phishing for passwords

Posted in: Blog, Hosting News by Paul McEwan on January 20, 2010

It has recently come to our attention that a lot of our hosting users are recieving emails, prompting them to follow a certain link and update the password for their email address. Please be advised that this type of email is considered as SCAM and in case you receive a similar message, you should either delete it or mark it as Spam/Scam.

The email passwords on our servers can be changed from just one place – the Email Manager in the Web Hosting Control Panel by the account owner only.

.CN TLD registrations temporarily disabled

Posted in: Blog, Hosting News by Paul McEwan on January 13, 2010

We have recently been informed by both eNom and Instra, the domain name registrars we are working with, that they are no longer accepting registration requests for the .CN TLD, as well as for its derivatives – .COM.CN, .NET.CN and .ORG.CN. The reason for this is a new policy for the provision of WHOIS details enforced by the CNNIC. The explanation from CNNIC states that they want to enhance the authenticity, accuracy and integrity of the domain name information provided for new domain name registrations.

For the moment, this affects only new domain owners – all renewals of .CN domain names will go without problems.

There is no information as for how long this suspension will continue. As soon as we have new information on the subject, we will let you know.

Click here to add SEO

Posted in: Blog, Marketing, Web Design by Paul McEwan on January 6, 2010

Adding Search Engine Optimization [SEO] to a website isn’t as simple as pushing an “Add SEO button“. If there happens to be anything like “click here to add SEO” on your website you can rest assure it’s a marketing thing. Even if it works, developing a website so that the SEO can be turned on or off is all about up-selling. It gives third party sellers something to give away as incentive.

From a marketing point of view it’s smart but it feeds on what people don’t know about SEO.

It would be like an electrician wiring your house but wanting more money for the light switches to work.

Online security – prevent your site from being hacked

Posted in: Hosting News by Paul McEwan on

We don’t really have to say how much website security is important – nobody would like to wake up one morning and see his home page offering cheap Viagra or Cialis, for example. There are a lot of ways to prevent this, and today we will share with you some tips on how to better secure your site.

Use the latest software versions. While this may sound like something, which everybody knows and does, it’s not uncommon to find a very old version of a script running on a certain site. The words “it was working okay, so why update it” can sound like a reasonable excuse, right until the moment your site is hacked. Newer software versions often include security patches for exploits found in previous versions. This is very important if you are using a CMS script like Joomla or WordPress.

Check for common vulnerabilities. Cross-site scripting and SQL injections are the usual suspects – there are a lot of tools, which can help you check if your site is secure. Such vulnerabilities are most commonly found in custom developed websites – the popular CMS scripts are usually well protected against such attacks.

Check your log files. The log files may seem like just gibberish and non-sense technical data, but they are actually important – they can show you information about who tried to access your site, what errors were caused, etc. It’s always surprising what you can find in your logs. A check a week or so will not hurt your free time, but will be good for your site’s security.

Check your files’ permissions. On a Linux sever, the file permissions will determine who can access and modify your files. Select your permissions so that only you can edit them, and avoid using 777 permissions – a file with such permissions can be edited and executed by anybody, which is dangerous.

Use secure passwords. The simplest type of attack is a brute force attack – a script will try to guess your password, using random letters and numbers. The more complex the password is, the harder it will be to break it down. Passwords, such as “mypass”, are much easier to break. A combination of lower and upper case letters plus numbers will make the password much more secure – mYp43s. If possible, you can also add symbols to make your password even more secure. However, have in mind to keep your passwords easy to remember – you wouldn’t want to forget your password and not be able to log into your mail, for example.

Login to your hosting account here

Posted in: Blog, Hosting News by Paul McEwan on January 2, 2010

As we said before, if we build websites then why not offer hosting? There are too many hosting companies out there who offer design. In most cases the web design offering suffers because they’re in the business of selling hosting, not design. Design businesses that offer hosting? Now that’s unique. We’ve integrated the hosting part into our webdesign offering giving you easy access to both.

On the sidebar of every page of this website you will notice the new “HOSTING ACCOUNT LOGIN”. This is for accessing your hosting control panel. Re-direct domains, purchase domains, add an email account, upload files, install a script, install WordPress or whatever you need to do, you can do it from here. The Hosting Account Control Panel is equipped with video tutorials and 24/7 support if you ever need it.

Keep up-to-date with the latest news regarding your web server with our new blog category ‘Hosting News‘

Don’t have a website? Get a website here!

Just one more example of how “integrated” design works to make your life easier.

We Host Wordpress Websites

Posted in: Blog, Web Design by Paul McEwan on

We host websites, in particular, Wordpress websites. We’ve been hosting for some time but have kept it under our hat because it’s an added service we provide. Not a money making venture we want to market. If you design for a living then the websites you design better have a good place to live.

When a client comes to us with a need for a website we have our own place to publish it, support it, renew it and look after it. Our hosting is one of the best out there with 24/7 support 365 days of the year, video tutorials and free scripts including Worpress which works correctly without any server configurations.

We are so happy with our hosting we just couldn’t keep it under our hats any longer and have even started a new news section for it at http://tribalyell.com/category/blog/hosting-news.

We are so happy with our hosting we’re going to open the doors for self serve sign-ups. Stay tuned for the public sign-up section.

Tribal Yell Control Panel updated – Video tutorials included

Posted in: Hosting News by Paul McEwan on

Dear Clients,

After several weeks of intense shooting and editing, we have finally completed another interesting project – we have updated almost all of the video tutorials in the our Web Hosting Control Panel!

Aside from just shooting new videos, we have integrated them in almost every section of the control panel. This way, if you are in doubt you can always look for the video icon and watch a short video presentation on how things are done.

All of the videos are also present in the new and improved ‘Video Tutorials’ section of the Control Panel. They are divided by categories, to make it easier to find the needed video at any time.