Tag: Internet

Why Create Websites In WordPress?

On January 26, 2018

After fourteen years as one of the world’s most popular online publishing platforms, WordPress as website software has a history like few other online tools. It is one of the world’s most downloaded applications, with over twelve million individuals acquiring it throughout its lifespan. It is also one of the world’s most well received applications, generating a massive amount of praise from bloggers, journalists.

If you are new to online publishing, new to web development, or even just new to the web in general, it is likely that you’ll be using WordPress to build a website. This platform is used as the backbone of some of the world’s most important and powerful websites – the White House itself uses WordPress as a content platform – and equally as often for small, independent websites.

There is a reason for this popularity – several reasons, in fact. Using WordPress as a website platform is easy because it is one of the simplest and most user-friendly content management systems (CMS) out there, able to be used just as effectively by an inexperienced user as it is by an experienced professional. Its simple interface – split into a writing and publishing ‘dashboard’ and an advanced coding area – is intuitive and very easy to operate.

Publishing a post – or in some cases, a new page for websites in WordPress – takes little more than a minute or two. Pull up the ‘Pages’ or ‘Posts’ tab within the software’s dashboard and you will see a text entry area almost identical to that seen in an office application suite. Due to its similarity with standard applications, the transition from Microsoft Word to WordPress is smooth and impossibly simple.

Then there’s the added simplicity of adding dynamic media to your posts and pages. Unlike many other content management systems, which require you to hard code videos and embedded images into posts manually, WordPress as website software uses a simple Word-style embedding system. Click a button, pick your image, and click ‘embed,’ and it’s saved in your posts on your own web server for viewing.

It’s the same story with video content. Simply choose the file on your computer and upload it to be viewed using any one of WordPress’s HTML5 video display plugins. Longer videos and higher quality footage also benefits from being displayed in websites in WordPress. In place of the low-quality YouTube video display box we’re accustomed with, those who are using WordPress as a website platform can choose from a variety of HTML5 display fields.

To name a few HTML5 video plugins:

Degradable HTML5 audio and video
MediaElement.js – HTML5 Video & Audio Player
HTML5 and Flash Video Player
VideoJS – HTML5 Video Player for WordPress

This, combined with WordPress’s very developer-friendly nature, has made the platform one of the most customizable and versatile on the web. Thousands of extensions and themes are available for the CMS, many of which change it from a blogging platform into a completely different publishing or media tool. It’s not just for blogs any longer – WordPress as a website platform is a powerful and versatile system. For example, TEC has an overview of WordPress that lists in detail its top features, provides user reviews and compares it with competing CMS systems.

If your website needs a versatile management platform, one that will provide simple, stable, and all-round powerful options for yourself and your development team, then WordPress is the only choice. If you integrate WordPress into website assets that you already have, you’ll benefit from a platform that’s available free of charge and supported by an enthusiastic and helpful community. Indeed, this this piece of open source software is one of the greatest online developments of the last decade.

Meet CDNsun, A Low Cost CDN Vendor With A Worldwide Content Delivery Network

By The Editorial Team

On January 25, 2016

In Showcase

Introduction

Lately I’ve been contacted by representatives of CDNsun, offering their services for a fair feedback. I’ve got pretty many visitors from around the world, so perspective of testing CDN service was always quite tempting for me. Looking ahead, experience was rather positive. But now let’s start with the basics.

What is CDN anyway?

Have you wondered why some sites load immediately, while others take a while to load, even though your internet connection is pretty consistent? Even though internet speeds around the globe are sufficiently high, the distance between you and the server from where you are requesting content determines whether the site loads quickly or not. Larger the size of the content (video), the longer it will take to load, if the server is located further from you. This is a phenomenon that almost all internet users face and even though you might be using the best local server available, your site is likely to not load quickly enough in another part of the world. Luckily, there is a solution to this problem and is called Content Delivery Network or CDN.

CDN address the problem of slow loading content by distributing data to different data centers located around the globe. So, when a user requests for specific content, content delivered to him is not from your actual server but a copy from the data center that is closest to him. The difference in loading times may just be over 5-7 seconds but in this time and age of low attention spans (3 seconds), 5-7 seconds is more than sufficient for your user to leave your site and look an alternate provider of information, mostly your competitor.

CDNsun statistics

The success of CDN depends on the number of data centers available. CDNsun prides itself on the large network of 70 data centers (PoPs) that can relay your content to users, where ever they are. Once user requests content from your site, the content is pulled to the CDN servers and delivered at blazing fast speeds. CDNsun supports a wide variety of data formats that it can cache for you. Whether the content is text or audio, pictures or video, CDNsun works for all types of content and a large variety of file formats.

CDNsun offers quite impressive statistics in the comparison table:

If you are use streaming to engage with your visitors, CDNsun supports its users not only with various file formats but also high storage capacities. A simple sign up allows you to access to 20GB of CDN storage amongst host of other features. Video content is stored exclusively on solid state drives (SSD) in a variety of compatible formats such as MP4, FLV, and WMV etc. that enables quicker retrieval and streaming so that no time is lost in buffering. Besides, CDN delivery uses any of the protocols whether RTSP, RTMP, HLS or MSS is compatible with most devices.

CDNsun can help users accelerate content over secure HTTP protocol using SSL certificates that users can share or even get custom ones from Let’s Encrypt. Their strength lies in the large number of data centers that are available for their clients to choose and configure. Once can set cache expiries, pre-fetching abilities and much more using the simple dashboard and integrate it into your current set up without much hassle. Major web hosting services now support CDN, so integration should not take much time. Let’s see which options for CDN hosting can offer CDNsun provider.

My experience

First of all, I enjoyed easy-to-manage interface. Working area (1) provides all needed information about a particular process; while service bar (3) and menu section (2) help you get anywhere you need within one or two clicks. Everywhere you can find “How-To” buttons, or contact support (they respond quite fast, I must say).

Important factor for me, as I wrote above, was amount of suggested PoPs. I decided to run experiment within USA traffic and set up several platforms there just as you can see on a screen below. Guys reading this article from target regions, really looking forward to your feedback, weather website’s speed is really good enough for you, but so far I’m pleased with ping I get.

Reporting is accurate and clear, highlighting your traffic volume and expenses. Charts are easy to scalable and can be downloaded in appropriate format.

Though I got a free trial credits, another sweet thing to me is a pay as you go pricing model, let’s have a closer look at it.

Pricing

CDNsun’s most attractive feature is its pricing plan that is at least half of its competitors. Add to it, the benefit that you current server charges will reduce once opt for a CDN, makes CDNsun a very good choice to me. First, they offer 20GB for free storage to get you started. With no entry, maintenance or exit fee, you can simply use the CDN services and pay as you go.

Final Words

If you have even an iota of a doubt, you can sign up for a free 15-day trial and check for yourself, if using CDNsun is helping your site and your visitors. If you are happy with the result, you know that you need not look any further. Friendly technical support that’s available 24 X 7 and 100% SLA make CDNsun the perfect choice for business, whether large or small. If you like to keep your visitors engaged with quick loading content, then try CDNsun today and let us know how it works out for you.