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

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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.

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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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