Some time over night, my visitor counter, which simply counts unique IP addresses that visit my site, topped the 40,000 mark. That means that I have counted at least 40,000 visitors since I started using the counter (its a small php script that dumps its data into a text file). That’s a lot. Thanks for coming over. I hope that you felt at home.
Archive for the ‘Site’ Category
I just installed Dougal’s Easy Gravatars plugin. He’s just released version 1.1. Inserting Gravatars into your commenter’s comments is as easy as installing the plugin. It works really well. It was even super easy to move the image a bit with the built in “advanced” feature of being able to add CSS properties into the config page. I’ve decided to go back to using Gravatars because I’ve always liked them, and since they’re now owned and hosted by Automattic, they are blazingly fast, thanks to the gobs of speed and bandwidth they now have at their disposal. This is great!
My web host has advised me that they will be doing maintenance on the server tomorrow (15 Nov) between 8pm-10pm PST, which may cause my site or some of its services to become unavailable during that time. Nobody likes down time, but everybody likes being told ahead of time! Thanks, Friendlier! You’re one notch farther up, in my estimation.
You can always visit my other site if you have a burning desire to see what I’m up to if this site is ever down. Its located, of course, at http://mrcorey.com.
I wasn’t sure whether to do this post this soon or not, but I have some good things to say, so here it comes.
This is a mini review of my new web host, Friendlier.com. In response partially to a comment by Macbros, I write this post to give a decent idea of what my web host offers. Here’s what you can find in plain site on the front page of the home page:
FRIENDLY PLAN
- 100 GB Disk Space!
- 1000 GB/mo Traffic!
- 99,9% Server Uptime
- Free Domain for Life*
- 30Day Money-Back
- 24/7 Support
- No Set-up Fees
- Free Site Builder
- $4.95/month.
That’s the short list. I’ve colored the parts that I like the most. Honestly, after the uptime issues that I’ve had with XMGFree.com (which they’ve not really resolved - even now, over a year later - sorry Eric, I like you) and DSTInternet.com (you guys were unresponsive and slow to help - you get what you pay for), my priority is for uptime. After seeing that Friendlier.com had a good uptime record (via a site that showed various sites and their uptime), I was already interested in their service. I had already signed up at DSTInternet.com for a year’s service beginning at the end of April 2007. I am giving this hosting up and writing that purchase off. Sometime you get what you pay for and $2.95USD/mo is a good indicator of a cheap site (cheap on support).
You’ll notice that there are plenty of web hosting solutions presented to you via various ratings sites that fall in the $4.95-$7.95 per month range. I don’t think that there has to be a significant difference between hosts in that range. I do prefer to pay less, as most reasonable people do. The difference is that Friendlier.com (or Friendlyr.com) offers their wares at the lower end of the price scale with the features at the higher end.
By the way, the great uptime stats that I found out about may be attributed to the fact that their hosting is purchased from The Planet, which is the “number one privately held, dedicated server hosting provider in the world.” Many companies get their hosting from The Planet, as its got what it takes to host the largest, most demanding companies.
I must say that the generous disk space and the large bandwidth allotment is a good draw for me as well, but I doubt that I will ever need to worry about approaching my limits.
I like the fact that Friendlier.com uses cPanel. I missed that when I got my hosting with DSTInternet.com. I also like the fact that they have SSH access. SSH is one of the features that most hosts disable (except for the ones who pay a lot extra) it so that they won’t have to secure against it (which is just lazy). Its just so much more powerful when you want to maintain a website.
One thing that I like more than I thought that I would is the “chat” function of the support desk. Friendlier has a support staff that actually seems to know what they are doing and when you ask a question that is beyond the scope of the present support rep’s ability to answer, they tell you so and they advise that they will get someone who is qualified to answer your question to send you an email with an answer. How great is that?
I actually used the chat function before I signed up, as I was trying to find an alternative to my host at the time. The support person (I wish that I could remember - sorry) was free with answers to my questions. I liked that they were automatically ready to answer my questions despite my not being a customer.
Things haven’t changed as far as that goes, as well. I’m still getting great service. I get to use cPanel, FTP, and SSH to access my site. The pages load with blazing speed. I’ve got lots of grow room, and best of all, the staff are still friendlier!
As any regular visitor to this site knows, I’m not big on advertising on my own site. I’ve not felt the need to promote any particular product or company. Occasionally, you’ve seen a widget go up temporarily when I was helping to beta test, or a plug for a site or cause that I wanted others to know about - without any intention of compensation for the plug. This is going to remain true. I will only promote what I believe in. So, you may notice an affiliate link show up on my site for my new web host soon. It will produce a small hosting compensation if anyone clicks through and decides to go with Friendlier.com
I will end this post here. In case you didn’t figure it out from the above, I recommend that you consider Friendlier.com as your web host when you’re shopping around.
I’ve been seated at my new (and hopefully last) web host for a week now, and there are no real speed bumps that I can see yet. I tried to upload the directory holding my photo album, but there was a permissions problem, likely stemming from the folder being moved from another server. Replacing the folder fixed that. Now, I can upload the pictures again. Its going to be a lot of work, as I am not going to rely on the stored data from the old database. This way, the site should actually work!
I’ve effectively moved from DSTInternet to my new host, Friendlier.com. The move was reasonably painless for me. I ma interested to see if it was painless for you. Feel free to comment. I will certainly be “watching” my hosting from now on and I’ll be interested in seeing how it actually goes. I still have that good feeling that I mentioned on the old hosting (which may not have been restored here - I warned you!).
Forgive me for the hesitation, but I’d love to review my host, but, after the last two experiences with paid hosting after reasonably trouble-free free hosting, forgive me for being hesitant.
Let this be a notice (as in a Colbert notice! Wag of the finger and everything!) that I will be auditing my experience with you and your future could lay in my hands, as I rank well in Google for any term that I feel like, cos I write for real, not for money.
I’m tired of the downtime and lack of response for this web host. I’m switching. If there’s any wierdness over the next 72 hours, its my fault. Sorry.
