Web Design and Development

KVC Hosting 4-year Review, Pt1: Price, Speed, Uptime

Way back in 2012, Andy from KVC Hosting contacted me. He wanted me to try out their hosting services. (As a web developer and multiple site owner since the 90s, I’ve used 100s of hosts. That experience has made me a defacto web host reviewer, so every host wants me to try them out, and suggest their company to prospective customers.)

At the time, KVC was a young host, all of about 2 years old. After a cursory glance at their unimpressive site, and seeing some services that raised an eyebrow, I declined.

That was a mistake! [Read more]


Web Design and Development

Restore Manager: the Best cPanel Backup Solution

cPanel is the best and most-used web panel around, but it’s built-in backup feature is somewhat weak and outdated. So it’s no surprise that one of the top search terms related to cPanel is “cpanel backup solutions”.

Many users opt for R1soft, as it’s very powerful – but it’s also expensive and buggy. Worse yet, R1soft has changed owners several times in recent years, and its users have often been ignored or neglected.

All we want is something reliable, with good support and modern features!

As a Linux admin for many years now [Read more]


Web Design and Development

HostGator Alternatives, Part 1: Who is EIG?

Hostgator eaten by competitionSince August 2013, Hostgator has had repeated downtime. Their entire datacenter would go offline. Hundreds of thousands of sites were affected, leaving customers without service AND without support. Each instance has lasted almost a full day.

And it’s not just Hostgator that was affected. Bluehost, Hostmonster, JustHost and several other “hosts” were down as well. But it wasn’t a coincidence. For you see, all of those hosts are actually the same hosting company — Endurance International.

People have started to realize that the Hostgator they once knew is gone, eaten up by the competition (pun intended). It is now under new ownership, and exists in name only.

So where else can you go? We’re going to take an in-depth look at true Hostgator alternatives, so this never happens to you again.

This article series was originally written in August 2013, and has been updated several times in 2014, 2015 and 2016.

(Note: If you just want the quick advice on which host to use, then here it is: (1) SiteGround, (2) InMotion, and (3) Namecheap. Those are excellent Hostgator alternatives. However, you really should read the three-part editorial…) [Read more]


Web Design and Development

HostGator Alternatives, Part 2: Who to Use and Why

Hostgator eaten by the competitionOnce upon a time, there was a miserly hosting company that was jealous of all the other hosting companies.

He saw that others were better than he was, and would rank higher on “top 10″ lists. He didn’t like that one bit! (Nevermind that the “top 10″ list was fake; that didn’t matter to him!)

Improving his services would have meant spending money, and he wouldn’t stand for that. So one day he came up with a sly plan. If he wouldn’t improve, maybe he could make the others worse!?

So he borrowed some money from friends — he wouldn’t spend his own of course! — and proceeded to buy them all out. One by one they fell, until the majority of the “top 10″ were his. To keep the commoners from knowing what he had done, he kept the old brand names to hide his identity. So when a commoner left a host, odds are that they would “switch hosts” to another of his brands on the top 10 list.

The profit rolled in, and he and his friends were happy as can be, having rigged the system in their favor. And they lived happily ever after — even though nobody else did.

That’s essentially the origin story of Endurance International Group (EIG). [Read more]


Web Design and Development

HostGator Alternatives, Part 3: The Future of EIG?

Hostgator eaten up by competitionThere’s a lot of things in this world that I don’t know — how to change oil, how to solder electronics, what women are thinking.

But there’s certain topics where I’m quite knowledgeable. One of the main reasons I like hosting is because it’s the perfect trifecta of business, technology, and PR/marketing. And that’s one of my specialties. (The other being video, photo and design … obviously!) You can’t have a successful non-amateur hosting business without grasping all of these areas.

While nobody knows what the future holds, there are clues. We can guess, and with some degree of accuracy.

There’s a number of hosting businesses that I would not consider safe, in terms of an EIG takeover/buyout. I’ve been screwed over by EIG five times to date — starting back in 2003 — when Endurance International Group bought out my host, and then botched the migration. It happened twice more, exactly the same. I never, ever want to experience that again, and therefore keep watch of their movements.

The following 4 hosts are potential targets, so when seeking a Hostgator, definitely avoid these! [Read more]


Web Design and Development

The Myth of VPS Hosting: Reasons to Avoid It! Part 2

When a person suggests a VPS blindly to others, odds are that they’re also the kind of person that ends up hacked. Do you really want advice from somebody like that? I’d hope not! Do yourself a favor and ignore that person.

Seasoned server admins — folks that use dedicated servers and VPS daily — would never make such a blind suggestion. They know how expensive, how time consuming, and how hard it all is.

Like an adult that pines for the simpler days of childhood, most VPS users pine for the simpler days when they had a smaller and simpler website. But just like being a kid, those days are gone. Yet the sage wisdom is the same — enjoy those days while you can!

Sure, you can attempt to stubbornly forge ahead, and insist that Google is all you need. This editorial was written for other dumber people, right? Well, let’s see how you really know about server admin tasks!

[Read more]


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