Shared Hosting is Still a Good Option

Cloud computing is getting all the attention right now, and rightfully so as it has great promise. Problem is, the cloud just isn't the answer for small websites with less than 200,000 visits.  Even when you cross 200,000 visits, a dedicated server may be a better answer.

Clouds come in thee flavors:

• Systems that can't do parallel execution and rely on simple starting processes on different CPUs, much like Linux or Windows do today on a multicore CPU. That means the system can't really accelerate complex tasks, but can run a lot of little tasks quickly.  This gives you scalability for most web applications, but does not help with that

• Systems that can do parallel execution if you use their software development kit and toolset. These tools, like Amazon S3, give you pretty amazing capabilities at the price of near ultimate vendor lock in. You will not likely be able to move out of the cloud today, or possible ever. While today's cloud solutions are cheap, it's not clear that will remain the case forever.

Here's why control panel based shared hosting is still very much relevant: a modern Linux server is pretty damn fast. And cheap. And requires no changes to code when you move. cPanel servers are a great way to get started . With a solution like cPanel, even fairly large companies can get almost everything they need.  Why?

• Web server needs scale with traffic, not with company size.
• Server features are pretty comprehensive and pretty standard.
• So, if you have less than about 200,000 visits, shared hosting can be a great deal.
• Most shared hosts are actually very good, even at $5-$10 per month.

Great Sources for Shared Hosting
There are lots of great hosting companies out there, but for the money these are the two that I use:

Incredible Hosting Deal - Linux based hosting, choose US or Europe data centers. Great support.
Lunar Pages - Linux, Windows, VPS and Dedicated servers.

hosting, cpanel, website

Email Marketing: The Truth on CAN SPAM

If you manage a mailing list, market your product, do billing by email or operate a social network, you probably have had at least one run in with a hostile recipient. You know, the guy who gets one email confirming that he filled in the "join" page and is going to report you to everyone ranging from the town constable, to his ISP, to Spamcop to the POTUS for spamming. Our hostile recipient probably has the rules wrong, the question is, do you have the rules right when it comes to spam?

Instead of wasting your time with my opinion here are the facts:

The Law
You can get sued and/or fined for not following the law. Read it, know it, and accept it. Make sure you know exactly what every email has to have to comply wih the federal CAN-SPAM law:

The FTC's Spam Site
The FTC's CAN-SPAM Act Site


The Blacklists
OK, so the law put some big limits on you. Prepare for more. Ignore blacklist rules at your own peril.  The penalty is your email being stopped cold.  Oh, and there's probably nothing you can do about it, so better to conform that be crushed.

Spamhaus's FAQ
Spamcop's Service Description - What gets blocked.
The SORBS Blocklist's definition of spam (scroll down)
MAPS Guidelines on List Management

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email, canspam, spam

Insanely Bad Headlines in the Tech Press: Koobface

News Headline: Microsoft, Facebook work to fight Koobface virus - Dayton Business Journal:
Should Read: Poor Windows Security puts Facebook Users at Risk.

Dear Mr. Dayton Business Journal Editor:

I've not seen a business periodical spin a tech article this badly since the old PC World days (when you could guess the editor's choice award by counting full page ads).  Koobface would not work were it not for users who will click on anything and Windows many security issues. 

Cloud Computing vs Dedicated Server

Seems like the cloud computing bandwagon is really accelerating. The quesion is, is the cloud better than good old fashioned, inexpensive shared hosting or just renting a dedicated server? The answer is, "buyer beware." Here's why: there are two kinds of clouds:

Application platform clouds where you write your website's code to the cloud's API. These types of clouds offer the best performance and scale easily. The challenge here is vendor lock in (there are no common APIs) and learning the clouds application programming interface and language.

Virtual machine (VM) based clouds. These types of clouds often run Windows or Linux and use the same tools you've been using for years. Convenient, yes, but a good deal? The jury is way out there on this one. Here's why:

First, if you are working on a low traffic (that means less than 50,000 visits per day), then the answer is the cloud is overkill and can't compete with $5/month shared hosting.

Here's where the VM cloud starts to loose it's luster: when compared to a dedicated server, you often are getting a virtual machine. That would be the same kind of setup as a virtual private server. When are on a virtual machine, you may be sharing time with ten to fifteen other users on the same server. When you are on a dedicated server, you just don't have to share. So, until you would need four or five cloud VMs, the dedicated server may substantially outperform the cloud.

Here's another trick with VM based clouds: you are not necessarily getting multi-site redundancy or for that matter, all your cloud vms may be in the same server. That's not very cloudy. In fact, many cloud computing providers are little more than a fancy control panel to very traditional "Virtual Private Servers."

If you were itching to put your next application in the cloud, you may want to hold off on that move. In some cases it makes sense to start your application in the cloud, but in most cases it doesn’t. --Erik Howard» Cloud Computing vs Dedicated Server | Erik Howard