This is the subject line of a spam I just recieved: “Re: Substantial updates for geekniche.com end users”

Wow! I’d better check that out!

Oh…. wait…. I’m not an “end user”. I’m the owner!

Heh heh… sometimes even spam can make me laugh.

Yeah.. I know… I’m late. But I have an excuse! Nothing important has happened!

Okay… so it’s a lame excuse. But it’s the truth. We’re humming along just fine. While we haven’t had any major breakthroughs in the last month, we also haven’t had any major breakdowns. And that’s the way it should be–at least that second part.

A tip for the paranoid: Plesk has a “backup” feature that allows you to backup your site at any point. If you’ve just done some major changes, you may want to go into Plesk and activate the backup just to make sure that everything you just did gets saved.

I’ll be back next month with even more of this excitement. Until then, happy surfing!

It’s another month, and that means it’s time for another newsletter. This one’s going to be short because… well… not a whole lot has happened. And that’s a good thing. There’s been a lot of little tweaks and updates and such, but moving from v5.0.0.0.0.1 to v5.0.0.0.2 of some helper-script probably isn’t all that interesting to you.

Looking ahead, there is one small bit of news. We’re looking at a few changes which would affect our users (that’d be you), and we’d like your input. Right now, we’re using Plesk as our control panel and ModernBill as our invoicing application. We’re looking at some alternatives to those. Right now, we have cPanel set up on our test box, and we’re looking at AgileBill for our invoicing. We haven’t made any definite decisions either way, we’re just trying them out to see how they work.

Do you have any preferences? Is there anything in either Plesk or ModernBill that you really hate? Anything you’d like to see that isn’t there? If you’ve dealt with other programs in the past, what did you like about them? What did you dislike about them?

We’ll all take your suggestions into consideration, and I’ll certainly keep you informed of any changes as we move along.

I’ll see you all again in October!

–
M Blaze Miskulin
President
Geek Niche, Inc.

Ah… August. The month without any holidays. Not even silly holidays like Arbor Day or Sweetest Day.

August is also a the month when nothing is happening at Geek Niche. Well… there’s always things happening here, but it’s going to be a quiet month, a month of introspection, a month when the world will be at peace and dollar bills will rain from the sky.

Or not.

It is true, however, that August should be a quiet month around here. The server migration took a lot out of us. A serious wrench was thrown in the works when we discovered that some of the basic programs had internal inconsistencies. I apologize very sincerely for any problems this may have caused you, and I want to thank you again, on behalf of all of us here, for being as kind and understanding as you were.

The new server is humming along nicely, and all the tweaks and glitches should be taken care of now. If you notice any problems, please let me know. I’ll make sure the guys with the know-how are notified right away.

With the upgrades, you should notice a few changes. Your Plesk control panel will look a little different–and not just because we installed a new theme, either. There’s some new options available to you. And a couple new applications in the Ap Vault.

Just a few tips on using Plesk:

• You can use the “Directories” button to password protect directories on your site. This means you can have sections which are private, or only accessible to the people you decide to let in–such as a “members’ section”. When you password protect a directory everything inside that directory–including subdirectories–is protected by that password.
• Want to know how well your site is doing and who’s coming to see you? Click the “Reports” button, and select “Web Stats”. A new window will open up with a listing of information by month. Click on the month you want to see and a volume of new information is available to you. This includes where people are coming from, what browser they’re using, what search terms find your site, and which pages are being viewed the most. It’s a great way to find out if someone is stealing (hot-linking) your pictures, or if you’ve your site is being linked from other sites
• Want the mail from your site to be redirected to somewhere else? Go to the “Mail” button, select the address you want to be redirected, and click the “redirect” button. Just fill in the address you want it to go to, and you’re done.
• Too much spam getting through? You can do something about it. Again, click the “Mail” button, and select the e-mail address you want to filter. Click the “Spam Filter” button up above. You’ve got a few options, now. Lower the number of “hits required” and less spam will get through. You can have Plesk automatically delete what it thinks is spam or just mark it with a tag of your choice. The Blacklist is for addresses that you want to automatically delete messages from–regardless of their “spam rating”. The Whitelist is for addresses you want to always show up in your mailbox–even if they look like spam. Click on the “training” button and you can tell Plesk which e-mails in your box are spam and which are real. Plesk will remember these, and learn from what you tell it, so less and less spam will make it through.

Take some time to poke around and see what Plesk can do for you. And if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

–
M Blaze Miskulin
President
Geek Niche, Inc.

Things should be all ship-shape and bristol-fashion now (Well…with the exception of my personal site–which we purposely broke to see how things were breaking–and this blog–because the clients come first).

Part of the problem appears to be that a lot of the applications and themes being used aren’t coded properly, so the new stricter rules broke them. New installs of Gallery should work fine (if they don’t, please tell me!). However, there’s a bit of an issue with the Ap Vault version of WordPress. Plesk included a version that doesn’t like to play well with Plesk. I’ll be looking into this promptly. Installs by hand should work however. Until we can get this issue resolved with our software provider, feel free to let me know if you need a copy of WordPress installed. I can have one up and running usually within 12 hours (a whole lot sooner if you catch me when I’m not tied up in the office).

Some old WP themes won’t work. Their code contains a line that’s considered a security flaw.

If you run across any errors on your sites, please let us know so we can fix them promptly.

–
Blaze

I think I’ve found a temporary (if inelegant) fix for the problem of WordPress not showing up.

Go to your blog (or where your blog should be) and add “/wp-admin/” at the end of the url. So, you’ll have an address like this:

http://www.domain.com/wordpress/wp-admin/

You should see the login screen. Log in, go to the “presentation” tab. Select the “WordPress Classic” theme as your active theme. This seems to bring back most of the blogs.

We’re still working through the problems, but I’ll keep you up to date as much as possible.

Right now, subdomains aren’t working. I don’t believe that’s an issue for any of you, but if so, let me know.

If your WordPress blog isn’t working, FTP into your site, copy all your plugins to your computer, then delete them from the server. This should bring the blog back. Then, you can upload the plugins again and reactivate them. The only one we see a problem with is Live+Press. I’ve made note of this, and it will be looked into.

Gallery2 is still violating security rules in a number of places. Some times it works, some times it doesn’t. Please let me know if there’s anything wrong with your gallery. This will help us to track down the problem and fix it.

Some of these issues are extremely complex, and may take some time to fix. I will keep you up to date here on this blog.

We’ve just updated some of our security and found out that some of the applications (such as WordPress and Gallery2) can trip some of the security features. We’re fixing them as we find them, but if you’re working on your site and you get a “Internal Server Error”, make a note of the exact time, and what you were trying to do and let me know so we can fix it.

Thanks.

Happy weekend of North American celebrations!

Today we say “happy birthday” to our upstairs neighbors, Canada. Tuesday, it’s time for our own birthday. Sounds like a great reason to have a party.

However, I’ll take a few minutes to write up a newsletter.

Frist of all, the migration that was supposed to happen last month will definitely happen this month. Concerns over the possibility that some of the new upgrades wouldn’t play nice together caused us to delay it for a few weeks, but we’ve settled on a solution and are ready to go ahead. We haven’t set a date yet, but rest assured that you will get at least a week’s notice before we make the move. It’ll probably be on a Sunday morning, since that’s when most of you are off at church, sleeping in, spending time with your sweeties, or sipping coffee and reading one of those quaint things called a “newspaper” (It’s cordless and lightweight!).

Now… I strive to keep Geek Niche the type of company that lets you know what’s going on behind the scenes as well as out in the spotlight. I said we’ve found a solution to the issues of applications not playing well together. We have. It’s a solution that allows us to provide you with the services that you want and expect from us. However, it puts up a few hurdles for us expanding our range of services in the future. What does this mean for you? Right now, it means you’ll continue to receive the same kind of service you have been. Down the road? It means that there may be another migration in the coming months. As a company, we know where we want to be and we know what we want to offer to our clients. As the ones with our hands in the machines, we sometimes get frustrated that we can’t do it all right now. However, as the owners of the company, we understand that not everyting is that easy.

Rest assured, however, that we’re constantly working towards our goals, and we’re keeping your needs in mind.

Speaking of needs (aren’t I just a master of the segue), are your webhosting needs being met? If not, please, let me know. I’m more than willing to work with you to get those needs met. Just a few reminders:

• You’re not locked into your plan. You can upgrade (or downgrade) at any time.
• You can order “add-ons” such as more disc-space, more bandwidth, or extra features.
• You’re not limited to the plans and niches we have listed. If you have specific needs, we’re more than happy to work out a custom plan for you.
• Basic tech support is free, but if you have need of something more we offer support for HTML, PHP, SQL, and customization of applications such as WordPress and Gallery.
• If you’re unsure, just ask!

Amidst all this, we’re still looking to the future. We’re playing around with ideas for a couple of new niches, we’re working with programmers to bring you some new applications, and we’re researching additions and alternatives to what we already provide.

If there’s anything you’d like to see us offer, drop me a line and let me know: suggestions@geekniche.com

So… for all of you in the US and Canada: enjoy your holiday-weekend. And the rest of you enjoy your non-holiday weekend.

–
M Blaze Miskulin
President
Geek Niche, Inc.

Geek Niche now has an “Emergency Page“–a page that’s not on our servers, where you can go to find out what’s going on in the event that our servers go off-line unexpectedly. I suggest you bookmark the page so you can get to it during an emergency.