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Traditional website design has been plagued with problems since the inception of the internet.  Most website owner-developers emphasize too much focus on eye candy and don’t focus enough on quality programming, maximizing layout efficiency, quality content, and tend to have complete disregard for search engine optimization (SEO).  While taking a “do it from scratch” approach is usually the cheapest method, it is rarely the best value when you consider your time spent and the quality of the outcome.

Web-based site builders may be the way to go when planning a website for your project.  The price range is wide and the array of services offered is vast.  Since a website is useless without visitors, search engine optimization with the help of affordable seo services should be a primary focus when selecting your package.  Ease of use is also extremely important.  After all, how can you create a useful website if you can’t figure out the user tools?  A few site development providers also provide web-based email services, domain registration, and forum creation/management.

Hiring a professional website developer can be an expensive venture, and the amount of control the user has over his own website may be limited.  Novice designers can generally seek assistance through various websites.  Being able to update your personal website when you want is important to most people; this perk is not available when somebody else is in control.

Remember, SEO is an important part of driving the right kind of traffic to your website.  If your budget is limited, consider limiting your search with respect to high-end website design services and put your money where it will increase the overall usefulness of your website.

Searching for a reputable web hosting service can be a daunting task for all but the most seasoned professionals.  Listed below are several tips that will get you moving on the right track.

Looking for a web hosting company that spreads its resources around several other services (website maintenance or programming support, for instance) may fulfill your basic hosting needs, but the overall experience may suffer.  Companies that strive for excellence in one or only a few closely-related services may deliver more quality for your dollar.

Spend a little extra time to find a web hosting company that takes security seriously.  Hosting companies should keep their security software up-to-date and respond quickly to issues.  Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates provided by reputable hosting services will protect the security of your website by preventing unidentified browsers from potentially harming your website.

There is nothing more frustrating than having an issue and being unable to access customer support from your hosting company.  Telephone support is the most efficient means of resolving issues quickly, but many hosting companies offer limited telephone support hours or, even more disappointingly, email-only customer support.  Look for a company that can provide plentiful telephone support hours.

Sometimes it’s the little extras that can make an adequate experience an excellent one.  Bare-bones web hosting services may appear cost-effective up front, but the amount of time and frustration that comes along with them can offset the small price difference.  User-friendly interfaces like control panel tools, order forms, and multi-media features make every web designer more productive.  If you know which bells-and-whistles will assist with the development of your project, look for the hosting plan that doesn’t go over the top, but doesn’t sell you short, either.

Don’t buy into the numbers hype that web hosting companies advertise in their plans.  “99.9% uptime” and “10 Gigs of Storage” are not necessarily the most important factor to consider.  A small project won’t benefit from wasted bandwidth or huge storage space.  It’s difficult to substantiate uptime claims, so third-party reviews may assist in determining the most reliable hosting service.  Be wary of over the top reviews; if the company sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

There’s no sense in over-paying for web hosting services, but look closely at the product being offered if you appear to be getting a great deal.  Don’t make the mistake of missing out on crucial features or receiver poor customer service because the service price is suspiciously low.  Study the terms of service and determine exactly what you’re getting for your money.

You wouldn’t buy a one bedroom house when you’re expecting twins, would you?  Don’t get stuck with not being able to grow into the needs of your customers or target audience because of your web hosting.  You may want to increase your online content one day in the future, or add support for different scripts and features.  Buying a little more than you need now will ensure that your growth doesn’t get stunted later.

The global number of online shopping customers continues to grow.  Customers in the United States and United Kingdom will spend $150 billion per year online within the next 2 years.  Your commerce features need to be easy to use and secure for you and your customers.

Ensure that you don’t miss out on solid email protection against viruses and spam.  Your web hosting company should provide the features you need for the email programs you use.  This protection must keep you and your customers safe while not blocking important messages from the people you need to communicate with.

Look at all the factors when picking a web hosting company.  Good third-party reviews are important, as well as data to substantiate any claims made by the service provider.  Seeing the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors hosting can assist you in your research.  Does the hosting service use high quality hardware, or out-of-date technology subject to failure?  Look for hosing company that offer a trial period to determine if all the features offered are right for your project.

Considering the above information may save you time, money, and peace of mind in your search for safe, reliable website hosting.  Good luck!

Choosing a web hosting service platform can be a confusing task.  Potential users have to consider their specific requirements, their own technical knowledge, and the administrative costs associated with maintaining their project.  UNIX hosting is an option that is a generally cost-effective alternative to Windows-based web hosting.  UNIXs code is open source, meaning loads of technical support is available from other developers across the internet, as well as the continuous creation and development of new tools and applications.

Occasional security-related issues pop up in all software from time to time.  While traditional software companies (such as Microsoft) take a lot of time to develop, test, and distribute updates and patches, open source programs like UNIX are transparent and any competent programmer can develop a fix for the issue and distribute it much more quickly.

UNIX was designed for users with a higher technical knowledge of web hosting server support.  Hosting with UNIX generally requires a computer configured with UNIX OS (which itself has been in continuous development longer than Microsoft Windows).  Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris, all open source companies themselves, use the base operating system architecture provided by UNIX.

While learning the language required to program with UNIX is not overwhelmingly difficult, a working knowledge of its capabilities and commands is a prerequisite to successful hosting since most providers limit access to your account to SSH or Telnet.  Having a somewhat detailed knowledge of working with UNIX also allows its users more flexibility in customizing the software to fit their specific needs.

When you do choose a platform, consider all of the provided specifications and how they will affect your particular goal.  While many hosting companies offer UNIX as a hosting platform, each offers several features at different costs that can affect not only your sanity when developing your web site, but also your overall bottom line.

Many free online backup services allow you to store your backup data offsite. God forbid, should any disaster struck at your place, you can atleast access your backup data since they are kept at a seperate place may be even at a different country altogether.

Some of these backup services also allow to keep seperate versions of data files and you can even schedule your backups. So say for eg, if you have accidentally erased part of an important file, you can easily recover the earlier copy of the saved backup file. Some services even can encrypt your data files for added security over the internet.

Online backup services are possibly very helpful when you are travelling places and you do not want to carry your huge data everytime with you wherever you go. You may not need the data everytime but circumstances may happen that you need your data when away from your office computer. In this cases an online back up service would be very much helpful and time saving.

Another possible use for such services is if you are travelling and do not want to lug around your data with you. You can then back it up to the service, and access it from wherever you may be.

1. Mozy Online Backup.

This new backup service provides you with 2000MB of web space to back up your data files. Your data files are encrypted through out the online transfer from your PC to their online server and are always kept encrypted while they are in storage. They even provide unlimited backup data space for a very small fee.

2. IDrive Basic – Free Online Backup – Secure, Automated and Encrypted.

Here also you get 2GB of backup space, automatic continuous online backup with upto 10 mins frequency, different versions of your data files, encrypted storage and transfer, etc. You must have Windows Operating System to use their service, because you need to install a small Windows application on your PC to perform the online backups.

3. Humyo

Humyo is basically designed to share your media rich data files and making them easily accessible to you when you are on move. It provides you storage upto 25GB of media files (music, videos, photos) and another 5GB for non-media data files. Accounts are automatically deleted after 90 days of inactivity. (The website says you will be notified before hand).

4. BuddyBackup – Free Online Backup

This particular online backup service has a different approach to how it works. They actually do not provide you with any storage webspace for your data, but you are awarded “buddies” through the application by which you store your files on other buddies’ PCs. Similarly they store their data files onto your computer. You can store upto 5GB of data in this method, and previous generations of your data files are also backed up. All your data files are strongly encrypted, so even your buddies would not be able to open or even view it. This application requires Windows.

Legal panel advises to think twice before shifting your domain names offshore at DOMAINfesh Global.

In Los Angeles, at DOMAINfesh Global, a team of lawyers advised that moving domain names to offshore providers or registrars and forming your own domain company outside of the US be as profitable as it seems. In fact, Derek Newman said that you may hurt yourself more by setting up offshore projects to provide and hold domain names.

Newman advised that comanies and often judges, think that you are trying to hide some thing if you set up your offshore companies to hold your own domain names. This applies even to shifting your domain names to  an offshore domain registrar.

Other panel lawyers agreed and said that even if your domain names are outside in an offshore registrar company or your own offshore company it does not mean that you are outside of the US jurisdiction.

Here are some points to ponder and think about:

1. Is your webhost or server based in U.S.?
2. Does your domain name parking provider have a presence in United States.?
3. If your domain parking corporation is outside United States, does it use a US based ad feed such as Yahoo or Google?

The Domain Industry’s News by Andrew Allemann

Hal Bailey from Google talks about domain parking at DOMAINfest.

In a somewhat awkward session, Hal Bailey from Google Adsense for Domains talks about the future of domain channel today at Los Angeles at DOMAINfest Global.

The best good news for all domainers is that Hal Bailey said that Google is committed to the domain channel and it believes that it adds value to domainers. Google will not exit the domain channel anytime sooner, he said. He also gave assurance that Google does not want competition with domain parking providers and views them as a value added partner.

“We value our partners,” Hal said. “They provide value to us (Google) and they also provide value to (Domainers).” In the past year Google focused primarily on traffic quality, and that will be continued.

Once the floor was opened for questions, the session which started turned awkward for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, a few of the participated audience’s queries did not make sense about Google products were unrelated to Adsense for Domains. Hal Bailey’s group does not actually control the Adsense for Domains ‘direct’ product, but only works with their partners such as Oversee.

Secondly, the audience were generally hostile for Google’s lack of transparency. Also Bailey avoided (dodged) many queries simply stating that he could not comment. Also when Andrew Allemann asked Hal Bailey what was driving down the domain parking revenue other than the economy, Bailey replied it was indeed the economy.

Hal will be meeting with domainers face to face in the afternoon networking session today.

Twitter is now just over 3 yrs old, and finally is receiving a lot of recognition as a very powerful social networking utility. The past year had been tough for Twitter, from fears that the website may choose to close down and from killing SMS updates for its UK members. – but eventually it struggled its way back and it now seems to be enjoying the sweet fruits of its labours.

So Officially, Twitter has caught up with Digg by popularity scales and even shot right through it. According to an estimate by website Hitwise, Twitter’s traffic is now increased many fold (around 10-fold) just the past one year, and now for the first time since it has launched, has officially surpassed fellow social media site Digg.

Google’s Web Master tools is now a very smart and useful resource tools for search agencies or budding webmaster who is very keen to learn more about the website’s visibility on Google. This is possible since this tool offers some basic but useful information about web sites – for eg, the backlinks each of the web page has. So once your site is been confirmed by Google Web Master Tool, there are some simple options and settings which will allow you to present Google with all of the information on your specified preferences.

One of these preferences settings is to exactly advise Google on your preferred domain.

This is a nice great little tool as it instructs Google to specifically crawl, visit & display your web site’s results with either “www” or “non-www” at the beginning of your domain.

Google webmaster tools is an essential tool which will help you in your search engine ranking. If you find the setup a little overwhelming at first, you may take help from an affordable seo company initially.

Are you looking for a free yet better editor to design your web site? There are some free WebSite Builders, Web Editors, WYSIWYG Editors and well as some very special editors which are optimized for CSS or other various web script languages like Perl, JavaScript, PHP, ASP and Java etc..There are mainly two types of Web Editors :

1. WYSIWYG Web Editors and…

2. Site Builders which allow us to design our web sites from packaged templates, whereas the first one is just like a word processor where you design your website a WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET screen.
1. Free HTML Editors / ASCII Text Web Editors

Notetab Light

This Notetab Light is a freeware version of the commercial Pro and Standard versions. It has lots of features as a general text editor and comes with various HTML editing features including a very usefull “Clipbook” facility.

HAPedit (HTML ASP PHP Editor)

HAPedit is specially very useful for people who need to develop both static and dynamic web sites. It provides for syntax highlighting for ASP, HTML, JavaScript, PHP; and comes with a project manager etc. This is a Windows application.

Arachnophilia

This web editor comes complete with built-in FTP upload facility, making it simple for you to write and author your webpages and then publish it online without ever leaving the web editor.
PSPad

PSPad is a complete full featured text web page editor which you can use to edit all PHP, HTML, C, JavaScript, Perl, etc. It also has its own built-in feature which allows you to edit all binary files.

Quanta Plus Web Development Tool

Quanta Plus is a Linux HTML editor for KDE. It has various features such as easy configuration of toolbars, syntax highlighting, web site uploading facility, and the facility to change and update a web site from CVS (with a plugin), etc.

Matrix Y2K Freeware HTML Editor

Matrix Y2K is a HTML editor which has support for multiple documents, multiple languages, search and replace, syntax highlighting, external preview, internal preview of your web page, table wizard, image file browser, ability to create script library and forms support.

Bluefish

Bluefish is known as a programmer’s HTML editor, which is specially designed to save the more experienced web master some keystrokes. It has features such as multiple toolbars, multiple file editor, custom image, menus and thumbnail dialogs. Bluefish runs on FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, NetBSD, Tru64/Alpha, Mac OSX, HP-UX and OpenBSD.

HTML-KitThis HTML-Kit  text editor is designed for use by webdevelopers, and is equipped with good support for writing XML, HTML and scripts.

Web-O-Rama

An web editor that supports lots of features which are useful for HTML text editing yet has an clear, uncluttered interface. It is also free for non-commercial use.

2. Free Website Builders and WYSIWYG Web Editors.

NetObjects Fusion Essentials

This WYSIWYG site builder and web editor features site management tools, drag and drop website layouts,  a form builder, photo gallery, support for Quicktime and Flash, rollover images and more.  Note: if you need the free version, you must register online when installing to get yourself a serial number.

KompoZer – Easy Web Authoring

KompoZer is a powerful WYSIWYG web editor which allows you to build web sites in a simple easy way, using a clear visual interface. Typically, it is an updated version of Nvu web editor but complete with bug fixes.

SeaMonkey Composer (Mozilla Composer)Seamonkey, the webbrowser suite from Mozilla, comes with a good WYSIWYG webeditor which has the ability to quickly code webpages using a similar word processor-like interface.

Amaya Web Browsing and Authoring

Amaya Web Browsing is an open source webbrowser & WYSIWYG authoring environment which supports and allows users to design and develop webpages without any knowledge about CSS or HTML. You can design your web pages and directly view them using this advanced software. It supports HTML, CSS, MathML 2.0 and XHTML.

Trellian WebPAGE

Trellian Web PAGE which is a free WYSIWYG webeditor has syntax highlighting HTML editor with a drag and drop interface, table creation wizard, built in FTP uploader, form creation wizard and a preview screen which allows us to see the webpage under three very common screen widths (800, 1024 and 640).

Nvu – Complete Web Authoring System

(Update: Nvu has now been discontinued. You must beware of scam sites which pretend to be Nvu website and then asking for support/donations. The official site is now gone, and currently there are no replacement web sites. So, meanwhile, you may use KompoZer, which is very similar just like Nvu with a new name and with some bug fixes done)

Only Microsoft doesn’t use Linux as a OS for its server virtualization platform. All other major producers of virtualization technologies use Linux Operating System.

VMware

VMWare hold almost 80% of virtualization market. Those who use their technology say that VMware provides great support, excellent training, and offers ver ystable virtualization products.

Virtuozzo

Virtuozzo and its predecessor OpenVZ are owned by Parallels. These are the worlds leading OS  levelvirtualization technologies. While OpenVZ is free and anyone would use it to develop in-house virtualization solution, Virtuozzo is a advanced and expensive software product. In OS level virtualization the kernel of the operating system allows for multiple isolated user-space instances, instead of just one. This makes each virtual private server an extension of the physical server. OpenVZ and Virtuozzo have many advantages and one disadvantage – we have to run on the virtual machines the same OS and kernel as we have on the physical server.

Xen

Citrix is the company that now owns Xen technology. Xen is popular hypervisor software and that’s why many commercial services and virtualization products are based on Xen. Citrix however has to offer a model of providing support for Xen that would help more businesses to start using this technology.