Web Hosting

As I was doing the research to decide what to write about, I came across a tutorial about hosting your owm website that got me so curious, I decided to look into it a little further.  You can see it  for yourself at 7easystepstohostingyourwebsiteathome.com. 

The e-book tutorial has “all the steps you need to take to turn your computer into a web server, so you can host your own website on your own system without the need to pay the hosting company”.  It also includes a Free website troubleshooter software in case you run into problems.

Sounds like it has all the information you will need, it’s easy and the price is very reasonable!  But do you really want to host your own web site?  After all there are quite a few web hosting companies that offer web hosting packages that are loaded with all kinds of things that make running your website easier for amazingly low prices.

The first thing that comes to my mind is that I have always heard about the importance of your web site being online at all times and how all the web hosting companies have gone to such lengths to insure this.  Can you really accomplish this on your own? It just seemed like there might be a little more to this, after all if it was that easy, why isn’t everyone doing it?

After looking into this further, I realized that my first instinct was right and there are several important things you need to be aware of before you try this. 

The first thing to consider is the expense for the hardware you will need to do this.  Your home pc may not be powerful enough to keep up with the server requests when your site receives traffic.

You will need a high speed internet connection, cable & DSL may not be good enough, so you might need to get a dedicated T1 line.  Will your ISP even allow you to do this ?  Some will with an additional charge, but many do not.  Remember, your web site will go down every time you loose internet connection, so it will have to be very dependable!

Another major consideration is that you will have to install, maintain, and monitor all your own hardware and software.  Web hosting companies have more resources and technologies in place to insure all this is taken care of.  You will either have to take care of everything by yourself or you will have to pay to have it done for you.  There is no web host customer service to call if you experience any problems.

Clearly this is not a decision to be taken lightly.  Hosting your own web site can be costly and time consuming, but doing so will enable you to have absolute control,  with no hosting company to deal with.  The only limitation that you have to the changes you want to make are the ones you place on yourself.

If, after careful consideration, you are still interested in hosting your own web site, all the information you will need is available to you at 7easystepstohostingyourownwebsite.com.

If you would lilke to compare other web hosting companies visit 2009topwebhosting.net.

Green Energy Hosting – Go Canadian For Added Values

Author: Paul Rodgers

The first and the most obvious problem with normal hosting companies are, they use lots of electricity. And since a good amount of the “normal” electricity power used is generated using fossil fuels, that energy use contributes to many problems ranging from Global Warming to environmental pollution due to mining and extraction, dependency on foreign oil and even having to fight wars for oil.

Last year, the servers powering various internet sites in the United States alone accounted for almost three billion dollars’ worth of electricity usage. In this article, we’ll take a look at how you can take advantage of affordable web hosting, either in the form of a web hosting coupon or of small business web hosting that offers environmentally friendly solutions.

The term “green web hosting” might sound strange to many people. After all, most things we see “going green” are things like cars, homes, and other tangible aspects of daily life. However, the internet is increasingly becoming an almost tangible part of our everyday life. Green web hosting has just caught on in the public’s mind, although there are a few hosts who have been ahead of the demand for quite some time.

Now more than ever, people are looking for environmentally friendly companies and are voting with their wallets, so to speak. As a business person, or even just an independent site owner, you can begin to build your brand as an environmentally friendly company, by using green web hosting. It makes a statement of value that many people appreciate, and you are also voting with your wallet too.

The first thing a “green” hosting company does is to power their servers, coolers, offices etc using “green electricity”. Green electricity is generated using renewable resources, mostly using wind turbines and solar panels. Sometimes biomass, biogas, or geothermal methods can also be used to generate “green electricity”. All of your green hosting options should at least include a way to use renewable energy.

Finding Affordable Hosting

Finding affordable hosting that provides environmentally sound solutions to common emissions and energy problems like carbon and electricity is an important part of running an eco-friendly businesses. Small business web hosting is not only a great opportunity to expand your home or small business, but to keep global energy usage down. Choose your blog with a blog hosting company that is committed to reducing the energy usage of their servers. Taking advantage of the increasing number of web hosting companies that are “going green” is a good way to help fight the good fight.

Major cities like Toronto and Vancouver are very close to the American border. Americans can easily locate their web hosting in these cities. This is also added value in terms of money, as the Canadian dollar is cheaper than the American dollar. One more practical point is that Canada has very few energy cuts, unlike some of America’s major cities. This means Canadian servers are up and running almost all the time, generating more business. Canada does not believe in outsourcing services. Most of its technology is indigenous, with a physical hands-on presence all the time. If a server breaks down, maintenance and repair is reliable and prompt.

Our great site hosting cheap provider is Host Papa. They also offer unlimited disk space and unlimited transfers per month. Host Papa prides itself in being a ‘green’ company and uses only 100% renewable energy to run their servers, computers, and data centers. Their fee is also $4.95 per month – but only with a three year (36 month) commitment. A Host Papa account also provides unlimited domains, which is perfect for multiple users accessing the services of the hosted site.

Major cities like Toronto and Vancouver are very close to the American border. Americans can easily locate their web hosting in these cities. One more practical point is that Canada has very few energy cuts, unlike some of America’s major cities. This means Canadian servers are up and running almost all the time, generating more business. Find out more about Canadian Green Energy Hosting

Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_866445_2.html

About the Author: Paul Rodgers specializes in marketing natural health and beauty products from his website

http://mens-best-health.net

On a lighter note….I just had to share this video with you.  It’s too funny!

**COPY WRITE INFRINGEMENT NOT INTENDED.  FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY.

 COPY WRITE INFRINGEMENT NOT INTENDED.  THIS VIDEO IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY.

Web Hosting Pad was founded in 2005 by a proven team of industry veterans intent on delivering the best web hosting at a price where anyone can afford their own website.  Today web Hosting Pad has become one of the fastest growing web hosting companies, with one of the lowest customer turnovers in the industry.  For such a young company, they have won several awards, including Editors Pick, Best Buy, and # 1 Budget Hosting in 2008.  They did this by offering one of the cheapest plans available, along with fast, reliable, “hassle free” service, with no hidden fees.

Offering only one low priced plan, which includes unlimited bandwidth, disk space and e-mail accounts makes Web Hosting Pad hard to beat.  Their plan also includes one free domain name, free setup, free site builder, and the ability to host unlimited additional domains, along with all the tools you need to get your web site up and running.  You can choose from 3 payment options that start at $ 4.95 a month for 1 year, to a better $ 2.95 a month for 2 years, to an unheard of $ 1.99 a month for 3 years!  The extra benefit of domain registration makes this price an unbelievable bargain.

For their control panel, Web Hosting Pad utilizes the popular, easy to use cPanel.  This well known program enables you to quickly install software for forums, blogs and shopping carts, while also making it a breeze to make changes and manage your website. Their data center is state of the art, using quality, name brand hardware and equipment that is monitored 24/7, and features redundant power generators to guarantee 99.9% up time for your web site. A multi level security infrastructure that includes physical security measures like 24/7 on site security, as well as biometric scanners to limit access to the facility insures your data will be kept safe.  They back all of this with a 30 day money back guarantee. 

If you should need help, you can reach Web Hosting Pads’ customer support by online ticket system, e-mail, or toll free telephone number, all of which are available 24/7/365.  For the DIYer, there is a detailed FAQ section and video tutorials to help you along.

When you look at all that Web Hosting Pad offers for some of the lowest prices in the business, its easy to see why they are among the top 10 web hosting providers.

To compare Web Hosting Pad to other web hosting companies visit 2009topwebhosting.net

*COPYWRITE INFRINGEMENT NOT INTENDED.  THIS VIDEO FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY.

If you would like to compare web hosting companies visit 2009topwebhosting.net

In doing the research for my web hosting review and this blog, one name keeps popping up.  That name is Justhost and after looking deeper into this company it is easy to see why.  Although a relatively new web hosting provider, Justhost is one of the fastest growing and is quickly becoming one of the  world’s leading web hosting companies.  Justhost is setting new standards for how a web hosting company should be run, promising to be
“the last hosting plan you’ll ever need” and then living up to it.  Justhost has won numerous awards including Best Web Hosting Service, 2009 Best cheap Hosting and Best Feature award, also for 2009, just to name a few. They are committed to making web hosting simple and straight forward, offering an affordable plan packed with all the features and unlimited services to design your site in exactly the way you want.

Their “Justplan” web hosting plan comes with unlimited bandwidth, disk space, and e-mail accounts, with free instant set up regardless of your contract length.  Also included with each account is 1 free domain for life, your choice of site builders, multimedia features, online form builder, free e-commerce shopping cart, unlimited domain hosting, and a whole list of other features all for the unbeatable price of $3.95 a month! This is all backed by their “anytime” money-back guarantee!

Reliability is a major factor in choosing a web hosting company and Justhost is one of the most reliable networks in the world.  Their data center is one of the best, with load balancing technology that makes your site available from multiple servers, so if one server is unavailable, your site is still accessible on other servers, virtually eliminating down time.  They proudly guarantee that their up time will never drop below 99.9% and will credit your account for one months hosting costs, if it does!

The control panel that Justhost uses is the user friendly and extremely popular cPanel.  This powerful program has everything you need to create, manage, and maintain your website in one place while still being easy to use.

The support center at Justhost offers a variety of ways to get help should you need it.  There are numerous video tutorials, a searchable knowledge base and articles for those of you who like to figure it out on your own.  If you need more help, there are support tickets, live chat, and 24/7 toll free telephone support. 

It’s hard to beat Justhosts’ price and when you add in their superior reliability, great customer service and the incredible list of features included with each account, you’ve definitely got one of the top ranked web hosting companies. 

To compare Justhost to other web hosting companies visit 2009topwebhosting.net

One term that keeps popping up in the research I’ve done recently, is the term “Green Web Hosting”.  Just what is green web hosting and do we really need it? You might not think of hosting as having a big impact, but if you take a closer look, you might be amazed a the amount of energy they consume. It’s been said that   consume between 3-5% of the world’s energy, the equivalent of 30,000 households, or enough electricity to power a city the size of Seattle.  Its been predicted that by 2020 the emissions produced by web hosting services will surpass the airline industry.  Are these figure accurate?  In the long run it really doesn’t matter – either way they consume a large amount of electricity and leave a very large carbon footprint. 

And so the term “Green Web Hosting” is born.  If you google it you would be amazed at the number of web hosts listed.  These include hosting companies of all sizes and vary greatly in how far they go in the effort to offset their impact. 

Some of the hosting companies use carbon offsetting for their claim of being green.  This is done by investing in renewable energy or planting a tree or both. One example of this is offering to plant a tree for every customer to offset the emissions that each customer produces.

The majority of hosts buy Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) to offset part or all of their energy usage. These certificates insure that the power they use will be green energy, typically solar or wind, but could also be thermal or biogas too.

The best way that hosting companies can reduce their footprint is to generate their own power directly from a renewable source such as solar or wind.  I’ve only come across 2 companies that do this however, as the cost and amount of space required to generate enough power is not viable for most web hosts. 

Other smaller ways that can help is by looking at their offices. Going paperless, encouraging their employees to telecommute or use alternative transportation to and from work might not seem like much, but it can quickly add up.  Heating with bio-fuel and recycling electronic equipment can make a big impact.  Mercury and lead poisoning can be a major concern if they end up in landfills.   All this produces a work place that encourages green living which accustoms the employees to this practice so they might carry it on into their home life.

If you are searching for a green host, there are several things you should keep in mind.  Many are not as environmentally committed as they would have you believe, there is no standard for becoming green so find out just what makes them green and if it can be verified. Cost is another concern.  In the end, the things that you would look for in a regular  host still apply.  They must be reliable, provide you with quality service, and offer what you need to run a successful web site.  There are lots of green web hosting companies out there, with more converting all the time.  You just might find the perfect one for you that allows you to not only have a great web hosting experience, but to help the earth while you at it.

If you would like to compare web hosting companies visit 2009topwebhosting.net

In doing the research for my web hosting review blog, one thing has continually amazed me, although I guess it really shouldn’t.  It’s how much the review sites vary in their opinions and lists of the best web hosting companies.   What one web site says is a great host, another says STAY AWAY.  Even the user reviews and the forums differ greatly in their opinions.  When choosing a host, you must keep in mind, that like any other situation in life, what is great for one person, totally stinks to someone else.  It could be bad timing, personality clashes, misunderstandings, lack of communication or any number of other things, but for some reason, some people will just never click with certain others.  We’ve all been in situation where either a person or company has just rubbed you wrong from the start and no matter how hard you try to change it, there is nothing you can do.  I don’t think there is a web host out there that doesn’t have any bad reviews that have been written about them.  If there is, I haven’t found it yet. Always remember this when your choosing a web hosting company for your web site.  No matter how official sounding, or how knowledgeable the author is, including this blog, it is still just someone else’s opinion and should be taken as such.  We’ve all heard the saying “Opinions are like ********, everyone has one”.  Of course if all you can find is bad reviews, that has to tell you something.  In the end, its still up to you to choose your web hosting company and you who will have to deal with the out come of your decision.  Hopefully, if you’ve done your research and weighed all the pros and cons of your favorites, you will make the best choice for you, and have a long and successful relationship with your new web hosting company.  I’ll continue to do my best to supply you with as much accurate information as I can.  I would love to hear your from you  about your experiences with web hosting companies.  Together we can make a difficult chioce much easier to make. 

If you would like to compare web hosting companies visit 2009topwebhosting.net

From its beginnings in 1998 FatCow was designed to be a different alternative in web hosting. Their belief in old fashioned service and value using a simpler, more customer friendly approach has made them one of the most popular web hosts today. Their sense of humor is obvious throughout their website by their name, little cow jokes and nicknames, which also serve a purpose. Who could possibly forget a group called the “Moo staff” that subscribes to a “Heifercratic oath”? The fact that after 10 years they are still in business and going strong says a lot in this age of businesses that come and go.  To make things simple FatCow has pioneered a one plan price philosophy with a web hosting plan that includes everything you need to get your web site up and running, right out of the box.

FatCow offers a variety of services including shared hosting, e-commerce, and domain registration. The FatCow plan is “beefed” up with everything you’ll need and includes unlimited disk space, bandwidth, and e-mail addresses All customers receive a free domain name with their web hosting plan as well as easy to use site builder tools, shopping cart software, e-store builder and much, much more with a user interface for any level of web hosting skills. Pricing starts at a very reasonable $58.00 a year for the “Original FatCow plan”. If the full hosting plan is too much, they also have “The MiniMoo” which includes just a domain name and an e-mail address for an unbeatable $5.00 a year. Getting a website up and running for a business or  personal use has never been smoother or easier. FatCow is well known for it’s up time and for providing reliable, secure web hosting and it is backed up by a 30 day money back guarantee.

Unlike most web hosts who use either cPanel, vDeck, or H-Sphere, FatCow provides their own customized control panel. Like all Things FatCow has to offer, the control panel software offers a user friendly interface, with many built in features, to enable easy management of all your web site needs.

FatCows support staff (The Moo Crew) are guided by the principles of the “Heifercratic Oath” – your call answered within 2 minutes, support based in North America, resolve your issue or set  a deadline for follow up, all with an enthusiastic can-do attitude. If you aren’t satisfied, e-mail them with your complaint, and if they find they broke the Oath, you will receive an account credit equal to one month of hosting. The support staff is available to help you 24/7 from the toll free number, live chat, e-mail and support ticket. If you’d rather help your self, there is an extensive knowledge base, helpful FAQ’s, and tutorials. If a problem should arise, you can be assured there will be help available to you, regardless of the time of day.

FatCow has achieved their goal of being a different web hosting company. When researching this review, the complaints were few and far between, and by far out numbered by the positive reviews. They’ve corralled a great team for the “Moo Crew” support team should you need help with the “Udderly Fantastic” web hosting plan, that’s “beefed up” with everything you’ll need to be up and running “before the cows come home”! (Sorry I couldn’t resist!)

To compare FatCows Web Hosting to other web hosting companies visit 2009topwebhosting.net