Get 25% discount off hosting cost from techhosting

So I decided as part of Webmaster Sagas, I should tell you what deals are out there for the different services that you need as a webmaster. In the process we will discuss what different companies offer, and what the ideals are.

Today's special offer comes from Techhost with the coupon Secret Sale! 25% off feature-rich web hosting with coupon code secret25percent as your key to the discount.

With techhost you get Free Domain And No Setup Fee, with professional support and good service. Bear in mind though that the Domain name is free for the hosting term chosen, then renews for $14.95 each year thereafter, so keep that in the back of your mind when placing your order.

So what does the package look like? Well, as all things do I am sure this is bound to change, but as of this writing techhosting seems to only offer one package and it actually looks pretty tasty, this is what you get:

Webspace - 100GB - Nice
Bandwidth - ITB (1000GB) - pretty nice especially if you have streaming media
Addon Domains - 6 - so you can host 7 totally unique websites
Domain name with domain privacy
Subdomains - 25
MySQL databases - unlimited - pretty sweet so you can set up a lot of CMS's on your domains and subdomains, and also other database-based websites.
FTP Accounts - 25

You also get

cPanel Control Panel
Fantastico Scripts
Ruby On Rails Support
Shell Access (SSH) and SSL
Cron, Perl, and CGI Support
PHP Support
phpMyAdmin access
FrontPage® Extensions (2000-2003)
Expert Phone and Chat Support
FTP Access
Customizable Error Pages
Parked Domains

Now these features look really good to me, although I do have to say I wish they had unlimited subdomains to complement those unlimited MySQL databases, don't you think?? My other uh-oh with techhosting is that they don't have a user forum, which as you know, is the #1 thing I look for in a hosting company.

Nonetheless, this is a good package on it's own merit and definitely worth a look if you're in the market for webhosting. So check them out and don't forget to use the Secret Sale! 25% off feature-rich web hosting with coupon code secret25percent coupon for your savings.

The #1 Thing I Look for in a Hosting Company

The number one thing I look for when I am looking for a hosting company is.... are you ready for this?? A MEMBER'S FORUM!

That's a bold title, isn't it? Well, after my recent fiasco with HastyHost, I started shopping around to find a new hosting company to move most of the sensitive websites I have on HastyHost to.

The one thing I found most frustrating when this whole thing was going on was that I had no way of voicing my questions and frustrations and of knowing what else was going on except through the support tickets. This was annoying because I am sure I am not the only one who went through that ordeal. This made me realize how much I value forums. The other host that I use is Hosting Zoom, and they're a pretty decent company. Their services are slightly pricier but their service is okay. I thought I could upgrade my current plan with them to allow for more domains, but I discovered I could not without getting a whole new package on a plan that seems to have a lot of customer dissatisfaction, which I learned from their.... you guessed it... member forums!

As I was searching for another host the first thing I looked to see was if they had any member forums, and what the members were saying. This is an excellent way to shop for hosting, because you get to hear from the actual users of the service in a place that exists for them to ask questions and voice their issues. Visiting the user forums gives you a chance to see what level of peer support you will have when you use the hosting company, and how the staff communicate and how fast they respond to issues in the forums. If there is no such platform, then there is no way to tell in truth whether the customers are satisfied or not. Getting awards and getting ratings and reviews on other websites doesn't really count for much because these things can be skewed and rigged, with paid reviews and fake testimonials. But on member forums where the day to day issues come up and are addressed, things such as downtime problems, customer support issues, reliability, mail problems, etc., are discussed and addressed directly. This gives you a really good picture of customer ratings and also of the kind of support you will get.

So if you're out looking for a hosting company, first check and see if they have a member forum, visit it and see what people are saying. If there is a PreSales subforum, go in there and read through the posts and ask your questions. You'll know much better what you're getting into before you jump in.

So at the end of the day after doing all the above, and more, which I will be discussing in later posts, I settled on Hostgator
, which seemed to be pretty pleasing to it's members, going by the posts in the forum. I'll let you know how my hosting experience with them goes!

Happy New Year from Webmaster Sagas

Here's wishing you all a Happy and Prosperous 2008!! Hope that the new year brings you every good thing that you wish for yourself.

The HastyHost Holiday Saga - Finis

So when we left off last night just after midnight my websites were still down and HastyHost still had not responded to my ticket. They finally did, nothing useful, just a lot of the same kind of talk.

Finally, when I woke up this morning my websites were all up and working, with a message from HastyHost stating:

The MySQL Databases have been restored. Please check your account to make sure they are working properply. If not, please open a support ticket at: http://www.hastyhost.com/create/

Please check as soon as possible as the old server will no longer be available much longer.

Fantastic! We screwed you over and made you wait, so everything is fine now, but make sure fast! before we get rid of all your precious files. Never mind that we just inconvenienced you really badly, in addition we won't do you the courtesy of giving you enough time to make sure everything has been transferred over. What a way to treat your customers huh?

Anyway, I hope all is well now and I'm hoping I don't have to revisit this anymore. I have learned some valuable lessons though, and I will be sharing them in this blog.

As for HastyHost... what more can I say?

The HastyHost Holiday Saga Part 4

As you can see from the last screenshot, that ticket is still open, and has not been assigned to anyone, even though I made it a high priority ticket. It's been almost 3 hours.

And yes, I understand that it's the weekend, and it's late at night, but if you had a hosting company, and knew your clients were without access to their websites because of something going on at your end, wouldn't you and your support team stay online to talk to and reassure your customers?

I guess what they say is true, you get what you pay for. But for a company that's trying to please it's customers and lure them to buy bigger better more expensive things, and bring in more business, this should not be an excuse.

I am sorely disappointed, but I am hoping for the best, for my websites to get back online and for Hasty Host to take responsibility and stop trying to cop out by saying that they have no control over the server after the fact.

I will keep you updated, and will be back with more webmaster sagas. I do have some, really, this blog was not started just to talk about HastyHost, or else I would have called it "Why Hasty Host Sucks."