Nexcess to Sponsor Meet Magento Conference in Germany

Nexcess to Sponsor Meet Magento Conference in Germany

Ann Arbor, Michigan, May 14, 2012 -Nexcess, a leading provider of Magento eCommerce solutions and Magento hosting partner, is pleased to announce sponsorship of the upcoming Meet Magento #6.12 conference in Leipzig, Germany. The conference will feature keynotes from industry leaders, panels, lectures, and the chance to network with over 500 attendees. Attendees will also get the opportunity to meet with other leading eCommerce Merchants, Magento Partners and developers and get the latest inside scoop on Magento and eBay´s X.Commerce.
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Why So Serious?

Why So Serious?

As I mentioned in my last blog entry about Customer Service, my obsession for Batman would be a blog for another time. That time is here! As a young boy, I knew there was something special about the caped crusader. Watching Adam West and Burt Ward team up against the old school Joker, Riddler & Penguin. I’m not quite that old, I just appreciate the reruns! Even Scooby-Doo was trying to appeal to the hardcore super hero fans by bringing the Dynamic Duo together with Mystery Inc to solve mysteries and fight crime! Scooby-Doo was awesome to begin with but add in a little Batman flavor, it’s a taste that can’t be beat!
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Nexcess Announces PCI DSS Certified Web Hosting

Nexcess Announces PCI DSS Certified Web Hosting

Ann Arbor, Michigan, May 7, 2012 – Nexcess, a leading provider of premium eCommerce hosting services, has announced that the company’s sustained PCI-compliant web hosting environment will become PCI certified in the coming weeks. This certification relates to directly to the ability of an eCommerce web site’s ability to accept credit card payments; in this case, for clients utilizing Nexcess’ Magento SIP (Secure Isolated Platform) web hosting packages.In order to provide PCI certified web hosting, organizations must meet 12 distinct requirements for compliance, which must be further verified and approved by an independent third party. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a governing standard for information security as it relates to the handling of consumer cardholder information for payments made using major credit, debit, prepaid, ATM, and POS cards.“Anyone can say they are ‘PCI Compliant’, but very few folks take the next step to have this independently audited,” commented Nexcess President and CEO, Chris Wells. “We feel that this certification falls right in line with Nexcess’ foundation of providing our clients with unparalleled service and support. Now, more than ever, people want to know that their sensitive information is safe when they’re doing business online. We want to provide our valued clients with that added level of confidence and security.”
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Introducing the Detroit Linux User Group (D-LUG)!

Introducing the Detroit Linux User Group (D-LUG)!

Detroit’s official motto:

Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus
“We Hope For Better Things; It Shall Rise From the Ashes.”

It’s my pleasure to announce the first meeting of the Detroit Linux User Group A.K.A. D-LUG! With the rapid growth of the technology industry in Detroit, it was only a matter of time before we all got together, so let’s start it off right. Whether you’re a seasoned system administrator or you’re just beginning to explore the world of Linux and Open Source Software, we want you!

Since this is the first meeting, I’ll start it off with a brief presentation on fun command line tricks and one-liners. From there, we’ll have a “roundtable” discussion on the current state of Linux/OSS, where it’s going, and ways to leverage it to provide access to those without. Detroit is currently a hotbed for technological innovation; without the barrier of license restrictions we, as Linux/OSS users, have the ability to create something new, something fresh.

Bring yourself, your ideas, and your passion for technology. We’ll take care of the rest.

Free coffee and pizza!

Thursday May 17th at the M@dison building. 7PM – 8:30PM.

E-mail me at bhill@nexcess.net if you have any questions.

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Top 10 Social Media Plugins for WordPress

Top 10 Social Media Plugins for WordPress

The benefits of using social media for building brand awareness, driving traffic, and creating leads are well accepted. However, maintaining and monitoring a coherent content strategy across multiple channels can involve a lot of work. Thankfully, for those with a WordPress site at the heart of their web presence, there are a huge number of plugins to choose from to streamline and automate much of the effort. Today, we’re going to look at 10 of the best.

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mkdir(): Too Many Links – What It Is and How to Fix

mkdir(): Too Many Links - What It Is and How to Fix
Recently, I was notified of an “out of disk space” error message which showed up in one of our applications while trying to send an email. I knew right away the source of the problem and while the short term solution was easy (I renamed the problem directory and created a new one – these files were only for logging) we definitely needed a long term solution.

All I found in the logs were a bunch of “Too many links” error messages and didn’t know exactly what it could mean. Hey, I’m a programer, not a systems admin; this was a new one for me. I could see we hadn’t run out of disk space but I knew “links” had to do with the filesystem.
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Support Docs Make a Comeback

Support Docs Make a Comeback
Over the last several months, we have dedicated considerable time and effort in revamping our Support Knowledgebase (KB). This undertaking includes updating existing content, adding new content, and organizing information into a more logical and intuitive structure. Also, for those who prefer to learn by watching rather than reading, we have begun creating video demonstrations to accompany each KB article. The content is the same, but presented in an online video. Our videos play directly within your browser, and provide control buttons that allow visitors to pause, rewind, fast-forward, and re-play as they wish.
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Magento Used on 20% of E-Commerce Sites

Magento Used on 20% of E-Commerce Sites
A survey of e-commerce sites in the Alexa top million websites has found that, as of the first quarter of 2012, Magento is by far the most popular e-commerce solution.

Alexa Internet Inc. tracks the web use of millions of internet users and gathers information about the sites they visit. A recent analysis of their database has revealed that Magento is used on 20 percent of e-commerce sites internationally. Magento usage has skyrocketed over the last 4 months. The number of sites deploying Magento increased by 21 percent over the previous quarter, dwarfing the growth rate of its nearest competitor, Zen Cart, which grew by only seven percent.

Of the 33,632 e-commerce sites in Alexa’s top million, almost 7,000 of were using Magento, with just under 4000 using both Zen Cart and VirtueMart. Open Source e-commerce platforms dominate the list; more than half of all e-commerce websites in the top million are released under an open-source license.
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Simple Magento Sort Optimization Patch

Simple Magento Sort Optimization Patch
While doing some profiling and benchmarking of Magento to test PHP-FPM I found that Magento was spending roughly a quarter of the run time for some page loads on comparing attributes.
Unpatched Profile Graph
This struck me as odd, and so I looked into it more and found that it was specifically on pages with several products (like category pages). Digging into the code, I found this (in app/code/core/Mage/Eav/Model/Entity/Abstract.php):
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PCI, Magento, and Storing Credit Card Information

PCI, Magento, and Storing Credit Card Information
The question of whether you can store credit card information within Magento comes up a lot here at Nexcess. The answer to this question is unfortunately not very clear when looking for an answer elsewhere including on the Magento website. To clarify the answer to this question, there are a few things that need to be understood including the difference between PCI-DSS and PA-DSS compliance.

PCI-DSS is the compliancy of your entire online environment which includes your systems, practices, software, etc. This is the standard that is required to be able to process on-site payments. Magento IS PCI-DSS compliant when the rules of PCI-DSS are followed which include:

- Build and Maintain a Secure Network
- Protect Cardholder Data
- Maintain a Vulnerability Management Program
- Implement Strong Access Control Measures
- Regularly Monitor and Test Networks
- Maintain an Information Security Policy
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