Here is another video in a developing collection of youtube videos that features tutorials and useful explanations of web site hosting.  In this video, TheInternetEducator talks about how website hosting works, how much it costs, and some of the issues that can come up (and have to be dealt with).

Now, if you grew up in an era before the internet, you might be predisposed to hit a book store or even Amazon books and attempt to learn about website hosting from a book or a text book.

On this topic, that is actually not a good idea.  Many bookstores will often feature books that are several years out of date (especially discounted books).  If you try and learn the fundamentals of website hosting from a book, you are very likely going to learn some outdated information that may not be very useful today at all.

At a very minimum, I recommend that you do your initial research on the internet, and once you have learned some of the basics, if you still must walk through a book to learn more, you will hopefully at least be able to recognize an old outdated book from an up to date book. 

Here’s a very informative 4 minute video from AskMisterWizard that walks through the fundamentals of hosting servers on the internet yourself.  If you are looking for information to walk you through the basics of setting up your own server whether it is to host web pages, or host a printing server or email server etc, this video and the discussion it covers will help get you started in the right direction.

The video does cover the following three principals

1. Assign a static (unchanging) local IP address to each server host
2. Use “Port Forwarding” to prepare your router for incoming traffic
3. Advertise the public IP address of your router

Again this is just a fundamental over view,but the graphics and the dialogue can help you determine if you are barking up the right tree whether you are trying to configure a hosting server at home or for your school website or even if you are trying to run a site advertising fat burner or other commercial products available at a micro level.

Last spring I started chronicling the change in policy at IPower that resulted in thousands of customers getting slammed into domain name renewals at a total cost that was more than twice what they originally signed up for.

They did this by taking a previously free service and charging as much for it as they did for the core service of domain name renewal.

Today, I ran into an incident with my own preferred domain hosting company, InMotion Hosting.

I recently ordered a new domain at something-about-harry.com.  About 3 days after ordering, I received a bill and automatic debit from my credit card from InMotion for Domain Privacy protection, for a charge of $5 ($4 less than IPower).

Unlike IPower, which made this a policy and a more expensive policy at that.  InMotion had simply made a billing mistake.

They not only removed the service at my request (something IPOWER will not do after the fact if you are right or wong), but they credited my card for $5 for the service I did not buy (again something IPower will not do under any circumstance after the charge).  Plus, InMotion even offered to give me a free month on my plan (which I declined as it was not really needed for a domain name registration).

The point is that all of these things that IPower makes part of their policy where the customer is penalized, even when the customer is right, InMotion does not make it policy and fixes their mistakes such that the customer is made whole or better!

Now, given the fact that we are heading into a recession and possibly a depression, you have to wonder if a business that is running on unsound policies and practices, can actually survive.  Its not like they are bloated with useless fat and services, looking to cut the extra expenses like a chronic dieter picking up Anoretix from Oprah, but they actually have self destructive policies and marketing strategies that is sabotaging their core customers from go.

Something ultimately has to give, and it is probably going to be weaker companies that fail to execute like IPower….

It was less than a year ago that I was walking the floors of the AOL booth at the Consumer Electronics Show.  I felt almost embarrassed to be impressed by some of the cool options and features that AOL had created back then.  They were doing a number of things very well on the innovation front, and I speculated that AOL just might become a real player on the internet again.

maybe

Apparently, cool and cutting edge does not fit the AOL business model.  They announced this month that they are exiting the user generated video market.  They say that they will still offer professionally generated video, in the wake of advances from YouTube that will not only offer TV shows, but full feature movies.

Somehow, I suspect that going back to generic for AOL may not work out too well.  You can only harvest an old business model for so long before there is nothing left to harvest.  I suspect that the only viewers they might be picking up with this new shell of a service will be the rare person that is bird watching with Nikon binoculars and just happens to scan across a computer screen playing an AOL video by mistake.

What does it take to reduce the world’s spam by two thirds?

Apparently, it takes some socially active research geeks, some corporate embarrassment, and well, that’s all it takes!

A few researchers proved this out this week, when they exposed Global Crossing and Hurricane Electric Internet Services for renting servers to a company called McColo Corp.

He and other analysts circulated a dense report Wednesday that blamed some companies for allowing spam to proliferate. Two big providers of Internet connections named in it — Hurricane Electric Internet Services and Global Crossing Ltd. — acted quickly to cut ties to the core subject of the document, a little-known Silicon Valley company called McColo Corp. that rents out servers to clients.
The researchers didn’t say whether McColo knowingly aided criminals, but they described some of the nefarious activities conducted on some websites the company hosted. Among other things, McColo reportedly enabled its customers to control vast networks of hijacked computers to send spam and take payments for fake anti-virus software.
"We got the report, and it looked pretty damning," said Benny Ng, director of infrastructure at Hurricane Electric, of Fremont, Calif. "They were a client of ours, and we turned them off."
Global Crossing did the same thing, security researchers said, though it didn’t respond to interview requests.
McColo didn’t answer messages seeking comment, and its website was off-line late Thursday. The company is now under FBI scrutiny, people familiar with the case said. An agency spokesman said the FBI wouldn’t confirm or deny an active investigation.

Spam traffic plunges after report blames server hosting company

That wasn’t so hard after all, assuming the bad guys don’t pick up some downloadable audio books from Neal Stephenson outlining how to avoid this type of exposure. 

What’s next for the world’s new heroes?

Curing Cancer and Aids next week and finding a new habitable solar system starting in 2009.