Welcome to elreno.org
Web Hosting - How To Select A Web Host
As with many purchases, our first impulse when selecting a web hosting company is to go with the cheapest. Hey, they're all alike, why pay more? Au contraire.
There are a number of objective criteria that separates one web hosting company from another and money is only one of them. And not the most important one. Selecting a company based on price alone is equivalent to selecting an auto mechanic on price alone. Sure, he may maintain or fix your car cheaper. But will the car spend all the time in the shop and none on the road?
The first consideration is 'horsepower'. Do they have the capacity to carry your load and deliver decent performance? Most hosting companies will advertise that they have huge bandwidth and hundreds of servers. They're usually telling the truth.
But there's a difference between existing capacity and usable capacity. If they also have thousands of sites with millions of visitors per day the available or free capacity will be much lower. A big pickup truck may be able to tow 5,000 lbs. But not if it's already carrying 4,999.
Be sure to ask about available capacity, and have the prospective company back it up with reliable numbers. If you can't interpret the information they provide, find someone to help you do so.
Next, and a very close second, is reliability. A lot of power is worthless if it's cut often. Outages are a normal part of business. Even Google and Microsoft go down from time to time. The difference is, it happens rarely and they have failover plans. That means, if their site/system does go down it's either up again in a flash, or you never see the outage because a backup system kicks in automatically and seamlessly.
Be sure to grill the company closely about their up time. They'll often tout 99.6%, or some such figure. But, like the on-time figures of the airlines, those numbers can be shaded by adjusting the definition of 'up time'. What matters to you is whether your visitors will be able to reach your site at any time of the day or night they might want to.
Find out what systems, both technical and human, they have in place to deal with failures of all sorts. Servers can go down, networks can fail, hard disks can become defective and lose data even when the other components continue to work fine. The result is YOUR site is unavailable, which is all that matters to you. The web hosting company should be able to deal with all of that and have you up again very quickly.
Last, but not least, is security. With the continuing prevalence of viruses and spam, you need to know that the web hosting company you select has an array of methods for dealing with them. That means a good technical plan and staff who are knowledgeable in dealing with those issues. The old saying: 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure' is more true here than anywhere else.
All these issues are central to finding a web hosting company that can deliver the services you need. After those criteria are satisfied by a number of candidates, then you can start narrowing them down by price.
Free Downloadable Software – Not Always a Scam Do you want to download free software off the World Wide Web, but you are afraid of getting your computer infected with a virus, spyware or other bad cyber invaders? If so, you will be happy to learn that there are many websites that specialize in legitimate free downloads that won't cause your computer to become awash in viruses or spyware. Here is a just a brief sampling of different websites that specialize in free (and safe) downloadable software. These sites let you enjoy the best of the web without the danger of less reputable websites. Get Your Fill of Entertainment at Download.com Are you looking for a place where you can download free games and tools? If so, Download.com should cause you to rejoice. This site contains a wide range of games, tools and utilities. This website bills itself as a haven for "safe, trusted and spyware-free" software. Savvy web surfers know that Download.com offers the best library of legal and totally free software downloads, game downloads and music downloads. This website is also known as a well-regarded repository of credible and relevant information about the latest game releases, software updates and other free downloads. All of the downloadable software found on this site is put through a rigorous set of tests. Moreover, registration is fast and free. You can even write your own reviews for software and participate in the active CNET forums. From fun to functional, you can probably find what you are looking for right here. Update Your Drivers for the Smoothest Web Experience In order to make sure that you always get the smoothest online experience possible, make sure to update your drivers on a regular basis. DriversHQ.com offers you an easy way to make certain that you always have the best and latest drivers on your computer. This site allows you to detect its own Driver Detective software services. Drivers Headquarters is known as the best driver update service. This service is easy to use and it is designed to help you upgrade your update your drivers in a safe and fast manner. They even have new drivers that support XP and Vista programs. Use their driver detective to find what needs to be updated, and to update your current drivers. Tired of Nagging Software Updates? Then Head On Over to Nonags.com Are you tired of downloading software, only to have it nag you with updates on a regular basis? Are you tired of being hassled by your own downloads to buy the upgraded versions? Here is a refreshing website that offers you downloads that do not put a limit on the number of days you can use them, and that do not constantly pester you to purchase the upgraded version of the software download. This website is an amazing compendium of the latest freeware, along with editor picks and user ratings. Get the Latest and the Greatest at Tucows Where can you turn for the latest and the greatest in safe software downloads. If so, you will want to place a bookmark on the Tucows.com website. This is one of the most amazing collections of safe and effective downloadable software. You can choose from freeware, shareware and pay software. Tucows.com features software downloads for your Windows PC, your Mac, Linux-based systems, your PDA and programs to streamline and improve your online experience. This site has become a popular spot to find hard-to-find software for Mac computers. Enjoy the editorial ratings and the myriad range of programs and tools. Enjoy everything from poker software downloads to design programs that help you achieve your highest level of creativity. Definition of copyright infringement Protect Yourself: Know the Definition of Copyright Infringement As you’re creating something, you may wonder what copyright infringement actually is. It’s necessary, if you’re creating a work – albeit written, musical, videos, software or some other form – that you know the definition of copyright infringement. This issue is very complicated, and not very easily spelled out in plain English, so please make sure that if you’re ever unsure to contact a copyright lawyer immediately to ensure you’re using copyrights in a legal method appropriate to the medium. As I mentioned earlier, a definition of copyright infringement is difficult, at best. Copyright infringement is defined by the jurisdiction – the United States of America has different copyright laws than the United Kingdom, or Australia, or Russia, or even China. Because of this fact, you should first, before anything else, check the laws in your jurisdiction (country, city & province) before using something that isn’t in the public domain. For our definition of copyright infringement, the public domain is a place where works are that aren’t copyright-able. Works that aren’t copyright-able include ideas, works that aren’t eligible (150 years-old documents, or older – think Beethoven and Frankenstein), data that isn’t categorized in a creative way (this could be a database, such as a phone book or other publicly-accessible data), or items that the owners have specified creative commons copyrights. As you can see, copyright law is rather complicated. Wikipedia.org gives us the definition of copyright infringement as: “Copyright infringement (or copyright violation) is the unauthorized use of material that is protected by intellectual property rights law particularly the copyright in a manner that violates one of the original copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works that build upon it. The slang term bootleg (derived from the use of the shank of a boot for the purposes of smuggling) is often used to describe illicitly copied material.” Our definition of copyright infringement includes the works of creative commons. Creative commons is an organization that allows for the copyright author to determine the uses available for people who want to use their works – for such items as for audio, images, video, text, educational materials, and software. It allows for the copyright owner to allow people to use their works for non-commercial, commercial, no derivatives, share alike, or just by giving attribution. Creative Commons is a license granted by the copyright holder, and can be used in both online (electronic internet) works and offline works. There are many places you can go to get a definition of copyright infringement. The most reliable definition of copyright infringement would be from your local copyright lawyer – they will know exactly what in your jurisdiction is legal or not, and how you can use other peoples’ works or protect your own. The real definition of copyright infringement comes from your jurisdictions statutes. In the United States of America, our jurisdiction’s copyright laws are contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, §501 - §513. You can also find a definition of copyright infringement through such organizations such as the European Union or World Trade Organizations. While s legal country or organizational definition of copyright infringement is hard for the layperson to understand, a copyright lawyer will help you to figure out what it is that your work needs to be protected against copyright infringement, or to protect yourself if you intend to use the work of another writer, director, or musician. |