Getting the right hardware and network setup for your server is difficult enough. Choosing the right operating system, configuring it, and then maintaining it can be overwhelming. Here are a few tips to get you through the process.

1. If you are on a limited budget, you should definitely consider a free and open source operating system like Linux, FreeBSD, or OpenSolaris.

2. You can support your own server if you have the technical knowledge. Otherwise, you should get a commercial operating system (open source or proprietary) that comes with support.

3. Make sure the OS you choose is one you can live with for a long time. It is never a good idea to change the server OS once the server is live.

4. Think long term. You want an OS that will be stable, updated, and supported for years to come.

5. If you are trying a new OS like Linux for the first time, test it using a virtual machine like Virtualbox. You can learn a lot from it before ever even installing it on your server.

6. Make sure the software and web applications you want to run will be compatible with the server operating system you choose. You do not want to find out that they are not compatible after the fact.

7. Paying more will not necessarily get you better quality. Weigh the pros and cons of features, security, and stability to make your decision.

Photo Source: Flickr

Continue reading: Server OS Tips

SSH or Secure Shell is a secure method of accessing your web server for manipulation or file transfer (using SCP or SFTP). Here are a few software applications that you can use to access your server via SSH.

1. OpenSSH

OpenSSH is the primary SSH client and server used for Linux, BSD, Mac OS X and other Unix-like operating systems. It is free and open source and is part of the OpenBSD project. It includes scp and sftp for secure file transfers.

2. PuTTY

Although it works with both Windows and Unix, Putty is mostly used by Windows users, since SSH is not installed on Windows by default (unlike Linux and Mac OS X). PuTTY is free and open source.

GUI Applications

1. Filezilla

Filezilla is a file transfer application that includes support for scp and sftp. It is free, open source, and has cross-platform support.

2. WinSCP

A GUI file transfer program, WinSCP supports scp and sftp, and it is core is based on PuTTY. WinSCP is free and open source.

3. Cyberduck

Cyberduck is a file transfer application for Mac OS X that supports SFTP. It is free and open source software.

Continue reading: Free SSH Programs for Download

Free and open source software is licensed under terms that allow the user to view, modify, and redistribute the source code. Proprietary software usually has license restrictions that prevent this, as is the default copyright in nearly all countries. Because of this, free software licenses are often called “copyleft”, since they have fewer restrictions.

One of the major benefits of open source is that you know exactly what you are getting. There is no hidden code that could do unspecified things to your server. Another benefit is that you can change it to be whatever you want. Google, for example, has their own version of Linux running on their servers.

For a company that has invested money in dedicated servers, another danger of proprietary software is vendor lock-in. If you have purchased software for a server and the vendor goes out of business or decides to no longer support it, you are just out of luck. Using free and open source software, you will always have the code for your software. Even if a business goes under, you can take that code to another one or use in-house programmers to maintain it.

Photo Source: Flickr

Continue reading: Advantages of Open Source Software

Big Blue is not known for making revolution internal changes to its business. After all, the way they do business has worked for over a century. When it comes to technology, however, IBM has lately been very keen to accepting new software, particularly software that is free and open source (such as Linux).

In what will undoubtedly send ripples through the Web, IBM has announced that Mozilla Firefox will be its new official browser. All 400,000 IBM employees are expected to make the switch on their desktops and laptops. IBM believes Firefox is “enterprise ready”, and as more of their products are sold as web applications and cloud services, one can safely assume that IBM will recommend Firefox to their customers.

Since its creation, Firefox has gradually chipped away at the large browser market share held by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Over the past year, however, Google’s Chrome browser has stolen some of the spotlight. This move by IBM will certainly give Firefox a boost. For web hosting providers that use IBM’s services, it will make sense to use Firefox, if IBM optimizes their applications with the open source browser in mind.

Source: CNET
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Continue reading: IBM Declares Firefox Its New Official Browser

In a previous post this week, we examined various free Unix-like operating systems that were direct competitors with Linux, but there is another type of Unix-like operating system that still largely occupies many of the enterprise servers on the Internet. Those unices are proprietary creations of commercial companies like IBM, which created AIX, and HP, which has HP-UX.

Unlike free and open source operating systems, true Unix has been locked up for years with licensing issuses, patent disputes, and the dreaded vendor lock-in. Even IBM and HP versions are not immune to the last problem. When a major company’s product reaches the end of its shelf life, what do you do? Most end up having to spend thousands to replace their systems and sometimes even their applications as well.

For web hosting, which rarely requires specific applications that the big companies might provide, there is really no sensible reason to opt with one of their proprietary systems. Even though Linux, for example, is free and open source, there are commercial companies that will support it. The difference is that you can leave that company and choose another or stop paying for support altogether at any time.

Photo Source: Flickr

Continue reading: Disadvantages of Proprietary Unix

One of the challenges of offering video streaming to your website viewers is finding a platform that is extendable, easy-to-use, and that will not get you into legal trouble. Kaltura is an open source video streaming platform that provides streaming, syndication, and management of online videos.

It offers playlist, editing, annotations, subtitles, HD quality, and social media sharing capabilities. In addition, the backend allows system administrators to analyze video content, moderate, bulk upload, set permissions, generate statistical reports, and customize players and playlists.

Because the code is open source, running Kaltura on your own server means you have complete control over the interface and content. This is something sorely missing from many other video software platforms. Kaltura even offers paid hosted solutions for those who do not have servers that can run it. The free version is called Kaltura Community Edition and is available for free download under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.

Continue reading: Kaltura open source video streaming

Open Source typically refers to software that has code released under some type of free software license (GPL, BSD, Apache, etc.). Users and developers have access to the source code and can modify and redistribute it. Proprietary software usually means the source code is closed and/or the EULA (end user license agreement) forbids redistribution, copying, etc.

The benefit of open source software is that there is a large community involved in supporting it, finding bugs, and making it secure. For a server, this means that your software is not going anywhere even if the hardware vendor goes out of business. With proprietary software, you are at the mercy of the vendor or software developer when you need something fixed or have security problems.

The benefit of proprietary software is usually only evident if you make web applications in-house and do not intend to release that software to the outside public. In such cases you may view the software as your intellectual property. The cost for maintaining each varies depending on the setup and who you have maintaining it. If you or your employees have the knowledge to maintain free software, you can save a considerable amount of money.

Continue reading: Open source vs proprietary servers

Website owners should always be concerned about the latest news and developments with the web browser wars and Web standards. Decisions made by these third parties can directly affect how your website is presented to your viewers and whether you need to make adjustments.

Our original post centered around Apple and Google’s unwillingness to adopt the open Theora format, citing its inferior performance quality to the proprietary and patent-laced H.264. This is still the case with both Apple and Google producing browsers that support the video tag from HTML 5 but do not support Theora. Youtube has added support for it, but it does not work in Mozilla Firefox, which, as an open source browser, cannot distribute H.264 technology.

It seems dismal, and Microsoft has still added little to the discussion, although they have at least joined it. All of this, however, might be about to take an unusual turn for the better. The Theora format was created by On2 Technologies and then released as open source later. On 17th of February, their stockholders approved a merger with Google and possibly future development on open video formats. This could be good for all parties in the end.

Source: On2 Technologies

Continue reading: The HTML 5 video debate revisted

OpenVZ is a free and open source virtualization solution for Linux. Here is an easy guide to installing OpenVZ on Redhat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, or Fedora.

Note: It is recommended that you use an ext2 or ext3 file system if you want per-container disk quota.

1. Add the OpenVZ YUM repository:

# cd /etc/yum.repos.d
# wget http://download.openvz.org/openvz.repo
# rpm --import http://download.openvz.org/RPM-GPG-Key-OpenVZ

2. Find out which kernel version you need and install it:

# yum install ovzkernel[-flavor]

3. Change the new GRUB bootloader lines created when you installed the kernel to look something like this in /boot/grub/grub.conf:

title OpenVZ (2.6.8-022stab029.1)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.8-022stab029.1 ro root=/dev/sda5
initrd /initrd-2.6.8-022stab029.1.img

That’s it! You now have OpenVZ installed. Visit the OpenVZ wiki for more information about configuring your new installation.

Source: OpenVZ Quick Installation

Continue reading: How to install OpenVZ with yum

At one time, managing a website meant manually updating dozens of HTML pages or using some type of local site management software like Netscape Composer, Microsoft Frontpage, or Adobe Dreamweaver. There are now a plethora of content systems available that include web-based backends. Pages are now actually dynamic representations of database content, and the market is thick with options.

When speaking of enterprise-quality CMS options, a few names come to mind immediately: Joomla, Drupal, and eZ Publish. Voted by many as the number one CMS, eZ Publish is known for its ease of use (as the name implies) and its scalability for small, medium, and major enterprise sites.

Some of the major websites now using eZ Publish include: Vogue, Elle, National Geographic, Virgin, and Marie Claire. It includes features such as multiple file uploading, the ability to publish from Microsoft Word, multimedia publishing, and multiple user and site management tools. Best of all, like Joomla and Drupal, eZ Publish is free and open source software released under the GNU General Public License.

Source: eZ

Continue reading: Enterprise content management with eZ Publish

When you have a small to medium-sized business (SMB), it is tempted to take lowest service offer, especially when a vendor makes big promises. There are plenty of database vendors on the market, and some of them offer very attractive custom proprietary packages or cloud computing solutions. But before you commit your data to what will likely be its permanent resting place, consider a few things:

1. If a vendor makes you custom database software and then goes out of business, what happens to your data?
2. If a vendor’s cloud computing infrastructure breaks down, what happens to your data?
3. If later on down the road, you want to transfer your databases to something more standard, will you lose data in the conversion?

The answer to all three is that some or all of your data could go up in smoke. That is why more businesses, even large ones are opting for free and open source solutions like MySQL or PostgreSQL. You can still hire someone to set it up and manage it, but when that company fades away, your data is still safe. Even if you opt for a cloud solution, having access to your open source databases means that you can pull them at any time and move them to another server with minimal data loss.

Photo: Flickr

Continue reading: Before you commit your data...

These days, it seems like every small business wants its own web store. There are a variety of ways to set one up, but one popular solution is osCommerce, a free Open Source CMS that will quickly and easily set up an online store for you.

OsCommerce will work on any web host that supports the latest versions of MySQL and PHP. There are thousands of free themes and add-ons as well, so if it doesn’t already do something you need, getting the software to do so shouldn’t be a problem. And of course, a shopping cart, account registration, and support for a variety of payment methods are included.

Continue reading: What is OSCommerce?