[videoblogging] Re: Josh Leo's site

2009-02-08 Thread Steve Watkins
Looking back a page or 2 on his twitter history, I think the site got hacked.

http://twitter.com/joshleo

Cheers

Steve

--- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, David King davidleek...@... wrote:

 Anyone know what happened to josh Leo's site (joshleo.com)? It looks  
 like it is gone ...  I really like his videos!
 
 Just curious
 
 Sent from my iPhone





Re: [videoblogging] Re: Josh Leo's site

2009-02-08 Thread Mike Meiser
Sad to hear. :(
I'm assuming he was running wordpress?

I've seen way to many wordpress blogs hacked. The problem is just maintence,
you have to keep wordpress constantly up to date to patch security holes. If
you don't it will inevitably get hacked. Same goes for all server side open
source.

Many times I've wanted to redo my blogger.com blog in wordpress, indeed
wordpress is simply better, but the truth is blogger.com is virtually hack
proof since there's absolutely no server side code running. It's all handled
by blogger.com and written to the server via sftp.  I've really come to
appreciate this rock solid security and ZERO maintenance, and to be honest
it's the primary reason I simply recommend blogger over wordpress to anyone
who wants to self host on their own domain. The exception being if they're a
developer and already running code on their server, in which case they're
probably aware enough of the maintenance issues to run wordpress.

Lately I've been doing a lot of work in the bike industry and it seems the
entire industry from shop owners, to racers to bike makers runs almost
exclusively on a blogspot hosted ecosystem.  It simply works.

P.S. a good auto-backup system or version control system for your blog is a
MUST if you run wordpress. A lot of hosting providers include this stock.

-Mike
mmeiser.com/blog
flickr.com/photos/mmeiser2


On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 6:42 AM, Steve Watkins st...@dvmachine.com wrote:

 Looking back a page or 2 on his twitter history, I think the site got
 hacked.

 http://twitter.com/joshleo

 Cheers

 Steve

 --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, David King davidleek...@... wrote:
 
  Anyone know what happened to josh Leo's site (joshleo.com)? It looks
  like it is gone ...  I really like his videos!
 
  Just curious
 
  Sent from my iPhone
 




 

 Yahoo! Groups Links






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



[videoblogging] Blip.tv facebook app

2009-02-08 Thread David Terranova
I¹m not having much luck with this, and I see that others are having
problems too.
Would anyone here know if there¹s any way to get a blip video in a facebook
page?

--
David Terranova
www.davidterranova.com | blog.davidterranova.com | www.rebelrave.tv 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



Re: [videoblogging] Re: Josh Leo's site

2009-02-08 Thread Markus Sandy

On Feb 8, 2009, at 8:42 AM, Mike Meiser wrote:

 Sad to hear. :(
 I'm assuming he was running wordpress?

 I've seen way to many wordpress blogs hacked. The problem is just  
 maintence,
 you have to keep wordpress constantly up to date to patch security  
 holes. If
 you don't it will inevitably get hacked. Same goes for all server  
 side open
 source.


hi all,

This article focuses on defending the administration area of WordPress  
and might be useful to some folks here

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/01/26/10-steps-to-protect-the-admin-area-in-wordpress/

or http://is.gd/hirn

regards,
markus



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



Re: [videoblogging] Re: Josh Leo's site

2009-02-08 Thread David King
Yep - bigtime bummer! And agreed with wordpress. About half their  
updates are because of security fixes.

That said, wordpress simply rocks as a self hosted blog platform - I  
love it.

Hope he doesn't have too much trouble sorting through the mess

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 8, 2009, at 10:42 AM, Mike Meiser groups-yahoo- 
c...@mmeiser.com wrote:

 Sad to hear. :(
 I'm assuming he was running wordpress?

 I've seen way to many wordpress blogs hacked. The problem is just  
 maintence,
 you have to keep wordpress constantly up to date to patch security  
 holes. If
 you don't it will inevitably get hacked. Same goes for all server  
 side open
 source.

 Many times I've wanted to redo my blogger.com blog in wordpress,  
 indeed
 wordpress is simply better, but the truth is blogger.com is  
 virtually hack
 proof since there's absolutely no server side code running. It's all  
 handled
 by blogger.com and written to the server via sftp.  I've really come  
 to
 appreciate this rock solid security and ZERO maintenance, and to be  
 honest
 it's the primary reason I simply recommend blogger over wordpress to  
 anyone
 who wants to self host on their own domain. The exception being if  
 they're a
 developer and already running code on their server, in which case  
 they're
 probably aware enough of the maintenance issues to run wordpress.

 Lately I've been doing a lot of work in the bike industry and it  
 seems the
 entire industry from shop owners, to racers to bike makers runs almost
 exclusively on a blogspot hosted ecosystem.  It simply works.

 P.S. a good auto-backup system or version control system for your  
 blog is a
 MUST if you run wordpress. A lot of hosting providers include this  
 stock.

 -Mike
 mmeiser.com/blog
 flickr.com/photos/mmeiser2


 On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 6:42 AM, Steve Watkins st...@dvmachine.com  
 wrote:

 Looking back a page or 2 on his twitter history, I think the site got
 hacked.

 http://twitter.com/joshleo

 Cheers

 Steve

 --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, David King davidleek...@...  
 wrote:

 Anyone know what happened to josh Leo's site (joshleo.com)? It looks
 like it is gone ...  I really like his videos!

 Just curious

 Sent from my iPhone





 

 Yahoo! Groups Links






 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



 

 Yahoo! Groups Links





Re: [videoblogging] Re: Josh Leo's site

2009-02-08 Thread Mike Meiser
To use your car analogy most people simply take it to the dealer for
maintence.
There is no dealer for self hosting. Dreamhost nor any other provide that
sort of support.  That type of structure does not exist.

Most people are not technically literate enough to manage the constant
stream of upgrades. I myself while technically capable, cut a hard edge on
maintence issues. If I go on vacation for a month, I simply don't want to
worry about it. And a month of ignoring it is all it takes... now multiply
that by the rest of your life. Most people underestimate how much the long
term maintence costs are while underestimating their own capactity to handle
that constant maintence.

These people should simply NOT be self hosting... unless they use
blogger.com which requires no maintence.

It's that simple.

-Mike



On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 6:41 PM, David Howell taoofda...@gmail.com wrote:

 I'm sorry but the Wordpress site owners that are having their sites
 hacked are the same people that buy a car and expect to never have to
 change the oil in it.

 Running a self-hosted site means being able to manage one as well. If
 you don't want to manage it, then you use sites like Blogger. Blogger
 is great for that. No frills. No muss. No fuss. No extras.

 If you dont want to manage it yourself, you hire people like me that
 will not only design and build it but manage it as well. If you want
 to do it all yourself, please read the manual, secure it and keep it
 up do date with patches. Your unsecured site causes problems for everyone.

 If you dont change the oil in your car, dont cry when it's eventually
 sitting dead on the side of the road.

 David Howell
 http://www.davidhowellstudios.com

 --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Mike Meiser
 groups-yahoo-...@... wrote:
 
  Sad to hear. :(
  I'm assuming he was running wordpress?
 
  I've seen way to many wordpress blogs hacked. The problem is just
 maintence,
  you have to keep wordpress constantly up to date to patch security
 holes. If
  you don't it will inevitably get hacked. Same goes for all server
 side open
  source.
 
  Many times I've wanted to redo my blogger.com blog in wordpress, indeed
  wordpress is simply better, but the truth is blogger.com is
 virtually hack
  proof since there's absolutely no server side code running. It's all
 handled
  by blogger.com and written to the server via sftp.  I've really come to
  appreciate this rock solid security and ZERO maintenance, and to be
 honest
  it's the primary reason I simply recommend blogger over wordpress to
 anyone
  who wants to self host on their own domain. The exception being if
 they're a
  developer and already running code on their server, in which case
 they're
  probably aware enough of the maintenance issues to run wordpress.
 
  Lately I've been doing a lot of work in the bike industry and it
 seems the
  entire industry from shop owners, to racers to bike makers runs almost
  exclusively on a blogspot hosted ecosystem.  It simply works.
 
  P.S. a good auto-backup system or version control system for your
 blog is a
  MUST if you run wordpress. A lot of hosting providers include this
 stock.
 
  -Mike
  mmeiser.com/blog
  flickr.com/photos/mmeiser2
 
 
  On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 6:42 AM, Steve Watkins st...@... wrote:
 
   Looking back a page or 2 on his twitter history, I think the site got
   hacked.
  
   http://twitter.com/joshleo
  
   Cheers
  
   Steve
  
   --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, David King davidleeking@
 wrote:
   
Anyone know what happened to josh Leo's site (joshleo.com)? It looks
like it is gone ...  I really like his videos!
   
Just curious
   
Sent from my iPhone
   
  
  
  
  
   
  
   Yahoo! Groups Links
  
  
  
  
 
 
  [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
 




 

 Yahoo! Groups Links






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



Re: [videoblogging] Re: Josh Leo's site

2009-02-08 Thread Tim Street
MIke?

Why did you have to say that?

Now I want to go on vacation for a month. ;-)


Tim Street
1timstr...@gmail.com
http://1timstreet.com/blog
http://twitter.com/1timstreet

On Feb 8, 2009, at 3:57 PM, Mike Meiser wrote:

 To use your car analogy most people simply take it to the dealer for
 maintence.
 There is no dealer for self hosting. Dreamhost nor any other provide  
 that
 sort of support. That type of structure does not exist.

 Most people are not technically literate enough to manage the constant
 stream of upgrades. I myself while technically capable, cut a hard  
 edge on
 maintence issues. If I go on vacation for a month, I simply don't  
 want to
 worry about it. And a month of ignoring it is all it takes... now  
 multiply
 that by the rest of your life. Most people underestimate how much  
 the long
 term maintence costs are while underestimating their own capactity  
 to handle
 that constant maintence.

 These people should simply NOT be self hosting... unless they use
 blogger.com which requires no maintence.

 It's that simple.

 -Mike

 On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 6:41 PM, David Howell taoofda...@gmail.com  
 wrote:

  I'm sorry but the Wordpress site owners that are having their sites
  hacked are the same people that buy a car and expect to never have  
 to
  change the oil in it.
 
  Running a self-hosted site means being able to manage one as well.  
 If
  you don't want to manage it, then you use sites like Blogger.  
 Blogger
  is great for that. No frills. No muss. No fuss. No extras.
 
  If you dont want to manage it yourself, you hire people like me that
  will not only design and build it but manage it as well. If you want
  to do it all yourself, please read the manual, secure it and keep it
  up do date with patches. Your unsecured site causes problems for  
 everyone.
 
  If you dont change the oil in your car, dont cry when it's  
 eventually
  sitting dead on the side of the road.
 
  David Howell
  http://www.davidhowellstudios.com
 
  --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Mike Meiser
  groups-yahoo-...@... wrote:
  
   Sad to hear. :(
   I'm assuming he was running wordpress?
  
   I've seen way to many wordpress blogs hacked. The problem is just
  maintence,
   you have to keep wordpress constantly up to date to patch security
  holes. If
   you don't it will inevitably get hacked. Same goes for all server
  side open
   source.
  
   Many times I've wanted to redo my blogger.com blog in wordpress,  
 indeed
   wordpress is simply better, but the truth is blogger.com is
  virtually hack
   proof since there's absolutely no server side code running. It's  
 all
  handled
   by blogger.com and written to the server via sftp. I've really  
 come to
   appreciate this rock solid security and ZERO maintenance, and to  
 be
  honest
   it's the primary reason I simply recommend blogger over  
 wordpress to
  anyone
   who wants to self host on their own domain. The exception being if
  they're a
   developer and already running code on their server, in which case
  they're
   probably aware enough of the maintenance issues to run wordpress.
  
   Lately I've been doing a lot of work in the bike industry and it
  seems the
   entire industry from shop owners, to racers to bike makers runs  
 almost
   exclusively on a blogspot hosted ecosystem. It simply works.
  
   P.S. a good auto-backup system or version control system for your
  blog is a
   MUST if you run wordpress. A lot of hosting providers include this
  stock.
  
   -Mike
   mmeiser.com/blog
   flickr.com/photos/mmeiser2
  
  
   On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 6:42 AM, Steve Watkins st...@... wrote:
  
Looking back a page or 2 on his twitter history, I think the  
 site got
hacked.
   
http://twitter.com/joshleo
   
Cheers
   
Steve
   
--- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, David King davidleeking@
  wrote:

 Anyone know what happened to josh Leo's site (joshleo.com)?  
 It looks
 like it is gone ...  I really like his videos!

 Just curious

 Sent from my iPhone

   
   
   
   

   
Yahoo! Groups Links
   
   
   
   
  
  
   [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
  Yahoo! Groups Links
 
 
 
 

 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



Re: [videoblogging] Re: Josh Leo's site

2009-02-08 Thread Markus Sandy
On Feb 8, 2009, at 3:57 PM, Mike Meiser wrote:

 To use your car analogy most people simply take it to the dealer for
 maintence.

Hey Meiserman!

We had a discussion about Planning your next social media site at  
the Super Happy Vlog House yesterday.  The people in the room ranged  
from professional web developers to website newbies.  A few points may  
be of interest here in the VB group:

1.  One of the questions that came up was 'how many copies of your  
site do you maintain?  The pros generally said at least two,  
staging and the live site.  Most also have dev sandboxes (throwaway  
copies of site,files and database).  More than a backup, this is a  
place to test all upgrades and changes before applying to (or swapping  
with) live site.  More work and complexity, but less risk (so maybe  
not more work after all ;) )   Like David said, you gotta do it (or  
get a pro), otherwise you are working without a net.

2. Two of the people who attended SHVH have recently started a biz  
service providing complete video site solutions by offering WP-based  
packages.  I think we will see a lot more of this.  Wordpress and  
Drupal based products and services.

New customer fills out a form for what they want.  Pick from $999,  
$1299 or $1999 packages and options.  Then work directly with the a  
desginer on look within very well defined limits imposed by a specific  
WP theme framework.  Sites turned around quickly (e.g., less than a  
day).  Packages for monthly hosting and services in the $19-$49/month  
range.  These guys will even supply aggregated content feeds for your  
site to add to your content.  Backups, SEO (including posts to major  
sites like Facebook), newsletter, press release, the works.  Not for  
everyone here, but I suspect they will be very successful, especially  
with small businesses with little or no tech resources and budgets.

Also a question for everyone:

Someone mentioned Episodic at the meetup.  Has anyone used it since  
they were just a flash to ipod transcoding startup service?  There  
were a few posts here last summer about the service (Noam are you  
still here?).   Looks like it's grown up quite a bit.  I'm waiting for  
a beta account.  Looks like a competitor to Brightcove, Ooyala,  
thePlatform, etc., but with more features and nice looking UI.   
Perhaps this is another way to go?  http://episodic.com

Markus


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



Re: [videoblogging] Re: Josh Leo's site

2009-02-08 Thread Mike Meiser
Sorry Markus,
Everyone fears coming home from vacation to find their website burned down.

Maybe you can hire a website security company, buy some website insurance or
find a website sitter.

Seriously though, analogies are not only fun, but how's the following for a
business idea.

A company that you give FTP or sFTP access to your website.

It not only backs up everything, and tracks every single change through a
web based versioning control system, but can automatic roll back and even
flags malicious changes.

Make it general consumer friendly.

Give it a nice web 2.0 interface.

Sell it to self hosters regardless of whom they're hosting with as
insurance, security, and backup.

This not only can be a transparent service instead of bogging down would be
DIY types with the need to buy your designs or run their workflow through
you or use you as a host.

But it will let the end user go crazy customizing their code, playing with
open source, using whatever host provider they want.   Giving them true
*fredom to tinker*... now that they now have a saftey net.

websaftey.net, it's actually available.


Does something similar already exist?


Now build on it... add in security analysis...

ie. making sure permissions are correct on all your files...

i.e. giving you status on wether your software installed on your server is
up to date



Maybe... if the technical requirements aren't to bad it could even install
certain open source packages automatically regardless of hosting provider.

What about the ability to switch hosts?

Or mirror a website on a different domain with the click of a button?

The ability to edit or upgrade or test a service and then roll it to the
users main site.



Perhaps this webservice could orient the market in a different way. Perhaps
it could focus on a particular niche say video, customizing it's services
for videobloggers...i.e installing wordpress themes vPip, etc.



At it's core the backup and versioning is more then enough to sell to every
web2.0 person out there for $5 - $10 a month and make mondo money, but the
possibilities on where it can go from there are endless.

The key is you're doing the same thing to hosting providers as so caled
web2.0 services like gmail have done to Outlook, Eudora and other email
desktop clients.

You're moving key services from the hosting providers into the cloud as
services and thus reducing the dependancy on hosting companies proprietary
features. In a sense your comoditizing the hosting provider the way the web
is commoditizing the Microsoft OS, Microsoft Office, Outlook, Word, Excell,
etc.

You could go on to make this a gateway and a security net for not so tech
savy people so they can try out open source packages regardless of different
hosting providers.

Perhaps one day... if you base this webservice on open source and work on
building standards everyone from drupal to wordpress will work toward you to
create a sort of web based package manager for the internet.

In this way your webservice might install software cleanly onto any host
that uses a standardized linux install base.  Thus you created an ecosystem.
 An new sort of API by which hosting providers can interact with
webservices.

This package manager for the internet, would be like the package managers
used on desktop linux, but instead of installing software on your desktop
they'd install it on your website... think CMS, wikis, blogs and more.
 Perhaps even custom videoblogging solutions such as themes, vPIP, etc.

The internet is after all the new desktop. The desktop computer for many is
just a dummy terminal you use to access the internet. Hence the rise of the
netbook.

The internet is where your email is, where your photoalbum/editor are, where
your write and where you publish.

So why not think of the domain, your website, as the new desktop.

Using this metaphor, what other services could be stripped off of the
hosting provider?

You could possibly even avoid the problems inherent with running server side
code on joeblowsblog.com buy creating an ultra secure option where all the
code is run on this new webservice (similar to what blogger.com does) and
only static html and files live on joeblow's domain.

You could run this whole service through Amazon S3's hosting and computing
cloud so it scales like the devil, and only charge the user for that
processing and hosting that they require.

If such web 2.0 type service could handle the domain management and
subdomain it could assign a subdomain to itself, i.e.
code.joeblowsblog.comto run, manage, and update joe blow's code
securely while leaving only
static code (HTML, images, movie files) on joeblowsblog.com.

In this way such a service could avoid the pitfalls of setting up different
open source packages on different hosting providers whom may be using
anything from Microsoft, to Debian to unix.

Though perhaps if done in open source you could forge relationships with
hosting providers that use standardized open source 

Re: [videoblogging] Re: Josh Leo's site

2009-02-08 Thread David King
My web hoster actually does most of that for me (the backups, rollbacks,
etc). I do my own updates to wordpress, customizations, etc - but they do
everything else. But then, it's a small, service-oriented web hoster shop
primarly for library-related blogs and websites (how's that for a niche
market?). If I have a server type question or prob, I just email or IM and
it gets fixed, pronto.

I'm very spoiled.

David Lee King
davidleeking.com - blog
davidleeking.com/etc - videoblog
twitter | skype: davidleeking


On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 9:10 PM, Mike Meiser groups-yahoo-...@mmeiser.comwrote:

 Sorry Markus,
 Everyone fears coming home from vacation to find their website burned down.

 Maybe you can hire a website security company, buy some website insurance
 or
 find a website sitter.

 Seriously though, analogies are not only fun, but how's the following for a
 business idea.

 A company that you give FTP or sFTP access to your website.

 It not only backs up everything, and tracks every single change through a
 web based versioning control system, but can automatic roll back and even
 flags malicious changes.

 Make it general consumer friendly.

 Give it a nice web 2.0 interface.

 Sell it to self hosters regardless of whom they're hosting with as
 insurance, security, and backup.

 This not only can be a transparent service instead of bogging down would be
 DIY types with the need to buy your designs or run their workflow through
 you or use you as a host.

 But it will let the end user go crazy customizing their code, playing with
 open source, using whatever host provider they want.   Giving them true
 *fredom to tinker*... now that they now have a saftey net.

 websaftey.net, it's actually available.


 Does something similar already exist?


 Now build on it... add in security analysis...

 ie. making sure permissions are correct on all your files...

 i.e. giving you status on wether your software installed on your server is
 up to date



 Maybe... if the technical requirements aren't to bad it could even install
 certain open source packages automatically regardless of hosting provider.

 What about the ability to switch hosts?

 Or mirror a website on a different domain with the click of a button?

 The ability to edit or upgrade or test a service and then roll it to the
 users main site.



 Perhaps this webservice could orient the market in a different way. Perhaps
 it could focus on a particular niche say video, customizing it's services
 for videobloggers...i.e installing wordpress themes vPip, etc.



 At it's core the backup and versioning is more then enough to sell to every
 web2.0 person out there for $5 - $10 a month and make mondo money, but the
 possibilities on where it can go from there are endless.

 The key is you're doing the same thing to hosting providers as so caled
 web2.0 services like gmail have done to Outlook, Eudora and other email
 desktop clients.

 You're moving key services from the hosting providers into the cloud as
 services and thus reducing the dependancy on hosting companies proprietary
 features. In a sense your comoditizing the hosting provider the way the web
 is commoditizing the Microsoft OS, Microsoft Office, Outlook, Word, Excell,
 etc.

 You could go on to make this a gateway and a security net for not so tech
 savy people so they can try out open source packages regardless of
 different
 hosting providers.

 Perhaps one day... if you base this webservice on open source and work on
 building standards everyone from drupal to wordpress will work toward you
 to
 create a sort of web based package manager for the internet.

 In this way your webservice might install software cleanly onto any host
 that uses a standardized linux install base.  Thus you created an
 ecosystem.
  An new sort of API by which hosting providers can interact with
 webservices.

 This package manager for the internet, would be like the package managers
 used on desktop linux, but instead of installing software on your desktop
 they'd install it on your website... think CMS, wikis, blogs and more.
  Perhaps even custom videoblogging solutions such as themes, vPIP, etc.

 The internet is after all the new desktop. The desktop computer for many is
 just a dummy terminal you use to access the internet. Hence the rise of the
 netbook.

 The internet is where your email is, where your photoalbum/editor are,
 where
 your write and where you publish.

 So why not think of the domain, your website, as the new desktop.

 Using this metaphor, what other services could be stripped off of the
 hosting provider?

 You could possibly even avoid the problems inherent with running server
 side
 code on joeblowsblog.com buy creating an ultra secure option where all
 the
 code is run on this new webservice (similar to what blogger.com does) and
 only static html and files live on joeblow's domain.

 You could run this whole service through Amazon S3's hosting and computing
 cloud so it scales like the 

Re: [videoblogging] Re: Josh Leo's site

2009-02-08 Thread Mike Meiser
My host is... my friends own a server.
I've removed plone, media wiki and eveyrthing else from my site precisely do
what we're talking about here. Maintence and security hassles far outweigh
their utility.

No server side code runs on my domain.

My backup is

a) blogger.com contains all the CSS and blog posts

b) I back it up every once and a while via sFTP to be sure to get images and
other media files I've uploaded

And yes, David, you're way spoiled for hosting, and so am I.

I'd suspect the average person uses Dreamhost or like and has little / no
support.

I guess I could bug my friend about server issues, but I did away with the
server side code because I value spending our time discussing linux, open
source, gaming and generally geeking out.

I guess you might say like to play with it, love it for work, but I'm very
careful with what I depend on for my own personal use because I have a
strict zero maintence philosphy. Probably why my primary work computer is
mac though 90% of my software is open source and I spend all day reading up
on and playing with working with/on Ubuntu / KDE / Gnome. (all day being a
VERY relative thing :)

Peace,

-Mike

On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 10:27 PM, David King davidleek...@gmail.com wrote:

 My web hoster actually does most of that for me (the backups, rollbacks,
 etc). I do my own updates to wordpress, customizations, etc - but they do
 everything else. But then, it's a small, service-oriented web hoster shop
 primarly for library-related blogs and websites (how's that for a niche
 market?). If I have a server type question or prob, I just email or IM and
 it gets fixed, pronto.

 I'm very spoiled.

 David Lee King
 davidleeking.com - blog
 davidleeking.com/etc - videoblog
 twitter | skype: davidleeking


 On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 9:10 PM, Mike Meiser groups-yahoo-...@mmeiser.com
 wrote:

  Sorry Markus,
  Everyone fears coming home from vacation to find their website burned
 down.
 
  Maybe you can hire a website security company, buy some website insurance
  or
  find a website sitter.
 
  Seriously though, analogies are not only fun, but how's the following for
 a
  business idea.
 
  A company that you give FTP or sFTP access to your website.
 
  It not only backs up everything, and tracks every single change through a
  web based versioning control system, but can automatic roll back and even
  flags malicious changes.
 
  Make it general consumer friendly.
 
  Give it a nice web 2.0 interface.
 
  Sell it to self hosters regardless of whom they're hosting with as
  insurance, security, and backup.
 
  This not only can be a transparent service instead of bogging down would
 be
  DIY types with the need to buy your designs or run their workflow through
  you or use you as a host.
 
  But it will let the end user go crazy customizing their code, playing
 with
  open source, using whatever host provider they want.   Giving them true
  *fredom to tinker*... now that they now have a saftey net.
 
  websaftey.net, it's actually available.
 
 
  Does something similar already exist?
 
 
  Now build on it... add in security analysis...
 
  ie. making sure permissions are correct on all your files...
 
  i.e. giving you status on wether your software installed on your server
 is
  up to date
 
 
 
  Maybe... if the technical requirements aren't to bad it could even
 install
  certain open source packages automatically regardless of hosting
 provider.
 
  What about the ability to switch hosts?
 
  Or mirror a website on a different domain with the click of a button?
 
  The ability to edit or upgrade or test a service and then roll it to the
  users main site.
 
 
 
  Perhaps this webservice could orient the market in a different way.
 Perhaps
  it could focus on a particular niche say video, customizing it's services
  for videobloggers...i.e installing wordpress themes vPip, etc.
 
 
 
  At it's core the backup and versioning is more then enough to sell to
 every
  web2.0 person out there for $5 - $10 a month and make mondo money, but
 the
  possibilities on where it can go from there are endless.
 
  The key is you're doing the same thing to hosting providers as so caled
  web2.0 services like gmail have done to Outlook, Eudora and other email
  desktop clients.
 
  You're moving key services from the hosting providers into the cloud as
  services and thus reducing the dependancy on hosting companies
 proprietary
  features. In a sense your comoditizing the hosting provider the way the
 web
  is commoditizing the Microsoft OS, Microsoft Office, Outlook, Word,
 Excell,
  etc.
 
  You could go on to make this a gateway and a security net for not so tech
  savy people so they can try out open source packages regardless of
  different
  hosting providers.
 
  Perhaps one day... if you base this webservice on open source and work on
  building standards everyone from drupal to wordpress will work toward you
  to
  create a sort of web based package manager for the internet.