Dedicated Server, VPS, and VoIP web hosting solutions Blog | Ping Pipe Power

There are many shared hosts that offer free hosting, and dedicated servers are often advertised at surprisingly low monthly costs. One thing remains constant with all web hosting companies: you get what you pay for, and offers that seem to good to be true usually are. Web hosting costs have come down a lot in recent years, but usually lower cost means lower value.

In a network operations center, even air isn’t free. Dedicated server power supplies get hot and need to be cooled.  Air conditioning is a major expense for data centers, and that expense should be part of what makes up your monthly web hosting cost. Don’t limit your search when searching for a host. Cheap hosting companies are cheap for a reason, and usually that means cheap service.

In most cases it is better to pay a bit more for value, and choose a web host that has a 100% network uptime guarantee, premium bandwidth,  and always available support services that respond to your questions in a timely manner. 

When you lock yourself out of your car or house it is easy enough to call a locksmith;  locking yourself out of your dedicated server is a whole different level of frustration. It is easier than you think.  All it takes is one mistake when configuring a software-based firewall, and then you are no longer able to log into your server as root Administrator. The easiest way to address this is with KVM access to your server.  KVM is short for Keyboard Video Mouse, it gives you a separate IP to access your server and launches a Java-based screen that is like you are virtually standing in front of a video console plugged into your server.  KVM also gives you the ability to remotely power cycle your server at anytime, via the same separate IP address. Many of the dedicated server solutions available at PingPipe include KVM and remote reboot f0r free.

On the internet, having redundancy  is very important. Let me repeat that: on the internet, having redundancy is very important. Suppport services are always available to physically reboot your dedicated server at the network level, the free KVM that is included on PingPipe dedicated server specials is a great value-added bonus of also always having an alternate way to reach the login prompt of your dedicated server. Visit pingpipe.com to check out all of the current dedicated server specials that include your own KVM with remote reboot and free setup !

When you are ready to sign up for a discount priced dedicated server be sure you know what you are getting before you pay.  It’s natural to want to spend as little as possible for your dedicated server, but the lowest cost server may not be the best server for you.

In today’s marketplace it is not uncommon to see dedicated servers for under $100 per month. PingPipe’s is currently offering a Celeron D server starting at just $89.

When you see a provider offering a dedicated server for under $75/month you should take a close look at the hardware configuration. Often providers  will re-rent old servers  until they can no longer be repaired, rather than stay current with their hardware. If you are considering renting a dedicated server that costs between $50 to $75/month there’s a very good chance that it has been in use for over 4 years,  it might have many components that are “living on borrowed time”. It’s also going to have a less powerful processor than what is available at a higher price point.

Low price does not mean high value. Check the hardware configuration to see that the processor is powerful enough for any applications you will be running. Remember that time is money – spending a bit more to get current hardware can save you money in the long term.  If your site (or your client’s site) is not available due to an avoidable hardware failure  the short term savings of a few dollars a month will be poor compensation for your lost traffic and customers.

Finding a unique domain name is getting more and more difficult.  When making a choice, often people find that “all the good ones are taken”. While this might be the case for the “mainstream” extensions, a great alternative is to check the regional extension for the market you are targeting.  Check your favorite search engine  search engine for a registrar – there’s a good chance your domain will be available. Some countries have this requirement that you have to have a presence there (like .dk for Germany, or .ca for Canada), but a lot don’t (like .tv – which seems to be getting more popular, and isn’t restricted to TV shows as some people think – its the top level domain  for the islands of Tuvalu).

Having a domain name with the country-specific extension of the country you are targeting for your business will help with your branding in the local market. If you’d like to register one to use on your dedicated server or shared hosting solution contact the PingPipe sales team for assistance with the registration process.

RAID is a short form for the phrase “redundant array of independent disks”. It involves having more than one hard drive and most often installing  controller hardware on your server so that the operating system only “sees” one drive. Having RAID on your dedicated server is a good way to protect your data and can help make accessing any single file quicker than when only a single hard drive is used. There are many different levels of RAID you can choose to implement, among the most popular are the following:

RAID 0 – Technically, this level is not true RAID, as there is no redundancy. The disks in a RAID-0 array are partitioned into many sectors, and data is written onto each sector in a striping fashion. There is no redundancy, so if any one hard drive fails the data on it is lost.

RAID 1 – This is when your data is mirrored onto multiple hard drives. The information stored on each disk is identical, so this level of RAID can be thought of as a “real-time backup”. Data can be read from either hard drive, so it speeds up access times when there are multiple users. If any one disk fails it can be replaced and the array will rebuild itself.

RAID 5 – This level of RAID uses three or more hard drives, and provides a higher level of protection and redundancy  for your data if any one disk fails.

RAID 10 – This is a combination of RAID-1 and RAID-0. It allows for quicker access times than RAID-1 alone, while protecting your data.

Server hard drives are mechanical, and as such they do sometimes fail. If your data is important RAID should be in your hardware budget, perhaps with secure backup space also (as another level of redundancy). RAID can be thought of as a form of insurance for your data: you may never have to take advantage of it, but it only takes one hard drive failure to make you wish you had it. It’s best that you order RAID on your new dedicated servers when you place the order. If you wait until after the operating system has been loaded a reformat would be needed in order to have the RAID card recognized by the server. RAID is an available option on most dedicated servers with PingPipe.

With a bit of planning, moving your website to a dependable host is no need for concern.  You can seamlessly complete the migration if you follow a few easy steps:

1) Backup your site content hosted with the “old” provider. Connect to your account there with your ftp client,  download a copy of your website, and save it on your computer.

2) Sign up with your new hosting provider. Choosing webhosting with PingPipe is quick and easy. As soon as your payment is verified setup of your new account will get underway. Once your account is setup you will receive a Welcoming Email with your account details.

3) Visit your domain registrar and add modify the DNS settings of the third and forth nameservers.

4) Upload a copy of the content backup to the new host’s  server. When you choose webhosting with PingPipe detailed instructions are included in your welcoming email.

5) Visit your domain registrar and Delete the nameserver (DNS) information of the “old” host.

It could take up to three days for the DNS changes to propagate, and during that time visitors will be served your website from either the old host’s server or the new server.  It’s recommended to not do updates to your website(s) during that time.  After 3 days you should not see the “old” host nameservers when you do a whois search, and it will be ok to cancel your account with the “old” host.

That way your site will never go offline during the move.  Webhosting with PingPipe includes access to an extensive knowledge base, and friendly support available 24/7.

Many people wonder if they should include the income they receive through PayPal on their tax returns.  It is commonly thought that these funds are “hidden” and therefore do not need to be disclosed to the taxman. Unfortunately this is not true. Taxation laws are different throughout the world, but the one thing that is constant is that no matter what country you pay taxes to it is the government that collects them.  You should never underestimate the power of a federal tax collector to uncover financial information. If you are subject to a formal tax audit the person conducting it will need access to all of your records of income and expenses, and will most likely be able to obtain all of your  income information through the courts if necessary. The penalties in most countries for tax evasion are generally far more severe than the amount of tax owing. If you are in doubt about what income to declare or have questions it’s wise to check with your accountant or a local tax expert before you submit your tax return. In many cases you will be able to  also declare any expenses you incurred (like transaction fees, eBay charges, etc) to offset your declared income, which will lower the amount of tax you will have to pay. By way of disclaimer, we are not taxation experts and laws do vary in each country. In North America, for instance,  it just is not worth the risk of not declaring income received via PayPal on your income tax return. This is especially true when there is a large amount of money or many transactions involved.

With so many possible domain name extensions to choose from it can be difficult to decide which to use for your business. When deciding on a domain name for your web site dot com is still king in the domain world, especially for ecommerce sites. What should you do if they domain name you want has already been taken? One option is to do a search of the WHOIS database to find out the current owner and ask them if they’d like to sell the domain name to you. The WHOIS database is like the telephone “white pages” of the internet, it lists all the domain names that are owned, and the registrant’s contact information. Another option would be to change your domain name choice slightly. If you decide to try this, it’s best to avoid hyphens. It’s quite possible that many people will forget to include the dash and you will just be driving traffic to your competitor.  Generally, a domain name that can be written as a single word  (like mydomain.com) will present a more professional image and be easier for prospective clients to remember. As we mentioned in a previous post, there are many domain extensions available. If you can’t get the .com you might want to consider the .net. Regional extensions (like .co.uk) are a good choice if you are targeting a specific country. In order to help as much as possible with search engine optimization get a domain name that directly relates to your target market and contains keyword(s) related to your product or service.

PingPipe offers a great domain registration service. You can purchase yours when you sign up for your dedicated server or shared hosting service, or add one later at anytime from the PingPipe client area.

In the earliest days of the internet there were no domain names. There were few enough servers on the internet that reaching the one you wanted by typing an IP address didn’t seem to be a problem. As the number of servers on the internet grew it became increasingly cumbersome to remember a long series of seemingly random numbers that made up each IP address. This was no longer a problem after 1984, the year that the “name server” was invented.  You no longer had to remember a long series of seemingly random numbers to reach a web server; you now could access it by a recognizable name.

.com was intended for commercial sites (released in 1985)

.net was intended for network sites (released in 1985)

.org was intended for non-commercial organizations (released in 1985)

There were other extensions to be aware of, but they didn’t come up too often:

.edu is used for educational institutions, mostly post-secondary (released in 1985)

.gov is used for the US government (released in 1985)

As long as you remembered that the website of the White House was whitehouse.gov (as it is part of the government) and not a commercial site you were fine. (the .com is a pornographic site)

Eventually all the “good” domain names were claimed and in 2000 the following top-level domains became available:

.aero is used exclusively for the aviation community. (released in 2002)

.biz was intended for business sites. (released in 2001)

.coop is used exclusively for co-operative community. (released in 2001)

.info intended for informational websites, anyone can register one. (released in 2001 )

.museum exclusively for the museum community. (released in 2001 )

.name was intended for individuals. (released in 2001)

.pro was intended for professionals. (released in 2004 )

In 2003 the following were approved:

.asia a regional domain  (released in 2006)

.cat is used exclusively to highlight the Catalan language and culture. (released in 2005)

.jobs is meant to help companies hire new employees. (released in 2005)

.mobi is to be used exclusively for the mobile internet. (released in 2005)

.tel was intended to be used for storing contact details. (released in 2005)

.travel was intended for use by the travel industry (released in 2005)

There are currently well over 100 million active registered domain names with these extensions. In addition to all these there are also country-specific domains, such as .dk for Germany, .cn for China, and .ca for Canada. When these country-specific domains are included the total number of all active domain names world-wide is astronomical. Just this past month news was released that “non-English-alphebet” domain extensions will soon be available as well. Top-level extensions of all Korean characters (for instance) will be added into the Domain Name Server (DNS) records.

With so many available domain extensions to choose from and remember one has to wonder if we might have come full circle. Remembering IP numbers might be more convenient.

In the highly competitive marketplace that we currently find ourselves businesses of all sizes are reconsidering how to make their advertising budget more effective. Gone are the days when a company would only have to purchase a telephone book advertisement to generate new sales. Most consumer buying decisions are now based on research done on the Internet, and how a business appears online has a direct effect on its bottom line. Many experts claim that a company should increase the amount they spend on marketing when the economy is in decline, fortunately online marketing does not have to be a major expense. The fundamentals of an effective online marketing campaign are the same as any other:  generating the maximum amount of revenue as a return on the amount of money you invest.  It’s pretty easy to get your contact information listed in online directories, but if that is the only way you are advertising online you are letting someone else control the delivery of your message. To effectively advertise online a company has to have its own website. Your company website is a “virtual business card“ that is always available to your new sales prospects. A blog is a quick and easy way to update both established and new clients. With a quick visit to your blog they can learn all your company news and sales specials. You don`t need to have any knowledge of website design to launch your blog.  All shared hosting accounts with PingPipe include user-friendly template software that will let you choose the look and feel of your blog, and make changes whenever you want to. There are literally hundreds of themes available, and if you prefer to have unique layouts just ask and we’ll provide you with a list of fully qualified blog designers.

Click here to learn more about hosting your blog with PingPipe.