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The past few years has seen a large amount of criminal hackers stealing weak passwords and breaking into blogs, e-commerce sites, emails and even social networks like Facebook. Once inside they can do a wide range of damage including stealing your identity, your money, destroying your website, sending millions of spam email messages or all of the above.

This is because people have a tendency to create passwords that are simple to figure out. In other words, weak passwords. We use words like the name of our dog, our old phone number, old street address, birth date, etc. you get the picture. We all do it even tech professionals who know better do it. In this day and age we all have too much on our plates to try and remember complex or long passwords let alone five different ones. We'll create one password and use it for every site or application we have to log into. Not once do we think about the consequences because "it will never happen to me". Sound familiar.

One way we can make our lives a little more secure and still maintain a relatively simple way of creating a strong password is to use passphrases. What is this you may ask? A passphrase is a phrase that you use on a regular basis in your everyday life and changed a little to make it work as a password. You will remember it because it is engrained in your head for the most part.

Some examples might be:
My_dog's_Name_!s-Monty.
I+wish+I+could+Win+the=lottery!
D0~you~LoVe~M3?

Creating strong passphrases or passwords will not solve the security issues of the world wide web because there are just too many variables that cannot be controlled like an inept web administrator or poor script coders but by doing your part and using passphrases and/or complex passwords at least you can sleep at night knowing that yours won't be found in a dictionary or be easily guessed by the bad guys.

We have just upgraded our servers to WHM/cPanel 11.30.6 (build 4)
CENTOS 5.8 x86_64 standard. We have decided to leave the present versions of mysql and php until all our clients are able to upgrade their custom scripts so there is no conflicts with php 5.3. We advise everyone to please do this asap as we will be forced to upgrade to php 5.3 and above before too long.

Writing email can sometimes be a little daunting for those who are not really good writers but it doesn't have to be work of art. Just keep it simple and remember to try and follow the following tips:

• Keep it Brief- You are not writing a book. Most people do not read more than two or three paragraphs in an email so say your piece and be done with it.


• Keep Your Subject Short- Sometimes long subject lines are worse than no subject lines at all. Just use a couple of important keywords that describe the emails intent.


• Check Your Spelling and Grammar- Always use the spell check tools included with your email program as most people are annoyed when spelling and grammar are lax. If you don't care, why should they?


• Don't use Emoticons and Acronyms- Don't use emoticons or acronyms in your business emails they are fine in a personal email but you want to look professional with your business clients.


• Don't use ALL CAPS- Using all capital letters in your content is defined as shouting at your recipient and no one likes to be shouted at.


• Limit Carbon Copies (CC)- Don't send copies to everyone on your mailing list as sooner or later clients and even friends will start ignoring you. The email can grow quite large after continuous CC'ing to everyone.


• Greet your recipients- Make sure you greet your clients with their name as this is a form of respect and professionalism.


• Include a closing- Always include a closing with some sort of signature to let your recipient know that you are finished.


• Retain the thread- When you are replying to emails, try to include the message(s) in the context with your reply at the top so the recipient can follow the discussion.

There you have it! With a few simple guidelines you can send emails to your business clients without irritating anyone and showing some courtesy.

Apache has been upgraded to version 2.2.17, MySQL has been upgraded to version 5.0.95, and dual support for PHP 4.4.9 and PHP 5.2.16 is now active. You can toggle which version of PHP your site uses in cPanel using the PHP Configuration icon. Consult the specs page for detailed server information. (Note: Not all prefab scripts supports PHP5. If your page doesn't work after changing to PHP5, set it back to PHP4 and consult the script manufacturer for a newer version that supports PHP5.)

Tell your friends, family and business associates about our services and receive a $10 credit on your account for each new client you refer. Simply instruct them to enter your domain, company name or account contact name on the "Referred By" line during the order process. (NOTE: Referrals MUST enter your domain, company name or account contact name during the order process in order to receive your credit. Credits given are applied to your account for use in paying for our services, have no cash value and are non-transferable.)