Chris Pirillo » web-hosting

What Will the Internet Look Like in Ten Years?

Chris — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:32:22 +0000

What Will the Internet Look Like in Ten Years? is a post from Chris Pirillo

I came across an interesting question on Lockergnome earlier this morning: What will the Internet look like in ten years?. The author states:

… the idea of adverse changes, in my mind, is anything that would change the complete freedom that we have to do just about anything. Certainly crime should not be allowed, but anything that is not criminal should be fully allowed.

That’s an interesting thought. Sure, I agree that crime shouldn’t be allowed on the Internet. However, how the heck are we ever going to stop it? Thousands upon thousands of people fight hard every day to try and curb the growth of crime online. Sadly, for every criminal they take down, more are waiting in the wings to step up.

The author states at the end of the article:

The internet policy is something almost as important as health care, and no matter where you stand on health care, you can see that much twisting of the truth is coming from all parties. How much like that will the fight over the progress of the internet be?

Chilling to think about, for sure. It’s also likely very true. Everyone wants to control the Internet. How ugly do you think that fight for control will get? What direction do you see the Web going in over the next ten years? I’m interested in hearing your thoughts.

This wasn’t the only great article I read today. If you have something you want to share that I haven’t already highlighted here, please pass it along. I’m always looking for something interesting, funny or thought-provoking to read.

In our downloads center, you’ll find tons of great software and applications for anything and everything you could possibly imagine. Keep your eye on what’s new, what’s hot, what’s on sale, and what may be completely free.

Web Hosting

Chris — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 05:05:57 +0000

Web Hosting is a post from Chris Pirillo

Add to iTunes | Add to YouTube | Add to Google | RSS Feed

There are a million places out there to buy your web hosting from. How do you know which is the right choice for you? What things should you keep in mind when choosing? These tips sent in by a community member should help ease your mind a bit.

Don’t buy what you don’t need. When buying a product, you buy it for what you want it to do, right? Hosting is no different. If it’s going to be an image hoster, why do you want a phpBB Board, or MediaWiki included? Consider how much traffic you expect to get, and look around.
Don’t be afraid to move your hosting around often. If there’s a better offer around in the short run, chances are you’re best taking it because by the time you roll around to needing to pay for hosting, you’ll still find some options which, for one year, are either hysterically cheap, or just plain free.
Look on the internet for voucher codes. If you think you’ve found the host for you, looked at their reputation, and decided ‘Yes, that’s who I want to go with’… take a look at their competitors again. A prime example of this is Dreamhost; their voucher codes can turn $100+ a year into $20 for the first year, with a domain name included.
If you’re getting free email, USE IT IF YOU CAN. Too many people still use hotmail addresses when they have hosting that provides them with email addresses. If you’re making a small business venture, a domain-name based address will say a lot more about your professionality than a hotmail, yahoo or aol email. I personally have one for Mail, MSN, Ebay and my Wii, so as to filter the unnecessary stuff as much as possible.
Always pay for your hosting up front initially. There’s nothing worse than changing providers and then realizing that your subscription payment is still recurring. Not only does it cause stress, but the problems that arise while getting the money back can make you wish you never tried them.

Want to embed this video on your own site, blog, or forum? Use this code or download the video:

The Reasons I Chose Rackspace for Hosting

Chris — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 07:55:57 +0000

The Reasons I Chose Rackspace for Hosting is a post from Chris Pirillo

Add to iTunes | Add to YouTube | Add to Google | RSS Feed

In the years I’ve been online, I’ve had a few email hosts (that is, I have my email services hosted apart from my Web servers). When I was looking to start working in an Exchange environment, I asked for recommendations from friends. The choices were either affordable or stable… and I wanted both. It’s the reason I ended up with with Rackspace for managed Exchange hosting (and thanks to Greg for walking us through the process).

Rackspace is renowned for their support. Their logo says right on it “Fanatical Support is the Difference”. They aren’t kidding. The support we’ve gotten from them since switching has been phenominal. Every support ticket we’ve had to open on their website has been quickly and professionally answered. In one instance, I needed help setting up the Exchange on my Windows machine. I called in, and the tech on the phone was so friendly. He connected to my machine and set it up while talking to me. I was able to watch him, so that I will be able to set it up myself in the future if need be. Their support is the #1 reason I recommend Rackspace.

My second reason is the price. For the level of service and support you are receiving, you can’t beat the cost. There is a 5 account minimum, and it runs about $15.00 per account. Since the email storage was just bumped up to 1GB per account, that made the price that much more economical.

Reason #3 is the name. Rackspace is a well known company, with an excellent reputation. I know they aren’t going to disappear on me next week. Sure, JoeSchmoe Hosting may be cheaper, but who’s heard of them? How long will they be able to stick it out?

The guaranteed uptime is reason four that I recommend Rackspace. “100% Network Uptime Isn’t Wishful Thinking, It’s A Guaranteed Reality”… that’s their guarantee. 100% uptime? It doesn’t get any better than that.

Finally, my last (but NOT least) reason for recommending Rackspace is that they are willing and able to expand with my needs. As our company grows, I needed to make sure that my provider can grow with me. They have excellent options and packages, and everything is customizable.

For anyone looking for web hosting service, Email Exchange environments, or even Database services… Rackspace gets my stamp of approval.

Want to embed this video on your own site, blog, or forum? Use this code or download the video:

Free Or Cheap Web Hosting

Chris — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 22:36:11 +0000

Free Or Cheap Web Hosting is a post from Chris Pirillo

Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes

http://live.pirillo.com/ – Sad to say, there really is no “free” hosting if you want to own your Web site. You can buy your own domain name and secure reliable hosting at very good prices, though. Our sponsor GoDaddy provides domain purchasing services, as well as helping you to obtain hosting.

In order to actually own your own Web site, you must do two things. First, you must buy your domain name. This is what the name of your site will be. For instance, lockergnome.com is the name of one of my sites. If you visit our live chat, you can now use the GoDaddy bot. Simply type an exclamation mark, and the name of the site you want. You will then be given a clickable link within the chat room that will take you right to GoDaddy’s checkout. There are other sites, of course, where you can purchase a domain name. What sites have you used – or do you use – to buy yours?

The second thing you have to do is to get Web hosting. There are many good companies out there to choose from, with excellent pricing. Since you can take your domain name with you wherever you go, the market is highly competitive for hosting services. Since I have several sites that attract a lot of people, I choose to go the route of buying my own servers. This is something to look into for high traffic sites, but not for an average user. One reliable and inexpensive hosting company that I’ve used in the past is Laughing Squid. Our friend Scott there does an excellent job with photography, as well.

We’d love to hear from you. Tell us about your Web hosting company. What does it charge? Does it have good customer service? Would you recommend it to our other visitors?

Want to embed this video into your blog? Use this code:

Formats Available: MPEG4 Video (.mp4) Flash Video (.flv) MP3 Audio (.mp3) Microsoft Video (.avi)

Media Temple (mt) Grid Server Outage

Chris — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 10:37:32 +0000

Media Temple (mt) Grid Server Outage is a post from Chris Pirillo

For giggles (and scalability reasons), we set up a Media Temple (mt) “gs” account – setting up some of our sites on their new Grid Server service plan. This morning, it all went to hell. By the afternoon, I started to get antsy – and blitzed a request in their general direction. I received a response quickly, which pretty much said that I wasn’t the only user having issues on the Grid today. Then, in the early evening, I received this update – which I share with you now, in case you’re also a Media Temple gs customer:

This update is intended to summarize the many smaller micro-updates and progress that has been made with this issue since 4:25pm.
- Issues were discovered with the new firmware patch that was provided to (mt) Media Temple this afternoon. This new patch, which was designed to solve the stability issues with our storage segment, introduced new issues. The patch solved the crashing issues, yet introduced performance problems and possible incompatibilities with our GRID technology.
- BlueArc impressively has responded expediently throughout the issue and has escalated (mt)’s issue to the highest level within the company. Constant communication between engineering departments has remained all day.
- During the diagnostic phase (mt) Media Temple found techniques to dramatically reduce disk I/O load from the web segment. This improvement has been scheduled to roll into GRID Master Release (v.1.1). This action has restored the web segment to full performance while the root is issue is discovered.
- Performance issues in the email segment continue to come and go, currently exhaustive work is being done in this area.
- Commitment has been made by both teams to work continuously until permanent resolution is made.

I’m not quite sure what all of that means, but… I sure hope it doesn’t happen again. I mean, I don’t expect much for such a small amount of money, but Media Temple (in my mind) has one of the best Web hosting reputations on the planet – which is largely why we’re dipping our digital toes in their waters. Things seem okay again, although my Comcrap connection has made the Internets close to unbearable.

How to Handle Remote Tech Support

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:30:00 GMT

Using GoToAssist is the easiest way to view and control another person's computer online. Use it to provide instant technical support to family, friends and customers. Start a session with just one click, and instantly connect with the other party.

Network Tools for Windows

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:30:00 GMT

You need these network tools, no matter which operating systems and networks you have to support. SolarWinds ipMonitor: Affordable Network Monitoring for SMBs. Get turnkey network, server and application availability monitoring with SolarWinds ipMonitor v9.0. This easy-to-use, reliable solution for SMBs delivers out-of-the-box availability monitoring so you always know exactly what's up with Active Directory, DNS, Exchange, FTP, Web, IMAP, MS SQL Server, and SMTP. Download your free trial today. Or, try their totally free tools! And, through 2/29, save 20% when you purchase ipMonitor 9.0.

Get Your Own Web Site

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:30:00 GMT

Starting at just $3.99/month, web hosting from GoDaddy includes 99.9% uptime, 24/7 support and free access to GoDaddy Hosting Connection, THE place to install over 30 FREE applications sure to help you get the most from your hosting plan and Web site. Enter code CP2 at checkout, and save an additional 10% on any order.

Plus, as a friend of Chris Pirillo, enter code CHRIS7, that's C-H-R-I-S and the number 7, when you check out, and save an additional 10% on any order. Get your piece of the internet at GoDaddy.com.

VMware and Parallels for Virtual Machines

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:30:00 GMT

It doesn't matter if you're running on Windows or Mac OS X - every power user needs either Parallels or VMware (or both). There's never been an easier way to test software without destroying your primary operating system's stability. Think of how many times you wish you could press a 'reverse' button on your computer. Plus, there's no easier way to try new Linux distributions - see what all the fuss is about. Run Windows in OS X, run Linux in Windows, but the best way to do either is with VMware and/or Parallels.

Coupons for Online Shopping

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 07:56:13 GMT

This feed is fueled by Lockergnome Online Shopping and Coupon Codes

Before you shop next time, see if we have a coupon first.