Monday, January 26th, 2009
Wordpress is free.
I saw an article recently listing 10 free web site building tools. Most of them take a while to figure out. They won’t all let you do what you want to do. None were expandable to your own site if you ever wanted to take the next step, from “free” to “owning your own”.
The biggest cost is time.
It made me think about what the real costs of a web platform are. The biggest cost is time. How long does it take you to learn how to work it and make it do what you want it to do? How much is it going to frustrate you and make you figure out how to do something simple?
In my experience with Wordpress, and I’m coming at this from a developer point of view, it’s much easier and intuitive to learn to use Wordpress than with any other platform out there. When I build a site for a client using Wordpress, it’s much easier to train them and get them up to speed on Wordpress than other systems that I’ve tried.
Let’s look at the cost it would take to put a wordpress site on your own server and run it for a year. Domain name is $10. Don’t pay more than that for a domain name. Hosting packages can be had for less than $80 a year. Call the whole thing $100 for a year of hosting your own site.
If you use a good host, they would have an auto install version of Wordpress. Click, click, bang. It’s set up. Play with a theme. Spend too much time looking on line for a theme. Download, install. Play with plug ins. Download, install. Write a few posts. Create a few pages. Change the layout a bit. Call it 8 hours total, from start to having your own blog on line, working, with your own theme and content. You have added the plug-ins that you wanted, the theme that you wanted, the layout, the content, the menu. All of it is exactly what you want.
The cost in time is really because you have TOO MANY options. If you can be satisfied with what comes out of the box, then a Wordpress site can be set up in 20 minutes.
Compare that to another free host. Set up is quick and easy. Pick a theme. There are 20. Write a post. Change the layout? No. Can’t do that. Put the menu on the other side? No. Can’t do that. You want to post video? No. Can’t do that either. Podcast? Special functionality? Nope. None of that.
You’ve spent the same 8 hours trying to do stuff and not being able to that you would have on Wordpress. It’s $100 cheaper and maybe that’s the difference for you. It doesn’t look quite like you want it to and it doesn’t have quite the right functionality. It’s harder to use and takes longer to post than Wordpress. If it takes 3 minutes longer and you make 20 posts, that’s an hour. How many posts in a year?
This reminds me of the difference between Windows and a Mac. The Mac costs a bit more to start, but lasts twice a long, lets you work twice as fast, and makes it easier to do anything you want. Which is a better deal? How much is your time worth? How much money do you have?
It’s all up to you, but if you have $100 to spend on a web site for a year, spend it and build a Wordpress site. You’ll thank me at the end of the year.
Posted in Wordpress |
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009
Half of all churches in America today do NOT have a web site. Half! What excuse is there for that? This article below is quoting a Duke University survey to make the point that the church has caught up with the times, that only a fifth of them had a web site in 1998. But the glass is not half full here. It’s half empty.
If you are involved with a church that does not have a web site, I can show you how to get one for free, using Wordpress.com. All it takes is a little initiative on your part and you can have a web site. You don’t need a $300 site. You don’t need a $500 site. You can have a free web site for your church. Go to www.worpdress.com and follow the instructions.
Do it now. For the children.
Quoting from The Church In 2009 – KYPost.com
Close to half of the churches offer Web pages.
Read the entire article at:
http://www.kypost.com/content/middleblue3/story/The-Church-In-2009/o3oMerab5E2upfPeBvDqdg.cspx
Posted in church |
Sunday, December 28th, 2008
I really appreciate comments. I really do. I love the interaction with people who use this site. Most of all, I love being right and crushing the opposition.
Network Solutions is waiting for you to search for an available domain name using their site.
I wrote a post titled
Network Solutions Sucks. I must admit that I have strong feelings about Network Solutions or NetSol, as it’s also called. I am deeply biased with a loathing that permeates my entire being.
With that as background, I got a comment or two from Jack Carlson, who, again, I really appreciate for commenting. He defended NetSol and I had to question if I was right about their practices or not. I know what happened to me and a client of mine. Maybe they saw the error of their ways and changed their practices. I needed to reevaluate.
I checked Wikipedia (and since it’s on the Internet, it must be right of course,) and they also had references that all seem to check out. I think this section below is probably true. It matches my experiences and my client’s. Please click through and read the whole thing.
What do you think? Have you ever had a good or a bad experience with NetSol? Please leave a comment and we’ll all battle it out in the never ending search for the truth.
Network Solutions – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Controversy over domain name front running
There is evidence that there are parties subscribing to this information which are buying some of these domains within milliseconds of them being de-registered.
On January 8, 2008 Domain Name Wire published a story alleging that Network Solutions practices domain name front running.[18] “If you try to register a domain at Network Solutions, but decide not to register it, you won’t be able to register it anywhere else,” the article says.[18] “Network Solutions registers the domain in its company name with the words ‘This Domain is available at NetworkSolutions.com’.”[18] Circle ID reported on January 8, 2008 that Jonathon Nevett, Vice President of Policy at Network Solutions and one of the seven members of the ICANN community who was consulted by the ICANN committee looking at domain tasting abuse,[19] had offered a response to the news story stating Network Solution’s policy.[20] The policy was “a security measure to protect our customers,” said Nevett.[20] “When a customer searches for an available domain name at our website, but decides not to purchase the name immediately after conducting the search,” Nevett added, “after the search ends, we will put the domain name on reserve.”[20] Nevett said that if the domain was “not purchased within 4 days, it will be released back to the registry and will be generally available for registration.”[18]
Posted in web host |
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008
Here are the advantages of having a “managed web host”. They are in fact true and good reasons. If you require 100% uptime, hardware replaced within 30 minutes, the best support, and remote backups, then yes, you need managed web hosting.
If you want a Ferrari, then buy a Ferrari, but know that it's a Ferrari.
However, know that it comes at a cost. If you can handle having periodic issues so that you have 99.9% uptime instead, then normal web hosting is much cheaper. If you want a Ferrari, then buy a Ferrari, but know that it’s a Ferrari.
Advantages of Managed Web Hosting | What It Is
The reasons why to opt a managed web hosting account compare to unmanaged cheaper web hosting service are as follows:
No Downtime: Your online website works as official brand of your company presence over the internet thus it’s a must for you to make your site alive 24*7 hrs for the world wide web visitors so that they can access your website without any such issues like downtime. Major online web hosting providers gives you 99.9% uptime guarantee while the fact is this that its too insufficient to the practical need for better presence in front of your customers thus you need a web hosting company which can ensure you 100% optimal uptime as there are a lot of managed web hosting providers which offer 100% uptime in real due to their multi-home bandwidth network lines.
When you are a newbie webmaster even it’s a must for you to ensure that your web hosting provider gives you 100% uptime guarantee in this manner you can cut off a lot of hassles and frustration sort of unwanted things in your daily business role with your website.
Better Equipments: There are a lot of managed web hosting providers over the internet world which gives you 30 minutes or even 15 minutes hardware replacement guarantee sort of unmatchable performance for your website as when your hardware by chance goes failed this is a must as nobody knows what’s going on when as everybody just know either the past of the presence nothing can be predicated for future reference point of view when you are dealing practically over any such technical things as web servers.
Better Support: When you go to search any web hosting company you shall check their Support SLA things to let you know that how good they are to the support needs as there are a lot of managed web hosting providers which offer you maximum 30 minutes guaranteed response over your any trouble with your website so it’s always better to keep your eyes on their detailed SLA agreement too so you can secure yourself that you are working with the best supporting team for your web hosting needs.
Remote backups: Proper planning for backups shall be always carried when you host your website anywhere on internet and if you have a properly planned remote backup that makes you 200% more secure to what you are doing on internet.
Read the entire article at Advantages of Managed Web Hosting | What It Is
Posted in web host |
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
No matter what kind of web site you are creating, no matter what size or what content, it’s always best to plan out what you need to do before you do anything.
I always start with a planning document. It can be formal or informal. It just needs to have all of the information you need in a way that makes sense to you.
It's always best to plan out what you need to do before you do anything.
Start out with the technical, web hosting issues. What is the domain name? Where will it be hosted? Are there any other technical requirements like SQL or PHP? You may not know all of these right now, but be aware of them. They might cause problems later if you don’t plan for them now.
Once you have a handle on the technical issues, which will take way more time to explore, the next step is a site map. This might be called the site architecture or site plan. There are various names for it.
You need to have a list of every page on the site and a description of the content for every page. You also need to know the relationships of each page, which will be defined with the menus.
Most sites have a list of things that are exactly the same on each page, so we call this the template. These things would be the header and footer, the sidebars, and the logo. Whatever else you might have can be put into the template.
If your site has nothing common on each page, then you’re better off creating them individually. You still need to make the site map.
You can make this list as a text outline or as a graphic with little boxes and lines running between them. Use whatever tools you have that make sense to you.
Posted in web site build |
Saturday, November 1st, 2008
There are a ton of web hosting companies out there. You will probably not get the traffic that requires some huge, bullet proof servers and bandwidth. You’ll be fine with a shared server and a lot of bandwidth.
Small business web hosting has become so easy and common that it’s a commodity these days. You want to look for price first, but the determining factor now are reliability, customer service and ease of use.
Reliability
When I first started to publish a fan site at survivor.com, I was getting a huge amount of traffic. I bought space at PowWeb, who I use now, and was fairly happy with them for the most part. They advertised “unlimited bandwidth”, so we were cool with the huge traffic spike every Thursday night.
Customer Service
That is, until it all stopped. One day, they decided that I had too many connections within a specific time, so they just turned it off. I had no site. I was furious. Of course, I found this out after I got home from work and their office was closed. I was screwed.
When I did contact them, they pointed out some fine print in that “unlimited bandwidth” section of the terms and conditions. They could shut me off any old time they wanted to with no warning. I was still furious.
Ease of Use
I shopped around and decided it was time to get a dedicated server with a specified amount of bandwidth. I was making good enough money to pay for it and it seemed like it was time to take the plunge. I had a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. I signed the year long contract and had the server set up. I found that the interface was horrible. I couldn’t manage the domain names the way I wanted to set them up. I didn’t have access to the MySQL settings. There were all sorts of little nuisances that I didn’t have with the shared server.
I was shocked at how hard it was to manage this thing. I couldn’t do half the things that I could with the shared server. I canceled the contract and asked for my money back. It took them 60 days to get that back to me.
I’m sure that there are better dedicated servers out there, just like there are worse shared servers. The key is to get in and play around with whatever you buy. Make sure that you can do what to do with it and that it’s easy. They have gotten much better today, so you shouldn’t have any problems, but you might.
After that fiasco, I went back to PowWeb, since I had paid for a year of their service. It seems that as soon as I decided that, they changed their terms of service and were promoting the amount of bandwidth they include. They no longer can decide arbitrarily, but they have a specified amount of bandwidth you can use. They tell you how much you’ve used and when you might run out.
I feel much better about being told that I have a “Monthly limit: 15400.00 GB” than it being “Unlimited”. That makes me a little nervous. (I just checked and they are advertising “Unlimited” again. Hmmmm…) Since I went back to them, they’ve given me absolutely no trouble at all. They’ve been 100% reliable. I’ve been able to do everything I need to. I’ve recommended them to clients who are also happy with them.
I would recommend PowWeb 100%.
There are other good, cheap hosts out there. I have nothing against any of them. Check them out. Make sure you can do what you want and that they give you a money back guarantee.
DO NOT DO ANY BUSINESS WITH NETWORK SOLUTIONS!.
Posted in web site build |
Saturday, November 1st, 2008
So you think you need a web site for your small business. You’re right. If you don’t have one by now, you’re behind the curve. If you have one that sucks, you need to make it better.
Don’t worry, we’ll walk you through the steps to get one up and running. The overview of the process contains the following steps:
1. Register a domain name.
2. Find a web hosting company.
3. Set up the domain name to point at the web host.
4. Design the web site.
5. Develop the web site.
6. Post them to the web host.
7. Maintain it.
There are a lot of companies out there promising to do it all for you for cheap, but be careful of who you give your money to and what you get stuck with. There are deals and there are dangers.
The first rule of web site development is DO NOT DO ANY BUSINESS WITH NETWORK SOLUTIONS!. They are evil. They will suck you into a black hole of fees and never let you go. They are the La Brea tar pits of the Internet.
Each of the steps above has it’s own page dedicated to it and they are many other resources out there on the web for information about each subject.
Posted in web site build |
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008
Using The Wrong Web Hosting Service Will Kill You | Gwizz IT by John Bear
Picking the right web hosting will be one of the most important decisions you will ever make with your online business. Why? Because the web server you choose will really make or break your online business.
It Could Kill You
Today I am going to discuss two types of servers; Virtual Web Hosting and Virtual Private Servers.
Lately, Virtual Web Hosting has been the only way to go when choosing a web server. One of the reasons that Virtual Web Hosting became so popular was because they supported the necessary files and allowed you to have more freedom than other conventional web hosting accounts. But now you can have more freedom than ever before with Virtual Private Servers. Moreover, Virtual Private Servers should not be confused with Virtual Hosts, because they are completely different types of accounts.
Before we go any further I’d like to explain what the difference is between a Virtual Host and a Virtual Private Server, so that you can really fully understand. In this article I will also go over the advantages and disadvantages of both types of servers, to help you decide which is right for you and your business. Let’s start off with Virtual Hosting.
Virtual Hosting
Virtual Hosting is also known as Shared Web Hosting, where you are sharing the physical server and a single set of software applications with other users. Virtual Hosting has been extremely popular in the past for its fast deployment, strong resources, and most importantly for having a very reasonable price. Another advantage to Virtual Hosting is that you have a powerful, reliable, and professionally managed server without having to have advanced technical skills, making it ideal for an individual, small business, or even a beginner.
Posted in web host |
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008
This is some good advice from WebHostingGeek. They are 4 simple things to check before you give anyone any money. “Cheap” doesn’t always mean it will cost you the least amount of money.
How to prepare yourself towards budget web hosting plans By: WebHostingGeek
Many people would prefer to opt for a budget web hosting plan. But one must be prepared to handle its own consequences. A budget web hosting plan comes with a small risk which every customer who buys such plans should be made aware of. Many budget web hosting providers have their own secret way of doing business and this is reflected on their over all performance of the company. Hence, it is very important for a customer to find out the various types of facilities and benefits involved with the web hosting package which he intends to purchase. With regard to budget web hosting, you must be aware of certain tactics which budget web hosting providers use. Before you sign up, you must know what your web host is about and how it operates. Following are certain insights that you should be aware of:
1) About those budget web hosting companies that have no experience:
There are many budget web hosts on the website that may not be in the market for too long. In other words, they may have little or no experience at all. It may so happen that you might land up in purchasing a web hosting service that is brand new and inexperienced. I would not prefer this step. In fact, find a web host that has many years experience and they are proud of their service and growth involved as a web hosting company. So, go for budget web hosting providers which are experienced holders.
Posted in web host |
