I’ve had a couple difficult weeks working with web hosting companies.  One of the web hosting company that I work with, but I don’t trust very much has been predictably unreliable.  That doesn’t surprise me too much, however one of my most reliable web hosting companies has been giving me some issues that I just didn’t expect and that has been putting me through the ringer.

So I’ve been looking around and trying to find for more information on web hosting companies in part to reset my perspective and figure out where things stand today.  I have not done a shakeup in my web hosting partnerships in a couple of years.

I am not convinced that it is time to change my partnerships, however I do need to understand a little bit more about the lay of the land of web hosting companies and so I was looking for some sites that might help me with this.  One of the sites I came across was called Webhostingrating.com.  This website offers about a hundred plus web hosting articles.  Those articles are typically very in comprehensive.

At first glance you might suspect that the website is simply attempting to convert some people on affiliate programs for Web hosting companies.  This is all too common with number websites that cover the same topic.  Honestly this one I can’t tell one way or another however I can tell that they do offer some very useful articles with in-depth analysis and looks at how web hosting companies work, how their services work, and more importantly how you can make them work for you.

I focused my attention on their Dedicated Servers topics and on their Reseller Web Hosting Topics, but I do plan to circle around and cover some more areas soon.

The website doesn’t ask would provide too much information about Web hosting ratings, but their articles and tutorials are actually pretty useful.  I would consider this a comprehensive site but the topics that they do cover are thorough and you can definitely fill in some gaps by checking out this particular company.

Page Popularity for Site: 16% [?]

Journey to Create Video Tutorial for Internet Research with MindManager Pro 7

I do not work in the worlds of Macro writing or testing or even in the world of browser plugins and add on’s, but I would really like to see someone that is versed in this area tackle this issue with a tool that makes it easier to gather information from the web and map it out faster in a mindmap (MindManager being my preference, but if someone else figures it out with a different tool, I will definitely use it even if I have to run the thing from the command prompt.)

I often times have to do a deep dive investigating a topic of information with web research.  Once I have a large number of links for further review, I like to start pushing them into a MindMap.  MindManager has a useful tool for doing this one page at a time from Internet Explorer.  However, MindManager falls short in the following areas:

• Doesn’t work with Firefox, Opera, or Safari
• Doesn’t have the ability to send multiple tabs, bookmarks or favorites into a Mindmap all at once.
• No longer has the ability to send highlighted text on a web page into the mindmap with the topic name and link
• I’d like to see the highlighted text of a web page either become a sub topic or at a minimum get pushed into the notes section of MindManager.

Plus, Internet Explorer is just plain tedious for doing this work as compared to other browsers. 

That said if you have to use Internet Explorer then you have to so I put together this video tutorial to show you how to use it.  Its a manual process but can get the job done.

Page Popularity for Site: 42% [?]

I do not write about this concept too much on Maven Mapper’s Information these days, however there is a very good and slightly old fashioned way to network with other bloggers across the blogosphere.  Its called a blog surfing exchange. 

How Blog Surfing Exchanges Work

A blogger or a non-blogger signs up (works better if you have a blog).  You then surf through the directory of blogs that they offer, they tend to display a new blog one after the next in categories that you pick.  You control the speed and you can rate blogs as you go if you want to do that type of thing.  You can also block or favorite blogs as you go.

For each blog you visit, you earn some credits.  You can then use these credits to list your own blog in the exchange and other bloggers will then see your site in the que.

This is a good way to find other bloggers, see what they are doing, how they are doing it and network or share or develop ideas. 

This is not a good way to market your website or products or ebooks.  If you are into that type of thing, you should probably look elsewhere.

This is primarily for bloggers to connect with other bloggers and generally communicate blog to blog.

As I mentioned this concept has been around for a long time.  I am a long time member in BlogExplosion and BlogMad.  These are two of the largest surfing exchanges.  BlogExplosion is the oldest I believe and BlogMad seems to have recently eclipsed it as the largest.

To my knowledge if you have more than one blog, there is no limit on the number of blogs allowed at BlogExplosion.  That said, they are slow at approvals and very picky.  You can expect to be rejected a few times.  Try and take it in stride as it can pay off later. 

I do not agree with their philosophy, but it is their club.

BlogMad is much easier, but they limit you to 3 and then later 6 blogs.  Essentially you have to work your way up the levels to get more benefits such as the ability to list more blogs.

I’m just about to hit the ‘Mad’ level for example, I was hoping to win a Technomarine watch, but will settle for the ability to add more blogs.  Sounds goofy, but hey its about as mature as Facebook.

Big Picture Purpose for Building Subscribers

This isn’t a good place to go strictly to get traffic for your website, however as you network there and as people see and possibly like your site, they will essentially be able to use that introduction as a means to coming back and maybe subscribing to your syndicated delivery via rss or email.

Page Popularity for Site: 33% [?]

You bought your kids the Wii and paid $450, and talked to a friend that found a great deal on the Wii for $350.

Doh!

It happens to all of us at some point or another, especially after Cyber Monday and Black Friday.  Not all of us are cut out to get up at 3am to get to a store that opens at 4 am so that we can swarm the aisles looking for the single Wii listed for $75 on the shelves somewhere in the store.  I just saw a news report and Ebay is selling the Wii on average for $411 about $100 over suggested retail price, but good luck winning that auction!

Most of us, hear about the great deals after its too late.

That’s why you will now find many more sites that do not actually sell products, but help you find the great deals that are ‘really’ out there.

Here’s is an example, its called TechBargains.com and they provide information for where the latest tech deals are and what those deals look like.  They give information for both online and bricks and mortars stores from Best Buy to Tiger Direct and even some direct buys from the manufacturers themselves. 

Now the site is not a shopping cart system, so do not expect to see some ooh’s and ahhhhs type of layouts with web 2.0 buttons.  This site is designed to give you powerful knowledge to save a lot of money when you shop, without having to waste a lot of time on research.  So if you are looking for a discount computers, or a Wii or a GPS unit or whatever, you can search here, but the stuff isn’t the reason why you go here. 

The reason why you would use a pre-shopping service like TechBargains.com is to allow them to scout out the deals for you.  Now, not all retailers give a flat discount off their prices to get you in the doors.  Some will give free shipping to your house, some will give free shipping to the closest store to your house and some will give a $40 rebate or some other incentive.

Using a pre-shopping scouting service like this you can look for the gizmo you want and then find the type of good feel, good deal that is right for you.

Plus, for those of you that are feed savvy, if you do not see the deal you are looking for today, you can sign up for alerts.  Then when say, Best Buy launches a sale in the middle of the week, or Tiger Direct gets a shipment of refurbished gadgets Thursday night, you can receive an email alert or a rss feed alert that the deal for the gadget you are hoping to buy is moving somewhere in some new way.

Page Popularity for Site: 23% [?]

There is a new and promising Social Bookmarking concept on the net. Its called Thoof.com and they provide a social bookmarking version of personalized news. I think that is some sort of play on the concept of Proof Reading, but I’m not sure.

The concept is that you can read stories and not only show your interest, approval or lack of approval in those stories, but you can alter the description and the write up that go along with that story. Future or other readers will then vote up or down on whether your recommendation of changing the description, title or tags helps the story or not.

Once you submit the story your story gets a ThoofRank button like the one below that relates to an article I wrote titled “Funny Numbers Playing on iPhone Sales?“

The submission process is easy and not half as intimidating as that of a Digg or Slash, but not so simple that its worthless either like Delicious or BlinkList either.

I do like the concept of the group/social edit function and if you watch the video demo at their site you will get an interesting look at how they bring information to you, socially.  I suspect there is a little bit of potential for group think, but in general it seems to take a couple steps past some of the issues that plague Digg.com.

Page Popularity for Site: 9% [?]