SendSpace.com – Unlimited uploads and unlimited downloads.  The file size limit with SendSpace is up to 300MB too.

MediaFire.com – This service provides up to 100MB file size per upload, and unlimited storage.  A “pro” account will also get you a few more perks if you want to pay for it.

iFile.it – With one of the simplest interfaces, just browse, upload and cross your fingers.

MegaUpload.com – Another popular alternative is MegaUpload, unfortunately you might be looking for an alternative to it pretty soon.  Hate to give you an alternative to an alternative.

SaveFile.com – With a limit of 100MB per file in size, the most enticing thing about this hosting solution would be the fact that it isn’t used by many – so speeds should be pretty good.

TransferBigFiles.com – Oh, if only the rest of the internet was this obvious.

KeepMyFile.com – Bad web site design, with a limit of 60MB per file and 300MB max.  The advantage here is they say you can upload 30 files at once.

Badongo.com – With unlimited limits, and being free to use – have to say this alternative sounds like gold.

YourFileLink.com – Free video and file hosting is what they promise, and with the highest limit thus far on file size (5GB), you may want to go ahead and take advantage of this domain while it is still around.

UploadPedia.com – Oh, I get it – like Wikipedia, but you host stuff on it.  So it isn’t like Wikipedia at all…

Know of another free file host that deserves to be an alternative to Rapidshare?  Share your suggestions with us, and I might be able to come up with a list of at least ten more free file hosting alternatives to enjoy.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 173!
Running Time: 16 minutes | File Size: 7.17 MB

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

• Marketing Tips from Your Ugly Friend and a Cheese Sandwich
• Your Shared Hosting Shopping List
• Top 5 Holiday Deals from the Web Hosting World

Here are this week’s web hosting news headlines:

• Daily.co.uk Giving Away Reseller Hosting
• Lycos Europe Goes Down Under (and not to Australia)
• Will Your Web Site Survive the Holiday Season?

Time to warm up the thanksgiving leftovers one more time, have a seat and enjoy a little talk, information, news and more on and about the wild and wacky world of web hosting. Hope everybody had a nice Thanksgiving break, and your ready for another award winning** web hosting podcast.

* – ok, maybe not the greatest ever, but who wants to listen to second best?
** – actual award winning content may vary!

Here are the top seven dirty web hosting words (and phrases) that every hosting customer should know or be able to define.

1.  Server Resources - This is often the limitation you don’t hear about until you have reached it.  Many people might call it the, “Haha, got you now!” clause, but if you stop and think about it, it does make sense.  You can only do so many things on your computer before you begin to have performance problems, and the same could be said for a hosting server.  If one script, service or person is taking up all the RAM and CPU up for themselves, they have to be taken out of the picture to help everyone else who may be hosted on that server.

2.  Database Connections - Depending on who the web host is, and how they have their servers setup, you may only have available to you so many connections to a database.  For example, Joe hears that his database connection limit is 25 simultaneous connections.  What Joe doesn’t stop to think about is what the word simultaneous actually means.  For him to go over his limit, he would need 25 connections in roughly the same few seconds to get in trouble.  Since most scripts only connect for a second, this is not something most of us need to worry about.

3.  E-mail Sending Limits - Yes, you are limited on the number of e-mails you can send out.  This is a pretty new limitation that web hosts have been putting on their customers, mostly to curb spamming in any form.  If you are doing any sending of newsletters or something that goes out to a great amount of people via e-mail, you might want to look at scripts that will spread the wealth sending around.  That way instead of sending your newsletter to 10,000 people at once, you will be able to send it to maybe 2,000 people per hour through the day.  Both DadaMail and phpList will allow you to do this.

4.  Unlimited - There is no such thing as unlimited in web hosting.  It is a marketing word though that is bound to bring people in.  People like to get something for nothing and the chance to be able to grow their web site and brand to unlimited boundaries is a dream we can all be excited by.  Now, why does this word not really bug me that much anymore?  Well, even if you are sold by the word unlimited, chances are you aren’t even going to use enough of your unlimited disk space or bandwidth to hurt the server.  In most cases, it doesn’t do any harm.

5.  Uptime and Downtime - The one thing you see asked about by people who like to think they know a thing or two about web hosting is, “How is the uptime?” or “How much downtime have you had?”.  These are kind-of important questions, but I wouldn’t put too much weight into their answers.  Like I have said before, you are not going to find a web host who is perfect and has not even the smallest single flaw.  You will need to find an example of the problems they have had, and see how they have dealt with them.  That is how you can really tell how great a web host is.

6.  Overselling – In the world of web hosting, overselling is the term used to describe be hosts who put more customers on a server than the server can really support.  Most big name web hosts won’t have a problem with this, but some of the smaller to mid-range web hosts do.  The problem is that they can’t afford to bring more servers online, or they are packing you in like sardines into a can to save on costs.  It is something to try to be aware of, but chances are you won’t know about it till it is too late.

7.  The Comparison Box – I hate the comparison box of features you see web hosts use.  We have all seen them.  You have the features listed down the side, the different plans listed across the top and the thing that bugs me is every plan has every feature.  Why do a comparison chart, if every stinking plan has the same features?  The comparison chart should be use to compare the differences.  Most of the time, the only difference might be the disk space, bandwidth and price.  Give me a shorter comparison box, and just give me those three items if that is the case.  One more smaller item that bugs me about these boxes too is when they list stupid features that even your 98 year old grandmother knows are there.  For example, I am looking at a web host who does this, the comparison chart is as cheesy as ever and what is one of the features each plan has?  “support”.  As if in some bizarro world, there would be a web hosting plan that doesn’t come with “support”.

Know of another dirty web hosting word that didn’t make it onto the list?  Drop me an e-mail at mitch@mitchkeeler.com or leave a comment and we’ll see if we can find at least seven more amongst us all.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 172!
Running Time: 14 minutes | File Size: 6.18 MB

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

• My Favorite (and the BEST) FTP Client
• The Seven Dirty Web Hosting Words (and Phrases)
• Get Access to Photoshop Online for Free!

Here are this week’s web hosting news headlines:

• GoDaddy Does Makeovers for Lucky Web Sites
• 1&1 Internet Moves into a Nuclear Facility
• Hosting.com Get More Free Money to Blow Away

Come on, now how could you read a show description like that and not want to listen? Download and tune in to this very special edition of the Web Hosting Show. If you do, I promise to… well, do it again next week?

All that and a bucket of chicken on this week’s edition of the Web Hosting Show.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 165!
Running Time: 13 minutes | File Size: 5.66 MB

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

• How to Read Bad Hosting Reviews
• Domain Hijacking, Not for Gangsters
• Best FeedBurner Analysis Tools
• Free Performance, Availability and Traffic Monitoring

Here are this week’s web hosting news headlines:

• Google to Build Data Centers that Float?
• EstDomains.com Involved in Hundreds of Online Scams?
• Hostway Gives Away More Apple iPhones
• GoDaddy Races Sing This Song, Doo-dah! doo-dah!

Web hosting world, you had better get ready cause we got yet another great podcast from pillar to post to share with all of you. Give a download, listen to it, and let me know what you think!

As somebody who has worked for both I can say they are an awful lot alike.  Customer service is probably what comes to mind first.  You have to be quick and you have to do it with a smile.  Sure the guy who want his backup restore for the fourth time in an hour can’t see I am gritting my teeth, but you have to watch your tone as you work with the customer to solve the issue.  Your job is to make their day, and make it their way.

Another aspect of fast food and web hosting that go hand in hand would be the guy behind the counter you just made mad, and in return he hocks a loogie in your cheeseburger.  Web hosting customers – you have to keep in mind that you are looking for support from a person, and not a robot.  You treat the customer service representative with respect and they’ll be more than happy to help.  If you act like a spoiled brat that isn’t getting his or her own way and well, I won’t say they won’t help you but they sure won’t do it with a smile.

Easy One-Click Installs?

Look at what scripts and software they have ready to install on day one. Do you have one click install access to WordPress, b2evolution, Nucleus or others. These are some of the more familiar names you might see tossed in with Fantastico, and addon for cPanel that gives you easy one click access right from your hosting control panel.

Disk Space and Bandwidth for Blogging?

Next thing you will want to check out is the disk space and bandwidth limitations. If your just starting your blog out – do you have enough room to grow? If your blog is already established then do they have enough disk space and bandwidth to support you for a long period of time.

Server Resources for Peaks in Traffic

Server resources also come into play when it comes to blog hosting. Just in case your article gets dugg on digg.com or hyped up on any of the other big social news and link sharing sites, can your web site take the punch in traffic? This is something you should discuss one on one with your web host – but it most cases (unless the host isn’t that established) you should be OK in this department too. If using WordPress there are also addons that will make sudden growths in popularity more bearable, such as the WP-Cache addon.

Truth be told, you might have to suffer through a few web hosting lemons before you find the web host that is best able to deliver you the best blogging experience. It never hurts though to have a check list like the one above before you start shopping so you know what it is you should be getting.

Finding new homes for these cats have put a strain on the local government. The new data center was suppose to start construction back in 2007, but those cats, those wild homeless felines have another idea. Here are some facts about the data center that could have been according to the article:

The new high-tech data center, which was supposed to begin construction in 2007, will be the county’s first energy-saving “green” facility – with a vegetated roof and built partially underground – and is to be constructed in the derelict buildings just south of the Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center in Downey.

According to reports by Data Center Knowledge, the county is planning to build a 46,000 square foot data center that will be used to process employee payrolls, welfare payments, court documents and other county department records. Planners are also designing the facility to meet the criteria for a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification.

Now I tried to do my best to get a quote from the cats in question, and they at first had no comment but then told me all the talking they had to do would be done so through their lawyers, because they are cats and “normal” people usually can not make heads or tails out of what they are saying. They also wanted me to tell the public they really don’t like the LOL cats all over the Web.

There has been lots of talk about web hosts offering and clients needing upgrades to PHP 5. For those of you who might be outside the loop, let me first explain what PHP is. PHP is a framework that works on your hosting server’s side of things. It is a programing language that allows web developers to create content that dynamically interacts with databases.

Now the main reason you would want to upgrade to PHP 5 is that development for PHP 4 ceased at the end of 2007. You will no longer get updates for it, unless they are security related. Critical security updates for PHP 4 will be provided till August 8, 2008. So this is another good reason why a move to PHP 5 might be a good idea.

Where are the advantages of PHP 5 over PHP 4? Well without getting too geeky on you there are a number of improvements that just make it more robust, faster, more secure and easier to work with. What was wrong with PHP 4? Well, nothing really – it is just getting a little long in the tooth. PHP 4 you have to remember was released back in 2000. Think of it as a pair of old shoes you really love. the laces might be lost and your holding the heel on with duct tape but you can still put them on your feet and use them. PHP 5 would be the pair of sneakers you always wanted.

There have also been several public movements to help lead the charge to PHP 5, one of the more popular ones was the GoPHP5.org project that shared information about PHP 5 and kind of helped push a lot of web hosts in the right direction when it came to supporting the most recent stable release of PHP 5.

The name of the game is evolution. As with any technology, we need to move forward as soon as there is a solid stable release because in doing so we can continue to make things bigger, faster, better and stronger.

Take this as an example. Tom had a pie that he cut into six pieces. Tom’s problem is that he wants to give pie slices to twelve of his friends. When all of his friends show up to eat some pie, he gives each of his twelve friends a half of a pie slice and promises them if they need more pie they can have it. Tom’s problem?

He only had one pie – so he hopes his friends get full off that half a slice.

Now why does this happen? Well with prices for hosting getting cheaper and the offers for hosting as far as disk space and bandwidth go getting bigger, some web hosts don’t have any other choice.

From a purely visual side by side comparison if one place offers you 50 GB of space for five dollars and another offers you 150 GB of space for five dollars, most people are going to take the bigger offer.

Is there a real future for overselling? In the long haul – I don’t think so. Eventually web hosts are going to run into a bottle neck of what they can really promise in comparison with the technology that is out there. My hope is that people actually start to grow suspicious of such offers and rise up against it. When your getting a gift though – you don’t want to ask why or how your getting it, you just take it and smile.

For that one simple fact, the future of overselling might be a little longer in the tooth than expected.

There are some providers out there that have the business plan in place to handle it. They just might be harder to find.

Do You Pay for it in Perks?

Some web hosts will get you in the door with the low prices, and then when it comes to addons or accessories to your shared hosting account they stick you with the true costs of hosting. This can often happen with upgrades for JSP and ASP support and other upgrades some, but not all, will need.

Keep an Eye on How Long Your Signing Up For!

For an example, lets say Dummy Example Web Host is offering you a hosting deal you can not beat. It is $3.50 a month for 500 GB Disk Storage and 5 TB of Bandwidth. Now when you get on the order page you notice that this $3.50 a month price is only good if you sign up for the 10 year hosting plan. To get this, you must pay up-front: $420. Now if you know they are good then you have no worries but if you have no history with the company do you really want to sign up with them for the next decade? Better yet – will they even be around that long?

The one thing you have to remember (and I have said it time and time before) you have to do you homework when it comes to signing up with any web hosting company. Don’t be fooled by the special deal – and find out if they really are the best of the best or just another guy with a server in his basement trying to make a buck.

Do I Blame the Web Hosting Companies? No!

I can not blame the web hosting companies, because they need to compete with the next guy down the street and make money while doing so. Thanks to the fact that we have so much competition out there for the proverbial bottom dollar; almost everybody undercuts and over-provides. The secret of cheap hosting is to find the one that does so the best.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 135!
Running Time: 15 minutes | File Size: 6.50 MB

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

• 2007’s Free Hosting Awards (Photos, Videos and Files)!
• Networking Terms that Confuse the Masses!
• Design Tips for a Web Host’s Front Page!
• Time of the Year to Clean Up Your Support Pages?
• Sell Yourself in Fewer Words!
• No More Tips for Getting Gum off the Side of a Server!

Saddle up and get ready to ride, the Web Hosting Show is back from it’s holiday vacation and well, I didn’t send you a postcard because since you put that restraining order on me – it has been a little hard to find out where you’ve moved to.

As I test this new way of creating video content for the podcast here, I thought I would go with a question that gets asked an awful lot. How do you create an e-mail account from within the most popular of the control panels out there – cPanel.

There is much more than your average social voting link site here however. They have categories for just about every hosting topic under the sun. General hosting news, hosting experiences, e-mail, domains, tutorials, events… the list could go on and on.

Here is a little more information about them by them:

Hosting Bookmarks (HB) is a place where anyone involved in web hosting is invited to shared knowledge and experience. We welcome professionals to bookmark good content and consumers to share their experience with various products, services and companies. Our objective is to organize various web hosting related topics and knowledge into a database, and to build a valuable reference network based on social communication.

They also invite anybody and everybody who is interested to sign up and give it a shot. I’d love to see this web site take off in popularity so I am inviting you all to bookmark it and use it often. The great thing about a social hosting tool like this is the more people we can bring into the fold the better it will become.

Doing a search on your own domain name you can find out:

• How many other sites are hosted on the same server.
• The server’s status on the black lists out there.
• The type of server your web site is hosted on.

Another good place to find stats on a specific web host is webhosting.info. Just type in the domain name of your web host into the search box – and then select “Web Hosts” in the radio box selection and hit the “Go” button.

You might want to keep in mind that if they are not large enough they might not get picked up by the rankings. Also if they are using several different domains for their servers you might need to do this lookup several different times with each domain and add the final numbers together.

Last but not least – there is always doing a few searches. Personally I would search for: “Insert Company Name Here” sucks.

Now you might not get the best review this way because these are often people that are just mad at the web hosting question and want to spew something out about them. It is always good to take the good in with the bad though. Google aside – you may also want to search hosting forums like WebHostingTalk.com to also get an idea of what others have had to say about your web host.

For those of you who might be new to the Web Hosting Show coming in after reading that I want to welcome you all. Make yourself at home and take your shoes off at the door.

Did you notice the designer’s note around the start of the magazine and the awards to be given out?

Now this is the part of the post where I get on my knees and beg you to do a favor for me. Please, drop an e-mail to contest@pingzine.com and vote for Mitch!

*starts chants* Vote Mitch! Vote Mitch! Vote Mitch! *chants end*

Now I have some great competition with this – both my good buddy Amy Armitage and David Dunlap are up for the honors too. But darn it, I want to call myself the award winning Web hosting industry media rock star. Help my dream come true!

So remember, right now – e-mail contest@pingzine.com and vote for me and some of the other awards that are mentioned in the magazine. Don’t make me have to pull out the campaign ads. Hehe..

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.

After sitting here and giving it some thought, I thought about the things I check on a day to day basis and one solution stuck out like a sore thumb screaming for attention. Twitter would make for an excellent web host to client conversation tool.

If you want to see an example Twitter page, check out my own.

How Would it Work?

For example, lets say I start up the Web Hosting Show web hosting company. I could tell all of my clients to go subscribe to my Twitter RSS or follow me on Twitter to get announcements about server upgrades, downtime and other notifications people would like to be tuned into.

The nice thing about Twitter is that you don’t have a lot of room to write – so each update would be quick and to the point. This saves time for the web host as far as writing it goes and the client as far as getting updates on any issues at hand.

Twitter Tools

Twitter has a handful of helpful publishing tools as well that would make updating it an easy task too. Some of those include:

• TwitBin – Send and view tweets from within the Firefox browser.

• TwitThis – Tool to allow visitors to your site to easily share a page Twitter.

• TwitBox – View and submit tweets, see replies and direct messages, delete your own tweets, and multiple account support.

Check out more on this list of Twitter tools I ran across on Mashable.com.

As you can see, this would be a quick and easy tool to work into your support pages – and you wouldn’t exactly have to be locked into Twitter either. There are many Twitter clones out there that might actually even have a few more bells and whistles too. With hosting support it is always good to think outside the box, and Twitter provides a unique tool that could help you provide your customers with a very different hosting experience.

TheWebHostBiz.com
This web site wants to be your guide to starting and running a successful web hosting business. Whether you are just starting out, or you have been around for some time, TheWebHostBiz.com features the tools, applications, service providers and resources that will make your web host business a success.

ServerADay.com
Well the short story for this web site given on the web site itself is “We think all those ‘deal-a-day’ websites out there are cool so we thought what the heck. We have something to sell, so why not give it a shot.” Also being a division of OLM means you don’t have to worry about any shady deals coming forth.

iWeb’s Server Warehouse Clearance Deals
This is another server deal finder that will allow you to hunt for a server of your own. You can list by price and “time of posting” for your deals. The inclusion of an RSS feed for the deals is also a winner. This looks like a great new way for the iWeb people to market themselves to the bargain hunters.

Remember you can always send me your hosting related links at mitch@mitchkeeler.com. New or old, I always love to check them all out.

All you have to do to get started is register for your free account, upload your content and then you can gain access to these files anywhere you have an Internet connection. You can avoid the hassle and trouble of running out of disk space on your hard drive – and eliminate the external storage devices.

You can stop worrying about your files being lost because of computer issues such as it kicking the bucket or being infected by something nasty. The ability to access any file at anytime, anywhere is also a perk that can not be overlooked.

Some of their insight on the technology they are using is pretty interesting too. ADrive operates using industry-leading enterprise level data storage, networking and server technology to safely store and access your files.

They promise in the future to have bigger plans with more than 50GB – that will also come with a price tag. A desktop client and file sharing is also “in the works”. One future feature that looks promising is the personalized snapshots. They promise to retrieve older versions of your files using snapshot technology. You’ll be able to schedule your own snapshots to backup and protect your stored data.

There are many great southern people and companies that have made the web hosting business just a little better. So before you claim we are all beer drinking rednecks – maybe you should have a closer look.

Who Are These Southern Hosting People?

One of the most powerful publishers of the web hosting word is from down south. Ping! Zine, the web hosting magazine is based down in Louisiana. One of the biggest hosting providers out there today, the Planet is based in Texas. Another powerful web hosting firm down here in Texas is a little shop called Rackspace. C I Host would be yet another example of a big Texas-based hosting firm.

Now those are just a few of the big names. There are many more smaller names I could list – and this list could go on and on and on. One place where this topic was covered well was back in the March 2005 issue of the Web Host Industry review. If you haven’t seen that issue yet, I would recommend you check it out.

The Web Hosting World is for Everybody!

Do you get the point yet? Now I am not here to say that us funny talking southern people have claim on the reigns of the hosting world either. Truth be told, web hosting is a global market with a whole heck of a lot of funny sounding people.

Funny, well produced and I’m just waiting in anticipation for the next.

I Want One, What Is It?

So what is a reseller hosting account? If you want a dictionary definition, I would say a type of web hosting in which a person purchases a plan from the hosting company and then resell this plan to other customers.

Where do you find such hosting accounts? There are a lot of web hosts that offer good ones, you’ll just have to shop around. In many cases you will be given a large chunk of hosting space and bandwidth that you can cut up into smaller peices for all the domains you wish to host. You can think of it kind of like a dedicated server – except it is shared, and not so dedicated.

How Does it Work?

Once you have all your peices cut up – you can then turn around and sell this space to Tom, give this section to Molly and save that section over there for yourself. Each section gets its own control panel and acts like your usual shared hosting plan that you are probably more familiar with.

Now some companies take a different route with reseller web hosting. They will give you access to the master account, then you buy littler plans to stuff into your reseller hosting account as needed. If you need five hosting plans for five clients, you would go to them tell them you want a reseller plan with room for five and they will do the dividing up and setting up for you.

The nice thing about reseller hosting plans is if you actually resell to a large enough audience, the hosting plan can pay for itself. Down the line you might even upgrade that reseller account to a dedicated server where you could do all the same things but have more system resources to work with. Who knows, after that you might end up becoming your own web hosting company after all.

What some people don’t realize is it takes a lot of web hosting power to run these titans of the new digital age. A web site like digg.com is not run on a $5.99 a month web hosting account. They probably have a whole farm of servers running that single domain.

Who Will Save the Day?

This is where deditated hosting companies come into play. Places like Rackspace and FastServers.net love this new growth because that means more people have reasons for purchasing more hardcore hosting accounts. So if that is the good news, then what is the bad news?

The bad news is that these web sites need not one person running them, they need a team of dedicated people watching over them to keep them intact. For the would-be webmaster this creates another challenge of staffing and finding people who can work around the clock to make sure that some script kiddies don’t get too hyped up on Jolt cola, start running a DDOS attack on your Web 2.0 masterpiece and bring you to your knees.

If you have the next great web site ready to go, here are somethings you need to put on your shopping list when looking for a dedicated web host.

• Top Notch Uptime and Performance
• Solid Infrastructure and Scalability
• More Than One Way to Access 24/7 Support and Server Updates

So before you say that you would like to have the traffic or popularity of one of the Web’s leaders of the day make sure you know what your getting yourself into.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 127!
Running Time: 12 minutes | File Size: 5.28 MB

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

• Moving Day for One of My Projects!
• Gmail Increases Space for Free and Paid Accounts!
• What Does Your Web Host’s Web Site Need?
• Is DivShare the Free Hosting King of Kings?
• Online Generators for All Your Design Needs!

I’m back from the web hosting support trenches to give you my weekly report on all things web hosting and web development related. Join me in the mess hall and we’ll do the web hosting two step one more time.

Now there has been a great debate about Windows on the desktop for years. Should you use it? Should you switch? I would be willing to bet money though that you didn’t know the same fight existed in the web hosting world too. Unlike the desktop PC market, Windows is not on top. Linux really rules the roost in this world of server administration.

Where with a Linux-based server you have reliability, with Windows-based servers you have ease of use. As far as security goes, Linux is on top and with Windows your left patching holes left and right. On the range of price, Linux for the server is often cheap or free while Windows costs much more money than you really have to spend.

With that said your probably wondering, what does Windows hosting provide for the end user?

Well, as I mentioned before they have “easy of use” to hang over Linux’s head. That means that a web host can spend less time trying to train their staff on the ins and outs of how to administer the server. Windows can also support a number of database types, such as: MS Access, Microsoft SQL, MYSQL and Excel. Also you can’t forget about the ASP and ASP.net – Microsoft’s Active Server Pages technology.

When push comes to shove, you really shouldn’t pick the operating system of your server because of who it is. You should be picking it because of what it can do for you. If the scripts, services and technologies you want to use are on Windows – go with a Windows hosting account. If they are not? Then a Linux-based server might be the bets way to go.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 126!
Running Time: 13 minutes | File Size: 5.70 MB

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

• Who is the Best Free Blog Web Host?
• Tips on How to Pay for Your Hosting Account!
• Windows Hosting – Why Should You Bother?
• What is the Top Solution for Free Web Site Hosting?

I’m back yet again to labor over the thing I love – and trying to make the web hosting world a better place not just for me, not just for you, not just for Cousin Larry with the fuzzy eyebrows. No, I want to make the web hosting industry better for everybody.

1. The Jargon Sucks!

The phrases like unlimited are greatly ignored these days because web host number one is always trying to play catch up with web host number two.

2. The Press Sucks!

Web hosting news, real news is hard to find. Give me a place that does real reporting and doesn’t just post the same press releases everybody else posts.

3. The Customer Sucks!

Your paying $1.99 a month for web hosting and you expect to get quality service? That alone is enough for my argument there. When your hosting costs as much as a cheap value meal at a fast food joint you know you might be in trouble.

4. The Boss Sucks!

Many web hosting workers (mainly remotes) know they can be let go at any time for any reason. Making your staff parionid is not a good way to make them work harder.

5. The Technology Sucks!

The tools out there for running your web site are made for server admins and not average day to day customers. We need a web host that makes hosting simple – and not a thing you need a college degree to run.

Have are just a few personal customer service rules I always take into consideration when dealing with people who are having trouble or questions about their setup on the World Wide Web. These are from me to the web hosting customer support folks out there. Next time you answer a support ticket, take these tips into consideration.

Do a Little More for the Customer

Did you fix the problem and move on to the next question? When possible you should always check and see if there is a little more information you can provide. If somebody wants to know how to install WordPress, don’t just tell them and be done.

Give them the answer they need and then maybe share a few places to get themes and plugins. Maybe a resource you know that has some good beginner information when it comes to WordPress? Taking that extra step to make sure the customer is getting what they need is never a bad thing. It’s like opening your birthday present and finding two things in the box instead of just one.

Always Call the Client by Name

This tip really goes beyond just calling people by name, what I really mean to say is personalize your responses a little ‘bit. Your not a robot so there is no reason why you should be acting like one.

Call them by your name (if their name is given) and talk to them in a way any human could understand. If that quick response your suppose to hand out isn’t clear on something – go ahead and add a little more information. The hosting client will appreciate you going that extra mile.

Welcome Them Back if They Need More Info

I always tend to end my customer service lines with “Hope that helps, and if there is anything else we can do for you please feel free to let us know”. That line (or your own version, depending on how you want to put it) welcomes the customer back and makes them feel like they are welcome to come back to you if they need more help on the topic.

Not all questions can be answered in one go around so best to welcome them back until the customer says they have been taken care of.