Reviews

InMotion Hosting Review

Overview
An award winning web hosting company operating out of Los Angeles CA, InMotion Hosting have been in the business since 2001. Providing reliable, fast and extremely affordable hosting solutions, InMotion Hosting have a loyal and rapidly expanding client base. They provide a range of competitively priced hosting plans suitable for all types of sites, whether it’s a small personal webpage or a large e-commerce business, needing huge transfer and storage quotas. InMotion Hosting operate a high-tech network of servers from the Dell PowerEdge range. A CNET certified service provider and membership of the Better Business Bureau mean InMotion Hosting are leading edge providers in the industry and rate at #4 in our poll.

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Specials
There are several hosting plans on offer from InMotion Hosting and each provide massive amounts of storage space, making them suitable for website owners who need large allowances. Each plan has a wide variety of features including a free lifetime domain name, a free website builder, and a 24/7 customer support desk. The company also provide a 100% satisfaction guarantee, with your money back if you’re not completely happy. All of the plans offered by InMotion Hosting have a multitude of additional features and tools including free scripting, free forum software, website statistics, a guestbook, image galleries and spam filters. For those requiring e-commerce features there are shopping cart plug-ins, Google Checkout, SSL encryption and Merchant Accounts. Each InMotion Hosting account allows the user to operate and manage two separate websites with domain parking for up to six sites. All of these six accounts are given free email addresses, a feature most other hosting companies charge for. With such an amazing selection of features, the cost of owning an InMotion Hosting account is hard to beat and certainly great value for money. Overall, a fantastic choice for the business user.

Our Ratings

Cost 4/5
Features 5/5
Storage Allowance 5/5
Bandwidth 5/5
Reliability 5/5
Customer Service 5/5
Technical Support 4/5
Response Times 5/5
Overall Usability 5/5

Total Score 97%

Reliability
InMotion Hosting operate a state-of-the-art data center comprising of Sun Microsystems and Dell PowerEdge high-performance servers. Round the clock monitoring 365 days of the year, power systems backups, fault tolerant IP routing, fire prevention and a range of other safety measures ensure a next to zero chance of network downtime. They promise a 100% customer satisfaction guarantee with full details laid out in their terms and conditions usage policy.

Customer Support
InMotion Hosting provide a range of customer support platforms such as an online ticketing system, a toll-free telephone support line, and a community discussion forum. Also available are a comprehensive start-up guide, flash tutorials, and a web hosting help center. A knowledge base provides assistance with the most commonly asked questions.

Control Panel
InMotion Hosting use the popular Cpanel administration interface, ensuring all users will manage their accounts with ease. Simple navigation and a range of features are included such as configurable email accounts, website analysis and statistics, domain and database administration, and script implementation.

Distinguishing Features

‘At InMotion Hosting we understand business – not just e-business’ – InMotion Hosting

Ideal for e-commerce users with a plethora of features and add-ons.

Massive storage and transfer allowances

Summary
We gave InMotion Hosting a #4 rating due to a combination of high storage quotas, great business functionality, high-performance data center and their 100% customer satisfaction guarantee. They also provide their services at a much lower rate than most of their competitors, ensuring you get more bang for your buck. An ideal choice for those wanting high-quota storage at a discount price.

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Yahoo Small Business Hosting Review

Overview
Just as their name suggests this is a web hosting service offered by internet giants Yahoo! who already have a great reputation in the online world. As you would expect, a company of this stature uses only top quality equipment in a state-of-the-art data center in Silicon Valley, California, which means their customers receive amazing speeds and the best uptime rates. A name you can trust, Yahoo! with their high-level of resources ensure all your business demands are met, with skilled representatives on call should any difficulties arise. In our poll of Top 10 web hosts, Yahoo! is ranked at #10.

Visit Yahoo Hosting

Specials
With such a big brand name as Yahoo!, you would be forgiven for expecting an equally high subscription rate. However, this isn’t the case and their prices along with their hosting plans are amongst the best in the industry. Accounts come with free setup, domain name, site building software, free support, an easy-to-use control panel and many other additional features. The website builder comes complete with hundreds of templates, thousands of free images and a setup wizard to guide you through the process. Unlimited disk space, data transfer and email storage, a range of design tools, plus $100 ad credit with Yahoo! and $50 ad credit with Google, make this web hosting plan one of the best ever.

Our Ratings

Cost 4/5
Features 5/5
Storage Allowance 3/5
Bandwidth 4/5
Reliability 5/5
Customer Service 5/5
Technical Support 5/5
Response Times 5/5
Overall Usability 5/5

Total Score 88%

Reliability
Yahoo! Small Business requires several data centers to cope with the sheer level of disk space and traffic generated by their customers. With uptime reaching a consistent rate of 99.9%, reliability is among the best in the web hosting industry. Round the clock security, both electronic and physical, power backups and high-speed redundant links to internet backbones ensure you can be certain your data is secure and your site will rarely, if ever, have downtime. Data loss is effectively non-existent due to back up storage on multiple servers in different locations.

Customer Support
Friendly, efficient and highly knowledgeable are all words used to describe the customer service and technical support team employed by Yahoo! Small Business. Several methods of communication are available including free telephone support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. An online support center packed full of useful information is also provided, which includes a hosting guide and an FAQ section, which will answer the most common issues that customers experience. Yahoo! Small Business offer a level of support not often found with larger companies.

Control Panel
Yahoo! Small Business has their very own fully customized control panel, which is perhaps the most efficient and easy-to-use of all management software. Building your site, editing data and managing email accounts are all made especially simple with a plethora of additional features including web stat tools and analyzers.

Distinguishing Features

‘Yahoo! Web Hosting can support your growing business – now and in the future’ – Yahoo!

The same technology that supports Yahoo’s own network.

Reliable, secure and easy-to-use

Yahoo! site building software.

Summary
We gave Yahoo! Small Business the #10 spot in our rankings due to their ultra-fast connections and world-class data center. One of the easiest ever control panels and a super-efficient support team make Yahoo! the ideal choice for those wanting a truly reliable, fast and secure web hosting plan.

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Market WordPress Theme

“Market” is a new premium theme from Andrew of Astereostudio.com, which allows you to use your blog as an online store or marketplace. View the live demo here.

Via custom fields, you can enter a description, 1 large image with 3 smaller images, a price, and other information for each product or item. It also allows people to pay you through PayPal.

Installation

Market is actually very easy to install. I have a copy of it installed offline (on my computer). It took me less than five minutes to add the first product to the offline test blog. If you haven’t had any experience with using custom fields, which is easy, it might take you ten minutes to read the instructions and to add the first product.

Structure

I’m impressed by how close Market’s layout is to the 17 New Rules for Successful E-commerce Websites. Thanks to the function over form approach, Market is also easy for customers to use. Everything is clearly laid out and you’re not overwhelmed by all of the information for each product.

Function

Andrew integrated the phpThumb thumbnail generator for converting large images for each product, which saves a lot of time for the administrator or store manager by automatically converting the images to the right size without distorting them. Also, one of the product display features that I like is the ability to zoom in on the smaller images. Here’s an example of the zoom feature:

Minor Improvements

This is the first version of Market so of course there’s room for improvement, but the following suggestions are more like bonuses.

An optional space for a store banner right above the products listing on the front page would be nice.)
The single product page doesn’t have a direct page edit link for administrators.
Although this theme is easy to install, I’d like to see extended instructions on how to upload images and how to grab the image locations added to the readme file.
And if possible, don’t make this theme duplicate the smaller thumbnails in case the administrator uploaded only one small image.

Pricing

Market costs only $40 and you can use it on multiple websites.

Conclusion

Besides my suggestions above, I’m thoroughly impressed by Market. It’s compact, easy to install, and easy to use. I think it’s safe to say that premium is not just a marketing term for this theme.

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Akismet: The Anti-Spam Tool to Censorship Evolution

Update

Mark of Automattic.com corrected this problem.

Akismet, the anti-spam plugin/tool we all know and depend on to filter millions of spam each day is being used to censor certain bloggers. Recently, someone or a group of people blacklisted my online-moniker, Small Potato.

I know this because my comment (on my own blog) is listed on the Akismet Spam list. ~~This morning, I posted a comment on WpCandy.com to thank Michael Castilla for featuring my themes and that comment also didn’t show up.~~ (Michael de-spammed my comment so you can see it now.)

Maybe I’m paranoid, but I have a feeling getting blacklisted a week after launching my $5 themes club isn’t an accident or a coincidence. After all, a lot of what I said, how I see things, and what I do in the WordPress community rub people the wrong way.

For the sake of a coherent message, I’ll put my thoughts in an ordered list:

First of all, I do not know how Akismet’s internal system work, but I managed to track it down to my name, Small Potato. Fortunately, my email, blog’s address, and IP are fine. I was testing the comments on my personal blog (not this one) and my comments got through as long as I didn’t use the name Small Potato.
Second, I’m pretty sure that I’m not dumb and/or sleepy enough to mark my own comments as spam again and again for the past several days. At this point, I believe it took the effort of a group of people to blacklist me.
Third, the other possibility is the spammers are going after the term Small Potato and I’m simply caught in this new spam wave for potatoes. I doubt it.
Fourth, if some people did get together just to blacklist me, that’s really lame. Don’t blacklist me, bro! Hahaha. However, what’s happening to me isn’t a surprise, like most things you do with other people in life, you have to trust the people until they prove otherwise so I’m not going to start doubting my friends and people I know.
Fifth, even if this whole thing turns out to be an accident or a glitch in the system. The potential to privately censor people is there. And, it’s difficult to combat this sneaky method. No matter how big or small, going through the spam list is a tedious task that no one wants to do. Therefore, if you’re being blacklisted on your friends’ blogs, they won’t check for you unless you bring it to their attention.
Sixth, who knows how many people are being blacklisted. I get hundreds of spam comments per day. Usually, I just clear the spam list without looking through it. (You probably do the same.) And that’s really…unfortunate for those blacklisted bloggers like myself.

I don’t care about my own comments, but I’ll test out an alternate spam filtering system for the sake of this blog’s commenters.

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UniqueBlogDesigns.com Review: The Elephant in the Room

Recently, Nate Whitehilll’s UniqueBlogDesigns.com (UBD) catapulted to the top of the WordPress themes community, thanks to exposure from Nate redesigning John Chow’s and Shoemoney’s blogs. Currently, business is booming for UBD’s custom design service and pre-made pay-per-download themes. With all the money and success, I wonder if Nate still have the time to sit back and realize his services and products… suck?

Before you get me wrong, my view on UBD services and products doesn’t stem from jealousy. No, I’ve already decided not to take the freelance and paid themes route. Therefore, UBD is not my competition nor am I interested in earning that level of money. Freelance and paid-themes are not worthwhile, for me.

I think it’s sad how UBD and its paid themes have gotten to where they are, in a short period of time, all thanks to exposure and not quality in services and products because they don’t strive to make WordPress more attractive. Furthermore, Unique Blog Designs custom and pre-made products are not unique.

Compare Nate Whitehill’s (owner of UBD) and John Chow’s (redesign by Nate) blog designs and you’ll get the picture.

As for the pay-per-download or “exclusive themes” as UBD like to call them, how can you label something exclusive when you’re going to resell it over and over again? Beats me. Second, most of the “exclusive themes” are not unique and not the top-notch quality that you’d expect from a $79 price tag (about $30 above Template Monster’s price per theme).

Compare the following themes from UBD and then tell me how unique they are:

The above might be an unfair comparison because I compared UBD themes to themselves and most of their themes are done by one designer, Adriaan Pienaar. However, search any free WordPress themes database or site and you’ll run cross more similar themes to the examples above. Again, what UBD sell is nothing new or unique. At this point, its products are simply “unique” because they’re from one designer with a recognizable style. I could do the same thing and label myself unique, but that isn’t really honest when it comes to offering something truthfully different for WordPress theme customers is it?

Beyond the fact that UBD theme’s are not unique, let’s break down their quality. The structure of the designs are not carefully thought out. You don’t need to be a designer to recognize their apparent spacing and alignment problems. Graphics-wise, they suffer the Template Monster syndrome, which is too many in your face eye-candy – meant for fooling uninformed customers into thinking they’ve gotten their money worth.

But unlike Template Monster, what’s worse is the quality of UBD’s eye-candy. They’re cheaply done gradients, shadows, and reflections. Obviously, UBD’s main designer for the “exclusive themes” is subtlety-intolerant, contrast-intolerant, design-flow-intolerant, and focus-intolerant.

Without the exposure and the fact that UniqueBlogDesigns.com is really the only site or service with an ample amount of paid themes to compete with Template Monster, I would never understand why people would do business with or buy from UBD.

Before you criticize me for this honest and blunt review (I wouldn’t mind if you do), know that I’m contributing to UBD’s success by writing about it. In conclusion, UBD is simply a new cookie cutter service / product that customers are not tired of yet and it remains a joke until it cleans up its act by:

hiring more designers for variety in styles
pushing the limit for WordPress theme users like what Brian Gardner did with the Revolution theme
striving to make WordPress more attractive while still making money

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Adii.co.za Review

Adii I’ve been having fun and ripping blogs some “new-ones” for the most part of my review series, for free. Before, I didn’t want to do sponsored reviews because it didn’t feel right. However, why shouldn’t I review relevant sites that I’m going to review anyway and get paid for it? Recently, a friend and fellow WordPress designer, Adii, ordered a sponsored review and I decided to accept it so here goes the review for this blog.

If you haven’t noticed, Adii (in motion) also does banner advertising on Wpdesigner. He must really love my blog. But, that’s not going to stop me from ripping him a new one. 🙂

First of all, who is Adii?
Adii is a freelance WordPress designer from Cape Town, South Africa. You can browse his portfolio here. For the most part, his style is bold and colorful. Whoever said web design is subjective surely haven’t said it to Adii. However, that doesn’t seem to be raising eyebrows at all as his clients are keeping him busy. He must be doing something right, price, service, and support-wise.

Design-wise
Adii.co.za sports a clean, grid-based, three column blog design. But Adii, you know I despise wide columns with a small font size, in which you could fit eighteen words in one line. Here’s your weekend to-do list to improve your blog’s design:

Cut the average number of words per line down to fourteen or twelve.
Don’t justify the main content text because that makes it hard for readers to keep track of which line they’re reading.
Change the “Want to hire me?” text color to light blue.
Play with the search form at the upper right-hand corner because it’s not easy to spot that it’s a search form right now.

Content-wise
To date, the most successful series on his blog has been the Mini Interview series. Can you guess whom he first interviewed? It was yours truly, the potato behind Wpdesigner.com. I’m guessing I had something to do with motivating him to continue his interview series after sending him some traffic love for the interview effort.

Besides the fact that the mini-interviews are helping Adii’s blog grow traffic-wise, it sure doesn’t suck to be able to get in touch with admirable designers and developers like Veerle Pieters, Jonathan Snook, Roger Johannson, and many more.

Not to mention, Adii worked up the courage and patience (that I dumbfounded-ly didn’t have) to ask for interviews from guys like Seth Godin and Matt Mullenweg.

Below are some of my favorite interviews.

Listen up if you want to freelance too…
Wanna roll around in this Sandbox?
Nate Whitehill on online business and blogging

With the mini-interviews aside, Adii also writes about marketing, WordPress, and web design, but surprisingly he requested for this review to focus on the mini-interviews, which I have no idea why because I think his other series and articles are far better than the mini-interviews simply because his interview questions suck. :-p Especially for WordPress related interviews, there aren’t much room for unique answers and the readers are left wanting more details. Details that Adii’s questions often failed to cover.

Personally, I think WordPress is his strongest topic and he should focus on that to further establish himself as one of the leaders in WordPress design and development. For example, it would be nice to see Adii continue his recent flood of commentary on what Brian and I are working on, regarding premium themes.

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