BlueFreelance

At the moment I am using hosting service from MediaTemple (mt). (mt) is using Plesk Control Panel for its clients. Recently, I have migrated my sites to a higher package of Dedicated-Virtual (dv) package, and I found a strange point. When I checked the free space in the statistic area, it gave me only 12%, like image below

Then, I went to domains section to see which domains own the most space,  the sum of space from all domains is not equal to the above number (of course, just a relative number).

Then I login to root shell, and check the size of each folder by this command:

du -hs [path/to/directory]

And, I found that “/usr/local/psa/PMM/var” occupy more than 5Gb. Then I looked into that folder, and it stored temporary folder, which were used for the last migration process, so just delete it, and now I have more space for my hosting easily.

This technique could be applied for any Plesk based hosting, not only MediaTemple.

Actually, I intended to upgrade my hosting for more space, but I was hesitating because I just need 2 - 3 GBs for my new site, it is not worth to spend more monthly. And now, I have more 5Gb without spending more. So the lesson, is you need to look into some directories such as temp, log … in many cases, they occupy a lot of my bhosting space.

At the moment, I and my partner are working on a Joomla implement project. As usual, Andy had worked on design, he made PSD lay-out, and I implement Joomla, Wordpress or some PHP CMS into that. In this project, we worked on a Jomla site, which has made from others. This is the problem, Joomla is powerful, of course but it is not suitable for a complicated lay out, like Andy has made. We have 3 different structures, which need apply in a Joomla template.

As we can see, the structure of the homepage is completely different, compared with sub-pages. The client has approved the design, and we cant have enough time to rewrite the new CMS for this project. We have only 1 week to process everything from PSD layout, to CSS/xHTML and implement this into Joomla. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, almost my websites on the MediaTemple (mt) had been infected by some exploits. The hacker tried to run some shell scripts on the server in order to attack other sites. Though, my sites are still not damaged but the (mt) must suspended my sites to prevent attacking to others. It is really serious, because there are also my clients’ websites there.

Truly, I have not much experience in this scope. All I often do is to chmod files and folder carefully. At the beginning, I was really confused, didn’t what should I do to find the exploit and stop the attack. Start a security course ? No, it ’s too long. Find some books to read ? I tried, but not easy to understand for a newbie.

Fortunately, I had received a nice support from (mt) and some friends. So, in this article, I want to share some experiences in this issue to protect your server. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, MediaTemple has launched a special promotion. A new concept for virtual elements such as hosting, domain, space … is a physical card (or can be via email), which give the receiver a 1 year hosting package with full features:

The receiver will get a beautiful designed card, which stores information to create the package above.

Actually, this kind of hosting package is not really a cheap one, but you will be satisfied with many advanced features such as webmail system, control panel and support. It is very suitable for a beginner or small business. To me, this is a very nice marketing idea.

I have been with MediaTemple (mt) for a while, and really satisfied with its features, especially support team and knowledge base. I am always able to find the help from (mt) when necessary. You can take it here.

Recently, I have worked to make a website for an architecture company and I just think of many similar things between the websites and the apartments. I summarize the whole progress to 5 steps, and you will see how similar they are.

Step 1: The designer will make a draft for the lay-out of website, so do the architect, he draw a draft for the construction of the apartment. The difference is that the designer does on Photoshop, meanwhile, the architecture works on AutoCad.

Step 2: Both of them need to discuss with the customer and get his/her aprrove for their drafts.

Step 3: Then the customer will require the functions (such as contact form, shopping cart ….) for the website, and the owner of the apartment will suggest infrastructure (such as electronic lines, network, TV cable …. ). In this step, depend on the requirement, the functions of the website and the infrastructure of the house could be very complex. The web designer, at this time needs a team to complete, and the architect needs to ask the 3rd party or sub-contractor. They are still similar, right ?

Step 4: Till now, everything seems to be OK but no, both of the designer and architect will receive the complaints, additional requirements from their customers such as AJAX enhancements, PayPal integrated for websites and Wireless networking, intelligence devices for constructions. Yup, the most difficult time is here, in some case, the web developer need to rebuild the whole website to satisfy the new requirements and the architecture need to demolish some area of the construction also. Both of them would get stress and tired during this period.

Step 5: Yeah, they could finalize in this step and receive the payments from the customers or not (just kidding !).