We have news, everyone! A new product release! We just introduced our ultra-fast, super-advanced line of TurnKey Internet Virtual Private Servers, and we couldn’t be more excited. Really, this kind of thing makes us all go a little overboard in the zeal and enthusiasm department, but, hey—worse things could happen.

Have you seen those hilarious “It’s Not Complicated” AT&T commercials that have been all over the place recently? Now that DVR is a thing, I generally try to skip commercials—shh, don’t tell—but if I see that one of those commercials is on, it’s likely that I’ll stop fast-forwarding in the interest of a guaranteed laugh. For those of you who haven’t seen these commercials, check out AT&T’s YouTube Channel. There are quite a few of them, and they are all really well-done and funny.

Aside from entertainment value, our Turbo VPS release is the reason I’m bringing these commercials to your attention. This one, in particular, really hits the nail on the head.

It really is a no-brainer. It’s not complicated. In the tech world, faster is better, period, and that is why our new Turbo VPS’s are, simply, a better option.

TurnKey Turbo VPS’s take the virtual private server experience to a whole new level. Why? How? Let me rattle off a few reasons for you.

• Our TurnKey Turbo VPS’s contain solid state drive (SSD) disks, which have crazy-fast input/output speeds; much faster than traditional disks. Traditional disks are rotational, and SSD’s have no moving parts at all. They run solely on flash memory. No movement = faster. You got it? Good.
• At the core of the TurnKey Turbo VPS is Intel’s® new Xeon MP X7550 2 GHz Octa-Core CPU. This can increase speeds up to four times that of a Quad-Core.
• The TurnKey Turbo VPS allows for one hundred thousand IOPS (input/output per second) per drive, due to the combination of these SSD disks and the Octa-Core technology. Talk about TEAMWORK.
• The TurnKey Turbo VPS has the most innovative, highest-performing node configuration on the market There are multiple SSD disks and multiple Octa-Core CPU’s in each (node), configured in RAID-10, using high-performance RAID cards with significant on-board caching capabilities. This is a revolutionary alternative to the other VPS options out there.

See? Like your mom’s car, cheetahs, and space ships, virtual private servers are better when they are faster, and it’s not complicated to see why. Check out our Turbo VPS page. You’ll see what I mean.

Now, you may remember my first blog post here at TurnKey. Remember–the one about Twitter’s video app, “Vine”?

Back in February?

Hello?

Well, regardless of if you read it or not, let me give you a little run-down on what it was all about!

Twitter acquired the company “Vine” back in October of 2012, and released it to the public this January as an iOS app. Vine gives users a “stop-and-go” way to record whatever they want, and to compose it into a six-second video.

For example, this one, of a cute dog.

Or, similarly, this one, of Busta Rhymes and crew.

Vine has quickly caught the attention of Twitter users all around the world, and just last month it was the most downloaded free app in Apple’s App Store. Judges at the Tribeca Film Festival even asked people for Vine entries this year, and said they were “impressed with the creativity at play when it came to the submissions.”

In a response to Twitter’s acquisition of Vine, YouTube has created an app called “YouTube Capture”. Now, while Twitter focuses on the brevity of a six second Vine, YouTube is sticking to its “post what you want” approach. This app makes it easy and hassle-free for users to record videos on their mobile phones, and upload them straight to YouTube.

With YouTube Capture, you simply press a button and the video begins to record. It continues to record until the button is pressed again, then the video is over. Next, you are asked to enter a title, then given options to color correct, stabilize, or trim the video, and even to add a “soundtrack” to it. The soundtracks are pre-made, ringtone-type music clips, which I thought was an interesting idea. Lastly, you press “done”, and the video is uploaded directly to your YouTube account.

So, who do I think wins the Video-App-Super-Bowl-World-Series-Stanley-Cup-Green-Jacket-Gold-Medal-Championship Award?!

I give it to Vine, simply because of its originality and the fact that it’s so easily shared among friends on Twitter. Vine has limited functions, but with a six-second video you’re just trying to get to the point. Vine videos can also leave a lot of room for creativity, like in this one, for example.

YouTube’s app is incredibly easy to use, and very handy if you want to make simple videos of day-to-day things, like a visit to the zoo, or your cat in water. The features that YouTube Capture provide are pretty nifty, but it lacks any major editing tools and the app itself is a lot less interactive, in my opinion. While it depends on the purpose of your video, both apps are great in their own way, but Vine just has that easy-to-use, interactive element. Sorry YouTube, but you are about 100 years old in technology years, and while you are a classic, my friends need to see my life played out in 6 seconds at a time!

 TurnKey Internet’s New York data center is on what we like to call a carbon diet. When we constructed the facility, minimizing our impact on the environment by using clean, renewable energy and ultra-efficient design was the initial goal.  Last week, we announced that our New York data center is now at the “zero carbon footprint” status–powered by 100% renewable resources with our on-site solar system and the NYS Government’s Recharge New York hydroelectric power feed.

So what does carbon footprint mean, and what exactly is so important about a zero carbon foot print?

A carbon footprint is the measure given to the amount of green house gases produced by burning fossil fuels, measured in units of carbon dioxide. Traditional data centers and cloud services companies consume massive amounts of electricity that is produced by fossil fuels–in the U.S., that is primarily done with coal. Those green house gas emissions given off by converting coal to electricity are what cause global warming and negative global climate change. Therefore,  every device that consumes electricity (such as a computer server in your office, or a web hosting server on the Internet) is contributing to the problem.

Data centers in the U.S. and across the globe house thousands of computer servers in a central location and consume enormous amounts of electricity. Data centers consume even more electricity to keep those computer servers cool, due to the massive quantity of heat they (the computer servers) produce. The best and most recently constructed data centers utilize efficient cooling and energy distribution designs to minimize the amount of electricity they must consume. However, if they consume their electricity from coal or other fossil fuels, then the data center is still an immense source of pollution. Data centers are expected to pollute more than the airline industry by 2020, according to this 2008 article in The New York Times.

Some companies such as Yahoo and Apple have been building data centers with ultra-efficient designs, and powering their facilities with clean, renewable energy.  Many companies, data centers, and cloud service providers are seeing colossal increases in energy costs. Making the massive investments for data centers that utilize clean, renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, hydro and geothermal is finally becoming a reality.

So why should this matter to you?  Let’s say you have a computer server in your office, and finally make the transition to the cloud. You place that server–or rent a new, highly-efficient one–in a data center. You can now choose a facility that is using renewable energy, so that your computer server will no longer be powered by fossil fuels, and thus, will no longer generate CO2, which damages the environment. It’s hard to imagine that the computer server in your office is hurting the environment as it stands today, isn’t it? Moving it to the cloud is not only a wise choice for reliability, security, and redundancy, but also for the environment.

The next time you select a cloud services provider or data center to work with, make sure the data center is on a carbon diet. Your waistline may not be impacted by this diet, but the rest of the world certainly will!

Remember when I told you that April is Earth Month at TurnKey Internet? Well, I’m back with some very exciting Earth Month news. Two different pieces of Earth Month news, actually–both green; both awesome.

First of all, we are now part of NYS Gov. Cuomo’s ReCharge New York program. Do you know what this means? DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?! This means that TurnKey Internet is now powered by 100% renewable resources! Being awarded this system means a lot to us, and it should mean a lot to you too, because being nice to the Earth should mean a lot to everybody. This hydroelectric power system draws energy directly from Niagara Falls, and extends the portion of our power that we were already drawing from renewable sources to a full 100%.

We were selected for the ReCharge New York installation in recognition of the jobs we are creating in New York State as TurnKey Internet expands. Here’s a fun fact: We have more than doubled our staff in the past two years. Isn’t that crazy? Crazy in the best way possible, of course.

Do you know what else this ReCharge New York system means for us? I told you there were two pieces of Earth Month news, didn’t I? Get ready, I saved the best for last… If you haven’t yet heard, or are impartial to reading titles and/or press releases, our Latham, NY data center now has a zero carbon footprint! This accomplishment is all but unheard of in our industry, so we’re more than a little proud and excited. We feel, and hope you agree, that this accomplishment really sets us apart from the other guys.

If you’re interested in a little more light reading, you can find the press release in our Company News section.

Pssst… Between you and me, we are  running an OUTRAGEOUS sale right now. If you’re interested–and I would recommend being interested–jump on Live Sales Chat. Our Sales Department will tell you what’s up. *cough–HUGE DISCOUNT–cough* …excuse me.

Why move to the cloud? Here is April’s cloud tip:

A disaster recovery plan helps to restore data quickly…

For your cloud network to be as successful as it can be, a pre-configured disaster recovery plan is must. Cloud disaster recovery plans work automatically, at the time your server or data crashes. This helps in restoring at the earliest time possible. Incorporating such back-up and recovery applications makes the cloud an efficient platform for competitively managing IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.

As you know, we’re big on making sure that you’re all happy as clams with the service you’re receiving from us. How happy is a clam, you ask? I don’t know. I don’t even know where that expression came from, and that’s not important right now.

Anyway, I feel it is important to give you blog readers a heads up on a crazy, world-wide WordPress attack that might be affecting your service, just in case you haven’t stopped by the TurnKey Helpdesk recently. I just had a chat with our Operations Manager, Brian, and since he basically sleeps in our cold containment pods, what you’re about to read is fresh from the kitchen. Watch your hands—the plate is hot…

There is currently a world-wide attack affecting all WordPress sites at all hosts. This is an attack of unprecedented nature, from a botnet operating on 90,000+ IP addresses.

Due to the nature of the attack, memory consumption on targeted servers has increased. In some cases, this has resulted in degradation of performance and unresponsive servers. This is due to a high volume of ‘http’ requests, which can cause some servers to start swapping memory to disk, and possibly run out of memory. We’ve put measures in place at the firewall and at server level to off-load a lot of the attack, however, there isn’t much more we can do at this time. We have disabled all access to wp-login.php to ensure none of our customers are at risk. For those customers needing to log into their WordPress sites, please open a ticket with our support team, and we can provide access to your sites.

We are working closely with our security and channel partners to further address the issue as it becomes possible.

Again, we feel it’s important to stress that this is not a TurnKey-specific issue. Brian and I took a peek around, and it seems like everyone, everywhere is fighting the same, annoying battle.

We’re super grateful for your understanding and patience while the attack runs its course. If you would like further assistance, or have any additional questions, feel free to contact us by phone or email, Live Chat, Facebook or Twitter—however you would like. Owl? Sea plane? Regardless, we’ll be listening. Sit tight, and we will iron this out as soon as possible.

First things first, I do not consider myself a “car guy” whatsoever. I don’t know if Porsche is really pronounced “porsh” or “porsh-a”, I have no idea where Lexuses are manufactured, and I couldn’t tell you what’s under the hood of my dear Subaru that I named “Seabiscuit.” In fact, now that I think about it, I may even be overdue for an oil change…

However, here at TurnKey Internet, we are all about speed and keeping things green and sustainable. That is why I’d like to share some electric cars that are not only stylish, but easy on the environment, crazy-fast, and make me think that the future has arrived!

Now, let’s start with something basic…

The Chevy Volt was officially released in 2011. It may not be the coolest-looking in this bunch, but it’s probably the most affordable. The first one was placed in the General Motors Heritage Center for display, but the second one was auctioned off for $250,000. This money went to help fund math and science programs for Detroit public schools, which is absolutely worth mentioning and very stylish in its own way! The 2013 model will be out this August, and priced at around $40,000.

This next one is pretty darn cool-looking, but probably not the most efficient… and you won’t be able to get your hands on one until 2014. Feast your eyes on the Infiniti Emerg-E Concept—0-60 MPH in 4 seconds, but after 30 miles, be ready to pull over for another charge.

Next, we have the Fisker! While, style-wise, it might be one of my favorites, word has it that they have been cutting some jobs lately, and are supposedly close to going bankrupt. Regardless, here is the Fisker Karma. I wonder what could have brought them to bankruptcy!

A prime competitor of Fisker (if they survive) is a company by the name of Tesla. After ending the Roadster’s production in 2012, Tesla released the Model S. This car can get you 180 miles to 300 miles per charge, depending on the battery. The starting price for one of these bad boys is right around $95,000, and can easily exceed $100,000—but, hey… it costs around $650 to charge it for an entire year!

While I like the old Roadster better, the Model S has a weird, generic car “look”. It’s kind of like a Nissan Altima, if it got with Aston Martin and made a 4-wheeled love-child. In other words, it’s definitely classy-looking, but I’m not quite convinced I like it yet. Don’t get me wrong, if someone wants to buy me one, I’ll drive it.

Check out the Tesla Model S:

I will admit that I enjoy some fairly odd styles. I like paisley ties, and shirts like this. I’d probably even wear them together!

That being said, the electric car at the top of my list is the Mercedes- Benz SLS AMG E-Cell. As far as I could find, it is still in its final stages, and doesn’t have a set release date yet. It can make it to almost 100 miles per charge, and will cost you a couple-hundred-thousand bucks to purchase, but I can just imagine riding alongside 2 Chainz, and “pullin’ up to the scene with”… the majority of the “ceiling missin’”, in this:

Now, like I said, I am not a car kind of dude, so let me know if you think of anything else I can add to my wish-list before I send it off to Santa this year!

Remember, Earth Day is coming up quickly, so please stay green, and, of course, stay classy!

Well, everyone, we are officially one week into April. A business week, anyway. But still, can you believe it? 2013 is flying for us at TurnKey Internet, and it shows no signs of slowing down any time soon, if at all.

Did you survive April Fool’s Day? Surprisingly, it didn’t get too out of hand here. I say “surprisingly”, since, although the TurnKey team may appear to be comprised of seriously awesome, talented, amazing, incredible, terrific, extraordinary, fabulous, additional adjective meaning “great” (because, why not?), super-charged IT heroes—that’s what we appear to be comprised of, right? RIGHT?! Right.—we’re all just a bunch of goofballs and jokesters at heart. Did anyone get you good (or bad) with an April Fool’s Day prank? Did you get anyone? If so, feel free to share… I need some ammunition for next year.

April Fool’s Day is fun, but we love April for dozens of reasons. Aside from a day devoted to being silly, there are, let’s see, blooming flowers… warmer weather—Hey! A girl from Upstate NY can hope, can’t she? My fingers are crossed, yours should be too, and I refuse to acknowledge the fact that it snowed twice this week.

Anyway, there is also Earth Day in the month of April. When you’re green IT fanatics like we are, April’s Earth Day morphs into a month-long celebration of sustainability and the environment. April, for TurnKey Internet and our community, has become Earth Month, if you will. And you will, because we’re devoting the entire month to showing you how cool it is to be green.

If you’re unfamiliar with the TurnKey Internet green initiative, we can’t imagine how, because we love to talk about it. Regardless—and since we love to talk about it—you can read our press release about it all right here.

Check in from time to time this month for green news, stories, announcements, and more, from here, there, and everywhere. We have lots to share!

Are you planning to celebrate Earth Day this month? How do you do your part for the environment? It’s so, incredibly important to take care of the planet. We LIVE here. All of us.

Happy Earth Month!

Hey there, everybody who has been playing our weekly Disaster Recovery Trivia Challenge! Hey, also, everybody who should be! If you’re confused, you should read this article, explaining what the Disaster Recovery Trivia Challenge is. Trust us, it’s not something you’ll want to miss out on. Especially if you like T-shirts and/or United States Dollars in quantities of one hundred.

Now that you’re up to speed and that we’ve gotten the more unfortunate news out of the way, we can proceed to the purpose of this article.

Our Disaster Recovery Trivia Challenge has been such a success, everyone! This is a fact that we are beyond psyched about. However, it’s outgrowing its home on our social sites faster than you can say “Disaster Recovery Trivia Challenge”, so we decided it’s time to relocate it to somewhere it has a little more room to breathe… like our blog, for example.

The game is the same in all other aspects; this is just a relocation of the weekly facts and answer reveals. You can still feel free to chat away on social media, since we–quite obviously–love to.

Here’s a round-up of what has happened so far:

And the winner is… BILL Y.!

And the winner is… DAVID W.!

And the winner is… NICK J.!

And the winner is… ALEX E.!

And the winner is… Russell G.!

And the winner is… Mike H.!

And the winner is… DARREN C.!

And the winner is… Empty Mirror Books!

Now that we are up to speed, here is this week’s TRUE or FALSE question:

So what do you think? Is it TRUE or FALSE? Tell us, and you could win a T-shirt and a shot at the grand prize of $100! You can post your guess here, or continue the conversation on our Facebook and Twitter pages. We don’t care how, we just want to give away T-shirts! Check back here later in the week to see if you’re our new winner! GOOD LUCK!

Even though the Disaster Recovery Trivia Challenge has a new home, you should still follow our social sites. We’re constantly on the look-out for share-worthy content on a vast array of super-cool topics–everything from hosting to gadgets to sustainability–and we’d love to hear your voice in the crowd.

If you are reading this article, chances are good that you have not been affected by what some are calling the “biggest attack ever” on the Internet… That, or you really like our blog and decided to wait for this page to load. Either way, let me tell you a little bit about what is happening!

According to sources such as The BBC and The New York Times, between March 15^th and the 19th, a Dutch online hosting company, CyberBunker, began an all-out cyber-attack. This has affected the speed of the Internet for people globally. The attack began on Geneva-based spam-fighting group, Spamhaus, because of a supposed “black-listing”, and has even reached the United States.

CyberBunker, who is known for hosting anything that is not “child porn or terrorism-related,” was apparently added to Spamhaus’ list of companies who are said to distribute “spam”, in a wide variety of different ways, shapes, and forms. Because of CyberBunker’s lenient terms of services, Spamhaus believes that entities are able to flood the Internet with spam, without much difficulty.

CyberBunker—who, interestingly enough, is based out of an old military warfare bunker—retaliated with a Distributed Denial of Service, or a DDoS,  and has flooded tons of traffic to Spamhaus’s Domain Name System (DNS). A DNS links websites’ domain names with their IP addresses, and while the attack is flooding their system, websites are globally becoming increasingly slow to get to. It has been said that these attacks have reached up to 300 GB per second, while most major attacks have been around 50 GB per second.

Netflix has seemed to be the largest company affected by this attack, but the Internet in general may be a little bit slower, mainly in Europe. While Spamhaus has over 80 servers all around the world, they have been able to fight this attack with the help of a few other companies—One of whom is Google, actually.  While this is certainly not the end of the Internet, it has been the largest DDoS attack ever reported, and an issue that may become more of a concern to many large companies moving forward.