The Georgia Tech Research Institute is recommending a 12-character combination of upper and lower case letters, symbols and digits for passwords with passwords of seven characters or less soon to be “hopelessly inadequate”.
The warning comes in light of the use of graphics cards as surrogate supercomputers spelling trouble for users of short passwords. The researchers say the growing number of processors on graphics cards will soon make it trivial for them to crack short passwords.
You could become the proud owner of the hottest gadget around – a brand new Apple iPad.
There’s one up for grabs every week between 2nd August – 27th September 2010. Plus, daily runner-up prizes of £25 iTunes vouchers.
Just register for a .UK domain name at www.qiq.co.uk and follow the instructions in your order acknowledgement to enter the draw.
WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS) that is often used as a blog publishing application. WordPress is used by over 300 of the 10,000 biggest websites, and is the most popular blog software in use today.
Web host QiQ have recently launched a special WordPress package to help make getting started with WordPress a breeze. By providing an easy install application, you can get WordPress up and running in minutes ready for you to add your content and customise either with your own theme or by choosing from many thousands available.
The QiQ WordPress Package is not only one of the easiest ways to setup a WordPress installation but for a limited time comes with a complimentary copy of “WordPress for Dummies” (usually £15.99) which QiQ will mail to you.
Whether you are a wannabe blogger, seasoned pro migrating your blog to WordPress or looking to do more cool stuff with your existing WordPress blog – WordPress for Dummies is a fun guide for you. WordPress for Dummies is a veritable smorgasbord of WordPress information, ideas, tools, resources, and instruction on everything you need to create and maintain your dream blog.
You can purchase 12 months QiQ WordPress hosting for a single yearly payment of £24.99 online at http://www.qiq.co.uk/qiq3wpuk.php
I found it interesting that someone in a forum was specifically seeking a host that specialises in small business. Initially this made me think how is hosting for a small business different from hosting for a big business? In many respects the end result will be the same – you want reliable hosting. Something that works.
For a small business though, without an IT department you may require a bit more handholding and therefore perhaps a more one on one relationship with the support team can be beneficial. Raising a support ticket and having it answered by countless individuals can be frustrating, particularly for small businesses operators. I would therefore look very closely at how your suppliers support will be managed. Will you be a number or a name?
Yes price will also be an issue for a smaller business – but don’t think cheapest, think best value for money. Also look for an established business rather than the ISP that is flavour of the month. Statistics will prove a very high percentage of businesses fail in the first three years and you do not want your business in limbo through this.
Finally, consider where your clients are most likely to be based. The USA population is 15 times that of Australia so if they become a target Audience a USA based server may be beneficial.
Peter Harris
QiQ – www.qiq.co.uk | www.qiq.com.au
Dropbox is a great tool for keeping files synchronised across a number of computers, whether PC, Mac or Linux. Following a simple install procedure the application automatically syncs when new files or changes are detected in your ‘Dropbox Folder’ but still enables you to work on files when you are offline.
To save your bandwidth, only the pieces of a file that changed (not the whole file) are synced.
Once you have a dropbox account you can access the files via the Dropbox folder on all your computers but also via web browser and iPhone and Android devices.
Click here for a free 2GB dropbox account – www.dropbox.com
If you are a newbie to Linux or a Linux pro or someone who wants to experiment but is really not sure about what Linux flavor to choose, we have some good news for you!
The Red Hat sponsored Fedora Desktop Project rolled out its number 13 release, codenamed “Goddard” with improvements aimed at both new and experienced Linux users. Goddard adds a few nifty features to the Linux system like Plug-and-go printer support, open drivers for Intel, ATI, and NVidia hardware, and a crafty new desktop shell to try out.
The new Fedora 13 release comes six months after Fedora 12′s debut and continues to enhance the Linux operating system experience for its users. Fedora 13 includes improved virtualization, along with other developer, desktop and server improvements.
“We have a number of features designed to make Fedora a more pleasant release for everyone that uses it, not just the super hackers among us, but also the people that are just discovering open source for the first time, and everyone in between,” Fedora Project Leader Paul Frields told InternetNews.com. “All the improvements are grouped around making hardware work better for people with a minimum of fuss,” he said.
The automatic printing and experimental GNOME Shell are great additions. And the new open 3D drivers give a huge relief to anyone who ever had to download NVIDIA’s proprietary drivers for a Linux system. The hardware was recognized and utilized but the operating system did not have real control over it. Setting up things like dual monitors is a true headache with proprietary drivers, so the more natively supported video hardware available for Linux, the better its chances at becoming a really usable workspace.
The new Fedora 13 release comes as Red Hat is ramping up its development effort for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (RHEL). While Fedora benefits from contributions made by Red Hat staffers, Frields doesn’t think that the Fedora Project has been starved for resources as a result of RHEL 6 development.
“We get a lot of support from Red Hat as a sponsor and from Red Hat engineers because they really look at Fedora as being an intrinsic part of their jobs,” Frields said. “Making things work well in Fedora makes things better for Red Hat in the future versions of RHEL.”
Fedora 13 is a free download, and should work on most Intel and PowerPC-based systems. Read the release notes for an overview of the new stuff.
Looks like I will have to change my Macbook to a triple boot system now!
Recently, we had reported about the latest beta addition to the Google Chrome line. However, If you had been waiting for a stable Google Chrome 5 release before trying it out, today’s your lucky day: The Google Chrome 5 has been cleared for the stable channel and Google has announced the stable versions of its latest Chrome 5 browser for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
As reported earlier, the Chrome 5 includes a 30 to 35 per cent performance boost in JavaScript!
The Mac version has been upgraded to provide syncing between browsers that was already available for the Windows version of Chrome. The official Google Chrome’s blog states that Google was busy zapping the bugs and factoring in new features to get the Mac and Linux versions catch up with the Windows version.
Chrome 5 gets the ability to also sync browser preferences. It also includes the colorful theme choices, home page, content settings, a giant library of great extensions, a working bookmark manager and synchronizer, and even the nice-to-haves like an easily accessible full-screen mode (a common complaint among Mac users running the earlier betas and dev builds).
The stable release has the ability to run chrome extensions run in incognito mode, providing even more protection from prying eyes. This will be implemented via the enhanced Extensions Manager in Chrome 5.
There is a lot more support for HTML5 standards. Google has already implemented some of the best features of HTML 5. Google Chrome 5 beta introduces file drag-and-drop capabilities and Geo-location. Chrome 5 Beta also introduces Web sockets to make it easier and faster for Web applications to communicate with their host servers. Flash gets its due love as the Chrome 5 integrates the Adobe Flash Player right into itself. So you no longer have to worry about updating or downloading the latest version of Flash. Just open up Chrome beta 5 and start watching online videos from your favorite media site.
With all the new functionality that has been implemented, you must be raring to take the Google Chrome out for a spin. Download it right HERE. And if you want to keep up with the beta channel, just re-install the Google Chrome from this page.
