The other option is to watch and listen to my podcast. Currently there are none, but they will be during summer to offer you even more ways how to stay tuned in

Until than have a nice day and see you next time!

1. Check hosting forums as many hosting companies tend to offer new specials at the beginning of a new month. It’s is always good to know what specials are around right at the beginning of a month. It gives you more time to evaluate all offers and choose one fitting your needs.
2. It’s is not only about hosting forums, but it is also very valuable and clever to also subscribe to news feeds, blog updates, Twitter updates and even join the Facebook site of some web hosting companies. This way you will be ready for everything. You will know all regarding the company and you will be able to react in an appropriate manner.
3. Always look for places to learn something new. It may not seem as a very effective way to be a part of  a hosting forum, but you would be surprised how many things you can learn this way. You can learn lots of stuff, that might prove very useful in a few days or months. You don’t need to be very active. it is enough to be a member and read only those thread you regard as valuable to your online project

I hope this helped you a little bit and I gave you something to thing about in June! Have a nice day and see you next time!

Regular user point of view

A regular user just log’s into his account from whatever Internet connection and computer he may have at his disposal and does not care that much about security. He just wants to log in to his accounts and check whatever he needs to check. He does not care, but the same regular user is very unhappy when someone has stolen his credit card information or misused his personal data.

After something bad happens to his personal data he blames everyone, but not himself most of the time, but security online starts right where you sit. It’s your responsibility to thoroughly check if your computer does not have any virus, trojans and other kinds of malware. I would say a firewall is a must and regularly updates of the operating system should not be underestimated!

There is a difference between having an anti-virus installed and actually using it for scanning for malware. You should perform at least weekly scans and I would highly suggest at least a “smart scan”, before you perform any financial transaction on the web.

At first it might look like a waste of time, but you never know when this could save you a lot of time, money and nerves!

The security point of view

Everything you are sending over the Internet is sent in  the form of so called “packets”. These packets carry lots of information, and I will not go into the details, but I have to tell you, that they are formatted in a certain way. For the purpose of this blog I just need to show you one important thing.

There are two widely used protocols to access web pages. The first one is HTTP. It’s an insecure protocol and all you send trough HTTP is send in plain text. You log in trough a web site like “http://www.domain_name.com”, which does not use SSL, and you’re sending your data in plain text. Password and username are easily intercepted by a possible attacker!

The second one is HTTPS and the last “S” stands for  “Secure”. What this protocol does before actually sending your data over the wire is, that it encrypts the data and only the other side intended to receive this data is able to decrypt it and to read it. The HTTPS is widely used while communicating with your bank, or wherever you enter your personal information and credit card info.

I would recommend you to always make sure your hosting company uses HTTPS during your sign up, sign in and while you are entering any sensitive information. This way you and your data stay secure while on the Internet

Have a nice day and good luck!

Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

1. Always check your VPS and perform daily updates

It’s because you never know what could go wrong!!! Some time ago it hit even me. I performed daily updates, tried to secure my VPS as good as I only could, but then I had to go out for work for a few days and in this short time my VPS got hacked. It’s not a very pleasant feeling when you can’t log in to your server

The only solution I was able to think about is to reinstall the whole operating system as quickly as possible and perform even better security measures. Make sure you do not leave your server without a guardian who watches it whether it’s OK if you know you will not be able to care about it for a few days.  Daily back up are a must I think, but I will mention i here as well. The damage the attack had on me was not big as I use the server only for testing purposes, but it could  be bad. The worst thing is, that you are responsible for the server and if it’s used in an unlawful way, than it’s a problem you could possible face

Why did I reinstall the whole thing?

If you even get hacked and you are not an admin of a production system, than it’s a pretty good thing to reinstall the whole VPS server. If you have back ups than it’s no problem at all By only scanning the PC and checking the firewall you could miss something and it could lead to even more problems. It’s only good to don’t touch anything if you know what you are doing and you are a very experienced administrator!

That’s all for today! Have a nice day and see you next time here at Icethunder.net!

I hope you have found some interesting and usefull stuff here. As this is a blog and not a review or how to web site it’s not possible to publish all the articles at once. But if you are patient enough I am sure I will provide the whole picture and than this blg will be far better and on a higher level then most of the “how to” or “review” web sites

Thank you all for visiting and good luck on your way to find the best hosting package! Have a nice day and see you at Icethunder.net.

Until then try to look into the different categories and find what you are looking for!

The choice

People of the 21st century like choice and I think we like to have many options to choose from. It’s because many choices give us more chances to find the service  that just fit the bill. Hosting offers so many choices, that sometimes it’s impossible to choose the right offer and you choose either one very close to “good” or you choose a bad one… But you always have the ability to choose. You even could contact the host and try to ask whether they are able to provide you with a customized plan just to fit your needs! Just write to their sales department/stuff and ask. you ight be surprised that sometimes you could even get a great offer from them just because you had the courage to ask

The needs

Big web sites need lots of resources and small ones need little of them, but they both need resources. You should know beforehand what amounts your web project will need and act accordingly. I have written articles about how to figure out how much resources you could possibly need and how to calculate them. You can find these articles at these links :

• How much bandwidth your site really needs?
• How to calculate bandwidth in we hosting

Big web sites vs. the small ones

If you are trying to start a small web site, or a blog in its early stages of life than a shared hosting environment is a pretty good place to start. It’s paid and you are allotted a certain amount of resources. You can use them and if you have chosen a good and reliable host you won’t get into much problems during your shared hosting life

Big web sites, forums and resources hungry projects are not ideal for shared hosting plans, but many shared hosts could be still able to satisfy your needs. You should be always prepared you could need to move on quickly if your host tells you, that you should consider a VPS or dedicated server.

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Conclusion

Finding an ideal web host is not a matter of a few clicks. It could be, but it would not be very professional and wise. You would be  just following ad’s and this is not a good way to choose a host. You should always

• determine what you need
• check the web for possible candidates
• compare candidates and their offers
• choose the most likely ones
• select the one you will use and go with it!

It might sound like a lot of work, but hosting forums or Icethunder.net could help you a lot. You can even ask myself and I will be happy to give you some advice too My mail is always ready to help you  contact(at)icethunder.net. Choice is great and lots of different choices is even better, but sometimes they just create too much noise and it’s hard to make a decision. Never decide without a proper elimination process and without enough info

These three paragraphs will get expansion in the coming days and thus don’t forget to check back soon! Have a nice day and a great weekend!

My impressions

I would like to brake my impression down into a few paragraphs to make this a small clear and meaningful list of impressions

The support part of hosting

The minute I started to use a paid hosting I felt very good as I could be sure, that there is always someone who can help me. The support is there to solve the problems of customers. I have to warn you all! Never start to argue with support people, as they are there to help you and they know the data and service up-time is very important to you, but to solve an issue requires time and meaningful information about a problem!

Please never argue and always try to respond quickly and don’t loose your nerves! It does no good when you start to attack support people. Try to imagine how would you feel is someone you should help and try to help would start yelling at you! There are humans as you are and thus be patient

The service part of hosting

When you sign up with a paid hosting company you expect to get something more. You expect to get more space, higher level of up-time and service, more bandwidth and less limitations. I can tell you, that most of the time you will not expect any problems, but it depends on the “preparations” phase you have done. If you really spend the time necessary to find the right web host and you have checked the company beforehand, you know what you can expect. You have chosen the company and you know their “renomé” and image. You know about their support and service level and thus you should be prepared for everything.

If the hosting company has implemented good resources management you should not face any problems related to bandwidth, web space or downtime, but you should definitely allow for one day of maintenance per year. With paid hosting you are always [most of the time] guaranteed a set amount of web space, bandwidth and resources you can use. These resources are allocated to you and if the resources management of your host has been set good, than you should not have any problem using all the resources made available to you. Overselling of servers and unlimited plans are something, that should not be regarded as a “good resources management” and it’s not.

When I signed up for my first plan I thought I would need tons of resources, but the reality was just the opposite and thus you should not overestimate yourself. It’s always good to start small and as the site develops add new service and grow bigger.

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Many hosting companies advertise unlimited or unmetered plans and I think, it’s always up to you to make the decisions, but you should always read the Terms of Use of every hosting company you might sign up with! It’s always essential to know what they offer to you and what are your rights and obligations. And of course it’s always good to know the rights and obligations of the host

Conclusion

While with a paid shared hosting company you should be able to enjoy these “goodies”:

• Dedicated and allotted resources just to your account [e.g. bandwidth, web space, email accounts etc.]
• Certainty during the whole duration of your contract
• Rights and obligations of You and the Host defined in a ToS, AUP, FUP
• Support service from the host
• and much more

One remark from my side:

Never start with “big eyes” You think you need tons of resources, but most likely you will not be able to use them all. Try to make estimates and take them into consideration once you start to search for a hosting company! Have a nice day and see you next time!

Hosting company check

The moment you have decided you will go with hosting company X is a very exciting moment, but I think it is worth thinking about the whole “sign up” process very carefully. I don’t tell you to think for a year, but what I am trying to tell you is to really thoroughly check the hosting company before you sign up. the reason for this is, that there are many scam web sites on the Internet and you can not be always sure if you did not arrive at such a web site.

Site link check

After you have checked the web hosting company of your choice and everything is still great, than there is the second step! Make sure you are on the right website. This lesson is very important and you should always check whether you are on the right site. You ask yourself, why would not you be? You clicked the link right?

Well, that’s a nice theory, but you should always check the link in the address bar very carefully to make sure you are not on hostgator.cx.com while you think you are on hostgator.com Sometimes you get an email from a “friend” who recommends you something or you click on a link on a web site and this takes you to the site. You think you are on the right web page while you are on an identical copy of the site, but with a different web address! You enter your personal and financial info and you are in big trouble!!!

Always check the address!!!

SSL or https check

While on the right web site and after a thorough company check the next step I would consider is checking if the company uses SSL encryption during the sign up procedure. SSL transfers secure the whole communication between your Computer and the server of the hosting company. It’s very important and I would recommend to go rather with a host who uses HTTPS, than with one without it!!! All the info you enter into a form while on a  “https://something.com” website is encrypted and thus securely transferred over the Internet. while http traffic is sent in plain text!

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Another important thing here is to check who issued the certificate and for which company it has been issued. You do this by clicking on the “padlock” symbol in your browser. If the issuer is a trusted authority it’s OK, and it should state that the certificate is issued for company XXX and the domain name “host_domain.com”. If that’s missing or it is different than you should be be very careful and check it out all again from point 1. !!!

Recommendations

• Before actually buying or filling out any form always check the company
• If you enter your personal or financial/bank data anywhere on the website make sure it uses SSL [https in the address bar ]
• Check the issuer of the certificate and for what company the certificate has been issued for
• Check the address on which you are and closely check for any different characters in the address [like hostgator.cx.com is not the same as hostgator.com!!!]

I would also recommend to “bookmark” your web hosts web site in your browser to make your life easier and more secure. If you bookmark a site you are always taken to the same web site, but if you are always typing the whole address you could make a mistake and it could cost you a lot – identity theft, credit card info theft etc. !

Hopefully you liked this article and you will come back soon! Have a nice day and good luck

The one thing you should definitely know and understand is that every company in the world has been started by it’s founders in some point in time. It does not matter what business sector we are talking about – every and each company had to be started. Microsoft, 1and1, Hostgator or Google – they all have been start ups in some point and without customers they would not make it anywhere. They developed over the time and went trough different phases and the only thing that made the difference is the stuff behind the company.

We all start as small guys!

It’s the same with hosting companies which are trying to establish themselves in the hosting sector. They start as small companies with only a few people behind them and try to rise, but only a few of them really make it trough. My piece of advice with small and starting hosting companies would be to not write them off, because their service could be better than the service of some older and more established company, but you should be very careful and only choose these if you are 100% sure the owners and the support team is dedicated and prepared to live with the company!

It’s the people behind the company that make your experience good or totally bad and thus you should be careful. It’s very hard to evaluate beforehand whether this or that company will become a succes or not and thus it’s on many times only a guts feeling.

If  you wanna go this route be prepared, that not many things are perfect in these company and they need to figure out some things. They need to iron out some things and erase some things all together and this takes time! If you are going to run a business web site and you need to have 100% support, 100% uptime and you are really not a person who needs to troubleshoot some problem during the night, than definitely go with an established player, but if you are a guy with tons of experience and a few hours of downtime do not mean anything to you and you are willing to wait ’till the company develops it’s full potential and starts to offer great support and everything around it than you can go with a starting company

Conclusion and my experience

This has been just a short insight into the process of deciding whether to go or not with a small starting hosting company.

I have been in a situation of deciding whether to go or not to go with a starting company and it’s 1:1 until now. Early  this year I thought hard and long about getting a cheap VPS for one of my projects. I went straight to webhostingtalk.com and tried to find something there. I found a couple of companies and among them was daredevilhosting. They offered cheap prices and the specifications looked very good. I did a research and found that it’s a starting company, the owner and some more things. The next step was I contacted the owner trough WHT and asked a few questions. After that I was pretty sure I will go with this company, but than one even better offer came across my way and thus I went with another company… It’s march and DDH is up for sale, but it might still continue it’s life. This only shows, that my guts feeling in January has been good and I made the right decision.

Good luck and hopefully you will only make the right decisions! Have a nice day!

Hi there

I think you already realized I have not posted anything for quite a time, but don’t panic I did not decide to stop, but I am currently involved in 2 other projects and thus I have to prioritize and shift my attention between all of them. It should not take too long though and in a couple of days [Sunday or Monday] I should return to full time Icethunder.net

Until than I would like to tell you to really look carefully before you decide to sign up with a specific company, but at the same time you should not be too paranoid. Maybe you think you are not paranoid at all, but believe me, even I catched myself in a paranoid mood in recent days while searching trough tons of VPS plans to fit one of the projects needs… . It’s always good to be careful, but even being careful does not mean you should freak out and search for evidence for days… Sometimes it’s good to make quick decisions, but think before you make them if they are worth th risk!

Have a nice day!

PS: ICETHUNDER.NET should be back after some hard work on other projects, with tons of new stuff and new ideas on the Valentine’s day! Don’t forget to take a look!