by WebKeyDesign | Feb 13, 2006 | Web Site Basics
Lately I have had many inquiries about Windows Web Hosting, and since I only offer Linux based web hosting to my clients, I felt it necessary to point out a few things when it comes to web hosting and choosing the right host for your web site projects.
Your primary concerns when choosing a web host should be that a web host is reliable and meets the requirements for your web site. This may include having multiple databases, parked domains, or simply having a certain amount of bandwidth. If your site is dependant on Microsoft technologies such as ASP or using data from an Access database, then your hosting requirements can only be met by choosing a Windows web host. Although you may be able to run some of your site on another type of host, it is preferable to use a Windows host, since your site will perform better and there will be less conflicts than if you were to choose a Linux host.
One of the things you may notice about Windows Web Hosting is that there can sometimes be a price difference, with Windows hosting costing as much as double the price of a basic cPanel Linux host. While it is not clear if license costs are the driving force for higher prices, you should consider that the ease of use of Windows and the ability to utilize Microsoft-only technologies do add some cost to Windows web hosting. As a comparison consider Apple’s .Mac services which cost higher than standard web hosting, because Apple is primarily selling its services on ease of use. This is the same situation in the Windows hosting market. The ease of use and ability to run ASP driven sites will cost you extra.
In the Linux hosting market you give up the use of Microsoft technologies, but you get a very reliable and proven solution in Apache + MySQL + PHP. You may also find that Linux hosting packages are more diverse, ranging from small space and bandwidth allotments, to very large gigabyte accounts that even occasional webbloggers can afford. In addition to being less expensive, there are many scripts and third party solutions that are available. You may find more competitively priced packaged solutions than in the Windows market.
Perhaps the difference (other than price) between a Windows host and a Linux host is the technical one. While almost everyone is somewhat familiar with a Windows desktop, not everyone is familiar with Linux and it may take a while for a new webmaster to become comfortable with the differences. However all new webmasters will have to learn about web hosting in general, so this should not deter you in choosing a Linux host over a Windows host. You will find that almost any technical issue with Linux hosting can be resolved by researching it on Google and Yahoo. And if you hire someone to do your site’s maintenance, this may not be a concern at all.
by WebKeyDesign | Feb 3, 2006 | WordPress
My new website MovieComment.com was setup with WordPress 2.0, and so when the 2.0.1 release showed up, I went ahead and upgraded it. Thinking everything went okay, I forgot to check all the plugins, and it appears that WP-Shortstat 1.3 and WordPress 2, no longer work after installing the 2.0.1 update. No new hits are tracked anymore, but you can still view whatever stats you had prior to the upgrade.
The reason is that there is a conflict with the Google Sitemap plugin. HappyArts Blog though has modified WP-Shortstat to work around the problem, and it appears to be working for me now.
HappyArts Blog is a German blog, so you might want to have Google translate HappyArts Blog for you.
Update: HappyArts Blog has incorporated my CSS changes into his version of WP-Shortat. There is also a download page in English.
by WebKeyDesign | Jan 31, 2006 | WebKeyDesign
I was browsing the web as usual this week, when I read that A List Apart is taking responses on what you love or hate about the web right now. Without a doubt, the most annoying trend on the world wide web, is the number of junk sites. At least an hour or two of my day is devoted to technical problems, and the web is my number one resource for technical solutions. Google and Yahoo are my default search tools but more and more searches are turning up sites that list partial RSS feeds for other sites. Each of these sites takes at least five minutes of my time to assess and see if they actually have anything of value, so the more sites I find coming up, the more time I waste. In some cases, I am completely given up, and tried other search terms to see if I can hit a real site instead. All this work reduces productivity and makes the web useless to me. In the past most scrapper sites would get their content the hard way, they would scrape other sites using Perl scripts. These sites were plentiful, but they never ranked very well on search engines, and so their existence did not really bother me. Eventually RSS came along and tons of blogs would syndicate their content. This made it easier for webmasters to put together a site made completely of RSS feeds from legitimate sites. The end result was a tide of splogs and scrapper sites that now rank very well in search engines and clog most search results.
Some would argue that the reason why all these splogs exist is that they are financed by online ads that make splogs a good business to be in, and I really cannot argue with that, but what matters to me is that like most other Internet related problems, no one party is responsible. The search engines are hesitant to not rank these sites well, which leads one to wonder if this conflicts with their own advertising business. Then there are the sploggers themselves that have taken it upon themselves to abuse the ideal of the blog. Their chief argument being that Google does something similar with Google News, why can’t they? All of this leads us to the current state of the web, namely RSS pollution has made internet searching a less effective resource for all of us.
