type and confirm a password for your new e-mail account (or click the button to generate a random password)
6. Set a storage quota for your new mailbox… (default is 250MB, or check “unlimited” if you’d rather)
7. Click “Create Account”

That’s it… your new e-mail account will be created and will appear in the list of e-mail addresses immediately below the “create account” form.

Configuring your e-mail software

Your LetsHost hosting account offers the option of auto-configuring the popular Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express e-mail software for Microsoft Windows operating systems, and the Mac Mail software that’s bundled with MacOSx.

To access the autoconfigure option simply find your new e-mail address in the e-mail account list and click on the “more” button. You’ll see options for accessing web-mail for the account (allowing you to check and manage your e-mail through your web browser) or to configure your desktop e-mail client. Choose “configure e-mail client”. You’ll be taken to a page explaining the different auto-configure options, with links to launch the relevant software to configure your e-mail client to work with your new account.

If you use different e-mail software, or would prefer to configure your e-mail client manually, you’ll find all of the relevant information listed under the “Manual Settings” heading. Setting up e-mail accounts on different mail clients will vary slightly, but broadly follows a standard process that will look something like this:

1. Launch your e-mail software and select the menu option to create a new account
2. Enter your name, your e-mail user name (in the form youre-mail+yourdomain.com — replacing the @ of your e-mail address with a +)
3. Enter the password you chose when creating your e-mail account
4. Enter the incoming and outgoing mail server settings as outlined under “manual settings” on the “configure e-mail client” page in the LetsHost Control Panel
5. Save your new account settings

Once you’ve saved the account details you’re ready to send and receive e-mail from/to your brand new e-mail address.

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You’ve got your hosting account, you’ve got your blog or website up and running… now what?

Well, if you want people to visit your site, you’re going to have to let them know it’s there. Whether you’re using your LetsHost account to host your personal blog or as the hub of your online retail empire, if you want to attract the right people to it then you’re going to have to promote it. Here are five basic pointers on how you can start to drive more quality, targeted traffic to your website.

1. Do your homework: before you do any sort of online promotion (and in most cases before you even build your website) it makes good sense to spend some time researching your potential audience. Who are they, how do they use the internet, what are they looking for online, and does your site deliver?
2. Search engines are your new best friend: despite the burgeoning popularity of social media websites, and their undoubted potential for sending online visitors your way, for the vast majority of businesses the best source of qualified web traffic will be major search engines (especially Google). Make it easy for search engines to find and index your site correctly. Google has a great SEO Starter Guide that outlines the basics of search optimisation best practice.
3. Concentrate on quality content: ultimately the success of any website hinges on content that a) ranks highly for relevant search terms in search engine results pages (SERPs), and b) delivers what the visitor is looking for once they arrive on the page. Think carefully about your content, what search terms you want each individual page to rank for, and what your visitors are going to be looking for when they arrive… then make sure it delivers.
4. Spread the word, online and off: how many e-mails do you send out in a typical week… quite a few, probably. Now, how many of those e-mails have a clickable link to your website prominently displayed at the foot of the message. Set up an e-mail signature to make sure a link to your website goes out with every e-mail you send. Likewise, make sure every piece of business stationary, from your letterhead and business card to your off-line marketing collateral, company vehicles and signage, all feature your web address.
5. Engage with your audience: we mentioned social media sites briefly, and they’re certainly a great way to tap in to what your customers are talking about online. They’re also a fantastic way to build your reputation as a helpful and authoritative source of  information in your field of expertise. Engage productively with the relevant online communities… wherever your customers congregate online… and before long people will start to see you as the “go-to” person when it comes to the products or services you provide.

We’ve barely managed to scratch the surface of the wonderful world of online marketing here… but look out for future articles where we’ll be delving into specific digital marketing topics in a bit more detail.

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Your data is an incredibly valuable commodity. Whether you’re talking about your personal e-mail, photo library and documents stored on your laptop’s hard drive, a business critical database that stores your customer information or the files and associated databases sitting on your LetsHost web server, making sure that your data is safe and secure is crucial.

Modern digital storage media are, by and large, very reliable and robust, but occasionally things can go wrong, so it pays to take regular backups of your most important files.

How do I make a backup

That depends on what you want to back up, and where you want to back up to. Here’s a brief run down of some common backup scenarios.

1. Backing up your PC

Most modern operating systems, including recent flavours of Windows, Mac OSX and popular desktop Linux distributions, come with file backup options built in. There are also plenty of free and paid third party backup solutions… take your pick.

While the interfaces for individual backup products vary, the process is broadly similar:

• Select the files you want to back up and set a backup destination
• Run a manual backup / set an automated scheduled backup
• Keep the resulting backup files in a safe place
• Repeat frequently

If something bad happens, these programs normally let you restore a complete backup set, or choose the specific files that you’d like to recover.

2. Backing up your website(s)

Backing up a web server usually involves several steps:

• Select the files you want to back up
• Package the files into a single archive file (e.g .ZIP) on the remote server
• Download the resulting file to your local machine using an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) or your CPanel file manager.
• If you use databases (like MySQL) on your server, you’ll need to remember to back those up separately.

That’s a fair amount of work, and requires some technical know-how, so here at LetsHost we’ve implemented a system that makes things much easier. Every LetsHost Complete Plan hosting customer has the industry leading R1Soft Continuous Data Protection enabled on their hosting account. The system automatically takes four daily snapshots of everything in your account (files and databases) and lets you selectively restore any of your data through a simple web-based interface. Just click on the “R1Soft Backup Restore” option from the “Files” menu in your control panel.

(NB. LetsHost provides the R1Soft service as a reliable and convenient backup / restore solution for its customers, but we still recommend that you keep independent local backups of your most important data)

3. Remote online backup services

Regular local backups are much better than no backups at all, but storing important data in the same physical location as the original files is fraught with risk. That’s where secure, automated online backup services like LetsHost’s brand new PC Backup service come into play.

PC Backup is a secure “set it and forget it” backup solution. For a small monthly fee (starting at just €20 for up to 50GB of storage) we’ll automatically keep your most valuable data secure by seamlessly encrypting it and copying it to your own remote storage account. You can relax, safe in the knowledge that LetsHost is looking after your critical data for you.

Make sure your vital business information is safe… examine your backup solution, and contact us for information on how PC Backup can help keep your data secure.

Recently a new virus has come to light which has exceeded all expectations at the rate at which it is spreading. This blog post aims to provide:

- Information on the threat itself
- Info on how to clean your PC
- Info on how to clean your website

Information on the threat:

One aspect of gumblar’s existence is how it can use FTP details stored on your PC to upload malicious code to your web presence in order to spread itself further. Some FTP programs such as FileZilla apparently store passwords in plain text and as such can be exploited quite easily. The issue is not a server side issue.

Links with further information:

- http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid14_gci1357912,00.html

- http://www.webpayments.ie/blog/Gumblar-What-is-it-How-to-I-remove-it-.html

- http://www.zonealarm.com/security/en-us/support/gumblar.htm

Information on cleaning your PC:

- http://www.xp-vista.com/remove/gumblar

- http://www.malwarebytes.org/ (Referenced as being a good tool for identifying an infection)

Cleaning your website

1 – Change FTP password via Cpanel
2 – Do not store the FTP password in any profile etc
3 – Replace existing website with last known ‘good’ backup
4 – Change Cpanel / FTP password again via Cpanel

To avoid being re-infected we recommend running antivirus software such as AVG or Avast. We also recommend upgrading your browser to its most up to date version and running anti malware software such as that available from http://www.malwarebytes.org/. You may also want to ensure Google does not have your website listed here: http://stopbadware.org/home/reportsearch as a potential unsafe website. This can lead to issues with your search engine rankings.

Please note: External links are provided for your convenience and Letshost.ie cannot be responsible for the content / software etc on these sites.

For businesses that require top-flight web hosting without the prices typically associated with a dedicated server, a web hosting service utilising a Virtual Private Server (VPS) is typically an excellent and cost-effective option. By utilising a Letshost VPS, web hosting companies can offer their clients a greater level of flexibility than that available with traditional shared hosting, but without the cost of a dedicated box.

A VPS is a means of partitioning the hard drive space on a computer or server so that multiple operating systems can run on a single box. Each partition then operates in the same manner as a standalone machine and can be controlled in roughly the same manner as a dedicated server. For this reason, web hosting using a VPS is typically seen as a “midpoint” between shared hosting and a dedicated hosting plan.

A VPS offers users the ability to individually manage their “server,” including rebooting, gaining root access, custom software installations and enhanced control. This hosting environment also offers added security because accounts are isolated, unlike with shared hosting. For companies with a large number of employees or users, e-mail is also a concern and a VPS offers the ability to run a fairly large number of e-mail accounts without being affected by users of other Virtual Private Servers running on the same physical computer.

The VPS hosting options offered by LetsHost include full root access, a static IP address, free installation of the Virtuozzo Power Panel, unlimited domains and DNS hosting and free support. Those who wish to run Plesk or Cpanel also have the option to do so, and backup for VPS hosting includes four daily snapshots of the entire VPS, meaning that any potential problems related to data loss will be mitigated by well-defined, daily backup points.

LetsHost today announced their decision to join the R1Soft Hosting Partner Program (R1HPP), following the successful execution of Continuous Data Protection® (CDP) across their Linux and Windows Agents over the last year and a half. LetsHost offers R1Soft CDP as a free add-on service to all of its 13,000 hosting customers.

R1Soft CDP allows LetsHost to provide a fast, easy-to-use reliable solution with a Web interface that gives customers the sole power to restore and recover their own files without any intervention from the LetsHost technical support team. The next-generation CDP technology brings a number of highly advantageous features, including the ability to restore open files and granular tables in MySQL.

Since LetsHost started providing R1Soft CDP to customers a year and a half ago, it has tremendously benefitted customers who accidentally delete files and need to recover deleted emails, by enabling them to quickly perform restores from databases. With multiple backups per day, a massive improvement from the traditional overnight backup, LetsHost customers can feel confident that their Web site data is always available for quick restoration in the event that there is a system failure.

“Our Web site is a main source of revenue which means that uptime and a reliable hosting provider are critical factors to the success of our business. Between LetsHost’s highly available, dependable support staff and R1Soft’s high-performance backups we feel confident knowing our Web site and business are fully protected,” said Noel McPartlin, Fitness Ireland (http://www.fitnessireland.ie.)
“Current LetsHost customers have already seen the many advantages R1Soft CDP has to offer. R1HPP is designed to supply partners with all of the marketing resources and sales tools required to successfully promote R1Soft CDP as a premium backup service, attract more customers and ultimately generate additional revenue,” said David Wartell, vice president of R1Soft, a division of BBS Technologies.

For more information about LetsHost and their services, please visit http://www.letshost.ie

For more information about R1Soft Continuous Data Protection, please visit www.r1soft.com

It is impossible to overstate the importance of a reliable hosting provider when you are operating a website – especially a site that is intended to generate revenue for its owner. Whether you are a small webmaster operating a single site or an established company that is managing a large network of commercial websites, your web host is perhaps the most important service provider you will have.

In order for your site to make money, it must be available to visitors 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – without interruption. And you’ll find that almost every web host will guarantee something like 99.99% uptime for your sites. Anything less than that is simply unacceptable. But reliable and effective web hosting companies separate themselves from their competition with the support that they are able to provide to their customers. This is where true reliability comes into play.

If you’re making changes to your site or changing the structure of a database, you need to know with certainty that your host is going to be available to answer questions and offer support should it become necessary. Things will be happening quickly when you find yourself in these situations, so e-mail and phone calls must be answered immediately and you need to be able to make contact with hosting staff that can access your site’s server and give you the information or help that you need.

The more complex your websites, the more important it is to have a competent and reliable web host who can support your evolving online business. In many instances, the best web hosting solution is not the cheapest, but your small investment in a better web host can pay big dividends when you need immediate support. When shopping for the best web host for your websites, try contacting their support departments at odd hours and see what kinds of responses you get. Talk to existing customers and get their take on the web host’s performance in urgent situations. A little research can go a long way toward ensuring that you are working the best web hosting provider available.