Web Hosting

ResellerChoice Offers Perks to New Clients

To meet growing demands, web hosting provider ResellerChoice, is currently running a sale for new customers.  The company recently debuted a special offer for 20% off its entire line of Windows hosting packages.

Rob Conley of ResellerChoice says the company’s goal is the same as it has always been – deliver its customers feature-rich Windows hosting solutions attached with the maximum uptime and responsive support.  ResellerChoice specializes in a wide range of unique hosting services that allow customers to effectively brand their name into the environment.  Some of the packages up for grabs include ASP.NET hosting, dedicated servers, Hyper-V VPS, Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange hosting.   Along with variety and reliable service, new customers also get the added benefit of a 20% discount when entering the “20OFF” code with their purchase.

ResellerChoice offers Windows web hosting solutions designed for small to large sized businesses.  The company also delivers services to suit the needs of Windows developers and web designers.  Making a commitment to reliability, ResellerChoice provides each of its customers with the following:

• Advanced security features
• Nightly data backups
• 24/7 customer service and technical support
• 99.9% uptime guarantee
• Maximum service level agreement
• 30-day money back guarantee

ResellerChoice is a leading provider in Windows reseller hosting solutions.  Its discounted packages include:

Small Business Domain Paks: Regularly starting at $9.95 per month, these entry-level plans come include with programming languages such ASP.NET and PHP as well as databases like MS SQL and MySQL.  When using the discount code, these packages are as low as $7.96 a month.

Enterprise Domain Paks: These solutions offer all the features from the Small Business Domain Paks with the addition of Microsoft SharePoint Hosting.  Regularly $19.95 a month, Enterprise Domain Paks start from $15.96 with the 20% discount.

Small Business Gig Paks: ResellerChoice gives you a lot more with the Small Business Gig Paks. The major draw of these packages is the ability to host unlimited domains, unlimited email accounts and wealth of development tools.  You also get everything offered in the Small Business Domain Pak along with Microsoft SharePoint hosting.  Originally $59.95, these packages are $47.96 a month with the special coupon.

Each plans offers a variety of features including:

• Automated billing system
• Seamless integration with 2Checkout, Authorize.net and PayPal
• The latest versions of ASP.NET, PHP, MySQL and MS SQL
• An easy to use one-click application installer
• Free shared SSL certificate
• Nightly data backups/self backups
• User and Group functionality in SharePoint

About RellerChoice

Founded in 2001, ResellerChoice has made a name in the web hosting business with its powerful Windows hosting solutions.  Aside from selling advanced reseller packages, the company also offers reliable services that range from shared hosting and dedicated servers to CMS and managed hosting.  ResellerChoice designs its hosting solutions to suit the needs of Internet Service Providers and businesses of all size, helping them enjoy the best of Windows hosting and powerful Microsoft products.  The hosting provider has clients across the world with data facilities located in New York City, Seattle, Texas and Washington, D.C.

Top 7 Reasons to Drupal

When it comes to open-source content management systems, they just don’t get any better than Drupal.  This award-winning CMS has been responsible for creating a number of sites including those powered by The Discovery Channel, The New York Observer and Yahoo.  If you’re considering open-source solutions, this article will give you seven reasons why Drupal makes the best choice.

1. Search Engine Friendly – Drupal offers enhanced control over URL structure, making this CMS search engine friendly right out of the box.  Each piece of content can become customized with clean URLs that better your chances of ranking well in the search engines.

2.  Custom Content - The CCK (Content Construction Kit) in Drupal allows you to easily create various types of content.  Common examples include news stories, blog posts and tutorials.  With the Views Modules feature, you can display these content types in numerous ways.  While the average CMS requires complex coding to enable these tasks, Drupal makes it all simple as no programming experience is required.

3. Revision Control – Drupal allows you to save new versions of your web pages every time they are edited.  This gives you the ability to revert back to your old versions at any time.

4. Advanced Categorization – Drupal’s taxonomy system lets you organize and tag content with ease.  Known as vocabularies, each set of categories can be organized as certain types of content.  For instance, you could have blog content that permits free tagging while other sections can be limited to different list of categories.  When combined with the CCK and View Modules feature, this functionality makes it easy to target keywords you want to implement into your site.

5. User Management - The Drupal CMS was designed to support community-based sites, proven by the enhanced user and access control functionality it offers.  There are no limits to the user roles and access levels you can create and customize.  The best thing about Drupal is that it lets you keep advanced management features disabled and then enable them when your site grows and requires more community features.

6. PHP-based – By default, Drupal uses a PHP template theme engine, allowing you to instantly enhance the presentation of your site.  Applying themes in Drupal is easier than the WordPress environment and as long as the they are completely scripted, you don’t have to know anything about PHP to install them.

7. Excellent Community Support – Of all open-source content management systems, Drupal has one of the largest and most active communities.  You will understand how well supported the CMS is when taking a look at the long scroll of modules that have been contributed to the project.  There are many ways to get support including Drupal forums along with a number of video tutorials, podcasts and online documentation.  Drupal’s popularity gives you the assurance that this CMS will be around for a long time.

Joomla is highly functional yet lacks out of the box search engine friendliness.  WordPress is easy to use but can’t handle larger websites.  Where these systems and other platforms fail, Drupal picks up the slack with instant functionality able to satisfy a wide range of needs.

Managed vs Shared Hosting – Which Type to Consider

Before deciding on a web host, it is important to know that web hosting is available in many different variations.  Two of the most common forms of hosting are shared and managed hosting.  While quite similar, the differences set these types of web hosting apart by far.

Shared Hosting

For someone who only requires a small, basic website, leasing an entire web server just isn’t practical.  If this sounds like you, then shared hosting would be the perfect solution.  It is cost effective and specifically designed to suite the needs of small websites.  With shared hosting, the web host stores multiple websites on single server, allowing them to offer a service that is much cheaper than dedicated hosting.

Web servers are more powerful than the average computer used in the desktop setting.  They offer plenty of disk space as well as RAM and CPU.  The catch is that you are required to share these resources with other customers, a factor that could lead to performance and security issues. If your requirements are minimal, you should be able to find a shared hosting provider able to supply all the resources you need.  However, as your site becomes more popular, it is very likely that you will exceed the resources the web host is able to provide.  In this case, you need to either consider purchasing upgrades that supply you with additional bandwidth, storage capacity and other essential components.  If the provider is not able to accommodate your needs, it is time to move up to a dedicated server and possibly consider managed hosting.

Managed Hosting

Websites that experience a high volume of traffic and run mission-critical business operations are best suited for a dedicated server.  Unlike shared hosting, a dedicated server provides you with all the resources on the machine.  This includes disk space, RAM, CPU and guaranteed bandwidth as well.  On the other hand, a dedicated server calls for you to deal with server administrative tasks that can be very complex and time consuming.

In its purest form, having a dedicated server means you are responsible for all the maintenance.  This includes basic administration to keep the machine thriving on a day to day basis as well addressing any security issues that may arise.  Those who require a dedicated server but are not up for all the technical challenges often opt for managed hosting.

Managed hosting offers benefits to the website owner or business that either lacks the skills required to maintain a dedicated server or simply do not have the time to invest.  You can generally select the options that best suit your needs, freeing you up to concentrate on other vital aspects while the server is maintained by the web host.   When viewing it from this perspective, managed hosting is pretty much like outsourcing your dedicated server tasks to a third-party company.

Making a Choice

Managed hosting is the perfect alternative to the limitations of the shared server and complexity of a dedicated server.  Keep in mind that these benefits come with a higher price tag.  Therefore, it is very important to make sure you truly require this type of service before making an investment.

Six Important Considerations for Domain Name Registration

So,  you have finally decided that you want to make a name for yourself online.  Before you even create the website, it is best to register a domain name first.  As simple as it all sounds, registering a domain is something that calls for careful planning.  Without a strategy, you could end up regretting the chosen name and actually hinder your ability to succeed online.  To avoid those issues, we present you with six critical factors to consider.

Determine the Purpose of Your Site

Before registering a domain name, it makes sense to determine the purpose of your website.  For example, if you are a book distributor and want to sell novels online, you may want to incorporate relative terms into your domain.  If you want to brand your site, come up with something that is unique and can be easily pronounced – Google is a perfect example.

Domain Extension

If at all possible, you want to register your domain name with the popular .com extension.  While this extension is highly recommend, keep in mind that your ideal domain may not be available exactly how you want it.  When this is the case, you should get creative and think of a few combinations that will get you as close to the desired name as possible.  Some options include adding a (-) to the name, although it is not advisable to use more than one.  If you just can’t find that .com, don’t hesitate to use .net or .biz as they make the best alternatives.

Think Keywords

If you want to generate traffic from search engines like Google and Yahoo, it wise to research a few primary keywords relative to your initiative and incorporate them into your domain.  This could possibly boost your search engine rankings and drive in more traffic as well.

Length of Registration

Good domain names are hard to come by.  For this reason, we suggest registering your name for as long possible.  If you prefer to renew each year, be sure to do so on time or you just might lose it to someone else.

Domain Registrars

A domain registrar is what you need to register your domain name.  There are a several registrars to choose from and while they basically offer the same service, you will find that the price tends to range widely.  If you want to save money, you should look into a company that offers free domain registration with the purchase of web hosting service or an inexpensive registrar like GoDaddy.   In general, you should easily be able to find a respectable registrar offering domain registration for $10 or less per year.

Domain Privacy

The last factor you need to consider is the possibility of somebody looking for you on the web.  Anyone can search for domain owners on the WHOIS website.  Depending on what you have going on, you may not want to make this information accessible.  In this case, you could opt for domain privacy which will keep your domain name private on the WHOIS database.  A registrar typically charges an additional fee for this service, but you might find it to be worth the extra costs.

Outsourcing Articles for SEO

njoying success online is great but promoting your website is never the easiest thing to do.  We have all heard that SEO works wonder but not everyone is willing to put in the time intensive labor.  One of the best ways to optimize your site for the search engines is quality articles related to your market or topic.  If you do not have the writers in-house who can produce the content, you should strongly consider outsourcing.

Content is King

More webmasters have come to discover that articles are an excellent way to obtain the relative one-way links and linkable content a website needs to generate search engine traffic.  The internet has opened up many doors for the freelance market.  What this means is that you can contract out some work at around $20 per 400 to 500 word article and possibly less when purchasing them in bulk.  If your site is bringing in steady revenue, this could be a rewarding trade off.

The greatest advantage of outsourcing articles is that you have the luxury to order content as it is required.  There is no need to worry about employing additional staff or equipment.  Simply hire a professional freelance writer and they handle the content while you focus on other important aspects.  In many cases, freelancers are represented by firms, providing you with access to even more resources and varying levels of expertise.

What Should You Pay?

When it comes to outsourcing articles, you will find that prices vary greatly, and so do the qualifications.  The truth is that many freelance writers will take on a tremendous amount of work all at once.  While this allows them to maximum their earnings it also impacts turn-around time, meaning your assignment could get put on the back burner.  Realizing this, it is a good rule of thumb to anticipate a short turn-round time at a higher price and longer turn-around at a lower price.  Try to play your cards right in the middle by not going too high or too low on the price.  Instead, take what the contractor has to say into consider and view samples of their past work.  From there, you can determine if the writer is able to meet your needs and then discuss the price.

What Qualifications Should You Look For?

Price will always be a factor but qualifications is quite possibly the most important aspect of all.  Some writers could be more effective at crafting catchy headlines while some may excel at writing the specific content.  In fact, many writers may not fully understand the ever changing SEO tactics or LSI considerations. You will also find writers who are well versed with technical subjects and others who specialize in a wide range of genres.  The key is finding one who is able to convey the tone of your website while still factoring in search engine optimization techniques.

In the end, outsourcing your articles will require that you communicate the messages you want expressed to a writer.  However, the bright side is that when you get the right individual or team on your side, you can dramatically boost productivity and ensure that your website remains appealing in the eyes of your readers and the search engines.

Why Hackers Hack Websites

Security experts and various studies reveal that website hacking is definitely on the rise.  Today’s hackers are more advanced than ever before, often working together in close-knit communities trading tips and tools with one another.  These twisted individuals take their business serious, having countless online forums where updates are posted daily to help each other get around the latest security mechanism and increase the number of victims.  What makes website hacking so detrimental is that there are so many types of attacks.  In addition, different hackers have different goals in mind.

Hacking for Sensitive Information

Any who frequents the web can see that almost every website consists of numerous applications.  This goes from simple email forms and login pages to shopping carts and more dynamic creations.  These applications all share the common goal of allowing web surfers to submit and retrieve a given level of personal or sensitive information stored in an underlying database.  When such applications are not secured, you are essentially opening the gate leading to your most confidential data.  Just think if you’re involved in e-commerce – those databases probably contain credit card numbers and details regarding your customers.  If a hacker is able to inflict damage, your business could be in great peril.

Hacking to Steal Bandwidth

Bandwidth is one of the most vital internet resources and plays a major role in the functioning of your website.  Coupled with the expense, the opportunity to conduct illegal business is enough motivation to provoke a website hacking.  A knowledgeable hacker could penetrate a web-based application, leach off a large amount of bandwidth and go on with their illicit activities.  When this occurs, the web hosting provider’s server is being used to help carry out illegal business without them even realizing it.

Hacking to Distribute Illegal Content

One of the most common reasons website attacks occur is to accommodate hackers looking to distribute illegal content while leaving no trace of themselves.  This is often done to trade pirated software or even something as disturbing as child pornography.  When these activities are traced by the authorities, the trail only leads back to the website owner who could likely face legal implications, the loss of credibility or worse.

Hacking for Search Engine Rankings

It is a proven fact that search engines are one of the most effective ways to generate qualified visitors.  Hackers are aware of this as well and will do whatever it takes to get ahead.  Some are so advanced that they have the ability to inject hidden keywords into the websites of unsuspecting owners.  Search engines like Google frown down on such activities and will often penalize anyone caught spamming its database.  In this case, it’s the victimized website owner.  This is something that could really impact the ability to effectively promote your business.

Protect Your Website

The importance of application security just can’t be stressed enough.  These are just a few of several factors that motivate hacking and if your website isn’t secure, you could be the next victim.

VPS Control Panel Options

The control panel has become a common fixture in the web hosting arena.  Not only does this special software allow the end-user to control their account, but it also lets the web hosting administrator control all of the websites on the server.  The number of control panels is increasing rapidly and many are specific to different hosting environments.  This article will go over three control panels that are commonly used in VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting: HSPcomplete, Plesk and cPanel.

HSPcomplete

With HSPcomplete, you can manage your entire VPS hosting account from a single login interface.  The software is based on a template, making it lightweight and incredibly easy to use. Despite the simplicity, it does come integrated with some pretty nice features.  HSPcomplete is very reliable but lacks the functionality required to be successful with reseller accounts.

Plesk

Another template-based control panel, Plesk has won numerous awards for its performance in the shared and VPS hosting environment.  Unlike HSPcomplete, it is also makes a viable option for reseller hosting.  This control panel is fast, feature-rich and reliable, offering benefits to users on the administrator and domain level.  If want to give your customers a powerful control panel, Plesk is the answer.

cPanel/WHM

The award-winning cPanel is the leading control panel software.  Many web hosts and end-users prefer this application because of its straightforward, feature-rich interface.  The GUI is designed in a manner that allows even inexperienced users to thrive with a VPS account.  Because cPanel is primarily based on icons and not templates as the control panels mentioned above, it generally takes up more disk space and resources.

Recommendations

If you are still having a difficult time deciding which control panel to choose for your VPS account, the following details may help.  Both Plesk and HSPcomplete are created by software company Swsoft, the same people who developed Virtuozzo, the virtualization technology installed on most VPS hosting accounts.  These control panels are sure to give you excellent performance as they only leave a small footprint in the Virtuozzo software.  This is because the programs are based on a single template running on the physical node instead on the virtual private server.

The cPanel/WHM (Web Host Manager) package never makes a bad choice for the simple fact that it is so easy to use.  However, the size of the software and design that fits a great number of icons on the interface makes it a bit slower than other control panels.  You can certainly get by with cPanel on a VPS, but you may not get the performance a control panel like Plesk will provide.

Some customers go to a VPS hosting provider having done their research and know what control they want and others have no clue.  Whether its in a virtualized environment or typical hosting arrangement, the right control panel all boils down to personal preference.  If you have no familiarity with control panel software, your best bet would to check out a live demo and try to determine which program you feel comfortable with.

Benefitting From VPS Hosting

Virtual Private Server or VPS, refers to a type of hosting where different customers host their sites a single physical server. They share the same internet connection and even the hardware itself. Sounds pretty much like shared hosting, right? Yes it does, but there are significant differences. A VPS is established by virtualization software which partitions and creates multiple servers within a single server. This process allows you to enjoy benefits similar to that of a dedicated server. For example, you typically get your own operating system, file system and root access to the server. Control is another aspect that is increasingly attracting webmasters to virtualization solutions. VPS allows you to perform administrative tasks such as making configurations to the server, installing software applications and hosting multiple sites without enduring performance issues. You also have the power to actually reboot the server.

Benefits of VPS Hosting

The major benefit of VPS hosting is enhanced performance as well as tighter security at a price significantly cheaper than a dedicated server.

If you plan to move from shared hosting yet can’t afford the high-end price tag of a dedicated server, VPS hosting is the solution you are looking for. Virtualization is becoming more popular, resulting in a price drop on VPS hosting packages. This type of arrangement can serve benefits to a wide range of users. With your platform and operating system isolated from other customers, you will enjoy guaranteed resources in terms of CPU, RAM and disk space.

Who Needs VPS Hosting?

Virtualization is quickly become the preferred option amongst entrepreneurs involved in reseller hosting. VPS provides you with a greater level of control on the services you can offer your customers, resulting in a edge over competitors still utilizing traditional shared servers. The power it provides is well suited for developers looking to a create highly functional blog or demanding social networking site. VPS is also an ideal platform for the webmaster that is already proficient at managing a shared hosting account and wants to upgrade their server administrative skills without fully being exposed to dedicated hosting. All users will have the freedom to install custom applications and change modules on the server. When considering the added privacy, extra layer of security, guaranteed resources and a higher level of performance, it’s no wonder that VPS hosting has become so incredibly popular.

Conclusion

Both shared and dedicated hosting will always serve their purpose but the Virtual Private Server is here to stay. This arrangement makes the perfect solution for anyone who requires more control over their hosting environment yet do not have the resources to invest in an entire server. With VPS, you get a cost not too far removed from shared hosting with a level of control and flexibility similar to a dedicated server, an ideal compromise that allows you to enjoy the best of both worlds.

Mambo vs. Joomla – These CMS Rivals Square Off

The original Mambo Open Source content management system has spawned numerous variations and forks.  Two of the major systems are Mambo as we know it today and the award-winning Joomla CMS.  Joomla 1.0 is quite similar to Mambo but version 1.5 has broke out with an identity all its own.  So, which CMS is right for you?  There are advantages and disadvantages to both solutions and we will cover them in this article.

Mambo

While there has only been a slight change in the project name, most of Mambo’s development team abandoned the system in 2005 to create Joomla.  Every since then, the system has struggled in terms of popularity as a large portion of the Mambo user community followed the developers in favor of Joomla.  Be that as it may, Mambo remains a solid choice and continues to improve.

Advantages - Mambo is a stable, lightweight system that puts out exceptional performance on a busy website.  Despite losing the original development team, the project has good management and positive hope for future development.  Even as an open-source system, Mambo can be easily integrated with non-GPL systems and commercial extensions.

Disadvantages - The biggest drawback to Mambo is that it lacks new extensions.  This goes back to 2005 as most of the developers who wrote extensions for the system shifted over to Joomla.  Another disadvantage is that Mambo has a smaller user community than Joomla, meaning you might have to search long and hard to get quality support.

Mambo works best for small to medium sized businesses as well as webmasters that do not require lots of upgrades and extensions.  To put it simple, this system performs better on a basic website that contains minimal interactive features.

Joomla

As we mentioned above, Joomla 1.0 is very similar to Mambo.  In fact, there are a number of extensions that support both systems.  Although the first generation still has a large user base, that will all change soon as the Joomla development team is slated to halt support for the product this coming July.  Joomla 1.5 offers many improvements over the previous version and is largely supported by the development team and user community.

Advantages – Joomla 1.5 is supported by a wide variety of extensions and the number is growing faster than any CMS that forked off from Mambo.  The system also supports many of the older extensions with the aid of the legacy mode plugin.  The rapidly expanding community ensures that you can get decent support and answers in Joomla forums.

Disadvantages – Joomla 1.5 is a bit heavier than the previous version and thus might run slower depending on the server.  This could make it real frustrating to keep your site fresh with the  necessary updates.  Additionally, the Joomla team has taken an official stance where the GPL states that commercial extensions are not to interact with the system’s API, basically ruling out any developers who do not want their extensions licensed under the GPL.  On the other hand, many developers have chosen to ignore this rule.  As it stands now, it seems as if this is one rule that will never be strictly enforced.

Joomla is best suited for small to medium sized businesses with the need to create a content-rich site and access a variety of third-party extensions.

If you’re looking for a winner, Joomla is most likely to be supported into the future but Mambo will probably require fewer upgrades as versions aren’t released as frequently.