Green Hosting Reduces Environmental Issues

Today is World Environment Day, an occasion to give some thought on what we personally can do to reduce our impact on the environment. There’s a temptation to wince when we hear such talk because the next thing you expect to hear is how much you are supposed to give up. What if you don’t have to give up anything? What if you could get more at the same time that you are helping to alleviate environmental issues? Isn’t that the kind of “green” program that you could get behind?

Of course it is. Everybody wants more for less. Why, we absolutely salivate at the thought. Fortunately for us, there are opportunities to get just that by carefully selecting our vendors. Some care about the environment, some don’t. Just because they don’t doesn’t mean they are going to give us the best deal. In fact, some of the most responsible companies want to include us in the cost savings they achieve through efficiency.

HostPapa is one of those clever technology companies that offers green services at the same or lower cost than non-green. Their service is web hosting. Let me ask you this: “Are you paying more than $3.95 a month to host your website?”

I’ll bet most of you have to say “yes” to that question. Even the budget hosting companies that give you the bare minimum of resources charge more than that. This is no low-end hosting service, however. It’s 100% green hosting with the performance you need to host your site or blog successfully.

Here’s what’s in the HostPapa plan for $3.95 a month. First off, you get a free domain name for life. That’s gotta save you the equivalent of several months of hosting each year all by itself. Next you get unlimited disk space and unlimited bandwidth. While a personal site might never strain most servers, sudden viral success or commercial popularity can run you out of resources at the worst possible time. Think of the holiday season when everybody is visiting your site, perhaps shopping for gifts. Is that the time you want to run out of bandwidth or find that too many comments have used up all your disk space?

By the way, you get 1 domain name for free, but if you want to add-on other domains to your hosting plan you can do that. Host as many as you have at no extra cost. Many hosting companies make you buy a separate plan for every domain. That includes sub-domains and domain forwarding too. All are included in your plan.

What about other resources like Email? You get unlimited email accounts, POP3/IMAP and Webmail, email forwarding, email autoresponders, email alias, virus scanning, catch all accounts and SMTP with your account. The same is true for databases. This account includes unlimited MySQL 5.1 databases.

You account is controlled by cPanel, the most popular control panel for Linux servers. You’ll have PHP 5 support, web statistics, error logs, 24/7 live support by telephone and chat in multiple languages, plus an online knowledge base and video tutorials.

All of this, and green too. HostPapa purchases 100% green renewable energy, such as solar and wind, to power their data centers, web servers and office power. This is done through green energy tabs or certificates from a certified green energy supplier. By offsetting their carbon footprint by purchasing green energy, HostPapa doesn’t contribute to environmental issues. Wouldn’t you like to join them?

Go ahead and check out the HostPapa $3.95 a month green hosting plan. It’s a 3 year plan that includes one domain name free. You’ll get hosting that you can feel good about, likely with a cost savings over what you current spend for web hosting services.

Green Hosting Free Domain Name

A lot of people like the idea of helping the environment, but they like the idea of cheap hosting prices and free domain names even more. What if you didn’t have to choose? What if you could get an environmentally responsible hosting plan with the features you need at a bargain price with a free domain name included? Say hello to GreenGeeks green hosting with free domain name for life .

Just what do you get with this green web hosting? How about unlimited web space, unlimited bandwidth for data transfer, the ability to host unlimited domains on one account, unlimited email accounts and unlimited MySQL Databases.

Now let’s look at what’s free that other hosting providers nickel and dime you for. You domain name is free for as long as you are using the hosting service. It’s easy to move your existing site with free site migration. There are free marketing credits to help you boost your traffic and a free web site builder and templates to help you create a site from scratch in no time at all. You’ll have an auto-installer for 150+ free apps for all the functionality you need to compete in today’s marketplace.

All of this comes with a 99.9% uptime guarantee, no hidden costs, super fast activation, North American support anytime and a 30 day money back guarantee.

So, just how low is this low cost green hosting? Under five bucks a month. Actually, $4.95 a month. Cheap enough to get you interested? Wait no longer, get started right now.

You might think that at such a low price you’ll be getting some stripped down hosting service. Not so. GreenGeeks runs the Linux operating system with a high performance MySQL backend running on dual quad core frontend servers connected to the Internet by multi-gigabit bandwidth. The entire system is monitored 24/7, every 10 seconds. Courtesy nightly backups protect your data.

Well, that sounds like a good deal on hosting but what about the green aspects. Does this service really earn the title “green”?

GreenGeeks certain has earned its green stripes. A lot of companies buy energy credits to offset their power draw. Green Geeks goes them three times better. That’s right, they replace with wind power 3x the amount of power they draw from the grid to operate their web servers. That not only covers their carbon footprint, but the carbon footprints of two other companies that don’t care enough to contribute.

GreenGeeks goes beyond simply purchasing wind energy credits to claim green status. They’ve gone in an reconfigures their servers so that they use less energy and run cooler. That has the added benefit of reducing the cooling power needed to run the data centers. Office policy is to print only legal and essential documents and recycle any other paper used. Auto lighting control automatically turns off lights when the office is vacated. They even promote telecommuting and take turns bringing in home cooked meals to avoid all the paper, plastic and styrofoam that comes with take out orders.

GreenGeeks standard hosting plan will work for most everyone, but resellers and larger companies may need more resources. For that, they offer green reseller hosting and green VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting.

Are you intrigued enough to learn more about the details and features of GreenGeeks green web hosting ? Yes, it IS possible to be environmentally responsible and get the best deals on hosting at the same time.

Celebrate Arbor Day With Hosting That Plants Trees

If you’ve been considering a move to eco-friendly hosting, now could be the perfect time. It’s Arbor Day 2012, the perfect time to order a tree to be planted in your name. You can just go ahead and contact a nursery, but how about getting your tree included with your hosting package? Yes, Dotster will do that for you.

A tree? With hosting? Yes, it’s true. Dotster is so committed to green hosting that they will plant a tree for you. What they do is purchase a tree from the Trees for the Future program for every new hosting customer. That could include you.

Trees for the Future has been working since 1989 to help communities around the world plant trees. People in developing communities come to them for help in saving their land and way of life. Trees for the Future provides training and seeds for tree planting in Africa, Asia and Latin America. How many trees have they already planted? 50 million and counting.

Dotster’s commitment to becoming a more sustainable business goes way beyond planting a tree for you. Their hosting infrastructure is designed for maximum reliability and efficiency. Efficient power usage offers a double benefit. First, the servers themselves have a lower carbon footprint and draw less power from the grid. Second, these servers need less cooling so that additional power to remove waste heat from the circuitry can be minimized.

What about dirty energy? Aren’t data centers driving us to generate large amounts of coal fired electricity? Yes, they certainly are. Steel making and heavy industry were huge draws on the power grid in the last century. Now it’s data centers for hosting and cloud services. Dotster recognizes that they could be contributing to the problem, so they’ve taken action by offsetting their server power consumption by purchasing renewable energy credits for 150% of what they draw. These credits are purchased by Bonneville Environmental Foundation, which supports renewable energy projects such as solar and wind, plus watershed restoration.

You may already be sold on the importance of sustainable business practices and willing to pay extra for hosting that supports your values. The good news is that eco-friendly hosting needn’t cost more than hosting that doesn’t care two hoots about the environment. In fact, you’ll look long and hard to find a better deal than you can get from Dotster to host your websites. It’s such a bargain that you can’t even afford to run your own servers.

Let’s look at what you get for your hosting dollar. By dollar, I mean $3.75 a month on the annual plan. That tiny sum buys you 10 GB of website disk space with 300 GB of monthly bandwidth. If you have a domain that gets anywhere near 300 GB of traffic each month, that $3.75 is mere pocket change. Ad traffic alone will pay for your hosting plan in an hour or less.

This basic hosting plan runs on Linux servers and supports a single domain. Oh, by the way, that domain is free for the first year. Just register your .com, .org, .info, .net, .biz or .us when you order your plan (Look for the coupon code on the hosting comparison page or remember that it’s FREEDOM15). You can set up unlimited subdomains on your domain if you want to subdivide your site that way. You also get 100 email accounts, 10 MySQL databases, and the use of a WYSIWYG online site building tool that lets you create up to 15 pages with no design software or special training in website design. Yes, PHP5, Perl, Python, and more than a couple of dozen free applications are included. Planning to run a WordPress blog? The app is already there waiting for you to use it.

Basic Linux hosting at $3.75 a month is the best deal for many small companies, independent professionals, bloggers and others. If your company or operation is much larger or you want to host sites for your design clients, you may want to move up to deluxe hosting at $6.75 a month for 50 domains or ultra hosting at $13.75 a month to host unlimited domains with unlimited storage and bandwidth. Windows hosting is also available a very reasonable prices if that better meets your needs.

Does all this inspire you to get started with eco-friendly hosting and have a tree planted for you? Any day is a good day, but Arbor Day is especially significant. Why not have a look at eco-friendly hosting programs from Dotster and see if they don’t make great sense for your business.

Environmentally Friendly Hosting is Super Green

More and more website builders and bloggers are looking for ways to embrace both technology and the environment. Here’s a way to not just go green, but super-green with Super Green hosting. Let’s take a look at what’s super about Super Green.

It starts with their "green ethics". Super Green Hosting started out with the goal to provide the greenest service available in the green web hosting market. It all comes down to the carbon. Do you realize that everything we do on the Internet has a carbon footprint? That’s because everything draws electricity and most of that electricity is being generated from sources that are decidedly un-green. Coal fired power stations - very, very un-green.

The way to counteract this is to cut back on the power you use, generate the rest using renewable resources such as solar and wind, and plant trees to absorb remaining carbon in the form of CO2 and store it away.

Super Green hosting does all three. They’re using dell servers that produce 20% less CO2 than average servers, using wind power to run them and planting trees to reverse the effects of global warming. They can boast of being 100% carbon-neutral. That’s hosting you can be proud of.

Unlike may hosting providers, Super Green Hosting keeps their plans simple but feature rich. For less than five bucks a month, you get unlimited hosting space, unlimited bandwidth and unlimited email accounts. With all those resources at your disposal, you can host as many domains as you want. But don’t pay for the first one. Super Green Hosting will give you a free domain and take care of renewing if for as long as you have your account. Already have a domain elsewhere? No problem, they’ll transfer it for you so you can use it in your account.

Some other included features that you might have to pay extra for elsewhere are 1 click installation for WordPress and Joomla, as many MySQL databases as you can use, Ruby/Ruby On Rails, SSL Secure Serve, shopping cards, a free generated certificate, Paypal support, merchant account support, and free ad credits for Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Also take note of their 99.9% uptime guarantee and their money back guarantee, along with 24/7 phone and email support, live support inside cPanel, video tutorials and extensive knowledgebase.

Most bloggers and website builders will be happy with the standard Green Hosting plan. For resellers and owners of extensive domain collections that want complete and independent control of each website, there are Green Reseller Hosting plans available starting at under twenty bucks a month. These offer both cPanel and WHM admin control panels, automated billing systems, site builder software, website templates and private name servers. One unusual benefit is a domain reseller account. This is a free eNom account for cheaper rates on domains with no setup fees.

Are you in the market for green hosting solutions with the power and flexibility to handle anything from a WordPress blog right on up to online business and even being a web hosting provider yourself? If so, check out the Green Hosting and Green Reseller Hosting plans available from Super Green Hosting.

Take a Conference, Save the Carbon

Conference calls have always been a tool of the trade for business, but one that is used sporadically or for special projects. Web conferencing is the Internet equivalent. By adding display screens to the discussion you can include bullet charts and graphics in the conversation. Still, it's hit and miss usage. When would it make sense to integrate conferencing into daily activities as a way of doing business, instead of just another tool for doing business?

There are several forces at work that may indeed cause such a tipping point. One is the advance of technology. Everybody has a computer on their desk. Many conference rooms are set up with Internet access and large electronic display screens or projectors. Speaker phones are everywhere. Where speakers cause too much disruption to non-participants, telephone headsets are an inexpensive solution. The move to enterprise VoIP is merging computers and telephones into coordinated, if not combined, voice and data solutions.

Technology makes it possible to do things that people don't necessary embrace just because they can. We all have our set work patterns honed over the years. The larger the number of people who have to change to something new, the more compelling the reason has to be. That reason might soon be cost. It's hardly news that the economy is sputtering along, with many businesses from banking to manufacturing scrambling for revenue. The idea of "cost cutting" seems to automatically suggest "chopping heads." But at some point the lack of adequate human resources results in poor business performance, worsening the financial situation. That's when a completely different way of doing things needs to be embraced.

A third factor that may have seemed arcane only a few years ago is the environment. There's a lot more awareness now about recycling, energy efficiency and carbon footprints. Flying large numbers of employees all over the country has been standard practice in many companies. It's expensive, polluting, time consuming, and in some cases a nuisance for the traveler. But it's expected by customers, suppliers, and peer organizations. Then again, maybe not so much anymore.

These three converging forces, availability of new technology, the need to reduce costs, and a desire to do one's part to help the environment, may actually be vectors acting in the same direction. Weigh the savings of lower travel expenses, recovered productive time, and reduced carbon production against the incremental cost to make audio, video and Web conferencing the defacto means of team collaboration. Instead of having groups walk, drive or fly to a common location to exchange ideas, they met in person less frequently but communicate electronically more frequently. Electronic collaboration can include team members that were previously relegated to the fringes, such as home workers, road warriors, field reps, ad-hoc consultants, and those stationed at remote sites.

One of the advertised benefits of hosted VoIP solutions is the ability to create virtual organizations that include far-flung members. Group members and anyone calling-in can't really tell that everyone isn't in the same physical space. An IP based phone system doesn't really care where on the network the instruments are located. Across the country is just as close as across the room.

Audio conferencing extends the concept of virtual meetings to include large groups such as independent sales representatives, field offices, franchisees, and prospective customers. Reservation-less conferences let you initiate an audio conference by dialing a toll free number and having participants do likewise. PIN codes give you access to a private conference room on a per-minute or volume rate whenever you need to get together.

Web Conferencing has also gotten simpler and cheaper. You can pay per-minute or a low flat fee per month to have a Web conference room that doesn't require participants to download any software. They just use the Internet connected computers they already have. You can present Microsoft PowerPoint slides or JPEG images, share an application or document, conduct polls in real-time, text chat, and use drawing tools on a virtual white board. All of this using 128 bit SSL security to protect your intellectual property from snoops.

Combine audio conferencing via telephone with Web Conferencing via Internet tools and you've got an environment where teams can work together on a regular basis without the disruption of having to get up and go somewhere. Need more face to face? That's where video conferencing and the very high-end telepresence can create a more in-person feel to meetings. By integrating this collaboration technology into normal daily work practice, you may be surprised by how seldom you really need to "go to a real meeting."