Is VPS hosting for you?

VPS stands for Virtual private server and as the name suggests, refers to a vitual server which is dedicated for use by only one individual customer.

VPS hosting has several advantages over shared web hosting in the sense that customers have more privacy and normally dedicated bandwidth. Moreover, even though customers are sharing the physical resources, due to the nature of VPS, customers have more freedom to install apps and other software on their server. Plus it is cheaper than a dedicated and sperate physical hosting service in case you are unable to afford one.

If you do decide to go for VPS hosting, you should be aware of the disadvantages and the issues involved. In most cases you would be responsible for updating your software and taking security measures. Also be aware of the limits so that you do not end up overloading your VPS.

When Should You Transition to a Dedicated Server?

Is your website hosted on a shared server?

Were you were getting enough space, bandwidth and security you needed, except when you realized that you need more than what you were getting?

With a dedicated server, not only do you get effective server management, but you also garner speed provisions along with the space and bandwidth improvements. If you’re wondering when you should transition to a dedicated server, here’s what you need to know.

Importance of Having a Dedicated Server
A dedicated server allows you to host your website solely on a given server where no one else can. This is effective for a huge network of websites that require continuous up time without sharing of resources. If you want security and great space provisions, you should consider transferring to a dedicated server.

Here are the advantages that will help you decide whether you really need to transfer your site to a dedicated server:

Growing Websites
If you realized that the traffic you’re getting requires more resource use, then your website or websites are growing. With this in mind, you should consider transferring to a more stable server with more space, especially if you are hosting an e-commerce or a corporate business website. With space provisions present for a more secure server, you may need the transfer.

Sudden High Traffic
With proper marketing techniques, you may experience sudden high traffic for your website. This can be good most of the time, but if your shared server overloads, then you may face some downtime. This can really hurt your visitor inflow, so you should transfer to a dedicated server that can handle these sudden spikes in traffic.

Root Access to Server
Most shared plans seldom allow you tap into their server, especially since it may affect other websites involved. With a dedicated server, you can sustain control over the server since your website or your network will be the only ones present in that specific server. More control means more improvements in server performance. The advantages present in having a dedicated server give you the element of control, capacity and sustainability that will keep your network of websites afloat in the bustling internet.

5 Great Reasons To Choose VPS Hosting

Anyone who runs a website has to make a crucial decision, namely, what kind of web hosting is right for me and my site? Unfortunately, that answer isn't always as straightforward as we'd like. Some sites can exist very well on a shared hosting plan, while others will outgrow it pretty quickly and need to move out of a shared environment. There's an option between shared and dedicated hosting, though – it's called VPS web hosting (which stands for Virtual Private Server), and for some sites, it's the perfect fit.

Here are five reasons you might want to check out VPS Hosting:

1. Need SSH/Root Access – This is one of the more common reasons to move out of a shared environment, and could fall under the umbrella term “server-level customization.” No hosting company is going to let you tinker with the server – there are too many sites that could be affected by that. On a VPS, however, you're separated from other sites, and therefore free to customize your server with any software that you want and need.
2. Scalability – When you started off online, a shared hosting plan was probably perfect for you – the right amount of resources and the managed support you needed. But if your site is growing, or if you want to add more domains, that shared environment won't be able to hold you. Growth, whether it's an e-commerce site or a blog, is a major reason to look into a VPS.
3. High traffic/Traffic Spikes (the Digg Effect) – It's funny how the dream of most bloggers can turn into a nightmare without the right hosting plan. Getting popular on Digg can take down a shared server in short order, but a VPS stands a better chance because many have “burstable memory,” which is essentially a pool of memory to call on during a traffic spike.
4. E-Commerce Site – If your website is your livelihood, then the last thing you want is your site's performance being affected by another site. That can happen in a shared environment, but is much less likely on a VPS, since your site is separated from others on the same machine.
5. Cost – Lastly, a major reason to look into a VPS is that it costs much less than the other robust hosting option; that is, a dedicated server. Before virtualization software made a VPS possible, shared and dedicated were the only options; now that VPS is out there, you can get many of the best features of dedicated hosting at a fraction of the cost with a VPS.

This was a guest post by my friend Blue.

Earning money with Doteasy

If you are interested in maximizing your blog’s earning possibilities with very little effort on your part, read on.

Doteasy is a web hosting provider and one of the leading domain name registrars since 2000. But aside from their great hosting offers, they also have an affiliate programme where you can earn from $5 up to $70 just for a single referral sign up. If you’re into building and creating websites, I’m sure you’ve heard this kind of affiliate program with other web hosting providers or domain name registrars. But I assure you, what Doteasy offers through their affiliate programme is much more enticing and easier.

With other web hosting providers such as GoDaddy, you’re required to be a paying member first before you can start earning from their affiliate program. Meaning, you need to invest some money first before you can even get to see if you can actually get something back. Aside from that, the maximum incentive they could give per referral is just around $50. But with Doteasy, things really are less complicated and less risky. You can start earning even without availing any of their hosting packages. In other words, you don’t need to invest any money to try it. And you still get to earn even when your referral just purchased a free hosting (basic hosting) with them. Now that’s a really good deal you won’t easily find else where. They’ll provide you with links, banners and buttons. Just post that up on your website or blog and start promoting. The more people you refer, the more money you can earn.

In case you’re searching for a free reliable hosting for your website, then you might be interested to learn that Doteasy offers free web hosting. With their free web hosting plan, you can enjoy great features such as ability to host multiple domains, up to 10 email accounts and more.  You can use their free web site builder to create blogs, forums, photo gallery and many more. Plus, they guarantee 99.9% uptime and no annoying ads with your free hosted website.

Use the coupon code 1003BPM and sign up for a .COM/.NET/.ORG domain registration for only $7.95 and enjoy their free web hosting service for a year.

Bye Bye Geocities

I recently received an email from Yahoo saying that "GeoCities is closing." Geocities users won't be able to access their accounts after October 26, 2009.

I joined this free web site building service and community way back in 1998 and built my first web site on it. The site was about my favourite places, my attempts at poetry, photographs, my research on pines and favourite links. It also had an "Environmental" page talking about my concern about Mother Earth.



At that time Geocities was one of the most popular sites on the Web and We had a real sense of community then. I was really fond of their Page builder interface which let amateurs like me get a feel of designing web pages without using html. I did eventually learnt html and later CSS. Designing my pages by trial and error was really frustrating and exciting at the same time. My web site would often disappear completely or appear as a mass of strange coding.

I guess Yahoo never really harnessed the full potential of Geocities like Google did with Blogger. I mean, even after more than 10 years, it was almost the same. No user friendly innovations or updates. I guess one reason for the decline was the growing popularity of blogs especially blogger with their blogspot blogs. I got tired of static sites and hardly updated my Geocities site. I cannot even recall the last time I actually visited it but I still left it online as most of my old friends found me via the site.

I will definitely miss Geocities.

Does anyone else have fond memories of Geocities?

Web hosting review site

I have had a number of people interested in setting up their own blog come to me for advise. Most want to have a commercial blog with their own domain names. Then the question of web host comes up. This is where I have trouble recommending any suitable host. Most of my blogs are hosted with Blogger and I am not even sure whether the hosts I am presently using are offering me the best value for money but I am stuck with them because of various reasons.

A search on Google for web host will give you thousands of results and it can be really confusing with everyone claiming to be the best. There are a few Web hosting review and rating sites. They usually list the top 10 Web Hosts and are often given some kind of star rating with the best given 5 stars rating. I think that the best review sites are those based on ratings provided by real users and not just the experts on the site. I especially recommend those sites where you can read reviews and ratings given by other independent users, (similar to that on the Amazon site) which gives you a better idea and allows you to make a better informed choice.

Web hosting guide

"Which web hosting company do you recommend?" is one of the most common queries I receive. Well, my answer is that it depends on your requirement and more importantly, your budget. I have tried out several hosts and at present, have websites hosted with 5 different hosts. For example, this blog "SEO Expert" is hosted with Blogger totally FOC.

Anyway, I do keep an eye out for the best deals to recommend to my clients as well as friends who often ask me for my opinion. Just came across one of the best web hosting guides at http://www.webhostingchoice.com. What makes this site stand out from others is the fact that this site is totally ad free.

Searching for your right Web Host is quite easy. Just fill in your desired maximum monnthly Cost and maximum setup fee as well as your desired minimum diskspace (MB) and minimum bandwidth (GB). Then clicking the "Search for Hosts" button should give you a list of all the web hosts that fulfill your requirements.

They have a number of useful information on the site and one that I found particularly interesting was their page on web host scams. I have fallen for some of the tricks mentioned there in the past. If you are new to web hosting, I definitely recommend that you go through their "quick start" page.

Setting up an ecommerce site

I have a lot of entrepreneurial friends who are running their own businesses. Most of them have an official company website up but most of these are static sites - much similar to an online catalog. On talking with them, I discovered that almost everybody wanted to set up an business/ecommerce site. They were aware that having an an ecommerce website would bring them a lot of benefits including getting rid of the middleman and related costs as they could then deal with the customers directly.

The only reasons that they didn't have one was because they assumed that having an ecommerce site would be expensive and that it would be very complex and time consuming. Their excuse was that they were not technical people and that they just didn't want to go through the whole hassle of putting in the infrastructure and getting trained staff to handle the new system.

I was telling them they didn't need to go through all of that. There are specialised companies who could help them through the whole process. One of them is AQHost - a one-stop business hosting 'online store' with over fifteen years experience in Information Systems and related technology. They are specialised in ecommerce hosting and can help with website design, setting up shopping carts and other ecommerce applications so that you can start accepting payments on your site as soon as possible. One of the advantages of doing business with them is the fact that they offer 24/7/365 support.

Eco friendly web host

I read this rather interesting piece of news in a local newspaper last week. It was about a local entrepreneur who has launched an Eco-friendly web hosting company. Solar Host is a subsidiary of 'Floppynet Ltd', both owned by Tom Willianmson (22). According to their website, their servers are 100% powered by solar energy. That might appeal to environment conscious people.

Some of the energy efficient technology used by their data center includes the use of solar tubes to bring in natural sunlight during the day and water cooling systems.

The hosting packages are not that bad either with hosting rates starting from £30 annually for 100Mb space and 1GB monthly bandwidth.


I really love their web site design as well. Quite unique.

Hosting with Blogger

Wrote this post after I received a few e-mails asking me how I hosted my site with Blogger.

In case you were not aware, Blogger now hosts your blog for free under your domain name. It is not forwarding but actual hosting.

The documentation provided by Blogger is under "How do I create a CNAME record for my custom domain?"

I registered my domain name with godaddy.com and here are the steps:

1. Log in to your account at www.godaddy.com.
2. Open the Domains tab and select My Domain Names. You'll be directed to the Manage Domains page.
3. Click the domain that you'd like to use with your blog.
4. Click the Total DNS Control And MX Records in the box entitled Total DNS Control.
5. Click Add New CNAME Record. If you've already created a CNAME record for your blog's address, click Edit next to the existing CNAME record.
6. For the Name, enter only the subdomain of the address you want to use for your blog. For example, if you picked www.mydomain.com as your address, enter www here.
7. Enter ghs.google.com as the Host Name.
8. Click Continue, and then click Add. If you're editing an existing CNAME record, click Continue and Update.

BTW, I have another blog called Freebies hosted with Blogger. However, it was initially a blogspot blog with the url: http://tidakapa.blogspot.com