Author Archives: Kenny

About Kenny

Kenny is owner of webhostpark and has been working in hosting industry since 2006. We provide unbiased hosting reviews and release the latest promo news. Follow me on Google plus

Cheap Web Hosting for Life

cheap web hosting for life

When we talk about a cheap web hosting service, mostly we're referring to a good price to get started and this is what heavily advertised by lots of cheap hosting providers. But what if we want to use the service for multiple years?

There're lots of cheap web hosting providers on internet either for any website purpose. Just refer to a simple search we will get a bunch list for those service. However the truth is these low costs are only applied for initial registration, when our hosting accounts due for renewal, price will revert to original one which is a bit expensive(it's normally mentioned by small words somewhere on website). Absolutely, this is not what we need for long term website purpose. What we need is recurring low cost service with no price change.

Best Cheap Web Hosting for Life – Arvixe

Arvixe is awarded the best cheap web hosting for life. Their low cost hosting service is not only for good start but also applied for renewal if we want to continue with it. Arvixe price structure is following

  • Windows hosting Plan – $5/mo ($3.5/mo after discount)
  • Linux hosting plan – $4/mo ($2.8/mo after discount)

This price is absolutely leading among all other cheap hosting plans. Once we have claimed this special price, we can continue with it till we don't want the service anymore. Means if we signed up arvixe hosting by this promotional price, we pay the same rate for renewal instead the original price!

claim arvixe best deal

Arvixe vs iPage

As about cheap hosting service, ipage is probably the most popular one for its unbeatable price $1.89/mo. Currently they even promote with $20.14/yr special price. This is absolutely the best price for any side comparison. Look below for ipage price structure

ipage price structure

The max length with this price is 36 months as we see, but when the service is due we must renew with its original price which is $8.95/mo. 4 times more than initial paying! Definitely not good deal for our limited budget. Because of this, ipage is most well known for cheap by new visitors but complained hard by old clients.

Arvixe is completely different. There's no super cheap plan with them. Instead, they get the best balance point between low cost and profit. In this way they can provide guaranteed performance while price decreased. Although the initial price from arvixe is not better than ipage, we don't have to worry about potential go up when account renewal. As long as we're happy with their service, we can always renew with the same price during registration.

More about Arvixe Web hosting

Arvixe is a reputable and award winning hosting provider from Inc500 magazine. The arvixe hosting is all about industry standards with super friendly and helpful customer support. They provide affordable windows and linux hosting solutions for personal and business class websites.

  • Hosting plans, arvixe provides total of 4 levels hosting plans: personal class, business class, VPS and dedicated class. Customer can choose the most suitable one based website requirements. Each plan comes with necessary tools for hosting and website management, most operation can be automated from control panel center.
  • Networking, all servers are placed in softlayer data centers from Huston and Dallas with leading upstream bandwidth support and ddos protection. Each server is backed up daily for instant recovery. That means your website properties are placed in safe hands so you don't have to worry about server end security.
  • Customer support, the most outstanding part of arvixe hosting. Unlike any other hosting company, arvixe does not operate a central headquarter for customer support. Their support staffs are all over the country by virtual management. Anytime you call in, there's always a representative to pick up your request with needful assistance. We have experienced a website crash some time ago and their people helped with urgent restoration.

Based all above description, arvixe is your best choice for low cost and reliable web hosting. When we have to accept higher renewal price rate, arvixe proudly offer the same low rate from the initial start.

arvixe hosting features

Check out arvixe hosting and cliam the best offer today! http://www.arvixe.com

WebhostingHub Super Bowl Promo

webhostinghub super bowl promo

While the national super bowl tournament is being supported all over the states, web hosting anticipation is super star among all sponsors. From February 1st-10th, shared web hosting leader webhostinghub will be offering their Nitro plan at super discounted price of $5.99/mo comparing to it's usual $8.99/mo price rate.

Webhostinghub Nitro plan is an upgrade of their all in one unlimited shared web hosting for more server resources. If your website grows up and not satisfied of shared server performance, the Nitro plan is an alternative choice before you have to use a VPS server. For more details of webhostinghub nitro and other upgrade plans, please check out this detailed explanation.

How to access the super promo?

There's not a dedicated page yet for webhotinghub nitro plan. In order to claim the super promo, please click through this exclusive promotional link and the promo will be auto activated. Nowhere else on their official website advertised this promo at the moment.

Click this super bowl promotional link for Nitro plan http://www.webhostinghub.com

More about WebhostingHub Hosting Plans

WebhostingHub has been shared hosting leader for super reliable performance and rich feature service. Unlike any other unlimited hosting websites who solely compete on price, webhostinghub focus more on service quality with profitable price rate. They win business by words of mouth for long term and healthy growth. Till today, webhostinghub has been a successful and award winning brand in hosting business. Their team leaders have partnered with various web projects as golden hosting sponsor. There's a bunch of successful website stories with webhostinghub service and lots of happy clients all over the world.

Being a sister site of InMotionHosting, webhostinghub is dedicated for shared web hosting service with as many features as possible to power a successful website. Because of this, their support team can fully optimize the server environment for better loading.

More about Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is the annual championship game of the National Football League (NFL), the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The stadium got its name from the fact that the game played there was part of the Tournament of Roses and that it was shaped like a bowl.

Since 1960s, the tournament has made multiple successful business brands. In hosting industry, godaddy is the very first and most outstanding one with great success. As the biggest sponsor of the tournament, godaddy is heavily advertised throughout the entire event and attracted huge traffic to their domain service. Since then, godaddy grew up the biggest domain registrar with fast growth till today.

Further resource of super bowl

iPage vs WebhostingPad

ipage vs webhostingpad

This comparison is between two of the most famous cheap web hosting brands ipage and webhostingpad. Based editorial experience and side by side comparison, ipage is better than webhostingpad. If you have been evaluating the two web hosts because of the price, we highly recommend to proceed with ipage solution for better service. Following ipage vs webhostingpad categories compare them from price, useability, server performance and customer support.

Quick view of ipage

As everybody already knows, iPage(www.ipage.com) is a world wide web hosting leader for it's rich feature plan and great price. Since 1998, iPage has been renowned web hosting company with more than 1.5 million hosted domains by 1 million+ clients. iPage currently provides shared, VPS and dedicated server plans at very competitive prices.

Briefly introduction of webhostingpad

Webhostingpad was setup in 2005 by a group of IT genius. Unlike most their competitors, the company provides most features unlimited via a cheap shared hosting plan. From their official announcement, total domains on server is over 200,000 at the moment. The webhostingpad service is followed by industry standards on cpanel and cloudlinux.

Pricing

iPage provides better price structure at a lower rate. iPage provides 2 different prices for different contract periods. $3.5/mo for initial start then $1.89/mo for 24 and 36 months. That means if we register 2 years and above then we can take advantage of their most promotional offer. With this price, we get full access to all hosting advantages. Price list is provided during check out as following

ipage hosting price structure

Webhostingpad is advertised as cheap as $1.99/mo, however this promotional price is only available for 3 to 5 year pre-paid plan. 12 months contract is billed at $3.99/mo and 24 months contract is billed at $2.99/mo. Means if we would like to pay with the lowest rate, we must register 36 months at least which is not acceptable for most users.

Hosting Plan Features

Both groups provide very similar features like unlimited storage, email accounts, mysql databases and hosted domain names. The only difference is about control panel software. While webhostingpad is completely cpanel linux hosting, ipage utilizes endurance inhouse developed Vdeck control panel. From our personal experience, this control panel system is reinforced version cpanel since it has centralized the management over billing, hosting and domain registration. It's also compatible for both linux and windows OS.

Server performance

iPage server shows us better availability and stability during the past 8 months. iPage servers are created from cloud environment as we know of. All servers connect to a central cloud disk by NAS technologies thus a single server be able to serve a large amount websites together. This also reduces efforts of maintenance and problem fixing efficiency. That's why ipage does not have a big support team for their huge business. Their Massachusetts data center is recognized one of the most advanced DC for security and network support. Check this server response monitory report between ipage and webhostingpad during the past 60 days, we can easily find ipage responses much faster from any checking point.

ipage server performance

Webhostingpad has been frequently complained for slowness and down time. Although they have co-operated with lots of famous hosting communities for positive promotion, they don't seem to have applied necessary improvement to accept the business growth. They recently upgraded from traditional Centos to cloudlinux, this might have help a bit for server availability.

Upgradability

iPage provides better upgrade solutions. Currently they provide both VPS and dedicated server plans that're generated from bluehost data center directly. They're 100% cloud based cpanel service with instant provision guarantee. It's extremely helpful for urgent and seamless account migration. At the meanwhile, their price is pretty competitive comparing to most existing server plans.

Webhostingpad does not offer direct upgrade but partnered with vpsdepot site. There're total of 3 vps plans for different resource limits. But from our investigation, their servers seem to be virtualized from traditional dedicated server but not the cloud technology which is supported from ipage service.

Customer Support

Both win, the both hosting offer 24*7 live support via hotline calls, ticket and web chat system. They both have prepared resourceful FAQ and knowledge base portal to answe pre-sales and basic technical questions. For novice, there're also step by step guidance and video tutorials in using their service. Webhostingpad even provides skype support which is not available from most other companies.

Conclusion

iPage win the comparison for either cutting edge server features or rock-bottom prices. No matter if you're running a small personal site or promoting a big website, they have perfect upgrade plans to deal with your growth. Especially when you have tight budge in supporting multiple websites, ipage is no better choice than any other hosting brand.

Claim ipage 89% off price via this promotional link www.ipage.com

8 Must Have Tools in Using Web Hosting Service

8 must have tools in using web hosting service

web hosting is a handy service today because of it's popularity and affordability. However, it's not so easy to use all service properly without professional training. Here we list out the must have tools in using a hosting service correcty. When you're waiting for account activation, you should have them configured on computer to support your future works.

IIS remote manager

A must tool for windows hosting users. IIS remote manager provides users the ability to securely manage remote IIS servers on local computer. The small program has almost the same functionality of IIS where you can configure web app settings directly on its powerful GUI. Thus, if you're quite familiar with server operation but not used to your hosting control panel software, IIS remote manager is great tool in supporting your preference. Learn more and download remote manager on this microsoft page.

WebMatrix

webmatrixAnother great tool from microsoft group. WebMatrix is a free, lightweight, cloud-connected web development tool that help with people create, maintain and edit website conveniently. It's especially optimized for open source and mobile compatibility. Via webmatrix, we can install most open sourced softwares like DotNetNuke, WordPress, Joomla and Drupal via few clicks away. The lightweight program has built in IIS server for script testing and we are able to configure all server service to work with. No matter you want to work with .net or php technologies, WebMatrix can always support you perfectly.

Learn more and install it online from this official site.

SSMS

sql server management studio SQL Server Management Studio is a must for microsoft developers. It's configured automatically if we have installed sql server service, but it can be setup independantly as well. Via SSMS, we can connect to either local or online sql server database and apply any change under DBO privilege. All daily maintenance, optimization and backup etc can be all handled by this easy-to-use graphical management tool.

Get the latest SSMS from this microsoft download center.

MySQL Workbench

mysql workbenchA powerful mysql management tool with GUI design. It's previously well known as "mysql gui" and workbench is revolutional release by mysql team. The visual tool is perfectly designed for database architects, developers, and DBAs. MySQL Workbench provides data modeling, SQL development, and comprehensive administration tools for server configuration, user administration, backup, and much more. It can be installed on all leading operation systems such as windows, linux and mac os. Check details and download on mysql site.

Here you might talk about the default mysql tool "phpmyadmin" which is provided by every hosting service. It's nice but not so great comparing to workbench. Especially when you're server admin when you would like to manage multiple mysql servers with advanced monitoring, mysql workbench is simply the best.

SSH Secure shell Client

ssh secure shell clientProbably the best SSH tool for secure and friendly operation. It's not just a simple command line SSH program but a powerful file transfer tool. We can connect to sever space via port 22 for file uploading/downloading and the whole process is encrypted. Comparing to traditional FTP connection, this shell client is much more safe. Certainly, you can use it purely as a command line tool like putty. Learn step by step guidance and downloading from Sils site.

FTP

ftpA must tool for every hosting user. FTP is a standard network protocol used to transfer files from one computer to another. Typically, we use to download/upload files between computer to hosting server space. The protocol is included by lots of development tools like micromedia dreamveaver and visual studio. We can also get dedicated tools from lots of vendors like cuteftp and filezilla. We highly recommend to use filezilla which is an open source project and provided for free. Learn more about filezilla and download from project site.

Notepad++

notepad++The best alternative tool of the default notepad from windows computer. Notepad++ is an open source sofotware for source code editor with support of multiple programming languages. Line indicator, codes grouping and highlighting are all supported by notepad++. The best of the best is notepad++ is provided for very small size and little system resource usage. In case you need to edit website source frequently and efficiently, notepad++ is simply the best. Check more from official site and download.

Keepass

keepassUnlike all above tools, keepass is used for password securing and play as password manager. It helps to remember your endless passwords in secure database. Everything is locked by a single key file with password protection. In this way we only need to remember this key file password to view all other passwords in database. We don't have to worry about long and complex password anymore using keepass. As we learnt from internet, there're lots of security leaks recently because of bad password. A secure and reliable password manager is crucial to ensure the safety of our online properties.

Get keepass on keepass.info

DIY or Existing Web Hosting Plan?

diy server or hosting service?

If you're technical profession with hosting needs, you might consider whether to DIY a local server or sign up an existing hosting service. This article provides basic guidance on how to get your site online via local DIY hosting server. We'll also provide in depth reviews when you should use either option.

The local server setup is much the same from data center service, we may just implement less powerful hardware production. But we must configure all important server service to support a website. Hence, the following installation/configuration are MUST

  • Web Server. For whatever rate, you need to get a web server installed such as apache or IIS based your preference. If you operate a dot net application, you also need to configure proper asp.net frameworks after IIS setup.
  • Database Server. You need at least one type database engine to store website data like mysql or sql server.

The web server and database server can be automated by lots of available packages like LAMP or WAMP installer, just few clicks to have everything running. However, since we need to get website visable publicly, we must configure proper DNS pointer. Unless we registered a dedicated line, mostly we get dynamic IP support by ADSL connection so it's a challenge to configure on web server. In order to point our domain to the right IP number, we have to get a dynamic dns service like noip.com or dyn.com service. Depends your website requirements, you might need a paid service for quality performance.

Once all above service is setup properly, you can bind your domain name to web server and your website is ready to serve publicly.

DIY or Existing Hosting Service?

From all above description, it's not so easy to configure a local hosting server unless you're pretty confident about the entire process. But everything is ready with an existing hosting service. From editorial point of view, following categories are mostly concerned

  • Performance & Stability. As we know, our local internet connection is not guaranteed as data center service that comes with dedicated power and bandwidth supply. Especially when your dynamic IP changes frequently, it can result in temporary website unreachable. But such problem does not exist for hosting service because everything is pre configured. Also, there're big difference based our choice on hardware production and system setup.
  • Security. Probably the most important thing. Unless your put the DIY server in a dedicated room with well protection, you can't always guarantee nobody else can touch the server. Mostly, we use the server as personal computer too so we install lots of softwares that're not necessary for server purpose. Once we put the server publicly accessible on internet, we have to deal with virus and all kinds of attacks. If we can't well monitor it 24*7, there're big security risk.
  • Costs. There's no cost advantage at all for DIY server. We must prepare everything by ourselves and put into lots of man power efforts to make sure everything working properly. However, everything is handled by support team and we just need to pay severl bucks per month for guaranteed performance.

Thus, DIY server is not really good solution from above comparison. A decent web hosting service is good enough to support most website requirements with extremely high performance and security.

When You need DIY Server Hosting?

Since there's no much advantages for live server hosting service, why we still use DIY solution? Well, we must understand all that is real is rational; and all that is rational is real. Sometimes we have no more good choice other than DIY.

Our DIY server is actually a small local hosting system with everything included like web server, DNS and security protection etc. It's very good start if you want to practise before launching our own hosting business. We can fully understand the process of configuring such service. Especially when you're system or network administrator, you will get good experience by doing so.

DIY server is also perfect choice for enterprise requirements when you need extremely high protection of sensitive data. Lots of big companies have their own IT departments, they're responsible for both networking and company data security. Most important service are self hosted on local servers.

From all above comparison & explanation, both DIY server or existing hosting service are good choice. You just evaluate what your purpose is. If you just need to get a website online and reduce the costs as much as possible. We highly recommend use an existing service other than configuring everything on local computer.

HostGator vs IX Web Hosting

hostgator vs ix web hosting

This hostgator and ixwebhosting comparison is generated through our real user experience and point of editorial reviews. In order to provide unique and unbiased comparison, we signed up hosting accounts independantly and do testing by ourselves. This includes account performance, ease of use, suppport and technology of the company.

As we know, the both hosting companies have long history and serve a big amount global clients. They even have very similar hosting plans and offers thus it always let us hard to choose between. Either service has its own spotlight thus it's hard to tell directly which is better. However, you should get more clear idea after reading this article.

Briefly introduction of hostgator

Born in classmate bedroom, even its founder oxley did not expect their current leadership of the industry. With 10 years fast growing up, hostgator is now serving multi million clients from each corner of the world. Hostgator provides multiple hosting plans vary from shared to dedicated servers with both linux and windows technologies support. Till present, hostgator is still recognized the industry standard for server features and customer support regardless its ownership change.

Ixwebhosting Bio

One of the oldest web host providers since 1999, ix web hosting is division of Ecommerce Inc who manages their own data centers in Columbus Ohio. For very a long time, the company is most popular for its super affordable service and rich offer on dedicated ip address. From windwos server 2003 times, ix web hosting is standard choice by many .net developers. The company currently provides shared, VPS and cloud hosting solutions and web development service.

Price Comparison – Hostgator wins

By comparing their most popular plans "baby plan" and "unlimited pro", hostgator wins on price. Here's the price structure for different contract periods

  • 3 years – $6.36/mo
  • 2 years – $7.16/mo
  • 1 year – $7.96/mo
  • 6 months – $7.96/mo
  • Monthly – $7.96/mo

At the meanwhile, you have opportunity to get up to 25% discount using our special hostgator coupon "review25off" for any length contract. Also, if you just want to try out for the first month, you just need to pay 1 cent! Just out our hostgator coupon page for detailed explanation.

With ixwebhosting service, their promotional price $7.95/mo is also only available for 3 years upfront registration and vary a lot for different length contracts as showing below

  • 36 months price – $7.95/mo
  • 24 months price -$7.95/mo
  • 12 months price – $8.95/mo
  • 3 months price – $11.95/mo + $30 setup
  • 1 month price – $16.95/mo + $30 setup

As we see, their monthly option simply prohibits anybody to register. People have no choice other than yearly service. Ixwebhosting also provides a promotional code "SCENE" for 15% discount but it's definitely not better than hostgator offers.

Server performance – Hostgator wins

Hostgator configured standard DELL server production with standard CentOS & cpanel control panel. Their windows servers are also standard windows server 2008 R2 with plesk support. Everything from hostgator represents standard since from their very begin. Although hostgator does not have their own data center space, it's the biggest customer of Theplanet even after merged to softlayer group. Because of this, the hostgator tech team has full access to datacenter configuration just like their own space.

Hostgator server uptime is unbeatable 99.7% from online monitoring reports and connectivity is 279ms in average. Such leading records are simply besed their N+1 data center configuration and advanced server setup. All HG servers are based Intel i7 with minimum 32GB RAM. Server system is fully optimized by betterlinux optimizer with up to date security updates.

There's no detailed description of IX servers. We only know they're debian linux and windows server 2003 for windows hosting service. We have personally hosted 3 small sites on their server and partially satisfied for the performance. When I say partial, because we're glad about the great offers but we can't bear with frequent warnings from google webmaster account for site not responding. Their server average connectivity is 345ms from the last 3 months continous monitoring.

ix web hosting features

Hosting feature comparison – Hostgator wins

There's no much difference on description. The real difference is about the offer quality. For example, all hostgator services are created on up to date hardware and software installation with well optimization. Ix is some kind outdated when comparing to most leading providers. Their windows server is still on old 2003 system which is not supported by microsoft now. Because of such limitation, ix company has configured most backward services to serve their clients. I can't say everybody prefer to the newest one but it's absolutely not good sign for a reputable hosting provider because they promise to offer the most competitive packages to people.

What really nice as mentioned by people is their up to 15 free dedicated IP addresses. The real importance is probably in old times when google assigns higher weight to dedicated ip websites. But for now, such advantage does not exist anymore because google treats all sites the same no matter if its hosted on shared or dedicated ip.

Ease of Use – Both win

I bet nobody would find a problem in using hostgator based their standalized configuration. You just need to be familiar with cpanel or plesk in order to use their service. Because most linux services are cpanel based, there're many stuff in common. Means we can always search the web easily for cpanel related issues/documentation.

IX is very unique comparing to most providers, their h-sphere control panel is probably the most simple one. But if you look down upon it because of its simplity, you're completely wrong. H-sphere is very powerful control panel solution. Especially when you're migrating from other hosting service, you can easily do "wget" to download backup directly from old server space. There're multiple options to support different transition protocols. Just in earlier 2013, the ix tech team released their new client management panel for easy and professional management over customer accounts.

Conclusion

Hostgator wins comparison to ix web hosting for most essential features. If you're looking for affordable hosting service and considering they two, we highly recommend hostgator for higher quality, especially when you need support for asp.net technologies.