Windows Web Hosting, Web Technologies, etc
Archive for September, 2005
How fast is fast?
Sep 26th
Bandwidth test applications are all over the place, there’s a dozen websites you can hit to tell you just what your internet bandwidth is.
SQL data types
Sep 26th
Date types are pretty important but often overlooked (especially from a hack of a programmer like me) so to save myself a ton of headaches I've copied a table I found elsewhere on the internet for myself. The table came from: http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.phpr/2212141
| bigint | Integer data from -2^63 through 2^63-1 |
| int | Integer data from -2^31 through 2^31 – 1 |
| smallint | Integer data from -2^15 through 2^15 – 1 |
| tinyint | Integer data from 0 through 255 |
| bit | Integer data with either a 1 or 0 value |
| decimal | Fixed precision and scale numeric data from -10^38 +1 through 10^38 -1 |
| numeric | Fixed precision and scale numeric data from -10^38 +1 through 10^38 -1 |
| money | Monetary data values from -2^63 through 2^63 – 1 |
| smallmoney | Monetary data values from -214,748.3648 through +214,748.3647 |
| float | Floating precision number data from -1.79E + 308 through 1.79E + 308 |
| real | Floating precision number data from -3.40E + 38 through 3.40E + 38 |
| datetime | Date and time data from January 1, 1753, through December 31, 9999, with an accuracy of 3.33 milliseconds |
| smalldatetime | Date and time data from January 1, 1900, through June 6, 2079, with an accuracy of one minute |
| char | Fixed-length character data with a maximum length of 8,000 characters |
| varchar | Variable-length data with a maximum of 8,000 characters |
| text | Variable-length data with a maximum length of 2^31 – 1 characters |
| nchar | Fixed-length Unicode data with a maximum length of 4,000 characters |
| nvarchar | Variable-length Unicode data with a maximum length of 4,000 characters |
| ntext | Variable-length Unicode data with a maximum length of 2^30 – 1 characters |
| binary | Fixed-length binary data with a maximum length of 8,000 bytes |
| varbinary | Variable-length binary data with a maximum length of 8,000 bytes |
| image | Variable-length binary data with a maximum length of 2^31 – 1 bytes |
| cursor | A reference to a cursor |
| sql_variant | A data type that stores values of various data types, except text, ntext, timestamp, and sql_variant |
| table | A special data type used to store a result set for later processing |
| timestamp | A database-wide unique number that gets updated every time a row gets updated |
| uniqueidentifier | A globally unique identifier |
Microsoft gets behind InstaSite and similar Web based site builders
Sep 9th
I mentioned previously about Applied Innovations and our instasite sitebuilder and just how cool it is. I really believe that applications like this will revolutionize website design making it easier for the common person to put online a professional and yet custom website. Yet it's good to see we're not the only ones that think it's cool. In fact, Microsoft recently got behind SW-Soft's SiteBuilder. In fact, a press release was released just yesterday regarding this: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/sep05/09-07SWsoftHostersPR.mspx. Best of all, our own Carlos Caneja is quoted in the letter:
….[ “Our shared hosting business built on Microsoft Windows-based applications has experienced excellent growth with the help of applications that are compelling and cost-effective for our customers,” said Carlos Caneja, CTO of Applied Innovations. “SWsoft SiteBuilder for Windows gives our business a strong advantage in enabling our customers to create, publish and edit attractive Web sites through a surprisingly easy-to-use wizard-driven interface.”]…
It really can't be summed up any better than that.
If you haven't tried Instasite (the Applied Innovations website builder) yet, please visit http://instasite.appliedi.net/ and try it today. Not only is it a powerful web based sitebuilder but it's also a free webbased sitebuilder included with all webhosting accounts at www.appliedi.net.
Online merchants finally have protection against fraudulent chargebacks
Sep 9th
Cardinal Commerce offers the verified by visa program and is supported by both storefront and bvcommerce. It’s a service the client subscribes to that helps block fraudulent chargebacks. Say you have a online pc store and you sell someone a pc online. During checkout they’ll be asked for their password for their visa account, once they authenticate this information is sent to the vendor and the vendor is thus assured that should the customer attempt to perform a chargeback on the transaction that the vendor is protected. So what would this stop? Let’s say I sell you a pc from my store, you get it and say ‘hey guess what, I’m not happy with this, I’m not paying for it and I’m not sending it back either.’ Maybe go even further as to say ‘I’m going to tell the bank I never ordered’. Normally, an online merchant has no course of action against the client as online merchants do not share the same level of protection that brick and mortar merchants get. Generally the online merchant will have a tough, uphill battle with the bank to prove that the transaction is in fact fraudulent. Now if the client has Cardinal Commerce, the bank will say look ‘you entered your password when you purchased this product, you were verified, it's you.’ Thus the merchant is protected from a fraudulent transaction. At the same time the merchant isn't the only one protected, the shopper is also protected. Let's say you shop at an online store and purchase something from the store. Unknown to you the merchant uses one of these popular shopping carts that are knowingly vulnerable to SQL injection (yet the developers refuse to issue any updates to these applications or the merchant is left totally unaware that his shopping cart is in fact vulnerable). As a result some clever hacker comes along and gains access to your credit card information and goes on a shopping spree. Granted nowadays the credit card companies are quick to pick up on this, but let's say he tries to check out at a site protected by verified by visa, he's not going to be able to check out because although he's got your card information he doesn't have your VBV password. You as the consumer are also protected. So verified by visa is good for both the merchant and the shopper. These are ofcourse exaggerated examples but hopefully you get an idea of just what this service is and how it's useful. More information on verified by visa as offered by Cardinal commerce and supported by Applied Innovations can be found at: http://www.appliedi.net/newsletter/september_2005/cardinal_commerce/index.html
Web based site builders
Sep 1st
Recently Applied Innovations released their web based site builder, instasite http://instasite.appliedi.net/ . I've been a big fan of templated sitebuilders but until recently they never had all of the features necessary to make them useful and easy enough that you didn't need a degree in computer science to figure one out. The beauty of this application is that if you can use a word processor, you can use it. You don't need to worry about FTP programs, you dont' need to worry about double checking your HTML markup, you just click, type, click, type. That's it. It's that easy. Best of all instasite from Applied Innovations (http://www.appliedi.net/) is totally free and included with every hosting account.
