Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 191!
Running Time: 15 minutes | File Size: 6.53 MB

Here are just a few topics from this week’s episode:

• Using Proxy Sites to Troubleshoot Web Site Downtime
• At Least One Mention of Burt Reynolds
• 5 Common HTTP Errors (to watch out for)
• Why You Should Not Host Your Own Videos
• Forgotten Negatives about Cloud Hosting

Here is this week’s web hosting news headline:
4th Annual cPanel Conference Coming Soon! -The 4th Annual cPanel Conference will take place this year October 5th, 6th and 7th. This conference is designed to help your hosting business maximize profitability, achieve total automation, and exponentially expand your knowledge base. (Got to toss my plug in for my fellow Texans at cPanel)

Trivia Question – Which big Texas city does cPanel call home? (to find out the answer, be sure to download and listen to this week’s podcast!)

Thank you for checking out, listening to or listening to the show this week.  Please be sure to comment and leave your thoughts and feedback about today’s show.  Also, be sure to watch the web site throughout the next two weeks as we post more about what was mentioned on today’s broadcast.

Here are ten free sources for web hosting out there today.

100webspace.com – Here you get 100 MB of web page, 3000 MB of bandwidth and a lot of extra features like MySQL databases, SSL, SpamAssassin, POP3 and web e-mail and much more.  It also allows for FTP or FrontPage access too.

Frihost.com – This free web host is offering you 250 MB of disk space and 10 GB of bandwidth per month.  It is hosted on a Unix OS, with access to MySQL, cron jobs, raw logs, backups and more.

HelioHost.org – Your monthly bandwidth will be limited to 2500 here, and 250 MB of disk space.  However, they do offer Ruby on Rails, Fantastico, and both MySQL and PostgreSQL databases.

000webhost.com – Looking at this free hosting alternative, we see 250 MB of disk space, and 100 GB of bandwidth.  You also get tools like cPanel, and access to password protected files, custom error pages, and phpMyAdmin.

110MB.com – An old one, but a good one, 110MB offers you 5000 MB of disk space and 300 GB of monthly bandwidth.  Also here to love is the fact they have no forced ads, they allow you to use your own ads, support PHP and FTP.

WebHero.com – Supporting the scripting languages of PHP, Perl and Python, WebHero also gives you 100MB of disk space and 500 MB of bandwidth, which are pretty reasonable for a free web hosting provider.

1ASPHost.com – I have one ASP host on the list, and their name ironically is 1ASPHost. Bandwidth here is set at 1,000 MB per month and you get 100 MB of disk space.  Some of the features included are MS Access, WAP, no file size limit, and online zipping and unzipping of files.

FreeHostia.com – Bandwidth at Free Hostia is set to 5,000 MB and disk space is at 250 MB.  You get stats, instant activation, e-mail, and access to install counters, message boards, polls and more.

FreeServers.com – A new favorite of mine, Free Servers offers a reliable free web hosting plan.  You do have ads on your web site, however you get 50 MB of disk space and a nice upgrade path just in case you outgrow their free solution.

GoFreeServe.com – Offering 300 MB of free disk space and 10 GB of bandwidth, they also allow for PHP scripting, e-mail access, and cPanel.  Worth a shot.

There you have it, ten quality free web hosts to choose from if you are looking to learn a little more about web hosting and how it works.  If you have any reviews of these services or you have another favorite, be sure to leave them in the comments.  Would love to hear who you think the best free web host really is.

cPanel Staff Working Longer Hours

The control panel gurus at cPanel announced that as of Monday, July 21st customer service hours will be extended from 7am to 7pm EST.  So if you are a customer looking to get your questions about cPanel answered, they will be available to help.

China Has More Web Users than US

19.1 percent of China has web access.  How much is that?  Oh roughly 253-million people.

HostingCon Gets Going

The biggest news story of the week would be that HostingCon is taking place July 28th through the 30th at the Navy Pier in Chicago.  I have skipped out on the festivities yet again, but looks like a great show all around.  HostingCon is the yearly meet up for all the biggest players in the hosting industry.  This year Parallels and Microsoft seem to be keynoting the conference and I am sure we will hear more about it from those who were “on the inside” soon.

Do you have any hosting news to share?

Drop me an e-mail at mitch@mitchkeeler.com and I’ll be more than happy to share it with the rest of the web hosting industry right here, next week on this very podcast.

Have any other interesting hosting videos to share? Sent ‘em to me at mitch@mitchkeeler.com and I’ll share them with the web hosting world.

Have any other interesting hosting videos to share? Sent ‘em to me at mitch@mitchkeeler.com and I’ll share them with the web hosting world.

Why upgrade? Looks like they are mainly wanting to provide VPS hosting clients the same feature rich functionality of cPanel and WHM while helping to reduce memory usage by up to 60 percent for VPS accounts. Another nice perk about this newest version of cPanel is it will lower the costs hopefully for cPanel powered VPS hosting as right now most VPS customers have to pay the dedicated hosting license fees to use it. Also due to the earlier mentioned cut in memory usage, web hosts should be able to reach a higher account density per machine. So how can you lay your hands on it right now?

The word is that cPanel will offer this newly upgraded VPS version for free for its customers, probably while they test it out.

Well a lot more hosting podcast goodness right here on this week’s edition of the Web Hosting Show.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 148!
Running Time: 16 minutes | File Size: 7.10 MB

Here are just a few topics from this week’s episode of the Web Hosting Show.

• DemoWolf Introduces Subscription for Flash Tutorials!
• Learn to Gather the Right Info Before Contacting Hosting Support!
• cPanel Releases a Virtual Private Server Edition?
• Find a Web Host that is Perfect for Your Blog!
• Hosting Spotlight Shines on Dan “W3Counter” Grossman!

I really do appreciate you listening to episode 148, and this week we have tons a various content on board and ready to go so that you too can learn to become a better web hosting guru. From experts to novices, everybody is welcome because I think all can get something out of today’s broadcast.

Now this might be a little different depending on the cPanel skin you are using, but it should work generally for any and all.

Step one would be to login to cPanel and go to your mail settings (usually you can just click on the “Mail” icon to get you there. Next you will want to go to:

Add/Remove/Manage Accounts

This is your Mail Account Maintenance page. Here you can see all the e-mail accounts you have created. If you have not yet created one go to “Add Account” to do so. Here you can fill in the name you want to use (the thing that going before @yourdomain.com), your password and the Quota. By default the setting should be 10 Meg. This stands for 10 Megabytes.

Now it is time for some math. To make things easy, let us say you wanted to bump your e-mail quota to 5 GB of storage.

1 gigabytes = 1,024 megabytes

Using Google, you can do the conversions quicker. Just type into Google “5 GB to MB“. The answer you need to type into cPanel’s quota box would be “5120” which is 5,120 MB. If all goes well you should see the message:

The e-mail account (your e-mail address) with the login (your login) and password (your password) with a quota of 5120 Megabytes was successfully created.

To change that later on, just go back into your Mail Account Maintenance screen, find your e-mail account and click on “Quota”. See, now you know you don’t need a Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail in your life to have a larger online inbox.

Like the others that have come before it here on the show, it gives you an easy to master interface to get your files and databases backed up from your web hosting server to your own personal computer. Give it your login information, your database names and you are all set.

It does include a scheduling feature too, so you can set it up to backup at whatever time is best for you. What does the price tag say? It is a Windows only program (runs great on Vista) – and will cost you a one time fee of $ 29.95. Not a bad price to pay for peace of mind.

When running any Online business the public voice is one you need to tune into but when does tuning into the voice turn into the angry mob with pitchforks running your business for you? That topic and loads more on this episode of the Web Hosting Show.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 132!
Running Time: 12 minutes | File Size: 5.53 MB

Here are just a few topics from this week’s episode of the Web Hosting Show.

• Another cPanel Backup Tool Review – Site Backup CP!
• Web Hosts, Should You Be Listening to the Angry Mob of Customers?
• Best Blogging Scripts this Side of the Hosting River!
• A New Hosting News and Resource Link Suggestion!
• Tease on My Article in the Next Edition of Ping! Zine?
• Better Tools and Tips for Quick Responses!

Your favorite podcast on and about web hosting is back in the saddle ready ride that open range of the world wide web all over again with each and every one of you.

Do you want to keep others from stealing your web site graphics and pictures? The hotlink protection provided by your hosting account’s cPanel prevents other websites from directly linking to files on your web site.

Other sites will still be able to link to any file type that you don’t specify (for example, html files). You can use the hotlink protection to keep other sites from linking to your images, videos, and other files.

Protect Against Bandwidth Theft

If your worried about others stealing your bandwidth, this might be a good thing to look into setting up. If another site links directly to your images or other files, they will be using your bandwidth to display those files rather than theirs.

Want to turn hotlink protection on? Here is how you can get it done.

• To gain access to cPanel’s hotlink protection, click on the icon above the words “Hotlink Protection” on the main screen of your cPanel page.

• Next, enter the names of sites that you wish to access your files in the first field which already contains the name of your site (or sites). This system attempts add all sites it knows you own to the list, however you may need to add others.

• Enter the file types that you wish to let those sites access by entering their extensions in the blank field next to this text… Extensions to allow (separate by commas):

• We are almost done! Now enter the URL you wish to redirect links to that are not allowed in the blank field next to… Url to Redirect to:

• If you wish to allow the sites you have entered to directly request files (view images or videos by typing their URL into a browser), click on the check mark box next to “Allow direct requests”. Click on “activate” to enable hotlink protection on your hosting plan.

Your images and files should be safe now – and your bandwidth will remain your own.

I have touched on the topic of backing up your web site time and time again. With each article or podcasts I always seem to get the same remark.

“Well, thats great – now can you make it easy?”

For a long time I’d say no. Making it easy means doing something such as cron jobs and scheduling and a lot of other things that regular people don’t want to take the time to do. Now my new solution for the easy way out it going to be…

“Go buy CP Site Saver, it is reeking of awesomeness!”

CP Site Saver is the first tool for backing up your cPanel powered web sites that I have seen that actually works. No need for filling in confusing settings and geeky details. The whole process takes a matter of minutes and then your good to go.

The interface is simple, you just tell it your hosting login information and database details and then hit the backup button. The quickness and simplistics of it all are really amazing. My beef with many programs like this is there are 200 boxes you must fill in and keep updated. CP Site Saver just get the basics and lets you relax while it does the hard work.

When your all done, you’ll also be able to unzip you backup and have a look through it. What does CP Site Saver need? Well, it might be more of a flaw in cPanel rather than their product but I would really like to be able to say, I want to backup everything but that one folder. Also I wish there was a better control on having it startup with your computer (give me a yes/no box on that choice). Those are the only “nit-picky” issue I could find though.

Now there is a price tag on all this bliss, but $49.95 isn’t asking too much when you consider the time you will be saving.

Download the free 10 day trial and give it a shot. The trial will only allow you to work with one web site and one database backup. That should be enough to sell you though on this awesome service.

To help those who are unsure how to get cPanel to backup their web sites I thought I would go through the process step by step.

How Can I Get Started Backing Up With cPanel?

First thing you must do is login into your account’s cPanel and click on the Backup icon. Backing up is a very crucial thing to do because you never know when the worst might happen, and having a good backup could be the difference between being down for a few hours or for a few days.

Now once you have made it to cPanel’s backup page you should see several options available. “Generate/Download Full Backup” (under Full Backups) will allow you to do what you need. It might take a while depending on the size of your web site to generate but once it does – download that and you are almost done.

From this same screen you can download the latest backup created, download your MySQL databases and also depending on your web host you might be able to download your mail settings too.

Now after clicking on “Generate/Download a Full Backup” link you will be given a few more choices. For most users you will back the backup destination to be your home directory. Make sure you have enough disk space to host the backup file. There are other options, but we will ignore them for now. Under e-mail address you can tell the server where to send the log of the backup status. Once everything is as it should be click on the “Generate Backup” buttons and away you go.

How Can I Get That Backup Now?

Now you should be told that once the server finishes generating the backup for you – you will receive an e-mail at the address you gave it. Now if you click “Go back” or just navigate yourself back to the first screen of the backup page you can see that the backup is still “in progress”. After a few minutes or once you get that e-mail back from the server, you can download you backup from here.

Now you should have a full backup of your web site ready to restore if the worst case scenario might happen.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 129!
Running Time: 13 minutes | File Size: 5.92 MB

Here are just a few topics from this week’s episode of the Web Hosting Show.

• Google PageRank Updates and Debate
• Discrimination Against Southerners in Hosting
• How to Backup Using cPanel
• Best of the Forum Scripts
• ICANN Investigates Insider Domain Registrations

Get your vienna sausages and oversized cup of coffee ready because I am going to deliver the dull and boring world of web hosting and web development in a way never before seen or heard. Here on the web hosting show we deliver you real hosting talk with none of the angry fan boys.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 124!
Running Time: 16 minutes | File Size: 7.22 MB

Here are just a few topics from this week’s episode of the Web Hosting Show.

• Hosting Affiliates – Worth the Time and Money?
• What Should Web Hosts Do When There is Downtime?
• Suggestions for Tracking Your Web Site Stats!
• I am Impressed by cPanel 11! Should You Be?
• Find That New (and hopefully better) Web Host?

Time to sit around the proverbial campfire of web hosting learning and discuss some of this stuff that just doesn’t seem to make sense. From web hosts to web hosting clients I look to make everybody happy here.

As one of the leading control panels out there today, cPanel has never been a really nice thing to look at visually – in my opinion.

They are taking some major leaps and bounds with both style and substance in the next version.

Here are a few words about the cPanel and WHM 11 release right from the cPanel folks.

cPanel and WHM 11 brings the most extensive update ever to the cPanel and WHM software package. With upgrades in nearly every section of the product, this version enhances the feature packed, security minded and highly stable platform for web hosting.

From the blog on Web Hosting Unleashed, I got these details.

Major Changes And Features:

• Security Center with comprehensive security tools
• Substantial Back-end code upgrades
• Apache 2.0.x and 2.2.x support
• Increased interface speed
• Web disks
• Site Owner Interface Upgrade
• Site Owner “Getting Started Wizard”
• Upgraded branding and better language support
• Easy Perl, PHP and Ruby module installers
• and much, much more

You can test drive both WHM an cPanel yourself here. Hopefully the cPanel team will continue to surprise us all with these upgrades. One might say being leader of the pack means they don’t need to really compete – but from the looks of things it doesn’t look like they will be laying down the crown anytime soon.

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 106!

Today I talk with their marketing mastermind Amy Armitage. The Web Hosting Show is now on the air.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 106!
Running Time: 21 minutes | File Size: 9.61 MB

Here are just a few topics that we discussed on this week’s episode of the Web Hosting Show.

• An Interview with Amy Armitage of Lunarpages.com
• What is a Woman’s Place in the Hosting Industry?
• Marketing Tips Everybody Can Learn From!
• Do I Love or Hate the New cPanel 11?
• Finding Domain Registrars for Wacky Extensions!

Seems like we have had more people accepting or asking to be featured in an interview here on the podcast. This week is Amy – last week was Julien and hey, next week could be you.

I have a few more Web industry movers and shakers I am talking with and trying to bring onto the show. So if you know of somebody or if you are somebody who’d like to come on and chat just drop me an E-mail at mitch@mitchkeeler.com. I’m a real easy guy to get a hold of.

Link of the Week: Lunarpages Lunatics

Web Hosting Talk Redesigned – One of the most popular set of forums on hosting has been given a new look. If you haven’t navigated your way towards WebHostingTalk.com recently, you really should give it a look. It has a cleaner feeling to it, doesn’t feel as cluttered as it used to be. They have also added a news section, where they are putting stories taken from the WHIR in there. Looks like they might be trying to develop more “portal-like” features to keep people staying there and to bring new people into the fold. All in all, I give it two freaky thumbs up.

cPanel Training Seminar 2007 – Panel will be hosting their second annual Training Seminar in beautiful Houston, Texas on May 30 – June 1, 2007. Last year’s seminar was a success with their partners, and direct customers learning in depth technical details about cPanel software and facilitating open dialog between technical support representatives and developers from cPanel. For more information about the event, check out cPanel’s Web site at cPanel.net.

Geek Certified Goes Up for Sale – This is a story that could go three ways. It could end in a really good result, a really bad result or no real change at all. One of the more popular “host certification” Web sites, GeekCertified.com is going up for sale. I’d buy it, but last time I checked I don’t have much venture capital cash laying around the Web Hosting Show headquarters. It should be a good resource for whoever gets to add it to their portfolio.

Have hosting or Web development news you’d like to share with the masses? Let me give the midgets and lottery balls a break and send ‘em my way to mitch@mitchkeeler.com.

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 103!

Which are the best of the best? Well it took me a while, but I think I have narrowed down the list to three. The top three control panels in all of the Web hosting world.

cPanel

The folks at the cPanel Web site say, “cPanel is designed for the end users of your system and allows them to control everything from adding an removing E-mail accounts to administering MySQL databases.” The fact of the matter is though that they do that and so much more. Most often used on Redhat Linux based systems, cPanel provides support for over ten different flavors of Linux. There is no Windows or OSX versions yet however.

The interface is clean, with more options and features than you could shake a stick at. It is easy to see why they are the number one control panel used today. They do have several competitors though, chomping at the bit to take their space on the top of the mountain.

Plesk

Plesk is available for both Linux and Windows Web hosting servers. This alone gives them a little advantage over cPanel. Their interface looks much like Windows XP. You have all the soft colors and big icons that you would ever need. I have to give them credit though, because it does look great.

They have all the basic features that cPanel has as well. Good stuff indeed.

Helm

Now we have seen a lot of different Linux only control panels, but what about a Windows only one? That is one thing that Helm provides to the end consumer. There are many customer features to go on and on about, but how does it feel once you get on the inside?

It has the standard pretty interface, nothing new there. These control panels are built to be used over and over, so they have to be easy on the eyes. One thing that did get my attention is the ability to see your billing information inside the control panel. That is very nice indeed.

Agree? Disagree? Give me your thoughts – leave a comment and let me know your opinions and other choices for your own dream team of Web hosting control panels.

+ Check Out the Podcast This Was From! Listen to the Web Hosting Show, Episode 96!

I would call myself employed. Don’t worry though, nothing will be changing here – and just to prove it to you the Web Hosting Show is now on the air.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Podcast 78!
Running Time: 11 minutes | File Size: 4.88 MB

Hello and welcome to the Web Hosting Show, the number one Web hosting podcast out there today. I am your humble host, Mitch Keeler. This week’s podcast supporters are WebHostingChat.com and WebHostMagazine.com so make sure you check them both out and tell them thanks for supporting this show.

Now where was last week’s show? Well with all the hoopla going on around here with me getting a new job and all I just didn’t have the time to fit it (and get it recorded) in last weekend. Oh yeah, on that note I am now working as a moderator for Lunarpages.com! After sending the word out that I was looking for a new job, Amy Armitage offered the spot to me.

This is my first actual job with a Web host in two years, so I might be a little rusty. Things have been going good so far though, and I have high hopes for my future with the company.

Now for those of you who might be new to the show and this is your first time to tune in, don’t worry. I usually don’t go on and on about my past and present employment. Instead, I try to make the world of Web hosting make more sense for everybody. No matter if you are a Web host or a Web hosting client, everybody should find something here that he or she can enjoy.

Now with that said, it is time for me to get back to work and let you know about this week’s Web hosting headlines!

Web Hosting News and Views

Host Color Launches Web Hosting Lottery

Host Color, a provider of web hosting, today announced the launch of a web hosting lottery. The company says that it is accessible through Host Color’s web site, through the company’s affiliate program and on some third party web sites which have partnership with the web host. The system displays random coupon codes which offer discounts on different web hosting services and products or give the web users a chance to win a service or product.

Oh great, even the Web hosting industry has gotten into the gambling business. Next we will probably see a reality TV show based on the Web hosting industry. Web Hosting Survivor? American Server Admin? America’s Top Hosting Guru? The choices go on and on.

With that said though, I have to say it is a neat and unique idea. The only problem is that when I visited their Web site, I couldn’t find any mention of it. Here is a public relations tip for everybody. When you put out a press release about a new service – make sure you give a URL to find that said service.

If anybody is able to find it, please drop me a line and send me the URL!

Web Hosting Site of the Week

Web hosts, I have a question for you. How would you like to not have to pay hundreds of dollars for flash tutorials? If you are not a big Web hosting company, the cost of getting your own flash tutorials like you see at DemoDemo.com and other places like it can add up pretty quickly. That is where Tutorials Club is hoping to make your life a little easier.

Instead of the standard one time payments, you instead subscribe to the use of the flash tutorials. For one low monthly fee you get access to hundreds of flash tutorials. They are currently offering tutorials for the following:

• cPanel
• Plesk
• DirectAdmin
• Joomla
• Mambo

With today’s Web hosting costs, I say this is a bargain for smaller Web hosts. If you want to check them out, go visit tutorialclub.com and when you do let them know that the Web Hosting Show sent you there.

Hot Topic in Web Hosting

A few weeks ago I told you about the Webmaster Jam Session conference that was going on in Dallas, Texas. Well, the event might be over, but the official Web site holds some goodies from the event. Here is a little inside information from the Web site.

The 1st Webmaster Jam Session is now over. We had a great time thanks to the excellent speakers and all our fellow Webmasters that came to hear them. There was a lot of great information for Webmasters at the sessions. Below is a list of slides, podcasts, and video clips that you can download and share.

That’s right, they have a slew of free audio files for you to download, listen to, and show your friends. You can also sign up and get notified when they start planning for next year’s event as well.

All you need to do to get all the action is point your browser towards WebJamSession.com!

Web Hosting Security Alert

Now I haven’t done many security issues on this show, but I think this one is important to mention. A number of Web hosts have been hit by hackers due to a security hole inside of cPanel. Here is what they had to say on The WHIR.com about it.

Hackers recently exploited a flaw in the cPanel hosting control panel to gain access to four Web hosts including HostGator, and take control of Windows-based machines using Internet Explorer, in an attack that lasted from late Thursday to Saturday afternoon. The hackers placed an iframe script in Web sites that directed some visitors to malicious addresses that would infect them.

Now according to Eric Sites, vice president of Sunbelt Software and the guy who discovered this hole in the first place, “An estimated 20,000 sites are attempting to exploit the vulnerability”. So if this is news to you, you should get a hold of cPanel and get the patch!

Final Web Hosting Thoughts

Well that is it for this week’s edition of the Web Hosting Show. If you want to interact with this podcast, it is easy to do.

+ Send me your audio questions or comments!

+ Go post on the Web Hosting Show’s Fan Forums!

+ Send me an E-mail with your thoughts on this week’s show!

Also, if you want to make sure you don’t miss a week’s episode, get our RSS feed and plug it into your syndication method of choice:

I am Mitch Keeler, and you have been listening to the Web Hosting Show, the number one Web hosting podcast across the nation and the one and only voice of the Web hosting world.

Click to Open the Video Tutorial in a New Window!

DemoWolf.com is proud to team up with the Web Hosting Show to bring you these hosting support tutorials. Help your customers help themselves, and at the same time, significantly reduce your support costs! To find out how to get DemoWolf flash tutorials on your website, visit DemoWolf.com.

Click to Open the Video Tutorial in a New Window!

DemoWolf.com is proud to team up with the Web Hosting Show to bring you these hosting support tutorials. Help your customers help themselves, and at the same time, significantly reduce your support costs! To find out how to get DemoWolf flash tutorials on your website, visit DemoWolf.com.