Is affordable web hosting the best rated?
Understanding the relationship of affordable web hosting vs. the best rated web hosting is an important decision making process.
Knowing what your web site needs will help you decide whether or not to go with affordable web hosting. In the 15 years or so since web sites have been in existence, an unknown number of companies and individuals have begun to offer the products and services associated with owning and operating a website on the Internet. Before you can be assured of understanding what is right for your specific scenario, you’ll want to know a few things about your personal or professional online presence.
If you are coming from a medium to large sized business background, one of the most important aspects you’ll need to learn is whether or not a web hosting company has the resources and manpower behind them to service your needs. Nothing is worse that finding out you’ve been paying on a monthly contract and your web host is simply a reseller that has little knowledge or experience to help solve the inevitable challenges associated with web site hosting.
One should always start with the best rated web hosting opportunities and move down that list to find the best prices to fit your budget. You will almost always be happier with a company that has been reviewed by real world clients and stands above the crowd in terms of quality, reliability and service.
When it comes to understanding the importance of securing top notch hosting, simply imagine if you entire income was dependent upon all things working smoothly, as it related to your online business. You’ll likely know how much, on average your company makes per day. How many days could you survive if your income producing machine, your website, was off line to the world?
How many total hours per month would you accept if your site was not taking orders, selling widgets and shipping gadgets? Very few folks think in these terms when it comes to shopping around for web hosting. If you don’t, then you’ll be dissatisfied if you end up with a fly by night company that has little if any accountability in terms of keeping your business open and operating 24 hours a day.
A little diligence should provide you the perfect combination of a quality, affordable web hosting provider that is rated to provide you the best hosting your money can buy. You will either take the time and expend the effort before you secure a web hosting company or spend money, worry, and aggravation later wishing you had made a better choice.
Absolutely nothing is worse, as it relates to your business’s online presence when you start to get messages from clients, employees, or worst of all, competitors, telling you that your web site is down. Or perhaps there are just a number of little things that seem off or are not working correctly.
Do all the images on your web site show up on the page? Is your sales department receiving email inquiries that should be sent out from the form on your web pages? Sure a lot of these items might be due to faulty web site coding. Many times however, a web server’s configuration is incorrect, and no one realizes that emails never reach their target destination.
Taking the point of view that you get what you pay for isn’t necessarily the best, either. Just a little work on your part will help you better assess the best rated web hosting that exists out there, while still ensuring that your online budget is stretching as far as possible.
Extremes in price will simply not guarantee you the best or the worse hosting experiences. Check in with others and learn what is happening first hand with the web site hosting company of choice.
New fuel efficiencies reachable a decade ago
Recently the White House released a bevy of new fuel efficiency standards that appear to be hit goals 4 years ahead of the last administration’s time line.
Many are praising the bold attempts by the new president to help the United States oil consumer break their addictions to foreign oil. The stark reality, however is that most of these “new” standards could have been reached at least 10 years ago.
The biggest challenge to U.S. auto manufacturers comes not in the form of technology or engineering capability to make better vehicles. Actually, little has changed with respect to the techonlogical landscape recently. Instead, car makers have opted to go the route of making and selling larger, heavier SUV’s.
And since light trucks and sport utility vehicles have a much larger profit margin, their sales have gotten most of the focus. Add to this equation the fact that the heavier vehicles require much more torque and horsepower, and you begin to 
understand
what has happened to our declining vehicle fuel standards in this country.
With the new decree for higher miles per gallon to be achieved by 2016 instead of 2020, most analysts and experts are hoping to see innovation return to the U.S. auto industry.
How to install a dishwasher
Before those dishes start washing themselves, in addition to the new appliance, you are going to need a few things: fittings, like properly sized brass elbows to connect the dishwasher inlet to the copper supply line as well as compression fittings for attaching the supply under the sink to the angle stop. Your home repair and maintenance tool box should always have some Teflon tape for wrapping the threads of water spigots and other threaded pipe ends.
Medium sized wire nuts are always good around the house, and probably come with the new appliance. You’ll want to have hose clamps for attaching the drain hose, and some plumbers strap to secure that hose.
A few simple tools and a couple of specialty items are all you’ll need to complete this install. Again, your repair tool box should have a variety of screwdrivers, pliers and an adjustable wrench. If you don’t have wire strippers, make the investment, you’ll thank me later!
A power cordless drill will make the job easier. You’ll need a 2 inch hole cutter as well. If using copper tubing, you’ll want to have bending springs and a tube cutter (close quarter is preferred). Rubber or plastic tubing? You should be fine without investing in the pipe tools.
Connect your water supply line to the angle stop, or the “faucet” under the sink. Run your supply through the cabinet wall hole you drill there. If your electrical is coming from under the sink, it’s advisable to run through it’s own hole.
With the 2 lines now into empty appliance cavity, measure how much line you’ll need to connect to the water inlet and the electrical connection box. Don’t hesitate to gently tip the dishwasher forward to gain better access to the bottom of the appliance. From this position you can ensure the inlet fitting and electrical connections are secured. If you’re using copper tubing, leave a few inches past the inlet location, use a curving spring to bend the tube to the fitting.
Open the electrical box and run in your 3 wires: white, black and green with about 3/8 of an inch stripped. Using wire nuts, connect the 3 feed wires to their corresponding appliance lines. Replace the metal box cover, and ensure you’ve affixed the electrical feed line to the back wall.
Attach the drain line at the dishwasher side; secure with a hose clamp. Snake this line through at least a 2 inch hole into the under sink area. Clamp the end of the drain line to the inlet of your garbage disposal, or the sink’s tail piece and be sure to tighten the hose clamp to prevent leakage of discarded dish water.
Push the dishwasher all the way until the closed front is flush with the other cabinet doors. Using a small “torpedo” style level, make sure the dishwasher is level by adjusting one or both of the feet in front (they usually screw up and down.) With the dishwasher in place and level, insert small screws into the built in tabs just under the counter creating a stable connection between the top of the dishwasher and the underside of the counter.
Turn on your water supplies and check fittings. Give them some time, as a build up in pressure sometimes works out leaks. When you are certain all is dry, plug in or make your electrical connection and run a test cycle. Continue to check your water feed and intakes as well as the drain hose clamps on the appliance and under your sink.
Finally, if your model has a kick plate, insert it into place, tighten the install screws, and enjoy your new dishwasher. Take pride in the expert installation job and be happy with your water and energy savings.
2nd Plurk Plugin Test
Well, that last plugin didn’t work. Now trying WordPlurk from Blue Fur. Here goes!
Testing Blog to Plurk Plugin
Now testing the direct plugin that will post a blog’s title and link to the micro-blogging service, Plurk. How many of these services are there?!
Testing Blog to Identi.ca
Just checking out the Identi.ca plugin that will allow notification of new blog posts to their service’s page. Really just a complete copy of Alex King’s Twitter Tools. And interestingly enough, you can’t use both plugins at the same time since this plugins author didn’t make enough changes to the original code.
Oh, well 
CES and WordCamp Las Vegas wrap up soon
Just getting back into the flow of the work week. I promise to have posts up this week on my take of this year’s Consumer Electronic Show (CES) as well as the awesome WordCamp Las Vegas. Plus, I need to write my report on WCLV for work in order to get my expense reimbursement, so you know I’ll be doing that! Stay tuned…
@Fayza: The Politics & Practice of “Following” on Twitter
First and foremost, allow me to express my most sincere gratitude to have been a “featured” aspect of a post on Fayza’s blog. Believe me, reader, when you see your name in print, you pay attention. (Presuming, of course that you are one of the 99.9999% of people that don’t necessary see yourself in print often, if at all.) People I know seem to take it for granted that since (most of them are online folk) they live in the online spaces, seeing them selves in the “bright type” is the most natural thing. I, for one, still allow myself to be awed when it happens to me (and I wasn’t the one responsible for putting it there, of course!)
In a quick recap of events (from my perspective) that has led to publishing of this post:
- Here’s Fayza’s first post that I ever responded to. After 7 months, memory fails me exactly, however, I believe I stumbled upon Ms. Fayza while reading someone else’s twitter stream. She struck me as an intelligent, witty, attractive sort of person, so I jumped to her stream, @replying to her following tweet:
- To which I, being a recovering Scooby Doo Fanatic, was impelled to reply with:
- Over the ensuing 7 months, you’ll see the ten @replies I made towards Fayza. Oh, and I had followed her right after the Scooby reference, so I’ll have to presume that she was definitely getting my @replies. Plus given the volume of tweets that come from her, I thought it safe to assume that the ten times I did reply, she likely did actually see more than one of them:
jameskirk's direct responses to fayza
- Over the same span of time, here are the @replies that Fayza sent me (note, she still had not, nor never has, followed my twitter stream. Also worthy of noting, that last @reply from her was simply to directly notify me of the blog post she wrote, to which this post is my reply):
Fayza's direct responses to jameskirk
Okay, so enough of the show and tell. Hopefully, you’ll admit that this was clearly a one sided twitter affair from the very first mention of Scooby Snacks 
Onward.
Please note that Fayza’s use of the term “Qwitter” was totally and completely misinterpreted by me. You’re hearing me admit it now; as such, please accept my apologies. The assumption made on my part was that she had coined a new term for those that unfollow you on twitter. They are in effect “quitting” you. So, my take was that Fayza had created a groovy new term, “Qwitter”, a play on the words twitter and quitter (I’m sure there’s a name and description for what these concatenated terms are called. Someone please enlighten me!)
To my recollection, prior to the blog post Fayza created (again to which this post is my response) I had never observed her mention this new service Qwitter, and as such, I was completely ignorant of what she was referring to in that last tweet she made, referring to how she would quit you since you quit her. Again, due to tweeting in the dark and not completely understanding why she would thank the “Qwitter” (in my mind this was the person that had unfollowed her, and subsequently she had unfollowed; not the service) I thought it was a bit on the rude side, even for Ms. Fayza.
So, I responded with what I thought was a relatively level headed @reply:
“They are a Qwitter if they drop you, but what if you’ve never bothered to follow them (me?) and we follow you and then we qwit u?”
(You’ll note that the context of that tweet even indicates what I thought a “Qwitter” was)
Another interesting aspect is to note that I did not unfollow her right away, as she even indicated in her original post, “The Politics & Practice of ‘Following’ on Twitter“. It was another five (5) days of receiving her twitter stream and a final @reply on my part, that was not responded to which pushed me to push the “unFollow” button.
My “follow” philosophy is much like some of the commentors on Fayza’s post, specifically, Geakz
I very much agree with Geakz assessment on the “how to” of following someone on twitter (but have to admit to following the “A-Listers” out of form as well. Though I’m getting tired of Kawaski’s 99.99% alltop marketing tweets.)
I follow those I find interesting and whom I reach out to with hopes of getting a bit closer to them via the technologies of social networking. For all the reasons known to most of Fayza’s followers, I too followed. She is witty, poignant and often times so blunt that it just makes me chuckle to see her 140 characters or less. Until this incident, I didn’t realize that she even had a blog which contained her extremely engaging writings. You may say that I wasn’t “really into her” since I didn’t do any research to find out if she had created more of an online representation of herself. I didn’t do any research; and I rarely do that for anyone else I follow on twitter unless they give me the reason. By this I mean, I had never observed a tweet from Fayza indicating that she had a new blog post just published, or anything from any of the other 19 (yes, that’s NINETEEN) other social networks she has listed on her blog.
And cheers to her for taking the time to interact with so many other online communities. Seems like a full time job to me, and I am sincerely in awe of those that are able to spend the time and energy in those pursuits. You’ll note from some of my tweets that I like to keep the number of folks I follow on Twitter to right at 100. In fact, I just culled a bunch of non-responsive types from my list, and I have plenty of spots (32 as of this writing) should anyone be interested in “applying”
In conclusion, I’ll ask you, my friends and readers, based upon the other links and posts included in her article, why should Fayza be “lamenting” about losing a follower (especially one that she never followed after almost 8 months, and ten direct responses)? Her recognition that she had not engaged me is partially right on. I would be more likely to have continued my following of her twitter stream had she chose to respond. After a few more days of her (admittedly, entertaining and) out there posts, I opted to make more room on my twitter list of folks I follow.
Fayza shared her philosophy regarding “all it takes for her to hit the ‘unfollow’ button” with us in her post. My question is how much more must it take for you to hit the “follow” button?
