Internet Service Without The Outages

The Internet is an amazing place for finding out just about anything related to anything. The sum total of human knowledge is migrating online. Even old books and papers are being scanned and loaded onto webpages and data bases. Combine that with real-time access to shopping, financial services, music and video and you are pretty much attached to the Internet at the hip... or at least the brain. The one major aggravation of Internet everything is when you just can’t get to it.

Internet outages are almost always local events now. The network is so large and so robust that the entire Internet just doesn’t go down. It only seems that way. Perhaps it’s your favorite site or application that is temporarily offline. Perhaps you just can’t get to anything at all.

I’ve felt this pain to varying degrees over the years. As a night owl, I know that the wee hours are the time that network administrators target to do their maintenance. That means my ISP can go offline for an hour or two without warning. It also means that any given online service my be down for maintenance with little or no notice.

Then there are the unplanned and uncontrolled outages. Construction work is famous for taking down telecom services. It’s so prevalent it has a name. They call it “backhoe fade.” It’s pretty much what it sounds like. Someone with a backhoe digs in the wrong place and chops through a wire. A year or two ago, they chopped through a fiber optic cable. There were over 100 strands in that cable and my service was on one of the last to be fused back together. No Internet for two days.

Well, not exactly. The cable modem was dead for two days. I was getting things done at any restaurant where they had free WiFi that wasn’t affected. Inconvenient? Yes, but it got me through.

I’m tied to the Internet for my livelihood, but a local outage isn’t the kiss of death. It’s just a major inconvenience. The reason for this is that all of my hosting, dozens of domains worth, is done elsewhere. In fact, I insist on having multiple hosting services located in different data centers in different cities. That way a local disaster won’t take everything down at once. This happened about 8 years back. Remember the 4 hurricanes that hit Florida in 2004? One of them flooded the building my web host was in. Even though they were on a higher floor, the communications lines were affected so no data was going in or out.

This hints at the first thing you can do to protect your business from Internet outages. Don’t put all of your eggs or servers in one basket. You have more protection when the services you use are divvied out geographically. Disasters rarely affect more than a limited area. This is true for cloud services too. Your cloud provider needs to have diverse backup solutions or you need more than one cloud. Nowadays, that also means you need more than one way to get to the cloud.

Backhoe fade is a fact of Internet access, although there are more and less risky solutions. All in all, you are better off with dedicated Internet access that has an SLA or Service Level Agreement. The really cheap Internet services, DSL and Cable, are shared and not dedicated to you alone. They are also treated as “information services” not telecom services, meaning that the providers don’t jump nearly as high or as fast when something goes wrong. T1 lines, Ethernet over Copper, Ethernet over Fiber and SONET perform better, have faster mean times to repair and cost more... as you would expect.

It’s good to have diversity in your connectivity. Two T1 lines are better than one. Ethernet over Copper using multiple pairs is more reliable than anything coming in on a single pair. Even better is copper backup for fiber services, even thought it may be slower. There is no one cable that has both the copper wires and fiber strands in it. A cable broadband service can be an inexpensive backup service to your dedicated lines since it doesn’t use telco wiring. Wireless broadband is an excellent backup that also doesn’t have to be that costly. Your smartphone gives you a level of redundancy when your desktop PC goes down. There are fixed wireless services designed for business backup running on 3G and 4G cellular networks. You can set these up for automatic failover so that service won’t be interrupted if you lose a landline.

How much you need to concern yourself with redundancy and disaster recovery depends on what happens when you lose your connection to the Internet. Is it a minor inconvenience or does everything come to a screeching halt? If that’s the case, make sure you have at least two ways of connecting and getting your work done. They don’t have to be the same bandwidth or guaranteed availability. Just make sure that there is no single point of failure that will knock them both out at the same time. There are lots of different services available. Check prices and features so you can get the best mix of business bandwidth services available for your particular location.

WordPress Hosting Made Cheap and Easy

Many serious bloggers and website builders choose WordPress as their software platform. It has the advantages of being versatile and supported by an extensive community of developers for themes and plugins. As a beginner, you can simply use the online version of WordPress to get your feet wet. Eventually, though, you’ll want the flexibility and expansion that comes form hosting WordPress yourself.

Now comes an important decision. Do you want to host WordPress the easy way or the hard way? The hard way is to download the software files and do an installation on your own server or a hosting service you are using now. This is the route IT professionals will go. But what if you are more of a content creator than an IT type? You may be better off just ordering web hosting designed specifically for WordPress.

One good option for those who don’t otherwise have or need a web hosting account is HostGator WordPress Hosting. It starts at under $4 a month and is 100% WordPress compatible. In addition to the low cost, what’s really valuable is the 1-Click WordPress QuickInstall feature. HostGator has built-in an installer specifically for WordPress. You click the button and in less than a minute, you have WordPress installed on your account.

Want to see how quick and easy this is? Watch the WordPress QuickInstall Demo video and see for yourself. From start to finish an actual installation and configuration ready to use takes place in about 3 minutes right before your eyes.

The nice thing about HostGator is that even the least expensive plans give you full blown web hosting and not some hobbled set of resources that you’ll soon outgrow. You get your choice of installing WordPress at the root of your account so that all it does is support your blog, or you can install WordPress in a folder so that it is just part of what you are hosting on the account.

Will you run out of space or get so popular that a flood of fans will crash the site? Not with HostGator. Their WordPress hosting offers unlimited disk space and bandwidth. Go ahead, become and social media phenomenon and enjoy the rewards of your success. Your site comes with a 99.9% uptime guarantee and 24/7/365 tech support just in case you need help.

HostGator offers 100% WordPress compatible hosting. It easily exceeds WordPress minimum requirements and sports the latest versions of Apache, MySQL and PHP. You’ll be installing the newest stable WordPress version when you click that QuickInstall button. You’ll also have peace of mind knowing that PHP runs as suPHP for increased WordPress security.

Oh, you already have WordPress installed somewhere else or you want to move from the WordPress.com free hosting site? Signup for HostGator and they’ll transfer your current WordPress site for free.

If you are serious about getting into WordPress or are already a user and want to move for better quality hosting or a better price, then you should take a few minutes and watch the video to see how easy it is. Then check out the hosting plans and see how much you can get at such a low cost with HostGator WordPress Hosting. You may also be interested in registering a domain name or in the many other hosting services that are such a great deal from HostGator.

Dotster Eco-Friendly Hosting Commitment

Anyone doing business on the Internet in the last 10 years has heard of Dotster, and the Dotster family of companies including Domain.com. When you think of Dotster, you probably think of domain name registration services. Dotster is also a hosting company offering everything from basic email hosing service for under a dollar a month all the way up to enterprise level website hosting. What I’ll bet you didn’t know is that Dotster is a major player in the realm of eco-friendly hosting.


Eco-Friendly or “green” hosting is growing in popularity among individuals and organizations that want to contribute to a better environment. The conventional wisdom is that green means more expensive when the term is applied to just about anything. That’s not true anymore. You can have Dotster eco-friendly hosting for just $5.75 a month with no long term commitment. Sign up for longer term plans and it gets even cheaper.

Dotster has a multifaceted approach to their eco-friendly hosting initiative. It starts with buying wind energy to power their web hosting servers. What they do is purchase enough renewable energy credits to offset all the power used for their hosting and even more. The commitment is 150% renewable energy offset for all Dotster web hosting servers.

Dotster buys its renewable energy credits from the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, a Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit organization. The revenues they receive from selling their BEF carbon offsets or renewable energy credits is used to support building new renewable energy projects that include solar, wind and biomass power sources. Socially responsible companies and individuals can both buy these energy credits from various organizations nationwide who fund sustainable energy projects.

Substituting wind energy for coal, natural gas or even nuclear power is a good idea. An even better idea is to find ways to use less energy to get the same job done. Dotster does this by constantly upgrading their hosting infrastructure to improve both reliability and energy efficiency. They buy less power, which reduces the amount they have to charge their customers. Less power means less demand from the grid, so that those new wind generators can handle other loads and further reduce the need for carbon-based energy sources.

This attitude of ecologically responsible behavior is infused throughout the Dotster corporate culture. They donate their used computer equipment to programs for recycling and technology education for the disadvantaged rather than dumping it in a landfill to slowly leach out toxic substances. The office staff is encouraged to reduce printing, use paperless billing, recycle batteries and ditch paper cups in favor of Dotster reusable bottles.

As the icing on the cake, Dotster will plant a tree for you when you become a new Dotster web hosting company. The trees come from Trees for the Future, an organization dedicated to sustainable agroforestry that has already planted 50 million trees worldwide.

If you are on the lookout for web hosting that is more in tune with your personal philosophy as well as reliable, feature rich and an excellent deal, take a closer look at Dotster.com Web Hosting and Domain Name Registration services.

New Phoenix Data Center Offers Colocation Services

Data centers are expanding as the business climate improves and companies pursue productivity increases and lower costs. Many businesses that never gave a second thought to using colocation facilities are taking another look. In the Southwest USA, a good place to consider is the new PAETEC Data Center in Phoenix, Arizona.

PAETEC has just cut the ribbon on their 4,400 square foot Phoenix data center as part of an expansion program that adds to their facilities in Bethlehem and Conshohocken, PA, Andover, MA., Houston, TX and Milwaukee, WI. Why? Customer demand. The role of Information Technology is changing and the “cloud” has a lot to do with it. PAETEC is positioning itself to capitalize on this movement with services that improve business continuity, information safeguarding, network latency reduction and a reduction of management needs.

The idea behind the cloud is one of economy of scale. You can have every company buying servers and racks, putting them in environmentally controlled rooms, providing the electrical power for both equipment and the cooling needed to take away the heat generated by the equipment, and hiring a staff to tend to the data center facilities. Alternatively, you can have a service provider create a much bigger facility and let companies buy their computing and storage services for a fee.

This is what cloud service providers do. They figure out the IT services that are common to many businesses and then provide those as a service themselves. But isn’t that six of one and a half dozen of another? How is the cloud a net saver of anything?

This is where economy of scale comes into play. The cost of operating a cloud services company doesn’t go up linearly with size. You need a certain amount of real estate, electrical power, HVAC, bandwidth and staffing to create a data center of any size. Having twice as many servers, disk drives and network appliances doesn’t necessarily mean you need to double your staff. Yes, you’ll need more floor space, air conditioning, electrical power and backup generation, but it probably won’t cost twice as much. The same is true for bandwidth. It gets cheaper by the Mbps and Gbps when you order big lines compared to little ones. Your staff can also be more specialized, since they are only dealing with a certain range of facilities and a defined set of services.

The contrast is even more dramatic when you compare the startup cost for small companies to create their own IT services compared to simply purchasing what is needed from a company that already has the facilities and expertise. Web site hosting, for instance, has gotten so cheap when purchased from a large hosting service that small businesses are hard pressed to justify buying and running their own servers. Many of them are now finding that offloading their telephone systems to a Hosted PBX service saves investment and staffing.

The colocation center fits somewhere in-between running your own facilities and outsourcing to the cloud. The colo offers the economy of scale for environmentally controlled and secure server space and WAN bandwidth. Yet, you have the option of providing your own equipment that you maintain yourself. Some colocation providers are now offering cloud-like services that include renting servers and storage they already have available and handling maintenance and repair through their 24/7 technical staff.

Should you be going to the cloud or relocating to a colocation facility instead of trying to do it all yourself? It may be time for a quick study to compare the capital and expense costs that you pay now with the monthly fees to get the same services outside. Get complementary support for pricing and availability of cloud and colocation services so you can do a good job.



Note: Photo of Phoenix skyline courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

With Hosting You Get Domains

How much would you like to pay for, say the next 3 months, to host your web sites? How about nothing?

That's right. You'll pay nothing, nil, nada, el-zippo when you take advantage of the summer 2009 promotion being run by 1&1 Web Hosting. In case that's not good enough, they'll throw in domain names for free. Still not good enough? How about business hosting for $9.99 a month? How about developer hosting for $19.99 a month? How about free software to really seal the deal?

Free software? What kind of free software?

It's the software you need to build and promote your website. Even the simplest beginner hosting plan, which goes for a measly $3.99 a month by the way, gives you the online 1&1 WebsiteBuilder. If what you want is a good looking Web site really fast, then you'll be up and running within the hour with your own content.

Upgrade to the family and hobby site plan that runs $4.99 a month and you'll get a CD ROM of specialized software that includes photo editing, GIF animation, site submission and ranking, and FTP for uploading files to the server.

Now, upgrade to the business hosting or developer hosting plans and, in addition to the jaw dropping amount of storage and bandwidth that come with these services, you'll get a premium software suite with Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0, Adobe GoLive CS2 for website design plus the software included with the family and hobby site plan.

Oh, you thought you had to go out and spend a fortune for those programs so you could design a really professional website? Put your money back in your pocket. You can get your hosting package, domain names, and design software for less than what you were going to spend on software packages.

So, how about those domains? With 1&1 hosting packages you get at least 1 domain included. You don't have to pay registration or renewal fees as long as you keep your hosting. The beginner package comes with 1 domain, which is about all a beginner should be attempting anyway. The home and hobby hosting offers 2 domain names. The business package offers 3 and the developer hosing gives you 5 domains at no charge.

Want more than that? Right now, you can get .com, .net, .org, .info, .us and .biz domains for just $6.99 a year. That's just through August 31, so you best hurry to get in on that bargain rate.

Clearly, 1&1 has deals going that are far superior to run of the mill hosting and domain name registration services. But then, they always do. Get all the details and sign up for your amazingly low cost web hosting packages with free domains while these specials are in effect.

Your Business Website is $7

Business websites are as ubiquitous as, well, businesses. In this connected age, any business without some sort of online presence is really behind the curve. Websites are a definite marketing advantage, but at what price? Custom sites can easily run into the thousands and tens of thousands of dollars. Even cheesy local sites designed by the owner's kid can cost a hundred bucks or more per year just for hosting. But what if you could get a professional looking site and domain for under $7 a year? Would that sound interesting?

Don't keep blinking. That price is correct. For $6.99 a year, the world's largest Web host will register your domain and give you a 5 page site builder. It's hard to find domains priced that low. But with online site building software and hosting included? Incredible.

Over the weekend, I got an idea for a business recruiting site I wanted to build. Normally, I'd just register a domain and then use the tools I've got to build-out a site on my reseller hosting account. But when I saw the deal that 1&1 Internet was offering, I got second thoughts. First of all, the domain name registration itself was priced $2 less than I could get it at the usual haunts. I didn't know if their Starter WebBuilder feature was any good, but thought it worth a try just in case. If it takes a couple of days to code up a site from scratch, there could be considerable time savings using the builder tool.

I'll let you judge the results for yourself. I bought RiverSuccess.com late Saturday night. Then let the DNS propagation settle out overnight and started working with the Web tool after the Indy race on Sunday. It was ready to be posted less than 5 hours later. Immediately upon publication, this "weekend wonder" was open for business.

This particular domain, called River Success, is being used as a recruiting tool for the Commission River affiliate program. Commission River is something like Commission Junction, except that the emphasis is on telecommunications and related technology programs and they have a strong training program in place to jump-start new affiliates. With unemployment numbers skyrocketing, it seems like a lot more people should be interested in building at least a side income to get some control over their future. The program works best for those who have a serious business interest rather than just a passing curiosity. That's why I chose a serious B2B theme rather than something more lightweight. You do get a choice of templates, images and color themes.

I mentioned that the 1&1 WebsiteBuilder limits you to 5 pages. For many small business applications that's plenty. If it becomes a limitation, they offer an upgrade program for $9.99 a month that gives you unlimited pages. You'll also need the upgrade if you want to install any of your own code. With the basic package you're limited to hyperlinks.

The tool is actually pretty simple to use and if you've done any site building you'll be up to speed in literally a matter of minutes. A nice feature is that you can define titles and meta tags page by page. That makes you findable and unique in the eye of the search engines. Perfect for a business site.

So if you have a small business and haven't wanted to get caught up in the learning curve and expense of creating a related Web site, here's your chance. Seems like this is also good for anyone who just wants to try something online to see if it will work. You can start off with the domain name and free builder. If what you're doing proves promising you can always upgrade to the larger package or build-out a big, big site using Adobe Dreamweaver or other design software and then host it with 1&1 Internet.

1&1 makes 1.99

If I were to say to you "1&1 makes 1.99", would you respond:

(A) Well, I see at least one child was left behind.

(B) Dude, change the battery in your calculator already.

(C) You thought you were soooo smart buying that old slide rule at a garage sale.

(D) That's the best deal I've heard in ages. Sign me up NOW.

Time's up! If you answered (D), you recognize the greatest bargain in hosting that's come around in ages. Let's analyze the formula and see why.

First of all, 1&1 isn't a math problem this time. It's the name of perhaps the most innovative Web hosting service going. Headquartered in Montabaur, Germany, 1&1 is a subsidiary of United Internet and now the world's largest Web hosting company. Their new U.S. data center in Lenexa, KS has 5 server rooms in 55,000 square feet with 20 Gbps of connectivity.

So, what's so innovative about a big honkin' Web hosting company? That's where the 1.99 comes in. It's actually $1.99, the price you'll pay per month for entry level hosting service on 1&1 for the first 3 months. Then it's just $3.99 a month.

Oh, but that's got to be some cheap-charley product that's about as useful as the "personal" Web space they give you with a DSL or Cable broadband service, right? Au Contraire, mon ami (French for wrong-o, pal). This is the starter package in the realm of professional hosting services. Look at all you get for your measly starting $1.99:

1. You get a domain with your account and they pay for it. Not some cheesy ISP related domain, either. This is a real professional grade domain name the you pick with the TLD of .com, .net, .org, .info or .biz. As long as you keep your account active, 1&1 pays for the domain registration and renewal. That could be worth $8 to $20 a year all by itself, depending on where you buy your domain names now.

2. To host your domain, you get 10 GB of storage and a monthly transfer allotment of 300 GB. Once you've exceeded these limits, you've got a major online business going and should be embarrassed that you're only being charged $3.99 a month. Upgrade to the 1&1 Business account if you need more space or bandwidth. If not, avoid further embarrassment by telling business associates that you're actually paying $99 a month and that it's a steal at that price.

3. To communicate with customers and others, you get 600 e-mail accounts with 2 GB of mailbox space. IMAP and POP clients are supported. Plus you get Webmail access and spam filtering. You'll come to worship that hosted Symantec spam filtering when you've got 600 e-mail accounts active.

4. Big business ambitions but no site building skills? No problem. With your account you get the 1&1 WebsiteBuilder. This easy to use tool lets you build a professional looking Website in minutes. You also get an online photo gallery and a blog to round out your Web package.

Oh, wait, did I say something wrong? I see. It's just that you've been paying over thirty bucks a month for a very similar service to get your business online. That's happened to a lot of people who haven't heard of 1&1. But now that you know better, how about switching to the 1&1 Beginner or Business accounts that have special introductory pricing right now? This deal may not last much longer, so time is of the essence.

I should mention that there are actually four featured hosting packages from Beginner to Developer and that you have your choice of Linux or Microsoft hosting. There are also e-commerce and business solution features as extras, and you can even upgrade to dedicated servers when you need the horsepower. The special offers require a 12 month commitment, but you do get a 90 day satisfaction guarantee and free 24/7 support by phone and e-mail. Well, don't just sit there watching me carry on. Visit 1&1 Internet Inc. now and get all the details for yourself.

So, You Want to Do Web Hosting

Does your dream of having an online business involve providing Web services to other business and organizations? Have you thought that being the Web host could provide you with an income stream? Or do you have so many web sites now that you're wondering if providing your own hosting service would be more cost effective than what you're paying now?

Well, you're on to something. Many entrepreneurs have found that small business owners want and need Web sites, but know little or nothing about how to go about getting their business online. Others who make their money through affiliate programs they promote on sites they build can quickly expand beyond the capacity of their hosting service. When one Web site turns into a dozen different sites promoting different products and services, the cost of all that hosting can really mount up.

Only a few years ago, your options were to pay a bundle to have your site hosted or spend a bundle of hours running your own server. Rolling your own server farm is less attractive now because competition in hosting services has dramatically lowered the cost of simply purchasing the service. Many small operators have Cable, DSL or satellite broadband services that prohibit servers anyway.

Here are a couple of options that you may find attractive for launching your business. First is a reseller hosting account from Hosting With Us. This company has a lot of low cost hosting plans, but the hosting solution called reseller accounts is the most intriguing. As you might guess, a reseller account is designed for users who plan to divvy up the storage and bandwidth of their account and resell it as smaller accounts to other users. Or use it themselves to host multiple domains.

The beauty of these reseller accounts is that you can host unlimited domains for one low price that starts at $24.95 a month as of this writing. For that fee, you get 4.5 GB of disk space and 45 GB of transfer per month. Transfer is the bandwidth demand generated by visitors to your Web sites.

The reseller accounts offer a Web Host Manager that lets you create individual accounts and give each one a portion of disk space and transfer bandwidth. You can put a dozen or two dozen small business domains on your reseller account and charge each one enough to make a handsome profit each month. Each account gets it own email addresses, databases and autoresponders as needed. Merchant accounts can be added for ecommerce. Your customers each get a control panel for their sub-account so they can manage files and use pre-installed scripts.

You may find that you can generate even more income by building and managing Web sites for your clients. In this case, you control the complete reseller account and all the sub-accounts. You design the sites using Web building tools and upload code to your account.

If you are skilled in the use of tools such as Adobe Dreamweaver, all you need is a reseller account and you're in business. But what if you want to build custom Web sites for customers without having to invest a fortune in Web design software and the learning curve to become proficient in graphic design? What you need is site building and hosting solution.

WebBizBuilder.com offers a browser based site builder. You don't need to know anything about HTML or be a whiz and graphics. This tool is based on pre-designed templates that you customize. You can change colors, content, graphics, and so on. There are dozens and dozens of templates to choose from for all different kinds of business. They all have a couple of things in common. You can create a site quickly & easily and they all look professional. Get some text and pictures from your customer and soon you'll be able to go back to them with a live site. Basic sites start at $19.95 a month, a price you can mark up to sell. For $49.95 a month you can add an Internet store with a catalog of 500 products.

Regardless of whether you want multiple domain hosting or an online point and click site building solution, getting your business online has never been easier or less expensive.