Being someone who have worked in the web development and web hosting industry since two years, it’s not my first time to see a web application that lets you create websites on the fly. I have experienced doing something like that using H-Sphere’s Site Studio. However, I think it’s still too complex for an ordinary, non-techie user that’s why I don’t recommend it. I’m more inclined to encourage you to use the WebStudio website builder instead.

Another reason why I liked WebStudio website builder is that besides rapid development of a personal or e-commerce website, it’s also cost-effective and inexpensive. You can also use customized templates for greater design flexibility. This is rather great if you have your own web developers to develop a custom design template for your web application. Their enterprise solution comes with several Internet marketing features ranging from search engine submission to website consultation and features an integrated web hosting services.

Finally, the support team that they have there is excellent and just like what their website claims, they facilitate/advise you so that you can fully take advantage of their web application and you can come up with a site that works as you wanted.

If you think you’d like to try Web Studio, there’s a free trial in their website so you can get familiar with their service and get started to establish your online personal or business identity.

So, in their home page, they have a list of best web hosting companies for 2009.  In my opinion, the top web hosts listed there are the ones who have established themselves in the web hosting industry since ages. People who are new to web hosting could easily be convinced that the top has the best value for your money. Certainly not. Remember, big companies have better funds to initiate a massive marketing. However, looking at the site’s reputation (and Internet marketing parameters), it seems to me most of the web hosts listed there are reputable. Now, that’s just a tip.

Back to Web Hosting Geeks, their website presents neat hosting categories for specific hosting platforms and purposes. In addition to the top ranking for each year, you can view lists of web hosts sorted according to the type of services they offer (e.g., Unix Hosting, Blog Hosting, VPS Hosting, and many others), according to type of web hosting (e.g., dedicated server, green hosting, multiple domain hosting), according to web hosting rating, or come up with the result of web hosting companies according to the awards they have received.

If you feel like you need to familiarize yourself with the web hosting terms and/or you want tips and tricks, they also have useful web hosting blogs you can immerse into.

Presently, this blog is currently hosted at Top Hosting Center, running over their Speedy hosting plan. My show’s website, Tech Conclave, is hosted at Host Color.

My birthday is coming on May 25th and Tech Conclave, my tech news show is doing great. In line with that, I decided to run a contest on Episode 5 which will be formally announced and commenced on May 15th and I will be giving away free Speedy web hosting and a domain name to five (5) lucky winners valid for 12 months! The prizes are sponsored by the nice folks at Top Hosting Center who gladly accepted my invitation.

What’s a web hosting and domain name and why do you want them?
A web hosting is what you need when you want to start a blog, a website, or anything Web-related. A web hosting must be partnered with a domain name. A domain name is the web address you want (for example, www.yourblogaddress.com, or anything)

How To Enter

So you might ask: how to enter the contest? Well, the steps are quite simple. The phrases I wrote in bold letters below means the important steps you must follow.

1. Register to Tech Conclave Community Forum if you are not a member.

2. Tell the forum community who you are, what you do, and why do you like technology at Introduce Yourself category in the forum.

3. Follow Tech Conclave’s official Twitter account at http://www.twitter.com/techconclave – if you don’t have a Twitter account, create one at www.twitter.com. Also, subscribe to Tech Conclave’s YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/techconclave

After completing the steps above, you will have one (1) valid entry and you now have a chance to win the prizes. There are five winners so chances are high since as I write this, there are not much entries / members yet on the forum: so don’t miss it. The winners will be drawn randomly and will be announced on Episode 6 which is slated for release on May 30, this month. For more information about the official rules and regulations of the contest, please follow this link.

Before I end this post, I have one little favor to ask you: could you follow me on Twitter as well and greet me on May 25th as I turn 22? That would make me the happiest person on that day. Thanks a lot!

My Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/anmjoven

Please spread the word about this contest and participate in my tech community! Everyone is welcome – geek or not!

Host Color, a global Quality Web Hosting provider introduced today it’s special WordPress Hosting service. The company launched WP hosting plan priced at $2.99 per month to provide more choice for the growing community of WordPress site owners.

Host Color says its new WordPress Hosting Plan is an exclusive WP service that can not be used for websites that run any other software applications. The limitation is set due to quality assurance, so company can guarantee that customers of WordPress Plan will not use the promotional price of $2.99/month to host other applications instead of WordPress.

"We provide quality service to people in various areas of web activity and
to enable site owners to use their favorite CMS and other software
applications in high-class web hosting environment. That’s why Host Color
maintains more than 30 different service plans only in Shared Class
Hosting", said Alexander Avramov, Managing Director of Host Color LLC.

"All customers of our have a choice and can use quality hosting plans in
range between $2.99 and $11.99 per month. WordPress Hosting plan is the most inexpensive one and we allow it to be used solely for managing a WP blog", add Mr. Avramov.

The WordPress Hosting plan allows WP blog owners to use 1,000 MG disc space and 5 GB data transfer per month. Host Color says that these quotas will be increased for anyone that needs more disc space and monthly transfer, but the company does not want to promote any numbers that aren’t realistic and could be considered as overselling.

Besides preinstalled WordPress blog, WP customers can use a number of
premium WordPress themes without additional cost, and to meter their
visitors with AwStats. Anyone who wants needs to register new domain name has to pay only $8.95 for web address under COM, NET, ORG, INFO, BIZ, US or WS extensions.

Host Color has recently been very active in promoting national and regional
domain extensions. It has launched campaigns to promote .ME, .US, . Asia and .BZ domains. The company has recently opened its new Affiliate Center and new Affiliate Program. The new program transfers 25% of the company’s revenue per sale to its affiliates and at the same time pays them for each unique visitor sent to Host Color’s website.

About Host Color
Host Color LLC is a quality U.S. web hosting company incorporated in
Delaware. It powers thousands of business and personal websites in data
centers in South Bend, Indiana, U.S. and Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The
company also provides fully Managed dedicated hosting through HC Servers and European hosting services through HC Europe. It offers discounts to academics and non-governmental organizations. The Host Color’s corporate message is "Web hosting about people, not about gigabytes."

You can read my personal review about Host Color and its hosting services on this post.

This company does web hosting a very different way. It offers a wide range of Quality Web Hosting plans priced from $2.99 per to $11.99 per month. The main shared plans are Blogan (Blog hosting), Content (CMS hosting), Social Web (Social networking plan), Web Mall (E-Commerce hosting service) and Multi Site (Multi Domain hosting service for up to 30 small websites). Besides them you can use between other 24 hosting service plans. Each of them features different software application – from WordPress and b2Evolution Hosting plans, through MODx, Drupal and Joomla hosting services, to Social and SSL hosting plans.

Host Color also offers VPS Hosting plans powered by Virtuozzo, a leading virtualization solution. VPS plans cost from $19.95 (192 MB RAM, 10 GB HDD, 50 GB data transfer) to $69.95 for very powerful Virtual Private Server with 1024 MB RAM, 50 GG disc space and 350 GB data transfer. Anyone who needs to use fully Managed VPS can purchase it for low cost monthly flat fee of $49.95.

The company also offers Dedicated Hosting starts at $99 per month. These commercial information however is far less important than a few other things about Host Color. Besides my current host which is the Top Hosting Center, Host Color possess the following qualities:

1. This is the only hosting company I’ve seen to show their senior management to customers. You can see who runs Host color on its "Team" page.
2. This is the only web host that express its business principles and says "NO" to overselling on its website (Check their "About Us" and "Philosophy" sections)
3. This is the web hosting company that has implemented the probably the best customer service approach I’ve seen – to build an Online customer center (Host Color named it "pZone") to enable customers to manage their accounts and to communicate with its customer care specialists. This approach to customer service means that the web host id focused not just to sell, but to provide a high level customer care.

There are a few other things that make Host Color very open hosting company. It updates its new section and blog very often and launches promotional campaigns.

Powered with independent customer ratings system based on customer satisfaction, hosting plan affordability, uptime and support consistency, Web Hosting Rating is becoming the Web’s largest searchable web host directory that presents all the hosting information you need to come up with a decision in choosing a good host. Through them, you can also get exclusive promotional coupons that you can use to get discounts to certain web hosts. The reviews and web hosting rating they present on their website intelligently categorized for your convenience were written by real customers of today’s medium to large-scale web hosting companies, so they may be credible and trustworthy. I’ve been difficult to convince to get a hosting through a web hosting review site, as I’ve encountered before something that made them look unreliable. Fortunately, WebhostingRating.com is not one of them. However, continue to be wary and trust your gut.

One of the things I like besides the hosting ranking system is their rich and massive hosting articles library. It presents a lot of web hosting tutorials and web hosting guides related to web hosting such as multiple domain security, managed hosting management, setting up an e-commerce site, using a certain web language or payment gateways for your business website, among others. You’ll learn a lot of stuffs if you have time to browse this section that can easily be found on the site’s main menu.

Web Hosting Rating completes a good web hosting ratings and review site with their web hosting awards directory. Trust me, this is very useful in identifying a good web host . I’ve been hosted by Top Hosting Center for over a year now and I already enjoyed their hosting plan. I never regret that I trusted the awards they got that are presented on their site. Same would be the case with Web Hosting Rating.

Finally, if you reach a point that you think you’ve found the ideal web host for your blogging or business website through Web Hosting Rating, my personal advice is that you contact the live chat support of that web host and investigate further. Don’t even get a hosting to a web host that doesn’t have a live chat, it sounds untrustworthy to me.

Overall, the good thing with Web Hosting Rating is that you don’t have to research further on Google about a web hosting company as they already present most of the details you need to come up with a good decision. Good luck.

Customer Service

There are quite a number of ways to reach ImHosted.com’s customer support and it starts on their website. Strategically, the support link can be found at the top of their website which can be easily seen and accessed by anyone. Like what most web hosting companies boast, ImHosted.com also offers 24×7 customer support — that’s good to hear for sure but it doesn’t surprise me anymore. Interestingly, their support center is quite appealing. They put everything what the customers would potentially need all at the same place which is really good: from online control panel documentation, ticketing support, login links, and even comprehensive tutorials. One thing that is a bit unusual to me is their live chat since they just use ICQ messaging client for it. No ICQ? No live chat support. Personally, I prefer a web based live chat that is one click away than using any messaging client that requires software installation. Overall, ImHosted.com support department is excellent. If you are an ICQ user, you’ll love it even more. I’ve been reading reviews from their existing customers that their support is first rate — so having a different style of live chat is therefore not a let down.

Hosting Plans

As of this writing, ImHosted.com’s front page presents their mega web hosting deal. They offer affordable web hosting services for only $6.95 USD per month comprising of the following key hosting benefits:

• 2, 500 GB web space (huge)
• 20,000 GB monthly bandwidth
• host unlimited number of domain names
• free 1 lifetime domain name
• CPanel control panel
• unlimited database, email and FTP
• SSH/Telnet support

It is best that you check the complete features of their competitive shared hosting plan on this page to find learn more. It looks good for me.

ImHosted.com also offers reseller hosting which is perfect for anyone who wants to start an  online hosting business. My current hosting company doesn’t have this feature yet.

Reputation

I’ve done some research about ImHosted.com and I found some good reviews from their existing customers on various web hosting review websites and web hosting forums. I learned that their stellar reputation was brought about by their consistent excellence of their web hosting services (good uptime, effective support and well-priced hosting). This positive reputation is a good sign that a web hosting company is reliable. So, if you are planning to get a hosting, ImHosted.com is worth a try with confidence.

Verdict

Looks like ImHosted.com a reputable web hosting company with affordable web hosting plan for everyone. For only $6.95 a month, you could start a blog that you can monetize or run good websites. Their hosting plan offers not just web hosting service, but an opportunity for anyone who wants to start making money online through online ventures.

Speedy hosting plan Windows boasts almost identical features with its Linux counterpart, except of course the support for Microsoft-based web languages and software sits on top of it such as ASP and ASP.net 2. The rest is almost the same with Speedy hosting plan for Linux — 1000 GB disk space, lifetime domain name, a gigantic 33 000 GB monthly bandwidth (tantamount to having unlimited bandwidth),  a dedicated IP address, the pricing at $6.75, among other features. I would love to get this plan if I am an ASP programmer — however, I feel better with PHP so I’ll stick with their Linux hosting plan!

If you want to know how THC’s Speedy hosting plan feels like, you can read my extensive review on this post. I really loved that my domain is running with a dedicated IP from Speedy hosting plan as it boosted my traffic a lot.

THC has announced that they are giving 10% discount if you order Speedy hosting plan under a 24-month billing cycle. To get the discount code, all you need is to talk with their live chat representatives and they will give you the coupon code.

Based on my experience, the best thing about Top Hosting Center is their outstanding web hosting support. It’s the greatest bonus you can get aside from their competitive, beefed up hosting features. Keep it up THC!

Having a domain name is one of an online entrepreneur’s needs in starting a business on the Web. Basically, domain registration from all domain registrars is coupled with an optional (free or paid) domain privacy protection service. This service is essential for domain buyers who do not want to expose their sensitive information related to their domain registration through WhoIs, a searchable database program maintained by domain registrars, which can publicly display information about networks, networking organizations, and domain name contact information. While some domain registrar asks for payment for this service, EstDomains.com is known to offer domain privacy protection for free.

For an ICANN-accredited registrar, a failing domain privacy protection service for more than a week is a shame. Domain privacy is a basic domain service that customers should enjoy for their personal or business’ protection. With this service down, many hosting companies and domain resellers under EstDomains.com are now in clamor on their support department asking for answers from rather tight-lipped registrar. EstDomain.com refused to give an estimated time of arrival (ETA) of the fix for their privacy protection issues as well. Not a good sign.

This blog’s domain name is registered with EstDomains.com, and I can say this provider has done great services ended only three weeks ago. As I’ve dug through the Internet’s largest web hosting forums, I found out that EstDomains.com’s reputation was already scarred. Many experienced people in the web hosting industry who have done business with this domain provider advised to stay away because of its affinity to both scammers and spammers. However, my personal experience for one year with EstDomains.com is rather contrary to this claim.

I guess for now I will let EstDomains.com have their time to deliver the solution of their domain privacy protection. They are in business and I believe they are more worried than me (or any of their existing customers). The workaround is to change temporarily any sensitive information associated with the domain until this issue is over. It is just too bad EstDomains.com didn’t tell this temporary remedy that could help alleviate the problem.

xVHhMafgB04

Rudolf Hosting Plan Overview

Rudolf hosting plan was released by THC originally as a Christmas promotional package for people who are eager to start running their own blogs or websites. There were 1000 plans available and the promo would end when all plans are sold out. Each plan, which sits over Windows or Linux, boasts lifetime ownership (yes, for life) of a hosting account with 250 GB disk space, 3000 GB unmetered monthly bandwidth, unlimited database, a free lifetime domain name, among other professional hosting features – all priced at $95 one-time payment. THC stressed through Rudolf that “customers will never have to pay for hosting again” – a statement that shocked many informed bloggers causing them to move from their old hosts to THC.

Below is a detailed comparison of THC’s standard hosting plan, the Top Hosting Special, priced at $4.95 per month and the special Rudolf plan priced at $95 one-time for lifetime ownership.

The recent Yuletide season saw a lagging sales of Rudolf though, there were still over 600 plans left during the end of December. However, during the first few weeks of 2008, there was a surge of customers who bought Rudolf plans and eventually the remaining plans plummeted below 500. According to THC’s sales representative, they predicted that the Rudolf plans will diminish this February but may still have the chance to extend more due to changing market conditions. It was renamed to “Rudolf Valentine” carrying a theme “We Love Bloggers” to match the season.

Rudolf Under Scrutiny

Signing up for Rudolf plan comes in two different tastes: Linux and Windows. It can be found on the on the product’s landing page with all the information you need. THC even provided a FAQ page in an effort to clear the doubts of skeptic customers about their current flagship product. I see this effort “good.” THC uses only two payment gateways for their signups: PayPal and 2CheckOut. The latter one is good for credit cards that are recognized internationally.

Instructions about domain name registrations and domain name transfers associated to the Rudolf plan are provided in one of the steps of the account signup wizard. It asks new customers to send their domain registration or domain transfer request to THC’s email support. It would have been more convenient if THC was able put domain registration forms as part of their signup the process. Nevertheless, domain name registrations are usually completed from two to six hours upon registration (it could vary though) while domain name transfers usually take five days to a week to complete (without downtime). Since each Rudolf plan promises a lifetime domain name, THC will be the one to pay for the renewal fees as long as the customer stays on THC.

The EasyApp, a collection of ready-to-use PHP applications tied with the H-Sphere control panel, similar to CPanel’s Fantastico, boasts a rich number of useful applications (CMS, blog platforms, e-commerce, support systems, etc). However, the current version used by THC, does not allow installation on root directory through the control panel. This is troublesome to customers, for instance, who wants to get their WordPress blog installed on the root for search engine-optimized (SEO) permalink structure. However, the workaround is to install the application manually to the root. Manual installation is tricky and could be difficult to people who are not very technologically-inclined.

Rudolf also offers unlimited database, domains and subdomains which perfectly match the 250 GB disk storage and 3000 GB monthly bandwidth. Other hosts usually impose a maximum number of databases, and varying domain/subdomain limitations for their hosting plans. THC broke them with its 1000 Rudolf plans; the generous resource lineups allow customers to put more information to their websites due to its increased database storage and bandwidth.

Finally, with all the benefits Rudolf bring, THC placed a price tag of $95 to each plan. Of course, it is cheap and very affordable – a 12-month regular hosting would cost around $60 (excluding the domain name registration and renewal). I personally remark that it was “aggressively priced” which could be a risk to THC if their goals are not met and efforts backfire. However, I believe that the company is well-funded and that they have pre-calculated well the Rudolf plan. Hopefully with the Rudolf’s release, it would bring good returns to their investments in parallel with their generosity.

Rudolf Over Linux

I read from many blog testimonials that customers who acquired Rudolf hosting plans over Linux platform are overjoyed with the performance of their websites. Honestly, this did not shock me as Linux has always been the king in terms of web hosting regardless of hosting company.

PHP and MySQL combination in Linux platform is superb. Similar performance is also achieved by PostGreSQL database engine.

So while the rest of Linux features are excellent, there is only one apparent shortcoming I have to mention – domains on Linux can only run PHP version 4. This means applications meant for PHP version 5 may have problems running on Linux platform for the meantime. THC cannot be blamed for this, however, as the limitation was brought about by the current H-Sphere version. Future H-Sphere control panel upgrades foreseeable this year, are expected to wipe this out.

Rudolf Over Windows

Though in many ways Linux outperform Windows in the web hosting department, Rudolf over Windows platform is powered by multiple core Intel processors (same as Linux) to ensure a fast, stable and responsive website environment.

The H-Sphere control panel over Windows works a bit different than that of Linux. It offers support for ASP and ASP.net languages backed by MySQL, PostGreSQL and optional MSSQL databases. Currently, PHP is implemented as CGI on Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 available in two different and switchable versions for domains that run on Windows platform: version 4.4.7 and version 5.2.3. In all other aspects, Windows offer similar features with Linux.

However, personally I prefer getting a Linux plan (unless I need Windows-specific features). But generally in terms of web hosting, I trust Linux more than Windows.

Top Hosting Center: A Good Hosting Company?

Let’s make the article I wrote previously, “What Good Companies Are Made Of,” as a basis of judging the reputation of the company that hosts Rudolf: Top Hosting Center, a Montreal-based hosting company.

• Products competency over pricing. The specifications of Rudolf hosting plan and Top Hosting Special, in particular, passes the 200 GB disk space and 2000 GB monthly bandwidth competency requirement which I deemed sufficient for most hosting needs nowadays (though bigger is always better). Both plans are fairly priced except some would interpret Rudolf hosting plan as a bit “overselling.” However, I don’t believe because it’s just a limited offer and it is good while supply lasts. THC uses H-Sphere for web management for their hosting customers. H-Sphere is a highly sophisticated control panel developed by Positive Software Corporation that works similar but not graphically alike with other control panels, CPanel and Plesk. H-Sphere features EasyApp, a collection of ready-to-use PHP scripts which include content management systems (CMS), forums, blogs (e.g. WordPress), image galleries, and a lot more.
• Server performance, reliability and security consistency. THC’s CEO, Eric Vanier asserted in his blog that the servers behind their hosting plans, never experienced downtime for almost two years. However, seemed like a devil’s luck, it was followed by another post stating that they experienced an unexpected database issue when they applied a security patch requiring server reboot in the evening of January 11th. It broke their consistent uptime record but rather reasonable since unexpected downtimes usually happen when a new software is introduced during upgrades or if there are changes in its configuration (like the application of security patches). It was however resolved in timely manner and oddly brought server improvements that are assumingly expected to bring improved server performance and assured stability to all platforms. Other than that, THC also does nightly backups and imposes strict security rules to assure a secure environment to all its users (no SSH access on shared servers, etc).
• Support and management reachability. THC currently offers only three different modes of support: live chat support (which can be initiated on THC’s official website), e-mail support and trouble ticket support (an in-built feature in the account’s control panel). These are available 24×7, which means help is ready anytime you need it. I particularly liked the chat support system. Their chat representatives are real people and very friendly and responsive – good for product inquiries, problem reports, and basic technical assistance. They should, however, think about offering phone support (as other hosts do) to be completely competent in this part. However, they said such service is still not a “need” as of the moment as their existing support methods still suffice.
• Employee satisfaction. Just like what I mentioned in my previous post, employee satisfaction is tantamount to service and product excellence. Upon chatting with one of THC’s representatives, I learned that they are indeed very eager to deliver quality services toward customer satisfaction. This underlines the statement found of its CEO’s blog post “I Love Competition, So Do You.” I’ve also discovered that THC has partnered with Pamil-Visions, a Germany-based online marketing company that only promotes products they feel confident for.

Rudolf Plus Value-Added Services

Rudolf customers can also enjoy other THC value-added services: the THC online community forum, the THC corporate web hosting blog, discounted SEO services for their websites, and exclusive free website directory.

What Others Have To Say About Rudolf

I’ve done a Google search to find some customer reviews or any article related to the Rudolf plan. Here is the list of what I found (and there’s more out there):

• Affordable Lifetime Web Hosting Service
• THC Webhosting: Why It Is An Easy Option For Me
• Kinks Working Out At Top Hosting Center
• Brand Your Blog And Catch Rudolph Before He Is Gone
• One Time Charge For Hosting???
• First Impressions of Top Hosting Center
• Rudolf Hosting Plan Less Than 500 Left, Countdown Begins
• THC Rudolf: Globally Competitive Hosting Plan
• THC Unveils Lifetime Webhosting Account For $95 One-time!
• Why Is Rudolf The Hosting Plan You Need

Grand Conclusion

Now that I have uncovered Rudolf in most dimensions, it is now clear why it is one of the most amazing hosting plans I’ve seen on the Web. Where can you ever find a reliable host that offer 250 GB disk space, 3000 GB monthly bandwidth, a lifetime domain name, along with other standard hosting features – all subject only for one-time payment of $95? THC only rolled 1000 Rudolf plans (of course, they will lose their business if they dare to offer more) and those are meant for lucky people who are seeking for the right host.

Perhaps I didn’t tell in the previous paragraphs, but Rudolf bears one catch that could derail you from your decision of getting one: if you are dreaming of setting up an adult site for Rudolf hosting plan, forget Rudolf. THC strongly follows code of ethics and does not allow any illegal files to reside on their wholesome servers.

So, if you want to run your own blog or move your existing site to a Rudolf plan, you should do it now. Though their sales representatives won’t disclose the exact figures of remaining plans, I was informed that the numbers of Rudolf plans are rapidly diminishing. This is a threat for you.

Whew! Go get your own Rudolf hosting plan now and if you want to thank me for the great information, you can express it by putting this site in your blogroll or by simply subscribing to this blog through email or RSS.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Braindump Exam: N10-003 was the first program introduced for webmasters so that they could qualify for 350-030 in first attempt. Majority flunks because of ignorance of 70-294 and 70-647. This is true for 640-863 as well.