So it has been an interesting weekend for me and No Bull Webmastering.

To begin with, I finally got my lazy ass in gear and upgraded the blog to the latest Wordpress version. Should have been the end, and could have started some posting to liven up the place, but hey, nothing comes easy when you are lazy like me, and BLOND!

Added some feeds, and then upgraded the plug ins.

OOPS!

Couldn’t post a thing, and the visual editor was wonky, so was the html editor, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what it was. Went into the Plug In listing and noticed some strange looking upgrades for a few plug ins.

FTP’d into the site, and couldn’t find those weird looking plug ins either. That had me worried, let me tell you. I did finally find them, deleted them off the server, and figured, okay we done.  Yeah like you KNOW that isn’t gonna be the end.

IT STILL WOULDN”T WORK.

Mind you it was better, but instead of saving or posting, it gave me a white blank page. Nothing I did would make it work, so as a last resort, I went checking the DB.  Said it needed to repair a few tables, did that, and still nothing.

Last straw, I disabled all the plug ins, except the Akismet Spam one. That got things working. So now comes the fun part, in order to not have it happen, I had to enable each plug in, one at a time, check to see if this posting worked, then go enable another plug in, and do it all over again.

Makes me wonder about how many plug ins I need.

Moral of this story… UPGRADE WHEN NEW VERSIONS COME OUT.

Posted on June 16th, 2008 by No Bull
Filed under: Blogging, General | No Comments »

So there is a growing debate in the WP community, regarding comments left by visitors, that is interesting. It is interesting due to the increasing talk regarding copyright. Even up in Canada, the Conservative Government of Stephen Harper is looking to bring Canadian Copyright Laws into line with those of the USA.

Read About It Here

I wonder, how many of us in the Adult Industry even bother to solicit comments to our blogs? Is it an issue for us, or do we simply ignore that aspect of blogging?  Do we even bother to use a comment license label, to insure we have the legal right to use and/or edit comments left on our adult rated blogs?

Given how vulnerable the entire Adult Industry is to legal attacks, I wonder if we shouldn’t be dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s here.

Posted on June 16th, 2008 by No Bull
Filed under: Blogging, General | No Comments »

I think we all know about the battle between the people and the Record Industry.

The Record Industry is actively pursuing those who download their product online at various free file sharing sites. We all have heard of Napster, and the lawsuits in the United States where the Record Industry took many individuals to court, for obscene damages. Now it hasn’t gone away, but the Record Big Shots have taken a new tact, in going after the Internet Service Providers, to get them to help in their Copyright Infringement Attacks.

PARIS: Prodded by the music industry and government, some Internet service providers are reluctantly exploring the adoption of an old-fashioned shunning ritual as the ultimate 21st century punishment: banishing errant online users.

But even as service providers discreetly test “three-strikes” warning systems that can result in the disconnection of Internet users who illegally download copyrighted music or movies, resistance is building. (source)

This is a tough call, specially if you are in the Adult Business.

Those who produce Porn, such as the Videos, Photographs, are in the same boat as the Record Industry. THEFT OF PRODUCT. Really, that is exactly what it is, because if someone produces a product, and you try to get it from Joe for free, who isn’t licensed to sell it, you have to know he got it illegally. When you go to a music site, and download the latest hip hop, the latest Spears songs, you know it is a rip off.

At the same time, as a producer of a video for your paysite, when you see one of those blogs giving it away for free, you are OUTRAGED. You send DMCA NOTICES to the site owner, to the Host Company, expecting that site to be pulled down. Yet at the same time you are listening to your favorite music group, smug in the knowledge that you got the whole album for free, from a file download site.

Don’t you think it is Hypocritical?

I have a real problem with all of this stuff, whether it is the file sharing of the latest music releases, DVD releases, or of the latest model from Fratman or Blake Mason. To begin with, is all this ‘file sharing‘ because people are just naturally cheap? Is it because we are all so poor, or on the game (as the Brits would say) that we don’t think anything about stealing someone else’s work?

And while we are at it, for those in America, when did it become a right to steal? I don’t get how something wrong, is turned into being a right, or that it becomes some unalienable God given privilege? Perhaps someone can enlighten me here, because see when I was growing up, my parents told me that when you take what isn’t yours, it is called stealing. If you pay for it, it is yours, and I suppose this is the area where all these file sharers confuse the issue.

If I pay for something, like a CD of my favorite group, do I have the right to give it to a friend? I paid for it, so it becomes mine, to do with as I please. I can see that argument, but do I have the right to give it to everyone in the neighbourhood? See, that is where the argument by the File Sharers fails. To GIVE IT away, to a friend is one thing, but to COPY IT & GIVE IT AWAY to anyone is what the Record Industry is objecting to.

Let us be honest too. The Record Industry is attacking File Sharing Sites not out of concern for the Artists either, but for their corporate profits. They simply aren’t selling the numbers of CD’s they used to, but instead of looking at their pricing structure, at their product quality, they have an easy scapegoat, the File Sharing Sites.

Frankly I am one of those who refuses to pay the outlandish price of a Compact Disc to listen to one or two songs. I will splurge for an artist I know, that I like, but I will not rush out and buy some new hit, because of one song. Then too, the Industry conditions us to free as well. Look at the free song downloads THEY OFFER, or how about the simple fact that they rush out thousands of copies to the various Radio Outlets, to push the Artist?

Are we any different in our marketing?

How many Sponsors are rushing out tons of free video clips, free picture sets to affiliates, to be thrown into thousands of Free Sites, AEN’s, Free Hosted Galleries, to be listed at thousands of TGP’s and MGP’s? How many sponsors give access to their membership area for Affiliates to grab whatever they need, to push the site?

Then we bitch like hell when some blog gives away the whole video or content set?

Look at the average Membership Site Price. When I started in this game, well over a decade ago, the cost was no where near the average $30 it is today. And that was in a time when there simply wasn’t the number of sites either. Yet, when you joined those sites, you got content, you got your money’s worth. DO YOU TODAY?

I can remember buying a special edition album, back in the days of Vinyl Recordings, and I hesitated but splurged the $19 to get it. It was a four album set, a fair amount of playing time, and I wore it out, listening to the whole set, over and over again. Today the average Compact Disc costs about $15, and frankly I rarely listen to them over and over again. Not to mention, the playtime is a whole lot less.

Membership Sites are no different.

We raise the prices, justify it by the cost of production, just as the Record Industry does, but are the models making more? Are those who do the rendering, the one’s taking the photographs getting a bigger cut? And are we giving the consumer value for their buck?

Why should I pay $30 to become a member, when I can easily view a Legal Affiliate Site, that has a ton and half of the product available for free? I can get off without paying a nickel to them or the Site, and is that my fault? Or is it YOURS?

In all honesty, isn’t it time to take a hard look at our own business model? While every single producer is quick to justify their membership price, the simple fact is that the consumer isn’t in agreement. You and I might agree that our product is well worth the $30 monthly fee, but is the consumer agreeing?

There will be many who will say, well they get it (pay for it), so it has to be worth it. Well I bought some fresh Halibut for dinner, paid a small fortune for it and yes, it was good. But in my mind it wasn’t worth it, and yes, I am looking for ways to get it cheaper, because I like Halibut. That means I will go to the wharf, to see if maybe I can’t by pass the local fish market, because I really don’t want to pay their outrageous prices. Oh they justify it by the higher cost of fuel, the higher cost of labor, even though their staff are paid less in real money today, than a year ago. Even though the fisherman, who actually burns the fuel isn’t getting any more.

So as a consumer, yes I pay the price, but I am looking for cheaper ways.

And that is why these file sharing sites continue to grow, to become thorns in the side of producers, whether a record label, or a porn site.

Posted on April 13th, 2008 by No Bull
Filed under: Industry News | Comments Off

Frontpage Extensions

Frontpage extensions are the extensions that web hosts install on their servers to allow people who have built their websites in Microsoft’s now defunct WYSIWYG editor, Frontpage, to run correctly if special Frontpage functions have been used during the development of the website. Frontpage provides website builders with many different functions that they can insert into their website to help make it more appealing to their visitors; addable functions include ones which can display the weather for a certain location on the same day that someone visits your website, as well as a visitor counter so that your visitors can see how many people have visited your website since you first put the counter on display. You can also add a guestbook to your website that visitors can then sign when they visit your website; you can allow them to comment on anything including the design and layout of your website - you can even use the guestbook as a source of feedback when you are looking to give your website a makeover or an upgrade of some sort in the future. The Frontpage extension manager that is built into CPanel allows you to configure certain preferences regarding the sending of email from web pages which have been designed and configured in Microsoft Frontpage; this means that Frontpage web pages have are able to have the same dynamics as their server side equivalents, but have no need for the use of databases or the setting of permissions to ensure that they are able to function correctly. Access to the Frontpage web admin is also provided so that you are able to manage and configure other features that may play a part in the running of your web pages that you have designed in Frontpage and then uploaded to your shared CPanel website hosting account space. You are also able to setup extra Frontpage management accounts with many configurable preferences including the amount of disk space that they are allowed to use. If you are new to the concept of website design and scripting then you should try and build your first web pages in Frontpage; this is because Frontpage provides you with many components and add-ins for your website which you can use to expand its interactivity since you could add a guestbook, for example, to allow your visitors to comment on your website as well as the content and design of it.

Conclusion

In conclusion, cPanel provides you with many advanced features that can help you advance your website in terms of the technology that you have used to build it and to allow it to function correctly; some of the advanced features that cPanel provides you with are unique to it as a control panel, meaning that some of the features would only be achievable in a dedicated environment such as that which is provided by both VPS and dedicated server hosting since no other website hosting control panel is able to provide you with the same features at such a high level. We have discussed the fact that you can use certain features from the advanced section of cPanel to help you use your own file extensions within your website, to help aid its technical identity which website designers and internet professionals might take a look at - the use of custom file extensions can also be used as a security measure to help deter hackers and other malicious attackers from attacking your website in any way; you can also tell a visitor’s internet browser how to handle a file of a certain extension which you might have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account. The use of custom error pages has also been discussed within the context of this article; this means that if an error was to occur with your website, you can use custom error pages which will ensure that the graphical/design identity of your website will still be displayed, even if there does happen to be a problem with it - you can also take advantage of this feature to assure your website’s visitors that you are working your hardest to try and fix the problem as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Another advanced feature of cPanel can also be used to schedule tasks to automatically run, meaning that the most important tasks required for your website to run efficiently will still take place, but automatically meaning that you don’t have to be sitting at your computer to ensure that the task or script that you want to run at certain times of the day is run successfully and efficiently. Another advanced feature of cPanel allows you to configure and run the settings that are needed to ensure that you can run web pages which you have designed within Microsoft Frontpage, and then uploaded to your cPanel web space from your desktop so that they can be viewed by your website visitors; this means that you can easily design feature rich web pages from within Microsoft Frontpage and utilize the the advanced components that it supplied, safe in the knowledge that any web pages that you create using it will run and display with ease from within the context of your shared website hosting space. You are also able to set how unprotected directories with no default/index page in them are displayed; you are given a range of options which means that you can choose whether to save on the amount of bandwidth used or not by unprotected directories that have no default web page contained within them.

Posted on April 8th, 2008 by Nete-Quette
Filed under: Hosting | Comments Off

Cron Jobs

The cron jobs feature of CPanel allows you to setup certain scripts that you might have running under your website to be run automatically at a certain time to carry out certain tasks which they have been designed for. The most common use of cron jobs (sometimes referred to as ‘Cron Jobs’ in terms of Linux website hosting) is to carry out tasks which need to be carried out on a regular basis without manual intervention; an example of a cron job in use would be in a web host billing system, where invoices for customers need to be generated at the beginning of the day without any manual intervention. You might also find cron jobs running in the situation where notifications of some sort need to be sent out to website visitors on a regular basis to ensure that they are aware of the latest information or of a new update in their account which they need to be made aware of. When setting up a cron job within CPanel, you are given the option to enter the full command for the script to ensure that it is executed correctly so that you don’t have to come and run the script manually to make it carry out its assigned task correctly. You can also choose the exact time for the script to be run by CPanel automatically - right down to the last minute, you can also choose for scripts to be run every minute of the day but this isn’t recommended since it could easily use up many server resources, and if you are on shared website hosting, could lead to your CPanel shared website hosting account being suspended because of server resource hogging as it is known. You can also choose for CPanel to send you an email notification to tell you whether the cron job has been executed successfully by the server that you are hosted on. You can also select the priority of the task which means that if it is of a high priority, it will be executed before other tasks which might be of a lower priority but still being executed at the same time as yours. You can also specify extra arguments for the execution of the task which you have not specified in the text box labeled for the command. Cron jobs can be incredibly handy in the situation where you need to run a script or task on your website at a certain time or at a certain period and aren’t able to be at your computer to run these tasks or scripts yourself when you need to during the day; this is because the cPanel cron jobs feature gives you the ability to schedule tasks or scripts related to your website to run at any time of the day and at regular periods if it is really necessary for the running of your website.

Posted on April 7th, 2008 by Nete-Quette
Filed under: Hosting | No Comments »