When we just start our online business or just a small website, we all face this major decision: which web hosting service should you choose? You can’t rely on trial and error, because once you set up your website, especially if it’s a database-based CMS, it won’t be easy to move to another host if you found out that the current does not suit you. What I did, every time before I wanted to sign up with a new host (and I currently have 5 hosting accounts in various companies) is just go over all the reviews you can find online and see which of all the available hosts meets all your needs. Today, let’s look into Kaushal Sheth’s reviews, the guy who we all know by his famous wordpress themes.

Surely we trust his opinion and know he won’t advice anything that would harm your online future, moreover, from a brief overview of his web hosting reviews, I can confidently say the guide is rather honest and I tend to agree with his opinion. His post made earlier this month about the few leading hosting providers on the net is very revealing and highly recommended to read especially if you are looking for a web host and not sure which service to go with. Have a look, if you are not one of his frequent readers (like myself) already.

Linux hosting is an alternative to using Microsoft Windows-based technology for operating a website. Linux is an open-source operating system, which means the code that makes it run is publicly available. This means computer experts all over the world can share ways of improving how the system works. Although it is more complicated to understand than Windows, most computer experts say Linux is much more reliable and less likely to ‘crash’. This makes it particularly useful for running websites.

Linux hosting makes use of several technologies:

* PHP is a programming language which produces dynamic web pages. These are pages which can change in appearance and content in response to something the person viewing it does (such as filling in a form). PHP is a server-side language, meaning the program runs on the server (the computer that physically stores the website) rather than the computer being used to view the page.

* MySQL is a database system used for websites. It can be used for features such as a real estate company letting site visitors search for properties of a certain size and cost. It is used by popular sites such as Craigslist and LiveJournal.

* Python is a programming language which is well-regarded among many programmers. It is relatively sophisticated, but is easier to understand than many programming languages. Python often uses common English words where other languages simply use symbols. Python also gives programmers the ability to make a draft alteration to a program and check the effects immediately without having to make the change permanent.

* XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a more flexible method of organizing the information that makes up a website. With the old HTML system, each piece of information is labeled only for appearance (for example ‘bold’ or ‘italic’). With XML, any type of label can be used. For example, in a page containing a recipe, a piece of text could be labeled as ‘ingredient’ or ’safety warning’. XML means that a website owner has much more control over the information on their site.

For more information visit Orange County Web design and Search Engine Optimization Firm Simplifying the Web.

Have you noticed that all the online shop simply went crazy before the upcoming Xmas? I had seen Hostgator.com offering a 20% discount coupon (details on their website), some other hosts are trying new promotional tricks as well offering more and more discounts, trying to get new customers to sign up. The thing is, in my opinion, most people go on holidays or just take vacations, and as a result, spend much less by the computer.

While many maybe do shop online for gifts, it’s unlikely that some of them will look for  a good host exactly at this time of the year. Still and all, most hosting companies are compete against each other with discounts and gifts. If you want to sign up for any hosting company before Xmas, check quite a few providers before signing up, as many will give you a very generous discount.

I remember when I was looking for a good webhosting a few years ago, I had to compare each host by host, what plans they offer and for how much. Today it’s all different, and web hosting choice is no longer a dilemma because there are specialized websites that do the comparison for you. Today, if you want to compare many web host companies at once, all you need to do is go to webhostingchoice dot com and do a little research. It requires minimum effort on your part as you only give the maximum price you are willing to pay and the minimum disk space / bandwidth you are going to need. WebHostingChoice dot com will search a huge database of different hosts for you and display all the data in a very convenient and easy to navigate through page, with all the details you need about each hosting plan. Moreover, since users can rate their host, you can see which hosting company got low or good rating. This, by the way, is one the most helpful features. If you are a more advanced webmaster with a lot of specific needs, you can run their “advanced” search” where again in just a few clicks you can see a list of hosts that offer a certain database, POP emails, SSL and more. Very easy and highly recommended to anyone who does not want to waste too much time searching for a hosting plan.

So, you run a few websites, each of which is hosted on its own domain, but hosting each website separately is somewhat expensive? You don’t need to get a separate hosting deal for each of your domain, you just need to find a host that allows hosting multiple domain on one account! Like I always say, don’t run into signing up with any company before you compare, and best comparison could be made at top10webhosting.com who list all the leading hosting providers together wit their advantages, disadvantages, features and more. Highly recommended to take a look before buying any hosting plan.

I am excited to let you know about the new feature we are now offering in my Lorelei Web Forum. We are giving away blogs for free. What does it mean “blogs for free”? In exchange for your participation in the forum, we want to reward the members with blog accounts, which will be hosted on LWblogs.com subdomain.

WordPress blogs is the most popular CMS for websites nowadays, easiest for making money online and unbelievably simple to maintain and use as a publishing platform, as well as secure, reliable and easy to customize for your needs.

• The Free blog account includes:

» Free UNLIMITED Disk Space Your Blog (including UNLIMITED uploads facility)
» Free UNLIMITED Traffic (Bandwidth)
» Latest Version of WordPress 2.3, PHP5, MySQL 5 Reliable Database
» Free Sub-domain Hosting
» Instant Account Set Up
» Private and Commercial Blogs are Welcome
» Easy to use WordPress Control Panel
» Stable Hosting Platform
» Ultra Fast Servers with 99.9% Uptime
» No Hidden Fees or Charges
» Publish Your Own Monetizing Methods, Ads and Banners
» NO FORCED BANNER ADS, FRAMES OR ADVERTS FROM US!

• Total Cost - $0.00 Forever.
  

How free is “free”?

As said above, the blog accounts are given away in exchange for our member’s valued participation in the forum, hence we accept applications from members with minimum of 50 posts and in order to maintain your blog online you need to make around 30 posts in each calendar month once your blog is provided.

• What are the benefits for You?

1. Extra Exposure. LWblogs.com are aggressively promoted on many blogs and sites, and once you set up your account, you will be featured in LWBlogs.com official blog.
2. Infinitely Free. No need to pay for domain and hosting!
3. Free Uploads and Thumbnail generator. You can upload as many images as you want and hotlink them to other servers and forums.
4. Highest Quality Servers — 99,9% Uptime. You are going to be hosted on the save server as toptut.com (this blog), therefore you will enjoy maintaining your fast loading blog that doesn’t go offline like most free hosts do.
5. Pay 0.00$, and Make Money! While the service offered absolutely free, you are allowed to display your own ads of any kind (as long as it’s legal) and make money with ZERO initial investment.
6. NO ADS. No frames, no pop-ups, no Adsense, no ads whatsoever.

• Okay, why is it free then?

It may sound too good to be true for some, but this offer, since we already have a huge hosting plan for our own websites, does not drag us into any additional fees and except domain expenses, promotion and time, we do not investment anything that has to be covered, hence we don’t need to place ads or offer additional services at a cost to cover our own expenses.

Moreover, your participation in Lorelei Web Forum is what we value and seek to encourage, therefore as you can see, it’s your form of paying back for the service.

Most people switch from one hosting to another only because they do not take the time to do a proper research before signing up with a certain host. Then they discover the support team is never there or they lack features they thought they would have.

From to time I am featuring some notable hosting services here that I recommend due to their high quality and suitable price, and this time I’d like to talk about E-Starr Hosting, and the benefit of their hosting service. First of all, they are cheap, as the smallest plan starts 1ith 5$ a month and offer a very impressive amount of disk space and transfer. Secondly, they support all the features you might need when setting up a site, blog, forum, image gallery or anything else in between that comes in an easy Fantastico-supported installation. Lastly, if consider becoming a reseller, E-Starr Hosting can make your plans real for only 15$ a month! Yes, as unbelievable as it sounds, you can set up your own hosting company though their reseller, for only $180.00 a year (smallest plan). This is really a price I had not seeing anywhere else and that is why I decided to spread the world about this host.

With e-starr you get:

• Live support 24/7
• Automatically daily backups on all accounts (you won’t wake up finding your site offline)
• CGI (Perl), PHP 4.x + mySQL
• Unlimited Private FTP Accounts
• Optional Hotlinking Protection

…and more. Besides, if you purchase annual hosting package and register a domain name with them, you can make use of a free domain registration coupon: 1YRFREE . This is not my referral, this is their site’s ongoing promotion coupon.