Creating a secure password

July 30th, 2009 by Steve 1 comment »

Today it seems that people are still not creating secure passwords to use. Everyone should be using a secure password whether its just for a social networking site, banking website, home computer or a personal e-mail account.

The reason for utilizing a different secure password for each resource is to ensure that attempts to gain access to any of your accounts are prevented. You may be thinking that this is something hard to do or that you may forget the password you created but for how many simple options (free and paid) there are today, this is no excuse.

Majority of websites today allow you to reset your password simply by entering in your e-mail or username. So even if you were to create a hard uncrackable password and did forget it, you can always get your information back or reset simply by doing this.

There are many different ways to store these hard to remember passwords that are uncrackable. Some of the applications out there that can store these for you such as the all mighty popular 1Password for OS X, RoboForm for Windows, KeePass for Windows and LastPass for OS X/Windows/Linux. There are other ways as well, like simply creating a text file on your computer. While this may not seem secure it usually is especially if you hide it well or name it differently.

You can generate passwords without an application by going to websites such as Secure Password Generator by PcTools or Password Generator by Bytes Interactive. There are many more on the web too which you can easily find by doing a search for “generate password.”

Now that we have gone different ways to generate and store your password, also have the option to create a safe password. You don’t need to rely on a password generator, but rather by using creating one on your own. To help you create your own password, I have created an example that you can utilize.

Pick 3 easy-to-remember words so that we can get started on creating a password. For example, say you love cooking, your boyfriend’s name is Steve (or girlfriend, et al.) and your favorite number is 14. You can then combine the letters from those three words make a password such. My example password from ‘cooking,’ ’steve,’ and ‘14′ was sCtoeOvKEi14G. I put it into one in my own method to remember.

You should notice that not only did I make every other letter something different, but I also capitalized some of the letters to make it even harder for someone to guess. Even if you didn’t utilize a method like this but, I highly recommend you capitalize some of the letters and use numbers as well.

Lastly, more websites are increasing their security measures. Some may allow you to fill in a field to where answer a question that you either created or selected from a list. While I do recommend you fill these out, I also recommend that they be difficult answers. For example, if the question were “What High School did you attend?”, now a days this answer could be very, very easily obtainable especially with social networks like Facebook. You might want to answer it with something completely different that you will still remember.

Hopefully you have found this post helpful. If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment. Pass this on to those that you think may not have secure passwords especially family members. While you may not think it, people are out to get your information and secure passwords are vital in helping to ensure that does not happen. So make sure to change them if you have not already and do so every so often.

Just remember to be careful when creating your passwords, password question/answer, who you tell, where your store them and so forth.

Free .com domain with annual purchase

July 23rd, 2009 by Jordan 3 comments »

It has been quite some time since we’ve had a promotion here at Holdfire. We decided to go ahead and change things up a bit since the summer has been quite placid. With any annual order, you receive a fee .COM domain name (or transfer) with your purchase.

To receive your free domain, simply chose any shared or reseller package from our order cart, then enter in your desired .COM domain. You will then be taken to the package description page where you will select annual from the billing options.

Voila!

New Look for Holdfire!

April 29th, 2009 by Jordan 7 comments »

It’s been a year since we last gave Holdfire a great new look. We originally promised to have this design done by the start of the new year but we fell behind schedule and eventually we cast it aside for the time being.

Over the past few weeks we’ve been hard at work getting things put together, as well as a bunch of other features and extras that we plan on offering here at Holdfire. With the addition of our blog, we also added on our Twitter account, and while we have yet to really push this, we have our forum that we are aiming have active and an integral part of our community.

As for our other new extras, we have a few Holdfire ventures that we’ll be presenting soon, and hope that you take advantage of the services offered up!

And last but surely not least: For awhile we’ve maintained our account center at holdfirebilling.com, but have recently decided to stray from using a 2nd brand. Our account center is now accessible by my.holdfire.net. Because we have a lot of URLs floating around that point to Holdfirebilling.com, we have set up a 301 redirect via .htaccess so that all files are redirected to their respective URLs on my.holdfire.net.

Client Account Center Status

February 27th, 2009 by Jordan No comments »

Currently we are working on our account center for Holdfire clients. We’re making live edits and changes as we go along so you may see some features removed, and some added. Don’t worry though, we’re just finally getting things situated so that your stay here as a client with us is as comfortable and perfect as it can get.

For the time being our site redesign has been put on hold, as well as our blog. Don’t fret though, we’re going to try to get back into the grove of things shortly. If you’ve got any recommendations for features you’d like to see here, please feel free to comment and let us know. We’re all eyes!

Backing up a MySQL Database

January 22nd, 2009 by Jordan No comments »

A couple of our hosting customers recently posted on Twitter that they were looking for a solution to backup their MySQL databases. This is an excellent idea and is highly recommended. With the following script we’ll provide, you will have the capability backup one or more MySQL databases to either your FTP account or an email address.

  1. You will need to log into your cPanel account and create a new email address with the username of “backups” so that you have an email to send your DB backups to.
  2. While still in cPanel, go to your MySQL section and create a new database user. Attach that user to the database you want to backup.
  3. Open up your favorite FTP client and sign into your hosting account.
  4. While in your root directory (before public_htmll, create a new directory titled “backups” and then navigate to it.
  5. Download the file db_backup.php, and then open it in a code editor.
  6. Find line 33-34; This is where you will enter in the details for the database that you want to backup.
  7. Find line 27 & 45. Where you see “cpuser” enter in your cPanel username.
  8. If you want the backup sent to your email address, find lines 47-49, and fill out appropriately.
  9. If you want the backup uploaded via FTP, find lines 57-61, and like the email portion, fill it out appropriately.
  10. Once you’ve made those edits, save and then upload to the /backups/ directory you created. CHMOD the file to 644.

Hopefully you’re not too tired just yet! So far we’ve created a directory that is outside of your web directory, so that your backup script can sit comfortably. You’ve also added in the details for the database you want to backup, what email you want it sent to, and if you want it backed up to another (or the same) FTP account.

The next thing we’re going to do is set up a cron job. This essentially is going to automate the process of backing up your database to the schedule you set for it. So you’ll be able to let it sit without having to worry about manually backing things up yourself. Find line 27, and copy the snippet that looks like this:

php /home/cpuser/backups/backup.php > /home/cpuser/backups/backup.log

Navigate to the Advanced tab in cPanel, and then click on Cron Jobs. You’ll see two different options to chose from, but you can go ahead and select Standard. Now you’re going to take the line 27 we copied, and paste that into the “Command to run:” input box. Now we have the choice of setting up the schedule for the cron job to run. I recommend leaving the settings at default. As it is right now the cron job will run a backup every month, every day at 3am. Of course you can change any of those options, but I would not backup more than every day. You don’t need backups every minute! Also, at the top it gives you an option to add an email so you can receive an email about the output; Leave that blank. We’re already going to be receiving a daily email with your backup, so this isn’t necessary.

So, go ahead and save your cron job. Now you’ve got a backup system set in place for your database :).