How to Add Your WordPress Blog to Apple News

Did you just start a blog and want to submit it to Apple News? By becoming an Apple News publisher, you can monetize your news channel while giving your readers the ability to read your blog alongside with their other favorite websites from a single app. In this article, we will show you how to add your WordPress blog to Apple news.

Before Getting Started

Apple News app allows users to read news and blogs articles in one single app on their Apple devices. It provides a better reading experience and makes it easier for users to stay updated with their favorite content from a single app.

The Apple News program for publishers allows you to submit your blog as an Apple News channel. It also allows you to monetize your content by showing advertisements.

However the monetization program is still in beta, and it is only available in the United States, UK, and Australia. You will have to wait for a couple weeks for your application to get reviewed.

Please note: this guide is for self-hosted WordPress blogs and not for WordPress.com blogs. See our guide on the difference between WordPress.org vs WordPress.com. If you’re on WordPress.com, then you can use this guide to move from WordPress.com to WordPress.org.

Having said that, let’s learn how to add your WordPress blog to Apple News.

Adding a WordPress Site to Apple News

First thing you need to visit the News Publisher app on the iCloud website. You will need to login with your Apple ID.

Once you are logged in, you will see News Publisher terms of service. Click on I agree and then click on the submit button.

Next, you will be asked to provide publisher information. Fill in the form and then click on Next.

In the following step, you will be asked to setup your channel by providing information about your website. Fill in the required fields and click on the next button to proceed.

You will now be asked to provide a type based logo for your channel. A type based logo is just an image with your site name in readable text format. It should have a transparent background, and the file size should be less than 2 MB.

Next, you will be asked to choose between RSS or Apple News Format. Go ahead and choose Apple News Format, we will cover this in the next step.

If you use the RSS feed option, then you will not be able to monetize your content in Apple News. It also prevents you from using other Apple News features as a publisher.

See the comparison chart below:

Once you are done, click on the Signup for Apple News Format button.

That’s all, you have successfully finished your application for joining the Apple News. You will now see a thank you page like this one:

Now you will have to wait to hear back from Apple News. An application can take up to two weeks to be approved.

You may want to bookmark this article now and come back to complete step 2 once your application is approved. Press Ctrl + D to bookmark the article in your browser (Cmd + D for Mac users).

Submitting Articles to Apple News

Once your application is approved, you will be able to submit articles from your WordPress blog to the Apple news app.

You will have to manually submit your first article via your News Publisher account on iCloud. Since Apple is notorious for quality, your first article will be manually reviewed by the Apple News team, and this could also take some time (anywhere between 1-2 weeks).

After that Apple News will automatically start showing articles from your RSS Feed.

Here is how to automatically publish your WordPress blog posts to Apple News.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Publish to Apple News plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » Apple News page to configure plugin settings.

Next, you need to enter your channel ID, API key, and API key secret. You can find this information by signing into your Apple News Publisher account.

After that you need to select which post types you would like to generate in Apple News format. In most cases, the only post type you need to select is Posts.

The last section is to configure the visual appearance of different elements in your generated articles. Feel free to customize the settings as you need.

Don’t forget to click on the save changes button when you are done.

That’s all, Publish to Apple News will now start publishing your article in the Apple News Format.

We hope this article helped you learn how to add your WordPress blog to Apple News. You may also want to see these 19 actionable tips to drive traffic to your WordPress site.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Add Your WordPress Blog to Apple News appeared first on WPBeginner.

Web Hosting News Update: Google Cloud’s Down Time, Blog’s Inventor, SlideShare’s Changes, and Shellshock Hackers Hit Yahoo

alt="Web Hosting News Update: Google Cloud’s Down Time, Blog’s Inventor, SlideShare’s Changes, and Shellshock Hackers Hit Yahoo" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/google-cloud-500x238_c.png" />

October isn’t yet halfway over and already has been a big news month for web hosting. From down time, to hackers, to changes in how various websites work, there is enough news to keep you in reading material for days. While we can’t cover all the news items, WHSR will focus on a few of the ones we feel are important to website owners.

Google Cloud’s Down Time

Many small business owners utilize Google for a variety of tasks.

Let’s face it, love Google or hate them, they offer services that small business owners such as bloggers need to be effective.

Whether you use Google Drive, Google Hangouts or utilize their analytics to figure out how well your site is performing, you may have experienced interruptions on Wednesday, October 8th.

Analytics was fixed within minutes, but users also experienced downtime with Google Cloud Storage. The problems were reported starting around 11:30 EST and went on for about 90 minutes. Google posted in their forums:

“We apologize for any issues this may have caused to you or your users and thank you fo ryour patience and continued support.”

They went on to reassure users that it is a priority to make sure their systems are reliable.

Inventor of Blogging Celebrates 20 Years

On Saturday, October 11th, href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/12/happy-20th-anniversary-dave-winer-inventor-of-the-blog" target="_blank">The Guardian reported on the inventor of the blog, Dave Winer. This month, in 1994, Winer published his first blog post via software he created. It was called Davenet.

For more than 20 years, Winer has been on the cutting edge of Internet innovations. He had a hand in helping create how RSS runs.

Today, Winer is still blogging via his blog href="http://scripting.com/" target="_blank">Scripting News. Spend five minutes reading through his blog and you’ll be as hooked as I was. He is obviously one of the clearest thinking bloggers on the Internet and a true pioneer of blogging.

href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/hosting-updates-news/web-hosting-news-update-google-clouds-down-time-blogs-inventor-slideshares-changes-and-shellshock-hackers-hit-yahoo/attachment/slideshare-screenshot/" rel="attachment wp-att-11180">class="alignright wp-image-11180" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/slideshare-screenshot.jpeg" alt="slideshare app" width="300" height="534" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/slideshare-screenshot.jpeg 319w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/slideshare-screenshot-168x300.jpeg 168w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/slideshare-screenshot-300x534.jpeg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />SlideShare Releases iOS App

Businesses who use SlideShare for presentations or to promote their websites will be thrilled to learn that the company has released an href="https://itunes.apple.com/app/id917418728" target="_blank">iOS app. What this means is that users can now access their slides from anywhere via Apple devices.

The release is for iOS 8 and above and the app is optimized for the iPhone 5 and above.

There are several ways you can utilize this app. Create a presentation ahead of time and share it on the fly with a potential investor. Read through other people’s presentations to gather ideas and inspiration. Or, even use it to review a slide you previously created before going into a big meeting.

Yahoo! Attacked by Romanian Hackers Via ShellShock?

Jonathan Hall of href="http://www.futuresouth.us/wordpress/?p=25" target="_blank">Future South Technologies, an online security company, released a pretty strong blog post about the infiltration on Yahoo! and insists it was from Shellshock vulnerability.

While the attack was going on, Hall did his best to inform Yahoo! as well as Lycos and WinZip and he contacted the FBI about the exploitation of these sites.

Hall’s issue with Yahoo! is that Alex Stamos, CISO of Yahoo!, posted a statement that they were not iimpacted by Shellshock but they “isolated a handful of servers” that were at risk. Hall uses facts to back up his statement that Yahoo! was indeed breached via the Shellshock vulnerability.

What do you think? Is Stamos being honest with the public? Does Hall have a good point?

Share your views in the comments area below. As always, if you have news that would be of interest to other website owners, feel free to share that as well.

Page 11 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

Web Hosting News Update: Changing Cloudscape, Stopping Hackers and Security Upgrades

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If there is one thing that is certain, it is that news in the category of web hosting changes often. In this news update, TSW takes a look at trends in cloudhosting and the changing cloudscape, what Google’s HTTPS algorithm means for website owners, important security upgrades, and a new system for blocking brute force attacks on WordPress.

Changing Cloudscape and Where Cloud Hosting Is Headed

Although the concept of cloud computing dates back to the 1999, when salesforce.com and Google launched consumer cloud services, throughout the 2000s the market has grown.

There is little doubt that cloud-based infrastructures are growing in popularity and that trend will likely continue into the next decade and beyond. The big names in hyperscale vending are AWS, Google, Softlayer and Microsoft are offering cloud services at discounted rates and price matching one another. The goal is to secure the majority of marketshare in the coming few years, maintain those clients and make a profit with sheer volume plus add-on sales. Look for great deals in cloud hosting in the next few years as the big four and those coming up behind them, such as Amazon, battle it out to see who the top dog in cloud hosting will ultimately be.

For readers who are keen to dig deeper, here are the pricing pages from href="https://cloud.google.com/products/compute-engine/">Google Compute Engine, href="http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/">Amazon AWS, href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2014/03/31/microsoft-azure-innovation-quality-and-price.aspx">Microsoft Azure, and href="http://www.softlayer.com/virtual-servers">IBM Softlayer. Adrian Cockcroft has assembled my own spreadsheet summary of instance specifications from the above vendors:  href="http://bit.ly/cloudinstances">http://bit.ly/cloudinstances.

WHMCS Urges Security Upgrades

If you’re using a service, such as CloudFlare and other proxy services with your WHMCS installation, the site released a href="http://blog.whmcs.com/security.php" target="_blank">security update on their blog urging customers to update. The update provides an IP detection logic system to improve security features. The blog post states, “The update includes a significant update to the low-level cryptographic routines used for admin authentication. These changes will affect any 3rd-party integration which directly accesses the admin user database table; they should not have an observable impact on installations otherwise.”

Protecting Your WordPress Website

Automattic, the company that oversees WordPress.com, released an announcement that it has purchased BruteProtect. BruteProtect is a plugin combined with a service that protects website owners using WP from hackers. BruteProtect will be part of Jetpack and thus will be installed with a single click. Malicious logins can threaten the health of your site and business, so this is a welcome acquisition for WordPress-based sites.

Google’s HTTPS Algorithm Changes

It’s probably no surprise to website hosts that Google has yet again added another element to how they rank websites. This time, their focus is on how secure your website it. They href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2014/08/https-as-ranking-signal.html" target="_blank">stated on the Google Blog:

“Over the past few months we’ve been running tests taking into account whether sites use secure, encrypted connections as a signal in our search ranking algorithms. We’ve seen positive results, so we’re starting to use HTTPS as a ranking signal.”

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Preference will be given to sites that offer visitors a secure HTTPS connection. Google’s focus on security may lead to development of more products and stronger security measures from hosting providers. In the meantime, you can talk to your web hosting company about what they will be offering in light of Google’s latest focus.

The Internet is fluid and web hosting news changes from day to day. WHSR will always highlight the top concerns website owners might have about hosting and bring you the latest updates. However, it is impossible to cover everything. If you have something to add to this list, please share your news in the comments section below.

Page 12 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

Web Hosting News Update: Google’s Quantum Computing, Hybrid Cloud Backup and Celebrity Photo Hacking

alt="Web Hosting News Update: Google’s Quantum Computing, Hybrid Cloud Backup and Celebrity Photo Hacking" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/quantum-500x337_c.jpg" />

Keeping up-to-date with the latest hosting industry news can help you have a website that covers any back-end needs as well as front-end preferences from your visitors. While we can’t cover all the news at one time here at WHSR, we will try to keep you up-to-date on the latest advances, security concerns and research.

Quantum Computing

Quantum computers gain their power from atoms to complete tasks.

If your thirst for more speed and more memory has not yet been quenched, then you’ll be happy to hear that Google has announced plans to build quantum information processors at its artificial intelligence lab. The project is called “href="https://plus.google.com/+QuantumAILab/posts/UcWGvc9Y6dU" target="_blank">Hardware Initiative”. The possibilities for this initiative are endless. Not only might we see faster computers that run a bit differently than today’s models in the near future, but the impact will eventually trickle down to Internet servers as faster, more powerful computers work from the back-end of web hosting companies.

Hybrid Cloud Backup

If your company uses a hybrid cloud, or you back up any of your data (website or otherwise) on a cloud-based system, then you’ll be interested to hear that iDrive, the online backup storage provider, recently released an upgrade that allows users to back up data not only off their local drives but also to href="http://myhostnews.com/2014/09/online-backup-provider-idrive-launches-hybrid-cloud-backup-functionality" target="_blank">backup data in the cloud. While your server may provide a restore option, it is always smart to have another backup available. Files can get corrupted and then you’ll be in serious trouble if you don’t have important data stored. The hybrid backup feature allows website owners to back up SQL, Exchange, Sharepoint and Oracle data.

To learn more, check out Jerry’s recent article:  href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/web-tools/everything-you-need-to-know-about-cloud-storage/">Everything you need to know about Cloud Storage.

Internet Slowdown Day

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Web Hosting News Updates: Facebook’s New Safety Check Feature, Microsoft Azure to Combat Ebola, and Customers Demanding Refunds from AT&T for Cramming

alt="Web Hosting News Updates: Facebook’s New Safety Check Feature, Microsoft Azure to Combat Ebola, and Customers Demanding Refunds from AT&T for Cramming" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/safetycheckmobielcarousel-500x675_t.jpg" />

The last few weeks have been interesting as far as news cycles go. With the first US Ebola diagnosis, growing concerns over this disease have dominated news channels and websites everywhere. However, buried under the concerns that the disease might spread farther than ever before, have been a few noteworthy items that those active on the Internet should take note of.

href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/hosting-updates-news/web-hosting-news-updates-facebooks-new-safety-check-feature-microsoft-azure-to-combat-ebola-and-customers-demanding-refunds-from-att-for-cramming/attachment/safetycheckmobielcarousel/" rel="attachment wp-att-11283">class="alignright size-full wp-image-11283" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/safetycheckmobielcarousel.jpg" alt="safetycheckmobielcarousel" width="300" height="405" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/safetycheckmobielcarousel.jpg 300w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/safetycheckmobielcarousel-222x300.jpg 222w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Facebook’s New Safety Check Feature

On March 12, 2014, an EF4 tornado devastated my small town in southern Indiana. As the vicious monster took out roofs, houses, trees and the local school, it also took down phone lines and all means of communication with the outside world.

Frantic relatives and friends were worried sick about us and it wasn’t until hours and hours later that we were able to get enough signal to get out a quick text or two and let a handful know we were okay.

Facebook has come up with a solution to this problem and it’s quite brilliant. It is called href="http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/10/introducing-safety-check/" target="_blank">Safety Check.

This app uses Facebook to both let family and friends know you are okay during times of crisis and for you to check on those you may be worried about.

In addition, if the app senses you are in an area affected by disaster, it will send you a reminder to check in and let your loved ones know you’re safe or not in the area impacted by the disaster. The app will then update your Facebook wall and your friends will see that you’re okay.

Brilliant. I wish this app had been around two years ago.

Microsoft Azure and Ebola Cures

You may have heard of Microsoft Azure for Research. Azure is a project that lets scientists use Microsoft’s cloud to upload experiments and work with other scientists in the field.

Microsoft announced on October 20th that access to Azure would be free to any qualified Ebola researcher.

By putting information on the cloud, researchers can more easily develop vaccines and treatments. It will also be used to distribute information on containing and treating the disease.

There is one rule of thumb, however. Those applying need to be not only qualified in the field of Ebola research but affiliated with an academic institution, such as an accredited university.

AT&T Plays with Fire and Pays

The FCC and the FTC joined together and fined AT&T 5 for mobile cramming. This simply means that they allowed mobile charges that were unauthorized by the user to be billed to consumers and then took a kickback of about 35%.

According to href="https://www.techdirt.com/blog/netneutrality/articles/20141019/18370828884/fcc-used-title-ii-to-fine-att-sms-cramming-world-didnt-end-why-would-it-broadband.shtml" target="_blank">Tech Dirt, this was also the largest fine ever given by the FCC.

AT&Ts decision to charge for premium services may have impacted you, especially if you used your mobile device to access the Internet.

As a business owner, being able to access your email, social media and check your websites without fear of incurring out of control charges is a vital part of doing business.

href="http://time.com/3511123/att-bogus-charges/" target="_blank">Time magazine estimates that about 350,000 customers have already asked for refunds. Do you feel you were charged for premium services, such as horoscopes or other tips that you did not actually subscribe to? If so, you have until May 1, 2015 to href="https://www.ftcsettlementatt.com/en/Claim" target="_blank">file a claim with the FTC.

Those are three of the important Internet news items in this cycle.

Page 11 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

How to Improve Your Facebook News Feed Performance

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Getting into a News Feed on Facebook means that your page is visible to someone directly. When they log onto their Facebook page, your post sitting there on their screen is what every social media marketer is after in the long run. Facebook’s updates with the News Feed makes it easier to be seen, but there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done.

If you’re a social media marketer looking for ways to href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/featured-articles/social-media-marketing-productive-tools/">improve the overall performance of your campaign, here are some tips to help you boost the number of News Feeds you land in with your content.

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Vital Tips for Improving Facebook’s News Feed

1: Target Online Fans

The best way to be seen by someone in their News Feed is to be seen quickly. In other words, your best bet is to send out a piece of content when the highest number of your fans are online. The first step here is to figure out when the biggest bulk of your fans are online. It won’t all be in the same minute, or perhaps even in the same hour, but what you want here is a time frame to release content.

Figure out when your fans are logging on and then submit your content. This step alone doesn’t help improve the number of News Feeds you will be visible in, but it does ensure that more of your fans will see your content.

2: Post Regularly

One of the best ways to improve the performance of your campaign is to release content regularly. Using the above tip as a guide on what time of day to post, you should try to release something every day.

You have to prepare for the fact that even some fans who see your content won’t actually engage with it. However, regular postings give you the best chance at earning higher engagement numbers.

3: Increase Your Viral Reach

Increasing your viral reach is a great way to show up in more News Feeds and to attract many more fans. One way you can do this is to actually allow your fans to post updates on your page. It’s a win-win advertising situation for both parties. For you specifically, a lot more Facebook users become familiar with your page.

Don’t worry about people spamming you here. Facebook allows you to configure your page so that certain keywords and profanity are blocked. Besides, you wouldn’t offer this feature to anyone; you would make sure there’s some level of trust there.

4: Hold a Comment Contest

The more comments you’re able to get on any post, the better it is for your overall News Feed performance. More engagement means your page is more heavily weighted. Not only will you appear in more News Feeds, but your messages will stay in a little longer.

You can get a lot of comments on a post by holding a simple contest and offering a simple prize. For instance, you can give out a free product to the person who comes up with the best caption for a photo. This could lead to a flood of comments, which in turn does your campaign a lot of good.

5: Tag People

Another great way to boost your performance is to tag people inside of a comment. As a workaround to Facebook’s rules about pages not being able to tag, you just have to wait until a user leaves a comment on an update. If you move in and comment on that same update, viola, you can tag that person.

When the tagged party revisits the material, it becomes public on their profile page, which should allow your page to pick up some viral steam by association. It’s not a tip that’s going to instantly bring you a ton of traffic, but it is a very easy way to increase performance.

6: Reply to People

With this tip, you’re looking to capitalize on the goodwill of other brands on Facebook. For instance, if you see a brand you like or a campaign you admire, Like it, comment on it, and send some type of positive shout-out. There’s an unwritten rule on the Internet (that most people follow, at least), and it’s quite simple: If someone sings your praises, return the song.

Replying to people in this fashion should prompt them to return the favor, and every little bit of positive engagement you receive is going to help your campaign in the long haul.

7: Pay for Advertising

The trouble with all the many organic tips above isn’t that they don’t work; they certainly do. What seems to be the issue here is that there’s only so far you can go organically. Eventually you’re going to have to spend on Facebook if you want to make a bigger splash. And one of the best ways to spend is on a format like a Promoted Post.

Using a great third-party ad management app, you can promote a post that was already popular, breathing new life into it and ensuring that it reaches even more News Feeds. The end results should be a big boost in your fans, your traffic, and in your News Feed performance.

8: Advertise Outside of Facebook

Another solid way to up your Facebook performance actually takes place offsite. With this tip, you want to link your latest post on another popular forum. For instance, you can link it on Pinterest, Instagram or send it in a tweet.

Increased traffic signals to Facebook that your material is worth keeping around, and when used in conjunction with some of the other tips listed here, your post is going to linger around News Feeds for longer, eventually bringing more people to engage with your page.

Building up your News Feed performance is a process. It’s also very cyclical in a sense. Basically, you’re attempting to work on your overall engagement, which brings in more fans, allows you to touch more News Feeds, and allows your material to stay in News Feeds for longer.

Page 14 – Web Hosting Secret Revealed

Web Hosting News Updates: EIG Reports Increasing Revenues, Microsoft Patches Bug After 19 Years, and More

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The colder weather and shorter days may find you wanting to do a little house cleaning – on your website. This is a good time of year to revamp your design and get up to speed on some of the latest Internet news. There has been quite a bit going on around the world wide web, which is typical. Some of the more interesting stories we’ve noticed have been increased earnings in cloud-based provider companies, Microsoft fixing a bug that goes back 19 years and the House killing a bill that proposed an Internet sales tax.

Endurance Intelligence Reports Record Profits

Endurance Intelligence recently released a href="http://ir.endurance.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=880160" target="_blank">report stating that their earnings far exceeded what they even expected for their third quarter, which ended on September 30th. You’ll probably remember that Jerry Low href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/interviews/web-host-interview-arvixe/" target="_blank">interviewed Arvand Sebatian, the founder and CEO of Arvixe Hosting, recently about his web hosting services.

In the third quarter, Endurance Intelligence also acquired Arvixe along with Webzai, Ltd. and the assets from BuyDomains. The estimate for all three of these additions was around million. They saw an increase of about 12% over 2013 third quarter subscription rates and have seen a steady growth over the last several years.

Endurance Intelligence, overall, is a subscriber-based company. It will be interesting to see if the growth continues into 2015.

Microsoft Finally Fixes Nearly Two Decade Bug

The href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30019976" target="_blank">BBC reported that Microsoft just recently patched a bug that has been in the software since Windows 95, making it 19 years old. The defect was found by IBM researchers in May and they worked with Microsoft to fix the problem before releasing an emergency patch and announcing the problem.

The bug allowed hackers to control a user’s PC remotely and to ask them to download “updates”. This allowed for drive-by attacks that forced people to download malicious software without realizing it.

The bug was called “WinShock” and the patch was released along with around a dozen other fixes. On the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), which rates how serious of a threat a security flaw is, WinShock rated a 9.3 out of 10.

The vulnerability is related to Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology, reminiscent of Heartbleed.

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Web Hosting News Update: Net Neutrality, The Wedg, Shellshock, and WordPress 4.0

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September has been a busy news month for web hosting. WHSR digs a bit deeper into net neutrality and how it might impact your site, the Wedg as a device for small business owners, Shellshock and how to protect yourself and WordPress 4.0’s newest features.

Net Neutrality

Recently, my daughter, who is a junior at Franklin College in Indiana, wrote an opinion piece on href="http://thefranklinnews.com/editorial-internet-equality-is-vital/5722/" target="_blank">net neutrality. The article got me thinking about how net neutrality applies to small business owners and bloggers. The Internet has always been a free market. Anyone can get online, set up a website and have just as much chance at reaching web browsers as a multi-million dollar corporation. Of course, the average small business owner may not have as many advertising dollars, but there is still the chance.

However, some corporations are trying to end that net neutrality and turn the Internet into an environment akin to broadcasting where those with the most dollars would have faster sites and thus more visitors would be funneled to them and away from the little guy. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is looking at creating “fast lanes” for some companies. Should the FCC make this change, it would likely be bad news for most small business owners.

This is an important topic that should be watched in the coming years. Net neutrality is vital to bloggers who want to be able to reach a wide audience.

The Wedg

class="alignright size-medium wp-image-11026" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/the-wedg-300x228.jpg" alt="the wedg" width="300" height="228" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/the-wedg-300x228.jpg 300w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/the-wedg.jpg 736w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />

This month, there have been several articles on a new person cloud storage device called href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/wedg-the-personal-cloud-you-ve-been-waiting-for" target="_blank">The Wedg. It is still in the funding stages, but the idea behind this device is to offer people a personal cloud storage device and eliminate some of the dangers of online hacking into sensitive data.

The Wedg provides the same conveniences of easily accessible storage but is private instead of sitting at a data center that might be vulnerable to attacks. It will even sync with DropBox.

A crowdfunding campaign launched the third week of September saw 80 percent of the needed funds to put this into production raised within just a few days.

The device is expected to be around 0 US dollars. This is a great way for website owners to back up important documents, their website, articles and other intellectual property.

Shellshock

Some Internet security experts are comparing Shellshock to Heartbleed. There is a vulnerability in the Bourne Again Shell (BASH). A patch was released but did not take care of the flaw.The vulnerability is a Unix shell flaw and could impact computers running Mac OS or Linux. Mac computer owners should be especially leery. At the same time, there must be certain conditions in place for the flaw to occur, so not all users will be impacted.

However, the BASH vulnerability may be even more serious than Heartbleed. With Heartbleed, the bug could spy on a computer but not control that computer. With BASH, the potential is there for the hacker to completely take over a system.

Consult with your Internet service provider to see if the system is vulnerable. There are commands you can run in Shell to test if you are vulnerable, but unless you are an experienced Shell user, it is better to discuss security concerns with your hosting company.

WordPress 4.0’s New Features

This month, WordPress rolled out href="http://wordpress.org/news/2014/09/benny/" target="_blank">version 4.0. The new version has been dubbed “Benny”. The new version features:

• Better media management and easier viewing
style="text-align: left;">Automatic updates of details on media (add an alt tag and the system saves the change immediately for example)style="text-align: left;">Easier embedding. Just post the URL of the video. In fact, the video below was pasted in with just the YouTube URL.style="text-align: left;">Embed a Tweet with a simple click of an icon

class='youtube-player' type='text/html' width='640' height='390' src='http://www.youtube.com/embed/o1T0t0emzt0?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;'>

Although WordPress is still recognizable from previous versions, this update simply adds some easier functionality that most users will appreciate.

Each month WHSR brings you the latest in web hosting news. Our goal is to provide you with a rounded look at some of the most important issues and share the news that most impacts you as a website owner. If there is a topic you’d like to hear about that we’ve not yet covered, you can post a note in the comments section below.

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