SimplerCloud's New Feature: we now have free CloudFlare CDN on all Servelets

This article is originally posted on SimplerCloud's blog here.

Yes, you heard right.  CloudFlare’s CDN (Content Delivery Network) services are now available for all customers in their Servelet control panel.  There are no installation fees, and with this new feature, you can create, enable and manage your CloudFlare CDN directly through your Servelet panel so that everything is conveniently centralized.

What is CloudFlare?

CloudFlare is a multi-award winning CDN (Content Delivery Network) service which helps to accelerate and secure your websites hosted on your servelets by providing caching and proxying service for your websites. CloudFlare can help you to protect your websites from malicious visitors, save your servelet’s bandwidth and reduce the loading time of your websites.

CloudFlare also has multiple CDN nodes all around the globe, and the nodes will keep a copy of your website’s cache. All your websites’ visitors will be redirected and served by the nearest CDN node, thus increasing the speed and reducing the users’ website load time.

Read more about CloudFlare on their web site

How does CloudFlare CDN work?

Once you have activated the CloudFlare CDN service for any of your domains hosted in our name servers, our name servers will then make the necessary changes to point your website’s domain (normally http://www.YOUR-DOMAIN) to CloudFlare CDN network. At the same time, our control panel will connect to CloudFlare CDN network’s API to register your account and domain into the CDN network.

This allows CloudFlare to accelerate your website traffic, since all requests to your website will be routed through CloudFlare CDN network. CloudFlare’s advanced CDN technology will help to screen your website’s traffic from malicious visitors, cache static content of your website and optimise your web content.

What are the advantages of using CloudFlare CDN?

The advantages of using CloudFlare CDN:

1. Improve the overall performance of your website.
2. Protect your website from malicious threats.
3. Computer infection alert to visitors of your website.
4. Offline browsing mode of your website when your servelet is down.
5. Overall lower CPU usage of your servelet.

What are the caveats of CloudFlare CDN I need to take note of?

Some caveats and limitation of enabling CloudFlare CDN service for your website:

1. Your web statistics might not reflect the actual number of visitors to your site, because some of the requests are handled by CloudFlare CDN nodes and not handled by your web server directly.
2. Because CloudFlare CDN nodes cache static contents from your website, any changes to your content might not be reflected immediately when your visitors visit your page.
3. CloudFlare CDN service will only handle requests going to http://www.YOUR-DOMAIN, while requests going to [YOUR-DOMAIN] would normally still be handled by your web server.
4. CloudFlare CDN service (the free plan) doesn’t support SSL.

OK, I am very interested in trying the service.  How do I sign up?

The CloudFlare CDN service works together with DNS Hosting service, so you will need to use our DNS Hosting service (which is also free) for the CloudFlare CDN service to work.

To order the CloudFlare CDN service, login to the customer portal > Order > CDN Services. Choose “CloudFlare CDN” and then click “Order Now!”

How do I configure the CloudFlare CDN service?

To manage the CloudFlare CDN service, login to the customer portal and then go to Services > CDN Services > CloudFlare CDN. You will see the CloudFlare CDN console panel.

Click on “Managed Websites”. You will see the list of domains which are hosted in SimplerCloud’s name servers under “DNS Hosting service”. If you do not subscribe to DNS Hosting service or you haven’t add any domains under DNS hosting service, you will not see any domains listed here.

To enable CloudFlare CDN service for a particular domain, just click the grey cloud next to the domain name. Once the service is activated, the cloud’s colour will change to orange.

What will happen to my domain once the CloudFlare CDN service is activated?

Once the CloudFlare CDN service is activated for your domain, the DNS records for your domain will automatically be changed to point to the CloudFlare CDN service’s IP address rather than the actual IP address of your servelet.

Your website (e.g. http://www.YOUR-DOMAIN) will be served by CloudFlare CDN service rather than by your servelet directly.

Summary

Our control panel is now integrating our name servers (through our DNS Hosting service) and CloudFlare CDN services (through CloudFlare API), allowing you to enable CloudFlare CDN services for your websites hosted on your servelets with just a click of a button (a cloud image, to be exact). All the required processes: the creation of CloudFlare account, registering of your domain names into your CloudFlare account and enabling your domain name to use CloudFlare CDN services (by changing the DNS records of the domain hosted in our name servers to CloudFlare node IP addresses) are being done automatically in the back-end. And furthermore, the service is provided for free to all our customers.

So, what are you waiting for? Host your domain names in our name servers and try the CloudFlare CDN services for your website, for free.

Planet Indra is Temporarily Down

I have temporarily shut down my Planet Indra site. For some unknown reasons, the WordPress-based aggregation blog site refuses to show the contents of the blog and instead it's giving this error message to everyone who tried to access the site:

It doesn't look like you've installed WP yet. Try running install.php

I have Googled around and mostly people would encounter the above message when they tried to upgrade their WordPress installation. This is not the case in my situation. I was not doing anything on the WordPress installation and suddenly the error message appeared. I have other WordPress installations for Minda Indra and Planet Singapura on the same server, running under the same user-id and connecting to the same MySQL database, and they do not encounter the same problem.

Anyone has a clue on what could have happened? Could it be that the database used is corrupted?

I haven't got the time to investigate this issue further. Will look into this problem later when I have the time. Apologise for the inconvenience caused.

Happy National Blogger Day and Happy Deepavali

27 October 2008 is the first anniversary of Indonesia's National Blogger Day. Therefore, I would like to wish all Indonesian bloggers a very happy National Blogger Day.

And since this very same day is also a Diwali day (which is a public holiday here in Singapore), I also would like to wish a very Happy Deepavali to all my Indian friends who celebrate the festival of lights.

Selamat Hari Raya Idul Fitri

Wishing all Muslims a very happy and joyous Eid ul-Fitr celebration. Selamat Hari Raya Idul Fitri, mohon maaf lahir dan batin. :)

Happy Lunar New Year

For those of you who celebrate Chinese New Year all around the world: Xīnnián kuàilè, Gōngxǐ fācái. Happy new year, and wishing everyone of you a very happy and prosperous new year ahead.

Season's Greetings

Selamat Hari Raya Idul Adha to all my Muslim friends, Selamat Hari Ibu for all Indonesian mothers (including my mother and my wife), Merry Christmas to all my Christian friends, and Happy New Year to everyone! :)

Picture courtesy of 123greetings.com.

Selamat Hari Raya Idul Fitri

Similar to last year, both Singapore and Indonesia governments have decided the same date for this year's Hari Raya Idul Fitri, which is on Saturday, 13 October 2007.

In Singapore, the Mufti of Singapore has announced that based on astronomical calculation, the moon was not visible on the horizon yesterday evening as it set almost at the same time with the sun. Thus, today (Friday, 12 October 2007) marks the 30th day of the Muslim's holy month of Ramadhan and the 1st day of Syawal (Hari Raya Aidil Fitri) falls on Saturday, 13 October 2007.

In Indonesia, the Ministry of Religion Affairs also have decided that this year's Hari Raya Idul Fitri falls on Saturday, 13 October 2007. According to Cecep Nurwendayat, an Indonesian astronomy expert, the moon (hilal) was not possible to be seen yesterday because the sunshine was still strong when the moon set.

Similar to last year, Muhammadiyah, one of the largest Islamic organisations in Indonesia, have decided that Hari Raya Idul Fitri falls one day earlier than the government's decision, which is today (Friday, 12 October 2007). This is due to the different methods used in determining the end of the month of Ramadan. Therefore, it's quite common to see some of Indonesian muslims who celebrate Hari Raya Idul Fitri today instead of tomorrow, and alhamdulillah, these differences are widely accepted by the Indonesian people and never cause any problems, let alone frictions, among Muslims in Indonesia.

I would like to wish all Muslims all over the world, a Happy Eid ul-Fitr celebration. Eid Mubarak, Selamat Hari Raya Idul Fitri, mohon maaf lahir dan batin.

Missed That Round of Open Submission

Aaaargh. I missed this year's round of Merdeka's open submission. I intended to register this blog as well as my Minda Indra blog for the open submission, but then I was very busy on that particular day both in the office and at home so I forgot to make the submission. More over, I forgot to mark this date on my scheduler. Guess I will have to wait for the next round of open submission, don't know when...

Why this round of submission is only opened for one day? :(

100% Smoke-free

To: manager of public places

Scientific research about the harms of second-hand tobacco smoke has been accumulating for over 20 years. There is no doubt that breathing second-hand tobacco smoke (SHS) is very dangerous to human health, causing cancer and many serious respiratory and cardiovascular diseases in children and adults, often leading to premature death.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has concluded that there is no safe level of human exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke, and the upcoming WHO policy recommendations on protection from exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke clearly state that the establishment of 100% smoke-free areas is the only way to protect the public to such exposure and its consequences.

The right to clean air, free from tobacco-smoke is a human right.

Therefore, we ask you to defend and protect the health of employers, workers and the public by implementing the necessary legislation that will make all public indoor working places, including bars and restaurants 100% smoke-free. We think this is a critical step to protecting our health and that of our children.

Sincerely,

Signed by

Indra Pramana

Related links:

• Ajakan untuk Mengikuti ‘Hari Tanpa Tembakau Sedunia 2007′ by Priyadi (in Indonesian)
  
• World No Tobacco Day 2007 in WHO website
  
• WHO: Introduction: rigorous research leaves no doubt
• WHO: 100% smoke-free is the only answer
• WHO: Call for action
• WHO: Dismantling tobacco industry myths: be prepared with answers
• WHO: Not yet smoke-free? Here is what you can do…
• World No Tobacco Day in Wikipedia
• Tobacco: Deadly in Any Form, posted last year in Info
• Hari Tanpa Tembakau Sedunia 2006, posted last year in Minda Indra (in Indonesian)
  

New Look of Planet Indra

I encountered quite a lot of problems when I used the Blue Horizon theme for Planet Indra. The sidebar.php file is not really easy to modify, making it difficult for me to add some widget scripts there. For example, it's a bit difficult for me to add the scripts to show the Kronologis sideblog and Oggix shoutbox there. Well, I can still add the widgets there, but the whole sidebar layout will become very messy. My friend JaF even told me that he always sees the sidebar dangling (is dangling the correct word for "melorot" in English?), using either Firefox or Internet Explorer.

In view of this, I decided to give a new look for Planet Indra. After searching and testing various WordPress themes, I decided to use the Golden Grey theme, by William Pramana. Well, of course it's not because William is sharing the same last name as I am :) , but because I really like the layout design. And, the most important thing, it's much easier to modify the sidebar.php file to insert the necessary gadgets that I want. The Kronologis box also fits nicely in the sidebar, resolving the dangling problem.

Both JaF and Rani introduced Twitter to me, which has features similar to what Kronologis offers. I have signed up for an account there, but so far I haven't been fully making use of it. At the moment, I'm quite happy to use Kronologis for my sideblog, and so far I haven't had a plan to switch. :) Well, I might want to use Twitter for my sideblog in English, since currently I'm using bahasa Indonesia for my Kronologis sideblog. We'll see. :)

Happy Lunar New Year

For those of you who celebrate Lunar New Year, I wish everyone of you a very happy and prosperous new year ahead. Xīnnián kuàilè, Gōngxǐ fācái. And, don't forget the red packets... :)

Inka and Irza's New Look

My blogger friend Tata, who is currently in Switzerland but is having a plan to migrate to Singapore soon with his family, informed me that his computer always hung after viewing the main page of The Journey of Inka and Irza. I tried to replicate the problem, and yes, I also encountered the same problem. My Mozilla Firefox hung after trying to load the page for some time, not too sure why. Many thanks Tata for the feedback. :)

To be frank, firstly I didn't really much bother since the blog itself is already in hiatus mode for quite some time. In the past couple of months, I prefer to write stories about Inka and Irza in the photo section of my Multiply site, together with all the photos, while the Indonesian versions of the stories are usually posted in Rumah Indra. So, I didn't update that blog too often. However, writing articles (with all the hyperlinks etc) on a photo blog is quite inconvenient, especially since you would need to add the hyperlink tags manually. So, I've decided that I would want to use back The Journey of Inka and Irza for me to write stories about my kids and family, in English. Furthermore, I have configured my Multiply site to import all my articles from all my blogs under my Blogger account, including The Journey of Inka and Irza and Rumah Indra.

Before I start using it, I need to fix the problem first. Since I suspect that the problem might be due to the template, a quick and clean way to resolve the problem might be using a new template altogether. So, I backed up my previous template, and then I picked up a new template and at the same time, upgraded the template so I can use Blogger's new template layout tools, since I've already upgraded the blog to the new Blogger.

So, the problem is now fixed. You should not have any issues accessing The Journey of Inka and Irza blog site again, and I'm ready to post future articles about stories of Inka and Irza there again. Stay tuned! :)

Upgraded to New Blogger

At last, I finally saw the long awaited option on my Blogger dashboard for me to switch to the new Blogger, which is already out of Beta (see left picture). The option appears on top of my usual Blogger dashboard when I logged in to the dashboard today. This is a great surprise to me, since I have actually tried to switch just several days ago, and it was not successful. I believe this was because my Blogger account is also a contributor of the Bemo Live and Suka Suka Gue blogs, preventing me from switching to the new Blogger account. It seems that now, Blogger has managed to give me the option to upgrade all my blogs separately from the two blogs which are still on the old version of Blogger.

Having said that, I immediately chose to switch to the new Blogger. First, I needed to confirm my sign-in by signing in using my old Blogger account (see right picture). After signing in, I am given the list of all my blogs, which are going to be upgraded (see below picture). It was mentioned that the two blogs I have mentioned above are owned by someone else, and although I will still be able to post to those blogs after upgrade, but the blogs won't have the new feature until the owners upgrade them.



After pressing "Continue", the screen would prompt me to choose a Google account (see right picture). I could either use my own Google account if I have one, or create a new one. Since I already had a Google account, I just needed to key in my Google account and password. After signing in, the upgrade process will start, and depends on the number of blogs and how big they are, it may take several minutes. Once done, an email will be sent to our Gmail e-mail account.

So, here this is, my first post on the new Blogger version. Haven't really explore the new features yet, though. One of the obvious features I can see, which I think would be very useful, is the labels tagging, which can be used for me to categorise all my next articles. Well, let's see how it goes after I post this article. :)