Hi guys,

I do have a few articles lined up for the blog, but I’ve been trying to finish off some important client work (gotta keep up with the deadlines). I’ve also been making some pretty huge behind the scenes changing to Push Standards. I want to have everything with the blog working perfectly and not requiring constant maintenance before I start posting regularly again.

So ‘what are the changes?’ you might ask. Well first of all I’ve finally got round to changing my web host. I won’t name who I was with before, but let’s just say that they’re a big name in the hosting industry. The bad news was, that they were CRAP. I mean really crap… I had constant downtime (with my other site more than this one), database crashes, webmail downtime, you name it… I even got hacked about 3 times! Anyway, I thought enough was enough, and searched around for a reliable new host. After trusting the big names for years now (and being disappointed) I opted for a new web host, one that looked more friendly and on a smaller scale. I didn’t really understand why I had this instinct to move away from the big companies, not until I found my new host.

They’re called This* (as in This* Web Host). Before I tell you about transferring hosts, I want to share a couple of things from their website that persuaded me to use them. This isn’t blindly promoting them, but I really learnt a lot about the nature of the hosting industry, and feel that this information is invaluable to anyone who owns a website. In their most recent blog post ‘Guide to Web Hosting - Part 1, The Oversell’ they highlight what most big hosting companies are guilty of:

“Ever seen an advert for a host offering perhaps 50GB, 100GB or even 200GB disk space? Ever wondered how they can offer that at sub-10$ prices? Quite simply they can’t. They can offer it to you, but you’ll never be able to use it. If you even come close to using it, they will (generally) terminate your account and claim that your site has grown far too busy, and that you’ll need to upgrade to a VPS, or dedicated server…”

“…There is NO SUCH THING as “UNLIMITED DISK SPACE”. It’s simply a physical improbability, and nothing more than a marketing term. “Unlimited” roughly translated means “We don’t want to advertise a fixed figure, but use too much and we’ll terminate your account”

Until reading this I looked at their packages offering considerable less diskspace/bandwidth than leading hosting companies and wondered why earth I would choose them. Then it all clicked. The downtime, the crashed databases, the weak explanations about certain users straining resources. My old host was simply overselling, and I was paying the price. So I looked at their packages again, and thought: ‘hey, I probably won’t even need all this space anyway, I’ll be paying the same amount for ample space and no downtime!’.

What really sold This* to me was the fact that they transfer your old sites across completely free of charge. This was a step that I was very hesitant to attempt myself. Their staff efficiently transferred both of my websites across in minimal time (we’re talking around an hour!), despite problems being caused by my old host (would you believe it). For once in my life things weren’t going wrong when it came to technology! Not only were my sites up and working in no time at all, but no files were lost or damaged. On top of this their staff had the initiative to delete a bunch of useless files (after my consent) that were taking up space in my forum for no reason at all.

After the transfer any minor issues that I required help with were responded to extremely quickly via their easy to use ticket system. It’s great to know that you’re talking to a real person who respects you as a customer, and with whom you can personal connect with on some level. I’m personally really sick of the faceless corporate Internet that we lay victim to.

So my advice to you, would be to choose your webhost wisely! If you are suffering at the hands of a poor webhost then don’t stand for it! You’re only becoming part of the population that contributes to their survival and customer exploitation. If exploitation seems like a strong word, I don’t think that it is. I mean, in what other industry could you lie so blatantly about something being ‘unlimited’ when it’s obviously not?

If you wish to sign up to This* Web Host, with my strong recommendation, then you can do so here. Be sure to use their promotional code ‘LAUNCH’ to receive 25% off!

My other piece of news concerning the blog is that I’ve FINALLY installed the Akismet anti-spam plugin. I have no idea why it took me so long to get this installed, but I’ve been senselessly deleting hundreds of spam comments each day for no reason! It’s been great so far, and it’s a real weight off my mind not to look at another terrible porn ad.

I’ll be making a couple of final changes to the blog and then you can expect a series of new posts very soon! I also have a couple of very exciting new websites to announce, so watch this space!