We are pleased to announce that we are offering Graffiti CMS as a part of an easy to install Application Pack available to all of our shared customers. Customers who install the a CMS on their site will be able to take advantage of Graffiti’s simplified content management system that brings together the best of proven CMS platforms and the convenience of modern publishing systems, like those found in blogs.

Here are some of the advantages of Graffiti:

     No need for a database! Well, that’s not entirely true, but Graffiti does implement VistaDB, which eliminates the need for a SQL server and connection information.

·         Easy Customization with the use of pre-existing themes or by creating your own theme using Chalk (http://graffiticms.com/support/advanced-options/)

·         Search engine friendly URL’s, Smart redirects, and structured content that will help take your sites rankings to the next level.

·         Graffiti CMS is built by Telligent (http://telligent.com/) the same people who developed Community Server (http://communityserver.com/) community platform used by companies like Microsoft and MySpace.com

Installation takes just a few clicks of the mouse using the application pack feature on your control panel’s domain menu.

Interview with the Developers (Windows Media Format)

Customers who sign up for any of our shared hosting plans will be able to immediately take advantage of Graffiti’s features.  Although Graffiti will execute under the Value Plus plan, we recommend you run it under a VS-1 if you are looking to use this application in a production environment. Click here to see some of our Knowledge Base articles on how to get started. It’s literally installed in about 3 clicks.

In the near future we plan on offering this as part of a “Software as a Service” (SaaS) hosting solution so be on the lookout for that.

Over the years, we often been coined as leading innovators in Windows Web Hosting and (my favorite): The Windows Hosting Experts. Our work with Windows Server 2008 is an example of just why we are considered as leaders. We started working with IIS7 in 2006 with the earliest betas of Longhorn (later to be called Windows Server 2008) and first introduced our customers to a beta version of IIS7 hosting on ‘LongHorn’ at the start of February last year.  Then we released Windows 2008 Dedicated Server Hosting back in November of last year and earlier this month we got the go-ahead to start offering Windows 2008 dedicated hosting using the RTM build and have quietly been promoting and deploying dedicated servers running the production version of Windows Server 2008 ever since. Today is the official launch of Windows Serer 2008 and soon the rest of the world will join in and follow suit but as leading innovators in the hosting Industry and the Windows Hosting Experts we are proud to be able to state we brought Windows 2008 Hosting to you, our E-Business Partners, in such a way that you had the opportunity to be among the first exposed to Windows Server 2008.

Today in Los Angeles, Steve Ballmer will keynote the global launch of Windows Server 2008. This event will be followed over the coming months with launch events all over the globe as well as a virtual launch experience.  You can learn more about the Launch events as well as register for a launch in your area at the heroes happen here website. 

With all the fanfare there are of course a few questions that have come up regarding Windows Server 2008 in a hosting environment and I thought I’d spend a little time discussing the most common questions here.

What are the different flavors of Windows Server 2008 and will you offer them?

There are currently five versions of Windows Server 2008 in the family: Enterprise, Datacenter, Standard, Web and Itanium. Each version except Itanium can support Server Core which is a reduced footprint installation of the OS.  Each version except Itanium and Web can support Hyper-V, Microsoft’s new Virtualization platform. 

Of course, each version is also available as a 64bit and 32bit operating system. It’s rumored that Windows Server 2008 will be the last Server OS to support 32bit

We currently support all versions of Windows Server 2008, except Itanium. All of our dedicated servers deployed today with Windows Server 2008 can support either the 32bit or 64bit version (available upon request).  Here’s an overview image of the different versions and the full details are available from the Microsoft website.

What’s new or updated in Windows Server 2008?

Microsoft has available a table detailing the different versions and what’s new or updated in each on available on their website. Below is a screen shot of this table.

How do the different versions of Windows Server 2008 Compare?

Below is a table outlining the different technical features and specifications of each version this is available from the Microsoft website.

Below is also a table showing the different server roles available in each version, also available from the Microsoft website.

Lastly, the image below shows the differentiated features in each version of Windows Server 2008, also available from the Microsoft website.

What’s this Hyper-V and why is there a with and a without version of Windows Server 2008?

Hyper-V is the new Virtualization technology from Microsoft, it’s currently in BETA and will not be fully released until mid-year 2008. We can install it upon request but the default install is without Hyper-V.

How much is each Windows Server 2008 license on a Dedicated Server?

This is the big question, just how much money is it going to cost! The good news is during the initial launch period we’re installing Windows Server 2008 Web Edition, FOR FREE!.  Afterwards current monthly pricing (which could change) is as follows:

• Windows Server 2008 Web Edition: $25
• Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition: $50
• Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition: $150
• Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition: $250

The recommended setup would be Web Edition for front-end servers (web servers) with Datacenter Edition for back-end servers (database servers, application servers). You’ll notice that pricing from 2003 to 2008 has changed considerably, in the past you were able to license a dedicated server with standard for about $25/month per CPU and now it’s $150/month per CPU and this change is hosting industry wide. The reason for the change is that the previous licenses were “un-authenticated” licenses and Microsoft has discontinued “un-authenticated” licenses. Because of this change all licenses are now licensed as “authenticated” and thus the higher price. It should be pointed out that authenticated licenses were always this much.  Because of this change in pricing we except to see more licenses of Web and Datacenter editions going forward.

What kind of promotions are you running?

With the launch of Windows Server 2008 we’ve created a very appealing bundle:

• A Dual Core Xeon based Dell Server with 1GB of memory and 2 160GB drives
• A Free SmarterTools Bundle ($500 Value)
• A Free license of Sharepoint Designer to all Windows Server 2008 Dedicated Server Customers
• Free Licensing of Windows Server 2008 Web Edition
• and A Free Month of hosting!

This package is priced at just $190/month.

Where can I learn more about Windows 2008 Dedicated Hosting?

You can learn more about our Windows Server 2008 Dedicated Hosting offering by going to our Windows Server 2008 Dedicated Server page. If you’re a developer and considering a new dedicated server, we recommend you review our Windows 2008 Developer Dedicated Hosting page. Finally, if you attend any of the launch events, you’ll receive a flyer in your bag of goodies with a link to our developer ready Windows Server 2008 dedicated hosting landing page.

When will we see Windows 2008 Shared hosting available?

We’re currently working on our roll out of production Windows Server 2008 shared hosting as we have been for the past year. Because Windows Server 2008 offers so many new features and capabilities we feel it would be an injustice to not offer as much of these features as possible with the initial launch and this has been the delay. Expect to see an announcement of Windows Server 2008 shared hosting in the coming days.

When will we see Windows 2008 VPS Hosting?

Unfortunately, this will most likely be a few months away, but should happen before the middle of the year. Since Hyper-V is still in beta and Windows Server 2008 is still relatively new there’s still a fair bit of work to be done.

What’s next?

This year is going to be a very exciting year for not only Applied Innovations but the entire web community. The release of Windows Server 2008 is bringing so much change to the hosting industry that we’re all extremely excited. Whether, you’re an ASP.NET developer, a PHP developer or just a web designer, 2008 is going to be a year dedicated to you and one you should be equally excited about.  My advice, stay tuned and as the technology evolves and is ready for production you can rest assured that Applied Innovations will be among the first to bring it to you.

Consider it a little gift for the holidays, AppliedI.net has commissioned the design of 3 FREE wordpress themes and are providing these completely free to our wordpress hosting customers and the wordpress community at large. Best of all, if you install wordpress now through our one click installer these 3 themes will be immediately available for your use. We’re also including the PSD files so you can update images as needed.

To install any of these blogs just download them, unzip them and then upload the entire folder in a subfolder in your wp-content/themes/ folder. Then select them from the theme manager in Wordpress.

Free Wordpress Theme #1 - Gone Fishing

Gone Fishing is a fully W3C validated theme that is also widget ready! The included PSD file is layered and labeled and easily modified if you so please.

DOWNLOAD    or    DEMO

Free WordPress Theme #2 - The Awesome Blog

Awesome Blog is like no other blog design you’ve probably seen.  It should be easy to modify and tweak to your own settings. We’ve included the PSD file with this blog so you can adjust the header banner with your own text or logos.

DOWNLOAD    or    DEMO

Free WordPress Theme #3 - The Sleek Blog

The Sleek Blog is a 3 column blog that is just simply sleek.  It’s a very clean design that’s easy to read and not overly colorful or overwhelming.

The sleek blog also includes the PSD file so the banner images can be modified to your needs.

DOWNLOAD    or    DEMO

We hope you find the three blog themes easy to use and enjoy them. If you make any changes to the themes and wish to share those changes with the community feel free to drop us a line and we’ll make sure it’s posted. 

Happy Blogging!

WordPress has become so popular that I’m 90% sure that you have at least heard about the name. WordPress is in reality a blogger-like application that can be installed onto your own web hosting account.

With it you can even create your own community of bloggers, each person with his/her own blog, or you can have multiple authors on a single blog as well. Everything was thought of.

WordPress isn’t only this though. In essence yes. But it can be more, much more.

Many people, including myself use WordPress for more then just blogging. On my particular case, it’s the only CMS and it’s actually the platform that delivers all my website’s content to visitors. Everything dynamically!

In fact, I predict WordPress will turn into a full Content Management System such as Joomla, phpNuke or Post-Nuke. It really has the power for it. Actually it’s way more powerful and it can be much more secure then the ones I just mentioned. It’s all about patience and time to secure it.

Don’t worry, it isn’t insecure. But just like every other popular application, vulnerabilities are found more easily, and unfortunately they also become public from night to day. Again, a few tweaks here and there will kept your site secure from all the threats.

One of the things I’ve done on mine was to promptly restrict admin access to my IP only. Even if you have a dynamic IP and cannot do this, you can always restrict the IP range to your ISP. This is done by using rewrite rules.

More information on this can be found at:
http://blogsecurity.net/wordpress/article-210607/

Having this covered, WordPress can be your best pal on content management. Especially with the new tool from Microsoft: Windows Live Writer.

So with WordPress you’ll be able to submit new articles and update existing ones without even having to open a browser window.

What else could we ask for?

Plus with so many themes and plugins being developed for it, you can even sell cars through it. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? WordPress can do everything, really. Like I said it’s just a matter of putting time and effort into it, and it will become the perfect CMS for you, guaranteed.

Some interesting links:
Installation guide by Jess Coburn (Appliedi.net)
WordPress’ official plugin directory
WordPress’ official theme directory
Wordpress compatible Hosting

Applied Innovations is pleased to announce we’re not only fully compatible for WordPress Hosting but we now offer WordPress as a One-Click install through our powerful, yet easy to use control panel. We’ll explore WordPress and demonstrate how easy it is to get WordPress running on our webservers.

Why Wordpress, and Why WordPress on Windows?

WordPress is a freely distributed, standards-compliant, fast, light and free personal publishing platform. Based on PHP and MySQL wordpress is very powerful and extensible. Wordpress is also one of the most widely adopted and used blogging engines today and powers the very blog you’re reading.

As a Windows hosting provider we support PHP and MySQL on all of our hosting servers and Wordpress is just one of the many applications we host that is built around PHP and MySQL and we’ve extended our hosting platform to make your PHP/MySQL hosting as easy and powerful as it is on any hosting platform. One of the additions you’ll find on our hosting platform is helicon-tech.com’s Isapi-Rewrite. Isapi-Rewrite 3.0 is a mod-rewrite compatible isapi filter that brings full mod-rewrite compatibility to your Windows hosting account. For wordpress this means you’ll be able to make full use of permalinks and search engine friendly URLs without any extra work! In addition we support the latest builds of PHP with Windows optimized binaries for maximum performance and compatibility.

Installing WordPress at AppliedI.net

1. Selecting the WordPress application pack

Within your domain settings of our control panel you’ll find an option for Application Packs.

The Application Packs are a series of common web applications that we support as one-click installable apps. By using the application packs you’ll be able to install some of the most requested and commonly hosted applications without having to upload anything, without having to edit any files and with minimum effort on your part. This makes installing applications like wordpress even easier than they already.

2. Entering basic configuration settings

Once you select the wordpress application pack you’ll need to enter a few settings. You’ll want to decide what folder you’ll install it in and enter that folder, if it’s not the root folder. You’ll want to either select an existing MySQL database or create a new database and if creating a new database you’ll want to enter the database and login credentials you’ll use. By default wordpress prepends wp_ to all of it’s tables so if you already have a MySQL database for another web application you can share that information here.

3. You’re done, almost!

Once you click the install button on the configuration page the control panel copies over the wordpress files and edits the configuration files for you, next step is to execute the web based installer within wordpress. Easiest way to do that is to open the url:

http://YOURDOMAIN/wp-admin/index.php (where YOURDOMAIN is your domain name)

or you can just go directly to http://YOURDOMAIN/ but you may notice the CSS isn’t quite right and some of the images may not display correctly but don’t be alarmed it will still install fine.

Once you open the install page you just need to make a few basic settings and we’re done.

4. Setting Wordpress Email & Title

As with any WordPress install, you’ll want to enter your blog’s title, your email address (make sure you use your real email address because it will email you your username and password to this address) and click the install button.

5. Now you just need to log in.

Once you click the install button, you’ll wait a few minutes for a screen like:

That’s it your blog is now installed and you’ll be able to login and finish configuring the blog.

What’s next after it’s installed?

After you’ve installed your blog you’re all set and can begin blogging immediately. You’ll log into the admin interface at:

http://YOURDOMAIN/wp-admin (where YOURDOMAIN is your actual domain)

and begin configuring it. You’ll be able to enable new plug-ins and themes. We’ve taken the liberty to enable a couple extra themes for you (about 6 actually) so you’ll have a few more choices and we’ve installed some of the most common plug-ins for you that you can enable if you like.

Look for a future blog posting on advanced wordpress on windows tips and tricks that will help you extend wordpress even further.