This infographic below provides a lot of this information.

Via: Trend Micro

Happy holidays from jonlee.ca!

I’ve found that most web hosting review sites I’ve looked at fail to do more than provide a table comparing some of the common features.

This is where WebHostingDeals.org is able to set itself apart. They have the obligatory comparison chart but they also provide very in-depth reviews of individual hosts complete with screenshot tours and current coupons/promotions. They also feature a user-submitted rating system which provides much more credibility to their rankings. I’d prefer it if they would show percentage of votes that like the service as opposed to just the number of positive votes. This information is available but would be nice to see at a glance.

Furthermore, every person looking for web hosting services will have varying needs. Depending on what that need is, there are categories provided along with top recommendations in each of those categories. For example, if you are looking to become a web host reseller, they provide the top choices for reseller hosting. Of particular interest are the blog hosting and green web hosting categories.

If you’re just beginning to venture into the vast word of web hosting, you’ll find that choosing a reliable web host is a very important step, which is why WebHostingDeals.org also offers very well written guides to help you avoid cheap marketing gimmicks and to make an informed choice. Cheaper isn’t always better!

You can tell a lot of work went into building this review site into what it currently is, and a lot more work goes into maintaining and keeping the information current. Kudos to them for creating a masterpiece of a web host review site.

They also have a twitter account at https://twitter.com/#!/TheHostingDeals that is actively tweeting. It’s always nice to see a business actively use social media, and not just have it just because it’s the current trend.

So check out WebHostingDeal to find a new web host or maybe just to see how your web host stacks up.

Improved Navigation:
One of the biggest, and surprisingly most common mistakes that sites make is not having prominent navigation buttons. If some one is browsing through your site on their 4G Slide Android Phone or laptop and the link buttons are too small or blend into the background then it’s going to make for a poor user experience. They won’t be able to navigate through your site and see the features or services that you provide. It can frustrate a user and they will commonly abandon a site that is difficult to use.

Making The Message Clear:
It’s far too common for sites to use a lot of graphics in their sites. You don’t want your page to be boring and devoid of color or style but too much can overwhelm a person and make your site unappealing. Less is more and the best way to communicate your message to audiences is by being short and to the point.

Just The Right Size:
If you’re blogging or describing a product, you may be very excited and have a lot to say but you don’t want to take up a whole page to say it. A frequent mistake is to make the font size smaller to supplement the space that you’re working in. This is a bad idea. You should never make the font size smaller than 10 or larger than 14. Look at most successful web sites, they follow this rule. Not doing so will make your message hard to read. Also, don’t use fancy, or odd, font styles. This just makes the reading that much harder. Stand out with your products or intellectual approach, not your presentation. It’s best to follow the format and stand out in other ways.

Too Many Links:
Social Media has definitely been a game changer and often sites want to increase their online profile by providing links to all of their extra pages and various content off-site. Sometimes, this has brought down the usability or function of a site. The desire to connect your readers to all of your other sources can often clutter up a page and confuse the content with the links. Adding links is fine but you need to do it thoughtfully and sparingly. If someone is interested in looking at your Facebook or Twitter page, they’ll find it but don’t overwhelm them with your dozen, or so, external links.

Scrolling:
This last one is simple but essential. Do not add a left-to-right scroll. This used to be done often on sites years ago but it’s a really antiquated way of interacting with a page. You should only incorporate vertical scrolling on your page. Keep your most important information up top and less important content in descending order. Don’t cram you site full of material that’s going in every direction, that’s poor planning.

If you’ve found that you’re not getting the kind of following you’d like then look at some of these quick ways that you can improve your site’s overall usability. There are many ways that you can do this so look online and seek advice on what you can do towards this aim. Also, one of the best tips is to look at what the competition is doing. Often sites run along a similar approach and you don’t want to look just like the competition but you do want to get your message across clearly. This is essential to having a successful design to your site.

If you’re just starting out with your business website, shared hosting can seem to provide you with the needed space you might require for a certain span of time. Although it may seem economical at first, it’s very common when you’re on a shared hosting plan to notice periods of when your website’s response time slows down, which is usually due to another account on the shared server using up the resources. This will compromise the speed of service you deserve, making dedicated server hosting a very attractive alternative to guarantee stability.

With your dedicated server, it secures your customization needs. Although a technical background is required, especially for hosting companies that offer less support features, if you know how to modify your server effectively, then you can utilize all resources that come with your dedicated server.

Though switching to a dedicated server is quite a leap as far as cost goes, you have to look at the price as an investment for not facing downtime due to sharing resources. The server will be yours alone, providing you optimal loading speeds, which equals more business for you as visitors will not deal with slow loading times. Disk space and RAM will be yours to control, which constitute effective bandwidth management for your business.

If you feel that the cost of a dedicated server may be too expensive, you can take advantage of a virtual private server (VPS), which is the intermediate option between a shared and a dedicated server. A VPS allows you to involve yourself in the transition between a shared hosting plan to that of a dedicated server plan. With the provisions of data security, the VPS provides you with security at a cost you can afford. However, with the increasing data management issues that arise, a dedicated server would be the more dependable choice.

Another instance that for considering a move to a dedicated server is for data management. For example, huge organizations may focus on tremendous amounts of data management. This may involve large databases, video files for visitor streaming and other activities related to the business itself. This consumes a lot of bandwidth, especially if there’s a lot of simultaneous uploading and downloading that occurs daily. Having a dedicated server conveniently allows you complete control over your server’s resources, which drops the compromise that you would get with any kind of shared server.

Moreover, with your dedicated server, you can have dedicated email that will allow visitors to contact you more securely. Adding to this, since you have complete control over your server management, you can install firewalls and other protective measures that will ultimately provide your website the security it deserves.

Dedicated server hosting provides you with the highest caliber of stability and performance rates. With your growing business at hand, you may want to consider visitor traffic utilizing your resources effectively. Although it may seem like an expensive upgrade, keep in mind the amount of business you face losing if your shared hosting plan cannot keep your business website up and available to your customers online all the time.

Brian Flores is a writer for InMotion Hosting, one of the top dedicated server providers in the country. He and his awesome team of writers regularly posts useful tutorials on WebHostingHelpGuy. You can follow him on Twitter @WHHG_InMotion or @BrianAFlores.

Flash World Map
Flash World Map provides a pre-made high quality and fully customizable world map in Adobe Flash. I’m currently using it right here on my site to show the countries in the world that I’ve travelled to as well as the cities that I have actually lived in for an extended period of time. This is similar to the “Where I’ve Been” Facebook app but hosted locally, fully customizable and without the ads.

As you can see from the above map, it first zooms in on a continent/region to more clearly show the countries, then hovering on a country will popup a custom tooltip with HTML markup. The zoom is helpful since what appears to be 2-3 points in Southern Ontario, Canada is actually 5 upon closer inspection. Individual points can also be labeled with longitude/latitude coordinates, with a description of each point. This lets me point out individual cities I’ve lived in, not just countries. Each country/location can also be hyperlinked to another page, although I have not opted to do this.

Customizing the Map
The map is customized by editing an .xml (eXtensible Markup Language) file to specify individual descriptions and links for each country. The layout and format of the file is logical as it is an XML file so it is not hard to figure out how to make the appropriate changes.

However, with so many countries on the list, I found that the best way to edit the .xml file was with simple Find and Replace commands in a text editor. Manually inputting unique descriptions for each country will be a very time consuming task although I see no way of getting around this if it is a feature you require. One might also consider using an XML editor to make sure you don’t mess up the format of the file.

Incorporating it into your Site
Adding the map to your site could not be simpler.  Simply upload two files (the Flash and XML map data file) and add a small block of HTML code to your site.  One important thing to note is that the map data file must be contained within the same directory as the page calling the HTML code.  If your site structure is complicated (e.g. has directory rewrites), you may need to edit the source to point the Flash file to the map data directly.

Price/Cost
The cost of such a high quality map is $199 which I think is quite expensive but a trial version with limited features is available for non-commercial use. The trial version works indefinitely but is branded with the FlashWorldMap link which some people may be bothered by. You may find that the trial version is sufficient for your needs but if you want access to the source code to customize the flash app itself, then you’ll have to get a paid license. Keep in mind that location/country/style customization is still available in the free trial version.

Summary
What I like about Flash World Map:

• Very slick and clean interface
• Fully customizable through editing an easy-to-read XML file
• Easily stylized via CSS
• Easy to incorporate into the site (2 files and a block of code)

There are several things that I would like to see improved:

• An incorrectly formatted XML file simply displays “Loading data…” It would be nice if it pointed out where the syntax error is to help debug the XML file.
• There’s a little bug where a previously selected continent does not get deselected until you mouseover it again.
• Perhaps a less expensive non-commercial license for those that just want a little unbranded widget to add to their blog
• A more detailed flash map of the US is also available. A Canadian one would be nice to have too!

This is definitely the best implementation (Flash or HTML5) of an embedded world map I’ve seen thus far. If this is a feature you need on your site I would definitely recommend downloading the trail version to test it out!

VPS lies somewhere in between the two options.  Disk space and RAM are dedicated to you, but CPU cycles are shared.  Often times, web hosts will tell you that you have a certain amount of disk space available but in reality, a single disk might be shared amongst several users and the web host assumes that not everyone will be using all of their allocated space.  This is known as overselling. The same applies for memory/RAM.

Advantages of VPS

• Burst memory: although your site has dedicated RAM, when a huge traffic spike hits (for example, if you get front paged on digg or reddit), RAM usage may go beyond what is allocated to you.  In this case, reserve memory is automatically borrowed from the cloud until the traffic subsides.  Occassional burst memory on VPS is supported by some web hosts such as inmotion hosting.
• Scalability: VPS packages come in many forms, from basic plans with little disk space and reserved RAM to full out e-commerce plans with a lot of disk space, unlimited databases and lots of RAM.  Start-ups can easily start with the most basic plan and scale up to the more expensive plans as user base grows.  The great thing about VPS is that everything is virtual, so upgrading from one plan to another is instant and just takes a click of a button — no physical hardware upgrades required!
• Server customization: The VPS runs on a virtual machine with it’s own installation of an operating system and webserver. This means you can customize the server however you would want, just as if you had your own dedicated server.

Given these advantages, I don’t see any reason to stick with shared hosting if you are a web developer. The price difference between shared hosting and the lowest VPS package is small and the customizability is unparalleled.

Eventually you may outgrow what Virtual Private Servers or even a single dedicated server can offer but I think we can all agree that this is a problem we’d all like to have!

But what do I do with the 2G? For a phone that is no longer really in demand, it may not be easy to sell on eBay or craigslist — at least not for a price that can justify going through the trouble of dealing with buyers or even scammers.

What is Tech Twurl?
Tech Twurl offers a service for those that have gadgets at home they want to get rid of to sell electronics.  The concept is simple, you send them your old gadget, and they’ll send you cash as payment.  Although prices are generally a bit lower than the best price you could get trying to sell the item yourself, the convenience is unparalleled.

The Prices
Obviously, the newer and more in-demand your electronic is, the higher price Tech Twurl will offer.  The price also depends on the quality of the product and the accessories (including things like original packaging).  Take for example if you bought the latest 32gb iPhone 4 but you are annoyed by the reception issues and have lost your receipt so you can’t return it to an Apple store.  Tech Twurl will offer you $585 for it (at the time of this posting).  That’s about double the subsidized price you would’ve paid for it.

For an older phone that I’ve used like the Samsung SGH-U900, Tech Twurl’s offer is $68, just a few dollars under the current market value on auction sites.  Again, that difference more than pays for the convenience.

How to sell your electronics
The steps to selling your electronics on TechTwurl is easy.  First, look up the electronic in question (as well as answer a few questions about the physical and working condition) and they’ll give you a price.  No bargaining required.

Next, if you agree to the price, Tech Twurl will send you the necessary shipping equipment, entirely prepaid.  Print out the shipping information, package it up in the provided box and drop it in the mail.  Immediately once they receive your package, you’ll see the payment in your Paypal or a check in the mail. Easy as pie.

Types of Electronics
Currently, Tech Twurl takes the following categories:

• Cellphones
• Cameras
• MP3 Players
• PDAs
• GPS
• Camcorders
• and even calculators.

If you don’t find your item on their site, don’t worry, they’re constantly adding more listings.

And coming soon… Textbooks! For all those University books you kept as reference but end up just sitting on your shelf collecting dust.

Conclusion
Definitely check it out, it doesn’t cost anything or even a sign-up to look up your old electronics. There’s really no easy way of getting rid of your old stuff for cash!

On multiple occasions, I’ve stressed the importance of backing up your files and documents. I’ve also reviewed Mozy as an online backup solution. However, there’s a new competitor in town called Dmailer backup and it gives Mozy a good run for its money. Well, it’s not exactly new as the company has been around since 2001 but I’ve just recently found out about it.

What is Dmailer Backup?
Dmailer Backup is a piece of software that lets users automate the backup process, providing continuous incremental backups for specified files. Incremental backups means that you can ‘go back in time’ to previous versions of a file, not just the latest one. This is especially useful for anyone that does any sort of programming as debugging is made tons easier by comparing old versions of files to current ones. Now Dmailer Backup itself is used to manage backups, but you still need to provide a destination to backup to — for example, an external hard drive or usb key.

A handy feature is to select only specific types of files to backup.  For example, for most people, the important files that require backing up are .doc and .txt files.  For a web developer, one could simply add .php, .html, .css to the mix.  This avoids wasting valuable backup space on those large HD movies (unless you wanted to of course).

Also, Dmailer Backup is a single executable file that does not require installation and works perfectly with U3 usb devices, perfect for that portable web development usb key.

What is Dmailer Online?
Dmailer Online is essentially an online storage space that can be utilized by Dmailer Backup.  Upon sign-up, you are provided with 2GB of online storage. Rest assured, the storage is both password protected and encrypted with one of the strongest encryption algorithms available, 448-bit Blowfish. Like some other backup services, the first 2GB is free.  In fact, Dmailer were the first ones to offer 2GB for free, setting the benchmark for backup services everywhere.  Although this is enough for most people, those that have a lot of multimedia to back up may prefer to pay $35 per year for 30GB or $70 per year for unlimited storage. That works out to less than $3 and $6 per month respectively!

The great feature about Dmailer Online is that the files can be accessed simply from a web browser, so you can access your backups from any computer without having to install any software first.  The web user interface for file access is a search engine that’s intuitive, fast, and easy to use.

Mac Compatibility
There aren’t many online backup solutions out there that support platforms other than Windows. Cross-platform support is greatly appreciated by myself and other Mac users. There’s no Linux support yet, but I’ve been told this is a feature in the works, so Linux users can feel included soon.

Mozy vs Dmailer
There are a few similarities between Mozy and Dmailer. Both offer 2GB of online backup storage for free, both are automated and encrypted, and both run on Mac. Unlike Mozy, Dmailer are the pioneers of “‘dual backup”, which can provide you with an offline backup solution in addition to an online one, all from a single interface. Online backups are safe from things like break-ins and local disasters, but offline backups are easier to access and quicker. If you accidentally deleted a large file that you want to recover, it may take a while to download the backup from an online server, so it is always handy to have an offline backup as well.  So I think Dmailer provides a good integration of both types for maximum ease of mind.

A couple years ago, I wrote a brief review of the book Hacking Vim by Kim Schulz. The publisher, Packt publishing seemed to like my review so they sent me the second edition of the book, Hacking Vim 7.2 to review as well.

The latest edition of the book, released just earlier this year, has been revised and expanded to address some new features of Vim 7.2. The good thing about buying such a book is that Vim releases are infrequent and always backwards compatible. There’s very little chance of this book becoming redundant and outdated, unlike that Visual Basic 4 bible you have sitting on your shelf.

What is Vim?
For the uninitiated, Vim is an open source editor that has been used by programmers and developers for many years. Although it doesn’t look fancy, it is actually one of the most powerful pieces of software out there in terms of customizability and flexibility. However, unlike your basic text editor, it is difficulty to just jump in and start using it as there is a bit of a learning curve. This book is not for beginners, as it assumes an understanding of the basic editing modes of Vim. If you’ve never used Vim before, the book has a few suggestions on getting up to speed — most noticeably, by going through the vimtutor program that comes with most installations of Vim.

Topics Covered
The first part of the book gives a fairly complete history of the Vim lineage, from the original UNIX based ed editor to Vi, to it’s derivatives, and finally to the Vim we now know and love. Then the book dives right into basic personalization tweaks with an overview of the different configuration files — what they do and where they go. I consider these simple tweaks essential for any semi-serious user of Vim to create their own personalized .vimrc file.

For a lot of readers, the first two chapters may already been enough of a customization but the real meat of the book lies in the latter chapters, to help moderate users become power users with navigation tweaks, recipes to help with code completion and project management. If one follows all of these suggestions, Vim can turn into a full-fledged IDE.

With the sheer number of recipes and scripts, I would suggest implementing them a little at a time in order to get used to using them. Going through all the changes at once may be a bit overwhelming.

The last few chapters of the book teach take Vim customization to the next level by giving a tutorial on how to write your own scripts and configuration files. Most may not need to go into this much detail but if there is functionality that you can’t find a script for, then writing your own may be the only choice. The good news is Vim scripting is not too difficult, especially with the tutorial provided in this book, which is one of the reasons there is such a large community supporting it.

Recommendation
If you’re a user of Vim and would like to work more effectively and become a Vim guru, this book is definitely for you. If you’re already a Vim poweruser but feel there is some functionality lacking, this book is a great place to learn how to write your own Vim scripts to contribute to the Vim community.

If you’ve never used Vim before but would like to start using it, this book may not be your first choice; you may wish to try out Vim for a bit first to see if you actually enjoy the style of editing, and if so then pick up this book to go to the next level.

Network Solutions is currently running a contest on Pitch.co where they will give away prizes and domain names to those that pitch the best idea for a .co site!

I am pleading to the fellow readers to help me get Stats.co by giving me a vote! I want to make a webapp to help analyze various types of data.  Analysis of web traffic data would be a great tool for web developers! If you also enter the contest, let me know and I’ll vote for you too!