When it comes time to try and make a decision with what option to choose from, it’s always important to consult with the web hosting service provider you are thinking of choosing. Getting a second opinion is always recommended if you are a beginning or you are launching a start up company. A web hosting service provider will be able to help you determine which option will be best for your company, and also be what you are seeking as far as privacy and storage options.

Sandy from space (NASA)

In the tri-state area, where Sandy hit hardest, 25% of wireless carriers reported to the FCC that they were unable to properly operate following the storm. [1] This made millions of Sandy victims unable to connect with loved ones via their smartphones and other mobile devices. Those who still had power and an Internet connection may have also experienced intermittent connections and slow speeds. [1] The FCC even warned that many of the towers that were still functioning were running on battery operated backup generators and were likely to run out of fuel. Officials warned that this could lead to an even larger digital outage before connections would be fully restored. [1]

Fake Hurricane Sandy photos

Popular websites, like the Huffington Post and Gawker, did not escape Sandy unscathed either and experienced outages following the storm as well. [5] However, while these websites (and many others) were down the Internet continued spreading news of the storm, many stories which contained false reports and photoshopped images. [6] Photoshopped images included pictures of scuba divers swimming through subway tunnels and giant tidal waves heading towards the New York City skyline. [6] A Twitter troll eventually took much of the blame for being one of the main instigators in spreading such faulty news that caused millions anxiety and stress. [6] [7]

Because of the circumstances cell phone companies, such as AT&T and T-Mobile, put aside their ongoing competition with one another and came together to help those devastated by Hurricane Sandy.[2] By sharing networks during the days immediately following the storm, individuals were allowed to receive service from both, making service stronger and the likelihood of reaching loved ones in need higher. It was also decided that customers of either company would not receive any roaming charges during this time of need.[2] This was an idea shared by many in the northeast the week of the 29th as multiple businesses and banks waived their normal fees until the public was in a more stable environment.[2]

American Red Cross Website

Many digital companies, such as iTunes, also reached out in an effort to help those affected by the storm. On Wednesday, October 31st Apple created a button on their iTunes’ homepage that allowed users to donate directly to the American Red Cross. Apple promised that 100% of the proceeds would go directly towards helping victims of Hurricane Sandy. [3]

On Friday, November 2st NBC broadcasted (along with various other networks) the “Hurricane Sandy Coming Together Benefit” telethon to help collect donations for Hurricane Sandy’s victims. The telethon benefit was hosted by Matt Lauer and included a musical line-up containing Christina Aguilera, Billy Joel, Steven Tyler, and Bruce Springsteen. Celebrities like Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and Danny DeVito also graced the stage urging those watching to donate to the American Red Cross. [4] This benefit was also linked to iTunes and their efforts to collect donations for the American Red Cross.[4]

The United States of America as a whole, and the digital world, faced tremendous complications and strife during, and following, Hurricane Sandy. However, throughout this troubling time it became very apparent that the digital world is as strong and impactful as ever in the lives of those around the world. Though the digital world was deeply interrupted because of Hurricane Sandy proactive steps have been taken to restore all services offered to individuals not only in the United States, but also around the world.

1. http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/31/technology/mobile/sandy-cell-service-outages/index.html
2. http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/31/tech/mobile/att-tmobile-networks-sandy/index.html
3. http://mashable.com/2012/11/01/itunes-red-cross-donations-sandy/
4. http://www.nbc.com/news/2012/11/01/nbcuniversal-announces-hurricane-sandy-coming-together-a-benefit-telethon-to-aid-victims-of-hurrican/
5. http://news.yahoo.com/hurricane-takes-down-big-websites-211016806–abc-news-tech.html
6. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/superstorm-hurricane-sandy-2012-fake-photos-circulate-online-17605761
7. http://mashable.com/2012/10/30/sandy-fake-news-apology/

1) Friendly and Useful Customer Support

When it’s 2am and you’ve got a problem with your account, is your host provider there to help? This is a crucial quality to have in a quality web host. 24/7 customer technical support is a must. Be discerning of their wording- you want a live person, not simply voicemail and email support during off hours.

2) No Risk trial

In case you’re unhappy with the host company, be sure you can get your money back.

3) Keep control

Make sure the host company offers a control panel that allows you to manage all aspects of your account. This includes email accounts, activity statistics, and the like.

4) The word on stats

All businesses want their site to be popular, drawing more and more visitors who convert to sales. From this perspective, you’ll need to keep an eye on who is visiting your website and what pages are most popular. A good host will keep track of this information for you and send you regular, configurable updates.

5) Shopping cart

If you are selling merchandise on your website, you must have a shopping cart for your customers. The cart allows visitors to browse your available items and place items they plan to purchase in their cart. You can always add a stand-alone cart system, but it’s easiest if your host company offers it.

6) CGI freedom

Your host provider should allow you to run Common Gateway Interface scripts on your account. Some providers offer free pre-installed scripts with their hosting plan.

7) Hosting with email

You should receive multiple POP (Post Office Protocol) email accounts from your hosting company. This allows you to set up multiple addresses for all your business needs. It’s advisable to check that email forwarding is allowed; this way, if you prefer, specific addresses can feed into your main account.

8) Mailing lists

A mailing list is one way to keep regular users abreast of current information. If your hosting company provides double-opt-in mailing lists, users will be able to sign up and receive an email that confirms their subscriptions and directs them to further action.

9) Autoresponders

This service allows users to send a message to a specific account, and automatically receive an email with the information they seek. For example, if users want to know about current specials, they may send an email to specials@mydomain.com and quickly receive an email listing current specials in their inbox.

10) Password only

A hosting company that supports password protected areas (sub-webs or folders) will allow you to create special sections to your website that users can access with a password. This is especially useful if you want to create a “subscribers only” section on your site.

11) Secure and private

If you plan to collect private information from your site visitors, such as payment information, or if you have a shopping cart on your ecommerce site, you’ll need a hosting company that provides an SSL Secure Server. This Secure Socket Layer allows transmissions that are encrypted, keeping your customers’ information private.

12) Available space

Does your hosting company offer enough space for the files you plan to use? If you’re storing audio or video files, make sure the hard disk space available is sufficient to your needs. Also, if this is an issue, you may want to check out the bandwidth availability as well.

13) A back up plan

In the case of a power outage, flood, hurricane, or other natural occurrence, make sure your hosting company has a backup plan. Are there other sites that take over if the site hosting your information fails? Know the procedure, and make sure you’re comfortable with it.

With these 13 tips, you’ll be more able to navigate the sea of information when comparing multiple hosting options and companies. Once you’ve decided on the winner, make sure they are willing and able to grow with you as your company expands.

Partnering with a company who has a strong reputation and experience with hosting and marketing business is a good idea.

When comparing features offered at each hosting company, look for high percentages of uptime and user-friendly customer support. Get information on the amount of disc space and bandwidth you’ll be given and allowed to manage. Are you planning to upload video or audio files? Check to see if this activity is allowable; some providers are non-negotiable in this area. Also, ask about information regarding your domain name registry. How will you be protected? What amount of email accounts come with the hosting plan? The answers to these questions will help you find the best plan for your needs.

If you’re not familiar with the phrase search engine optimization, or SEO, you need to do some research. For your website to experience success online, your site must be optimized. This means that you are using the right keywords in your content. Write content for your site visitors as well as for the larger search engines. The latter will get you higher rankings in a search, but the former will keep customers returning to your site once they find you.

Once you’ve gotten the keywords and content up to speed, focus your attention on link building. Your worth as a website is determined by your number of inbound links. Some sites attain higher rankings by participating in link exchange. To get started, browse around to some sites like yours that you enjoy and contact the Webmaster to see if he/she is interested in a link exchange. Easy, right?

Social Media is daily becoming a stronger and stronger force in marketing. What’s fun about it is that it’s highly personal. If you want to make friends, be a friend. If you want comments, give comments. Be neighborly. If someone friends, retweets, likes, pins, repins, stars, or takes some positive action to your benefit, thank them. Then, return the favor. Other tips? Keep the content on your site relevant and up-to-date. Also, make sure the platform for your campaign is user-friendly. This will make it easy to create and edit content.

If you are able to get your visitors involved in your website, you’re going a long way in building the relationships that are essential to a strong web presence. How do you do this? Check your writing style. Is it personal? Try leaving open- ended questions and ask for comments. Not only will you increase the opportunity for return visitors, but you’ll also get valuable feedback on your site, product, or service.

Is your site one in which you can hold a contest? Creativity is key here. A contest is a quick way to get people talking about your site. Don’t feel pressured to offer pricey rewards. Often the simplest thing will go a long way.

When you walk in someone’s home, the design tells you a lot about the person. Is the floor clean? Are the shelves orderly or cluttered? The same holds true in web design. By investing in a quality, clean design, you are communicating to your clients what you value as a business. A beautiful design will build trust between your business and its site visitors.

While you can build your own website, it’s safer to call on a website designer who can guide you through the array of design options available. Keep in mind that some browser settings prevent Flash animations, which means you may lose valuable visitors if you rely too heavily on Flash. A quality web designer will be well versed on the pros and cons of each choice, so you can make the best decision for your web needs.

Error:
Module Command Error
(Curl Error) couldn’t connect to host – code: 7

On the official WHMCS site you can find:

Server Command Error – Curl Error – Couldn’t connect to host (7)
This response means you have a firewall blocking the connection. The port being used depends on what module you are using but for cPanel it would be 2086/2087, Plesk 8443, DirectAdmin 2222, etc…

Indeed they are correct :)

So, we had 2 servers, one of them had installed WHMCS (let’s call it Server A) and we wanted to attach another VPS server (let’s call it Server B) to this WHMCS. Here are potential issues:

1. You must whilelist IP of server B in WHM of the server B. Simply go to WHM of the server B to a section Plugins > ‘ConfigServer Security&Firewall’, then whilelist there an IP of the server A. Here is one problem – you may not have ‘ConfigServer Security&Firewall’ plugin installed (we had that issue). So, just ask your hosting provider to install csf plugin for you, guys from wiredtree did it for us! :)

2. When adding a new server to WHMCS insert Access Hash, which you can generate in WHM of server B (Setup Remote Access Key).

3. As we found it online, it is good if server B has a root password without special characters – that may cause some issues.

Hopefully that save somebody few hours of problems :)

1. Host company’s reputation.
First and foremost, consider the reputation of the web hosting company in the current market. Before making a decision on website hosting for your small business, check out the web host’s website. Look for awards and seals of approval; look especially for the Internet Better Business Bureau seal. Another route is to search the Internet for reviews of the different web hosting companies. Web hosting forums can provide this information for you. The absence of reviews is not necessarily a bad thing; most people only make the effort to review if they have had a bad experience, so a lack of reviews could be a good thing. One or two bad reviews are okay, but it’s best to avoid a company with bad reviews and no good reviews to balance it out.

2. Price.
Survey the packages available and select one that best meets the needs of your small business. Shared webhosting is popular because of the low and flexible price. Also, most webhosting companies offer annual plans. Whatever the price, remember that low fees do not automatically mean a great deal. Avoid the extremes of dirt cheap and expensive packages.

3. Bundles.
When deciding on a web hosting company, consider bundled software. You may encounter packages for content management, shopping cart and control panel software, and others. Deciding on the type of specialized software your small business needs should be done before a hosting commitment is made.

4. Security and Reliability.
If you are entrusting important and/or confidential data to your webhost, security and reliability are important. This data can include payment details, credit card numbers, website data, etc. Do some preliminary investigating such as talking to present customers of the webhost, especially those who have been with the host for a long period of time.

Reliability in a webhost equivocates to a high- recorded rate of customer satisfaction. Make a list of potential web hosting companies and search their reviews online. Note how long the customer writing the review has been associated with the webhost. A reliable web host will have long time customers.

5. Technical support.
How tech savvy are you? Do you feel confident in your ability to troubleshoot if something errs on your website? Large companies lose money when there are website malfunctions, but this can be devastating to small businesses. Having the option of technical support in your website hosting can alleviate these concerns, especially if the hosting support is available, friendly, useful, and responds to concerns quickly. Many web hosting companies have a twenty-four hour support line for when troubles arise.

6. Editing tools and script support.
Easy to use design and editing tools are offered by many web hosting companies. If your small business website is designed using Frontpage, it is important to make sure that the web hosting company they decide on supports FrontPage extensions. Another tip is to ensure that the web hosting company is compatible with other script languages, e.g. PHP, ASP, Perl.

7. Uptime and Speed.
A quality web hosting company should guarantee uptimes of 99 percent. This means that your website may only be unavailable 1% of the time. Small business owners should also check the information regarding their data center. It’s important to know that there are high-speed connections to the Internet backbone.

By knowing these seven important qualities of a potential web host, you will be prepared to choose your small business web- hosting provider. Don’t rush. Choose carefully; your website will depend on it.

“We have received reports that Network Solutions customers are seeing malicious code added to their websites, and we are really sorry for this experience,” said company spokesman Shashi Bellamkonda in “At this time, since anything we say in public may help the perpetrators, we are unable to provide details.”

*promotion applies to projects above $3,000

Saint Valentine’s Day (commonly shortened to Valentine’s Day) is an annual holiday held on February 14 celebrating love and affection between intimate companions. The holiday is named after one or more early Christian martyrs named Valentine and was established by Pope Gelasius I in AD 496. It is traditionally a day on which lovers express their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as valentines). The holiday first became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly loveflourished. Modern Valentine’s Day symbols include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten valentines have largely given way to mass-produced greeting cards. Source: Wikipedia