A question we often get asked is, “What is the difference between your VPS plans and your SDX (Semi-Dedicated) plans?”

Semi-Dedicated
Our SDX plan is basically one shared hosting account on a powerful server. What’s different compared to our standard shared hosting plan is that there far fewer accounts on our SDX servers. So you have more resources available to you. For example, if you have a fairly busy forum not suitable for regular shared hosting, you would want to purchase our Semi-Dedicated hosting plan.

SDX is not intended to be used to resell hosting since it is still a basic shared account. It’s intended for those who still want a shared hosting environment that packs a bit more punch. Our SDX plans are also good for a video share website.

VPS
A VPS (Virtual Private Server) is sort of like having a dedicated server in terms of customization abilities but without the extra cost (because it’s still a shared hosting environment). Our VPS plan offers full root or administrator access and you have full control over the settings and software on the server. Think of a VPS plan as having a partition on a large server.

You would have a choice of which OS (operating system) you wish to have installed. The choices are:

• CentOS (most popular)
• Debian
• Fedora Core
• Suse
• Windows<

You can also choose which version of MySQL, PHP, mail, etc. you want installed. (You cannot do this with Semi-Dedicated.) In addition, you get the choice on which control panel you’d like to use to administer your VPS. The choices are:

• cPanel
• Direct Admin
• Interworx
• Plesk

SDX plans come with cPanel only.

A VPS account can be used to resell hosting if you desire. In a nutshell, VPS plans allow you to completely customize the Virtual Private Server to suit your hosting needs.

This is also discussed in the JaguarPC Forums in this thread: VPS vs Semi dedicated

Both are powerful hosting solutions and JaguarPC provides both options at very reasonable prices. Check out these current specials:

• SDX Specials
• JaguarPC Free Control Panel’s Super Ram Bonus’s (VPS)

We’ve had a few customers asking how ‘Green’ JaguarPC Web Hosting is or if we have plans on ‘going green‘.

It’s tough to answer exactly how green JaguarPC is but I can tell you this:

JaguarPC promotes recycling. Personally I will never throw away paper, aluminum, cardboard, plastic, etc. We use our recycling service faithfully.

Our data center does the following to help:

• Use dry coolers to heat generator rooms and reverse flow hot water from the Data Center to heat staff areas. This means a gas/electric heating system is unnecessary.
• Pumps and cooling units have devices that use only as much power needed to cool the water based on how hot the water is. This lowers electricity usage as much as 40%.
• A well supplies the cooling towers which eliminates the use of chlorine. (Chlorine produces dioxins.) This also eliminates the use of electricity to pump the water to the data center from the treatment facility which will save a huge amount of energy and chemicals being consumed.
• Generators use 5% biodiesel
• Planted enough trees so it’s near carbon neutral.

Every little bit helps and we will continue to research and implement environmentally-friendly alternatives wherever possible.

I just thought I’d share this little tidbit of fun I just had with my cable internet provider. Here’s a bit of the back story:

Last night my husband logged into his laptop and it came up with a big yellow/blue screen saying he had spyware. There was no link, just big giant letters saying he was infected with spyware. There was no way out of it. He tried everything and finally gave up, formatted it, and re-installed Windows. Our kids were the last to use that computer so it’s safe to assume they are the culprits.

Today I had trouble using my cable provider’s SMTP services. This isn’t uncommon. They sometimes limit the number of connections so I didn’t think twice. An hour later it was still an issue. Then I noticed I had received an email from them stating they had to take action because our IP was used to send spam. Hm.. Laptop had a virus last night and today we’re told our IP was used to send spam. Coincidence? I think not.

Here’s the conversation I then had with my cable provider via phone:

cable guy: we can fix this, you just need to change your port. Open up Outlook and…
me: I don’t use Outlook, I use Thunderbird.
cable guy: oh well I am not familiar with Thunderbird, Hm, let me find my notes.
me: I am familiar with it, Just tell me the port please.
cable guy: 587.
me: OK port changed to 587, anything else?
cable guy: Yeah you need to authenticate with the server. If you let me find my notes on Thunderbird I’ll tell you how to do that.
me: I just need to check incoming mail first and that will authenticate.
cable guy: Um, no I don’t think that works. Hold on while I find my notes on Thunderbird.
me: I’m quite familiar with Thunderbird so don’t worry there. But I’ll just check incoming (I check incoming.)
me: Yep, that worked. I can send email again. Thanks.
cable guy: Wait, you can do that? Just check incoming first to authenticate?
me: ...

(Sidenote: If I had known that all I needed to do was switch ports I wouldn’t have needed to even call them.)

I was really surprised the cable guy didn’t know that checking incoming email will authenticate you with the server so you can then send email. It should be his job to know this. It’s not quite as obvious to the end user (and in fact our own customers here at JaguarPC may not know this), so he should have been telling ME that. Not me telling him.

But there you have it folks. If you check incoming email before sending, you will be authenticated!

HOUSTON, TX. April 4, 2008 – JaguarPC, a leading provider of end-to-end web hosting solutions for over a decade, today announced the “Endless Disk Space” promotion that gives clients continuous free upgrades as needed when they reach 80% capacity. Shared hosting clients begin with 50 GB of disk space and semi-dedicated hosting clients start with 100 GB. As soon as 80% capacity is reached, customers can instantly add more with one click from the control panel. When their new capacity approaches 80%, once again they can increase their disk space.

In contrast to misleading industry promotions with unlimited or grossly inflated resources with their hosting packages and bury the conditions for account termination in small-print terms of service, the JaguarPC promotion is straightforward and meant to bring transparency to the battle of disk space.

“The industry has gotten a bit crazy recently with ridiculous numbers being thrown around and hosts knowing full well they wouldn’t be able to handle the load if all their customers took them up on the offer,” says Greg Landis, president of JaguarPC. “We stepped back and asked ourselves what is the right thing to do for our customers? Why don’t we give them peace of mind without making these over the top promises? In essence, Endless Disk Space simply means you will have capacity that always grows with your needs.”

JaguarPC’s new web site includes a community forum, updated web hosting and company blog, user-friendly control panel and the nixcore client management software.

In addition, JaguarPC has made a number of changes:

• Semi-dedicated accounts now have a failover hosting option to provide greater redundancy and peace of mind
• New dedicated server plans have been rolled out
• All reseller plans have had their disk space and bandwidth doubled while keeping the same prices, retroactive for all existing clients

For more information about Endless Disk Space, go to www.jaguarpc.com/shared-hosting.

About JaguarPC

JaguarPC, based in Houston Texas, provides high-quality Internet hosting solutions to small and medium-sized businesses, government agencies, prominent individuals and non-profit organizations worldwide. JaguarPC’s core portfolio comprises information technology and business hosting services, as well as programming services. JaguarPC’s complementary subsidiary business is Devpond software, a web software company. Learn more at www.JaguarPC.com.

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Media Contact: Edward@FirecrackerPR.com, 949-500-6422, www.FirecrackerPR.com

In the wee hours of the morning the time changed again. Time changes twice a year, and the change is called “Day Light Savings” in the US. There are a few states in the US that are smart enough not to fool with the clock, but not many. I know Arizona is one. I think there are a couple more.

I think at least a few countries around the world also use “Day Light Savings Time”. Not sure who they all are but I’m fairly certain that Great Britain does.

Supposedly fooling with the clock saves money. Your not supposed to use as much energy during the months that DLS is in effect.

I have never figured that out. How is changing the clock by one hour going to save utility cost? In the spiring when we are on “Day Light Savings”, you get an extra hour of day light at the end of the day. You get an extra hour of darkness at the beginning of the day. Either way you are going to need your lights on for the same amount of time. The only difference is what time of day you have your lights on.

Personally I think the whole purpose of “Day Light Savings” is to give golfers more time to play golf at least in the US.

Just sharing a personal experience that happened somewhere around 8:30 PM CST. So give or take it was a couple of hours ago. The weather has been crappy all day but there were no indications that what happened would happen.

Like I do most of the time I was setting at my desk working. In fact I was actually working to update some pages on Condells which I don’t do to often.

Here is what happened.

(more…)

There is often some confusion about what all comes with a web hosting package. Usually the misconceptions are based on the type of support that is offered when purchasing a web hosting plan.

Web hosting providers are a lot like property or apartment managers.

Lets compare. First, I’ll start with shared hosting.

Do you remember when GeoCities first came out? In order to get a free web site, you first had to pick your neighborhood based on your site’s content. For example, if you had a site about technology, you’d choose the neighborhood silicon valley. From there you’d choose a house. Each house was assigned a number and your website URL would then be geocities.com/siliconvalley/[housenumber]. GeoCities long ago did away with that format, and web hosting has come a long way since those days but the concept of shared web hosting is mostly the same.

When you purchase a shared hosting plan, you’re essentially renting space on a web server that is shared by several other web site owners all hoping to host a web site on a budget. The server space will come fully ready for you to ‘move in to’. Essentially, the electricity will be turned on, the fridge will be present for you to store your perishables, and water will run. The property managers (web host provider) will make sure you have a clean space to move your stuff into. It is then up to you you to move your furniture in and organize it however you want.

Web hosting providers generally do not provide support for coding, scripting, development, or design. Just as apartment managers generally don’t tell you where to hang your pictures, which furniture to use or where to put your things.

What if something breaks?

“Your analogy doesn’t work. My property manager will fix the stove if it breaks.”

If something that comes with your shared hosting plan breaks, lets say cPanel in this example, we will certainly fix it for you. But we aren’t going to cook your dinner for you and neither will your property manager.

“What about all the cool programs you offer for me to install? Like Wordpress? Do you support that?”

We can host a Wordpress site and we even offer an easy way for you to install it. Wordpress is a third party product. Think of Wordpress as the refrigerator in your apartment. It may come with the apartment but your apartment managers didn’t create it. You can put whatever you want in it. But your property managers aren’t going to keep it clean for your nor throw out the food that goes bad. That’s your job. The concept is the same with hosting a Wordpress site. You need to keep it clean and updated to the latest secure version. This actually applies to any software, script, or program you install on your website.

This doesn’t mean you’re completely on your own. Your ‘property managers’ are going to keep an eye on things (servers) and make sure your ‘neighbors’ (other customers) aren’t making life miserable. Kind of like a gated community: We’ll attempt to block intruders and abusive ‘renters’ who continually have a detrimental effect on their neighbors will be asked to ‘move out’.

“What about VPS. You do everything, right?”

Purchasing a VPS hosting plan is like purchasing a condominium. It’s still shared with others, but you’ll have more control over what happens in your ‘space’. Your hosting provider will provide you with the basics, and you can purchase addons such as a control panel, extra RAM, etc, but the concept of the apartment is still the same. What you do from there with your site space is up to you. Your web hosting provider will still keep an eye on things and make sure your neighbors are all playing nice, but the space you’re renting is yours to maintain and keep up to date.

“I get it. But what about a dedicated server? Surely you’ll do anything I want?”

Not quite. When you purchase a dedicated server plan it’s like renting a house. It’s bigger than an apartment, and you have all the control to do whatever you wish with the space. You can even invite your friends over for a party! But it’s totally yours to maintain and operate on your own.

Lets say you want maid service, lawn care, and extra security. You’d pay extra for these if renting a house, right? The same holds true for dedicated web hosting. You can purchase Managed Services of different levels depending on your needs and we’ll take care of things for you. I warn you though, we don’t do windows. (Get it??) (OK. OK. I lied. You can actually add on Windows OS for just $35 more on our dedicated hosting plans.)

“I only need an apartment (shared hosting). Can I at least pay you to help me out with some things?”

Sure. We can do script installations and even upgrades of third party products if you wish. There is a fee attached, but this type of support does not come standard with a non-managed hosting account.

In a nutshell, Web Hosting and renting an apartment is pretty similar. We’ll provide you fresh clean space to work with, and we’ll keep things running smoothly. We’ll even offer a few tools and perks to keep your new place shiny and sparkly, but it’s ultimately up to you to decide what you want on your site, where you’ll put things, and how.

HOUSTON, TX. February 01, 2008 – JaguarPC, a leading provider of end-to-end web hosting solutions for over a decade, today announced a number of promotions for personnel to new positions to fuel the rapid growth of its hosting business.

Masood Nasir has been promoted to the role of chief technology officer, where he will oversee all strategic decisions related to JaguarPC’s hosting technology, infrastructure and future product development. Mr. Nasir brings to the role six years of experience with JaguarPC where previously he oversaw the technical support department. Mr. Nasir is a graduate engineer in telecommunications and has over a decade of experience in network administration, software development, quality control, customer service, and Linux system administration.

Ben Ashton has been appointed president of JaguarPC’s new WOWVPS product division. Mr. Ashton’s responsibilities for the fledgling business will include driving aggressive growth, marketing and overall management of business lines.

Nick Rose has been appointed the new director of sales and marketing, where his main responsibilities will be increasing JaguarPC’s exposure, forging alliances and partnerships and managing the sales pipeline.

Tracie Thompson is the new customer service manager with a mandate of overseeing all customer service shifts and personnel management. Ms. Thompson’s years of experience in hosting and strong personnel skills will go a long way towards her new duties which include managing technical support shift leaders. Ms. Thompson will work closely with JaguarPC’s chief technology officer and chief operations officer.

“JaguarPC’s been experiencing phenomenal growth, and we believe we have the right team in place to position us for the next phase of our continuing expansion,” says Greg Landis, president of JaguarPC. “We’re very fortunate to have the people on our team with the depth of experience in hosting and a passion for serving customers. The future is in good hands, and we’re prepared to announce some exciting promotions and announcements in the near future.”

About JaguarPC

JaguarPC, based in Houston Texas, provides high-quality Internet hosting solutions to small and medium-sized businesses, government agencies, prominent individuals and non-profit organizations worldwide. JaguarPC’s core portfolio comprises information technology and business hosting services, as well as programming services. JaguarPC’s complementary subsidiary businesses is Devpond software, a web software company. Learn more at www.JaguarPC.com.

Named one of top ten fastest growing web host for 2007, company launches “Savings for Life” promotion on all plans

HOUSTON, TX. January 24, 2008 – JaguarPC, a leading provider of end-to-end web hosting solutions for over a decade, today announced new promotions to celebrate two recent awards it had received. HostReview.com selected JaguarPC as a top ten “Fastest Growing Companies in 2007”, while Web Host Directory named JaguarPC as a Reseller Web Hosting award winning provider for January 2008. The new promotion offers a 15% discount for life on Managed/Linux/Windows VPS Hosting and cPanel Reseller Hosting plans, and a 20% discount for life on cPanel Shared Hosting plans.

HostRevew selects winners judged on pricing, up-time, money-back guarantees, plan features and flexibility, technical support, security features and users reviews. Monthly results are prepared and displayed on their pages on the 1st of the following month. HostReview.com will be awarding companies on a yearly basis, and will include the yearly performance of the company in the related category.

“JaguarPC just exploded on the scene in 2007,”said Darren Tabor, chief executive officer of DevStart, the parent company of HostReview. “It was our pleasure to recognize the phenomenal growth of this well-respected Web Hosting Provider.”

Similarly, Web Host Directory gave top honors to JaguarPC as one of the best Reseller Hosts for January 2008. These awards are given to the best web hosts in each of their web host categories by tabulating the votes they receive from their visitors and review board. Each host is given a rating of 1 to 10 (10 being best) in different areas of performance, including Cost, Features, Support, Reliability and Speed.

“We’re honored to be recognized by respected voices of the industry,” said Greg Landis, president of JaguarPC. “It is a culmination of the efforts we’ve put into the last ten years of really listening to our customers’ needs. Our new lifetime promotions will help continue the strong growth as we look to roll out compelling features and plans tailored to the needs of different segments.”

Savings for Life promotion details

Managed VPS Hosting plan includes: – Quad-core nodes with a minimum of 12 GB registered ECC RAM
-Large RAID10 drive arrays
-Full root/adminstrator access
-JagPC Fully Managed Support 24×7x365 – 30 Day Money-Back Guarantee
-Free daily backups via large R1Soft ECDP NAS appliances
-Free moving assistance and data transfer for moves
-Choice of OS: Windows, CentOS, Debian, Fedora Core, Suse
-Extra 50% free disk space for life on every plan
-15% off for life on every plan
-Free Plesk 10 domain control panel on every plan

cPanel Reseller Hosting plan includes:
-Host Unlimited Accounts – Quad-core nodes packed with registered ECC RAM
-Large RAID10 drive arrays
-24×7x365 Support
-30 Day Money Back Guarantee
-Free IP addresses (3)
-Free WHM/Cpanel with Fantastico
-Free daily backups via large R1Soft ECDP NAS appliances
-Free moving assistance and data transfer for moves
-Free Enom.com domain registrar account; sell domains under your own brand
-15% off for life on every plan
-Free Rvskin; see rvskin.com for details
-Free ClientExec client billing and management software

cPanel Shared Hosting plan includes:
-Large premium bandwidth limits – Powerful muli-core multi-CPU servers
-Large RAID10 drive arrays
-24×7x365 Support – 30 Day Money-Back Guarantee
-Free cPanel control panel with Fantastico
-Free daily backups via large R1Soft ECDP NAS appliances
-Free moving assistance and data transfer for moves
-20% off for life on every plan
-50% more disk space and bandwidth

About JaguarPC

JaguarPC, based in Houston Texas, provides high-quality Internet hosting solutions to small and medium-sized businesses, government agencies, prominent individuals and non-profit organizations worldwide. JaguarPC’s core portfolio comprises information technology and business hosting services, as well as programming services. JaguarPC’s complementary subsidiary businesses is Devpond software, a web software company. Learn more at www.JaguarPC.com.

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Media Contact: Edward@FirecrackerPR.com, 949-500-6422, www.FirecrackerPR.com

It seems there’s been a bit of drama today in the web hosting world that’s being played on blogs. It’s times like these I’m very thankful to work for such a grounded and solid web hosting company.

If you, like me, don’t care for any of the hassle of wondering which web hosting company is going to run you off next, it’s time to come check out JaguarPC (if you haven’t already). We offer personal service from qualified professionals with our customer’s happiness in mind.

Remember those web hosting coupon codes I mentioned in my last post? Here they are!

VPS Coupon Code: New2008VPS

Reseller Coupon Code: Resell2008
Shared Hosting Coupon Code: BestHost2008
Semi Dedicated Coupon Code: SemiDed2008