30 September 2013

Helpful List: 10 Best Companies To Host Your Websites With


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Having a strong web hosting provider is of utmost importance because any discontinuity that your website registers can incur serious financial losses. For this reason, I’ve made up my mind to compile an up-to-date selection of 10 best possible choices in web hosting companies to help you decide well.



KnownHost


KnownHost


In my opinion, KnownHost deserves standing ovations. The company’s reliability and affordability easily surpass those of all competitors. Not to mention that their email and ticket support is beyond reproach. Of course, there’s a catch. You have to foreswear any shared hosting option for the improved flexibility and staggering power of a VPS service. Not only does KnownHost’s VPS ensure an ongoing uptime, but the fully Managed Services take all the unnecessary hustle and bustle out of your hands.


Account protection, management of the OS, hardware and network maintenance, control panel installation and optimization, are just a few areas where KnownHost has got you covered. Migrations and backups are also included and free of charge. If you decide to activate one of their awesome VPS-2 services (or larger), using the code KH15LIFE at checkout will incur a lifetime discount of 15%, which scales along when you upgrade. Besides, if you’re not content, you’ll receive full refunds if you reconsider during the first 30 days of hosting.


250 servers ensure a Network Uptime of 99.9%, as far as KnownHost’s guarantee claims. And that’s one promise you can trust, because the smallest differences to that close-to-perfect value are heavily compensated through the company’s Service Level Agreement credit system. According to the agreement, within 5 days of when a client’s website registered downtime, a ticket must be sent to the KnownHost helpdesk. And KnownHost vouches that a lower percentage than 99% in uptime is never eligible for compensation, because that value is never ever reached.


WebFaction


WebFaction


To say that WebFaction is amazing would be an understatement. The web hosting company secures the honorable second place because it is the only one to transcend Shared hosting and make a brilliant hybrid of Shared, Dedicated, and VPS hosting types. I bid any developer to tap into their 48-hour free trial and prepare to be awed. Once you’ve decided to host with WebFaction, there is a huge window of time assigned in case you have a change of heart, namely 60 days. Anytime in these first two months, you can decide to put a stop to everything and get your money back in full with no problem.


In terms of pricing, there are two ways to strike a deal with WebFaction: either choose a monthly, or go with an annual, subscription. As such, you can pay $9.50 from month to month, or invest for a whole year at the rate of $8.50 per each month. Either way, it would definitely be worth it.


You’ll notice that WebFaction makes sure you have SSH availability, while they configure, back up and monitor the servers, along with applying security patches and updating the existing tools. Some of the pre-installed developer tools include PHP, Django, and Python. It is also true that circa 50 applications are ready for 1-Click Installation, and then function at a remarkable speed. If anything should go wrong, or you’re at a loss for solutions at some point, WebFaction’s awesome support team will help get you through.


(mt) Media Temple


(mt) Media Temple


(mt) Media Temple has been around since 1998, and in all this time they’ve acquired a lot of experience. If numbers speak for themselves, I feel sure that the company is very well spoken of: its presence has thus far extended to 100 countries worldwide, its clientele to 150.000, and the websites it hosts amount to 1.5 million. As you can see, they’ve been very busy for the past 15 years.


The types of clients (mt) Media Temple accommodates are extremely diverse: creative professionals, medium and small-sized businesses, and also world-famous brands like Adidas, Red Bull, or Volkswagen. And apart from their impeccable hosting, regardless who you are, (mt) Media Temple’s support team will doubtlessly make a very positive impression on you, too. They even have an award to show off for their friendliness and timely deliverance of solutions to all kinds of problems.


(mt) Media Temple’s GRID shared hosting is especially optimized for WordPress, and for the use of web designers/developers. It is the company’s flagship service, and for good reasons. For instance, only recently the company’s experts have enacted an update which made the GRID work 6x faster, so now it’s a 6 times greater host for brilliant ideas. I could go as far as saying that it is one of the best ideas ever.


To sum everything up, what makes (mt) Media Temple appear like such a magnificent web hosting provider? To my mind, they are reliable, supportive, and proficient. And they would make any type of customer happy.


Pixeno


Pixeno


Pixeno is the perfect web host to include in my top 10 list. They are the perfect host for web designers, developers, freelancers, agencies and small businesses. The first thing that drew my attention when I came across Pixeno was their state-of-the-art UK hosting environment, and friendly down to earth support team. My guess is, if you try out their month long free trial (with no credit card required), you’ll definitely like their services. Most of all, their Personal and Reseller hosting options are really convenient. They provide every users hosting account with unlimited subdomains, email addresses, and MySQL Databases. Their Cloud Sites, and Cloud Server hosting options are also extremely appealing. Pixeno takes data redundancy extremely serious, providing 4 backups per day, and keeping the data for a minimum of 2 weeks. Thats up-to 56 possible file restore points!


DreamHost


DreamHost


DreamHost has 16 years of experience, 350.000 clients and 1.2 million hosted websites to boast of. Creative professionals would feel right at home with the Shared hosting service, which is also fairly inexpensive ($8.95 per month). By the end of September, you can take advantage of the offer which states that there’s an 80% monthly discount for the duration of a whole year, and one free domain registration. Apart from this alluring offer, DreamHost also has a 30-day free trial available for the Shared hosting service. You can test the company’s 100% uptime guarantee while you’re there. In addition, if you start to host with DreamHost, you have an eternity to turn back (the first 97 days), and receive full refunds.


Flywheel


Flywheel


Flywheel would make an excellent choice for any freelance designer or creative agency. It’s particularly optimized for WordPress. Every designer wants to have more time on their hands, to focus on doing what they do best, and spend a lot less of that precious time on solving administrative issues. Flywheel acknowledges this need, and does a great job in supporting creative-minded people. The company launches your website, than takes over its management, safety and backup, and keeps it up to speed. Hosting with Flywheel is really great if you’re into reselling to third-party clients. Besides, if you work within an agency, Flywheel makes it very easy to collaborate with your teammates without the extra complication of passwords and usernames. By all means, try their live demo.


HostGator


HostGator


HostGator powers its 12.000 (!) servers with wind energy. The company’s array of hosting services (Shared, Reseller, VPS, and Dedicated) is specifically tailored to satisfy both the needs of beginners and those of seasoned web developers; and the web hosting plans all come with 99.9% uptime guarantee. Above all else, the support for each and every service is spotless. Should you go with one of their Shared hosting plans (Hatchling, Baby, or Business) you need to know that the first invoice will arrive with a 20% discount. Besides, you can change your mind anytime in the first 45 days and ask for refunds.


HostNine


HostNine


If you’re looking for a good web hosting company, you should definitely enlist HostNine as one of the options. With HostNine, as with other promising providers from this list, you can change your mind until the first 45 days are up. The provider’s hosting services (Shared, Reseller, Cloud VPS, and Dedicated) also guarantee a 99.9% website uptime. Actually, they do a lot to compensate for even the slightest downtime, and so each hour of discontinuity equals a free day of hosting, deducted out of the forthcoming invoice. Interestingly, HostNine’s present offer targets the users who may think to upgrade, by luring them with codes which entail 50% discounts to the first ever invoice: code H9LUV13 for Shared, Reseller, and Cloud VPS, and code DEDILUV13 for Dedicated.


WebHostingBuzz


WebHostingBuzz


WebHostingBuzz is a necessary presence in my selection of the best hosting providers in the industry. Not only did they cut to half the price for their Dedicated hosting service, but most importantly for developers, the Reseller plan is subject to a colossal discount. On activating the service, you only have to type in the code “resellerdeal”, and the invoice for the first month will arrive with an astonishing $1 value. Taking into consideration that the Reseller hosting service is normally $9.95, this really is a fine bargain. By comparison, the Shared service is $4.95, and VPS hosting costs $14.95, so overall, WebHostingBuzz gets both thumbs up.


Bluehost


Bluehost


I could not finalize this top 10 best web hosting list of mine without mentioning Bluehost. You can try their free demo and see if it’s convincing. Then, you can start hosting with this company, and if you want to quit, doing so in the first 30 days would get you all of your money back. Doing so afterwards means that you will receive the remaining prepaid value of the signed term. All in all, Bluehost is very convenient and affordable. For instance, the Professional Web Hosting has been made available for $4.95 during the first month, and $6.99 thenceforth.



In Japan, Augmented Reality Glasses That Translate Foreign Menus As You Read





Japanese telecommunication firm NTT Docomo—which previously developed this app that translates phone conversations in real-time—recently revealed a pair of augmented reality glasses that can translate foreign menus into understandable text as they are being read.



Projecting its wearer’s native language over foreign words on road signs and menus, these glasses would be particularly useful for travellers who find themselves in places where they do not speak the local tongue.



In addition to this translation function, these high-tech glasses can also turn any flat surface into a touchscreen—which the user can activate with a finger ring—and is loaded with face recognition software that will bring up personal information of the people you meet.



How do you think these Japanese augmented reality glasses will measure up against Google Glass?



[via Telegraph]

In New Zealand, A Town Powers Down For An Amazing Star-Gazing Experience

[Click here to view the video in this article]







City-dwellers rarely get to witness the wonders of the night sky due to light pollution—to make sure that artificial light does not block out the brilliance of the stars, the town of Lake Tekapo in New Zealand powers down at night to offer one of the clearest astronomical views in the world.



The best spot to catch this natural phenomenon is at the Earth and Sky Mt John Observatory that stands 1,029 meters above sea level—it is one of only four observatories in the world to dim down ambient light in order to provide a unpolluted view of the night sky.



Visitors can sign up for a tour with the observatory, during which they can expect to get an unmatched view of the “the Magellanic Clouds, satellite galaxies to the Milky Way that are only visible in the Southern Hemisphere”.



To get a taste of the spectacular star-gazing experience that awaits you at Lake Tekapo, watch the time-lapse video below.







































[via Lost At E Minor]

Artist Shares Beautiful New Works Fresh Off His Desk On Instagram





One of the great things about social media is that creatives can share their works more readily with a receptive audience—and that is precisely what Czech Republic-based artist and designer Mike, also known as “Creative Mints”, is doing.



Having only joined Instagram recently, Mike’s posts featuring the beautiful artworks fresh from his desk have already garnered him an impressive following of almost 6,000.



His portfolio is wonderfully diverse and his artworks range from amazing steampunk drawings of mechanical gadgets to ethereal portraits of girls and birds.



For inspiration, follow Mike on Instagram—view more of his lovely drawings and paintings below.



























































[via Abduzeedo]

Minimalistic Visualizations Explain Differences In Eastern And Western Cultures





Germany-based artist and visual designer Yang Liu has created a series of truthful graphics that explains the differences in Eastern and Western culture.



Yang Liu was born in China but has lived in Germany since she was 14, and thus she is able to explain the differences in cultures.



Based on her own experience, she created minimalistic visualizations using simple symbols and shapes to convey just how different the two cultures are.



In the visualizations below, the blue side represents western culture, while the red side represents eastern culture.







































































[via bSix12]