All posts by 2020media

2020Media is a leading UK web host offering Linux and Windows website hosting. The company specialises in WordPress, Joomla and Drupal support.
Tips and Tricks

WordPress Plugins

Free content management system WordPress can be extended very quickly and easily by installing plugins. These can do just about anything thanks to the way WordPress’s framework is designed, but here’s a list of the top 10 most popular free plugins and what they do.

  1. Akismet: Keep your comments free of spam.
  2. All in One SEO Pack: Transforms your WordPress site into a search engine magnet.
  3. Google XML Sitemaps: You want Google to index your site right? You need this plugin.
  4. Contact Form 7: Adds a very configurable contact form to your site.
  5. NextGEN Gallery: A image gallery option with optional Flash slideshow
  6. WordPress.com Stats: Get an insight into your visitors
  7. AddToAny: Share/Bookmark/Email Button: The web is now social. Is your website?
  8. Google Analyticator: Get an insight into your visitors using Google’s free service.
  9. WP-PageNavi: A more advanced paging navigation for sites with lots of pages.
  10. WPtouch iPhone Theme: automatically transforms your WordPress blog into an iPhone application-style theme
plugins menu
Plugins

This list was compiled by Vladimir Prelovac, and one of the criteria was that the plugin must have been updated in the last year to be included – so you know these are being supported. Any of the above plugins can be installed from within your WordPress site, just search for it’s name in the Plugins section.

2020Media offers free installation of WordPress on any of its hosting plans, and our team is delighted to talk to users of WordPress about any aspect of its use.

Technical

Joomla News

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Joomla logo
Joomla Hosting

Here’s a few extensions for Joomla CMS that we’ve found very useful so we thought’d we’d share them with you.

  • jLoginAlert Emails you when someone tries to login to your site.
  • Mobile Joomla Reformats your site to fit mobiles
  • JoomArt Extensions Manager Centralised management and updating of extensions
  • Docman document/download manager with user login, notifications and a big supporting community.
  • VirtueMart free ecommerce extension that can also be used as a catalogue.
  • ReDJ allows you to create short urls on your site that redirect to actual pages. See www.2020media.com/contact for an example.

Coming soon for Joomla fans is going to be the release of Joomla 1.6. This is actually quite a major update, the current 1.5 release has been going for around 3 years and the release of 1.6 will open up Joomla far more to integrate with other services. This is an approach the Drupal has used very successfully so its a case of Joomla catching up with how the web is developing now.

Domain Names

Domain Names – big numbers

There are now almost 200 million domain names registered, and we’ll certainly see the figure hit this milestone later this year. Compared to the first quarter of 2009, domain name registrations grew by 11 million, or 6 percent. Domain registrations seem to beat the economy no matter how its performing.

Total Domain Registrations q1 2010

A decline in .cn (china) registrations has resulted in a shift in the global leader board. The top ranking domain name extenstions for first quarter 2010 are now:

  1. .com
  2. .de (Germany)
  3. .net
  4. .cn (China)
  5. .uk (United Kingdom)
  6. .org
  7. .info
  8. .nl (Netherlands)
  9. .eu (European Union)
  10. .ru (Russia)

Country code domains (ccTLD) make up around 40% of the total registrations, with 76.3 million ccTLD registrations at the end of 1st quarter 2010.

Big Numbers

Verisign, the registry for .com and .net, handled an average number of DNS queries of 54 BILLION per DAY in the first part of 2010. Peaks were as high as 63.2 billion. The daily average has increased 43% since last year. Taken together with the slower rise in registrations, this suggest more internet users and more internet use by users. These mind-boggling numbers underline how important DNS is to our internet ecosystem. The fees for registering domains are spent many ways, but the most important two are the DNS and the database of who owns what (WHOIS). The registry for .com and .net has maintained 100 percent operation accuracy and stability for the past 12 years, making .com and .net domains amongst the most reliable in the world.

Security

Operational later this year is DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions). This behind-the-scenes add on to the DNS system will be offered by 2020Media to all its customers automatically as it is rolled out, so all our clients will be offered the ability to upgrade the security and stability of their domains.

About Domain Name Security Extensions (DNSSEC)
DNSSEC ensures that requests to visit an Internet web site reach the intended destination. DNSSEC protects against security vulnerabilities such as DNS cache poisoning, pharming and DNS redirection, commonly exploited to commit fraud and criminal attacks

Domain Names, Technical

Brusells ICANN Meeting

ICANN Brussels
Promotional items from potential new gTLD applicants

2020Media’s Management team attended the recent ICANN (policy making body for gTLD domains and IP numbers) meeting in Brussels, Belgium. The week long conference is part of ICANN 3 annual worldwide meetings to engage with all internet stakeholders, from representatives of government to non-commercial internet using private individuals.

The main topics for discussion were the release of new gTLD (global top level domain names), and the .xxx domain. The last was rather a moot point as ICANN revealed on the last public discussion that they had taken a decision in principle to approve the application, subject to various caveats. After an independent review which found ICANN’s previous decisions was flawed, the board really had few options left.

New domains like .shop, .canon, .london provoked much more discussion, this time about the various guidelines and rules that ICANN has come up with. ICANN is seeking comment on it’s latest release of the applicant guidebook.

Of note to the technically minded was further steps along the road to secure DNS (DNSSEC) with more top level domain signings. The root zone itself is due to go live in July.