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Kenny is owner of webhostpark and has been working in hosting industry since 2006. We provide unbiased hosting reviews and release the latest promo news. Follow me on Google plus

IX Web Hosting Finished Migration to Site5

EIG IX web hostingIX Web Hosting Finished Migration to Site5

From the very being of year 2018, IX web hosting started migrating customer to site5/Verio/Dotster based the server platform of customer account. After one year processing, the migration is overall finished and IX official website finally closed.

However, just like most other transition handled by endurance group(know as EIG), the IX web hosting migration give their customer lots of headache with numorous complaints. Either web service not functional properly or not familiar with new policies or even support latency etc..

Till present, Endurance purchased over 100 hosting companies(almost all popular well known names) and reached with over 1.4 billion group value! Based the company current size and amount of supported web services, they’re creating more than 10% internet traffic which is unbeatable high comparing to any other IT company.

Following let’s find more about this event, split the case and see what kind of condition we’re working with. And how we can go well by following the right sight.

Is IX Web Hosting Good?

Probably not so many people give positive reply now due to the long time migration. But it was indeed good or perfect choice for hosting service. Not to mention their numorous hosting features and very good price, IX web hosting had been very carefully doing customer support either online or offline. Their people keep updating knowledge base from every case they’re experiencing and communicate fastly on different channels.

For hosting plan, they’re sole company who can give up to 15 dedicated IPs for free while it’s charged $2/mo everywhere else. That’s why IX is always primary choice for SEOer, you can save a big amount if you’re running a web development service with SEO support. That’s also how IX advertised itself.

IX web hosting also provides multiple grade plans including cloud server to support advanced web requirements. Either you need windows or linux platform, we can always find a suitable solution on their website at competitive offer.

ixwebhosting features

Why IX Web Hosting Closed?

Since it’s a simple acquisition by endurance, why they don’t hide the process behind but close IX directly and move customers to other place? From the years finance report of SPS Commerce Inc (Actual company name of IX web hosting) we have found the company year revenue has been going down. That means it does not create too much value if endurance keep the service running as it was.

Why their profit is going down? There’re two reason. First there’re more and more competitors with much lower cost service(regardless the actual quality) which has taken a lot of new customers. If IX web hosting remain unchange it will surely loose and loose. Furthermore, IX still used windows server 2003 for shared windows hosting which is not acceptable nowadays. There’s not any sight showing they’re going to upgrade. If we want to use new windows server system, we must use VPS or cloud server plans.

Secondly, the company provides too much which results in abuse of resource. Let’s say their 15 free dedicated IPs and free 3 domain name registration. Generally if we purchase such service separately the total cost will be $390/yr. But we can get with only $7.95/mo with IX company. Once our hosting account setup, we can claim directly from control panel. That means no matter if we really need or not, it will be given and the resource will be deducted from database. It’s a huge waste.

Is Site5 Good Enough?

Not exactly as announced though it was good from our earlier review. Not to mention the IX transfer process to their platform, the site5 updated terms of use is not fair at all to users. Extremely high restriction to account usage and no explanation account closure, what kind of service it is while it’s not cheap at all? See this AUP page on site5 for details.

Because site5 is just a small part of Endurance group. Either from the current hosting plan design or general web site structure, it seems the main purpose is to serve existing customer and hold new customer migration such as IX web hosting. Comparing to any modern service provider, we don’t see too much company or service introduction, the team behind or network specification etc on site5 web pages. The site content is maximumly simplified comparing to 3 years before when it’s not under endurance control.

Furthermore, site5 can only accept linux server accounts. If you’re windows based customer from IX site, you’re now dealing with Verio who provides very similiar windows server features like IX (also windows server 2003)

Where to go Next?

Well, that depends what you’re going to use exactly from IX side before.

For example if you’re really trying to take advantages of their free IPs, you can not find a better offer on the web. And most probably you can not purchase so many dedicated IP address under shared hosting plan. So it’s highly suggested go with VPS or dedicated server. Currently, most server side configuration can be done quickly via web panel so you don’t really have to be familiar with server setup. But of course it will make things easier if you can manage a server well.

Other specifications such as free domain name is available from most other web hosting providers so it’s easy to find an alternative choice.

Although migration experience of IX is not good at all due to its complex service structure, it doesn’t mean endurance is completely bad. On the other side, endurance is quite powerful in IT especially cloud computing. They’re centrally managing with over 1 million servers in data centers from different locations of the world. Either from financial or technical properties they’re actually the top giant from industry. Endurance did have broken multiple hosting brands like easycgi or globat, however they do have powered more successful names such as hostgator and bluehost. Especially on iPage site, its probably the only place in the world you can get such low cost plan with fruitful features and high performance server.

ipage hosting feature

ZeroNet – No Take Down Website Creation

zeronetWhat’s ZeroNet?

ZeroNet is an open source network project based Python. Websites in this network are browsed through “ZeroNet URL” which is similar to localhost websites.

ZeroNet is a platform using Bitcoin crypto and BitTorrent network. The ZeroNet is fully supported by complete torrent via encrypted internet connection. User communication and file sharing is 100% safe comparing to traditional solutions. By ZeroNet, users be able to create website on their own computers and its still working even after computer is powered off!

Because of localhost IP address, it’s almost impossible to find where a website is hosted exactly. Any visitor could be website hoster, thus its perfect choice for cross platform and “No Take down” website creation.

Unbeatable advantages

  1. No server side technical skills required for website creation
  2. P2P technology based platform. Your website will always be online once someone visited, NO website take down!
  3. Localhost compatible, you can view site without WAN internet connection
  4. Bitcoin based account protection, you’re completely hiden behind
  5. No domain name required, anybody can visit through http://127.0.0.1:43110/websiteID address
  6. Available anywhere in the world!

Project official address: https://github.com/hellozeronet/zeronet

Challenge to Web Hosting Provider

Web hosting service is based either single or cloud server platforms which requires special and professional maintenance. On user end, we have to pay both hosting service and domain registration. If we’re lack of maintenance skills or forgot to renew the service, all website properties might be flushed.

ZeroNet completely revised the way and make it very simple to everybody. Based its fast development and widely support in the world, it’s very possible to rewrite the web hosting service. If web hosting companies want to survive they must improve both service and platform as much as possible.

Hawk Host FAQ

hawk host faq

Hawkhost is probably the most successful litespeed hosting company based their great hosting features and super affordable price. The company also actively launch different promotions with up to 50% recurring discounts. In order to know about hawkhost in better way, our hosting experts have collected a list of hawkhost FAQ so our readers can learn hawkhost service side by side.

Q: When was Hawkhost setup?
A: Hawkhost was founded in 2004 by Tony Baird in Canada.

Q: Where is hawkhost data center located?
A: Hawkhost provides total of 5 data center locations from Dallas, Washington, Los Angeles, Amsterdam & Singapore. Clients can select desired location during order procedures.

Q: What kind of hosting server server used by hawkhost?
A: Hawkhost configured all hosting servers by DELL production with RAID 10 and Newest Generation Intel Processors. Every server is configured with minimum 64GB memory and standard 1Gbit network ports.

As about web server, hawkhost uses litespeed which is 9 times faster than apache but 100% compatible with apache configurations.

Q: How many hosting plans available from hawkhost?
A: Hawkhost provides shared, reseller, VPS and semi dedicated server hosting plans. Each class plan provides multiple choice with different specifications.

Q: What kind of payment terms available?
A: Hawkhost provides 30 day full money back guarantee for all hosting plans. If you're unsatisfied for any reason, they company will gladly refund your payment.

Q: What kind of hosting control panel used by hawkhost?
A: Hawkhost provides standard cpanel hosting control panel and a custom panel. Custom panel is seamlessly connected to cpanel options by APIs and clients be able to complete most tasks here without logging to cpanel center. It actually provides a simplified cpanel navigation with only the most important items such as domain management, database and email management etc. Customers can also login to cpanel directly without need a user name and password from custom panel.

hawkhost account panel

Q: Does hawkhost provide free domain name?
A: Unfortunately no. Hawkhost provides seperate domain registration service which costs for $10/yr.

Q: What's the available PHP & Mysql version?
A: Hawkhost provides multiple choice for php including PHP 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6 and 7.0, MySQL server is configured as MariaDB for highest performance, current version is on 10.0.20-MariaDB-cll-lve.

Q: Does hawkhost provide CDN support?
A: Yes, hawkhost provides cloudflare as standard integration from control panel center. Actually the hawkhost official site is also powered by cloudflare.

Q: Does hawkhost provide SSL support?
A: Yes, hawkhost provides free shared certification for each account. Plus, hawkhost provides very affordable SSL. During hosting account order process, clients have option to add ssl directly for only $14/yr. You can also add it later in account center.

Q: How does hawkhost reduce email spam?
A: Hawkhost is partnered with SpamExperts for enterprise grade spam filtering solution. Clients be able to generate and manage DKIM/SPF records to ensure your email is delivered to all your recepients. With support by spamexperts, you can filter close to 99% of spam destined for your inbox. More features of spamexperts can be found on their official site.

Q: Does hawkhost provide live support?
A: Hawkhost provides support in many channels including web chat, email, ticket and phone calls. The company also have a blog where people can comment directly.

Q: Why do I get limited disk storage?
A: Hawkhost provides exact amount of disk space per hosting account with start of 10GB, in this way no overuse will happen to affect other accounts on same server. However, the amount of space is more than enough for most website requirements.

Q: Does hawkhost provide SSD server?
A: Yes, but not on all hosting servers, VPS and semi dedicated servers are all powered by SSD. But for shared servers, they're currently upgrading and not finished yet on all data centers. To make sure you're hosted on SSD server, just contact pre sales support.

Q: What's the backup policy from hawkhost?
A: Hawk Host will make a good faith effort to keep seven (7) days worth of backups through software accessible by client. However, Hawk Host makes no absolute guarantee that a backup can be provided. The customer is ultimately responsible for maintaining and storing their own backups. .

Q: Does hawkhost provide free website migration?
A: Yes, hawkhost actually provides free migration for all class hosting solutions.

Q: What really makes hawkhost outstanding?
A: Hawkhost is outstanding among all other hosts because of the following:

  1. Super fast: Hawkhost uses litespeed web server and mariadb for all hosting servers, clients can also select prefered data center location to ensure guaranteed connectivity.
  2. Advanced security: Hawkhost provides advanced security protection for customer accounts and websites. PHP suexec is standard configuration for all servers thus each account scripts will be running under different user rights to avoid any security cross.
  3. Rich feature service: Hawkhost provides all basic features to launch a successful website. Either server platform or software installations are unbeatable premium.

Q: What kind of promotion offered by hostmonster?
A: Hawkhost provides different promotions for different services. You can claim one time 50% discount by following this hawkhost coupon and they currently provides official 25% recurring discount for all server plans during holiday promotion.

Visit www.hawkhost.com

How to Choose Perfect Shared Hosting Plan

how to choose perfect shared hosting plan

Money saving is probably the primary concern by most people for hosting plan choice. Hosting is a matured business nowadays and many companies be able to reduce price in order to get customer purcharse. Because of this, the price range is big from different providers.

For most web hosting providers, there're multiple class hosting plans to choose from, such as starter, advance and business class etc. They come with different tech parameters and support features. How should we select even if the lowest plan seems to be working with our requirements? Following article will describe the real difference among different class plans side by side and guide you to select the most suitable plan by expert experience.

Compare Feature

When there're multiple class hosting choice (normally three), we must compare carefully about what we can get and how much to pay for extra service. Things like amount of disk storage, number of supported websites and databases etc can be seen directly. What you should evaluate is your potential needs such as if you're going to use a dedicated IP or ssl certificate or install a server side component etc.

Take SSL for example, if we purchase a 256 bit certificate seperately from ssl company, the price might be $100/yr. Plus, we will have to purchase a dedicated IP for installation. But for some cases, it's include for free with some plans at very affordable cost and hosting provider will handle installation too at zero fee!

Another concern is about the website usage, maybe you start with a small application but it grows fast because you want to make it popular. For such situation, you should not choose the very basic solution.

Hosting Server Consideration

We have been working as hosting support before in hosting company. What we found is they put different class plan accounts on different servers. I'm not saying server hardware configuration but the resource usage. For instance, normally they put 100 customer accounts on medium class plan server, but they host more than 200 accounts for basic account server. So you know the result..

You get what you pay, it's not only refering to available technical features but the actual performance and the problem rate in hosting web site. For so many sites on a single server, even a small problem might bring down all other sites.

How about the highest class plan? Well, besides some extra offer, there's no difference with medium class solution. They hosting company simply put them together as most technical features are the same. So unless you really need that much features from highest class plan, you don't have to pay the extra money at all.

Should You Upgrade?

Upgrade is a must when your current plan can not meet the website growth needs. If you just want extra server resource, probably the hosting supplier can offer it directly at exatra pay. But if you want to upgrade performance, We would suggest sign up a new account directly? Why? Because most upgrades are only to allocate more support features to hosting account and there's no change of hosting server!

For this case, if you're previously hosted at basic server environment, upgrade will not transfer your account to a new less crowd platform. Unless it's clearly stated by hosting company that upgrade means server migration, you should never do upgrade directly for better performance.

Is Hosting Service Really Cheap?

Yes, it's cheap but not so cheap. There're indeed lots of cheap hosting services with unbeatable prices, but it's the same story of "starter plan" where your account server is shared by tens and hundreds of other clients. That's the only way for hosting providers to be profitable.

Enterprise grade hardware, Bandwidth and data center services plus daily maintenance, hosting is not cheap at all. Thus if you need good performance, you must pay a reasonable price.

Pay by Use Choice – Cloud

For people who need extremely high performance server but do not use it every day, cloud hosting is perfect choice. Cloud hosting is featured for its pay by use advantage. When you don't want to use for some time, you can temperarily stop the service then re-enable it when you need to use again.

HostMonster FAQ

hostmonster faq

When we talk about the largest and oldest web hosting service, hostmonster is always in the list. Hostmonster had been recognized standard linux hosting choice over 10 years. From the company early times, hostmonster stands for industry standards of simple and professional personal linux provider. Time flies, how's the company doing for now? Our hostmonster FAQ base will give you answers from indepth review side by side.

Q: When was hostmonster company founded?
A: Hostmonster was initially created in 1996 by Matt Heaton in Utah, its the sister site of bluehost.com

Q: What's hostmonster data center specification?
A: Hostmonster Utah data centers are 3 of the best that're setup by modern technologies. The data center building itself is welll optimized to accept multi upstreams in concret walls. The environment is properly configured for well ventilation and humidity control. Smart fire/smoke detection device is working 24*7 for accurate positioning.

Q: What's the hostmonster server specification?
A: Hostmonster servers are all DELL production for enterprise grade hardware choice. Each server is scalable to deal with different web service requests. Each server is configured by following specifications:

  • Dual E5530 2.40GHz Xerox CPU
  • Minimum 24GB RAM
  • 250GB RAID 1 (mirrored) OS drive
  • 1 TB RAID 1 (mirrored) data cache drive
  • Centos linux with betterlinux optimization

Q: What kind of hosting service available from hostmonster?
A: Hostmonster had been famous for its single shared linux hosting solution. Now the company provides shared, VPS and dedicated server hosting plans.

Q: What kind of money back guarantee available?
A: Hostmonster provides 30 day no question asked full money back guarantee. All hosting plans are not contractual so you can always close service then get pro-rated refund.

Q: What kind of hosting control panel used by hostmonter?
A: Hostmonster provides deeply customized cpanel control panel. It includes all common functions in using a hosting account such as billing, domain name and hosting management. The team also re-organized the interface to improve its efficiency. Except the file manager, there's no much shadow of cpanel. See online control panel demo.

Q: What kind of website builder and scripts installer available?
A: Hostmonster integrated weebly website builder to control panel, if you already have a project on weebly site, you can publish to hostmonster account directly.

For scripts installer, hostmonster do not use traditional fantastic or softaculous. Instead, they use Mojomarketplace – a development platform for both paid and free scripts. Most available scripts from other installers can be located on this platform.

Q: What's the PHP & Mysql version on server?
A: For PHP, it's currently configured on 5.4.24, for MySQL, it's 5.5.42

Q: Does hostmonster provide CDN support?
A: Yes, hostmonster added cloudflare into hosting control panel. We can use free or paid subscription directly from control panel center.

Q: Does hostmonster provide mobile support?
A: Hostmonster provides "goMobi" mobile website builder. So if you want to develop mobile compatible website, you can start here. Please keep in mind it costs $2.99/mo per site.

Q: Does hostmonster provide secure SMTP/POP3 server?
A: Yes, either SMTP or POP3 or IMAP is secured by SSL. The webmail interface is also ssl enabled for secure communication.

Q: How can I contact hostmonster support?
A: Hostmonster is powered by a solid support team in many channels such as live chat, ticket and email. However, be sure to select the most suitable way to get support. More contact details for different departments are provided on this page.

Q: How much disk and bandwidth allocated to my account?
A: Hostmonster provides unlimited server space and traffic to each account. Unlimited means unmetered, they do not monitor the usage, but in case your account usage is too high comparing to "reasonable" rate for shared environment, your site will be suspended till problem fixed.

Q: Does hostmonster provide SSD server?
A: No, hostmonster does not offer SSD support for the moment. Instead, they implemented SAS with RAID configuration on all drives.

Q: What kind of backup policy available from hostmonster?
A: Hosmonster provides daily/weekly and monthly backup to download. You can also take advantage of Site Backup & Restore PRO to restore a few specific files. This service can be purchased at $11.99/yr per site from control panel center.

Q: Does hostmonster provide free website migration service?
A: Yes, they do offer migration service at $149.99. This price includes up to 5 websites transfer and up to 20 email accounts migration.

Q: What makes hostmonster service solid?
A: What really makes hostmonster outstanding is their solid and honest service. All products/service from the company is publicly offered, you can find specification and price directly on web page, no hidden fees at all. You can find cheap web hosting plans easily but you have to pay for any extra support. It's not the case at hostmonster because what you see is what you get.

Q: What kind of promotion offered by hostmonster?
A: Hostmonster currently provides 50% discount for vps & dedicated server plans for one month subscription. So if you want to try out their service for high end requirements, just refers to www.HostMonster.com and claim the promotion.

15 Most Epically Bad Tech Product

In IT industry, there have been lots of excellent products such as iPhone smart mobile and Intel Centrino laptop. However, like each coin has two sides, there're also some lousy products which is recognized not recoverable failure. But they did leave their marks in history. For instance the Nokia game phone which was trying to compete with Sony & Nintendo in game industry but finally failed. Such failure told us we must fix user problems and fulfill their requirements other than just any advanced concepts. Following are the most epically bad tech product rated by ZNET.

SimCity (2013)

simcity

SimCity 5 is probably the most unsuccessful game. Gamers weren't even able to log in half the time. Those who were part of the lucky few could barely do anything when in game-play mode. In some cases, large amounts of their created cities were lost, according to user reports. Maxis team even have to aplogize to gamers.

The Apple Newton MessagePad (1983)

Newton MessagePad

The first PDA, this landmark technology flopped because it was TOO ahead of its time. Add in a $700 price tag,  a less-than-perfect handwriting feature that got lampooned in a Doonesbury cartoon, and you got, as Wired wrote, "a prophetic failure."

Sony Betamax Player (1975)

Sony Betamax

Launched a year after JVC released the revolutionary VHS player, the Betamax was technically superior. However, it lost to VHS because it a) cost more, and b) had tapes that lasted only one hour, as opposed to the 3 hours of VHS.

HTC First "Facebook Phone" (2013)

Facebook Phone

Blasted even before its launch as a failure, users decidedly disliked the "Facebook phone." The facebook home user experience is bad, and the most important thing is you can also install Facebook Home from other Android phone. When AT&T did a price reduction "sale" from $99 to $0.99, still not many people willing to buy.

Hewlett Packard TouchPad (2011)

Touchpad

HP's attempt to compete with the iPad failed soon after it launched. The result for the company was a huge revenue loss. Time reported that Hewlett Packard, "wrote off $885 million in assets and incurred an additional $755 million in costs to wind down its webOS operations."

Laserdisc (1978)

Laserdisc

High-capacity storage discs, these disco-colored dinner plates were a) enormous, b) easy to break and c) very expensive. So, Laserdisc went the way of history, marked, as ZDNET  commented in an earlier article, as a flop.

Microsoft Bob for Windows (1995)

Microsoft bob

It was supposed to be a user-friendly interface for Windows. What it ended up being was a major failure for Microsoft, scrapped a mere year after launching. Why? As Bill Gates wrote, "Unfortunately, the software demanded more performance than typical computer hardware could deliver at the time, and there wasn't an adequately large market. Bob died."

Windows Vista (2007)

windows vista

The replacement for Windows XP was launched in January of 2007, and immediately triggered an avalanche of complaints about bugs. A mere four months later, Microsoft scrapped the system.

Toshiba's HD DVD (2006)

HD DVD

No doubt about it: The DVD war was definitely won by Sony's Blu-ray disc. Reputedly, Toshiba's investment in the losing product cost it over $1 billion.

Twitter #Music App (2013)

Twitter music App

The #Music app had reached top list in App Store. Why did this music discovery app fail? The main point is Twitter strategy fault and has no clear development plan. Development leader also left after the app put on store. Twitter finally dropped this App.

The original Xbox 360 and the red ring of death

Xbox 360

Microsoft released Xbox 360 at the end of 2005 and it came out endless problems with up to 68% repairing rate. This problem in the original Xbox 360 caused Microsoft to extend the warranty to three years, and also cost more than $1 billion to fix.

Mobile ESPN (2006)

Mobile ESPN

A phone that carried exclusive ESPN content and video, it was, according to Business Insider, "one of the biggest flame-outs of mobile virtual network operators."

The product launched in January only to be shut down eight months later as its $400 price tag proved too steep for even the most obsessive sports fanatic.

Healthcare.gov launch (2013)

Healthcare.gov

The rollout of the Obamacare website was, in short, a disaster. The site was announced to be invested over 800 million USD with over 0.5 billion codes. No one was able to use the site in the initial launch, and its massive failure resulted in Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius's resignation. Eventually, the government called in tech giants such as Google to help fix its disaster of a website.

Samsung smartwatches in 2014

Sumsung smartwatch

Well, no one bought them. That, plus lackluster mobile sales combined to drive Samsung's profits down a whopping 60 percent in 2014.

Amazon's Fire phone

Amazon Firephone

Remember last year, when Amazon tried to launch a phone? Remember how it totally crashed and burned?

Just how bad of a failure was it? Business Insider reported Amazon had to take a $170 million charge on all those phones people didn't buy.

Originally post available on this Znet page by Lisa Bernier.