Cloud computing is hot property right now, and one company offering free cloud storage also just happens to be the web's largest retailer - Amazon.

But what is cloud storage and why is it useful to you?

In answering these questions we'll take a look at setting up a free Amazon Web Services (AWS) account and utilising AWS Simple Storage Service (S3) to host and deliver a website's image files.

This tutorial will show you how to setup a cron job using Plesk 10 on a Linux VPS. Like cPanel, Plesk is a widely available hosting control panel, providing a GUI through which users can configure their hosting.

What is a cron job?

A cron job, also referred to as a 'scheduled task', is simply a command (e.g. go to a particular URL) which is executed at a specified time.

You may, for example, setup a cron job to access the URL of a PHP file (e.g. http://www.example.com/test.php) once every day. Accessing that PHP file could in turn run whatever code the file contained, and that code could then in turn initiate other tasks such as creating a database backup or clearing log files.

In short, cron jobs can be a useful way of performing, or initiating, (recurring) tasks.

So, let's get started...

The Compare Hosting logo is currently in its third iteration, having undergone quite a transition between versions two and three:

As such, we thought it'd be of interest to delve into the process behind this latest iteration.

Earlier versions

Versions one and two were similar, both utilising a lowercase 'c' and 'h' in the Lobster font (a script font available as a download from dafont, as a web font via Google's font API, and from various other sources).

Lobster is an attractive font, and whilst the lowercase 'c' and 'h' of Lobster flowed nicely together, there were two clear issues:

• the font felt unbalanced when placed in context alongside the Futura Std bold of 'Compare Hosting', the Arial body text, and the general data driven nature of the site content
• 'ch' in a circle felt too generic to serve as a logo... to the untrained eye it might have looked as if we'd just drawn a circle and written 'ch' in the middle ;)

Compare Hosting is currently looking for people to assist in beta testing the site's user account features, prior to our making account registration publicly available.

Beta testers should be willing to provide feedback on the current user account implementation, and would be welcome to make design/development suggestions.

Beta accounts will be limited in number, so please be aware that applying to participate will not guarantee acceptance.

To apply, contact us with your details and a short description of what makes you a good potential beta tester for Compare Hosting.

Thanks!