Kyle Gato's life blog.
internet
How To Choose The Right Hosting For Your Project
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Choosing The Right Hosting For Your Project
Recently, I answered a question on the website “Quora“, about how to “Estimate web hosting expenses for a project.” The answer I supplied was so detailed, I felt the need to re-write it for a blog post to share with the world.
Your hosting expenses all depend on what type of hosting you choose to use.
If you can, setup some Cloud Servers, in a highly redundant configuration using something along the lines of HAProxy, or any other solution you find appropriate.
You may be able to save money by offloading some of the traffic to a CDN (Images, CSS, File Downloads, Profile Pictures, etc)
I recommend checking out Amazon S3 with CloudFront or Cloud Files from Rackspace. Both have a great API (Although S3 has more features, and I highly recommend it)
If you decide to use Virtual Servers (“Cloud” Servers), ensure you perform all the optimizations you can, as best as you can. When it comes to virtual servers, thankfully have the ability to change the amount of RAM allocated to your server, which coincides with your CPU allocation, as well as your port speed ( A 256MB Cloud Server may have a 10Mbit Connection, whereas you should be able to get a Gigabit out of a 16 GB Cloud Server, in theory)
If you choose to use something like Cloud Sites, then your main factors are Bandwidth, and “Compute Cycles”, which I can’t get into legally (NDAs), but basically it’s how much CPU usage your site uses, based off of the traffic. You get the equivalent of what they say is a “2.8 GHZ Dual Core Server” (If I recall correctly) with Cloud Sites.
However, once again, I HIGHLY recommend setting up your own virtual servers. They are more cost effective, secure, and you can predict your usage easier (Avg. Bandwidth, CPU Usage, RAM, etc)
If you don’t control your servers, you leave your websites security, and performance in the hands of a team that has hundreds of thousands of other websites they’re also worrying about.
If you have questions, feel free to reach out to me! I specialize in this area, and through my company I can offer services setting/maintaining/consulting.
SEO Tip – The Low Hanging Fruit – nofollow
1Recently I attended BMPR, and the topic of discussion was SEO. All the speakers were especially knowledgeable in their areas of expertise (Which means: SEO (Search Engine Optimization)).
One suggestion and tip was to go after the low hanging fruit. What this means is: Your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN, any profile whatsoever, to include forums, should always contain your URL.
I still agree with this, as people may often view your profile, and or all it takes is that one right person to click your profile then the link. However for SEO purposes it’s almost useless. @firecatsue did a great presentation, and by no means am I being negative or trying to harm her or her reputation, just trying to make sure everyone knows the facts about low hanging fruits, as sometime you can be mislead as to what really counts.
To start, you can watch this:
or read this: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=96569
So after reviewing that, you now realize what nofollow is and how it’s used. NoFollow = No Value In Search Engines Whatsoever.
Here are some examples of no follows:
Facebook nofollow
Linked In uses a redirection script, so it's not directly linked to your site
Twitter nofollow
vBulletin Forum nofollow
I hope everyone finds this information useful, and that you don’t rely too heavily on the no follow links!
Thanks again to #bmpr and @firecatsue and more for the awesome presentations!
A Web Hosting Business – Why I do it
01 year ago
by Kyle Gato
in blogging, internet, invisiongaming, kyle gato, life, rackspace, san antonio, systems admin, texas
I’ve always wanted to help people. I’ve had this desire to create or manage a project, business, or idea and be able to run with it, and watch it become the perfect “thing”. That’s what drove me to start my own web hosting business in 2004. I wanted to offer people affordable solutions, at a great price, but still be as awesome as the more expensive alternatives.
Why web hosting? The internet is obviously the now. It’s not the “future”, it is the future as much as it is the now. People need access to information, web sites, games, whatever may be online and they need it now. I want to be a part of that and that’s what drives me.
I want to be a part of this internet revolution, and at the end be able to be a part of it. Helping people, and businesses, while helping myself at the same time is the absolute dream. It’s why I chose to work at Rackspace, that’s why I started InvisionGaming in 2004, and it’s what I want to do with my career. It’s what I’m doing now! Along with web design, printing, and more.
I love developing (Primarily PHP), I love administrating and solving problems (Systems Administration) and that’s a big part of what I do. I want to be useful, and I use the word I very carefully, as it’s obviously an combined effort of multiple people.
I want to go out there, build applications, make people’s lives easier, and not have to trash their or my wallet while I do it.
Sometimes starting a web hosting company can be difficult, in todays economy with so many choices. Sure you can go to GoDaddy, or Bluehost, or any of those and get a similar product for $5 a month. “Unlimited Disk Space”, bandwidth, and more.
I thought we were told, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Right?
I offer the world: Me. The Kyle Experience. Let me wow you, let me help you, and let’s grow together. If I only get and or help 10 customers, then those are 10 people who I’ve had a positive impact on. Sure is better than doing nothing whatsoever, isn’t it? I’m not trying to compete with Rackspace, Bluehost, or Godaddy, I’m simply trying to help people, and just happen to be in direct competition with the interests of said listed companies.
Rather than focusing on making other companies look bad, or fishing for their customers, I respect each and every one, and what they do. We’re in this business together, trying to help people. I do, however, believe some companies like GoDaddy are forgetting the customer, and focusing more on the bottom line, but that seems to be a popular trend.
This is why I do what I do, and that’s why I’ve jumped right back into the game with Custom Hosting Solutions. I guess it means that we are your “mom and pop” shop, where you get the same features, but the customer service is just great. I want to interact with my customers, let’s follow each other on twitter, let’s add each other to our google talk.
Let’s do some business.
and last but not least: Let’s do this.
Inspiration from a RackSpace Systems Administrator
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Inspiration..
I find myself often becoming inspired, or put into a deeper mode of thinking whenever I read blog posts from co-workers. Whether they are directly working with me or not, they always just flow so well. It’s rather inspirational, and therefore I thought I would write up a blog post about a blog post and give my thoughts on it. ( Hah 
)
http://rackerhacker.com/2010/01/03/a-new-year-system-administrator-inspiration/
Major Hayden (RackerHacker), is an experienced systems administrator for Slicehost (Sort of like, a division of the RackSpace Cloud) and he is basically my definition of a Linux Guru (If you asked me to find one you can depend on, it would be him.) I read his blog and sometimes even refer customers to various blog posts. This guy not only knows a lot, he shares what he knows. That says a lot about him I think.
As someone working at RackSpace, I have career goals of my own. These include becoming an Linux Systems Administrator, getting my RHCE, and just learning new things that can better my abilities and help RackSpace as a company become more successful.
I’m excited for 2010 because I believe this is the year that it will happen, I will hit more goals and for some reason just reading RackerHackers post (Above) has reminded me of my goals and has inspired me even further to push for what I want.
My views on the post in general? Click it, I posted a comment. (:
Looking forward to 2010, with you world.
-Kyle
IzMySitedown.com – Is my site down?
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IsMySiteDown/IzMySiteDown - My idea
So I got this idea, I was trying to find IsMySiteDown.com but that is VERY OBVIOUSLY filled with ad’s and is not in effect at all. Use IzMySiteDown.com to check if your site is up. You can also use the Chicago node to check your FTP/SMTP/POP3/HTTP servers as well! Pass it along to all your geeky friends (:
-Kyle