The new Apple iPod nano boasts a 1.54 inch screen with multi-touch and a 24-hour playback battery life. It now also features a built-in radio tuner (which is not included in the previous iPod product line).

Price starts at $149 for the 8GB and $179 for the 16GB.

So, What’s in for you? The iPod Nano with camera or the iPod Nano in its new size?

Why VPS?

Some of you might ask why I had to use a VPS over the Shared Hosting. A VPS hosting gives me an independent feel where I’m given dedicated resources and space to do whatever I want to. It’s like having a dedicated server, only on a smaller scale.

Also, the possibility of having bad neighbors who leeches the resources in a shared box is just not tolerable for me.

Now, on with the tips (not in order)…

1) While the domain has not propagated yet, you can try force-pointing your domain name to your new server’s IP.

This method speeds up every website transfer I do. While my domain, in reality points to my old hosting account, I get a chance to view and manipulate my website using that domain locally. It’s a simple method that makes your computer think that your domain name points to your new hosting IP address.

Here’s how it’s done.

Step 0: Make sure you have added your domain name (and created a virtual server) in your hosting account (or in Apache). This allows your web server to answer your computer’s question if there’s a website named after this domain name that exists in its IP address.

Step 1: Open (For Windows) Notepad or (For Linux) nano or gpedit as Administrator

Step 2: Using Notepad ran as Administrator, open (For Windows): [OS Drive]:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts (For Linux): [root]:/etc/

Step 3: Add the following lines at the bottom of the file:

[hosting's IP] your-domain-name.com

example:

192.168.0.1 jpanganiban.com

Step 4: Save the file then view your website using the domain name you added.

2) Compress web files to a zip file then move them using SSH when transferring websites.

To make things easier and faster, all you have to do is to compress all your web files inside the directory public_html into a zip file (still saved under public_html), use the ‘wget’ command to download your file  (wget your-domain-name.com/thebackup.zip), and finally, extract your files with the ‘unzip’ command to your web directory (/var/www or /home/usrname/public_html). Don’t forget to ‘chown’ your files.

3) Be sure to disable root ssh access then create another user that can ‘sudo’.

This is more of a security tip. As soon as you finish setting-up your server, be sure to create a new user (adduser username) and disable root ssh access. This can be done by editing the file: /etc/ssh/sshd_config. Look for the line:

PermitRootLogin yes

and change it to:

PermitRootLogin no

In case you need to use be root to do actions, either make your new user a sudoer by adding it to the visudo file or by logging-in using the other user then switching to root by using the ‘su’ command. You can also try other ssh hardening techniques such as using RSA and DSA keys or changing the SSH port.

4) Before installing anything yet, make sure you set a fully-qualified domain name for your system.

This will save you lots of time and frustrations. Trust me. From BIND to Postfix, this is a ‘very must’ requirement. Make sure you own this domain name. To do this, edit the files /etc/hostname to change the hostname and /etc/hosts to set a fully-qualified domain name for your system.

a system fqdn usually looks like this

hostname.fullyqualifieddomainname.com

To change the hostname permanently, edit /etc/hostname then enter your desired hostname. Save the file. As for adding the domain name, edit /etc/hosts and add the following:

[ip address] hostname.fullyqualifieddomainname.com hostname

example:

192.168.0.1 host.jpanganiban.com host

Save both files then reboot. Check if the changes were applied by trying the commands ‘hostname -f’ and ‘hostname’. The command ‘hostname -f’ should display the whole fqdn hostname while the hostname will only display the name.

5) Try using webmin to manage your unmanaged VPS.

In case you’re tired of using ssh to install stuff in your box, try using webmin. It’s an open-source GUI web-based software used by a lot of people around the globe. You’re still going to get your hands dirty in installing modules and configuring config files, but hey, it’s in GUI!

You can download webmin on their website: www.webmin.com

That’s it for now. I just shared the major techniques I used that helped me bring my sites back to life. I hope you guys find these things useful.

I’ll be posting more soon so stay tuned.