10 Cheap Web Hosting

Attention: Your Web Hosting Renewal Price will be Higher than the Initial Offer Price! (Web Hosting Price Comparison Chart)

James — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 16:54:49 +0000

Before you sign up for any web host, make sure you know exactly your renewal price to avoid any nasty surprises in the future. Do not fall for the huge discount price too quickly!

Please remember that what you pay initially is not what you are going to pay when you renew. Usually the renewal price is significantly higher than your initial price depending on how much offer/discount you have been given.

For example, someone who has paid $54 for a year of hosting at iPage may be very surprise (or angry) when he finds out that his credit card is automatically billed for $107.40 a year later!

There are basically 2 different price that you need to know - the initial price and the renewal price.

Initial price are also known as the offer price, the sale price, the discount price, the promotional price (promo price) or maybe just as the special price.

The renewal price can also be known as the regular price, the ordinary price or the normal price.

We will look at how transparent or nasty these web hosts are when it comes to disclosing the renewal pricing. This page will also serve as a very good place to compare detail pricing among the top hosts recommended by me.

BlueHost

BlueHost offers special pricing for new customers at $4.95/month for 12 months and $3.95/month for 24 months and 36 months. Customer will have to renew at the regular rate after that.

BlueHost	Regular Price Per Month	Regular Price Total	After Special Discount
12 Month	$8.95	$107.40	$4.95 ($59.40)
24 Month	$7.95	$190.80	$3.95 ($94.80)
36 Month	$6.95	$250.20	$3.95 ($142.20)

HostGator

Web hosts such as HostGator are very transparent with their pricing. You can use a coupon code to get 25% discount to your initial purchase (The code is Get25Discount). You will have to decide whether you want to use it on 12 months, 24 months or 36 months contract because the longer the contract, the cheaper the averaged monthly price.

HostGator Regular Pricing vs 25% Offer Price

Hatchling Plan	Regular Price Per Month	Regular Price Total	After 25% Discount
12 Month	$6.95	$83.40	$5.21 ($62.55)
24 Month	$5.95	$142.80	$4.46 ($107.10)
36 Month	$5.95	$214.20	$4.46 ($160.65)

Baby Plan	Regular Price Per Month	Regular Price Total	After 25% Discount
12 Month	$9.95	$119.40	$7.46 ($89.55)
24 Month	$8.95	$214.80	$6.71 ($161.10)
36 Month	$7.95	$286.20	$5.96 ($214.65)

If you purchase HostGator Baby Plan for 24 months, you will pay $161.10 initially but you are expected to pay $214.80 at the time of renewal. You can change your contract term when it comes to renewal, i.e. if you signup for 24 months initially, you can switch to pay for 12 months or 36 months when your initial contract expire.

iPage

iPage customers are usually the one who face the biggest nasty surprises when it comes to renewal. The higher renewal pricing is hidden under a tiny text link at the bottom of their homepage.

Essential Plan	Regular Price Per Month	Regular Price Total	Offer Price
12 Month	$8.95	$107.40	constantly changing
24 Month	$7.95	$190.80	constantly changing
36 Month	$6.95	$250.20	constantly changing

From my personal observation, iPage initial offer price ranges from $2.95/month to $4.50/month. These are huge discounts which means someone paying $54 for a year of hosting may be very surprise when they are billed for $107.40 on renewal!

JustHost

JustHost has the most confusing offer price to begin with. Fortunately the regular price (i.e the renewal price) is fixed which is exactly the same as iPage and FatCow.

The reason why their initial price is confusing is because they keep changing their offer constantly and the offer price can be further reduced though the use of this "secret link". The secret link claims to offer you 20% discount but I don't know how they calculate it because offers are stacked with each other.

It is very difficult to know exactly how much you are going to pay until you reach the order page. But from my observation, the offer price can range from $3.96/month to $5.95/month. There are also lots of coupons floating around that mess up the final price further. However at anytime the secret link should yield the maximum offer.

JustPlan	Regular Price Per Month	Regular Price Total	Offer Price
12 Month	$8.95	$107.40	confusing
24 Month	$7.95	$190.80	confusing
36 Month	$6.95	$250.20	confusing

FatCow

FatCow is the sister company of iPage and so they are charging exactly the same on renewal.

FatCow Plan	Regular Price Per Month	Regular Price Total	Offer Price
12 Month	$8.95	$107.40	constantly changing
24 Month	$7.95	$190.80	constantly changing
36 Month	$6.95	$250.20	constantly changing

FatCow also offers huge discount to initial purchase and the offer price is constantly changing.

GreenGeeks

GreenGeeks is very similar to HostGator but instead of giving a discount in percentage term, they are giving a fixed $30 off by using a coupon code (The code is Take30Off). You can always renew at your preferred contract length.

GreenGeeks Regular Pricing vs $30 Off Pricing

Eco Site Plan	Regular Price Per Month	Regular Price Total	After $30 Off
12 Month	$7.95	$95.40	$5.45 ($65.40)
24 Month	$6.95	$166.80	$5.70 ($136.80)
36 Month	$4.95	$178.20	$4.11 ($148.20)

LunarPages

LunarPages initial pricing vs regular pricing is similar to HostGator where you can get a discount for your initial order in percentage term. Currently the best discount coupon is Get30Discount which gives you 30% discount on your initial contract (12 months and 24 months only).

Basic Plan	Regular Price Per Month	Regular Price Total	After 25% Discount
12 Month	$8.95	$107.40	$6.71 ($80.55)
24 Month	$6.95	$166.80	$5.21 ($125.10)
36 Month	$4.95	$178.20	N/A

PowWeb

PowWeb regular pricing is exactly the same as iPage, FatCow and JustHost. However the initial offer price is either $4.88/month or $3.88/month (usually on weekend). You can only purchase up to 24 months initially.

They usually name their $4.88 offer as 35% off offer and their $3.88 offer as 50% off offer. I do not know how they get the percentage number at all! Either me or them have failed in the math class.

One Plan	Regular Price Per Month	Regular Price Total	Offer Price
12 Month	$8.95	$107.40	$3.88 ($46.56) or $4.88 ($58.56)
24 Month	$7.95	$190.80	$3.88 ($93.12) or $4.88 ($117.12)
36 Month	$6.95	$250.20	N/A

All Renewal Pricing At Once!

The following is a table showing the renewal pricing for all the top hosts.

Web Host	12 Month	24 Month	36 Month
BlueHost	$8.95	$7.95	$6.95
HostGator Hatcling	$6.95	$5.95	$5.95
HostGator Baby	$9.95	$8.95	$7.95
iPage	$8.95	$7.95	$6.95
JustHost	$8.95	$7.95	$6.95
FatCow	$8.95	$7.95	$6.95
GreenGeeks	$7.95	$6.95	$4.95
LunarPages Basic	$8.95	$6.95	$4.95
PowWeb	$8.95	$7.95	$6.95

Did you notice?

All prices end with .95
BlueHost, iPage, JustHost, FatCow and PowWeb share the same regular pricing
The overall most expensive "winner" is HostGator
The overall cheapest host is GreenGeeks
All monthly price still below $10, that's why my website is called the $10 Cheap Web Hosting Directory. :)

HostGator Black Friday 2011 Sale Is Back! 50% OFF for Everything

James — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 03:52:38 +0000

The promotion will start at midnight, Friday, November 25th, 2011 Central Standard Time (-6 GMT) and will run until 11:59PM CST Friday, November 25th, 2011.

No coupon codes required. Just hit this link directly.

Offer applies to initial payment only and renew at regular pricing thereafter. So the longer you subscribe, the more you can save.

A preview of the pricing:-

50% Black Friday Discount for Initial Order

Contract	Hatchling Normal Price	After 50% Discount	Baby Normal Price	After 50% Discount
12 Month	$83.40	$41.70	$119.40	$59.70
24 Month	$142.80	$71.40	$214.80	$107.40
36 Month	$214.20	$107.1	$286.20	$143.10

Make sure you read our comprehensive HostGator Review to learn why HostGator is highly recommended!

Web Hosting Services Explained - Shared Hosting? Dedicated Server? VPS? Cloud Hosting?

James — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:23:58 +0000

If you are new to web hosting, you will certainly be very confuse with the different types of web hosting services being offered. Don't worry. After reading this article, you should be able to understand all of them and know exactly what you need.

What is a server?

When a hosting company starts a hosting business, it needs to have at least one server. What is a server? It is nothing but a high performance computer with high speed internet connection.

It doesn't look like a desktop computer we are using. It doesn't need to look stylish but it needs to be practical. This is a Dell dekstop PC.

This is a Dell server.

You will notice that a server doesn't come with a monitor, keyboard and mouse. You will also notice that instead of a tower casing, it is a "rack mount" case.

Unlike most of us who will only have 1 or 2 desktop computers at home, a hosting company owns and operates a lot of servers and to be as practical as possible, the "rack mount" case is used so that a lot of servers can be mounted into the server rack. This will save a lot of space and make connecting all the cables easier. The rack will also provide features such as cooling and power supply.

And because all servers are networked together, you don't need a separate monitor, mouse and keyboard for every one of them. All you need is one set and you can control any of the server.

What is a datacenter?

The place where you put all your servers and racks is known as the datacenter. The reason why hosting servers need to be placed in datacenter instead of a normal office is because millions of dollars have been invested in the high speed internet connection to the data center. These connections are a few thousand times faster than ordinary broadband connection.

What is dedicated server hosting?

So if you want to host your website and you rent an entire server from your hosting company, you are using a dedicated server hosting, or simply dedicated hosting.

The cheapest dedicated server offered by HostGator cost you $139 per month!

But that's overkill for 99% of us!!! A server, even a low end one can serve a few million visitors a month without any problem. But most webmasters like you and me owns very simple websites or blogs that don't even require 0.1% of the power. And that's exactly why we have shared hosting.

What is shared hosting?

It means instead of paying for the entire server which is very expensive and overkill, we pay a small sum per customer/website and share the server with other customers/websites.

This is what my website is all about, reviewing and suggesting the best shared hosting service to you that won't cut a hole in your wallet. Anything more than $10/month is considered expensive.

Here are some of the "unlimited" shared hosting and their pricing.

HostGator	$7.46
iPage	$4.50
JustHost	$5.95
GreenGeeks	$5.45
LunarPages	$6.27
FatCow	$5.58
PowWeb	$4.88

What is semi-dedicated server hosting?

This is something in between a dedicated server and shared hosting. Or we can say it is the same as shared hosting but you share it with less people. Just for illustration, a hosting company might host 1,000 websites on their shared hosting but host only 20 on the semi-dedicated server. Maybe a better name is "less crowded shared hosting". Of course it will be more expensive than the normal "crowded" shared hosting.

Again from my experience, most of us don't need this. We all begin with shared hosting and if we ever reach the limit, our web host will inform us and that's the time we need to consider this option.

Usually we breach the limit because we host too many websites in 1 shared account. We can just purchase another shared hosting account and move some websites over. We don't even need to upgrade to a semi-dedicated or dedicated server which is probably more expensive.

What is VPS hosting (Virtual Private Server)?

Virtual means not real. Virtual private server means not really a "real" server. When you own a dedicated server, you own the full control of the server. But when you are using a shared hosting, you have limited control over the server.

A full control on your dedicated server means you can even format or shut down the server! You hosting company definitely won't allow you to do that if you are using their shared hosting service. All critical controls of the shared hosting remain with the hosting company so a single customer cannot sabotage the whole server and affect hundreds or thousands of other customers sharing the same server.

VPS is a funny breed between dedicated server and shared hosting. You are indeed sharing the server with someone else and yet you have "full" control over your "virtual server" where you can shut it off, restart it or even format it. This is achieved by using intelligent VPS software. So that means if you screw up your own "virtual server", you won't affect other customers sharing the same physical server with you.

The benefit of VPS is that it is cheaper than a dedicated server because you are sharing a physical server with someone else. And yet you retain the full power to your server almost exactly the same as a dedicated server.

While owning control over a server seems interesting, but 99% of us doesn't even understand a basic Linux commands (or maybe never even heard of the word Linux) and how do you suppose we are able to manage the server our self? So again, 99% of us need shared hosting and only shared hosting.

What is managed hosting?

A managed hosting is a more expensive dedicated hosting but with added service. If you use a dedicated hosting, you will need to manage the server yourself including upgrading the operating system and software. Customers who choose to use a dedicated server usually have hired some IT staff to manage the servers. On the other hand, if you pay for managed hosting, the hosting company will help you to manage your server to a certain extend. The "management" service they provides is still very limited because they won't help you to design and maintain your website. They are only responsible for keeping your server updated and running all the time.

What is co location hosting?

For all hosting types we have discusses so far, the server still belongs to the hosting company. You are just renting it (dedicated hosting, managed hosting) or part of it (shared hosting, semi dedicated, vps). You can also buy your own server and rent a rack space in their datacenter and this is known as co location hosting. You pay less to the hosting company but you will need to pay for the server. And when you terminate your contract, the server still belongs to you. The reason why you want to co locate the server in their datacenter instead of in your own office is because you want to use their high speed internet connection.

What is cloud hosting?

There are many websites that are so heavy loaded that they require more than 1 server, i.e. Google, Facebook, Youtube, etc. There companies pay millions of dollars each month to maintain their hosting servers. Their servers farms are even bigger than many web hosting companies!

Because there are so many servers connected with each other to serve the same website, intelligent cloud hosting software is required to keep balancing the load between the servers. Visitor #1 may be directed to server A and visitor #2 may be directed to server B.

With cloud hosting, there is almost no downtime because if a server crash, there are many more running and the cloud hosting software can just direct the traffic to another server. Where else if your dedicated server crash, your entire website will be down. Even a short reboot of your dedicated server will cause a short downtime.

The other benefit is faster connection for the visitor. For example, Google has servers all around the world and they will direct a visitor to a server nearest to their location. A Canadian will be directed to a server in Canada while a Japanese will be directed to a server in Japan.

Do you need cloud hosting? You will remember that I said most of us don't even need a dedicated server and why would we want to pay for multiple servers? Actually what the hosting companies offer are not the entire cloud hosting but "shared cloud hosting". You share the cloud hosting network with many other customers by paying a small amount of money and enjoy all the benefits of cloud hosting.

Everything has their strengths and weaknesses. For cloud hosting, the weaknesses are security and higher chance of data corruption. This is because your data is now hosted in multiple servers and locations which means hackers have more places to poke your website. And because data need to be synchronized between all servers, a bad synchronization may corrupt your data. Maintaining your website become more complicated. Cloud hosting is also more expensive than traditional hosting.

If you want to learn more on cloud hosting you can also read a brief on cloud hosting. I am personally not a fan of cloud hosting due to the complication. I will stick to the traditional hosting and recommend everyone to do so.

Conclusion

If you haven't get it yet, I will have to repeat it again. 99% of us will only need shared hosting. We will know when we breach the limit (your web host will tell you) and only at that time we will need to consider the upgrade options.

If you believe there is a chance you are the 1%, hosting with a full service hosting providers such as HostGator and LunarPages will be beneficially because they offer everything from shared hosting to VPS hosting to dedicated servers. Upgrading from one to another will be easier.

Many web hosting companies such as iPage and FatCow offer only shared hosting and do not offer upgrade options. You will have to move your entire website to another web hosts if you really breach their limits.

Again as mentioned earlier, most of the time we don't need to upgrade but simply to purchase more shared hosting accounts and move some of our websites over.

Recommended Reading:-

- Unlimited hosting is a marketing gimmick and I have explained it in my post why unlimited hosting is limited.

- All the best web hosting services you can trust fully reviewed by me.

Domain Hosting Explained - What is the Relationship between Domain Name and Web Hosting?

James — Wed, 25 May 2011 13:51:28 +0000

Domain name and web hosting are 2 totally different services but they are heavily dependant on each other.

Domain name is nothing but a label. You cannot use it to store anything. Web hosting is actually the storage space itself where you can store the content of your website in it.

Let's look at a bottle of apple juice. The label is "ABC Apple Juice" but the label cannot be used to store the juice, it is the bottle itself that can be used to store the juice. The label is the domain name, the bottle is the web host. The same label can be stuck to any bottle the manufacturer wants.

Because domain name and web hosting are separated, the benefit is that once you become the rightful owner of the "label", you can choose whatever "bottle" you want. Coca cola can choose whatever bottle they want. If you are the rightful owner of a domain name, you can choose whatever web host you want and you can change your web host anytime you want.

Becoming a rightful owner of a domain name is as simple as paying a registration fee, say $15 for the right to use the domain name for 1 year. You can always renew it after it expires.

How is a domain name linked to a web host?

There are many different web hosting providers out there such as iPage and JustHost. So how do the internet knows where exactly is your domain hosted? The linkage is done using just 1 simple setting known as DNS. DNS stands for Domain Name System.

Everytime you sign up with a web host, they will give you their DNS setting that look something like this:-

ns1.ipage.com
ns2.ipage.com

[ns stands for nameservers]

All you need to do is to update your domain name with the given setting in the control panel of your domain registrar and hualaaa, your domain name is now linked to your web host. Let's say you are not happy with iPage or you found a cheaper host later, you can simply sign up with the new host and update the DNS setting and you domain name is now linked to your new web host.

Do you need to register your domain name with your web host?

Again, domain name and web hosting are 2 different services but they are heavily related to each other. Almost all domain name registrars provide hosting services and almost all web hosts provide domain name registration. They will usually major in one service but they will almost certainly provide both. So a domain registrar is also a web host and a web host is also a domain registrar.

Just like you can have your sandwich in Starbucks although they major in coffee or you can have your coffee in McDonald's although they major in hamburgers. You can get them at the same place, but that doesn't mean you have to. You can grab you burger at McDonald's but your coffee at Starbucks or the other way round.

Should you register your domain name with your web host?

There is no harm registering your domain name with your web host as long as you are using a reputable web hosts such as HostGator.

Most web hosts are providing free domain name with their hosting package which means you don't need to pay for it. I think this is a very good reason to register your domain name with them. [Unfortunately some web host such as HostGator doesn't offer free domain name. HostGator charges $15 per domain name.]

There are a few reasons why you don't want to register your domain name with your web host. Pricing is the biggest reason. If they are selling you a domain name for $15 and you can get it for $10 elsewhere, you can save $5 by registering at the other registrar.

By not registering your domain name with your web host, you can also prevent your web host from keeping you hostage.

Even you are the rightful owner of the domain name, you still need to control everything through them. Just like you make a bank deposit with a bank and you are the rightful owner of your money, you still need to collect your money through the bank. The bank can go bankrupt, freeze your money or have lousy service. A nasty web host can also go bankrupt, freeze your domain name or have a broken control panel. They can freeze your domain name claiming that you have not pay your hosting bill although you know you have canceled your hosting service long ago (such as in WebHostingPad scam).

The key point here again is reputation, just like how you choose your bank. Registering a domain name in another place doesn't mean you can avoid all the risks. For example, a budget domain registrar RegisterFly went belly up a few years ago. The control panel was broken and no one could change the DNS setting, transfer their domain name away or even renew their domain name. Some people lose their domain name due to expiration. It took quite sometime before the domain owners were adopted by another domain registrar.

Trying to save $5 in exchange for lose of businesses (or even lose of domain name) is certainly not worth it.

What does "transfer your domain name" mean?

You already know that a domain name is a label and you can choose whatever web host that you want as simple as changing the DNS setting.

The place where you change your setting is the place where you register your domain name. In order to comptete for your business, domain name registrars compete in prices. Some registrar charge $15 per domain, some charge $12. You can always move your domain name from a registrar to another registrar while maintaining the same web host.

"Transfer your domain name" means changing your domain registrar. There are a few reasons why you want to do that and pricing is one of them. Your web host might offer you free domain name with your hosting package but since you already got a domain name, they might offer to renew it for another year for free if you transfer your domain name to them.

Most registrar will offer cheaper fee to lure you to transfer your domain name to them. If you want to squeeze a few bucks out of your domain names every year, you can actually transfer your domains from registrar A to registrar B this year and transfer it back to registrar A next year. If you click on this link, you will notice that MyDomain.com charge only only $7.61 if your transfer your domain name to them while they charge $10.29 for new registration or renewal.

If you own 20 domain names, it may also be more convenient to have all of them registered in one place so you can control everything easily.

Please remember that changing a web host doesn't mean you need to change your domain registrar. You can keep your domain name at GreenGeeks while you change your hosting to FatCow. You will keep paying your domain fee to GreenGeeks and pay your hosting fee to iPage since both are different services.

And also changing your domain registrar doesn't mean you need to change your web host. You can move your domain name from GreenGeeks to GoDaddy while still hosting at GreenGeeks. You now pay your domain fee to GoDaddy instead of GreenGeeks.

Should you register your domain name with GoDaddy?

GoDaddy is the biggest domain registrar in the world and their price is competitive. (If you use this link, you can register a new .com for $7.49 compare to a normal price of $11.99). However, I do not recommend any other services from them including web hosting.

Whenever you register a domain name with them, they will try to sell you a lot of non related services. You will need to click a few "next" buttons before you can pay for your domain name. Non of these services are recommended other than private registration (domain privacy). This is only needed if you do not want people to know who is the real owner of the domain name (name, address, telephone number and email address).

At the checkout page, they have selected 2 years as the default terms. Usually we want to pay yearly and not biannually and I think that's not a good business practice.

Any other domain registrars?

GoDaddy is the biggest domain registrar in the world.
MyDomain.com, Domain.com and DotSter.com (which are all the same company) offer very cheap pricing.
Network Solutions pricing is bullshit ($35/year!) and is not recommended.

Summary

Domain name registration and web hosting are 2 different services but they are highly dependant on each other.
You will have to pay for both services to have your website. Some web hosts absorb your domain name fee if you use their hosting services, i.e. free domain name.
Nowadays, all domain registrars provide hosting services and all web hosts provide domain registration. So technically a domain registrar is also a web host and a web host is also a domain registrar.
You don't need to register your domain name at the same place you purchase your web hosting and vice versa.
You can change your web host without changing your domain registrar. You can change your domain registrar without changing your web host. You can also change both at once.

This website focuses on reviewing the best web hosting services out there that are below $10 a month. You can see the recommended and not recommended web hosts on the left navigation bar. Choosing a good web hosting company is more difficult than choosing a good domain name registrar. A good web host is almost certainly a good domain registrar but a good domain registrar might not be a good host.

Make sure you read our domain hosting reviews to learn more about all the hosting companies.

How to Transfer Your Facebook Profile Username to Your Facebook Fan Page?

James — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 09:06:14 +0000

Most of us have been asking how we can transfer our facebook profile username [also known as vanity URL] to our facebook page.

There are 2 reasons why we want to do that:-

1. We have registered our username for our profile earlier and now we have created a page and would like to transfer the name to our page. An ordinary facebook profile requires your approval to add friends while a facebook fan page requires only someone to click on the LIKE button to become your fans. There is also a limit of 5,000 friends to a profile but no limit to a fan page. So for marketing purpose, it is more suitable to use a facebook page.

2. You are trying to register a username for your page and due to the ill and sicked facebook interface, you ended up register the username to your profile instead!!! This was what happened to me and I have read so many feedback that the same thing has happened to many facebook users as well!

This is because when you try to register your page username under the page settings page, you will never have thought that the first username you provide will actually go to the profile instead! REPEAT: EVEN if you are doing all of these in the page settings page by clicking on the link labeled as "Create a username for this page?" !!!!

Before you can set a username for your page, you will need 25 likes. The username setting will be disabled until you reach it. And so you wait patiently for your 25th fan to click 'like' and rush to register a username. After you got it only you realized it has been assigned to your profile instead! And I am shocked this has happened for so long to so many people and yet the facebook programmers still haven't do anything about it!

And please remember that there is no way for you to contact facebook. There is no telephone number. There is no contact form. You are on your own.

To disallow cyber squatting of facebook usernames, i.e. reserving a username in the hope to sell it later for profit just like what they did to the domain names [the .com], facebook set out the following rules:-

1. You can only change your facebook profile username once. If you register Banana as your first username and hate it, you can change it to Strawberry later but you only have 1 chance. After that you won't be able to change it anymore and facebook claims that after your change your username to Strawberry, your previous username Banana will not be made available to anyone else!!! It will be locked out. So you cannot sell this username.

2. For facebook fan page, you DO NOT have the chance to change your username. You only have 1 chance and that's the first chance. If you pick a wrong one, it will be like a bad tattoo on your body. So make sure you choose wisely.

They have to work very hard to stop cyber squatting or else there will be a lot of fake facebook accounts and pages created every seconds in hope to profit from it. This will be a nightmare to facebook and its community. Maybe we will have 200 Bill Clintons and 4,000 Mariah Carey.

Facebook usernames are NOT case sensitive, but they will display it the way you register it. So Strawberry or strawBERRY or strawberry all belongs to you but once directed to facebook, it will be cased to your registered casing - Strawberry. So you may want to make sure it is the correct casing you want because you won't be able to change it later as well.

We are not cyber squatters. We have very valid reasons to transfer our profile username (which belongs to us anyway) to our fan page (which also belongs to us). There is also no money involved. And due to facebook sicked interface, many of us have actually accidentally registered our page username to our profile!

What stated by facebook officially is only half true. Old usernames will be made available again but not immediately, creating an unknown black out period to make cyber squatting difficult to work out.

After you execute your only right to change your profile username to something else and immediately rush to register the old name to your fan page, it will be stated as "Not Available". This will definitely scare the shit out of you.

Do not panic! Many of us has reported that once you wait enough, the old username will be released and the "good" news is that you only need to wait from several days to around 2 weeks. I have mine released around 14-16 days which I can't remember correctly. All you need to do is check the availability everyday and wait until it is available. DO NOT give up and register for a subpar username that you really don't want because that will be permanent! Patience is the key here.

My username is released on 9 March 2011 which means the information in this blog post is at least valid until this date. I will have the comment form open for this article below and please report your positive (or negative) experience on changing your username so it can help other people who have the same problem.

Facebook can change the rules anytime they want and we hope this information will still be valid as long as it can.

Disclaimer: PLEASE execute the username change/transfer at your own risk because there is no guarantee it will work. It has work for me and many others but it still doesn't mean it will work for you! Maybe you need to go to the church more for this.

Web Hosts Are Not Providing "Free Scripts". They Are Providing Scripts Installer. Introducing Fantastico and InstallCentral.

James — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 08:16:25 +0000

Most webmasters do not know what they are looking for when searching for a web hosting plan. To guide them, they use the "common sense" called "the more is the better" when comparing different plans.

So, they always jump at the word "UNLIMITED" and the word "FREE". They believe the more unlimited a plan is and the more free items that have, the better it will be.

But unfortunately this is not really the case. One of the good example is unlimited hosting which has been discussed in my post unlimited hosting is limited.

Today we are going to look at another misunderstanding known as "Free Scripts Included".

Seen above is part of the feature list of iPage. They didn't call it "free scripts included" but "power plugins". You will come across many different names from different web hosts and you will later understand what do they really mean.

If you didn't sign up for iPage. You can still get WordPress for free by going to wordpress.org. All you need to do is click on the "Download Wordpress" button and you can get WordPress for FREE! I repeat - FREE!

So if it is already free before you purchase a hosting account, what are you really getting actually? Isn't it the same as a hotel room advertising free "air" or free "oxygen"?

All other scripts can be downloaded as well from their respective websites for free. Here is just a short list.

Joomla - joomla.org
Drupal - drupal.org
Gallery2 - gallery.menalto.com
phpBB - phpbb.com
SMF - simplemachines.org

This blog post is now including "free scripts"! Can you pay me $4.50 for it? Ok, ok, how about $0.50? A beer? ... no, you simply won't pay me for giving you "free air".

The Real Value is Not the Free Scripts But the Scripts Installer

All these scripts are free and everyone who has an internet connection can download and use them. There are ten of thousands of such scripts available.

The problem is if you download them yourself, you will have to install them yourself. We call it manual installation.

When doing manual installation, the "simple" steps will at least involve the following:-

Download the free script from their official website.
Create a new database in your hosting account for your new script.
Create a new database user and assign it to your database.
Unzip you free script. Locate the "setting" file and enter your database name, database username and password.
Upload all your files to your hosting account.
Run through the online installation program.

It is really not that difficult if you have basic technical knowledge on this but unfortunately, most users don't poses such minimum technical knowledge. All they want is an instant website, like their instant noodles.

So web hosts develop something similar to instant noodles, the auto script installer. Now instead of downloading the script yourself and create the database manually, you can just click a few buttons in the control panel and it will automate everything for you. So you get "instant script".

This is the real value you are getting for what you pay, not the free scripts itself. What they are giving is the script installer, not the free scripts.

From now onwards when you see free scripts included in a hosting plan, it is referring to the auto installer for this script.

The 2 Popular Scripts Installers

The 2 most popular scripts installers are Fantastico and InstallCentral. Fantastico is used by web hosts using the CPanel control panel (such as HostGator) why InstallCentral is used by web hosts using the vDeck control panel (such as iPage and FatCow).

The number of scripts available in the installer is standard among all other web hosts. That means you really don't need to look at the script list. If they are using Fantastico, host A will have the same list as host B. So HostGator will have the same scripts as LunarPages and iPage will have the same scripts as FatCow because they are using the same installer.

So what matter to you is what control panel and scripts installer they are using and you will know the rest.

Scripts in Fantastico de luxe (CPanel)

Blogs - b2evolution, Nucleus, WordPress
Classifieds - Noahs Classifieds
Content Management - Drupal, GeekLog, Drupal, Joomla, Joomla 1.5, Mambo, PHP-Nuke, phpWCMS, phpWebSite, Siteframe, TYPO3, Xoops, Zikula
Customer Relationship - Crafty Syntax Live Help, Help Center Live, osTicket, PerlDesk, PHP Support Tickets, Support Logic Helpdesk, Support Services Manager
Discussion Boards - phpBB, SMF
E-Commerce - CubeCart, OS Commerce, Zen Cart
F.A.Q. - FAQMasterFlex
Hosting Billing - AccountLab Plus, phpCOIN
Image Galleries - 4Images Gallery, Coppermine Photo Gallery, Gallery
Mailing Lists - PHPlist
Polls and Surveys - Advanced Poll, LimeSurvey, phpESP
Project Management - dotProject, PHProjekt, Site Builders, Soholaunch Pro Edition, Templates Express
Wiki - TikiWiki CMS/Groupware, PhpWiki
Other Scripts - Dew-NewPHPLinks, Moodle, Open-Realty, OpenX, PHPauction, phpFormGenerator, WebCalendar

Scripts in InstallCentral (vDeck)

Content Management System (CMS): Joomla, Drupal, Mambo, e107
Blogs: WordPress, PixelPost, b2evolution
Picture Galleries: Coppermine, Gallery2, ZenPhoto
Forum: GBook, phpBB, SMF
Shopping Cart: osCommerce, AgoraCart, ZenCart
Others: Gregarius, MediaWiki, SugarCRM, X7Chat, WebCalendar, Moodle, OpenRealty...

You will notice that Fantastico is providing more scripts than InstallCentral. But again, don't be a slave to "the more is the better" mindset because you don't need to use most as many are unpopular scripts.

Weaknesses of Scripts Installers

Don't be too happy with scripts installers as they have a lot of weaknesses too. All scripts will release new versions from time to time, either a small update or a big upgrade. It will take a long delay before the version you see in the script installer matches the newest version because it takes time for the programmers to work and test the installation script. Having less scripts in the installer becomes an advantage here because the programmers can focus only on the most popular scripts.

Not only scripts installers have to do new installation, they will also need to perform upgrade actions, i.e. upgrading existing installations to the newer versions. Upgrading a script is more complicated than a new installation, it is like trying to fix a car when the engine is still running. Programmers have to spend more effort to make sure the upgrades work.

Unfortunately, sometimes it simply doesn't work out as expected and your script may not be upgraded properly, non geeks calling it "being screwed". If you have a backup, you can restore to the old version (you can call it "unscrewing"). If you don't have a backup, I am sure you will start cursing everyone from the programmer's mum to the China president.

Backup! Always backup before you do an upgrade.

Most experience webmasters will not do auto installation because they want full control. They can upgrade their script immediately without waiting for the installer to be updated. They can do a lot more if the installation fail because it is their own doing and everything will still be under their control.

Learning how to install you own scripts is worth your time and effort.

Another Advantage of Scripts Installers

While it is true that experienced webmasters seldom use the script installer, it will come a time that the scripts installer will be handy - when you need to test new scripts. Instead of wasting lots of time configuring and installing the script manually, you can just install it with a few clicks, play with it and if you don't like, uninstall it with another few clicks. You can have "free trial" easily.

Final Notes

We have so far discussed the 2 most popular scripts installers. There are many other installers out there depending on the web hosts. For example, BlueHost and HostMonster installer is known as SimpleScripts. Some web hosts don't even have a script installer.

We end our discussion with the list of recommended web hosts and their installers.

Fantastico	InstallCentral
HostGator	iPage
JustHost	FatCow
LunarPages	PowWeb

Why "Unlimited Hosting" is Actually Limited! Understanding Your Limitations and Know How You Will be Affected

James — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 21:16:41 +0000

HostGator is a full service web hosting provider. It provides anything from shared hosting to dedicated hosting.

If you host on a dedicated server, you own the entire server. On the other hand, if you are using shared hosting, you are sharing the the server with many other users like you. All of you will split the cost of the server so it won't cut a hole in your wallet.

HostGator Baby plan, an "unlimited" shared hosting plan with unlimited disk space, bandwidth, websites, emails and databases cost you $9.95/month. A basic dedicated server will cost you $174/month and comes with a "limit" of 250GB disk space and 1,500GB bandwidth.

[This website is hosted on HostGator "Unlimited" Baby Plan]

Now the most interesting question - Why the basic dedicated server that comes with a limit cost you 17 times more than your "unlimited" web hosting plan?! :)

Why would people want to pay $174 for a limited plan? Why don't they just host with the $9.95 unlimited plan?

The answer is simply because there is really no such thing as unlimited web hosting and all web hosting plans in this planet are always limited. Simple logic will tell you that unlimited hosting is impossible.

If unlimited hosting is possible with a $9.95/month hosting, why do YouTube.com has to spent millions of dollars each year on hosting alone? Those giant sites like Google.com and Facebook.com that serve millions of users a day should just pay $9.95/month to host with HostGator Baby plan and save a few million dollars!

Why Web Hosts have to "Cheat"?

All web hosts selling shared hosting today have to cheat and sell "unlimited hosting" because web hosting is a very competitive business. Shared hosting plans are sold to small users and small businesses instead of BIG businesses. Such users are usually idiots (except you of course) and most of them don't really understand the specification of their hosting plan! For them, their mums had taught them that "the more the better".

Web hosts compete with each other by offering more and more. More and more disk space, more and more bandwidth. Idiots Consumers will simply pick the one offering the most. 1GB became 2GB, 2GB became 20GB, 20GB became 2,000,0000,000,000,000 GB and soon a web host decided to offer "unlimited"! Every other web hosts follow suit. And now every web hosts selling shared hosting plan will have "unlimited" everything.

They are "cheating" to survive the harsh business environment. If they don't "cheat", they will be out of business.

What are the Common "Unlimited" Features they are Marketing?

There are 5 features that are usually marked with unlimited. They are disk space, bandwidth, emails, databases and websites/domains.

However, not all 5 items will be "unlimited". Many hosting plans are still limiting you to 1 website per account.

What are the Real Limits of your "Unlimited Hosting"?

When you choose a web hosting provider, you need to understand your limits. There are many different ways that web hosts can implement the limit. Some are stated clearly while some are vague.

The first common limitation is the inodes limit. Inodes are simply the geek term for files. Number of inodes means number of files. BlueHost "unlimited" plans are limited to 200,000 inodes. HostGator has an inodes limit of 250,000.

[HostGator showing my inodes usage]

Almost all web hosts will also state that you can't use your web hosting account as your online backup. All files that you store in your hosting account must be linked and used by your website.

But most web hosts do not specify the limit clearly. Their usual terms and conditions will simply be "not jeopardizing" the server, which means "it is really up to me".

While usage of disk space, bandwidth, emails, databases and websites can be easily calculated, there are also usage that are harder to measure, i.e. CPU power and memory usage.

Each server are shared with thousands or customers and they all share the same CPU power and memory.

Other limitations are within common sense. If you sign up a $4.50 "unlimited" account and start giving free email accounts to everyone like Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, you are guaranteed to be suspended.

More about Inodes Limit

Inodes limit measure the number of files. Unfortunately, this can be very limiting sometimes. You may have a few "unsuccessful" websites that receive little to no traffic, so you don't use much bandwidth. You installed several scripts on each of your websites using the script installer and since these scripts are consist of mostly small text files, you don't use much disk space as well. But although you use very little disk space and bandwidth, you still use a lot of inodes! So inodes limitation is a bit unfair. Fortunately, hosts that implement inodes limit usually set a very high limit.

Limitation Policy by Some Popular Web Hosts

BlueHost, HostMonster - 200,000 inodes limit. In their words: "Bluehost's offering of "unlimited" services is not intended to allow the actions of a single or few subscribers to unfairly or adversely impact the experience of other Subscribers."

HostGator - 250,000 inodes limit. Cannot use 25% or more of system resources for longer then 90 seconds. Cannot run any MySQL queries longer than 15 seconds. Account using more than 20 gigs of disk space will be removed from off site weekly backup. etc.

iPage, Fatcow - "Normal" usage. Normal usage means that you operate a personal or small business website that utilizes resources in a manner similar to most of our other customers. (Means, don't look like an alien!)

JustHost - "The Services are intended for normal use only, and any activity that results in excessive usage that is inconsistent with normal usage patterns is strictly prohibited."

Among all web hosts, HostGator has the clearest usage policy.

Do all these Matter to You?

You will only be affected if you hit the limit of their "unlimited plan". You will either have to upgrade your hosting plan (means pay more dude) or in the case that your web host doesn't have upgrade options, you will have to move to another host. Or if you are hosting multiple websites, you can move some of the websites to a new account (again, pay more dude).

That's why we will still need to be cautions on our web host limitation. We would like to have a web hosts that is more generous and flexible. Also, a host that will give us more time to resolve the issue is better than a host that will suspend our account straight away. That's why we want to stick with reputable web hosts.

Don't be too upset if you hit the limit because that would means you are really doing very well with your website. It will be time to move on (pay more) to higher plans. Money will solve all your problem.

If one BlueHost account is not enough, get two. If two is not enough, get three!

31 Domain Name Questions Regarding BlueHost/HostMonster

James — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 09:49:14 +0000

Do I need a domain name to host with BlueHost/HostMonster? Must I register it with BlueHost?

Yes, you will need a domain name. You can either register a new domain name directly with them when you sign up, or you can use an existing domain name registered elsewhere.

Does BlueHost/HostMonster provides free domain registration? Do I need to pay for my "free" domain name when I renew my account?

Your domain name will be FREE for the first year only. You will have to renew it at $11.95/year on next year.

Do I need to transfer my domain name to BlueHost?

No. All you need to do is to change the DNS settings of that domain name. Of course you can transfer the domain name over if you want. Read my article on domain hosting if you are confused with domain name and web hosting.

Can I get a another FREE domain name if I already have my own domain name to sign up with?

Yes! If you use an existing domain name on sign up, you will be given a FREE domain coupon to register for a new domain name of your choice later. You can also use it to transfer your existing domain name to BlueHost and have it extended for another year. Only 1 coupon is given and you won't get another coupon on your second and third year even if you pay for 36 months of hosting. Domain renewal will cost $11.95/year each after that.

The following screen shows that I still have 1 free coupon to use since I signup with an existing domain name.

What domain name extensions can I register with BlueHost/HostMonster?

You can register .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .us.

Can I host international domain names, e.g. .uk, .jp, .ws, etc. with BlueHost/HostMonster? Can I register one with them?

Yes, you can use any domains that you owned as long as you are able to change the domain's DNS servers settings to BlueHost or HostMonster. Although you can host international domain names with them, you cannot register a new one with them. You have to register it with the government authorized registrar and change the DNS settings to point to BlueHost or HostMonster.

What is BlueHost DNS nameservers settings?

ns1.bluehost.com
ns2.bluehost.com

What is HostMonster DNS settings?

ns1.hostmonster.com
ns2.hostmonster.com

Do I own my domain name if I register it with BlueHost/HostMonster?

Yes, you own the complete rights to your domain name when you register it with BlueHost/HostMonster. You are the rightful owner of the domain name. But just like putting money into a bank account, if the bank goes bankrupt, we will still able to get our money back but it will be quite troublesome. That's why we want our domain name to be registered with a reputable company such as BlueHost or HostMonster, just like we will only deposit our money in a reputable bank.

How many domains can I host with BlueHost/HostMonster? What is BlueHost domain pricing?

You can host UNLIMITED domain names with BlueHost/HostMonster. They don't charge you anything for "hosting" the domain name but you still need to pay for the registration. You can register a new domain for $11.95 through BlueHost or you can register it with any other registrar and change the DNS servers settings to point to BlueHost/HostMonster. Different domain registrars offer different pricing.

If I register a domain name with BlueHost/HostMonster, can I host it with another web host?

Yes! All you need to do is to change the DNS settings of that domain to the new settings (usually but not always - ns1.hostname.com, ns2.hostname.com). But why do you want to do that if BlueHost can host everything for you for free?

What are primary domain and addon domains?

Primary domain is the main domain that you setup the account with. Addon domains are extra domain names that you want to host under the same account. Technically, there can only be one primary domain but you can have unlimited addon domains.

Can I setup different email accounts with each addon domain?

Yes, you can setup unlimited email accounts with all your addon domains hosted under the same account. You can also setup email accounts on all your subdomains.

What is a subdomain?

A subdomain is an extension to the front of your domain name, separated by the '.' symbol. A subdomain is created to serve another website. For example, yahoo.com setup a subdomain mail.yahoo.com to act as their email service website.

Can I setup sub domain on my addon domain?

Yes, you can setup sub domain on your addon domain the same way you setup a sub domain with your primary domain. You can even setup subdomain on a subdomain!

Can I change my primary domain later? How much does it cost?

Yes, you can change your primary domain to another domain and it is free. For example, if you prefer one of your add-on domain to be your primary domain later, you can ask them to do it for you. But I strongly encourage you to pick the right primary domain name to begin with.

How do I choose a good primary domain?

Based on my experience and the way files and directories are organized, I would recommend the use of a "holder" domain as the primary domain. The holder domain is not your content site. You setup all your content sites as addon domains. This 2-level organization (1) a holder -> (2)content sites is more organized compared to (1) primary content site -> (2) more content sites.

Another advantage is if you want to migrate your websites from a web host to another web host, it is far more easy to migrate an add-on domain compare to a primary domain because you don't need to affect other websites in your old account. If you migrate a primary domain, you will affect everything that "lives" on it (i.e. all the add-ons) because the primary domain is the "root".

So it is a good idea to use your FREE BlueHost domain name registration to register a new holder domain especially if you already have an existing domain name to use.

What is the difference between a parked domain and an addon domain?

Addon domain creates a different folder in your main hosting account which can be used to host a totally different website than your primary domain. A parked domain (or sometimes called domain pointer) will simply point to your primary domain which means you just give your primary domain another name.

Let's say there are 2 domains, Bill.com and Gates.com. If Gates.com is a parked domain, it will show the same contents as Bill.com, giving Bill.com a second name. On the other hand, if Gates.com is an addon domain, it will be another website, maybe a wrought iron gates manufacturer website that has nothing to do with Microsoft's Bill.com.

What is a domain pointer?

It should refer to domain "parking" as well. But sometimes people refer it as domain "forwarding".

What is domain forwarding?

Domain forwarding has the same meaning as domain redirecting. Both phases will be used interchangeably in our discussions below.

Can I redirect a domain/address to another domain/address with BlueHost/HostMonster?

You can easily redirect/forward an address to another address. You can even forward it to a domain/address that is not yours. For example, redirecting Yoursite.com/google.html to Google.com.

What exactly is the difference between "redirecting" and "parking"?

When you redirect/forward a domain, Bill.com will refresh to Gates.com and you will now see Gates.com showing in your browser address bar. On the other hand, if it is parked domain, typing Bill.com or Gates.com will load the same site BUT the address will remain the same in the address bar depending on which name you type in.

Redirect = jump from one place to another. Parking = 2 names for the same place.

Can I "park" a domain to an addon domain?

Since there is only 1 primary domain and many addon domains, we will often want to "park" a domain to an addon domain. Remember that parking means giving a domain another name (instead of jumping from one to another). We can do that by adding the new domain as an addon domain but link it to the same folder of the old domain. Now the new domain is "parked" to the old domain.

addon domain -> folder
Bill.com -> /bill/
Gates.com -> /bill/

What is domain alias?

Domain alias is the same as domain parking, i.e. giving a domain another name. However, the term is not used in CPanel (BlueHost/HostMonster's control panel) and so you may only encounter it somewhere else.

What is domain masking?

Similar to domain "parking", to give an existing domain another name. So far, we are concern with parking a domain name to another domain that we own. Domain masking also means "parking" to a domain/website that we don't own! You may want to load Google.com but in the address bar still showing MyFunnyWebsite.com. There are many reasons why people want to do that but most reasons are not "pretty" [i.e. making your visitors to believe a website is yours but actually it is not].

If I cancel my hosting account half way, what happen to my domain name? Can I get a refund?

If you cancel your account within the first 3 days, you can get a full refund, because the domain authority allows us to "unregister" a domain name within the first 3 days. However, if you cancel your account after that period, the domain can no longer be unregister and so you will need to pay $11.95 for it (deducted from the refund) but you will own the domain name for 1 year. You can easily host it with another website by simply changing the DNS settings to your new host. You can also transfer it away.

How do I manage my domain names with BlueHost/HostMonster?

You will have a "Domain Manager" to manage all your domain name in one place. In the domain manager, you can register new domain name, transfer a domain name, redirect a domain name and more.

How do I transfer my domain name to BlueHost/HostMonster?

You can do that in BlueHost/HostMonser's domain manager. You must have control to your domain name in your old registrar. You will need to generate a "secret code" from the old registrar and enter that secret code into BlueHost and BlueHost will take care of everything. It will usually take 5 days for a transfer to complete.

Can I transfer my domain name from BlueHost/HostMonster to another registrar?

Yes, you do it the same way as above but in a reverse direction. Get the "secret code" from BlueHost/HostMonster and enter it to your new registrar.

What is domain privacy and does BlueHost/HostMonster offer it? How much does it cost?

BlueHost domain privacy service cost $9.95/year per domain name. With domain privacy turn on, your personal registration information (address, phone number, email address, etc.) will be shielded from a domain whois search. The service is optional and you can always turn it off if you want (on each domain basis).

A domain with BlueHost domain privacy turn on will show the following information when people do a whois search on it. Anyone who want to contact the owner must now go through PrivacyProtect.org, who is of course BlueHost/HostMonster.

PrivacyProtect.org
Domain Admin (contact@privacyprotect.org)
P.O. Box 97
Note - All Postal Mails Rejected, visit Privacyprotect.org
Moergestel
null,5066 ZH
NL
Tel. +45.36946676

Can I modify specific domain DNS settings, i.e. zone files, cName and ARecord?

Yes, but these are advance settings for advanced user when they want to accomplish complicated configuration such as hosting the website with BlueHost but receiving/sending the emails with another web host. For geeks only.

10 Under-The-Radar Webmaster Tools That You Don't Want To Miss!

James — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:40:44 +0000

You have probably heard of those popular webmaster tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Dreamweaver, or maybe even Windows Live Writer and FileZilla FTP. But there are still plenty of great webmaster tools out there that is hidden under the radar. Today I will show you 10 powerful webmaster tools where chances are high that you might not even heard of them before. Most important, they are all available for FREE! Enjoy!

#1 - PhotoScape

This is my favorite. PhotoScape is a photo editor software tailor made for webmaster! You can easily resize a photo, crop it and most importantly, add a beautiful frame to it! There are hundreds of different frames that you can use. The photos of Angela Baby below have been cropped, resized and framed with only a few clicks!

The editor is only the tip of the iceberg. PhotoScape other key features include photo viewer, batch editor, photos combiner, photo splitter, animated GIF maker, screen capture, color picker, batch rename, etc. All of these are given to you FREE!

Download PhotoScape Now!

#2 - IE Tester

Windows doesn't allow us to install multiple version of Internet Explorer at the same time. But as a webmaster, we need to know how our website looks in IE 5.5, IE 6, IE 7 and IE 8! A website that looks great under IE7 might looks horrible in IE6. Before I found this tool, I have to install a virtual machine to run Windows XP and by doing that I can only see my website in IE6. No more the hassles. Now you can preview your website in any version of IE you want with this neat little tool.

By the way, the above screen capture is done painlessly using PhotoScape!

Download IETester Now!

#3 - ScreenGrab

Ever wonder how you can capture a complete webpage into an image? ScreenGrab is the answer. ScreenGrab is a small add-on for Firefox that allows you to capture the webpage into a PNG of JPG file. You can capture with 4 different options - complete web page, only visible portion, the entire window or your custom selection.

ScreenGrab captured my entire homepage into a long image file. Again, I have used PhotoScape splitter function to slit it into 3 equal parts and used the combine function to combine them side by side. I have also added a frame to each part with just a few clicks. Now you know the power of PhotoScape!

Download ScreenGrab Now!

#4 - JR Screen Ruler

Don't laugh. I used to measure something on the screen using a physical ruler! Or if accuracy is really not that important, I will just use my fingers. But that doesn't give me accurate reading until I found this virtual screen ruler. This screen ruler allows you to measure your screen in pixel, mm or inch. It will "float" on top of your application so you can measure anything on screen. You can make it shorter or longer at will (I mean the ruler, not...) and you can rotate it horizontally or vertically (again, the ruler). If you want to measure diagonally, use your fingers! Rotate your finger as a compass to the ruler. :)

Download JR Ruler Now!

#5 - JavaScript Packer/Compressor

What to speed up your website? Then you will need to compress your JavaScript files. I believe most of us don't write lengthy JavaScripts ourselves but when we use third party out-of-the-box scripts and plug-ins, there will be a lot of bytes in JavaScripts to save! For example, the ThickBox script that needs to be loaded on every page in my website is 15KB and after it is compressed, it became 10KB. It is a script that needs to be loaded on every page.

Again this image is captured using ScreenGrab and then cropped, resized and framed with PhotoScape.

Access JavaScript Packer Now!

#6 - User Agent Switcher

When someone requests a webpage from your server, they will inform the server what browser they are using as "user agent", be it Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari. Search engine spiders also identify themselves using "user agent".

What the hackers do are they will show the hacked page that contains many spammy links when the user agents identify themselves as search engine such as GoogleBot and Yahoo Slurp but show you the normal clean page when it is a normal browser!

Some hacker will also redirect your website to theirs when GoogleBot fetch the page, making Google thinks that your site is actually their site. So all ranking credits given to you are now given to them. Again, they are showing you the normal clean page so you really don't know why your ranking drops in Google.

By having the ability to switch your user agent to GoogleBot in your browser, you can now check for anything suspicious in your website. Your website will display the way it is shown to GoogleBot. [Tip: You can also check Google Cache]

If you are exchanging links or advertising at your partner sites, checking their website using GoogleBot might give you some unpleasant surprises where they have tagged your link as "nofollow"!

Ok, this time the above screen capture is not done with ScreenGrab but ACDSee. This is because I need to capture the active menu and the mouse cursor. [Tip: You can also capture the screen using the Print Screen key on your keyboard and paste it to PhotoScape]

Download User Agent Switcher Now!

#7 - Xenu's Link Sleuth

I have been making websites since 1997 and have been using this tool since that time! This tool and its website do look like a stone-age production but its usefulness remains as powerful as it is today. [Don't worry it is still being updated, just that it looks ugly, look at the icons!]

Xenu's Link Sleuth is a time tested software where its power comes from simplicity, speed and ease of use. Type in your website URL and click the OK button and this neat little tool will crawl your entire website and inform you on broken links.

It fetched and followed 596 URLs in 1 minute and 24 seconds. Pretty amazing.

Download Xenu's Link Sleuth Now!

#8 - Web Developer Toolbar

I believe this is not really "under the radar" as it is quite a popular tool. However, there are so many features packed in this tool that I believe you have not discovered many of them. One of them is the ability to edit cookies! You can easily change a cookie name, value and even its expiration time. This comes in handy when you are developing cookie related functions. For websites that will log you out after you close the browser, you may simply extend the cookie to some days later so you don't need to login again and again.

Other interesting features include easy resizing of browser windows, disable JavaScripts, find broken images, display document size and many many more. There are hundreds of menu items for you to choose! I am still able to discover new useful features from it time to time. You just got to explore it more.

Download Web Developer Toolbar Now!

#9 - PureText

This is a funny little tool that I am using everyday. We do a lot of copy and paste in Windows. Most of the time when we copy text from the web, we just want the text and not its style (bold, font type, font size, javascript, blue link ...). But Windows forces us to paste with full style. PureText allows us to paste just text. You can do that by clicking on its icon in the system tray or you can simply press Windows Key + V.

Before I found PureText, I need to open notepad, paste to it, select all and do another copy!

Download PureText Now!

#10 - FireBug

FireBug is more a BEAST than a bug. It is a very advanced tool but for ordinary users, its power comes from real-time editing of a webpage's HTML and CSS. So it makes customizing your blog and website easier. You can modify the HTML and CSS on the spot and see its effect in real time.

To demonstrate its power, let's look at the screen capture below. What I did was click on the "Inspect" button and select the "Google Search" button. Firebug will immediately highlight the respective HTML and CSS codes. I changed the HTML button to "GAGA Search", modified the CSS font size to 30px and we have a bigger GAGA button INSTANTLY. This makes fine tuning your website design easier, especially when you are customizing the free themes that you have downloaded for your blogs and websites.

If you stumbled upon a website with great design and you wonder how they do it, "inspect" it with FireBug and let it bring you to the exact coding of that element.

For advanced user, FireBug can even debug JavaScripts, analyze network usage and much much more. But honestly I really don't know how to do these high-end stunts.

Download FireBug Now!

Ok, that's all I can deliver today. If you have any cool tools to suggest, simply write me a comment and I will give it a try.

Disclaimer: No tools were harmed in the making of this blog post.

HostGator vs BlueHost - Who is BIGGER?

James — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:56:37 +0000

While HostGator will release their stats every month in their newsletter, BlueHost has been very secretive about their "numbers". But recently, Matt Heaton, CEO and president of BlueHost and HostMonster disclose their magic numbers for the first time, so we can now compare both side by side.

So who is bigger? Who is growing faster? Let's find out.

At first let us look at the stats for HostGator collected from their monthly newsletter.

November 2009 Stats:
Email sent: 574,475,391
Email Received: 1.04 Billion
Domains Hosted: 2,792,097
Size of Files hosted: 691 TB
Monthly Bandwidth: 3,473 TB
December 2009 Stats:
Email sent: 597,454,406
Email Received: 1.08 Billion
Domains Hosted: 2,985,686
Size of Files hosted: 729 TB
Monthly Bandwidth: 4,401 TB
January 2010 Stats:
Email Sent: 621,352,582
Email Received: 1.13 Billion
Domains Hosted: 3,105,228
Size of Files Hosted: 754 TB
Monthly Bandwidth: 4,710 TB

Next, let us look at BlueHost "secret numbers" for January 2010 released in Matt Heaton's blog post.

Total Domains Hosted: 1.9+ million domains
Total Paying Hosting Customers: More than 525,000
Total Servers: 850+ (ALWAYS rotating out older servers)
Total Sales/Billing/Support Requests Per Day: Approximately 5,000
Number of new customers (not domains) added each day (Mon-Fri): 800+
Number of new customers (not domains) added each day (Sat, Sun): 500+
Number of new domains added each month: 50,000 � 70,000
Total Bandwidth Capacity: 20 Gigabits/Second (100% ours, not shared in ANY way)
Average Hold Time For Support: 19 seconds
Number of Employees: 240+
Registrar For Domains: Fastdomain Inc (Sister company that �sells� domains to Bluehost/Hostmonster)
Outsourced services: NONE!!!!!!!
Revenue: _____ (Some things really do need to be kept private)
Profit: _____ (Some things really do need to be kept private)

* BlueHost numbers include HostMonster as both are the same company.

Now we know that in terms of size base on number of domains hosted, HostGator is bigger. HostGator number of domains hosted in January 2010 are 3.1 million while BlueHost are 1.9 million.

BlueHost is growing new domains hosted as much as 50,000 to 70,000 each month. HostGator is able to grow faster at 120,000 to 190,000 per month.

So does that means the winner is HostGator? NOT SO FAST!

The metric that we use for the comparison is the number of domains hosted which is not the best measure. The best measure would be the number of customers. Since a customer can host unlimited domains in their account, a customer that host 100 domains is still 1 customer. Unfortunately, HostGator doesn't disclose this information. BlueHost currently has 525,000 paying customers.

HostGator is a full service web hosting provider offering all kinds of hosting solutions such as shared hosting, windows hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated servers, etc. while BlueHost focus solely on Linux-based shared hosting. So the number of domains hosted are easily distorted for HostGator.

HostGator advertise their products everywhere including the offline world using BIG bill boards, magazines, radio air-time and even human skin!!! BlueHost focus their marketing effort solely online and most of their new customers come from word of mouth of their existing customers.

How Much Money Is BlueHost Making?

This will be very interesting! [It happens that my part time hobby is to analyst businesses]

Matt Heaton didn't disclose their business revenue but due to the simplicity of their business that offer only one product, we can do an accurate estimation!

Since hosting fee are recurring, and assume the average monthly price paid is $6.95, a year would be $83.40. Times the number of paying customers 525,000 will give us a revenue of $44 million a year!

They are able to increase domains by 50,000 to 70,000 each month so it would be like 720,000 a year. That would be around 37% increase a year.

So estimated revenue for BlueHost is $44 million per year and I expect this number will grow more than 30% each year for the next several years!

After I wrote this article, Matt Heaton shot me the following email.

Big problem with your evaluation. You said BlueHost does 4.4 million in revenue based on $6.95 * 525,000. That is very incorrect. $6.95 * 525,000 * 12 is more accurate (12 months in a year). That is $44.1 million in revenue per year, and actually we do MUCH HIGHER revenue than that each year.

HostGator as of January 2010 had less than 230,000 paying customers. At that time we had 525,000. They host more domains because they do reseller hosting, but they don't come close to BlueHost in revenue numbers, paid subscriber numbers, or profit. Its not even close. Please update your article to reflect this new information.

Thanks,
Matt Heaton / President Bluehost.com

So it looks like I made a very careless mistake (luckily this is not a school exam and analyzing businesses is only a hobby). The number above has been updated from 4.4 million to 44 million.

So who is BIGGER? Matt Heaton indicates that HostGator paying customers is only 230,000, which is less than half of BlueHost. If his information is correct, then BlueHost is twice larger than HostGator. So BlueHost is the winner here!

Even at half of BlueHost, HostGator will still be able to generate 22 million a year! A number that many businesses can only envy of.

I hope these figures give you more confidence on hosting with BlueHost and HostGator as you can see they are serious businesses.

For first time visitor, BlueHost is rated as the #1 host, HostMonster #2 and HostGator #3. All of them are highly recommended. Simply read my hosting reviews to find out more about them.

- BlueHost Review
- HostGator Review
- HostGator Plans Comparison - Compare HostGator shared hosting plans with BlueHost.

WebHostingPad SCAM

James — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:30:06 +0000

After I wrote my WebHostingPad review, I received many feedback from my visitors. While the reason I don't recommend them is because I don't think they are able to provide good service at $1.99/month, my visitors are telling me that they are actually a SCAM host!

This is a serious issue because we are not talking about poor customer support or poor server quality. We are talking about WebHostingPad keep charging the customer credit card even they have canceled their account. We are talking about WebHostingPad not honoring their money back guarantee. We are talking about MONEY being cheated. The worst web host we can have is a dishonest web host that want to steal our money.

Here is the email from Terry.

Beware of Web Hosting Pad. I signed up for their service because of the price and the promises that they make. Boy was that a huge mistake. So I ask for a refund per there policy in 3 days and was told in the email below that it was cancelled as well as refunded. Well its been 9 days and no refund. I disputed the charge with the Credit card company and then called them. Andrew told me that since I filed a dispute with the credit card company he was not going to issue a refund. The Credit Card company in turn told me that they would take care of it.

I am also filing a complaint with the BBB as well as the Attorney General. Until this all goes thru I just wanted to warn anyone who may be thinking about doing business to beware.

Here is a copy of the credit which they never gave!!!

Hello,

This is to inform you that your account has been canceled and that you have been issued a full refund. Please allow up to 5 business days for the refund to appear on your credit card account.

Andrew
Technical Support / Billing Manager
www.webhostingpad.com

Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: WUG-693508
Department: Cancellation
Priority: High

WebHostingPad Money Scamming Tricks

"Free" Add-ons And Trials That Will Be Billed

When you sign up, they will provide you free add-ons and trials for 30 days. These add-ons include something like spam filtering, advanced web stat, premium backup service, directory listing, SSH, etc.

But they make it difficult (or impossible) for you to cancel them so they can bill you after 30 days (for 1 whole year of service!). Many customers have canceled the "free" trial but WebHostingPad still charge them later.

Here is a reply from WebHostingPad when a customer asked for an explanation after he has canceled the free trials.

These were addon services that you checked at signup. They were free for the first 30 days and then you were to be billed if you didn't cancel the services.

Unfortunately there are no refunds on this addon packages, I can only cancel renewal for next year. If you would like us to cancel these packages please get back to us.

Please refer to our terms of service here : http://www.webhostingpad.com/billing_policy.html

Add-on Features and Services

The business directory listing is free for the first 30 days. After that, it is $12.00/year billed to your account unless canceled during the free trial period.

Advanced spam filtering and advanced website stat tracking are free for the first 30 days. After that, they are $12.00/year each billed to your account unless canceled during the free trial period.

Preferred restore service: All backup restrictions terms and conditions still apply. 30 minute restore guarantee applies to starting the backup restore. Actual time needed to complete restore will depend on size and content of the backup.

All Add-ons are non refundable once the 30 day free trial period has elapsed.

Alex
Technical Support
www.webhostingpad.com
877-998-4678

Hidden Refund Charges

Their full money back guarantee is not full because they will charge you $25 to process your refund! So once you pay them and ask for a refund, they will deduct $25 from you!

What I don't understand is the hidden costs of the refund. They said I'd have to pay for the domain. So since I paid $61.59 and the domain costs $14.59$, I would have gotten a $47 refund, I thought.

Now they also state that there's a $25 charged for refunds, whether checks or credit cards were used and that it will take 7-10 days to complete a cancellation, while the purchase and set up took less than 1 day.

Suspend Your Account After 30 Days

Since money back guarantee last for 30 days, there are incidents where customer account are suspended after 30 days by accusing the customer of violation of their terms and conditions (usually using too many resources, ahem, "unlimited" hosting?). Since they intentionally do it after 30 days, there will be no refund.

Worst still, they will not notify you after they suspend your account and you will have to find it out yourself!

Charge Your Credit Card Again Even After You Have Canceled!

Shawn wrote me an email.

Webhostingpad.com is the worst web host scam in the world� Two years ago, I made the mistake of signing up for two years of hosting through Webhostingpad.com. Three months later, I cancelled my account (lost all of my money I paid for two years)� and I went to a much better web host.

Then, I just discovered Webhostingpad.com illegally billed my credit card again for another two years without my permission! I emailed Webhostingpad.com about this, and they responded in their typical fashion- rude and ugly. I reported this fraud to my credit card company and had the charge removed. I have filed a complaint with the IC3 and the FBI. I also filed a report with the Secret Service, and am working on a report with the Attorney General and the Better Business Bureau.

Better Business Bureau Rate Them 'F'!

There are 79 complaints filed towards them and 27 of them are related to billing, 3 related to contract and 14 regarding refunds. That means half of the issues are regarding to money scams.

A grade of "F" is awarded to them on the scale of A+ to F (the lowest grade!).

Stick With Reputable Hosts!

I can forgive a web host with poor customer support. I can forgive a web host with slow server. But I cannot forgive a web host that is cheating our money. Stay away from them! Stick with the best web hosts, especially HostGator and FatCow. If you have some scary story to share, leave me a comment below.

Step By Step Guide On Signing Up With HostGator

James — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 11:39:41 +0000

HostGator has revamped the entire order system and now you can sign up painlessly without the need to go through what I have to go through last time. This article is no longer up to date.

--- --- ---

While signing up with BlueHost can be done in 2 minutes (as seen in this bluehost video), signing up with HostGator may need at least 10 minutes! There are too many options and too many page loads. You may even make some mistake and need to start all over again.

In October, I have moved this site from LunarPages to HostGator. I took the chance to capture the order process so I can show you here what you will need to go through so you won't give up half way.

Step #1 - Enter Your Domain Name

You can either register a new domain name or use an existing name. HostGator doesn't offer free domain name and if you are registering a new domain name, you will need to pay $15/year for it. If you want a free domain name, choose Blue Host instead. In my case, I will be using my existing domain name 10cheapwebhosting.com. I planned to add my real domain name 10-cheapwebhosting.com (with dash) as an add-on domain later.

Step #2 - Select Your Hosting Plan

Select your hosting plan. It will be either Hatchling, Baby or Business. Baby is recommended and is also the most popular choice because it allows you to host unlimited domains. I've selected Baby.

Step #3 - Select Billing Cycle and Enter Coupon Code

The billing cycle is either monthly, 6-months, yearly, 24-months or 36-months. Remember to enter your coupon here if it has not been automatically entered for you. The 20% discount coupon is always published in their homepage. If you want to try them for $0.01 for 1 month, use the coupon code FREEMONTH. I have selected 24-months with a 20% discount coupon because it will be cheaper that way since I will be with them for a long time.

Step #4 - Confirm Pricing, New or Existing Customer?

In this page, you will be shown your final hosting fee after the coupon discount. You will also need to tell them if you are a new customer or an existing HostGator customer. If you are an existing customer, probably you won't need to read this tutorial. So I assume you are a new customer.

Step #5 - Enter Billing Information, Username and Password

Enter your personal information and your prefered payment options here. You can pay with credit card or PayPal. You can select your own username with HostGator which is a cool feature because most web hosts will simply assign you an ugly username automatically. My previous username from LunarPage is "n0-che2" which is not easy to type and remember!

Step #6 - Confirm Your Order

Review your information before you click the "Process My Order" button. This step is very important because if you make any mistake, you will have to repeat all the steps above again! So please double check your information especially your credit card information. If there is something wrong, hit the "Correct My Information" button.

Step #7 - Order Completed!

Congratulation! You are now hosted by HostGator. You make a wise choice.

Step #8 - Check Your Email

Unlike BlueHost which offer instant account activation (where you can use your account immediately after you pay), HostGator is activating account manually. They promised to setup your account within 20 minutes. But I have mine setup in less than 5 minutes. You will receive 2 emails. The first look like this

Thank you for choosing HostGator.com as your web hosting provider. This email confirms that we have received your order.

If you have already submitted payment, your account will be setup within 20 minutes. If you have yet to make payment, you may do so by going to https://secure.hostgator.com/billing and logging in with primary email address and password specified at time of signup.

Once your account is setup, you will receive an email notification with your account information. If you fail to receive this email, please check your spam and junk email folders. If you still can't find it, please contact sales@hostgator.com with an alternative email address we can use.

Thank you again for choosing HostGator. We are looking forward to serving you soon.

Best regards,
HostGator.com

The second email will inform you that your account has been created.

Thank you for your order and welcome to the HostGator Family!

Your Package: Baby
Your Domain: 10cheapwebhosting.com
Your Username: <snip>
Your Password: <snip>
Your sites IP address:
174.120.169.220

Your name servers:
ns2153.hostgator.com
ns2154.hostgator.com

----------------------
Until your DNS has been changed and resolves to our nameservers, you can access your cPanel at:
http://gator1077.hostgator.com/cpanel

You can view your site before the DNS has been resolved at:
http://gator1077.hostgator.com/~<snip>/

If you purchased your domain name with us, the above links will allow you to view your domain before it has resolved. Your domain may not be viewable for the first 24 to 48 hours depending on your location.

There is a file called default.html in your public_html folder. This page will give you basic links and information on how to get started. You're welcome to delete this file or upload an index.html file in the public_html folder. Once that is completed, the default.html file will not show by default.

Please be sure to read:
http://www.hostgator.com/gettingstarted.html for all the information needed to manage your DNS and account.

Please, sign up at https://secure.hostgator.com/sitebuilder.php if you would like to take advantage of our Sitebuilder tool.

You can find answers to your questions in our customer knowledge base. Please visit http://support.hostgator.com/ for helpful resources, and frequently asked questions.

Please note:
Any email sent by your account within the next 12 hours will not be delivered to the recipient. After 12 hours, and any applicable DNS propagation, mail should arrive as normal.

If you are in the U.S. or Canada, your account qualifies for $50 dollars in free credit for Google Adwords pay per click program. To redeem your coupon, please login to your control panel or https://gator1077.hostgator.com:2083/frontend/x3/hg/addons/adwords.php and login with your username and password. Just follow the instructions on that page to get started!

Best regards,
HostGator.com

After your account is created, you may need to update the DNS servers of your domain name if you are using an existing domain name. The steps varies depending on who is your domain registrar but it is usually a simple procedure. HostGator has many tutorials on how to do it here.

Potential Problem #1 - Invalid Credit Card

If you entered the wrong billing information (for example, wrong credit card number), your order will not go through. You will have to start all over again! And that actually happened to me. So please make sure you really check your input at Step #6.

Potential Problem #2 - Username or Password Not Accepted

While HostGator give you the freedom to choose your own username, there are many criterias that you need to follow.

The username must be 3 to 8 characters long. It can only contain alphabets and numbers. No hyphens and spaces are allowed. It must start with a lowercase letter! For simplicity sake, please choose a short username with all lowercase letters so you can remember and type it easily.

The password must be 3 to 15 characters long. It can contain hyphens (dashes) and underscores. It must start with a lowercase letter (that means no numbers for the first character!) and it also cannot contain any part of your username.

If you don't follow these rules carefully, you will be stuck at Step #5 and it can be very annoying.

Conclusion

Signing up with HostGator is indeed a lengthy process and if you don't do it right, you may need to repeat it again. Or you may get stuck with the username and password. However, they are an incredibly good host that is highly recommended. That's why I am willing to pay them 2 years in advance! Read my Host Gator review to know what it is highly recommended.

- Best Web Hosting Chart
- HostMonster Review

LunarPages vs HostGator - A Look at CPanel vs LPCP

James — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:57:01 +0000

After hosting this website with Lunar Pages for the last 7 years (November 2002 to November 2009), I decided to move my website to Host Gator.

Why would I want to do that?

Is it because LunarPages support goes down hill? Nope, it is as good as before.

Is it because LunarPages server becomes unreliable? Nope, it is still as good as it is.

Then why?

Some more, HostGator is actually more expensive than LunarPages! Why would I want to move my site hosted with LunarPages for 7 years with great support and great server reliability to a more expensive host?

It Is Because Of Their Control Panel (LPCP vs CPanel)

LunarPages used to be using CPanel that every great web host out there are using. However, LunarPages has developed their own control panel known as the LPCP (which basically is the abbreviation of LunarPages Control Panel). [Demo]

Cpanel is a third party licensed software developed by CPanel, Inc. All web hosts need to pay them license fees before they can install it on their servers. There are 2 reasons why LunarPages wants to develop their own LCPC instead of using Cpanel.

1. To save on license fees, thus business cost.

2. To have more control to their control panel. Since they write their own codes, they can easily add and remove whatever features they want to their control panel. They also claim to be able to integrate the control panel better to their servers, without "waiting" or being "limited" by CPanel.

(LunarPages new LPCP Control Panel)

They didn't migrate old users to their new LPCP. Only new users are being placed to LPCP servers or they will need to pay an extra $2/month to use CPanel. So I am still able to use Cpanel for "free".

If I am still on CPanel, why would I still want to move?

The problem is that they also stop upgrading their CPanel theme! Everybody, be it Blue Host or Just Host or even Web Hosting Pad are using the new CPanel theme known as Cpanel X 3. But LunarPages is still using the old and dumb CPanel X 2.5 theme!

September 2010 Update: They are in the midst of upgrading all their servers to be compatible with CPanel X 3 theme! It will take a few weeks/months to complete. Upgrade progress can be found here.

(LunarPages CPanel X 2.5.0 Theme)

(HostGator CPanel X3 Theme)

Comparing CPanel X3 with CPanel X 2.5

There are many new and improved features in the X3 theme. For example, you have a new powerful file manager to manage your files. This new file manager is AJAXed, which means you can manage your files faster and easier because the page doesn't need to be reloaded every time you delete or rename a file. Furthermore, the old file manager is so old and outdated that I have been using it since 7 years ago.

In X3, you also have a search box to quickly search for features. For example, you can type "email" in the search box and all the email features will appear to you such as creating new email account, forwarding your emails, etc. Or you can type in "domain" and all the domain related features such as domain add-on, alias, etc. will appear to you. Other than that, CPanel X3 also groups icons into relevant sub groups so you can easily look for them. Not only that it looks nicer, CPanel X 3 have just too many improvements as compared with X2.5.

(CPanel New AJAX File Manager)

(CPanel Legacy Poor File Manager)

After I find out that they have no plan to upgrade to CPanel X3 in the future, I think I have to move on and switch to another web host.

My Advice

For new potential LunarPages users, you can choose between LunarPages LPCP or CPanel. LPCP will be free but CPanel will cost you another $2/month. You can choose your preference when you sign up.

If you choose LPCP, you will need to make sure you like it because the new LPCP is a light weight control panel which is not as powerful as CPanel.

If you choose CPanel, make sure you are getting the X3 theme. If you are not, simply request them to move you to a server with the X3 theme because they have many of them.

Remember to check out my best web hosting chart 2011.

- Host Gator Review

PayPal Sucks! PayPal Will Even Limit Verified Accounts!

James — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 06:59:23 +0000

It is very true that PayPal sucks! They are so disgusting that sometimes they will even block verified customers from sending money online! You have added your credit card verified it. You have added your bank account and verified it. You might have even faxed in your utility bill and ID card for verification! And yet they can still LIMIT your account one day without giving you a good reason!

The first time it happened, I was trying to make 2 PayPal payments. Both were subscription payments (recurring basis). You know, when the other party has completed their job for you according to the terms and it is time for you to pay, BAM, PayPal doesn't let you through!!!

After clicking on my vendor subscription link and logged in using my verified account, it shows

You have exceeded your per transaction limit. To lift this limit, click View Limits on you Account Overview page.

Every PayPal user knows it. The last thing you want from PayPal is called "LIMIT"! Knowing your PayPal account is limited is like knowing you car is being stolen! I jumped into my "Account Overview" page to look for the limit. But there is no such thing as limit in my account! There is nothing unordinary showing in my account!

So I ignored the error and clicked on the "Pay" button, hoping that the transaction will go through. But unfortunately, it didn't.

Your account information has changed. Either you clicked "Pay" more than once but the original transfer was already made, or you just received money. To check, please view your account History and make sure you want to perform this transaction.

The error message is way too wrong. I didn't click "Pay" more than once. A check on my transaction history also indicated that there was no transfer made. And hey, I really wished I have received money! But I didn't.

This is not fun. I have promised someone the payment. Imagine if you have won a bid in eBay and you want to pay but you can't? That will piss the seller off and guarantee you a negative feedback.

I tried to explain to my seller and at the same time, emailed support and "wish" for some help.

The first reply came in.

Hello, my name is Kelly, I am very sorry to hear about the situation, and understand your frustration and concern over this issue. I will be happy to assist you with your questions.

I understand you want to know why you could not use your credit card to make a payment at this moment.

Upon checking your account, we found that you tried to make payments out several times, but all of them failed.

Now please let me explain the reasons to you.

To ensure the integrity of our network, PayPal may take security measures, which may affect some accounts in good standing. We regret any inconvenience may have caused.

PayPal employs complex statistical models to identify patterns of behavior. This is similar to the way banks and credit card companies
identify patterns of behavior those are abnormal when verifying individual transactions. When our system rejects a certain funding source for a transaction, it is merely an indication that the individual transaction fits a pattern may cause a high risk of failure.

If your transaction has been denied, you may be able to complete the transaction with another funding source such as U.S. bank account or PayPal balance.

In addition, I would like to recommend you not to pay at this time. Please take another try after 3 to 4 days with your credit card.

You may contact your seller and explain the reason why you can not pay
him now. Hope he can understand your situation and let you pay him at a later time. If you need make this payment urgently, you can choose
another funding method.

I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused you.

If you need any other further assistance, please do not hesitate to
contact us.

It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing PayPal.

Sincerely,
Kelly
PayPal, an eBay Company

The good news was that they reply fast. But the bad news was I still can't make a payment. The clue we have right now is "PayPal may take security measures, which may affect some accounts in good standing." which translates to "I can lock your money anytime I want."

But I was angry because I am trying to pay just $20 while my account is having 4 digits balance! And I am not trying to use my credit card as claimed in the reply! So I shot back an email telling them so. They replied.

Hello, my name is Susan. I will be happy to assist you with your question regarding your PayPal account.

I understand that you wonder why you could not make a payment from your PayPal balance.

I checked your PayPal account and find that there is sufficient balance for you to pay $20.00USD. Generally, if you have sufficient balance of certain currency, the payment will be first charged from your balance. But if our system decides the transaction contains higher than normal risk at the moment, you may try to make this payment later.

I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your understanding.

If you need any other assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us.

It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing PayPal.

Sincerely,
Susan
PayPal, an eBay Company

So that's still being equal to, "I can LIMIT you anytime I want and you really can't do anything about it".

Frustrated, I shut down my PC and went to sleep. Waking up the morning, I tried the payment again and all the limits were gone!

So, is that just a "nightmare"? That's it? That's it? I hope it won't happen again. But You Wish! It happens again and again! The only way for me to handle that is whenever it happens, I can show them this post and hope that my seller can understand my situation!

PayPal Sucks!

- PayPal Web Hosting

BlueHost Promotions and Offers - Over $215 Marketing Credits

James — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:37:11 +0000

Free $50 Google AdWords Credit

Google AdWords is the advertising product of Google. They offer Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, site targeted advertising and even banner advertising. The PPC model is the most popular where advertisers will bid for their ads base on different search terms. The higher you bid, the higher you rank. You pay when someone click on your ad, thus the name "Pay Per Click".

Paid results are shown as small boxes on the right side of the free results. Sometimes, the paid ads will even show above the free results in highlighted yellow box if you are willing to bid more (it's all about money)!

All BlueHost customers are entitled to $50 FREE Adwords credit. Please note that the credit is only available to customers who reside in the US or Canada and apply only to new AdWords customers only. Also, you must claim the credit within 15 days after your BlueHost account is activated.

Free $25 Yahoo Search Marketing Credit

Similar to Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing is the advertising arm of Yahoo. They are the second player in PPC market after Google.

Again, you get $25 FREE Yahoo Search Marketing Credit when you sign up with BlueHost.

Free $50 Miva Credit

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft take up over 90% of the PPC market and what remain are the small players. Miva is actually a very small player which you can safely ignore. I personally do not recommend you to take the credit even it is free because I don't think it is worth your time.

Free $50 Ask Sponsored Listing Credit

Ask.com is a small search engine and they also rely on PPC as their source of income. While it is a lot better than Miva, I still don't think you should invest too much time on it as I said earlier, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have taken up 90% of the PPC market.

Free $40 PR Web Credit

PRWeb involves in news release submission and distribution to build online visibility. PRWeb distribution encompasses the largest online news distribution network. From the smallest business to the Fortune 500, PRWeb news and press release distribution has helped more than 40,000 organizations maximize their online visibility and achieve worldwide media coverage.

5% Discount at Boxed Art

Boxed Art provides a large library of ready to use web templates and web graphics. You pay a fixed monthly membership fee and you gain unlimited access/downloads to the library. There are currently over 6,000 products under 40 different categories.

All BlueHost customers are entitled to 5% discount on the membership fee.

Other Promotions

Other promotions include partnerships that BlueHost has made with Simplicity (online payment solution), GlowTouch Technologies (web design company), Postini (premium anti-spam service), ShopSite (premium shopping cart), Alive Chat (web based chatting software), FaxPipe (online fax service), Mozy (online free backup), etc. either in the form of special discount prices or free trials.

BlueHost vs HostMonster - Which One Is Better?

James — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:32:40 +0000

First of all, if you haven't know it yet, BlueHost and HostMonster is technically the same web hosting company that are owned and operated by Matt Heaton. Basically they share almost everything from pricing to office address to servers and to staffs, except the name. More discussions are in my Host Monster review.

Knowing that, some people will have the dilemma on which one to choose! And that's why in this post, I will explain why I am biased towards BlueHost.

Reason #1 - Age & Brand

If they are brothers, Blue Host is born in 2003 and Hostmonster in 2005. And because of the head start, Blue Host is a lot larger than Hostmonster in terms of customers. They are more well known and have a stronger brand. Both of them host over 1 millions websites each.

[Note: number of domains does not equal to number of customers because 1 customer can host unlimited domains]

Matt Heaton will always call himself the "CEO of BlueHost and HostMonster" but will never call himself the "CEO of HostMonster and BlueHost". BlueHost always comes first.

Because of the brand and size, BlueHost is worth a lot more than HostMonster and it will make business sense to take greater care of it.

Reason #2 - Forum Size

BlueHost customer forum is significantly larger than HostMonster's. There are more active customers and postings in BlueHost forum as compared to Host Monster. You can expect more discussions and replies if you are a BlueHost customer.

	Members	Threads	Posts
BlueHost	50,584	15,997	76,201
HostMonster	44,459	7,071	32,004

Reason #3 - Pricing & Promotion

While I are able to offer the discounted price of $3.95 for both BlueHost, I cannot get the deal for you for HostMonter. You have to pay $2 more for HostMonster at $5.95. So this reason good enough for you to choose BlueHost over HostMonster?

Why don't they stick to 1 brand and 1 name?

It is all marketing. As mentioned earlier, BlueHost is meant to be marketed as a "premium" host while HostMonster as a "low cost" host. But you may not know it, they even have the third brand known as FastDomain which I believe is meant to target customers looking for the lowest possible price! Unfortunately (or fortunately for simplicity sake), FastDomain is not able to make it big. Maybe they abandoned the plan and focus on marketing Bluehost and Hostmonster instead.

It is very common to have a company owning several brands of similar products. For example, Pantene, Head & Shoulders, Herbal Essences are all owned by P&G. In hosting, iPowerWeb, StartLogic, PowWeb are all under the Endurance Group! So the important thing for us is whether we are getting what we want, i.e. the quality of the service.

Conclusion

No one will argue with their wallets and if BlueHost is $2 cheaper, stick with BlueHost!

Read my BlueHost Review and HostMonster Review if you haven't done so yet!

Example of BlueHost Hosted Sites

James — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 07:58:18 +0000

Many people are asking to see some real BlueHost customer sites so they can experience the speed quality first hand. I do have 2 sites that are very suitable for this purpose. Because both sites are full of pictures in every page, you can easily test the loading speed of BlueHost and I am sure it will be a blazing fast experience for you.

Sample Site #1 - Natalie Portman .ws

Remember Star Wars Episode I, II and III? Natalie Portman is the beautiful princess in the movie. This site was launched on 13 August 2002 (almost 10 years ago). Nowadays we have many powerful free scripts such as Gallery 3, Zen Photos, etc. to create an instant picture galleries with almost no effort! But this site is created manually by me when these scripts still do not exist. A total of 150 pictures were selected, resized and arranged one by one by myself! I hope you will be having a lot of fun looking at her testing BlueHost server speed.

Sample Site #2 - Alwiz Sarah Michelle Gellar

This is the oldest domain name and website that I ever had! It was created in 1997 when I were still in college. And I am proud to say that this site is even older than Google! It was first created with a 486 computer under Windows 3.1. Later it was redesigned with FrontPage 2000 and 2003. It has been hosted by BlueHost for 6 years now. Containing over 400 pictures of the pretty Sarah Michelle Gellar, I hope it is sufficient for you to test the quality of BlueHost.

How Are These Sites Hosted by BlueHost?

Since BlueHost allows you to host unlimited sites under the same account without any extra charges, both are hosted under the same account under addon domains. Welcome to the world of "multiple domain hosting" where you just need to pay for 1 account and host unlimited sites.

* Check out BlueHost $3.95 promotion now! Unlimited disk space! Unlimited domains!

Does BlueHost Really Offer "FREE" Unlimited Domains?

James — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 10:50:44 +0000

The answer for this questions is Yes and No. Confused? Let me explain.

BlueHost (and HostMonster and other web hosts) who claims to offer "FREE" unlimited domains means the ability to host unlimited domains without any extra charges. It does not include the domain registration fee which is around $10 to $15 depending on where you register it.

For example, if you own a condominium and the management provides you with "FREE" unlimited parking means they won't charge you for anything even if you park 2, 3 or 10 cars in their car park. But you still have to pay for the cars!

Before the era of multiple domain hosting which is started by BlueHost and HostGator a few years ago, hosting companies only allow you to host 1 domain per hosting account. If you owns several domain names, you will have to buy a new hosting account for each or pay an extra "parking fee" for each domain name!

In the condominium scenario, that would means you are only provided with 1 parking space and if you need more, you have to pay.

"Park as you like, but you still have to pay for the car dude."

BlueHost Upgrades CentOS, Ruby on Rails, GCC and ImageMagick

James — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 08:25:45 +0000

I've been informed by BlueHost that they will be upgrading my server to the following in the next 72 hours.

CentOS 4.7 to CentOS 5.3.

Ruby on Rails (version unknown)

GCC 4.1.2

ImageMagick 6.2.8

BlueHost is great because they always keep their software up to date! They also put in the effort to develope SimpleScripts to replace Fantastico so that all their customers can enjoy new upgrades to their free scripts immediately after they are released. As I say, they are always the leader in the web hosting industry.

LunarPages Starter Plan ($2.95/month). Worth The Money?

James — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 05:17:49 +0000

LunarPages introduced a new plan known as the Starter Plan in July 2009, making the total of shared hosting plans to 3, i.e. Starter, Basic & Business. The plan is cheaply priced at only $2.95/month. While I have mentioned that the Business plan is overpriced and not required by most of us in my LunarPages review, what about the new Starter plan? Should one consider using it?

Monthly Pricing	Starter	Basic	Hatchling*
12 Month	$2.95	$8.95	$6.95
24 Month	$2.95	$6.95	$5.95
36 Month	-	-	$4.95

*Hatchling is a similar HostGator plan for comparison

If you compared the Starter plan with HostGator's Hatchling plan, you will notice that the Hatchling plan is indeed very expensive. HostGator is more like a premium hosting provider when you look at their pricing.

Features	Starter	Basic	Hatchling*
Domains/Websites Allowed	1	Unlimited	1
Disk Space/Storage	5 GB	Unlimited	Unlimited
Data Transfer/Bandwidth	50 GB	Unlimited	Unlimited
Domain Name	$19.95/year	Free	Free
MySQL Database	1	Unlimited	Unlimited
Phone Support	No	Yes	Yes

But if you look at the features, it tells a lot more. While there are "limits" to the disk space and bandwidth, I would say that 5GB and 50GB is really more than enough for 90% of us. But the real limitation is the domains allowed per account! This is a traditional 1 domain per account hosting which means you can't host more than 1 website with it! I will never recommend anyone to pick this kind of account anymore because this is something in the past. In "modern" hosting, we should always pick a multiple domain hosting account (with at least 5 websites per account if it is not unlimited).

What is even worst is the number of MySQL databases included! There is only 1! That would means all free scripts listed under "Free Web Scripts" such as WordPress, b2Evolution, SMF Forum, Joomla, Drupal, etc are simply bullshit because you can only install one of them! The installer of the Fantastico scripts library won't work with just 1 MySQL database. UNLESS you know how to install them manually so all of them shared the same database, you won't be able to install more than 1 script. But you will end up having a database so huge that it looks like an overloaded train in India.

It is ok not to have phone support because many international customers won't be calling in due to phone call charges and the language barrier. Since they are providing very good email support, it will be sufficient.

The domain name fee or $19.95/year is significantly overpriced! But that is not a big problem as well because you can simply register your domain name for less than $10 at GoDaddy. All you need to do is to change the DNS server setting at GoDaddy to point to LunarPages.

Conclusions

The pricing of $2.95 is very cheap. The "limited" bandwidth, "limited" disk space, pricey domain name and the lack of phone support is not a problem. The problem is that it allows only 1 website hosted. And the BIGGEST problem is it provides only 1 MySQL database! Unless these are upgraded, I won't be recommending them to you. So stick with their Basic Plan instead. Read my LunarPages review to learn more about it. Or you may want to learn more about BlueHost.

HostMonster Discount! Get $36 Off Right Away!

James — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 03:41:14 +0000

HostMonster $5.95/month Promotion

Want Cheaper Than $5.95? How about $3.95?

HostMonster is actually sister company of BlueHost. BlueHost has a stronger brand and has a much larger customer base. Both of them offer exactly the same hosting package and share the same office, servers and staff.

BlueHost is offering our visitors a special price of $3.95/month. There is no reason why you don't like BlueHost.

Read my in-depth BlueHost review to learn more about BlueHost and HostMonster!

I Asked For A Refund From BlueHost! Do They Really Offer Money Back Guarantee?

James — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:16:27 +0000

All web host promise you a money back guarantee. But the question is how many of them really keep their promises? Some of them will make it very difficult for you to ask for a refund. Some will tell you that you are not qualify for a refund because of some funny reasons. Some will take weeks or months to process your refund. Some will only give you a partial refund.

How does BlueHost fare in their money back guarantee? Well, as a reviewer, this is an important thing for me to experience myself first hand so I can let you know.

Do They Make It Difficult For You To Ask For A Refund?

Well, it is just too easy. When you are in BlueHost helpdesk, all you need to do is open a ticket and you will see the "Cancelations" request available in the form! They are not hiding the cancelation form. They even show it to everyone using the ticket system.

There is nothing fancy in the form either. Unlike other host, they will usually ask you for a reason, beg you to keep staying with them or even lure you by giving you more offers and discounts. BlueHost is plain and simple, it is just a normal support ticket. You just need to enter 4 items - your email address, your full name, your domain name and a message.

What's Next After Submitting The Cancelation Form?

BlueHost cancelation request are processed by the billing department. They promise to process your your refund request in 1 working day. Billing department are not working 24/7 like the technical support department but they work long enough to serve you.

Monday - Friday 6 AM - 10 PM (MST)
Saturday 8 AM - 10 PM (MST)
Sunday Closed

So please don't expect someone to reply to you if it is Sunday or in the midnight!

I submitted my request in the working hours and within half an hour, I received the following reply from Robin.

To cancel your account and have a refund issued, please verify you are the account's owner by replying with the password on the account or the last four digits of the credit card -- this is for security purposes.

When a cancellation is processed, we delete all of the content from the account. This includes all emails, files and databases, and once they have been deleted, there is no possibility of restoration. I know you probably haven't had time to upload anything, but we do need you to please confirm you have backed up all necessary files before we process the cancellation.

Thank you,
Robin
Billing
888-401-4678

This email is interesting because it is not a canned reply. Robin wrote, "I know you probably haven't had time to upload anything..." which means he did notice that I asked for a refund within 24 hours without uploading anything! I felt guilty to sign up just to ask for a refund!

So I replied with the last 4 digits of my credit card number. The next email came back in 2 hours. The email is titled "BLUEHOST.COM CREDIT COMPLETE".

So that's it? That's it? Yeah, that's it. Everything's done. Cancelation completed and money refunded. This is really an exceptional experience. BlueHost is really keeping their promise on their money back guarantee.

Waiting For My Money Back In My Credit Card Statement

While credit card purchases appear in our statement only 1 to 3 days after the transaction, so as with refunds. And for my case, both my purchase transaction and cancelation transaction actually appeared in the same day! LOL.

My purchase and cancelation was done on 20 June (Saturday) and the transactions was reflected in my credit card on 22 June (Monday), which is pretty fast even though Sunday is a holiday.

If you eyes are sharp enough, you may notice that I have another transaction of $142.20 from BlueHost again on 24 June. Why? Because feeling guilty, I went back to repurchase a new account after my cancelation request! I will use the new account to show you more about BlueHost later.

Summary and Conclusion

If you haven't know it yet, BlueHost offer a 30 day money back guarantee in which within 30 days after you account is opened, you are qualify for a full refund. If you are taking their free domain name offer and registered a new domain when you sign up, then a $11.95 domain registration fee may be deducted from the refund depending on which day you ask for a refund.

If you asked for a refund within 3 days (72 hours), the $11.95 domain fee will not be deducted because the domain registrar allows you to release a domain name back to the registry in 3 days. But after that, you will have to pay the $11.95 fee but you will still own the domain name for the rest of the year. You can even host it with another web host such as HostGator. All you need to do is just to change the DNS configuration of your domain name in BlueHost control panel all by yourself.

EVEN if you cancel your account after 30 days, you will still receive a pro-rated refund! That means if you sign up for 24 months and cancel after using the service for 10 months, you will STILL receive 14 months worth of the hosting fee in your refund! This is really a good business practice.

As you can see, BlueHost money back guarantee is not an empty promise.

- Have you read my detail BlueHost Hosting Review?
- Have you watch my video on signing up with BlueHost (3 min)?

Which HostGator Plan Should You Choose? Hatchling, Baby and Business Plan Review

James — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:57:20 +0000

While iPage and FatCow offer 1 plan for 1 price for everyone, HostGator is actually offering 3 plans with different specifications and pricing for you to choose from. I will try to explain the differences to you and even compare it to iPage so you can make a wise decision on which plan to choose.

Let's look at the comparison chart below. Only differences are compared. Other than that, everything else is either the same or very similar.

Monthly Pricing	Hatchling	Baby	Business	iPage
1 Month	$8.95	$9.95	$14.95	-
12 Month	$6.95	$9.95	$14.95	$4.50
24 Month	$5.95	$8.95	$13.95	$4.25
36 Month	$4.95	$7.95	$12.95	$4.25

Features	Hatchling	Baby	Business	BlueHost
Domains Allowed	1	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Your Own Toll Free Number	-	-	Yes	-
Free Dedicated IP	-	-	Yes	-
Free Private SSL	-	-	Yes	-
Anonymous FTP	-	-	Yes	-
Chilisoft ASP	-	-	Yes	-

Huge Pricing Differences

First you will notice that the biggest difference is the pricing! HostGator pricing seems to be at the high side. However, as explain in my long HostGator Review (read it if you haven't), the way HostGator does business is very different because they always put their customer first. They allow their customer to pay month to month without charging them any extra setup fee. They even give you a discount coupon code (GetFreeMonth) to try their hosting for only 1 cent for the first month!

The pricing show above also didn't factor in the 25% discount you can get by using the coupon code Get25Discount. The pricing is reasonably cheap after the 25% discount for the incredibly good service you get in return (this site has been hosted by them for a few years).

Assuming that you want to host with HostGator, which plan should you choose? Let's look deep into their features and see what are the real differences between the Hatchling, Baby and the Business plan.

1. Host 1 Website or Host Multiple Websites?

The first major difference is the ability to host multiple domains/sites within the same account. Hatchling is the traditional 1 domain per account type of hosting. You can only host 1 site with it. With domain names being so cheap today, you will have a very high chance of owning more than 1 domain. That's why 1 domain per account is really very limited!

That's why I would highly recommend you to pick at least the Baby plan because you are allowed to host unlimited websites under the same account. Trust me, as long as you stay long enough, you will always have more domains, especially when you can own a new domain for less than $10 a year nowadays.

So the main question should be, do you need the Business plan? Is Baby plan enough for you? The answer is quite simple. Are you trying to sell something online? Are you going to take credit card payments by yourself? If the answer is NO, you don't need the Business plan at all.

If you answer YES to the above questions, then you will need to know if you need those extra features.

2. Do you need a Toll Free number?

With a toll-free number, your customers in the US and Canada can call you without any long distance charges. The calls will be forwarded to your existing phone number, so you don't need any new phone lines or equipment. The service is provided by Voipo, which is a HostGator associated company.

You will have 100 initial minutes for free. After that, you will need to pay 4.9 cents/minute for US callers and 6.9 cents/minute for Canada callers. This service is offered to you for 'free' if you are picking the Business plan but for anyone else, they are selling this service for $4.95/month of $36/year (averaged $3/month).

That means you will get better deal if you signup just the Baby plan and then go to Voipo to subscribe the toll free service for $36/year, given that you don't need the other services discussed below.

3. Do you need a Dedicated IP Address and Private SSL Certificate?

SSL certificate is needed when you need to make secured connections. When a secure connection is made, you will see in your browser address bar, the connection protocol will change to https:// instead of http://. The 's' refer to secured HTTP connection.

In this type of connection, all data are encrypted for security purposes and this is important when you are trying to transfer sensitive information. They are most widely used in transferring credit card information.

There are 2 types of SSL certificate - the private and the public. Public certificate are also known as shared certificate because it is shared among all other HostGator customers. It is available free to all plans (Hatchling, Baby, Business and BlueHost).

Both private and public certificate are fully encrypted and secured. However, public certificate are hosted under HostGator domain and it will pop up a warning message to your customer. Even it is secure, you customer will feel very uncomfortable submitting their credit card information to you so you will be guaranteed to lose some sales!

Thus, you will need a private SSL certificate that is stored in your own domain (i.e. https://www.yourdomain.com) so it won't popup any warning message and make you more trustworthy to your customer.

A dedicated IP address (also knows as static IP address or unique IP address) is required when you need to use your own private SSL certificate. This is a technical requirement so I won't go deep into it as you probably don't need to know.

It it important to note that many ecommerce website are not using SSL certificate at all! I have been selling online for many years and I don't use it. The reason is simple, if you are charging your customer using a 3rd party checkout system such as PayPal and 2checkout, you don't need your own SSL certificate because the transaction is processed by PayPal and 2checkout and they will maitain their own SSL certificate. Almost all top eBay sellers are using PayPal to collect payments and they don't need any SSL certificate or dedicated IP address either. So, there is a high chance that you don't need it as well.

The only reason you need it is when you have your own merchant account. This is very costly to small businesses. Non US based customer will also have a hard time opening one. And if you still haven't have a merchant account, I will recommend you to simply stick with PayPal or 2CheckOut at the initial stage for cost savings and less hassle. I repeat, most of us don't need a merchant account, a private SSL certificate and a unique static IP address.

4. Do you need Anonymous FTP access?

NO, you don't need anonymous FTP access! Anonymous FTP is a silly feature. It allows anyone (ANYONE!) with an internet connection to connect to your account and upload/download files. Of course, they can only access a public folder in your account (they won't be able to touch your private files). But still, it is quite foolish to have this feature turn on because many losers out there will connect to your account and upload a bunch of files (maybe even porn and pirated software) so they can share it with others. It will cost you a lot of bandwidth and maybe even get your account suspended! So, NO, you don't want anonymous FTP access!

The Good News - FREE Upgrade Anytime

The good news is, HostGator allow you to upgrade your account anytime you want without paying any fee. You only need to pay the upgraded plan pricing on a pro-rated basis. That means at anytime, you are free to upgrade from Hatchling to Baby/Business or from Baby to Business. You can do this easily by filling up the upgrade form.

However, downgrading is not free. If you want to downgrade to a cheaper plan, you will have to pay a $10 conversion fee. This is to avoid frequent upgrade/downgrade.

Maybe because of this reason, you can even start with the traditional one-domain-per account Hatchling plan and upgrade it to Baby plan later when you want to host your second domain.

If you are paying month to month, maybe the savings from picking Hatchling plan instead of Baby plan is not significant ($1 month). But if you pay 12 month, the price difference is quite significant ($3/month!). So it might be a good strategy to initially use the Hatchling plan and then upgrade it later when needed.

Remember to use a coupon!

No matter which plan you choose to signup, make sure you use one of the many HostGator coupons available. Please read my complete HostGator Hosting Review if you haven't do so yet.

Website: http://www.hostgator.com/

LunarPages Coupon Code for Basic Hosting Plan (2011)

James — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 03:13:44 +0000

(Coupon Codes are updated until May 2012)

Get30Discount

Use coupon code Get30Discount for 30% Discount! Valid for 12 months and beyond.

LunarPages Review

Please read our complete LunarPages Review if you haven't done so yet.

BlueHost Discount! Get Up To $108 OFF with No BlueHost Coupon Code!

James — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 05:39:57 +0000

Not all offers are equal but everyone wants the best. Click here to host with BlueHost for only $3.95/month!

Many people are searching for BlueHost coupon codes online but unfortunately BlueHost doesn't provide any. I can't even find a place to enter a coupon code at BlueHost website and order form!

However, BlueHost is currently running a special $3.95/month promotion with up to $4 discount per month!

BlueHost	Regular Price Per Month	Regular Price Total	After Discount!	You Save!
12 Month	$8.95	$107.40	$4.95 ($59.40)	$4 ($48)
24 Month	$7.95	$190.80	$3.95 ($94.80)	$4 ($96)
36 Month	$6.95	$250.20	$3.95 ($142.20)	$3 ($108)

Not seeing the special $3.95 price on BlueHost.com?

BlueHost special price can only be activated via certain links! In order to see the special price, simply click on any link from my website to go to BlueHost, including this one here.

I have signed up a new account with them recently for 36 months! The normal price is $250.20 but now it is only $142.20 with a great savings of $108!

If you sign up for 24 months, your price is $94.80 instead of $190.80 and you save $96. If you sign up for 12 months, your price is just $59.40 instead of $107.40 and you can save $48.

I have recorded a video for you where I will show you how to activate the $3.95 promotional price. I have even run through the order process to show you how easy the purchase was. It took less than 5 minutes and you can start to upload your files after that thanks to their "Instant Account Activation"!

Enjoy the video now. :)

You Must Read My Review First!

Don't sign up for a web host blindly. You must know the ins and outs of a web host before signing up with them. I have written a detail BlueHost review that you must read before you sign up. You should also take your time to compare it with other web hosts recommended by me in this site.

Free Web Hosts - Free Web Hosting Showcase

James — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:16:10 +0000

Are they really "FREE"? Who is paying for it?

I've listed some free web hosts some free web hosting directories in this page. However, I need to warn you. Someone have to pay for it and although you are paying nothing in terms of money, you are still paying in other ways, which are always more costly! If you don't believe what I say, read on.

1. When your visitors come to your site, your free host will show them their ugly advertisement. You pay the price by showing advertisement in your site. You didn't get paid for the ads. And the ads do suck away your visitors, or annoyed them to click away from your site. You didn't receive money from the ads and at the same time your just chace your visitor away.

2. You are given very limited disk space and bandwidth. And even if they say you are given that amount of disk space, their terms of agreement state that they can suspend your account without giving you a reason. There are a lot of people who host with a free web host and when they started to get good traffic, their free host suspended their account, saying that they use too much of their server resources. They have to take the time and hassle to transfer their site. They might be smart enough to pay for one now. Or they can search again for a free one, and repeat the history.

3. Many free web host implement 'Yahoo Geocities' style of hourly bandwidth limit. What that means is that bandwidth is not measured monthly but hourly! If you exceed the bandwidth limit in that hour, all the visitors who visit your website will see the "This Website is Temporary Suspended, Please Come Back Later" notice. I hope you don't mind. Also if you doesn't exceed the bandwidth limit in that hour, the bandwidth you 'have not used' doesn't roll to the next hour.

4. Many free web hosts are giving free web hosting because they want to sell text links advertisement to others. And it is not abnormal to see Gambling or Viagra links at the top or bottom of your page. What do others think about your site when they see those links?

5. There are many web hosts which offer free hosting so that they can build up a large members and then start charging them. If they refuse to pay, their account will be closed (i.e. Virtualave). Or they will be put into "limited resources" account that have limited disk space and bandwidth. (i.e. FortuneCity, NetFirms and Yahoo Geocities).

The story will be totally different if you are willing to pay for your own hosting bill. Hosting doesn't need to be expensive! For example, a good host like BlueHost cost only $3.95 per month and you will get NONE of the above disadvantages plus unlimited disk space and unlimited bandwidth.

Free Web Hosting Directories

All the Free Space
Free online file storage directory of more than 40 virtual disk space, file storage & sharing providers with detailed descriptions.

Free-Hosting.com.ru
The complete guide to free web hosting providers with reviews of offered services, including free PHP hosting, free ASP hosting, free Domain hosting, No Ads free hosting providers and more.

Free Web Hosting Reviews
Free web hosting: bannerless, PHP and large space hosting, free domain hosting, cheap hosting.

Free Web Domain Hosting
Comprehensive guide to free web hosting: Free domain hosting, Free PHP/MySQL hosting, Free ASP hosting and more.

Free PHP Hosting
Reviews of free PHP web hosts, including detailed chart of MySQL and PHP scripting environment details, and links to sample hosted websites.

Free Web Space Finder
Searchable database of more than 400 free web space providers. Simple search and advanced search with comprehensive set of searchable parameters are available.

Free Webspace
Searchable database directory of over 1,200 free webspace hosts with reviews and ratings, updated daily.

FreeWebSpace.net
The largest searchable guide to free web space providers.

Free Web Hosts

Biz.ly Free Web Hosting & Domain Hosting

Get 12MB of free web space with .Biz.ly free domain name, free web page builder, many free web templates & scripts.

Digitalzones free website hosting
Free web hosting of domains and web pages with 100mb free web space.

Free Web Hosting, PHP, mySQL and more...
150 MB web space, 1 GB monthly transfer. $20 one lifetime registration fee.

Free Web Hosts Showcase (Outdated!)

Netfirms

Netfirms is by far the best free web host who goes near to a paid hosting. They offer free domain hosting (yourname.com). If you don't want a domain name, your address will be like yourname.netfirms.com. The plan comes with 25 MB of disk space, 1 GB of bandwidth and 1 web-based email. Your account will be setup immediately and you can transfer files to your website via FTP. You can also publish your site through FrontPage Editor as they have FrontPage extension installed. You will also have a personal CGI-BIN directory. Perl scripts and SSI are allowed. In exchange for this free feature rich service, you will have a standard 468 x 60 size banner ads on top of every pages in your site.

Yahoo! Geocities

Yahoo! Geocities offer the a highest 3 GB bandwidth as a free web host. The free hosting also come with 15 MB of storage and a free Yahoo! Mail. Your site address will look like www.geocities.com/yourname. There provide PageBuilder and PageWizards to let you create your site easily. There are also file manager and advance editor to let you managed your files with your browser. FTP has been reserved for paid customers. For free hosting, you need to upload your files through your browser. CGI, PERL and SSI are not supported. They serve a special 'ads-square' on all your pages and occasionally, there are pop-ups. There are no file size limit.

FreeServers

FreeServers free hosting offers 12 MB of disk storage but with a 256 KB file size limit. They currently have over 2.3 millions members. They also provide a site builder to let you create your site with your browser. FTP is not allowed and you have to upload your files through the file manager in their website. CGI, PERL and SSI are also not available. Your site address will look like yourname.freeservers.com. They will display banner ads, pop-up advertising and send special offers emails to you in exchange of the free service. You can choose your banner type and customize it how you like: pop-up, inline, tower ads, etc.

AngelFire

AngelFire provides 20 MB of disk space. Exact bandwidth is not stated. They have building tools, page design templates and 10,000+ free images. Your web site also come with FrontPage Extension installed. Banner ads will be embedded automatically with pages ending with .htm and .html. Your site address will look like www.angelfire.com/group/yourname where group is a predefine list to let you choose from. FTP is fully supported but CGI, PERL and SSI are not available.

HyperMart

HyperMart is one of the very little free hosts which allowed CGI (with PERL) and SSI. They will also host your domain for free! For those without a domain name, you will have address yourname.hypermart.net. The free package come with 50 MB of disk space and 500 MB of bandwidth. They have a site-builder provided. FrontPage Extension is installed. They serve pop-up ads as default. To avoid pop-ups, you can choose to serve banner ads on top of every page in your site. You can upload your files with FTP. HyperMart has acquired VirtualAve.net, a popular free web host years ago. Both of them are popular because they allowed scripting with their free package.

FortuneCity

FortuneCity provide 25 MB of storage and 3 GB of data transfer. Your address will look like members.fortunecity.com/yourname. There are no free tools to use (no file manager, no site builder) and you can only upload your files through FTP. They will serve banner and pop-up ads on your site. You have no email account. CGI, Perl and SSI are not allowed. FortuneCity is good in the sense that they provide high bandwidth (3 GB) and FTP access.