Over the past week I have looked at many different control panels. Some offered less, and some offered more. Which one will be the best? That has yet to be seen. By the end of this article though, you will at least know my Web hosting opinion on the matter. Today we will finalize this control panel round up with Hosting Accelerator, InsPanel, CWIPanel and my final thoughts on control panels in general.

Hosting Accelerator

Hosting Accelerator is another Windows Web hosting server control panel. The end user features are very standard, and lacks of any shock and awe you might have seen with other clients out there. The interface on this control panel though is way too busy. It looks as if they through organization out the proverbial window. Seeing how much stuff you can shove in front of may face is not a good way to make a first impression. For a geek, this might be nice. For somebody new to Web hosting though, this is frightening. Take Hosting Accelerator for a test drive and see what you think!

InsPanel

Yet another Windows only Web hosting server control panel, InsPanel hopes to offer a new look at the idea. There are many features to be listed, but none of them stick out at me like a sore thumb. The control panel is well organized, with everything in it’s place. An average product, but remember there is nothing wrong with that! Take InsPanel for a test drive and see what you think!

CWIPanel

CWIPanel has a message on their front page saying that you can “unleash the power of your Windows server!” Now can you really? Let us have a look. The list of features look much like the other Windows only control panels. However they did not have a control panel demo for me to look at, so there really is not much else to be said. From what I’ve seen though they look to be about average as it goes for Windows server management.

Hands down, I believe that cPanel is the best control panel out there today still. I have used cPanel many times for my own Web sites and have never had a problem yet. For Windows hosting, I would pick Helm as my favorite out there today.

Without control panels we would still be doing all these things with Linux commands, paper clips and chewing gum. As the operating system made life with a computer easier, the control panel makes life with a Web hosting account a more pleasant experience.

There are many factors that play into purchasing a Web hosting account, but Web hosting company is only as good as the control panel behind it. By looking at these eleven examples, you should be able to judge which ones might offer you the best results. If you have any arguments, comments, questions or suggestions just let me know and I’ll be more than happy to do a follow up article with what you have had to say.

Using cron jobs can save you time, money, and lots of headaches! But do you know what a cron job is and what it can do for you and your dedicated server hosting?

To start, you can impress your friends and tech-geeks alike by letting them know that ‘cron’ comes from the Greek word ‘chronos’, which means ‘time’. And in fact cron jobs manage things in a time-based banner – for example, every minutes, every hour, every day, etc.

Cron jobs are simply scheduling devices and work through SSH shell without you. In other words, once you set up a cron job, it will essentially perform its task in the background while you sip margaritas and watch the money roll in. Okay, maybe they won’t make you rich, but they will save you time and money by performing the same tasks you need to implement without costing you any trouble. Once you set them up once, they do what they’re told until told to stop.

By using cron jobs, you eliminate the middle-man. You can set tasks for your website like checking for new subscribers, deleting inactive website members, sending email newsletters and more. Especially for email marketing on a dedicated server, cron jobs can help manage the amount of emails sent per hour and eliminate the worry of getting blacklisted for normal email marketing and newsletter distribution.

Have we found the dedicated hosting control panel king of kings just yet? That has yet to be seen. Today we will look at Ensim, DirectAdmin, and Interworx. Can they beat yesterday’s selections?

Ensim

Ensim is yet another control panel that provides support for flavors of Windows and Linux alike. They say that it is for the management of any type of Web site. That is good to know. If they had a dislike for Web sites about the dead parrot sketch from Monty Python, I might be a little mad. The interface is pretty enough, but it comes a little short compared with the options in some other clients. Take Ensim for a test drive and see what you think!

DirectAdmin

DirectAdmin claims to be the control panel that is the easiest to use. They do have many features that the other control panels boast about. It appears though that they only support a few flavors of Linux. No Windows support yet. The interface is very pretty and organized, but lacks when it comes to some of the extra features that cPanel or Plesk could provide. Take DirectAdmin for a test drive and see what you think!

Interworx

Interworx is another Linux only control panel. There is nothing wrong with this, because there are many more Linux based Web hosting servers out there today. Just by looking through their Web master level features, I would say they deserve to be ranked at the top. One thing that I really like from them is their site usage snapshot. It gives you a chart to look at, right off the bat to see your upstreams and downstreams. The interface is clean, and everything is organized well. Take Interworx for a test drive and see what you think!

Helm

Now we have seen a lot of different Linux only control panels, but what about a Windows only one? That is one thing that Helm provides to the end consumer. There are many customer features to go on and on about, but how does it feel once you get on the inside? It has the standard pretty interface, nothing new there. These control panels are built to be used over and over, so they have to be easy on the eyes. One thing that did get my attention is the ability to see your billing information inside the control panel. That is very nice indeed. Take Helm for a test drive and see what you think!

Part two is over, but there are still one more segment to go! Friday I will take a look at Hosting Accelerator, InsPanel, and CWIPanel. If you have any arguments, comments, questions or suggestions just let me know and I’ll be more than happy to do a follow up article with what you have had to say.

Big businesses and even startups and web 2.0 networks all have one thing in common – they need to market their website audience and they need to do it well and without getting spam-blocked by the end-user.  There are actually several ways to avoid getting blacklisted, because unfortunately, even on a dedicated server, this can happen to you.

The first way to avoid getting blacklisted is to only market to customers or pre-sales clients who know they are entering into your mailing list and/or will need your product or service. Make sure you are using a mailing list client that has the option to include an unsubscribe link, as your marketing techniques are illegal otherwise. Also, if you have the ability to have customers opt or even double opt-in to receive the promotions and marketing materials, this would be a great idea.

Another thing to keep in mind is the number of emails you are marketing to. If you have a customer or marketing base that consists of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of email addresses, you’ll need to be especially careful. Sending out over 500 emails in one hour is the biggest concern of any dedicated server hosting customer, because not only can you get spam-blocked for sending out that many emails that quickly but your server might also get blacklisted by certain email providers like AOL and Yahoo, who are quick to act on spam-related issues.

A good way to keep the number of emails sent per hour down to a safe amount is through using cron jobs, which can be scheduled to send, for example, 5 emails per minute. If you have a customer base of 1500 recipients, that will only take 5 hours to complete. The best way you can handle this many emails is to talk to your dedicated web hosting provider upfront to see what their specific restrictions are for sending emails and marketing customers using mailing lists.

Dedicated hosting offers a lot of options.  One of those options for the experts out there is to use the control panel of our choice.  Over this next week I’ll share with you some of my favorite control panels out there.  You shouldn’t judge the quality of your Web host by the control panel they offer alone. It is an important piece to the web hosting puzzle.

cPanel

The folks at the cPanel Web site say, “cPanel is designed for the end users of your system and allows them to control everything from adding / removing email accounts to administering MySQL databases.” The fact of the matter is though that they do that and so much more. Most often used on Redhat Linux based systems, cPanel provides support for over ten different flavors of Linux. There is no Windows or OSX versions yet however. Their interface is clean, with more options and features than you could shake a stick at. It is easy to see why they are the number one control panel used today. They do have several competitors though, chomping at the bit to take their space on the top of the mountain. cPanel used to have a demo control panel up for folks to test drive, however I could not find a trace of it on the cPanel Web site anymore.

Plesk

Plesk is available for both Linux and Windows Web hosting servers. This alone gives them a little advantage over cPanel. Their interface looks much like Windows XP. You have all the soft colors and big icons that you would ever need. I have to give them credit though, because it does look great. They have all the basic features that cPanel has as well. Take Plesk for a test drive and see what you think!

H-Sphere

Created by Positive Software, H-Sphere is yet another pretty control panel that you might have access to. It too provides support for Windows and Linux based machines. From complete automation to key functionalities, it has many features. Compared with Plesk and cPanel it leaves you with wanting a little more. Perhaps in the next few versions it will be able to catch up. The organization inside the H-Sphere is not that great either. Take H-Sphere for a test drive and see what you think!

Part one is over, but there are still two more segments to go!  Next I will take a look at DirectAdmin, Interworx, Helm, and Ensim. If you have any arguments, comments, questions or suggestions just let me know and I’ll be more than happy to do a follow up article with what you have had to say.

Even if you have hosted on a dedicated server before, you may not know all the dedicated server terminology out there. One of the downsides to technology is one of its best features as well – it is ever-changing. This means that what you knew yesterday won’t be the same as what you’ll need to learn tomorrow. So here are some helpful dedicated server terms you should know when choosing a reliable, affordable dedicated web host.

Access – Microsoft-based applicable that helps you create, edit, and maintain databases. If you’re a web developer running in the Windows environment, this is what you use to manage online MS SQL databases.

Apache – The most common Linux web server in the world. Okay, I’m being melodramatic but it’s incredibly popular and very powerful, secure, and best of all free!

Co-Location – If you want to own your own dedicated server but aren’t confident that you can host your site using your own internet connection or power supply, co-location assures you own the hardware (the server) and the web hosting provider supplies the rack to store the server and the internet connection to keep your website up and online.

IIS – IIS stands for Internet Information Server and is Microsoft’s branded server software. Just like Apache is the most popular web server for Linux, IIS is the #1 choice for Windows Dedicated Hosting.

Load-Balancing – If you are running a website like Myspace, Digg, or Facebook, odds are you already know what load balancing is. If you plan to create a website like this, you need load balancing 100%! Load balancing merely means distributing the traffic and resources evenly across two or more dedicated servers to increase and optimize performance.

Managed Hosting – The best idea for new dedicated hosters, managed hosting assures that your web host will take care of technical support, setup, maintenance, and monitoring of your dedicated server.

RAID – Also known as Redundant Array of Independent Disks, and if you say it that way, it sounds more like what it is. Basically, RAIDing your dedicated server will help you store data across a number of hard drives. If one disk fails, the other will restore the site or database so you don’t lose data.

Telnet – Just like SSH, a command line interface that allows you to communicate across your web server.

Upstream Provider – A large ISP (internet service provider) that provides dedicated web hosts with reliable internet access. However, the word ‘upstream’ actually can mean how fast or reliable the data connection is between two ISPs.

As with any other detail inside of your company or business you need to be sure that you add your hosting costs to your overall budget when it comes to your dedicated server needs.  Now you might set aside enough for rent, office supplies and even those rolling chairs with both upper and lower back support - but how much have you set back for hosting needs?

When a business comes to me and asks how much you should set aside for your dedicated hosting budget, it should be enough to cover your average costs of rental, licences and more (the bundled price the web host you work with gives you) and then divide it by two and add that amount to you “set back” or “rainy day” supply.  This way just in case you have to upgrade this feature, or add more of this, that or the other you won’t be left throwing your hands up at the dedicated hosting provider saying you don’t have the cash available to upgrade if needed.

Now some might say planning on being that successful before you get started might be a ‘bit silly.  To them I say it is always better to be safe rather than sorry.

When it comes to dedicated hosting, there is no doubt that it doesn’t hurt to have a few more resources at your fingertips.  Here are a few good ones to bookmark:

Web Hosting Talk - the biggest web host message boards out there today.

The Web Hosting Show - a weekly radio show and podcast about the web hosting and development worlds.

The WHIR - a web site dedicated to the news inside of the web hosting industry.

Each of these links should be more than helpful to help you learn more about the dedicated web hosting industry.  Of course, you can’t forget the web site you are on right now - Dedicated Server Hosting either.

When it comes to dedicated hosting, getting a forum up and running shouldn’t be a hard task at all.  Here are a few alternatives to pick from when trying to decide which forum script might be best for your dedicated account.

Vanilla - Vanilla is an open-source, standards-compliant, multi-lingual, fully extensible discussion forum for the web. Anyone who has web-space that meets the requirements can download and use Vanilla for free!

SMF - This is a a free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes. SMF is written in the popular language PHP and uses a MySQL database. It is designed to provide you with all the features you need from a bulletin board while having an absolute minimal impact on the resources of the server.

phpBB - With a large and highly customizable set of key features coupled with a standards compliant interface, phpBB will grow with, and compliment your web site. With millions of installations worldwide, it is no wonder phpBB is one of the most popular ways to create and support a community.

VBulletin - vBulletin is a professional, affordable community forum solution. Thousands of clients, including many industry leading blue chip companies, have chosen vBulletin - It’s the ideal choice for any size of community.

These are only a handful too.  With a dedicated hosting account, you wouldn’t have any need to worry about server resources, disk space and bandwidth.  Try a few of these and see which one works out best for you.

Not every hosting review of every company out there is written the same. Before you go out and read reviews of any dedicated hosting provider you need to learn how to do so.

The first thing you need to learn is that most people who review are either extremely happy or extremely mad about their hosting experience. Those that get along fine without any big issues usually will not give a review. Those who have really good things to say might also come less often because - it is human nature not to really give too much praise when things go well. So with that said, now you know that most reviews you read will be more focused on the negative side of things. Now with this in mind, take each review you read with a grain of salt. Don’t believe everything you read and make a list of questions you can take back to your dedicated host you are interested in so they can discuss things with you one on one.

Make sure the answers they give you are ones you are happy with because it is their job to make you a happy camper.