I have been running a Windows server for many years both at my own house and a Windows VPS with GoDaddy.  A Windows server is MUCH easier to manage, setup and get running.  Everything is fairly simple to do but simplicity does come with its downfalls.  Since everything can be done within a GUI (Graphical User Interface), it does limit the amount of things that can be done.

After I went to college, I started picking up more about Linux and also started setting up Linux servers.  Linux servers are harder to configure and there is a learning curve.  Most of the configuration on a Linux server has to be done within a text command line.  This can be very intimidating for some people that have never used Linux.  It takes a lot of reading a Googling to figure out exactly what to do to get it up and running.  But the advantage is that it is designed from the ground up to be fast and secure.  There is no GUI interfaces and useless software to slow down the server.

Advantages of a Windows Server:

Window specific server side scripts like ASP/ASP.Net
Windows specific database, Microsoft SQL
Ability to run Apache and IIS.
Runs virtually every popular web scripting language
Very easy to use because of the GUI interface
Easy for someone new to managing a server

Disadvantages of a Windows Server:

Requires higher system requirements
Expensive – licensing for a Windows Server is not cheap
Bloated and slower then Linux
Security Holes, Viruses

Advantages of a Linux Server:

Low system requirements
Very fast and can do a lot with very little
Cheap – No licensing costs
Built around security
Many different flavors of Linux to fit your needs

Disadvantages of a Linux Server:

Does not support ASP/ASP.Net (Linux equivelent is PHP)
No support for Microsoft SQL (Linux equivelent is Mysql/postgresql)
Big learning curve, for more experienced users
No GUI pre-installed (webmin is a great web based management tool)

In the end, it all depends on the uses of the server and the person.  If ASP or MSSQL is a requirement, I would go with a Windows server.  For all other uses, I would most likely go with a Linux Server since it is generally cheaper.  I also have experience working on them in the past.  For someone new, I would recommend playing around with both before making a decision.

Processor: Intel Xeon 5148, 2.33GHZ (4 cores)
Ram: 512mb ram with no swap
Hard Drive: 10 GB (the OS takes up about 2GB)
OS: Windows 2003 Server
IP Addresses: 3 included

Price: $40/mo ( I opted in for the 10gb backup storage for $3 )

I have been able to find coupons time I need to renew to drop the monthly price down from $40 to $30.  The GoDaddy VPS comes with 3-ip addresses which is great.  I was able to run both IIS and Apache on the server at the same time.  It is the only VPS service that I know that offers 3-ip addresses bundled in the price.

I originally chose a Windows Server because it is much easier to configure and allowed me the flexibility to run both ASP/ASP.NET and PHP.  I also had a few ASP sites that I needed to get up and running quickly.  But for the past 3 years that I have been with GoDaddy the computers have not getting any better.  Despite the constantly dropping prices of hardware, I have not been getting a price cut or increased storage.  This in itself has made me a little unhappy about the service that they offer.

I just logged into the Godaddy the other day to check their prices and noticed that the Windows VPS has dropped in price to $30!  I was happy because they finally decided to make some changes.  I glanced at my bill but it was still $40…  I talked to a representative and was told in order to get the new price I would have to cancel my current VPS and create a completely new one…  I was appalled that after 3 years of service with them they would make me go through reconfiguring a whole new server just to get the price change.

I looked around for a while and decided to dump GoDaddy VPS since I would have to fully configure another VPS anyways it was a good time to move over to another provider.  I looked around for a while and decided to go with a Linux VPS.  My next post will be about the differences between a Windows VPS and a Linux VPS.

So what is VPN for the people that don’t know what it is? VPN stands for Virtual Private Network and it is a way to simulate computers connected directly together even if they are miles away.  It is able to do this by connecting the machines through a secured encrypted channel.  This way you can do things like access files remotely and securely.  This also allows you to perform actions just as if you were physically connected to the network like reconfiguring your wireless router, print, etc…

So why do you need VPN access?  VPN access is used by enterprises all over so that workers can connect remotely and work from home.  Similarly it will allow you to securely access your home or remote computers and allow you to work on them.

OpenVPN Access Server is a great product that is based off of the Free OpenVPN platform.  The Access Server allows you to have 2 concurrent users connected without costing you anything!  For a typical home user, 2 users is plenty.  Most home users really only need 1 since you may be the only person connecting in.  So what makes OpenVPN Access Server unique?  It allows you to setup a VPN server effortlessly unlike the original OpenVPN package.  It basically is almost install and go.  When I setup my first Traditional OpenVPN server it took hours to get up and running, the OpenVPN Access Server took me 10 minutes max.

To get started, download the correct version for your operating system at: http://openvpn.net/index.php/access-server/download-openvpn-as.html.   For me, I downloaded the Ubuntu version and it is a .deb file.  To launch the installer, go to your command line and run dpkg -i <downloaded deb file>.  This will launch the installer and get everything setup.

After the installer finishes, it pretty much sets everything up for you and there are just a couple configurations that need to be done.  Get the ip number of the machine by typing ifconfig.  Once you have the ip address you will be able to navigate to the server setup webpage at https://<ip address>:943/server. Login as the root user and the credentials are the same as the Linux server.

After you have logged in the first thing is adding the free 2 user license to the server.  The licence can be obtained for free at http://openvpn.net/index.php/access-server/license-key.html.  It is required to create an account.  Once you have obtained the licence key click the Licence link from the menu and enter the serial number.

You are set! That is it to setting up the OpenVPN Access Server.  If you want to fine tune some of your settings, you can make modifications under VPN Settings.  When you are connecting from a remote machine just navigate to http://<your ip>:943 and it will have instructions to setup a tunnel for a Windows, Linux or Apple machine.

I’ve been using StatCounter for years because it completely free and it also has invisible counters.  Invisible counters are great because your visitors wont need to know that you are monitoring them.  StatCounter has tons of great tools like viewing highest ranked Search Engine searches, where visitors came from, the countries visitors came from, the amount of time spent on your site, returning visitors and much much more. The most important one of course is the number of unique views that your site may get.  You want to try to maximize the number of unique views in order to maximize the amount of money that you can get from your sites.

Below is a graph of a sample statistic from StatCounter:

As you can tell, WebsiteJourney isn’t currently getting a lot of hits but this graph gives a lot of great information.  The unique visitors tells you how many people visited your site, the page views shows how  many pages were viewed during the day and returning visitors tells you how many people came back to your site again.  Its all pretty self intuitive but it gives a lot of good information.

To get started with StatCounter, you must first create an account by visiting http://www.statcounter.com.  Once you have created an account you will need to create a project with information about your blog.  Different projects allow you to monitor different sites or pages as you wish.  It will keep the statistics between them separated.  After you have created a project just look for the basic HTML installation instructions which will give you some HTML code to copy and paste into your own page.

Copy the HTML code displayed on the screen.  It should start with <!– Start of StatCounter Code –> and end with <!– End of StatCounter Code –>.  After you have copied this into your clipboard, log into your WordPress Blog’s Admin section.  Navigate to Appearance > Editor.  On the right side, look for a file name “Footer” or one that is similar.  The filename varies with different themes.  After you have located “Footer”, click it and you should see HTML in the box.  Paste the StatCounter Code right above the </html> tag and save the file.

Thats it! Now when you have visitors, it will log the number of visitors and various other information about them.

Once the blog has unique content, you can begin different SEO Techniques that will help your site get found by various search engines.

1. If your site isn’t currently index, submit your site to various search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.  Search engines is where over 90% of your traffic will come from and it is important to advertise the blog to at least these 4 search engines.  Most traffic originates from these 4 search engines so this should be enough to cover you.

Google: http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addur
Yahoo: http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit
Bing: http://www.bing.com/webmaster/SubmitSitePage.aspx
Ask: http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=<Insert Your URL>

2. Download the “All In One SEO” plugin for WordPress: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/ This plugin will help set up different metadata and titles to make them all search engine friendly.  This is a quick easy step to changing the titles, metadata, keywords and much more.  The friendlier your site is the more the search engines will crawl through your site.  You want to make it as easy as possible for search engines.

3. Download the “Google Sitemap Generator” for WordPress: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/ This plugin basically creates a sitemap of all your blog posts and content for Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines to easily get access to.  The sitemap contains all of the links on your site and is an easy to parse formula for the search engines.  My Website Journey’s Sitemap can be viewed to see what type of information is generated by this plugin and seen by Google.