TV show reviews: On the Lot

If I had to sum this review up in one sentence it would be this: I have never been so let down by anything in my entire life. I am sure there have been things in my personal life that were an even bigger letdown but in terms of movies, shows, and any external form of entertainment I have never seen such a good idea get so thoroughly wasted.

The format was such that we would see a handful of the contestants compete against each other with a short film, usually around two minutes and all in the same chosen genre. Then America would have a two hour or so window to vote and the next week one person would be eliminated based on the vote. The eventual winner would get a one million dollar development deal with Dreamworks Pictures and work under (presumably far under) Spielberg himself!

I wanted to love it. I loved the notion of filmmakers getting the same shot that people who can karaoke have been getting for years. I wanted it to work.

That desire just made my eventual distaste for this show all the stronger.

Let me count the ways in which this show failed.

The host was atrocious. She would flub about five lines a night. She looked good and had energy but there was something just not right about her presence. The show started out with over fifty contestants which is far too much. In a one hour format there was no time to develop any of them and everything felt rushed.

The show soon moved to a format of showing no behind the scenes action and the shorts only. I liked this idea but of course that leaves the quality of the show entirely up to the shorts themselves.

I think a huge problem with this concept was that the directors had to come up with their own material. Directors hardly ever write their own material. Most of the greats such as Spielberg-whose name was attached to the show and never mentioned after the second episode, I presume on request-never write their own scripts. So why should we expect these people to do what even their idols do not?

It became obvious quickly that even if some of these people had talent behind the camera that none of them were strong from a writing perspective. And that of course made it hard to tell when a film was well directed as the script influences what a director can do…

I think the element of judging a director on writing should have been eliminated entirely. There would be two ways of doing this. One, by giving each of the contestants a professional script and having them film it. But then

Determine your Web Hosting Needs

You have a lot of choices in the web hosting market and it can be very confusing to find the best deal that meets your needs. So the first step of web hosting guide is to determine your needs of web hosting.

It can be very tempting to look for plans that offer everything. There are many such deals available, even at a low price, but you will be storing up trouble for yourself. Take a step back and determine exactly what you need, then select a best plan for your web site with the right price from a web hosting company that you are comfortable with. Let’s make a good start point for your web site.

1. Reliability and Speed of Access

Not only should the web host be reliable and fast, it should guarantee its uptime (the time when it is functional). Look for a minimum uptime of 99%. In fact, even 99% is actually too low – it really should be 99.5% or higher. Most of the Paid Web Hosting can promise this percentage, and you will not get it from Free Web Hosting site. So if your business is critical, Paid Web Hosting Plan is your only choice.

2. Data Transfer (Bandwidth/Traffic)

Data transfer (sometimes loosely referred to as “traffic” or “bandwidth”) is the amount of bytes transferred from your site to visitors when they browse your site. If you go over the limit, then either you will have to be an extra fee, or your website will not be available. The amount of bandwidth you use is obviously related to the amount of traffic (visitors) that you receive.

There are web hosting companies that offer Unlimited bandwidth. This sounds like a good deal. The truth is that this is nothing but a lie and you should steer clear of web hosting companies that offer unlimited bandwidth. Bandwidth is a commodity that costs the web hosting company money – unlimited bandwidth is not only impossible, but would cost an unlimited amount of money. When web hosts offer unlimited bandwidth they are trying to trick you. They know that you will probably not use very much bandwidth. The moment you try to use a lot of bandwidth – then you will find your website shutdown.

For most web sites you will not need much bandwidth. Probably 99% of all websites use less than 2 GB of bandwidth a month. If you intend to have a lot of downloads of software, audio or video, then you may end up using a lot more bandwidth, maybe 50 GB. Sites like mp3.com require an enormous amount of bandwidth, but for the average site – a low level will be enough in almost all cases.

3. Disk Space

For the same reason as bandwidth, watch out also for those “unlimited disk space” schemes. Most sites need less than 5MB of web space, so even if you are provided with a host that tempts you with 200MB or 500MB (or “unlimited space”), be aware that you are unlikely to use that space, so don’t let the 500MB space be too big a factor in your consideration when comparing with other web hosts. The hosting company is also aware of that, which is why they feel free to offer you that as a means of enticing you to host there. As a rough gauge, WebHostingClue.com, which had about 80 pages right now, used less than 5MB for its pages and associated files.

You will see that even a lot of pages doesn’t really create a big requirement for disk space since the size of each file is small. If your web site doesn’t have a lot of picture, video or mp3, Disk Space should be an important factor when you choose a web hosting plan. Many web hosting plans will offer large amounts of disk space. This is fine, it doesn’t hurt to have the extra space – but unless you have a huge site – you will more than okay with 20MB.

4. Technical Support

You need to ask yourself questions like Does its technical support function 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? If you have a small website that is not critical (i.e just some personal web site to introduce yourself) then you probably don’t need it. Otherwise, you should see this item in your web hosting plan.

5. Email Accounts

If you have your own site, you would probably want to have email addresses at your own domain, like sales@yourdomain.com, etc. How many email accounts will you need? Normally 10 is enough, but if you think you might want more then you can use, especially you build the web site for business usage, and you have many employees in your company, you will need more email accounts, and the good news is: most of the web hosting plan will give you more than 1000 email accounts, and some of them are un-limited.

6. PHP, Perl CGI-BIN access

This requirement depend on how you build your web site, do you use php or perl in your source code? If yes, you need to have this one in the plan otherwise, your web site will not work properly.

7. SSL, MySQL, and Shopping Cart (eCommerce Cart)

If you are planning on doing any sort of business through your website, you might want to look out to see if the host provides these facilities. These facilities normally involve a higher priced package or additional charges. The main thing is to check to see if they are available at all before you commit to the host. You will definitely need SSL if you plan to collect credit card information on your site.

8. Server Type

Is the type of operating system and server important? Whether you think so or not on the theoretical level, there are a few practical reasons for looking out for the type of server.

If you have a small website, then it is unlikely that you will need to select a particular type of server for your website.

Windows 2000 server web hosting tends to be a little bit more expensive than Linux. If you need to run a Microsoft SQL server database, or use Microsoft Active Server pages then you should choose Windows2000.

If you have no clue what these things even are – then you don’t need Windows2000 – you will almost certainly be fine with any type of server and my preference is to sign up for accounts using the often cheaper, more stable and feature-laden Unix systems running the Apache server.

9. Subdomains, or Multiple Domain Support

For those who are thinking of multiple domains or subdomains hosted in your account, you should look to see if they provide this. If you have many web sites, and most of them don’t use a lot of space and bandwidth, then, host all your domain in a web hosting plan is a great choice for you and will save a lot of money for you. Many company provide this kinds of plan, such as: StartLogic, IXWebHosting, HostMonster, and BlueHost, etc; They can host 6-10 web site in one web hosting plan.

10. Price

Price is always a factor, you should realize that you often get what you pay for, although it’s not necessarily true that the most expensive hosts are the best. A stable, 24*7 support server is more important than money.

Most web hosts allow you to select an annual or 2 years payment plan that gives you a cheaper rate than if you were to pay monthly. You might be worried about if you aren’t satisfied with the plan you purchase, what can you do. You need to check that whether the company provide the money back period so that you can request a refund if you are not satisfied. Or the other choice is to sign a plan provided by a reputed web hosting company. Below are some company will provide money back guarantee (trial days): StartLogic, and IXWebHosting, etc.

11. Free Domain Name

You need to check whether a free domain name is included in the plan. In most of the plan with price more than $3 monthly, a free domain will be included. But if not, you need to apply for domain name by yourself and then direct it to the service you just order. To register a domain name, please refer to Register Domain

12. International

If you don’t stay in the USA, you have the option of hosting your site with some local provider. The advantage here is the ease of dealing with them (they are after all easily accessible by phone call or a visit), your familiarity with the local laws and easy recourse to those laws should it be necessary. It should be your choice if your target audience is local (eg a local fast food delivery service). On the other hand, hosting it in USA has the advantage of faster access for what is probably the largest number of your overseas visitors (particularly if you have an English-speaking audience). You also have a large number of hosting companies to choose from, and as a result, cheaper prices too.

13. Else

There are also some specific requirement related to what web site you want to build and your skill levels. Considering web hosting company provide more than just hosting, you might want they can provide some web design tool if you don’t know HTML well and also want to build it by yourself. Or you want to create a blog, photo galleries or Forum in your web site, if all those are included in the web hosting package, it would be easy for you to build the site. Below are some addition service you might find in web hosting package:

Blog

Photo Galleries

Forum

Web Design Tools

Web Site Market Tools

etc.

Although, we have listed a lot of factor above, you need to think about what’s the most important factor to you, try to rank all the factor above, and give them a value. If you care about the support and reliability and with a lot of budget, you should find some company can provide quick support and 99.99% uptime. If you only have limited budget, you might need to lower your expectation on bandwidth or multiple domain host, etc. There is always a trade-off between price, reliability and features that you’re willing to live with. There’s no way for you to afford to put all your sites on your “ideal” web hosts. For sites that are not so critical, you can pay a cheaper price at the cost of a little more “down” time and inconvenience than your more important sites.

Reference

Web Hosting: Guides, Compare Prices, Hosting News, Consumer Review, and Marketing

Web Hosting Plan for Small Business

Web Hosting Guide

A Web Hosting Review Barbara

Web hosting siphon can sustain you catch the right innkeeper

If you dispatch a scrutinize in Google for ‘Web Hosting’ or ‘Hosting’, the best annex of results that occur adulthood are surprisingly enough, not those of 18-carat web hosting companies, but tolerably interlacing hosting review sites.

These sites are an divine resource to comfort you with regulation a oracle lamp which netting landlord to assemble for your onrush note the world of the Internet.

A net hosting ride can sustain you compare the services thanks to offered by variant hosting companies. This is a heavy duty take considering you don’t have to ramble contrastive sites to obtain details. You can log on to a single site and compare services by bandwidth, by price or by disk space.

The contrary cardinal accrual that these sites instance is that abundantly of them quote a classifying abetment and the flexibility for clients to berth comments or reviews. These comments reveal a lot about a hosting company!

Do not be parlous alarmed though if you gem some reviews that are ever detrimental – it is deserved not abeyant for a hosting job to be perfect. They WILL trigger mistakes. The essential mission is to try and ascertain how well they recovered or how well they handled their customer service when the problem occurred.

To rack up the eminently out of these sites, you voracity to ken what to delve into for. Some of the newer sites have more nice ways of hand research criteria – you should be cogent to search on operating system (e.g. Linux or Windows), disk space, bandwidth, price, control panel, features etc.

You inasmuch as love to discern how intensely bandwidth you require, how incalculably uphill disk break you desire and feasibly matching have made a decision up front whether you are looking for Linux or Windows hosting.

Once you have unflinching about what you need, you can found searching for a hosting service. You can avail one of the acknowledged dig into engines, enjoy Google or Yahoo to asset a crucial lacework hosting argue site.

Log on to the plant and compare the altered packages. See which packages or bundled services aggregate your needs best. Check and compare the specifications of the hardware because offered by the hosting services. Eliminate the hosting services that don’t hoard your requirements and send the remaining hosts a register of questions. The questions you buzz are not for important, but you bequeath get an idea about how prompt the hosts are in responding to your queries. This can then become a useful benchmark. You can reject those who take too long to answer.

Finally you thirst to ultimatum connectivity. Visit a few sites hosted on the servers of companies that you have minute listed. Check the download speeds. Eliminate ones that advance drastically vast to open. You should besides pass on on the net hosting kick about site whether they have any uptime statistics. This will also give you a good idea what type of downtime your website might experience.

Be shrewd not to supreme on amount peculiar – cheapest is not always the best! Rather attending at the frequent prices and pursuit for a hosting provider that tolerably offers a middle of the entrance set of price rather than the absolute cheapest. Another important point to look out for is to see how long the company has been in business!

Reseller Web Hosting – Part 1

What is Reseller Web Hosting?

Reseller web hosting gives a company an opportunity to
purchase large amounts of web space with the intention of
packaging it for resale purposes. These web hosting plans, help
the “reseller” to be a middle-man by allowing him/her to create
and brand an image, find customers, and finally, host them on
the servers owned by the hosting company.

This business allows the reseller of web hosting to
strategically investigate market demands and creatively answer
via competitive pricing and package content. Lastly, it is
mutually beneficial to the web host, as their servers remain
full and profitable.

=| Advantages: |==

Besides the entrepreneurial aspects of being able to create a
brand and have another company actually provide the web hosting
service, reseller hosting has some interesting advantages and
features including:

* Resellers possess the opportunity to offer other services, to
be used in conjunction with web hosting accounts. These include
merchant accounts, SSL Certificates, search engine optimization,
and domain name registration, which all may provide additional
income for the reseller. * Resellers can avoid the expenses
involved in maintaining their own in-house web servers, mail
servers, DNS servers, backup generators and other network
hardware and connections required to host Internet web sites *
Resellers are able to respond to increasing numbers of
businesses and individuals that are migrating to the web. A rich
target demographic exists. * Resellers can purchase packages
based on his/her sales forecasts for their use of hard disk
space, allowance of data transfer, and a variety of other add-on
options. * Web hosting resellers can pursue scalability, where
purchases from the web host will directly correlate to growth of
one’s business. * Web hosting resellers can enjoy high profits
compared to initial investments. * Resellers are offered nice
multi-level graphical user interfaces that can automate the
processes of managing domains and customers, which makes the
profession of reseller web hosting more enjoyable.

=| DisAdvantages: |==

Clearly, the benefits and advantages of reseller web hosting
outweigh the disadvantages. However, the major premise of
establishing a business model surrounding another vendor’s
services may at times be a daunting task.

For example, proper research must be done while selecting a
reseller web hosting provider, especially if your brand and
total business responsibility depend on a 99.99% uptime. True
investigation should be done to ensure that the reseller web
hosting company will be in business and will provide the level
of service that has been promised to a reseller’s customer.

Furthermore, reseller features such as hard disk space and data
transfer allowance will need to be monitored so that if these
metrics are exceeded, one can easily upgrade plans rather than
be hit with hefty “ala carte” expenses associated with overage
penalties.

=| Benefits: |==

Reseller web hosting allows the major benefit of revenue
stream generation for the companies who don’t have the time,
money, or resources to maintain their own servers and data
centers. Furthermore, it is a great business opportunity for
those who want to create a stand-alone business venture, or for
those with other parallel businesses who can take advantage of
the chance to sell hosting with their services.

What is the best application of a reseller web hosting service
provider?

The major benefit of reseller hosting plans is that the reseller
is allowed to purchase web space for a reduced cost. At that
time, the reseller can sell the web hosting plan and/or use some
of the space for his/her own projects.

The best application and intentions are revenue-based and
several schemes exist for this:

1. The reseller can create his or her own brand, market it, and
successfully sell and support the web hosting plans. Then the
customer can contact the reseller for support. 2. The reseller
can just act as an affiliate or an agent for the web hosting
company. In this way, the reseller is minimizing liability of
service provision, but still reaps benefits of revenue once
customers purchase. Customers would contact the original web
host for support and future plan modifications. 3. The reseller
can be “hired” on as a proxy employee. In this model, the
reseller can create accounts as an “employee” of the original
web host.

=| How to decide: |== Generally, just as one would decide on any
other web hosting plan, there are some main concerns that exist.
Possible resellers should always investigate concerns such as:

1. Having a large enough site and the ability to market through
various channels to justify the initial costs involved with the
reseller packages. 2. The cost, as compared to other web space
vendors with similar plans and packages. 3. Security of Data and
equipment of the company that the reseller purchases with. 4.
High enough bandwidth for the number of sites and the types of
sites the reseller will support. 5. The level of knowledge and
integrity of the web hosting provider 6. The service level
agreements for technical support and hardware repairs from the
web hosting provider 7. The speed of the page downloads and
uptime of the company’s web pages.

Furthermore, because one is putting their name on the brand, it
is imperative to further investigate hardware. Some of the
factors to consider are:

Brand: Brand names of hardware convey reputations for
reliability and known support for hardware failures.

CPU’s:The speed of the CPU’s in the servers will directly
correlate with the load speeds of customer websites.

Memory:The reseller web host should allow one to know that the
very important commodity of memory will be readily available, as
an increased number of sites running various types of code and
scripts may prove to be resource and memory intensive.

Mirrored Drives:To offer backups to potential customers, it is
good to further investigate backup options. To ensure data
redundancy, most hosts can offer drive mirroring, which will
keep a synchronized copy of all data for easy backups.

Features specific to reseller hosting can be numerous also.
Generally, it is advantageous to look for a reseller plan that
offers nice plans with value-driven offerings in disk space,
bandwidth, and 24×7 support. One can also look for plans that
offer free account setups with no contracts.

Other reseller specific perks to look for include:

Hosting ability:UNLIMITED site hosting will allow one to package
their web space any way that they choose for resale purposes.

Private name servers :further reinforces branding and makes you
look like a stand-alone network.

Administration software:This software allows the reseller to
divide the web space into packages. On the end-user side, it
also gives them administration rights to their website.

The benefits of reseller web hosting seem to far outweigh
the disadvantages. With proper business planning, reseller web
hosting seems to be a great addition to a company’s products

Downloadable game review: Eternal Eden, by Blossomsoft

Visiting the world of Eternal Eden, so many things felt eerily familiar. Was it a moment of dj vu? Or was it, like the Garden of Eden, a worn out fable?

Eternal Eden

is a role-playing game set in a fantasy world. The main character (Noah) and his friends live in a special place in which they live immortally, where the Eden tower takes care of their any and every living need. Of course just like the creation tale this perfect life is about to be challenged, by someone not willing to listen to their Father’s stern rules.

Game play in Eternal Eden is identical to many well-known role-playing games such as Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. In fact, the game appears to be made with RPG Maker VX, a downloadable program that allows RPG design without programming knowledge. While I can’t fault the game makers for using a design program, I expect a game’s innovation to shine in the storyline at that point.

Unfortunately, Eternal Eden’s story seems to be just as flat as the 2D environment it’s played out in. Although the story doesn’t follow the creation myth to the teeth you won’t find Adam and Eve as the main characters the story moves on so predictably, you might as well just read the story to the characters and be done with the game early.

Despite the heavy flaws in its storyline, Eternal Eden has crisp, bright graphics and a soothing soundtrack. Harkening back to the days of RPGs of the 1980s and 1990s, the graphics look like they’d be more at home on a handheld console than on a PC. The game defaults to a small window, and I recommend keeping it that way: full screen just feels awkward for this type of game. The music, meanwhile, while not out of place, feels generic and uninspired.

Although regular RPG players won’t find any surprises, Eternal Eden hosts a brilliant welcome tutorial for those new to its turn-based system and interactive landscape. The game remains streamlined, so it’s nearly impossible to get lost going from one objective to another.

If you like role-playing games and need something mindless to play through, or if you’re new to role-playing games and want an easy start, Eternal Eden may be right for you. But if you’re like me, and either play games for a living, or live off playing games, Eternal Eden may feel less than a paradise.

Rating: 3/5

Easycgi Review

What We Say

EasyCGI focuses solely on Windows hosting, and there is something to be said for specialization. Many hosts have tacked Windows hosting on to their Unix-focused business and it seems about as natural as square wheels on a car. EasyCGI doesn’t suffer from this failing as Windows is where they started and have stayed. Their deep understanding of Windows hosting and the related tools and issues makes for unparalleled service and support.
Their plans are the familiar tiered hosting plans, albeit with somewhat confusing names. Their basic plan (called “Advanced”) provides what most sites will need and their intermedite and top tier plans (“Advanced X2″ and “Advanced X4″) kick things up further for the power users. Recently EasyCGI increased their storage and transfer allowances on all plans, and the new numbers are much more competitive.

Their custom control panel is simple to navigate and provides easy access to all the featured you’d need. As a Windows host, they of course include ASP, ASP.Net, and Access. In the higher level plans, you can also get MS Index Server, Cold Fusion, and even SQL Server. Physically, they use high end Xeon servers, with secure offsite backups, and power backup to keep your site up and running.
By the way, while you may see other reviews saying that EasyCGI supports ColdFusion, this is unfortunately no longer the case. Their official statement is: “Due to the lack of demand for the product, we are no longer supporting ColdFusion on new accounts.”

Plan Name Storage Transfer Emails Price Features
Advanced 350 GB 3,500 GB 1,000 $7.96 $1.99 Windows 2000, Access, unlimited datasources, MySQL, ASP, ASP.Net, Persits ASPUpload, ASPJpeg and ASPEmail, PHP, Perl.
Intermediate 500 GB 5,000 GB 1,000 $15.96 Same as basic, plus Frontpage extensions, Index server, and WebTrends reports.
Advanced 750 GB 7,500 GB unlimited $21.96 Same as intermediate, plus SQL Server.

I’ll have to admit a bias here. I am not a Windows guy. At all. It took some impressive Windows tricks by some friends of mine to convince me that Windows had something reasonable to offer the hosting world. I now understand the appeal of some of the Windows development tools, especially for people who have already put in the effort to learn them. If you are looking for a Windows host, EasyCGI is hard to beat.

Support

It is easy to look at hosting as a commodity business, but support is where a good host shines and a bad host takes it on the nose. EasyCGI falls into the former category and provides a broad gamut of support channels. Many hosts provide email and ticketing support, but the proper measure of these is the speed of response and EasyCGI keep the response time nice and short. The also include a community forum, as a lot of the top tier hosts are doing. Impressively, however, they top this off with 24-hour toll-free phone support; a nice surprise compared to most of their competitors.

Special!

I should also mention that EasyCGI is currently running a special just for my readers here. $1.99 for the first three months of their Advanced package. Tallies up to almost 20% savings for the first year of an excellent host.

What the Reviewers Say

• “If you want to host on Windows, EasyCGI really has no peer.” — Top Web Hosting Reviews
• “If you need a Windows host they are ideal.” — Web Hosting Reviewer
• “One of the best Windows web hosting plans.” — HostWhere
• “Well-know for providing excellent customer service and support.” — Cheap Web Hosting Services

What They Say

Company History

Our management team founded Easy CGI after running a successful regional Internet Service Provider since 1994, giving us over 10 years of real world experience in the industry. Since it’s inception in 1998, Easy CGI has grown into a globally competitive Web Hosting Provider. With an ability to overcome fierce industry competition as a start up company, Easy CGI has demonstrated that it has the ability to provide the kind of reliable hosting services that our customers demand.
World Class Web Hosting Services

Easy CGI has custom developed an infinitely expandable shared web hosting platform which allows for complete flexibility. This strengthens our ability to offer new features and cutting edge technology upon availability. Our control panel allows the customer to administer every aspect of their account at any time, from any location. Easy CGI’s three tiers of shared Web hosting solutions make the Company’s services suitable for a wide range of individuals and companies looking to host websites ranging from simple to complex. The result is superior flexibility and increased self-reliance over all account features.

Many hosting companies outsource their technology needs or keep their servers in a remote location. At Easy CGI we maintain our own Data Center located in the same facility as our corporate headquarters. Extensive system monitoring allows our support staff to quickly assess and resolve problems that may occur.

Easy CGI Support Staff

The Internet and Web Hosting industries are built on relatively new technologies that are still constantly changing. A Web Hosting company must have the experience and knowledge to help its customers through the process without creating confusion. Our highly knowledgeable staff is trained with this in mind. We provide quick resolutions to technical problems, allowing the customer to focus on more important aspects of their business.

The Easy CGI Advantage

Easy CGI strives to be on the leading edge of the Web hosting industry through superior technology, competitive pricing, and excellent customer service. Becoming an industry leader through maintaining steady customer and revenue growth, while continuing to provide excellent service, is Easy CGI’s vision for the future. With thousands of hosting companies to choose from, it’s no easy task to pick a company that provides the best service and support. Easy CGI has is committed to making your web hosting experience the best it can be. Don’t take our word for it, see for yourself.

Website reviews: Limewire.com – Part 1

LimeWire.com is a website which offers peer to peer file sharing (P2P) software. They tote their product as being “The Fastest File Sharing Program on the Planet”. Upon careful examination of the website, I found it to be user friendly and easy to find the information I was looking for.

In its product line, the company offers three different versions (P2P) software for users to choose from:

*Basic. The basic option is a free version.

*LimeWire PRO is a bit more enhanced and requires a one time payment of $21.95.

*Extended PRO offers extra benefits and comes with a $35.95 annual charge.

The homepage of LimeWire.com is easy to follow which makes for ease of surfing when searching for information. Surfing this website is a pleasant experience because hyperlinks are easily followed and the information is laid out in an aesthetically pleasing way. LimeWire.com has successfully created a user welcoming interface for their website, even going as far to provide screen shots of what the screens will look like when the software being used.

Across the top of the homepage are multiple sections entitled with bold and clear lettering “Download”, “Features”, “Support”, “About” and “Open Source”, each of which are just as informative and easy to navigate as the homepage is. Each link leads to a page chock full of informative materials which provides visitors with all the information they need.

Below the bold titles is another menu in smaller bold letter which are entitled “Wiki”, “Forum”, “Tech Blog”, “User Blog” and “Careers”, all of which are geared towards the customer and or LimeWire user. These extra community based pages add to the user friendly appearance of the initial pages and gives the visitor an idea of how other users (members) are working with the P2P software.

LimeWire clearly indicates they do not support unlawful copyright infringement in the agreement prior to user download. On the bottom of the homepage are three links entitled “Copyright Information”, “About using P2P software safety” and “Privacy Policy”. These links clearly outline the laws and other pertinent information with additional links to lead you to more information if you are interested.

The product itself boasts no adware, spyware or other bundled software to accompany the LimeWire download. This is important to look for if you’re in the market for P2P software because many of the others are said to be ladled with all kinds of Malware which can cause harm to your computer.

LimeWire also states the software works on cross-platforms; it can be run on Windows, Mac and Linux which makes it versatile and attractive to a more diverse audience. They also highlight they offer international versions, a built-in media player and possesses the capability to download from multiple hosts.

I find LimeWire’s website possesses an attractive interface and is very friendly to navigate. Any information I was curious about, I was easily able to find through their Frequently Asked Questions section or on one of the other clearly marked links throughout the pages. If their product is as good as their website, it’s a winning item.

I give this website thumbs up for being informative, web surfer friendly and clear.

Reference: http://www.limewire.com/

Best web sites for free file hosting

Check out MyOtherDrive.com’s features to see why it is one of the fastest growing on-line backup and file sharing. MyOtherDrive (MOD) offers users industrial strength on-line backup with scheduled unattended operation and AES 128-bit security.

In addition to the on-line backup offering, we also have the most advanced file sharing capabilities, with both public and private file sharing. Many sites force you to make your files public when you share them. This leads to accidental publishing of “personal” files on the Internet, and potential identity theft risks. With private sharing, you can control who views your shared files. Create groups, and share files and folders to those groups. Even give permission to those groups to add files. Files can be shared to members and non-members in both the management application or within a web page.

One very innovative feature on MOD is the ability copy files and folders between accounts. This inter-account sharing eliminates the slow and cumbersome upload / download cycles and frees up precious bandwidth. Amazing way to quickly develop your on-line file account.

MOD of supports creating files from URLs – just give it the address, and it will scoop the contents and create a file in your account for you. So many different ways exist to get files into your account.

MyOtherDrive has all the management capabilities of a program like the Windows Explorer, except that it is broader scoped, encompassing not only your local drive, but your on-line drive, and your friends on-line drives – a very broad view. All the regular file and folder management ’suspects’ are there (create folder, rename folder, delete folder, move / copy files and folders, and so on).

When files are uploaded to MyOtherDrive, a thumbnail image is created for image types. When viewing these in the client application, you can view the files of a folder in Thumbnail mode, great for looking at a folder (or album) of digital photos. But you can also look at the files in ‘preview’ mode and ‘details’ mode. In preview mode, it will display a larger image of pictures, or the complete textual content if the file is a text files. Zip files display a directory of the contents. We continue to add better and more powerful content views so that you can view the content right there, in the file management application.

All files that are uploaded can be linked to, provided you at least have a Pro account. File linking allows you to have a direct link to a file. MOD supports ‘bullet proof’ links – once you create a link to a file or a folder, that link is always good. If you rename the file, move it to a different folder, or even rename the folder containing the file, the direct link is still good. This allows you to reference and link to your files and be confident that the link will not break as you manage your files by moving them around.

The upload / download to / from your local computer is very robust and will even survive and continue if your wireless connection breaks. Many file sites lose the transfer if the Internet connection is lost.

Check out http://www.MyOtherDrive.com.

Choosing the Right Web Host

Choosing the right web host is a very important process that is all to often hurried through or; simply misunderstood.

Choosing a web host is in fact one the most important parts of setting up an online business. You need a service that is fast; easy to use and understand; provides excellent support; and is serious enough about its operations to guarantee that your website will never be down unless the entire datacenter were completely demolished.

Below is a list of the most common questions and answers to consider when looking for a web host. Understanding the different areas of web hosting and services available will help you to make a better educated decision when you do subscribe to a web hosting service.

What is Web Hosting?

Web hosting is the process of putting your web site on a web server or web host, so everyone connected to the Internet can see it. If you have a permanent connection to the Internet you could host your web site on your own computer, but that is in general not a good idea. A good web host is a real server in a datacenter with a fast high bandwidth connection to the Internet. And, to make sure you can move your web site to another web host, if necessary, you need a web hosting provider that supports domain hosting.

What is Domain Hosting?

Most Internet Service Providers (or ISP) will give you a free web site when they provide you with access to the Internet. They do this because they don’t want to give you a permanent IP address, which is what you need if you’d like to host a web site on your own computer. Unfortunately, most ISPs don’t support domain hosting with their free web sites. Hence, the URL of your web site is an extension of the URL of your ISP. So what happens when you change ISP? You will have to change the URL and nobody can find you anymore.

The use of a domain name for your web site is absolutely necessary for a professional web site, and to host your own domain you will need to find a real web hosting provider with domain hosting. Many web hosting plans actually include the price of a domain registration, so don’t register your domain before you have chosen your web hosting company.

What is Virtual Hosting?

Virtual hosting is often used as a synonym for shared hosting, e.g. you host your web site on a web server with hundreds of other web sites and you share the IP address with these web sites.
The term virtual hosting should imply, however, that while you share the web server it looks from the outside world that you are the only web site on that server. That means that with virtual hosting you should not only have your own IP address, but also a dedicated bandwidth to the Internet and a dedicated slice of the computers processing power. So, if a web hosting provider uses the term virtual hosting, have a close look if these features are offered before you decide on paying a premium price above standard shared hosting.

What is Bandwidth?

Bandwidth is a measure that reflects how much data can be transferred over a data communication channel.
In web hosting plans the allowed bandwidth generally indicates how much data can be downloaded from your web site per month, and therefore indicates how many web pages and pictures your visitors are allowed to download. If the average amount of page views per visitor is assumed constant, the allowable bandwidth restricts how many visitors you are allowed to have per month.
Just as important, however, is how fast the communication channel between your web host and the Internet is. The amount of data that can be transferred per second is also called the bandwidth of this channel, and this bandwidth is shared by all the web sites hosted by the same provider. If this bandwidth is insufficient, you’ll sometimes notice a slow down in the display of your web pages. In most cases, however, such a slow down is more likely to be caused by an overload on the web server itself.

What is a web server?

A web server is either a special computer or server for reliable hosting of web sites, or the software application that runs on that server. The two main web server applications used by most web hosting providers are

Microsoft’s Internet Information Services (IIS) for windows hosting and Apache for Unix hosting. Both use the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to transfer web pages to your web browser.

What is a datacenter?

A datacenter is building, or part of a building, which offers a professional environment for running computer servers. A datacenter will generally have high speed connections to the Internet and other networks, as well as good security to protect against natural hazards, such as fire, and other hazards, such as intruders and hackers.

Web Hosting Summary.

In summary, what are the important things to look for when selecting a web host?

1. Price
2. Datacenter Standards
3. Easy access to a Control Panel
4. Easy to navigate Control Panel
5. 24 / 7 Support
6. Host supports scripting languages / databases required to operate your site
7. Multiple packages available (As your business grows you may need to upgrade. Make sure the web host provider will allow you to do this)

This is really just the basics; although all very important things to consider. Most web host will have a FAQ file or Knowledgebase file available which you can read through before signing up.

In most case cheap is not better; in most cases. However I must say the web host I am now using combines an impressive price with impressive services. Over the years I have used approximately 8 – 10 different web hosts and HostGator.com is in my opinion one of the best I have ever used. But you can see for yourself here:

http://www.hostgator.com

Also, a big name in the industry that most everyone is familiar with is Yahoo. Yahoo also provides World Class Hosting services for all sizes of business. Yahoo services can be reviewed here:

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com

Make sure you go through the checklist above while browsing their site and you’ll get a better feel for comparing web host services.

Registering Your Domain? I have always used GoDaddy.com as do many other internet experts I have spoken with. I can safely recommend their service without hesitation.

Good luck and as always feel free to drop me an email if you have any questions concerning this article or most any aspects of starting your own online business.

Best regards,
Joseph Murray

http://www.aitechworld.com/affordablewebhosting.htm

Television show reviews: House M.D.

A dry erase board sits erect, backlit by a lightly shaded window overlooking the grounds of Princeton Plainsboro Hospital. On the white background of the board, haphazardly scribbled in blue marker, is a makeshift tally reading House vs. God.’ This, of course, is a trick. House is God.

Going on four seasons now, Dr Gregory House has stuck his cane in the eye of people’s expectations of what a medical drama should be. He isn’t the nice guy doctor who puts his patient’s feeling before his own or who worries over the morality of his deeds. No, House is an altogether different kind of doctor. He is rude, vulgar, blasphemous, and brilliant. His dark humor and unconventional approach give House something people aren’t use to seeing on television, a character of real depth who exudes a host of heroic and anti-heroic ideals (wisdom, ingenuity, and unyielding defiance in the name of his principles) and still manages to offend virtually everyone around him. Even those who have known him the longest, his best friend Wilson, his boss Cuddy, and his team, are still continuously shocked by House’s bizarre methods.

Part of what makes House so unique is how he draws upon a wealth of knowledge from all areas of life, not just the medical, in diagnosing his patients. In this way, House can be compared to a modern Sherlock Holmes, both unconventional in their time and sharing between them an obsessive need for uncovering the facts. House has shown an uncanny grasp of all subjects ranging from language to religion to a staggering knowledge of flora and fauna the world over, just like Holmes in his time who could tell where a person had been by the color of the dirt on his shoe. Even his reliance on Vicodine mirrors Holmes’ own habit of recreationally shooting up with cocaine whenever he grew bored in between cases.

One of House’s greatest appeals, and at the same time the source of much of his offensiveness, is his unrelenting atheism. In other shows, it is almost considered taboo for the protagonist to be an atheist. And even if they start out this way, it never lasts. Atheistic characters are always experiencing religious phenomena somewhere along the line which usually forces them into at least an ambiguous sense of religiosity. But not House. The subject of religion is anything but a forbidden subject to the in your face’ personality of the cane-wielding doctor. He has gone toe to toe with Christian nuns, fanatical evangelicals, even orthodox Jews and

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