I have become a big fan of Hostgator, one the internet’s leading web hosting companies.

If you are looking for a reliable, supportive and affordable web hosting company for hosting your website/blog, I strongly recommend you to go for Hostgator. Here is why I recommend them :

First of all a quick summary :

• They provide the facility of hosting multiple websites in a single hosting account for a very nominal fee. A big money saver!
• They have an excellent support team which respond to all questions in shortest time
• They have an always-on Live Support so that you can contact them anytime you want.
• They will shift your website to their hosting account free of cost no matter how big your website is.
• Their hosting servers are robust and reliable. Expect almost no downtime for your site.
• You can try them for one month for only 1 cent only by using their easily available promotional coupon !

Summary ends.

Let me now tell you in detail why I became such a huge fan of Hostgator.

My earlier experiences with my old hosting providers.

My first host was an Indian web hosting company based in Mumbai. They were charging me Rs. 1000 ($25) a year for a 25 MB web-hosting plan without any MySql database support. They did not have any control panel and I was allowed to access my files only through my ftp client. When I felt the need to install a blog on my website, they charged me additional Rs. 500/- ($12) for creating just one database (for installing Wordpress) on my site. They told me that for every subsequent database, I’ll have to shell out Rs. 500 each. What a rip off !

Since during those times, I was a complete novice and did not know much about web-hosting plans, I preferred to stay with them despite their being so costly. I was thought that in view of their location in India, I could easily talk to them on phone in case of an emergency without incurring huge International call charges which would be the case had I chosen an American hosting company.

However, my trust in them ended one day when their server crashed suddenly and my website went offline. After trying for many hours, I finally managed to contact their support team, which informed me that they had not backed up the files on their server! As a result I had to again upload my entire website on their server. During this chaos, my site remained absent from Internet for three days.

Even then, I continued to host my site on their servers as I was hoping that such incident would not occur in future.

However, the final blow came when I decided to add new sections to my website and requested them to increase webspace limit of my site. They asked me to shell out Rs. 250 for every additional increase of 25 MB. Though I was prepared to give them this amount, I noticed that even their highest hosting plan could provide only a maximum of 150 MB of webspace for any website (it is still the same!).

After making some queries with them regarding their various hosting plans, I finally realized that they were the reseller of a hosting company and their sole aim was to extract money from newbie webmasters like me by selling their high priced hosting plans. I decided to cancel my hosting subscription with them.

Then I opted for a new company based in Lucknow, India. This company was far better than the previous one. They had an excellent support team, regular backup facility and a range of affordable hosting plans. I purchased a $10 per month plan which gave me 2 GB webspace, 15 GB bandwidth, unlimited Mysql databases and a control panel. I was quite happy with this arrangement as this was an excellent deal as compare to my earlier host. Though I was paying 4 times more what I paid in a year to my earlier host, I was getting 80 times more webspace and unlimited databases. Further, first time I got the facility of point & click installation of various popular webscript such as (Wordpress & Joomla) to my website.

Except for some minor billing issues, my overall experience with this company remained satisfactory. They were very helpful and had a great support staff. I was planning to host all my subsequent websites on their servers. However, one day I got an email from them wherein I was informed that my website had exceeded its monthly limit of 15 GB bandwidth and I was asked to pay for more bandwidth. Clearly my website was getting popular day by day. They told me that their next plan costs $15 a month and I must buy it to ensure 24-hour online availability of my site.

Clearly I had only two choices. First one was to go ahead and purchase the $15 a month plan. The second option was to look for some reliable and affordable alternatives. Though $ 15 a month was not a big deal given the growing popularity of my site, in view of the fact that I had other websites also, I calculated that maintaining more than one website this way is going to be very costly in the long run.

However, finding a new webhost was also not that easy. My site, which had a total of 12,000 pages, was approximately 1.2 GB in size. Transferring so much data to a new server was itself a problem given 5-6 database scripts I was using. If I had to do it manually, it was going to take me many days.

Then I found …. the Hostgator.

One day while browsing the internet in search of a perfect host, I came across a blog post wherein the author had mentioned about this free facility Hostgator provides for transferring the entire site from old web host to their server. I promptly visited the Hostgator site to know more about it. Much to my surprise, a live support was available for answering all my pre-sales queries. I chatted with a Hostgator employee and asked him if it was true that they can shift an entire existing website to their server free of cost. He answered in affirmative.

Then as I read more about Hostgator’s hosting plans, I found that they allow hosting of unlimited websites on a single hosting plan. It simply meant that purchasing their one hosting plan would allow me to host all my existing websites on their servers. Given the cost I was incurring on hosting my websites in different hosting plans, it was going to be a big money saver for me. Finally I chose their $15 a month plan, which gave me unlimited hosting space and unlimited bandwidth along with the facility of hosting all my sites on their servers. All other facilities of control panel, unlimited database and emails were also there in the package.

The process of shifting my website to Hostgator’s server went smoothly. They asked me whether I want to transfer only some portion of my website or the entire website. When I told them that I want to transfer my entire website on their server, they just performed a full Cpanel transfer of my website to their server. As a result I continue to manage my website through its older control panel without any hassle as the entire Cpanel was now on their server. All this process took less than a day. Though I had to make some queries with them before I changed my domain’s nameservers, I never experienced any delay on their part in getting a response. My all questions were answered promptly and satisfactory.

After shifting my website to their server, I transferred my other websites also on the same hosting account. As of now, my all websites are working very smoothly and I am quite satisfied with the service Hostgator is providing. My sites has experienced 99.99 % uptime and there has been no problem whatsoever with their hosting plans. .

If you are thinking to host your website/blog on a new webhost, I strongly suggest you to go for Hostgator because :

(1) You’ll be able to host unlimited domain on a single hosting account.

(2) Their hosting plans are quite affordable and their minimum plan with unlimited domain hosting is for just $ 7.95 a month.

(3) They will transfer your entire website to their servers free of cost.

(4) You can test their service for as little as 1 cent only. Just enter any promotional coupon while registering and you’ll get first month discount. A great way to try their effectiveness J

(5) They have a 24 hour live support where you can chat with their representative on any matter related to their service (including pre-sell questions etc).

(6) They are one of the most reputed companies in web hosting business. They have their own brand image and they try very hard to maintain this good image. So keep expect an excellent service from them.

So here concludes my experience of using Hostgator web hosting service. As of now I am a huge fan of them and this post is my attempt to tell about their excellent service to all those who are looking for a reliable and economical host for their website/blog.

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If any one of you is using Gmail as your email account (in addition to Yahoo etc), then please read this true story about a security hole in Gmail which may lead to some very serious problem if you ever send/receive any password related information through Gmail.

The website of a guy was hijacked by a hacker who controlled his Gmail account. Though it appears that this security hole is fixed by Google now, you never knows what can happen

Read here :

WARNING: Google’s GMail security failure leaves my business sabotaged

How he got his domain back : Read here

Read about : Gmail Hack technique

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The other day I got an email from an internet marketer wherein he recommended about a new article rewriting software. This software was targeted towards those who wants to create content for their website but don’t have the time for writing the new stuff. This software helps them in rewriting an existing article so that it appears unique and get a good ranking in Google. What this particular software does is to give suggestions (by providing synonyms or similar phrase) for every word mentioned in the article so that necessary changes can be made in it. After changing most words of the articles with appropriate similar words, you can get a brand new article.

After the advent of Adsense program from Google, the creation of original content (mainly in the form of articles) has become quite a rage. Since Google is becoming more and more sensitive (and technologically capable) to identify the duplicate content from the original one, the earlier practice of using articles from Article Directories (such as Ezine Articles) as fresh contents for our website is losing it’s effectiveness. If you republish an article in your website there is every possibility that this article will be entered into the supplemental index of Google (which is a less important Google index considered different from main index) and you’lll not get any benefit from it.

The solution of this problem proposed by some clever internet marketers is to use the rewritten version of the article instead of the original one. The strategy lies in rewriting the article with the help of other similar words such as synonyms etc. This way the article become a new one and unique. This increases its possibility of being considered as a fresh & unique article that can get a higher ranking in Google.

In order to save time, many people have invented softwares for rewriting the entire article automatically. It is claimed that you only need to point and click and you’ll instantly get a new article. Some softwares also claimed to be able to create hundred different clones of a single article just by the click of a button. It was also claimed that many people are using these softwares with amazing results.

As I read all this stuff about article rewriting softwares, I decided to try my hand with some of them. I was hoping to get the magical wand that will help my problem of content creation by rewriting thousands of articles that lies dormant in the hard disk of my computer.

Alas ! How wrong I was. My search for the perfect software that can rewrite the articles lead me to a disappointing conclusion. I found that all these Softwares (particularly those recommended by so called Internet Gurus) are a pure waste of time and money.

There are two types of Article Rewriting Softwares in the market. First are those that provide a list of synonyms and similar phrases for the exact words/phrases used in the article. However, as you use them, you’ll find that to choose the synonyms for every single word and to make it as meaningful as the original sentence was, is a very time consuming exercise.

For example see this screenshot. The software used is ˜Wordflood”

Though it is nice to have a readymade list of all the similar words of a particular sentence in an article, is it really the way to rewrite an article? Can we have a perfect rewrite of an article if we just replace the words use in it with their synonyms? There can be only one answer of this question – No. In most of the cases, if you change the words with their synonyms, you will not only change the body of the article but also distort its soul. The whole article will lose it’s meaning. So in all likelihood you’ll have to use your brain to make the article meaningful and unique.

The second types of Article rewriting softwares are those which provide a ˜point & click” interface. You load an article in the software and just by clicking a button; you’ll get a brand new article. No need to select the synonyms or similar phrase. The software does the entire work for you. This type of softwares, though are very fast, have some serious disadvantages. The most glaring one is their tendency to completely distort the meaning of the sentences used in the article and render it ineffective. Just see these two paragraphs generated by one such software Contentwrite Pro which is selling for a price of $97.

This was the original paragraph :

“Many dental insurance companies offer deductibles that can be decided upon. If you can afford to have a higher deductible, you may find that it then becomes more affordable dental insurance. This is one way that you can lower your rates.”

Now after using that software, here is the resultant rewritten paragraph .The words in bold are new replacement made by the software.

“Many dental insurance companies agreement deductibles that can be absolute upon. If you can present to have a senior deductible, you may find that it then becomes more affordable dental insurance. This is one way that you can worse your rates.”

Now tell me would you like to have such a meaningless stuff on your website ? The phrase ˜lower your rate” has completely lost its meaning when we replace it with ˜worse your rates”.

The second big disadvantage of using such ˜point & click” software is that they can not create a really unique article despite their big claims. If you use an entirely automatic software( the one where you load an article, click a button and get a new rewritten article), there is every possibility that this resultant article will also be considered a duplicate one by Google because just like you other persons (using the same software ) may have also created the same resultant article and used it on their websites. There is every possibility of this because free to use articles are available for everybody to use. In other words your precious software will be of no use to you.

Apart from other two reasons, rewriting an existing article is itself a grey area. You are using somebody else idea and giving it your name by tinkering with some words and paragraphs. Read this interesting discussion on digital point on this issue. Secondly, often the resultant product is a crap, with no soul in it.

So what is the solution? Let me tell you what it is.

There is a software which is the most powerful article rewriter on earth. It’ll create the most powerful, accurate and unique rewrite of any article without distorting its soul. Do you know what it is ?

It is your brain.

A human brain’s probable processing power is around 100 teraflops, roughly 100 trillion calculations per second. This is based on factoring the capability of the brain’s 100 billion neurons, each with over 1,000 connections to other neurons, with each connection capable of performing about 200 calculations per second. See source

For the first time, researchers have calculated that the power of a single brain in terms of memory capacity and discovered that it is greater than all the computers ever made. While even the biggest computer has a capacity of around 10,000,000,000,000 bytes (10 to the power of 12), the human brain has a colossal 10 followed by 8,432 noughts, say the scientists who made the calculations in the journal Brain and Mind. Visit source

If you want to rewrite an article without losing its soul and without inviting the risk of any copyright infringement, you must use your brain to rewrite that article. There is no software that can match the power of your brain. A piece of code cannot think. But your brain can. A piece of code can’t distinguish between meaningless and useful stuff but your brain can.

You may say : But I would like to use these Softwares with my brain to rewrite an article. Is it Ok ?

My answer : No. Don’t use these crappy softwares as assistant in rewriting your articles. Use some solid Softwares. One such solid (& absolutely free) software is Wordweb from Wordweb.info which is based on Princeton’s WordNet project and has a huge collection of 150000 root words & 120000 synonym sets.

This small utility software reside in the system tray and whenever you need to find the meaning/ synonym of any word you only need to press Ctl + right click while highlighting that word. Instantly the small windows popup and you can choose the relevant words from the list.

Just use your brain in conjunction with this small free utility and you’lll have a better and unique article with all the possibility of higher ranking in Google.

If I were to rewrite the above-mentioned paragraph (about dental insurance) in my own writing, here is what it’ll become.

This was the original paragraph :

“Many dental insurance companies offer deductibles that can be decided upon. If you can afford to have a higher deductible, you may find that it then becomes more affordable dental insurance. This is one way that you can lower your rates”

This is the new rewritten paragraph with the use of human brain :

“While going for dental insurance you’ll find that many dental insurance companies offer deductibles ( an amount that can be deducted especially for the purposes of calculating income tax) which can be decided upon by negotiation. You can have a more affordable dental insurance if you manage to have a higher deductible. This is one of the ways to lower your income tax. “

As you can see by rewriting the paragraph using my own style, I make it unique while retaining its effectiveness. I even made it more effective by explaining the meaning of term ˜deductibles” in the paragraph. This is something that can be done by a human brain only. No software can do it.

If you think your brain is not capable of writing or rewriting good stuff owing to your lack of proficiency in grammar or the vocabulary, then you should spend some money on a good English grammar book. Learn the language properly by investing your time and energy into it. It’ll be an investment of the lifetime. Don’t buy any useless stuff in the hope of making quick bucks. In the long run it is not going to help you.

Even now if you feel the urge to buy any writing software, you should buy softwares which are used by actual writers and Editors for creating original stuff. For example one excellent software is Stylewriter – the Plain English Editor. This software, though costs $160, is worth the money as it is a really powerful English editing Software meant for professional writers. What Adobe Photoshop is to Graphic Softwares, Stylewriter it to Writing softwares.

In any case, your brain is more powerful than Stylewriter too. Just hone your writing skills, use your brain, take assistant of Wordweb and rewrite your articles. Please remember that all the stuff that you write online is meant for real people not for Google. Even if Google gives you 1000 visitors what would these visitors do on your website if they find crappy stuff ? Don’t distort the soul of web’s content. First of all try to create original, unique and interesting article by using your brain. If creating original articles in not possible, rewrite already existing articles but again – use your brain. Make articles more interesting and powerful by rewriting them. Don’t distort their soul by using any rewriting software. They are a waste of money.

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If you have recently upgraded from your earlier version of Wordpress to Wordpress 2.2, you must be wondering where the ‘Post Preview’ option has gone. For many bloggers (like me), it’s a must have tool. After searching for it in all the options, I finally find it on an entirely new location. It’s been on the content area just parallel to code. Here is a screenshot for your help :

The post-preview feature has now become quite similar to that of Blogger’s.

If you have not upgraded, I hope it’ll help and save your time when you’ll do.

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Hi friends,

Of late I was thinking to start blogging on this site seriously (which I was not able to do till now.) Today I came to know about a 31 days Blogging challenge which is all about making one’s blog effective & popular. I read about this challenge on a wonderful blog viz. The Bamboo Project where you can learn many things to improve your life.

So what is the challenge actually ? Well it’s not a challenge in strict sense. It’s a collaborative group task where many bloggers will write regular tips about blogging on their respective blog and post the links (of these tips) to Problogger.net which is hugely popular blog about Blogging ! Thy guy Darren Rowse who owns and runs Problogger.net is a prolific blogger who earns six figure income every year by just writing about Blogging. He is a pioneer among all those bloggers who blog about blogging. You must read his blog to keep abreast with all the new technologies as well as new monetization methods for blogs.

Darren Rowse has started this challenge which in his own word is about :

“To put it most simply – it’s a month long series of posts here at ProBlogger designed to walk you through 31 tasks that you can do to make your blog better.”

Read in detail about this challenge here

All the blogging tips are expected to revolve around following :

• finding readers
• building community/keeping readers
• monetizing a blog

So I accept this challenge and from now onwards, for one month (the challenge will last till August), I’ll be writing /commenting on various blogging tips which I have/shall learn in my online journey. I also consider this challenge as an opportunity to popularize my blog which is still a toddler in the blogging world.

I invite all of you fellow blogger to join and improve your blogging skills.

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