With both paid and free versions, Site24×7.com looks to be a great web site monitoring package.  They do monitoring of uptime and performance of your web sites, online services and servers.  They also promise to deliver instant alerts the moment something goes wrong.

You can set the monitoring tools to check the web site in question you wish to monitor in intervals ranging from 5 to 60 minutes or above.

If the worst might happen, and you need to be told, here are the various ways they can alert you to trouble:

• E-mail
• RSS
• SMS Messages

For those of you just wanting to beta test the service; when you first sign up, you are given a fully functional, 15-day trial account. At the end of 15 days, your account will be downgraded to free unless you upgrade to either Standard or Premium account.

Check out the screenshots, then give them a shot at Site24×7.com.

By far, SimplePie is one of the coolest collections of code that helps you mesh together PHP and RSS feeds to create some really dynamic content. After downloading and installing - the number of things you an create with this is only limited by your imagination.

What is it exactly? Here is how the developers describe it:

SimplePie is a code library, written in PHP, intended to make it ridiculously easy for people to manage RSS and Atom feeds.

What Can SimplePie Do For Me?

As an example of what you could do, well - you know popurls.com right? It was made popular for delivering a lot of tiny boxes with content from delicious, digg, reddit and more on one single page. Using SimplePie you can make your own version of it.

Also be sure to check out the demo:

http://simplepie.org/demo/

Doesn’t do much (gives you a readable output from any RSS feed) but somebody with some imagination could put this or any of the other powerful things you could do with this to good use. If all this PHP and RSS stuff excites you and you want to develop a new way for people to view syndicated content on the Web give SimplePie a shot. It is hands down the easiest way to get this type of work done.

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 111!

Want to know the top ten hosting RSS feeds you should be subscribing to to stay on top of the industry? Now there is a slew of information out there, and subscribing to the best of the best makes your job just that much easier in tracking what is going on.

From news, to press releases, to conversations here is the best of the best as far as hosting RSS feeds go.

1. Web Hosting Talk [RSS Feed!] - Yes, WebHostingTalk.com does RSS feed output now. You can click on the RSS Feed link on the main page to get a selection of good ways to keep track of things there. This is probably the biggest overall improvement they made in the last big update they rolled out.

2. The Web Hosting Show [RSS Feed!] - Ok, go ahead and call my an egotistical manaiac, I can take it. If your listening you know this is a great resource for all kinds of hosting news, interviews, help and random fun. If your not subscribed then what are you waiting for?

3. The Web Host Industry Review [RSS Feed!] - The WHIR is the big hosting resource for just about everything. From news, to interviews to everything else under the sun. They have a lot of feeds as well so you can pick and choose your favorite things to read.

4. Google News Search for “Web Hosting” [RSS Feed!] - Google is a great source for web hosting press releases and general information you might not see anywhere else. It combs a lot of the hosting resources out there and is one of the first places I check for the latest and greatest happenings.

5. The Hosting News [RSS Feed!] - TheHostingNews.com is another one of my favorite hosting news resources. The RSS feed is a little hard to find (hidden away on the sidebar) but it still well worth subscribing to. Yet another good place to get hosting news and interviews.

6. Netcraft [RSS Feed!] - Netcraft.com is a good place to get updates from the geekier side of the hosting indutry. From following server OS trends to getting uptime and downtime news, they are worth subscribing to for anybody because it is a good way to learn about some of the more advanced hosting trends.

7. Web Hosting Finds Blog [RSS Feed!] - The blog that the Web Hosting Finds web site puts out there is one of the more entertaining hosting feeds I have subscribed to. Covering a lot of random yet interesting news and links inside of the industry - you can not afford to pass it up.

8. The WHIR Blogs [RSS Feed!] - Wasn’t the WHIR already on this list? Well contrary to even my first thoughts the WHIR Blogs have bloomed into a really neat source for all types of industry opinions and coverage. This is one the best “brand extentions” I guess you could call it that the WHIR team has been apart of.

9. DomainTools Blog [RSS Feed!] - You can’t have hosting without domains, it is like peanut butter without the jelly. DomainTools.com is already my favorite domain.. well, tool and resource. Now they are delivering me my favorite blog about domains as well.

10. Web Host Blog [RSS Feed!]- Although I wish it was updated a little more often, WebHostBlog.com is a good source for more general hosting information and news. Put on by the team behind the Web Host Magazine and Buyer’s Guide this is a resource that might be light on quantity but high on quality.

A Few More Worth Mentioning…

Here are just a few more that are worth mentioning:

• Reseller Hosting Guide - [RSS Feed!]
• Web Hosting Unleashed - [RSS Feed!]
• Isabel Wang’s Blog - [RSS Feed!]

Have a favorite that didn’t get added to the list? Leave it in the comments or send it my way!

Web hosting is always more fun in a group don’t you think? On today’s show we’ve got the man in charge over at iNet Interactive along with your landing pages 101, what are they and why do you need them. Toss that in with your regular dose of Web hosting goodness and the Web Hosting Show is now on the air.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 111!
Running Time: 20 minutes | File Size: 9.94 MB

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

• Should I Give Web Hosting Talk Another Shot?
• Interview with Troy Augustine from iNet Interactive
• What are Landing Pages for Web Sites?
• Top 10 RSS Feeds from the Hosting Industry
• Get a Web Hosting Education, Without the Boring Stuff!

Link of the Week: 100 Oldest Currently Registered Domains

Angela Lansbury never really wrote anything about murder but I can promise you this show is called the Web Hosting Show and it is at least 99.9 percent about the web hosting world we live in today. What’s the other .1 percent?

Making Angela Lansbury or midget jokes that only make me giggle. Well, you can’t forget about the midgets too - and well, if you had a midget Mrs Lansbury then well.. that would make for one heck of a good podcast.

After the Web site redesign some people asked me, “Where did the subscription links go? and I am ready to let you know. I really got tired of the 100 icons on the sidebar look - so I moved them all over to one Web page. Here is the place you need to find ‘em all:

+ The Web Hosting Show Subscription Links

If you have any that you would like to see there, please let me know. I would be more than happy to get them added on the Web page. Just one more way to help you get the latest episodes of the greatest Web hosting podcast out there today.

If all else fails and you are still lost, just click that little orange icon in the upper-right hand corner of WebHostingShow.com.

Bonus: Embed the Web Hosting Show Flash Player on YOUR Web Site!

Go check out the new version of Hosting Hoopla or read more about it on my blog, Mitchelaneous!

I’ll be talking about this project a little more on next week’s podcast. Have any questions about it? Send ‘em my way!

You probably know by now that I just launched a new Web hosting Web site, Hosting Hoopla. What you don’t know is all the “behind the scenes” work that had to be done to get it up and running. Don’t worry though, because I won’t keep it secret much longer.

Download the Thursday Hosting Special!

Running Time: 6 minutes | File Size: 1.39 MB

First things first, you have to break things up into smaller parts that are easier to manage. Read more »