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Best cPanel Apps For You

With SpexHost you will have the ability to use cPanel/WHM for all your hosting needs. We want you to take advantage of all the benefits of this state of the art control panel. We have gone ahead and compiled a list of apps we feel will be the perfect fit for you!
These plugins are across a broad spectrum and all help in one way or another with the configuration, management and or tools provided to you by cPanel.

Atomicorp Modsecurity Rules:

This plugin allows you to develop your own web application firewall system. It has a database of 15000 signatures and is fully customizable for your own needs.

Clean Backups:

This plugin allows you to save backups of any accounts that are removed from the system. These accounts are saved to the backup drive and remain there until you manually remove them.

Domain Statistics:

Get organized and statistical information for any of the URLs that you are running on your web hosting account or server.

Installatron Applications Installer:

One-click installations for ease of use and peace of mind! With installatron plugin you can make installations easier and faster with just a click!

Restore Manager:

Restore backups such as; files, databases and even email! Specify files or folders and restore the selected items all at once.

CleanPanel:

Get this app and improve the appearance of your own cPanel. You can choose between a number of different colors and it has been tested for compatibility with all major cPanel applications.

Mysqlmymonlite.sh:

Optimize your MySQL. The “lite” version gives statistics without providing as much sensitive data pertaining to the server. Stats include CPU, memory and general server information.

CP Control Panel:

The best client for your iPhone and or iPad. Perform backups, manage files, perform FTP transfers, manage email, view stats, manage DNS, etc. All through your smart device!

Softaculous:

Auto install a huge library of scripts, almost 300 of them to be exact. All in one click. You can even install Content Management System (CMS) such as WordPress and Joomla.

 

We recommend you use these plugins and apps to better help you with your web hosting.

What is Reseller Hosting?

Reseller Hosting is a form of web hosting wherein “you” (the account owner) have the ability to resell hosting space to other people, setting your own packages, features, and prices.

With Reseller Hosting you as the “reseller” are given permission to sell a certain amount of disk space and bandwidth (from your web hosting company) to your own customers without renting your own dedicated server.

Why should you buy Reseller Hosting instead of a VPS or Dedicated Server?

  • Easily create your own brand: You can be your own hosting company with little upfront cost as a startup.
  • Easy of Use: Reseller Hosting does not require extensive knowledge of the technical aspects of web hosting. Most issues can easily be resolved within your own reseller control panel or through a support ticket to your hosting provider.
  • You are in control: As a reseller you have the ability to create your own hosting plans and prices tailored to your own customers including giving them access to their own cPanel accounts.
  • Great Revenue: Bill your customers, sell more plans and keep all profits! It is really that simple.

 

With SpexHost we offer you the best reseller hosting packages in the industry. We never oversell and you can always count on perfect quality of service. We even include your own billing panel (Clientexec) for free with every reseller hosting purchase!

So what are you waiting for? Start your own reseller account through SpexHost today!

What Exactly is WordPress?

WordPress is an online, open source website creation tool written in PHP. In lamen’s terms, it’s the easiest, most powerful blogging and website CMS (Content Management System) in existence today!

WordPress is used by many popular blogs, news outlets, music sites, foodies and many Fortune 500 companies. You can find out who all use it by visiting here

Why should you use WordPress?

  • Instant and easy setup: It doesn’t take a computer wiz to work with WordPress. With SpexHost it’s nothing but a mouse click away in your cPanel and your site will auto install. No HTML code needed!
  • Good for both your website and blog: Though initially built for the blogger in all of us, WordPress has now evolved into a full featured web content management system that you can use to freely and easily manage any website.
  • Hundreds of thousands of website themes (mostly free!): You don’t even have to create your own website, there are themes for you to pick and choose and you can search many of them within the WordPress system!
  • Plugins for everything and anything: If you want your website to function a certain way chances are there is a plugin for that. With so many to choose from you will be able to set up your website exactly how you want it!
  • Popularity: At least 23% of all websites online today are powered by WordPress! Chances are you have been visiting many of them without even knowing they were!
  • WordPress Community: With millions of users, there are forums and communities everywhere! Connect and learn as well as voice any opinion about WordPress.
  • Search Engine Friendly: WordPress automatically fixes tons of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) issues making your site extremely search engine friendly allowing you to get the right people to your website!
  • Mobile Ready: Everything now is turning mobile. From smartphones to tablets to many other media devices. If you think your customers are visiting your website from a Personal Computer all the time, think again. Many themes have this in mind and come mobile friendly.
  • Open Source: What this means for you is a free from commercial restrictions and limitations environment that means you can use the software how you want and the way you want, anywhere, anytime! It’s also a big reason why over 10 years later it is still growing and evolving to better your website needs!

 

When you choose WordPress you have complete control over your website, whether it is a blog about your favorite recipes, or a business website selling high end soap bars. It is by far the CMS of choice for many people online AND it also comes for free with any hosting package through SpexHost.

What is a SSL Certificate?

SSL or Secure Socket Layer is the security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This ensures that all data passed between the web server and browser remain private and integral.  This is important because the information you send on the internet is passed from computer to computer to get to the destination server.

Why do I need a SSL certificate?

When a SSL certificate is used, the information becomes unreadable to everyone except for the server you are sending the information to. This protects you from hackers and identity thieves who try and seek credit card numbers, usernames, passwords and other sensitive information.

Typically these certificates contain your domain name, your company name, your address, your city, your state and your country. It will also contain the expiration date of the certificate and the details of the Certification Authority responsible for the issuance of the Certificate.

As an individual or a company/organization a SSL certificate is important to have. It makes you gain customer and user trust, it’s secure and it makes you a responsible website owner.

With SpexHost we offer a wide variety of SSL Certificates to protect you and your site’s visitors.

The importance of a good domain name

People are often very simple creatures – they struggle to remember things that may be a little confusing or contain ambiguity. This is why it is essential that before you even start your community site, you spend a good amount of time choosing a suitable domain name. The following is what I personally think is the key to a perfect domain name for individual or business use.

Keep it simple

Always keep your domain name as simple and as short as possible. The longer your domain name, the larger the chance of a visitor entering a typo and not being able to find your site. Longer domain names are often more difficult to remember, too.
Use simple words in your domain name – don’t use long, hard to understand words. People should be able to remember your domain name easily and be able to type it into their browser quickly and without error. You should also hold off on putting characters in your domain such as a dash ( – ).

Keep it relevant

Always ensure your domain name is relevant to your community. I would always recommend you try to include a keyword in your chosen domain name. If your site is about goldfish, get that word in your domain name.
Irrelevant domain names can sometimes work thanks to strong branding techniques. When starting a community from scratch though, why make things harder for yourself?
Keep your domain relevant – people should be able to guess what your site will be about from the domain name alone.

Keep it memorable

Keeping a domain name simple and relevant will help visitors remember it. Visitor retention is the key to a successful online community.
You should also consider what ‘Top-Level Domain’ to register. If your site has a strong UK focus, then you should register the ‘.co.uk’ version, but perhaps also register the ‘.com’ and redirect it to your site in order to secure your brand name.
If you are aiming for direct type-in traffic, then you will want to go for the ‘.com’ wherever possible. I will always argue that your choice of top-level domain has little overall significance compared to the overall domain name you choose, though.

A poor choice in domain name can result in failure

All of these are legitimate companies that didn’t spend quite enough time considering how their online names might appear…and be misread.

1. Who Represents is where you can find the name of the agent that represents any celebrity. Their web site is www.whorepresents.com.
2. Experts Exchange is a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at www.expertsexchange.com.
3. Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at www.penisland.net.
4. Need a therapist? Try Therapist Finder at www.therapistfinder.com.
5. There’s the Italian Power Generator company, www.powergenitalia.com.
6. And don’t forget the Mole Station Native Nursery in New South Wales, www.molestationnursery.com. (This one has been changed…and thankfully so.)
7. If you’re looking for IP computer software, there’s always www.ipanywhere.com.
8. The First Cumming Methodist Church Web site is www.cummingfirst.com.
9. And the designers at Speed of Art await you at their wacky web site, www.speedofart.com.

These are all legit! (Except number six…they got wise!)

Keep your domain name short, relevant and easy to remember and you already have a head-start over many of the new sites starting up today.

Get your domain and website through SpexHost where we make sure to take care of you.

What is a VPS (Virtual Private Server)?

A virtual private server (VPS, also referred to as Virtual Dedicated Server or VDS) is a method of splitting a server. Each virtual server can run its own full-functional operating system, and each server can be independently rebooted.

The physical server typically runs a hypervisor which is tasked with creating, destroying, and managing the resources of “guest” operating systems, or virtual machines. These guest operating systems are allocated a share of resources of the physical server, typically in a manner in which the guest is not aware of any other physical resources save for those allocated to it by the hypervisor.

The Guest system may be fully virtualized, paravirtualized, or a hybrid of the two.

In a fully virtualized environment, the guest is presented with an emulated or virtualized set of hardware and is unaware that this hardware is not strictly physical. The hypervisor in this case must translate, map, and convert requests from the guest system into the appropriate resource requests on the host, resulting in significant overhead. Almost all systems can be virtualized using this method, as it requires no modification of the operating system, however a CPU supporting virtualization is required for most hypervisors that perform full virtualization.

In a paravirtualized environment, the guest is aware of the hypervisor and interfaces directly with the host system’s resources, with the hypervisor implementing real-time access control and resource allocation. This results in near-native performance since the guest sees the same hardware as the host and can thus communicate with it natively. UNIX-like systems, such as Linux, some variants of BSD, Plan9, and OpenSolaris are currently known to support this method of virtualization. However, installing operating systems as paravirtualized guests tends to require more knowledge about the operating system in order to have it use special hypervisor-aware kernels and devices.

Some examples of paravirtualization-capable hypervisors are Xen, Virtuozzo, and OpenVZ (which is what SpexHost‘s VPS packages currently run on).

Hybrid or partial paravirtualization, is full virtualization, but in which the guest uses paravirtualized drivers for key components such as Networking and Disk I/O, resulting in greatly increased I/O performance. As such, it is a common solution for operating systems which cannot be modified (for various reasons) to support paravirtualiztion.

 

VPS vs Shared Hosting, which do I choose?

This is a question we at SpexHost often recieve. Do I need a VPS? Will Shared Hosting be enough for my business? I have these needs what is best for me, a VPS or Shared Hosting? All are great questions so let us explain.

What is a VPS?

Definition: A Virtual Private Server provides the features of a dedicated server on a machine that is shared by other hosting customers. Customers therefore get hosting services that are similar to that of dedicated hosting without sacrificing privacy or performance.

A Virtual Private Server (VPS), also referred to as Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS) is a method of splitting or sharing a physical server. Each virtual server can run its own full-fledged operating system, with it’s own resources and start and stop independently of other server. It’s a great way to run isolated environments. Read more on our VPS offerings here.

What is Shared Hosting?

Shared hosting is the method of sharing resources of a single server between all users and their attached domain services.

This is the most economical of hosting methods as it allows users to have a interface to manage their services (such as cPanel). This allows for a simple and secure way to host any web sites needed. Accounts are provisioned resources of the server such as CPU, RAM and Disk Space.

 So… VPS vs Shared Hosting?

A lot of SpexHost customers struggle to find out which one fits their needs. Read the five biggest advantages below:

1. Reliability

With the use of a VPS you will experience reliability at its best. With extensive technical knowledge and experience you can expect reliable VPS’s with industry leading uptime.

2. Flexibility

VPS allows for the ability to customize system configuration, install any applications and server wide software to fit your sites needs. Full root level access and almost complete control over the system configuration brings hosting to next level without the dedicated servers’ price tag

3. Performance

With custom built servers you will benefit from Enterprise class hardware with RAID-10 storage for redundancy. No factory built servers here! Consistent performance to the specifications you choose.

4. Easy-to-use GUI

When using a VPS vs Shared Hosting with SpexHost both have fully functional Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs).

A browser based GUI tool which allows you to restart, troubleshoot, and restore your own VPS without the help of your provider. You can also restart the core server components such as Apache, FTP, and DNS; even deploy a fresh OS with your former VPS account’s data mounted to the new OS. Restore a backup on the fly if you need to reinstall due to some sort of attack.

Shared Hosting delivers the control you need without the hassle of managing the underlying services. Through the custom GUI tool (cPanel) you can maintain Mail, Webspace, Databases, FTP and even back up and restore your account.

5. Dynamic

When using a VPS vs Shared Hosting, you have the ease of mind to know your performance will never be lacking. As you grow along with your web traffic, the VPS will adapt as needed with the use of the OpenVZ technology. Upgrading to a higher resource VPS is simple with no downtime what so ever.

We have Shared Hosting accounts for all shapes and sizes. If you’re looking for a specific need but we don’t have it listed let us know. We’re always working on our packages to deliver the best value we can to all our customers.

If you still want more help contact us today!

Everything you need to know about our DDoS protection

What exactly is a DDoS attack?
DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service. A DDoS attack is an attempt by a malicious user deny people the ability to use a web site or service by means of a distributed and coordinated attack. The end goal of the attack is to overwhelm a system or service so that normal users are not able to use it anymore.

To put this in other terms, imagine yourself going out for lunch at your favorite restaurant. Just as you are about to enter and place your order, another person cuts in front of you. As this person leaves, another rushes in and cuts in front of you, forcing you to keep waiting. This process can continue for minutes, hours or even days, preventing you (and every other customer) from doing what you came to do.

How does SpexHost prevent this?
We have partnered with OVH to provide you with the best DDoS protection. When a DDoS attack is detected, automated DDoS mitigation is activated. This mitigation involves filtering bad traffic and allowing good traffic to pass along. Our mitigation consists of multiple devices, each with a specific function to block one or more types of attacks.

By default all of our Shared and Reseller Web Hosting and our VPS Hosting come with DDoS protection. We have a total mitigation capacity of 480Gbps. All DDoS attacks are blocked without any duration or any other type of limit. Our standard protection is automated, and can take between 15 seconds and 120 seconds to activate. We also allow for the DDoS protection to always be activated on your IP(s) so there is no delay. This requires a dedicated IP address, which must be purchased for Shared and Reseller Hosting. VPS Hosting customers can request this be turned on in a support ticket, or by turning it on under “IP Management” in our billing and support system.

If you have any questions, or you are in need of DDoS protection please do not hesitate to contact our sales department with your requirements.