Monday, October 27, 2014

Host a website with IES? Your account has been upgraded for free!

Dear Customer,

Most of you will not notice the changes that took effect early this Monday morning. But IES has been hard at work upgrading our privately owned servers. We now provide each account with software called CloudFare, which make your website load 30% faster, use 60% less bandwidth, have 65% fewer requests, and is far more secure.

Please take note of your new name servers below:

As we have upgraded our servers, we have also upgraded our hosting plans. We now offer four plans. Our website will reflect these changes next month. Please contact us if you wish to learn more about our new plans and their features.
  • IES Managed with FTP Access - $60 / year ($5 / month)
  • Starter with cPanel & FTP Access - $120 / year ($10 / month)
  • Premium with cPanel & FTP Access - $180 / year ($15 / month)
  • Unlimited with cPanel & FTP Access - $240 / year ($20 / month)
IMPORTANT NOTE: We urge each customer to update their name servers as soon as possible, as the old name servers are being turned off on November 1, 2014. If you need help setting this up, please give our office a call or reply to this email. If your domain is managed by IES, we have automatically migrated your site to the new server and you do not have to do anything!

Friday, October 24, 2014

Love movies? Ready to be a part of the action? Get ready because virtual reality movies are coming!

"At some point, virtual reality is going to eliminate the need to go to a physical place and see a big screen. It can be even richer than the IMAX experience in a theater, because it can be 360 and all around you." -Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe

Did you think virtual reality was just for video games? So did Oculus at first. The company, which was acquired by Facebook earlier this year for $2 billion, counts a number of people with video gaming backgrounds among its earliest employees. Most of them believed that's where the main applications of the technology would lie.

But independent filmmakers have already produced a number of Oculus-ready short movies, which generally clock in at under 15 minutes. The challenge, directors say, is having to rethink storytelling for an interactive medium in which you can't control where the viewer looks.

Ikrima Elhassan's studio has shot a handful of virtual reality projects. He says "It's exciting because the rules haven't been written -- it feels very much like the days of early cinema".

The entire production process has to be rethought. Among the challenges: How do you direct a viewer's attention? How do you do cuts that aren't too jarring? How do you move people through a virtual environment without making them sick?

The jury is still out on whether traditional Hollywood production companies are going to be the ones to come in and produce the truly magical, original virtual reality content the right way. Oculus has met with a number of major studios to demonstrate the technology.

Some big studios are experimenting with the technology, including Fox Searchlight, which is reportedly working on virtual reality experiences tied to "Night at the Museum" and the upcoming Reese Witherspoon film "Wild."

Who knows what will come of it. But one thing is for sure - it should be interesting to see what happens in the years to come.

Source: CNN Money

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

WiFi is now free when you visit the UK, if you have a MasterCard.

Using your phone or tablet when you're overseas can be pretty pricey. Luckily, for everything else there's MasterCard, as you can now enjoy free Wi-Fi in the UK thanks to the card in your wallet.

Credit card and payment services company MasterCard has signed up with British Wi-Fi provider The Cloud for free Internet connection in thousands of public places. The Cloud is a company providing Wi-Fi hotspots around the UK in public places including shops, bars, food places and train stations.

Download the MasterCard Priceless London WiFi mobile app, available now from Google Play or the Apple App Store, and you'll be able to wirelessly connect to the Web at no cost while in the UK.

So when you're on your holiday -- that's British for vacation -- or traveling for business, you can check email, catch up with your social media friends or even just find your way about without racking up huge data roaming charges or burning through your phone plan's data allowance. It also helps you sidestep extortionate WiFi fees from your hotel.

The app also offers deals and promotions based on where you are with MasterCard's Priceless Cities program. If you are planning on using the app, it's important to note that MasterCard says you have to download it and register for the service while you're still at home, before you travel -- so plan ahead and contact MasterCard for more details.

Source: Yahoo Tech

Friday, October 3, 2014

JP Morgan Chase admits to a significant data breach.

Today, JP Morgan Chase revealed that information on 76 million households and 7 million businesses was stolen from their systems due to malware on an employee laptop. This is added to the Home Depot and Target breaches. Here are a few things you can do to protect your personal information...
  • Change all banking passwords
  • Do not reuse passwords amongst banks
  • Monitor all of your accounts (even those not with JP Morgan)
  • Ask for alerts:
    • Daily balance via email & text message
    • Alerts for transactions over $500 (or whatever level you desire)
    • Alerts for number of daily transactions
    • Alerts when balance falls below a certain amount
  • Use 2-factor authentication
  • Avoid using debit cards
  • Minimize online banking
Demand Chase hold it’s software and security vendors accountable for their lapses - after all, they spend millions (if not billions) of dollars on this software. We as individuals cannot force Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle, Cisco, and other software manufacturers to improve their security. It will take a large customer like JP Morgan Chase to force the software industry to deliver secure, hardened software.

Sources:
NYTimes.com
BusinessInsider.com