Shopping for a web host

It is tiring, looking at the all the options available and than selecting which company to host with and this is not an easy job, but if you know hat you want it becomes slightly easy.

I have been busy window shopping for a web hosting for an ASP .Net and MS SQL Server hosting for the last one week and after spending plenty of time and numerous emails and reading reviews of the hosts I have finally picked one.

Finding a good host is not difficult but finding one which is reliable and is in your budget is no mean task and finding one which has everything you need in one package is even tougher. Hosting companies are plentiful; offering PHP, MySQL combinations with plenty of disk space and database space, but finding a hosting company offering ASP .Net and MS SQL Server is not easy. As the ones that you like are the ones which are very expensive and the ones that fit your budget are those which offer only 25-50MB database space which is not much when you’re planning a portal. So one should spare sometime for selecting the right hosting company as you don’t want your web site going down due to one problem or another.

Another thing which I noticed while looking for the web hosting was that there are a couple of companies who operate under different names and offer almost the same features, only customers who are aware can find this out. I found this out by simple doing a ‘trace route’ to there web sites and interestingly found the same results. Another thing which I saw was that there are some web site which offer features like you send in your request for proposal and they than send them off to there hosting companies and than they get back to you with the best quote, yes it seems to be a good idea BUT this web site is owned and operated by a the hosting company and you only get a response from them, as they are the one ones who get the RFP; cheeky!

Most of the web hosting rankings and reviews that I have read are sponsored by the web hosting companies or are operated by there resellers who get a commission on there referral, so they are not of much use, as there rankings don’t change.

Let me know if you need any help with selecting a web host, may be you can gain something from my experience.

Internet Explorer 7 to address security issues

Microsoft announced the upcoming release of Internet Explorer 7 yesterday, which will be available in beta format sometime during this summer.The idea driving the update of Microsoft's browser is security. At the RSA Conference during his keynote speech, Bill Gates explained Internet Explorer 7.0 would provide a strong defense against phishing, malicious software and spyware.

More on this story as it develops.

The new MSN Search

MSN started using it own search technology from today and leaving the Yahoo! technology which it had licensed sometime back.

On the first look at the new full Microsoft search engine looks really chic with the UI having some great features which allow writing complex search queries really easy, especially for people who do not know much about them. One really cool feature is that you can specify the country and language of the web site you want to search and can adjust the settings by graphical equalizer bars! You can now also search content from Encarta which previously was through subscription.

On the indexing side Microsoft claims that the new search indexes more than 5 billion pages and that it is updated every 2 days as compared to the industry average of 2 weeks. The new MSN search has been given a new and much improved place on the man MSN page and you can also adjust the theme of the page, I found the white theme pretty good, possibly something other portals will follow.

The speed of MSN search is good too, but time will tell when more and more users start using MSN Search how the MS clusters responds and whether it maintains the speed or not.

These were all the good things, but the main thing which matters is the quality of results and that is really bad. I know I have said in the previous posts that the quality is improving but than MSNS was using technology which was a mixture of its own and from Yahoo! but now that it is using its very own, the results are not good. I searched my name on MSNS and found some strange results will if I do the same on Yahoo! and Google I get different results and ones that I expect to make it to the top.

So as far as the usability and interface is concerned MSNS is good but on quality of the results more is desired.

Check out the MSN Search here.

Why have I started hating Google?

If punishments were to be awarded on writing negative comments about companies that people on the internet simply adore, than I would get a life term for this heading. But I have a very valid reason for writing this.

I have been trying to get a web site, which I maintain [RIBT] on the first page of Google for sometime, but with little success. I have tried all sorts of things from robots.txt to link sharing, page renaming to getting my web site listed in some major directories. But all this has not paid off much; as I was only focusing on getting my web site on Google, being the one that most people refer to. After this run with not much success I tried out the other search engines which I had almost stopped using, Yahoo!, Ask Jeeves and MSN Search.

When I tried searching for my web site on Yahoo! I got great results, so while I was focusing on getting my site on top at Google, which hasn’t happened as yet but it comes on top at Yahoo! Thus my interest in finding results from other search engines grew. I tried MSN Search which is a lot better than when I last used it. Ask Jeeves is not bad either, and is giving good results. Lycos although I do not like the look of its main page but none the less its result are good.

After I checked these search engines I had a look at my website log files. Since I use web site log analyzing software which makes it easy to track the bots and crawlers which last crawled the web site and what amount of information they actually crawled. An analysis of the logs reveals that the Yahoo/Inktomi Slurp visits the web site 4 times more than the GoogleBot and crawls more data per visit than the GoogleBot. I checked my robots.txt file again to verify if I was making any mistakes in it that made the GoogleBot go away from some directories but there seems to be no problem.

I am very impressed by the results that Yahoo! and other search engines are giving, not that Google is very bad but it seems to me that it is loosing the edge that it had. Although Google has been instrumental in improving the search market and forcing the other search engines to improve, which I think they are doing now. I checked on the internet to see if there were more people like me who are getting frustrated with Google. So my search took me to ‘Yahoo! Search and MSN Search Close the Gap with Google’. A very interesting read and would also second my views when it comes to the quality of search for what Google is known for, I guess they are just focusing too much on Desktop Search, Gmail and other stuff, which Yahoo! and Microsoft already have and are catching up on the web search!

The team at Google has some work cut-out as according to a report by ZDNet Google May be the Favoured Tool of Hackers in 2005, so I guess popularity has its price! Now they would know whets it like being the big guy as criticism pours in as it does at Microsoft.

So how do I get my life term waived, oh Yes! I will right something bad about Microsoft next time. :-)

Worth reading:

MSN's Web search picks up steam

Google's search for security

Apple Unveils No Frills Computer, iPod

The Mac Mini lacks a monitor, mouse and keyboard. The 40 gigabyte version will cost $499, an 80-gigabyte model $599. They ship with Apple's new operating system, OS X Panther, as well as the newest version of iLife.

Full story: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Apple-Unveils-No-Frills-Computer-iPod-39676.html

FB: Although I have never been a fan of Apple, nor have I been a fanatic of the iPod, but the way things are going I may end up buying the new Mac Mini just to try it out. And this 'trying out' thing may be the factor that lures many PC users to the new Mac, but I guess it would be just to have fun and be the kid on the block who also has a Mac! The success of the iPod and the iTunes has played a major part in Apple's revival, Apple which was valued last January at $4-5Billion is now valued at $27Billion and the sales of iPod last year has passed industry estimates, and if these figure look good than have a look at the companies 1st quater report.

From what I have read from the newspapers there is even talk of Steve Jobs getting into the Hollywood scene with the same iTunes concept, which would mean we may possibly be buying/downloading movies over the internet 'legally'. Although the Mac Mini is a very big risk for Apple and it is not only taking on Microsoft but also Intel in this PC v Mac price drop war and only time will tell if Apple can lure the PC users to the Mac. As for me I would probably end up using the Mac to play movies :-)

On the subject of price drop wars have a look at Wal-Marts sub $500 PCs here.

Search Looks at the Big Picture

Searching the internet for images or videos often leads down a blind alley or worse -- to deceitful advertisers or unsuitable content. Researchers are developing visualization technologies that can "see" inside images, reducing search engines' reliance on text-based image tags that are easily manipulated.

Search companies testing the waters of image retrieval see it as a lucrative method of connecting advertisers with customers, according to Chris Sherman, editor of the SearchDay newsletter. Yahoo, Google and MSN, as well as AOL's Singingfish have launched websites for searching static images and video.

Read full storry at: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,66185,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

FB: I recently had a search engine bot crawl my web site which I did not know off, so I back tracked it to from where it came from and what was it that it wanted since it just crawled the robot.txt file on the root and went back. After tracking it down I found out it was an image crawler, part of a new search engine which is still in testing and processes images. Since my 'robot.txt' file had

Disallow: /image/

Thus the bot just went back to where it came form with out actually crawling the web site. What this new technology means is that we would have image processing search engines which would not rely on the meta data of the web site but on the content of the image itself, thus big shift towards some positives. This way search engines can cut down on pornography and other obscene material of graphic nature which previously could not be controlled, the online e-tailers would have a field day with there products getting higher recognition in the search results. But this new technology is yet to mature but is growing fast!

I will be posting more on this as I come across more material

Mobile players look beyond 3G

Twenty-six of the biggest players in the mobile phone industry have signed an accord that could lead to newer, faster wireless technology. The companies behind the initiative include Vodafone, NTT DoCoMo, NEC, Siemens, Alcatel and about 20 others. The aim of the consortium is to develop a new standard for the transmission of data over mobile networks - a standard that will be up to 10 times faster than 3G (UMTS), which is still in its infancy.

The as-yet-undeveloped standard is to be called "Super 3G", according to early media reports, which also say that development of the technology could conclude by 2007, with commercial launches after 2009. It is thought that the new standard could allow for services not available over 3G, including continuous video broadcasting and full movie downloads.

Read full storry at: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/05/super_3g/

FB: With mobile companies paying billions of pounds for 3G licenses and not getting exactly what they had expected; so I guess this means they would have to join hands to make sure that in order to beat competition they would have to join hands when it comes to standards. We have already seen with 3G especially in the UK market only '3' is getting open acceptance with the consumers, not because of the services or any added facilities but only because of the prices plans on offer, while 3’s main rival in the UK market 'Vodafone' is targeting the high end of the market with the premium content. I cannot comment on Vodafone’s ‘3G live’ since the service was only launched about a month back, lets see what sort of feedback it gets. There are news that 'Orange' and 'T Mobile' are also about to launch there 3G services, will this mean a war of pricing with '3' already offering plans as low as £5 per month. Go consumers!