MaconMacGuy.com:

Putting the tech pieces together
for Macon & Middle Georgia
for "a good while now"

I have a friend with a graphics arts business who is still using ###@mail.mgacoxmail.com as his primary online contact address. I was hassling him about it (he knows he should update, but hasn’t really had a compelling reason to do it). Below are the reasons I gave him for going ahead and setting up his own website:
—————————

Here’s why you really should have your own domain:

1) Less cheesy email address.
2) Email address / website that reinforces your brand
3) A spot to sell your stuff, perhaps.
4) Search engine visibility

To get started, swing over to
http://www.midgahosting.com
Click the order button. To get started you really only need the cheapest plan.

The form has an option to find a domain – you can do .com or .biz – maybe even .pro.
(BTW – domains are case-INsensitive, so you can type them either way).

Select the US-based data center. There’s also an option to go ahead and install wordpress or any of a few dozen other packages.

BTW – one cool feature is that you can host 3 domains within the same hosting account…so you could then add mikeknapp.com to the same account for the price of a domain, install wordpress, and use THAT one to sell your art.

http://www.maconmacguy.com/compare-hosting/#explain
for a quick explanation.

The self-serve hosting option now has some very powerful hosting options unavailable before. The nice thing about this is that it is entirely self-serve. You can surf over to a website and set it all up yourself.

But now we offer hosting options with a semi-dedicated server, virtual private server, and a dedicated server.

“Regular” hosting has dozens if not hundreds of website being served on ONE computer. This is generally not a problem – and is MUCH cheaper for the client. However, if the website has some heavy traffic, or some serious database stuff going on, an upgrade may be in order.

In practical terms the additional options mean that your site will be sharing the hardware with either far fewer sites (in the case of the semi-dedicated and virtual private server options) or with NO ONE else (in the case of the dedicated server).

As usual, our pricing is VERY competitive. Click the links for more info:

Hosting with a Dedicated Server

Hosting with a semi-dedicated server

Hosting with a Virtual Private Server [VPS]

A friend has begun using a PR person for his music activities. I noticed the PR guy is using a cs.com email account for his business email contact (in the “internet olden days” cs.com was a sign of distinction – it meant you had a CompuServe account. Nowadays it’s really dying out).

In the interest of helping him out I sent the following email – which has been edited to suit my purposes here.

Another of the things I do is web hosting (at http://www.midgahosting.com ) and design and online presences and such for some of my clients – and I noticed you’re using a cs email account. Just wanted to mention that you’d really get some brand boost if you had your own domain, and use that as your email “base of operations”.

I’ve got a couple of real estate people who are doing that – they’ve bought their domain and hosting (under $4/month) and they’ve never done anything with the hosting part.

In your case I’d suggest getting the domain, and then setting up a wordpress blog (which is EASY using midgahosting) – use a couple of “pages” for company info, but use your posts for the releases you send out. This would amplify the search engine affect for each release.

[What they look like depends on the template chosen for the blog, but often pages show up as tabs at the top of the blog, and posts are the main part. Over at http://www.maconmacguy.com, for instance, pages are the tabs at the tops, but posts are the entries on the right under "news".]

Just thought I’d throw this idea into your bucket! I feel strongly that receiving emails from whatever@mycompany.com is stronger than getting it from whatever@cs.com.

–

The process:  head over to http://www.midgahosting.com.
Click on the “sign up” link, at the top.
Fill out the form. Decisions to make:

1. what username you want – for logging into your control panel area
2. Which data center (I suggest California, but there isn’t much speed difference between California and London from Georgia)
3. Which plan – for your purposes I suggest the cheapest! Easily upgradeable later if needed.
4. Pre-installed script – Select wordpress here. No charge – this just saves you a step later.
5. Your desired domain…. then the usual contact and payment info

==============================================
Tom Rule
The MaconMacGuy
Computer help, training, Websites, Processes

http://www.MaconMacGuy.com

Web Hosting under $4 a month

http://www.MidGaHosting.com

==============================================

I see ads everywhere for inexpensive web hosting. So why pick MidGaHositng.com for your webhosting – and when should you opt for something more powerful?

Plans start at less than $5 a month (US). This includes a whole slew of features – plenty of email accounts, alias email accounts, file storage, bandwidth, stats, and auto-install of many different open source packages (like WordPress, Movable Type for blogs, classified ads, guestbooks, photo albums, etc). These are all accessible via an easy to use control panel – you just login and click to select what you want to do!

>More details can be had at MidGaHosting.com

So when would you need something more powerful?

A lot of the cheaper hosting systems woudl have you believe they can handle anything. Short answer: NOPE!

That’s why I offer a second option for my clients. It is more expensive – around $120 a year – but is hosted on a more powerful server, in a datacenter with a closer tie to the internet’s backbone.

(In laymans’ terms, those servers are a few layers closer to the absolute fastest segments of the whole internet – well, except for Internet2, which isn’t publicly available.)

I generally suggest my clients host on the more powerful options when they will have a LOT of traffic, are going to do heavy ecommerce, need industrial strength Spam filtering, would like to share calendars/address books/etc via Outlook AND Webmail company-wide, or will want to upgrade to a VPS or hosted server in the future.

I have an article HERE that looks at the differences between the hosting plans I offer. Take a look – and feel free to contact me for more info, or an opinion on what you should do!