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Before jumping into any web hosting plan, you have a few things you need to consider. First off, if you can afford a web hosting plan, I strongly urge you to get one. I am not implying that all free web hosting plans out there are not good, but there are far more advantages you can gain from if you purchase a web hosting plan. But if you do not even have any budget for a web hosting plan, fret not. You can always settle for free web hosting such as Wordpress and Blogger.

If you do choose to settle for a free web hosting plan, make sure that you do have plans for the future. Take for example, if your site made a name for itself and there are tons of visitors coming in each day, you would like to make some modifications to it. But free web hosting only allows limited modifications and you might not be able to modify your site into a better looking one. So, if that really happens, I suggest you start saving up now in case you need to purchase a web hosting plan in future.

Also, before you start purchasing a web hosting plan, here are a few points you need to think about:

- Hosting Location
- Disk Space
- Bandwidth
- Pricing
- Uptime, support and access speed

These are certainly the most important things that you need to check on and consider right now.

Hosting Location  Read more...

1.Goodwill of the web hosting company.

There are web-hosting companies on the web, which are running successfully for at least 2 years and are usually handled by experience and IT savvy network engineers. The biggest advantage of such companies is their perfect support and services to their customers. However there is yet another world of hosting which is handled by amateurs who are into this business just to extract money. For them providing support is just a joke as even they don’t know the fundamentals of the business. Thus one must be very sure to check the credentials of the web-hosting firm by either reading their profile or by looking on the technology they use for their server farm. One must make sure to select a company, which is in existence for at least 2 years with successful track record with 95% up time for all its servers. If a company is providing 95% its quite enough as 100% is just impossible.

2. Availability of storage space.

There are web-hosting companies offering space ranging from as small as 20 MB to as big as 2GB or even more. But this largely depends upon the user. One must make sure that his/her budget should not get fail by asking for unnecessary space than required. This trend is quite common among beginners, as they are unable to estimate the amount of space their web site requires and so asks for bigger space in order to play safe which is mere wastage of money. Thus one should be very careful while selecting the storage space for his/her website. It should not be less than required but at the same time should not be very much wasting money.  Read more...

This article is useful for understanding the hosting industry and studies its dynamics to know what to look for before selecting a web host.

Firstly it is good to have a proper introduction of web hosting chain. It is termed as chain because here about 3 upstream providers serve the end consumer. First the web-hosting provider, who is in direct contact, then comes the web host’s upstream company who maintains the servers and sells space to web hosts, and above that, the data center that serves the purpose of providing the connection and houses the servers. There are some web hosts who act as the server administrator and liase with the data centers directly.

The growth of the web hosting industry in at saturation point due to the presence of hundreds of web-hosting providers claiming to provide cheaper and better services to businesses and individuals. The reason for this is the availability of resources in abundance and at cheaper costs with reducing disk space and data-transfer prices. Its easy to enter the web hosting business as there are large resellers of server space providing cheap hosting and reselling plans that provides ground to incomers to join the business.
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The following are the tips one must keep in mind while choosing a new web host: -

1) One must make sure that the new web host plan offers the storage capabilities to handle all of the current website storage requirements. If the size of the website is 50MB, then one must check for the plan that offers at least that much space or more. In case one is not able to make estimates about the space required then he/she must ask his/her current host. Also this information can be found on control panel.

2) One must also check how does his/her current web host determine the amount of storage used for? It is necessary to check what one’s current and new host includes in the plan’s storage amount also one should check are one’s emails and log files counted towards his/her total storage, or the web files only?

3) Its necessary to know what operating system does one’s current hosting plan use? Windows or Unix? Mostly it makes no difference but in some cases it can make the difference between a working website and a broken website. In case one’s site is currently on a Windows server and the website uses ASP scripting, then its difficult to make things work well on a Unix server, as ASP is a Windows based programming language. So one should check immediately whether his/her hosting plan is on a Unix or Windows server.  Read more...

I’ve been hosting live-music open mics since 1997.

When running an open mic, I try to put myself in the shoes of the participating musicians.

When I first started hosting, I thought about my personal experiences with other’s open mics. I made of list of things that I liked, and things that I didn’t like. I ran my open mic according the the list and sought feedback from the musicians.

At one point, my company, Open Mic Entertainment, operated 30 open mics per week in five cities.

As the word ‘host’ suggests, while running an open mic, you should treat your performers as if they were guests in your home.

When they first arrive, make sure that you greet them. Smile and make them welcome. Ask how they heard about your event, and direct them to the signup sheet.

If someone is new, introduce them to other players. If a person feels welcome, they will leave with a warm feeling, and hopefully, they will return to play again.

Always introduce the person to the audience on the mic prior to their performance. Even if you think that everyone knows who they are, it is a critical part of the ‘ceremony of performance.’

Upon completion of their set, ask the audience to show their appreciation for a ‘job well done.’ Again, it may not seem important to you, but it means world to the player.  Read more...