Tue 4 May 2010

Softaculous… Huh? What’s that?

Posted by Jay under Softwares, Web Hosting
No Comments

Did this came across your mind when you saw Softaculous listed as one of the features the host provides? Well, it is similar to the popular Fantastico.

I’ll digress for a moment. In case you do not know what Fantastico is, it is an automated software installation script that installs your desired software automatically, saving the hassle of installing manually, provided Fantastico has the particular software for automated installation. For more information, you can visit Wikipedia.

What’s Softaculous? You should had probably thought that it is Fantastico’s competitor. You’re right, but do you know what’s so special about Softaculous? Softaculous has MORE than twice as much scripts as Fantastico for automated installation. You can compare Fantastico and Softaculous scripts by clicking on the links below.

http://www.netenberg.com/fantastico_scripts.php
http://www.softaculous.com/softwares

It is pretty well-known that Fantastico is very slow on updates. Softaculous is much different! Not only it’s much faster in the installation process, they’re softwares are regularly updated and they even send you emails whenever there is an update for a software. If you like Fantastico, you’ll love Softaculous! If you hate Fantastico, try out Softaculous. You’ll probably have a change of opinion. ;)

 

Mon 3 May 2010

Back from MIA

Posted by Jay under Uncategorized
No Comments

Hello readers! Sorry for being away for such a long time. I finally got my AdSense account approved by Google! I had not been posting due to some personal reasons. I really apologise for that. It’s probably time to start making this site alive again! :)

 

Sun 28 Mar 2010

Sorry

Posted by Jay under Uncategorized
No Comments

Sorry for the slow updates lately. I haven’t been feeling well lately. Hence, I used most of my free time resting.

Besides that, I can’t open the forums until Google approve my Adsense account. For some reasons they’re not approving it. I had wrote back to them and hope they’ll respond to it soon.

 

Tue 23 Mar 2010

Should I buy from the cheaper company?

Posted by Jay under Web Hosting
No Comments

Do you often ask yourself this question? If yes, you definitely have to read on. If not, you may ask this sooner or later. This theory applies to other markets as well, not limited to web hosting itself. ;)

There is always the likelihood of another company charging lower than what your current or desired host is charging. Does this mean you should go with the cheaper one? The answer is depending on the situation. I always emphasise quality over quantity and not the other way round. You should buy for quality, not quantity (lower prices).

Let me briefly introduce you to the typical ending of a cheap host. Most cheap hosts (a.k.a budget host) are running out of budget hardware, network and more than often poor technical support. You won’t want your website to be unavailable every now and then, do you?

Firstly, you must define your definition of cheap. Some people consider paying $5/mo. for 5GB disk space and 50GB bandwidth as cheap while some define $5/mo. for 10GB disk space and 100GB bandwidth as cheap. It is always a subjective topic. However, going with the RIGHT price is the most important factor here. You can go with the cheaper host that is charging the right price instead of the one overcharging. By choosing the cheaper host this way, you are safer from running into a “fly-by-night” host or a host without a proper infrastructure.

As I had mentioned in my previous post on how to choose the right host, the information listed there are another deciding factor, whether to choose the cheaper host or not.

When comparing hosts, it’s crucial to make sure your comparison is fair. You can’t compare a BMW with a Toyota right? Make sure you are comparing apples with apples, not apples with oranges.

 

Sat 20 Mar 2010

How to look for reviews?

Posted by Jay under Reviews, Web Hosting
No Comments

Do you have problems choosing the right host despite searching for reviews earnestly. As I had said before in my previous post, not every reviews can be trusted.

I’ll classify reviews into the following categories,
1) Paid reviews
2) Sincere reviews
3) Encouraged reviews
4) Fake reviews
5) Exaggerated negative reviews

Paid Reviews
As the name suggest, paid reviews simply refer to reviews that are paid, usually dishonest. It is common that some companies, especially large companies give their customers incentives to review them. These reviews are usually exaggerated as the customers will write a fantastic review in order to reward themselves with the incentives from their host. This type of review is usually dishonest as most customers won’t discredit their company in their reviews as they aim for the reward.

How do you look out for such reviews to avoid them? There is no guaranteed method to find out. However, you can try google for your answer. If they pay clients to review them, it should be found on their website. There is the chance that the page is in their client area, which is usually inaccessible to outsiders.

Sincere Reviews
A look at the name would tell you that this is the review you should be looking for. There are times whereby the host treats the customer so well that they are so happy and willing to post a positive review about them. Usually these customers will also write some of the cons of the host as well. This is essential feedback to improve the said host.

There isn’t many things I can describe about sincere reviews. You have to judge by yourself. ;)

Encouraged Reviews
Some of you may be wondering what do I mean by this. There isn’t anything special about this. This can be in conjunction with sincere reviews at times. Very often, the host will encourage their customers to review them on public forums and review websites. These type of reviews aren’t necessary bad but they won’t really be as detailed those who are sincerely reviewing their host.

Fake Reviews
Obviously, fake reviews are fake. These reviews are usually written by the host themselves pretending as a 3rd party. This is especially common with new companies having many reviews (or testimonials) on their website. There are times where such reviews are also posted in public forums and review websites. Spotting such reviews can be pretty easy as these usually happens on new host or host with very bad reputation. Use your sense of intuition. I know I sound a bit ludicrous but your intuition should be able to differentiate a fake review from a genuine one most of the time.

Exaggerated Negative Reviews
Such reviews are pretty common when a customer is fed up with their host. These customers usually violated the TOS or AUP of the host and get their account suspended. As the customer is suspended, they tend to bear a grudge with the host and made up lots of lies to bash their host. These lies are not only lies but exaggerated to an extend that it sounds absurd. Such reviews are not supposed to be used to justify a host’s decency.

After saying all these, when you are looking for reviews, verify the source’s integrity. Avoid review websites. They tend to let all sorts of nonsense to be posted,  hence most are not legit. Good methods to look for reviews are to contact the customers directly to ask for their opinion. Make sure the customer is one that you can trust and not just someone dishonest whom I had described above.

WebHostingTalk is also a great place to look for reviews as most of the members will be able to judge the review’s integrity and the host will be able to correct the lies in the review and vice versa. It’s my favourite source of reviews too. ;)



 

Sat 20 Mar 2010

Web Hosting Forum

Posted by Jay under Domain Names, Free, Hosting Company
No Comments

Yes! I’ll be setting up a forum that will be used to distribute free domain names! I’ll use MyBB to setup the forum. I’m busy setting up my paid hosting company so the forum may experience some delay in being setup. Keep an eye! It will probably be up next week.

 

Fri 19 Mar 2010

Hosting Company

Posted by Jay under Free, Hosting Company, Web Hosting
No Comments

I’m going to launch a free and paid hosting company soon, with the latter first. However, I’ll create a forum soon to give out free domains, tentatively registered from NameCheap as they can all domains to be pushed to another user while I retain full control in case you decide to break my rules. As always, free domains comes from posting at the forum. No ETA at the moment, check this blog for updates. :)

 

Fri 19 Mar 2010

Overselling

Posted by Jay under Overselling, Web Hosting
[3] Comments

Overselling is a very common topic in the web hosting industry. It means selling more than what’s available. Yes, this method is deployed in many industries, not limited to the web hosting industry only. However, what’s different is how many providers took this advantage and made a disaster out of it.

Very often the disaster is caused by amateurs intending to make some quick bucks. These people often go out of business soon after they enter. They realised that overselling can attract more customers (usually this is true) and hence oversell. Sounds like nothing is wrong right? Nope, what they didn’t realise is how to LIMIT the accounts. They usually receive very good sales, till an extent that they overloaded the servers. When the servers are overloaded, of course, expect your website to be inaccessible!

Nonetheless, overselling does NOT represent overloading. There are many host out there overselling. Those experienced, knowledgeable or smart ones would control their oversold resources to make sure the server works perfectly fine. Don’t be shocked if you find your current hosting provider overselling  and you are still receiving top notch service! They must be the wise ones!

Always be careful when choosing a host who oversells. There is the chance that they don’t know how to manage an oversold server properly. Always check for reviews regarding the server load and speed to ensure you are going with the right host.

 

Thu 18 Mar 2010

How to choose the right host?

Posted by Jay under Web Hosting
No Comments

Yes, this topic is discussed very frequently. However, many people still failed to choose the right host that suit their needs. With the countless number of web hosts out there, making the right decision can be tough.

When choosing a host, there are several factors to take into consideration (in no particular order):
-Location
-Data centre & Network
-Uptime
-Price
-Features
-Reviews

Location
Where are the audience of your website from? Generally speaking, your website will be faster to your audience if it is closer to their location. This is due to the data packets1 having to travel a shorter distance to reach your audience. However, the network plays an important role as well. This will be covered next.

Data Centre & Network
When hosting your website, it is important that the data centre has N+1 redundancy. It simply means having an additional equipment on standby to takeover the duties of another in case one is faulty or malfunctioning. Network of the data centre should also be multi-homed. This refers to having more than 1 network upstream2. If the network is congested, access to the website may be limited and/or lag.

Uptime
This has got to be one of the most important factor. When you purchase a hosting plan, what you want is your website to be available on the internet right? If it doesn’t, I’m sure many will be whining. Before signing up for a host, try to find RELIABLE sources to verify their uptime. Most web host should guarantee at least 99.9% of monthly uptime. In other words, they guarantee no downtime exceeding 43.2 minutes in any given month. While most providers manage to fulfil it, some failed to do so. There are times where downtime is unexpected and beyond the host or data centre’s control. There are also downtime caused by silly mistakes like software misconfiguration. Downtime can also be caused by the customer itself, sometimes unknowingly.

Do not expect 100% uptime. If a host can guarantee 99.9% uptime or more, it is satisfactory already. 100% uptime is virtually impossible and hence unrealistic. There are always circumstances beyond your control, despite you building up an infrastructure that is supposed to provide 100% uptime.

Always look for host claiming 99.9% uptime or more and check their Service Level Agreement (SLA) to see the amount compensated should the uptime is not promised.

Price
You can’t possibly miss out this significant factor, right? Who would like to pay an overpriced product or service? There is no definite answer to pricing. There are many reasons for different prices. Some of the more common ones are hardware, software, support, data centre, network and their amount of overhead costs. Your best bet is to check out many different providers and compare their prices. However, make sure you are making the right comparison. Don’t compare a host specialising in video streaming with one who specialise in blog hosting. Don’t compare a host in a top quality data centre with one in a budget data centre. The prices will definitely vary.

As the pricing part can be very confusing. If you are not sure if you are paying the right price, you can contact me and I will try my best to review the pricing. Don’t be surprised!

Features
When choosing a hosting plan, won’t you want a host who have less restrictions? Some host offers unlimited email accounts while some may only offer 3 on their basic plan. You would want a host offering more for the same price, don’t you? However, don’t take this as a deciding factor as quantity doesn’t represent quality. A host can give you lots of features and freebies but their uptime can be pathetic. If that’s the case, having the best features would be pointless.

Reviews
You don’t want to go with the wrong provider right? It is vital to search for reviews of the host from their customers. Reviews should be verified and honest (this is up to your judgement skills). Do not fall for the fraudulent review websites which are actually PAID to post positive reviews about the said company. There are many “Top 10″ websites who does so. You will often see the host being more or less the same among the various sites. For your information, they are paid to be listed as top 10, including the reviews.

Some of the trusted sites to look for reviews is WebHostingTalk. Reviews are verified by moderators to a certain extend. I can’t guarantee all the reviews are legit but I’m confident most are.

1 Data packets refers to the data carried by the internet cables (e.g. optical fibre) from one computer to another. For more information, you can read on Wikipedia.

2 Network upstream refers to the carrier that transports the data. Some examples are AT&T, Comcast and Sprint in the USA, TeliaSonera in Europe and SingTel in Asia. Of course there are much more carriers than those I had listed and some may have global network, not limited to a single continent.

In case you do not understand some of the jargon, you can try to search on Google or Wikipedia. If not, visiting WebHostingTalk may be beneficial. If not, you can also contact me via the comment form on the post.

1

 

Wed 17 Mar 2010

Unlimited Hosting

Posted by Jay under Web Hosting
No Comments

Judging from the title itself, I’m sure most of you have figured out what does it mean. Most of the time, it simply means the hosting plan offers unlimited disk space and bandwidth. This is also called overselling, which means selling more than what’s available.

Unlimited hosting can also be referred to having unlimited features like subdomain, addon domain, parked domain, FTP accounts, MySQL databases, mail accounts and more! This is seldom used though.

Do you know that unlimited hosting is not actually unlimited? It is just a marketing gimmick by many companies. If you read the Terms of Service (TOS) and/or Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) carefully, you should be able to find plenty of restrictions like CPU and RAM usage, inodes limit, filesize limit, contents forbidden etc. Although these restrictions are pretty much in any host’s TOS/AUP, these restrictions will not allow you to fully utilise the unlimited disk space and bandwidth given.

For example, Host A can offer unlimited hosting. However, it places restriction like for example, 50MB file upload size threshold which will stop you from uploading large files that can easily use up a lot of disk space. All unlimited host will restrict you from hosting videos, images, torrents and stuffs that are bandwidth suckers. With such restrictions in place, how in the world will you use up the unlimited space?

Unlimited hosting is frequently being thought as a bad idea by many with bad experience with unlimited hosting providers. I do not deny the fact that many fly-by-night hosts who goes missing after a few weeks or months love to oversell and/or give unlimited hosting. Nevertheless, they are not hosting companies who are here to stay. Companies with a track record of happy customers are usually the right choice, even if it is unlimited hosting. Always search for RELIABLE reviews before signing up with a company.

With that said, NOT all companies who offers unlimited hosting is a bad company. Companies like HostGator do get many positive reviews from customers despite they offer unlimited hosting. Of course, there are negative reviews of HostGator too. With their enormous customer base, there are bound to be dissatisfied customers.

Do take note. If you want to host an average website like mine with little traffic, feel free to sign up for unlimited hosting. If your website is bound to use up plenty of the server’s resources, you should look at a semi-dedicated hosting, virtual private servers (VPS) or dedicated servers, depending which fits your needs best.

 

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